Day By Day© by Chris Muir.

Thursday, December 29, 2005

Hollywood does battle with the real world

After decimating "Syriana" and "Munich", here's Victor Davis Hanson's conclusion about everything that's wrong with American movie making:

Actors, producers, screenwriters and directors of Southern California live in a bubble, where coast, climate and plentiful capital shield the film industry from the harsh world. In their good intentions, these tanned utopians can afford to dream away fascist killers and instead rail at Western bogeymen — even in the midst of a global war against Middle East jihadists who wish to trump what they wrought at the World Trade Center and Pentagon. If Hollywood wants to know why attendance is down, it is not just the misdemeanor sin of warping reality but the artistic felony that it does so in such a predictable manner.
Max Boot makes the same point. After discussing the fact that Hollywood's never had a problem showing Nazis as bad guys, despite the hundreds of thousands of war dead the Allies left behind in WWII, he notes that:
For some reason, Hollywood can't take an equally clear-eyed view of the war on terrorism. The current conflict, pitting the forces of freedom against those of Islamo-fascism, is every bit as clear cut as World War II. Yet fashionable filmmakers insist on painting both sides in shades of gray, as if Israeli secret agents or American soldiers were comparable to Al Qaeda killers. Two of the most serious holiday flicks — "Syriana" and "Munich" — are case studies in mindless moral relativism and pathetic pseudo-sophistication.
He then proceeds to prove his point.