CQ thinks that Dan Glickman, former Kansas congressman and Secretary of Agriculture and now head of the Motion Picture Association (such differing roles always seemed a bit odd), is going to have a hard time in GOP Washington given Hollywood's partisan leanings:
No sir, that is how the public reacts when it is given a steady diet of films and television entertainment which relentless portrays Republicans as Snidely Whiplash characters and Democrats as the heroes. Watch such highly-regarded fare as West Wing, The American President, and The Contender -- all well-financed and A-list productions -- and tell me that Glickman can't see a trend. Michael Douglas provides the stirring climax at the end of TAP by loudly proclaiming every leftist talking point known to mankind in response to Richard Dreyfuss' one-dimensional portrait of a comic-book Republican attack dog. Gary Oldman -- who later complained that his attempts to moderate his portrayal were edited out of The Contender -- gets to play a creepy, loutish, and hyopcritical GOP leader while Joan Allen portrays a martyred VP nominee and Jeff Bridges plays a courageous, cigar-chomping Democratic president in one of the most politically biased A-list dramas I've ever seen. And those are just the political dramas. Let's not forget last year's The Day After Tomorrow, with its ridiculous disaster-flick treatment of global warming, complete with its own eeeeeevil Dick Cheney clone.
And Glickman ignores completely where the power brokers in Hollywood put their money. We're not talking about a "handful of liberal actors" supporting Democratic candidates. People like Steven Spielberg, David Geffen, and others who have the money and power to get films made put big money into Democratic coffers while Hollywood Republicans have to hide in the shadows to get work. Michael Moore strings together a series of lies and dishonestly edited clips to make his paean to Leni Riefenstahl, Fahrenheit 9/11, and the Hollywood community hails him as a hero, while conservative Mel Gibson makes an apolitical movie about Jesus Christ -- and gets figuratively crucified for it.
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