If you couldn’t stomach the thought of seeing Robert Redford’s
Lions for Lambs or Brian De Palma’s Redacted,
consider treating yourself to An American Carol, which
opens in movie theaters today. This gutsy satire by David Zucker
challenges Michael Moore, Rosie O’Donnell, Barack Obama, the ACLU,
the Recreate ‘68 movement, the Hollywood establishment and even
jihadists, but that’s not the half of it. After all, this Zucker
comedy was sophisticated by Republican Myrna Sokoloff.
How did this Republican woman become a screenwriter and
executive producer in Hollywood? Well, that was not so easy.
Myrna Sokoloff comes from a conservative Republican family in
Connecticut. Yet when she moved to New York City and took a
political job during Mayor Ed Koch’s administration, she found a
one-party system as she represented Manhattan Borough President
Andrew Stein in real estate development to the Jewish
community.
In 1986, Sokoloff worked on ABC’s star-studded July 4 TV special
Liberty Weekend and wanted to switch her career, so the
producers told her that she should move to L.A. There, Sokoloff
sometimes reverted to politics, such as working on Jerry Brown’s
1992 presidential campaign and as a staffer for Senator Barbara
Boxer.
Sokoloff was a Democrat because she thought the DNC represented
the downtrodden and the poor, especially women. “However,” she
said, “as time went on, it seemed to me that the only [women’s]
issue became abortion.” Sokoloff deeply loves her family,
especially her 17 nieces and nephews. Therefore, she became
disturbed that Democrats and liberal women’s groups belittle moms
who stay home to raise their families.
As President Bill Clinton was being impeached, Sokoloff suffered
another rude awakening. “I became incensed,” she stressed. “If a
Republican president had done what he did, the women’s groups would
be out there protesting and saying he had victimized a young woman
— but it was all about being Democrat.”
Shunned by the liberal sisterhood for her insights, suddenly
Sokoloff was lonely. In solitude, she began listening to Rush
Limbaugh because he made her laugh. Indeed, reality was over the
top, so why not try to cure certain ills with comedy?
By 2004, the master of questionable taste and former Hollywood
Democrat David Zucker befriended Sokoloff through the Republican
Jewish Coalition. (Zucker’s long list of hits includes
Airplane!, all three Naked Gun flicks,
Ruthless People, and Scary Movie 3 and
4.) Appalled by the far-left reaction to the September 11,
2001 attacks on America, he and Sokoloff produced political TV
spots, starting with the Club for Growth’s “Kerry Flip-Flop.”
Over the course of four years, Sokoloff and Zucker then wrote
An American Carol with liberal Lewis Friedman, who was
“willing to sell his soul” for longtime friend David.
An American Carol is loosely — and they mean loosely — based
on the Dickens masterpiece A Christmas Carol. As Grandpa
(Leslie Neilsen) celebrates Independence Day, his grandchildren
plead for a patriotic story. Grandpa takes them to MooveAlong.org’s
annual Hollywood extravaganza, where indie filmmaker Michael Malone
(Kevin Farley) is awarded for his boisterous ode to Cuba’s commie
“health care,” but depressed because Die, You American
Pigs! is a box-office bomb. Consequently, Malone cannot
finance his feature debut, Fascist America, or muster much
enthusiasm for his latest cause celebre to abolish the Fourth of
July tradition. When a terrorist cell leader and his sidekicks
(take that literally) come upon Malone, whose America-bashing
documentaries are intensely popular in the Middle East, they see
him as Allah-sent and tempt him with $10 million to make their next
suicide-bomber recruitment video.
After Malone refuses to attend his nephew Josh’s (Travis
Schuldt) July 4 family picnic, the ghosts of JFK (Chriss Anglin),
General George Patton (Kelsey Grammer), George Washington (Jon
Voight) and the Angel of Death (Trace Adkins) offer him
redemption.
Most scenes are fearlessly funny slaps at leftwing and jihadist
lunacy, but they are cringe-free laughs because providence protects
the open-souled. Still, two of Sokoloff’s favorite parts are
seriously personal.
For example, Malone’s nephew is a Navy officer scheduled for
Iraq and that character was inspired by Sokoloff’s own nephew,
Josh. “I went to the real Josh’s graduation for boot camp in Great
Lakes, Illinois and there were 700 young people graduating, all
standing in their white uniforms, and it was so inspiring,” she
recalled. “The commander who was welcoming them said, ‘You are
sailors now. You are all sailors in the most powerful navy in the
history of the world and we are the only thing that stands between
the terrorists and our families and our friends.’ It just sent
goose bumps all over me!”
In the movie, Malone sees his nephew depart for combat. Sokoloff
wrote that scene to honor all American military families. The day
after Zucker cut the scene, he told Solokoff that it choked him up
because the character Josh represents everything good about
America. I never expected to fight tears during a Zucker comedy,
but Sokoloff got me too.
There is also the matter (or should I say immaterial?) of faith
in An American Carol. Sokoloff earned her degree in
religion and philosophy at Boston University. “And,” she said, “I
also have a master’s degree in Jewish education from Hebrew Union
College’s Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. So there’s a
whole other part of me that you didn’t know about.”
Thus, another one of her favorite scenes is Michael Malone’s
encounter with George Washington, who tells him, “When you meet the
Almighty, only truth will do.”
“We always had the whole scene in there,” said Sokoloff. “It’s a
serious scene, there’s no way around it and David always had a
problem with having this serious scene in a comedy. So we agonized
over how to make it work. Actually, Jon Voight loved the scene and
he added his own lines — the ones about freedom of speech and
religion. When Washington takes Malone to St. Paul’s Chapel, it
sets up Malone for the fact that he will face his own death… And
unless you believe in your own death, you have no chance of
redeeming yourself.”
I have a few reservations about An American Carol, most
importantly the point where the ghost of Patton tells Malone that
we have to give up some freedom for safety. I discussed this with
Sokoloff, explaining that various acts of Congress and executive
orders unconstitutionally license the U.S. government to invade our
privacy, and arrest and prosecute individuals without cause.
Related creepy developments include widespread video cameras and
airport photo scanners that penetrate travelers’ clothing.
Sokoloff replied, “It is a concern, but in this time when things
are dangerous — during the times when we were at war, under
Lincoln, under Roosevelt, rights were curtailed for the safety of
everyone — and I don’t mind being searched if it’s going to catch
somebody with a bomb who would get on a plane with me and 300 other
people.”
All things considered, An American Carol is thoroughly
entertaining, just when we need some good laughs — and reason for
hope.
