Watching the Oscars Sunday night — an indignity I endure solely
for the opportunity to engage in conversation with a few friends
concerning our nation’s “culture” — only reaffirmed that Hollywood
remains primarily engaged in selling a bill of goods that America
is a dark and dreary place, worthy mostly of derision and disdain;
even if not everyone is buying it.
Despite the film industry’s lavishing its highest honors on
films they consider “art,” none of vehicles of the winners of the
best-acting awards or even the best picture, finished any higher
than 40th where it counts, at the box office. Worse for the glitter-crowd is the
report that this year’s telecast was also a ratings flop. That’s the good news.
As the tedious four-hour celebration of all that the left loves
dragged on, one gentleman, who literally plays Devil’s Advocate at
our weekly gatherings, reproached me for criticizing the Oscar
lineup without having seen any of the movies nominated for critical
acclaim by the Academy. I tried to explain that I refuse to support
an industry whose priorities and politics repulse me and whose
product consists mostly of violent, badly-written and uninspiring
tripe.
Not surprisingly, one of the many misguided attempts at what
passes for humor in Hollywood launched by uber-liberal Jon Stewart,
turned out to be the highlight of the show. A video clip of old
movie scenes — including the sublime Rear Window —called
“Oscar’s salute to binoculars and telescopes” was supposed to be a
poke at the writers strike, but only served to point out the wide
gap between movie-making then and now.
As the old images, mostly scenes of World War II naval battles
through periscopes, flickered past, they recalled the clear way in
which Hollywood once presented wartime movies. Were they a little
gung-ho and over-endowed with a flag-waving, “yes we can” spirit?
Surely; but wasn’t the country invested with those same sentiments
after Pearl Harbor?
One has only to look back to the months immediately following
9/11 to recapture the feeling that Hollywood helped sustain in
order to see the nation through the dark days of World War II.
Studio executives merely did what they clearly saw as “their part”
for the good of the country.
BUT OF COURSE, their modern counterparts’ reaction was just the
opposite; after the attack, the brave liberals in Hollywood made no
movies about the War on Terror for fear of alienating our enemies,
while ensuing years saw the release of films concerning our efforts
in Iraq, which were stamped with their formulaic views of war,
gleaned through their Vietnam binoculars. Happily though, thanks to
the remaining vestiges of patriotism and devotion to our troops in
the field, the American people saw to it that these movies
bombed.
In today’s Hollywood, as in liberal minds everywhere, our
enemies’ causes — even as insanely twisted and barbaric as those
of the Islamofascists — must be given equal, if not more
consideration than America’s. Indeed, the leftists who seek to
drive popular opinion in our country may soon manage to convince
our young citizens that even World War II was unjust, and that
Hollywood’s output of movies during that conflict was, of course,
nothing more than “propaganda.”
As if making movies supporting American war efforts is wrong
while making movies degrading America and the American soldier is
in someway an artistic “truth.” After all, in today’s world, except
for the GOP and its allies in corporate America, there are no
aggressors, only victims. But you needn’t visit your nearest movie
theater to discover this, just open your local paper or turn on the
TV.
During Sunday’s broadcast, another fellow in our group who just
retired from the military after a distinguished 40-year career
summed it up best; saying that Hollywood is in the business of
trying to turn Americans against America. And although the Academy
has tried to ratchet down the left-wing political speeches of years
past in order to boost ticket sales, they just can’t hide their
agenda. Mere minutes after an embarrassing bit in which some of our
deployed troops presented an award, we were treated to this from the maker of a winning documentary on
U.S. military torture:
And, truth is, I think my dear wife Anne was kind of
hoping I’d make a romantic comedy, but honestly, after Guantanamo,
Abu Ghraib and extraordinary rendition that simply wasn’t
possible…Let’s hope we can turn this country around, move away
from the dark side and back to the light.
The real truth is, that our Tinsel Town socialists never see the
liberation of over 50 million people through the fog of war they
help to perpetuate, or the fact that there have been no attacks on
our shores since President Bush made the painful decision to take
military action against those who seek to do us harm. Nor can these
people muster a word of cinematic thanks for our troops who defend
them against those who would gladly demonstrate what real torture
is all about, should we ever lack the brave men to prevent it.
If, in the days following Pearl Harbor, or especially 9/11, you
could bring yourself to imagine that the lion’s share of cinematic
acclaim and the focus of untold pages of newsprint and miles of
videotape would be the alleged mistreatment of our enemies at the
hands of the U.S. military, and not on their intrepid efforts at
winning the war, you might have thought that you were in some kind
of fantasy land: hooray for Hollywood.
