Hollywood’s Intellectual Bankruptcy

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

Once upon a time, I would have been thrilled if a feature-length movie was filmed near my home. I probably would have tried to get to the location and watch the Hollywood stars at work. After all, my lifelong ambition has been to direct movies.


There are more film stars than ever working in New York. Meryl Streep will be filming “The Devil Wears Prada” in my office building this week. Frankly, I couldn’t possibly care less.


The movie industry is perplexed by the summer box office slump and the failure of big-budget features to recoup their costs. Many excuses are heard: “It must be the scripts.” “It must be the pirated DVDs.” “It must be the home theaters.”


Perhaps the industry should be wondering why devoted film buffs are being turned off by anything now coming out of Hollywood.


Last year, the entertainment industry went out of its way to trash our president in a time of war. It supported a candidate who lied about Vietnam veterans and branded them monsters. POWs in the Hanoi Hilton were forced to listen to such lies while being tortured. It seemed as if every week I had to check off a former Hollywood favorite from my list. The statements that were made at the many Hate Bush rallies were not only irrational, they were evidence that this crowd was sorely lacking in deep thinkers. Bruce Springsteen, with his absurd Vote for Change tour, and other rockers joined the movie crowd in an effort to unseat President Bush. So I added musicians to my list of former favorites: Bye bye, John Fogerty, Bette Midler, Bonnie Raitt.


All of these individuals have a perfect right to express their opinions, but I also have the right to form my own opinion. While I may live in blue New York City, I share with the red states an aversion to these celebrity rants.


Rob Reiner, the Meathead from “All in the Family,” lived up to his former character’s sobriquet when he complained about a newspaper article suggesting a boycott of the films starring anti-war actors. He said to Fox TV’s Roger Friedman, “That’s more un-American than anything we’re doing here. We’ve certainly seen blacklisting before. I don’t think anyone would be so stupid to do it again.”


Mr. Reiner just proves my point about the intellectual laziness that passes for cogent thought in La-la land. The fact is, it was the cowardly studios, which had the option of standing up to the House Un-American Activities Committee en masse, that did the blacklisting. What Mr. Reiner simply does not understand is that it is very American for citizens to make the choice of whether to boycott a movie.


Many lackluster stars came out against the war when it first began in 2003, and they resurface whenever a press event explodes, such as Cindy Sheehan holding court outside the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas. Even the disaster of Hurricane Katrina turned into an excuse to rail against President Bush.


The sight of Richard Dreyfuss holding up a sign at a Sheehan support rally that read, “Bring our children home,” was illuminating as well as laughable. Apparently, Mr. Dreyfuss, like Mrs. Sheehan, has no respect for the choices that the adult men and women – not children – voluntarily make when they join the military.


Consider, too, what happened to wannabe heartthrob Josh Lucas, the blue-eyed charmer in “Sweet Home Alabama.” Soon after he appeared at a Sheehan rally, his new film “Stealth,” which had opened strong, suddenly tanked. Of course, it probably would have tanked anyway, but it really tanked after he sided with Mrs. Sheehan. Another Lucas film, “An Unfinished Life,” starring liberal Robert Redford, is also struggling.


Screenwriter Robert Avrech wrote for Front Page magazine about the difficulty of being conservative in left-wing Hollywood: “These Hollywood liberals spend their lives negotiating. They believe that when the time comes they will sit down with Osama bin Laden and cut a deal. Imagine how surprised they’ll be when the cold blade hits their necks. Imagine their shock when they realize there is no negotiating with barbarians.”


The powerful studio system that once ruled over the stars kept their morally perverse lives from the public eye. Perhaps Hollywood now needs a system that will hide its intellectual bankruptcy from the movie audience.


Not all movie stars are so ideologically driven that they cannot think smart. James Woods is an outspoken conservative with a high IQ. Ron Silver may not share the social opinions of Mr. Bush, but he is smart enough to recognize real threats to our national security. He appeared in a video, “FahrenHype 9/11,” which debunked Michael Moore’s pseudo-documentary.


Let me know when these celebrities with brains are in town.


The New York Sun

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