“Big Hollywood” — the new project of Internet guru/impresario Andrew Breitbart of Breitbart.com and (formerly) the Drudge Report — makes its debut Tuesday. Working with his editor John Nolte, Andrew’s intention is to create a web home for those in Hollywood of right, center-right and libertarian persuasions. His contention is that there are more people in the entertainment community with those views than normally assumed and, much like gays in the past, they need a comfortable place to “come out.” In other words, most of them are not loudmouths like I am.
Full disclosure: Andrew is a friend of mine (several years now) and a short pre-publication excerpt from Blacklisting Myself from “The New Blacklist” chapter will appear on Big Hollywood Thursday.
Breitbart, however, has a more serious theme behind his website that is worthy of discussion here and elsewhere. He thinks popular culture is more important than politics and one of the great mistakes of the right is to have ceded pop culture to the left. Well, that’s not entirely precise. I imagine Andrew would say at the same time the left has arrogated popular culture to itself, snatching it from the unwitting jaws of a compliant right. (Hello, our dear friend Annie Lennox and all other great, good friends of Hamas). Of course, Breitbart has a point. With notable exceptions like 24 and South Park our culture, as we all know, tilts liberal.
And now our politics also tilts liberal. Is this the cart leading the horse or the other way around? Beats me. I think we’re into the old chicken and road conundrum and, unlike Andrew, I would weight politics and culture equally. In fact, I would see them as inseparable, two chickens crossing the road tied together in what we called as kids a “three-legged race.” To make things more complicated, as Lionel and I were discussing today on Poliwood, while we were recording forthcoming shows on The Wrestler and Gran Torino (made by that putative conservative C. Eastwood), the best film art transcends politics. It follows the dictates of its characters where they want to go. And sometimes they say and do things you hate and you want to kill your own characters, but you don’t, or you’re not sure you’re allowed to, so you don’t, or you feel guilty for doing it, so you don’t.
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37 Comments
1. Pajamas Media » A ‘Big Hollywood’ Debut:[...] Read the entire piece here. [...]
Jan 6, 2009 - 3:34 am 2. numerian:Roger, life DEFINITELY is imitating art, not the other way around. A huge part of the population are sheep, and control of popular culture is one of the lefts most important tools. There are hoards of people around – otherwise intelligent, educated people – who literally quote lines that I’ve heard in movies and on TV in their personal lives. Critical thinking skills are in serious decline, and have been for some time.
Jan 6, 2009 - 4:50 am 3. Craig:“He thinks popular culture is more important than politics and one of the great mistakes of the right is to have ceded pop culture to the left.”
Unfortunately, a vast number of Americans are addicted to pop culture and fame. Breitbart’s observation may be a painful reality rather than any criteria that can be objectively measured. Most Americans can’t even name their elected officials.
Jan 6, 2009 - 5:17 am 4. Peg C.:Roger, I look forward to Big Hollywood. Anything that can help rescue and resurrect some pop culture from the jaws and claws of the Left’s madness seems good to me. Our household has reached a point where most movies and TV shows (nevermind all news, broadcast and print) are banned for our mental health. We cannot attend concerts, cultural events, religious events without being insulted and made irate. Politics is now a disease infecting everything, thanks to the madness on the Left. Right now our culture is an abomination.
Jan 6, 2009 - 5:26 am 5. Chris in Toronto:It’s an interesting idea that pop culture is more important than politics. And in Darfur, the pop culture is NOT our pop culture, so maybe it is true.
“Rebels in the vast region the size of France took up arms against the government in February 2003 saying the Sudanese government discriminated against mostly non-Arabs in Darfur” From WaPo, Conflict Basics, Reuters, Monday, May 15, 2006; 4:35 PM.
Jan 6, 2009 - 5:41 am 6. Sissy Willis:“. . . the best film art transcends politics. It follows the dictates of its characters where they want to go.” Exactly.
So much of pop/left culture is not art but preaching (to the choir). If I wanted to hear a sermon, I would go to church.
Jan 6, 2009 - 5:52 am 7. HEWLESS:Banned Ann, makes one the best cases against the media making single mothers, victims and heroes. Hwood needs to portray good marriages. The Notebook sold oodles of tickets……
Jan 6, 2009 - 6:57 am 8. Wacky Hermit:It’s worse than preaching. It’s preaching a sermon so vapid that any sober teenager could have come to that conclusion on his own. “Deep” insights like “random crap happens sometimes” or “killing affects people.” I’m not expecting profound philosophical musings here, but if they want their movies to be intriguing to anyone over the mental age of 18, they ought to provide insights and characters that resonate with at least a 25 year old.
Jan 6, 2009 - 7:15 am 9. syn:It’s better late than never to see ‘Big Hollywood’ quasi-coming out of the right closet, however frankly speaking, because a only a small handful in Hollywood had the courage to come fully out of the closet while so many remained inside out of fear, these actions allowed the Left to take free reign of the entire industry.
You cannot say that it is the fault of Conservatives in general for ignoring pop-culture when those inside the pop-culture industry hid over the last eight year in the fear that they would lose their invitation to the VIP party. Too much brown-nosing has been going on for far too long.
The only thing I can do is stop buying Leftist Hollywood’s propaganda junk, however you in the industry have had ample opportunity to access the tools necessary to create alternative choices; instead all you thought about was protecting your own needs, hiding like cowards in the closet. Where you are still hiding.
Everyone in this country has to pay their mortgage or rent or whatever, so this is no excuse for those inside the Entertainment industry to enable the pop-culture industry the opportunity to operate in a monolithic fashion.
Those working inside Hollywood never stood against the monolithic tyrants, this is why the Left controls the pop-culture!
Good luck to your industry however for me I don’t need your entertainment anymore; I no longer watch your junk, listen to your crap or read your misery.
Jan 6, 2009 - 7:23 am 10. Jim M:That’s “arrogated”, Roger. The “right” (whatever that means) has abandoned Pop culture by abandoning philosophy. They have largely abandoned politics, also, which is why they sound so confused and are all working at cross purposes. I wish “Big Hollywood” well. Maybe it will teach the politicians something.
Jan 6, 2009 - 7:26 am 11. tim maguire:I wish him all the best. I’m a firm believer that both sides do best when they are locked in struggle and both sides suffer when one emerges victorious and the struggle ends.
Accepting your formulaton that pop culture and politics are equals, then conservatives, having ceded culture to focus on politics, weaken themselves in the political battle much like WWII, where the the home front was as important as the front lines, but we bombed the German’s home front whereas they could not bomb ours, ultimately weakening their front line by depriving it the home front support. (I realize conservatives are the Germans in this example but it is an entirely nonpolitical simile.)
Jan 6, 2009 - 8:38 am 12. Laura:I wonder if Obama had been an overweight, unattractive Republican he would have been elected. Nevermind…..
Jan 6, 2009 - 9:24 am 13. Phoenix48:Circle your calendar folks, because Breitbart & crew are engaging a cultural milestone. Hollywoods Jurassic tilt to the left has been fueled for decades now by two practical necessities, both of which are eroding as we speak.
A monopoly on production and distribution. Just check the grosses – Hollywoods massive profits have been ‘floating’ on over seas revenue for many many years now.
The Internet, and specifically Breitbart in providing a refuge for like minded conservatives to ‘come out’, liberates film/tv creators to create and distribute.
The audience will once again decide; attendence = reality.
Jan 6, 2009 - 9:28 am 14. tanstaafl:(Breitbart) thinks popular culture is more important than politics and one of the great mistakes of the right is to have ceded pop culture to the left.
Popular culture, sports & politics are all fusing into one giant, amorphous mass. Rather than life imitating art or art imitating life, how about life as art, e.g., the morality play currently unfolding in Washington DC ?
As you mention, there are still some very funny shows and commentators about who, satirically and humorously, pump out the zingers. (Evan Sayets and Dennis Millers, however, seem in short supply
They are much smarter and less predictable than…
LINK: All the boring conformists on the Left using artistic events to preach their tedious mantras and reinforce each other
Popular culture has seriously degraded in my lifetime. The Left has to ultimately lose because it is so conformist & brain dead. (or maybe not and we’re in a fight to the death of intelligence & reason as we know them)
Jan 6, 2009 - 9:31 am 15. B Dubya:Hollywood and “actors” have no position in the definition of the American culture. They are ciphers, barely human, who mouth the words and actions written for them by someone else with actual talent.
With few exceptions, and in the current crop, those exceptions are almost nonexistant, actors and Hollywood types pretend to be what real, heroic Americans are in reality every day.
Celebrity is another form of secular theology, to which I do not subscribe. There are no Jimmy Stewarts now, only poseurs and cowards acting in war movies, with the politics of Joe Stalin.
Jan 6, 2009 - 9:49 am 16. Marie Claude:“otherwise intelligent, educated people – who literally quote lines that I’ve heard in movies and on TV in their personal lives. Critical thinking skills are in serious decline, and have been for some time.”
Jack Byrnes, in “Meet the Fockers”, is the right character for the “conservatives” ; they do imitate him
“life DEFINITELY is imitating art,”
it’s happening so when new images enter into a collective memory, they become then a population “cultural” background, that forges “identity” by imitation, um, monkeys anyone ?
The “John Ford” type is quite a reference for the american conservatives either
Jan 6, 2009 - 10:18 am 17. John:Pop culture is like advertising, in that a strong enough and relentless ad campaign can make a lot of people try something for the first time, be it Barack Obama or New Coke.
What it can’t do is make people like something if things are just wrong, like New Coke. We’ll see about Barack Obama, but if you go back through the past 30 or so years of political history, it’s not as if pop culture was on the side of Ronald Reagan in 1980 or New Gingrich and congressional Republicans in 1994. But while you can sell a new product to the public, you can’t sell them something they have experiernce with and think is garbage by trying to convince them that it’s really gold, the alternative garbage is worse or anyone who goes against their beliefs is a prejudice garbaphobic.
Jan 6, 2009 - 11:13 am 18. Mary Grabar:This is great news! We have so MUCH material to work with!
Jan 6, 2009 - 12:16 pm 19. ricpic:Haven’t you heard? C. Eastwood has been “growing” for decades. Totally tame now.
Jan 6, 2009 - 12:48 pm 20. Big Hollywood … bigger ambitions — WHAT WOULD TOTO WATCH?:[...] Screenwriter Roger L. Simon breaks down the new site over at Pajamas Media. [...]
Jan 6, 2009 - 2:26 pm 21. AlanC:Pop-culture is a new phenomena that was birthed by mass media. Until the ’60s politics was part of the adult world where image wasn’t everything.
But, with the dawn of TV and the infamous debates between Kennedy and Nixon image became more and more important.
Who controls image? The pop-culture mavens control image. That industry also tends to attract the narcicisstic in the same way that progressive politics does. Conservatives did not cede anything because they really never controlled it to start with. Even if they were in place behind the scenes they didn’t control the illusion factory.
The problem is that society is now, for all intents and purposes, governed by the illusionists.
Jan 6, 2009 - 2:29 pm 22. Jonas Blane:Yeah, Eastwood is a conservative. Not after your boy President, sport.
Jan 6, 2009 - 5:34 pm 23. qwfwq:No. I don’t believe that is accurate: the Right just doesn’t respond to stimuli the way the Left does; it’s just as engaged in politics as the Left.
The Left goes bananas in the face of opposition and tries to obliterate its opposition by any means necessary. The Right believes that the passage of time will reveal the truth and tends to lay back in the certainty that Truth will out. Unfortunately, the useful idiots on the Left have usually re-arranged the deck chairs by then.
Jan 6, 2009 - 6:17 pm 24. Donna V.:What’s even more frightening: pop culture combined with our dumbed down PC school system.
A while back, a nephew told me that he had “learned” about the old west from being shown “Dances with Wolves” in school. His lazy teacher also showed Oliver Stone’s “JFK.” I told him both movies are very inaccurate.
Even if they weren’t, just watching a movie doesn’t teach you about a complex historical era- you have to read about it. Films can be good teaching aids, particularly in a Shakespeare class. But the idea that kids are having the Oliver Stone version of history presented to them like it’s a factual documentary instead of a film with very significant misrepresentations is alarming.
Jan 6, 2009 - 6:38 pm 25. marymcl:All too true, Donna V. It’s scary to realize we’ve an entire generation who’ve pretty much learned everything they know about WWII from Steven Spielberg movies. Speaking of which I can’t help but wonder how much the sympathy for Hamas we’re witnessing right now has been fueled and informed by “Munich”.
Anyway all the best to this new venture. Though let’s hope it’s not too *tolerant* whatever that means
Jan 6, 2009 - 7:23 pm 26. promoguy:Wish they had taught us with movies when I was in school rather than from those stupid books.
Jan 6, 2009 - 7:43 pm 27. John Moore:It’s pretty clear to me that pop culture (and lefty universities) drives politics. Pop culture is driven by all sorts of phenomena, but leftist culture certainly has its roots and continues to be “informed” by leftist ideologues.
A question: how much of Hollywood’s leftism is supported by its overseas sales? After all, America is not well liked in many countries, and Hollywood sells there. Roger – any idea?
In a similar vein, America’s pop culture not only influences thinking (so to speak) and politics in America – it also is very powerful in constructing America’s image abroad. Hollywood’s anti-American propaganda no doubt feeds anti-Americanism abroad, and its shallow, one-dimensional portrayal of our culture disinforms foreigners who rely on it for their understanding of the very important America.
Hollywood is a weapon of our enemies.
Roger, I’m eagerly awaiting the arrival of your book. Should be interesting.
Jan 6, 2009 - 8:40 pm 28. Gozer the Carpathian:Huh something new to add to my reading list.
Jan 7, 2009 - 12:30 am 29. buddy larsen:It’s funny in a way –most Hwood achievers are bootstrap self-entrepreneurs who took long chances –really gambled in the ‘economic conservative’ risk-on-gumption tradition –to make their careers. Why they then flip-flop back into dead-fish big-state gray-mask soviet socialism is just beyond me.
Maybe it’s because the Golden Age of Hollywood was created by busted Depression proles who had enough pocket change for a few hours escapism and needed it badly.
Jan 7, 2009 - 3:16 am 30. sean sarto:Things like Darfur….in terms of media, are fear tactics…it makes a category of people look fearful to another…and then you get caught in the trap of engaging their perceptions…
Jan 7, 2009 - 10:34 am 31. wkg:Relax. “Pop Culture” really no longer exists (if it ever did).
For example, if a TV show with viewership of 20,000,000 is a top-ten rated show. But this is a country of 300,000,000. So here is a ratings-buster that 280,000,000 people don’t watch. To wit, 14 out of 15 people don’t watch a top-ten show.
I seem to remember (i.e. i’m not positive) that the “big three” networks have a combined viership of 30,000,000 for their nightly news. That is, 9 out of 10 don’t watch.
When is the last time you went to the movies to see anything except a pixar animated movie? Have you seen an oscar nominated movie? Do you even know anyone who has seen one?
“Top Forty” format radio stations have vanished.
Do you still subscribe to the local paper? Do you even know anyone who does?
Yes, currently the left dominates the “MSM” (but calling it “mainstream” is a streach). However, these are dead or dying mediums. In most cases it’s programing by the left for the left. If your not watching/reading/listening, what makes you think anyone else is?
Jan 7, 2009 - 1:18 pm 32. buddy larsen:wkg, “…what makes you think anyone else is?”
The last two elections, 2006 & 2008?
Jan 7, 2009 - 2:55 pm 33. LizB:PLEASE just create something worth watching!!! Good honorable content..
Jan 7, 2009 - 8:13 pm 34. markrite:I havn’t found anything worth watching in years.
Hey, ‘Wacky Hermit’, haven’t you heard that 25 is the new 15? I’ve been around the cultural block many times now & am still waiting for America’s true art music, MODERN JAZZ, to be accorded the same financial remuneration of America’s cultural “aids”, rap & too much of hip-hop, but I don’t hold my breath, ’cause I know it’ll never happen while our culture remains in the grip of 25-year old 15 year-olds,–MARKRITE
Jan 8, 2009 - 5:04 pm 35. JackT:There are a handful of rightwing nutjobs in Hollywood, but not enough to make any waves. By nature humans are liberal leaning. That’s the way God made us. It’s only when you get infected with racism, selfishness, hatred, conservatism, and exlusionism, that you become a Republican.
Jan 8, 2009 - 11:08 pm 36. Marie Claude:to the Dollardites, signification !
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dull
dull , blunt , obtuse mean not sharp, keen, or acute. dull suggests a lack or loss of keenness, zest, or pungency . blunt suggests an inherent lack of sharpness or quickness of feeling or perception . obtuse implies such bluntness as makes one insensitive in perception or imagination .
synonyms see in addition stupid
there is some kind of movie over there :
the legend of “la perceuse and the evangelists”
Jan 9, 2009 - 12:15 am 37. Pappadave:Jack T. Thank you for interjecting your leftie, non-thought here. I was beginning to think that the only commentors were going to be those of us with the wits to understand (and despair of) what has happened to our culture over the last few decades…with the help of Hollyweird. It’s called “projection,” Jack. That is, the tendancy of those on the left to project THEIR biases, hatreds, racism and selfishness on those they oppose–probably because displaying those characteristics is how THEY respond to opposition so they assume conservatives will respond likewise. Grow up and use your head for something other than a hatrack.
Jan 9, 2009 - 7:14 pm