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Paulson: Silver screen lacks values
Hollywood films encourage hatred of America
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To the average liberal, it's President Bush — the arrogant, war-hungry, oil-company-loving, go-it-alone cowboy — who has ruined America's reputation around the world.
Sen. Barack Obama talks about Bush's "catastrophic failure of leadership." To the senator, Bush's "handling of the Iraq war" and his "not talking to leaders we don't like" have hurt America's reputation abroad.
Are we hated by the world? America passes the "gate test"! Millions try to come to our "hated" country legally and illegally. The gate swings in, and immigrants resist leaving!
The Pew Institute Global Attitudes Survey provides mixed views of America in its recent 47-nation study. When asked to identify their closest ally, 19 countries identified the United States. The European Union and Saudi Arabia are tied as a distant second with five votes each. When asked to isolate their greatest threat, 17 countries picked the U.S.
But you don't win popularity contests in China, Turkey, Pakistan, Venezuela and some Muslim countries by taking a strong stand against communism, fascism, Islamic extremism and terrorism.
The 80th Academy Awards is now history, but Hollywood's movies also reinforce a negative image of America to the world. A Google search of "Hollywood ruins American reputation" secures 105,000 hits.
Jon Stewart, this year's Oscar host, joked: "Let's take a moment to congratulate ourselves. We look beyond the dark days to focus on happier fare, this year's slate of Oscar-nominated, psychopathic-killer movies. No Country for Old Men,' There Will Be Blood.' All I can say is thank God for teen pregnancy!"
During the Oscar show, soldiers in Iraq graciously honored the movie industry, but at no time did Hollywood return the favor by honoring the soldiers who defend the freedoms they depend upon.
After Alex Gibney received his best documentary Oscar for "Taxi to the Dark Side," he railed against American interrogation abuses and ended by saying, "Let's hope we can turn this country around, move away from the dark side and back to the light."
Mr. Gibney, Hollywood thrives on the dark side. It films it, sells it, glamorizes it and often has stars who crash because of the values and actions it promotes. Americans may watch the Oscars, but they tend to shun the abhorrent "masterpieces" Hollywood so often honors. After all, these dark, "provocative, edgy and intelligent" films are not meant to make money, and they usually don't.
Hollywood sells an America few of us experience. If enemies want to prove that American business leaders put greed first, watch "Michael Clayton." If they want to show that American oil barons are slimy, greedy and violent and Christian preachers are money-grabbing charlatans who spread myths to gain power, watch "There Will Be Blood."
And, if they want to show an America consumed with drugs and violence, watch the best picture winner, "No Country for Old Men." Even the often touching and humor-laden "Juno" would inflame some Muslim countries where out-of-wedlock sex gets you killed.
Robert Lichter's research confirms that the most popular enemy in American movies is unethical business people, beating out professional criminals 22 to 9 percent. And, the negative portrayal is getting worse.
A follow-up study of television found that 81 percent of the shows that turned on the question of whether businesses were honest and honorable or unfair and corrupt portrayed business dealings as dishonest and corrupt. To Hollywood, positive stories that convey the power of free enterprise to generate prosperity and tap the human spirit are "fairy tales" unworthy of attention or awards.
There are examples of excesses by some business and military leaders, and they should be held accountable for their illegal actions. But to paint the culture and corporations and our military with such a wide brush is not only dishonest, it hurts our image abroad.
During World War II, Hollywood created movies to rally the troops and the public to win a war. Today, it shamelessly creates, promotes and honors politicized movies, documentaries and TV shows that are created to whip up anti-war frenzy and bash our culture, our military, our government and free enterprise.
Under the guise of freedom of artistic expression, Hollywood also trashes faith, our country, the war against terrorism and traditional American values. Hollywood has every right to produce such movies, and Americans ought to stay home when it does.
As November nears, remember where these Hollywood losers invest their contributions. Stewart provided a clue: "You have to admit, this is a huge election. The field is wide open. Have you all had a chance to examine all the candidates, study their positions and pick the Democrat you'll vote for?"
If what Hollywood puts on the screen is any indication of the kind of values its candidates will bring to Washington, look out America!
— TerryPaulson of Agoura Hills is a psychologist, speaker, author and host to the politicaltalk.org blog. Contact him at terry@terrypaulson.com.
Posted by sokol_kiev on March 3, 2008 at 8:02 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Fantastic article!
Posted by shaver_one on March 3, 2008 at 8:32 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Turning America into a Christian Fundamentalist country, as Mr Paulson so often extorts, will make the US as bad as the Islamic Fundamentalist countries he rails against.
I'd rather be free, than under the thumb of some Mega-Church, Bible-thumping preacher.
Posted by mikeb6804 on March 3, 2008 at 8:45 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I'd like to see responsibility and patriotism return to Hollywood. I won't hold my breath waiting for either one to happen!
Posted by cassandra on March 3, 2008 at 9:28 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Fantastic is right. Mr. Paulson's conclusion start with premises based on fantasy. One hardly knows where to start. Firstly film has no business being propaganda; it aims for art at times and for $ all the time.
Don't like the movies? Don't buy a ticket. Mostly I don't. Too much violence, too male oriented, too fake. When people don't buy tickets, they don't make money. Movie makers are interested in making money.
Hate America? This current corrupt and incompetent administration is not America. The corporocracy is not America though collectively they believe they own it and the rest of the world besides.
Erin Brockovitch is American, Diane Watson is American, Michael Moore is America, recycling fanatics are America, solar energy entrepreneurs are America. All of the underfunded and courageous activists who fight against global polluters, corrupt government, and the war machine are America.
I am outraged that apologists for evildoers like this moron glom on to the flag and the name of my country as though it were their exclusive property, as though love of country required support of torture, greed, violence and oppression.
NO WAY do the poor grunts dying in the Middle East quagmires do bleep for our freedom. One does not enhance our freedom by denying it to others. Those who tell their true story serve their country higher than those who pump out happy talk propaganda.
One does not have to go to the movies to find evil businessmen--try Enron and Bush's late buddy Kenny Lay. Evil corporations? Try our own Seminis (Monsanto) or Wal-mart. Art is reflecting life. Would it be good to have positive examples--you betcha, in film and in life.
I saw a film last night that celebrated an agricultural entrepreneur--John Peterson. As a matter of fact, I showed it to a group. "The Real Dirt on Farmer John." It was a beautiful film and worthy of an award, probably has some. You want honest and creative business people celebrated with artistic flair? Try Farmer John.
Why is their no authentic left commentators in this newspaper? Why do they give space to crypto fascists like this one but go no further left than tepid Teepen and the house liberal Larsen?
Posted by GuideDog on March 3, 2008 at 9:48 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Art does not exist to prop up either failed leaders or faltering institutions. It is created to inspire thought and discussion, draw forth emotion and action, or simply to provide refuge and strength from the mundane and horrific in life. It is communication that opens the minds and hearts of both the artist and the audience that receives it.
It does not always achieve these goals, but with our guarantees of freedom of expression and communication it will do so many more times than not. That possibility is all that freedom and our constitution insures.
Posted by lthrnek on March 3, 2008 at 9:55 a.m. (Suggest removal)
You can rant and rave all you want Cassandra but leave my Grunts alone. If you feel that they are threatening Al Qaida's freedom to fly airplanes into more of our buildings you need help bad. Next thing you know, you'll be complaining about our police officers restricting the freedom of the gangbangers and complain about our fire fighters blocking the free movement of traffic while putting out fires.
Posted by cassandra on March 3, 2008 at 10:17 a.m. (Suggest removal)
argumentum ad absurdum.
Your grunts? How many do you own?
Posted by bbbdugout on March 3, 2008 at 10:37 a.m. (Suggest removal)
actually it's you opening comment that is the best - except for instead of "liberals' you should have said any human being with half a brain
Posted by cassandra on March 3, 2008 at 1:20 p.m. (Suggest removal)
My goodness, I got pretty het up, didn't I? My grammar slipped to the level of the president's and my spelling of homonyms to that of SS.
However I just finished reading Diane Watson's "An Unreasonable Woman" and was blown away not just by her heroic and uneven struggle but her richly poetic narration. This woman can write! Without killing anyone nor burning any houses, she brought a multi-national polluter and corrupt politicians of all stripes to heel with very little outside help.
Her story ought to be a movie. Then you would have a positive main character, a heroic and inspirational story with genuine spiritual and human values.
Posted by sslocal on March 3, 2008 at 2:55 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Since you brought me up...
Hollywood should stick to entertaining and leave the politics to the politicians. I think they have proven that they are not very good at politics.
Best rant yet cassandra. I give it 8.5 out of 10.
Posted by cassandra on March 3, 2008 at 5:22 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Sigh. Do you mean (Hollywood) the movie industry has proven not very good at politics or politicians haven't? I assume you mean the former, but what exactly you are saying is very unclear.
The Industry as those in it like to capitalize it is not supposed to be good at politics. It's supposed to be good at entertainment and occasionally art. This brain dead columnist is suggesting that it venture into propaganda instead to support unsupportable US policy.
During World War II the industry produced some propaganda flicks. It proved a bit dangerous for some. Lillian Hellman obliged President Roosevelt by writing positive stuff about our heroic and brave Soviet allies and was later dinged for it by the notorious HUAC.
I love her rejoinder to the committee, "I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions." How many of the strident voices against "Islamofascists" were once calling the Taliban "freedom fighters"? Some people send their brains out to be shrunk and fitted by the powers that be with regularity.
Posted by marketrealist on March 3, 2008 at 5:37 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I was driving down Highway 5 listening to the radio and hit on a Christian radio station that caught my attention. The preacher warned about the dangerous world out there with evil foreign suicide bombers that could take your life at any time and to please donate generously to the church to ensure your place in heaven before they do. Turn on the mindless propoganda on Fox and our own papers with kooks like Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh spouting off lies and heckling anyone who tries to present an alternative view. Remember how they challenged as unpatriotic anyone who questioned if there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Now, with $1.6 trillion spent on the war, over 1 million civilians and 4000 troops dead, you still can't get the truth out of them. Terri Paulson does not want us to think or exercise our right to question the lies being fed to us by Bush and his cronies. Who needs democracy or public discourse? You're either with us or against us, end of story. Mission accomplished - Pass the Koolaid.
Posted by marketrealist on March 3, 2008 at 5:41 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Cassandara, you should write into the print edition of the paper. Your opinion would be a worthy read by the public.
Posted by sslocal on March 3, 2008 at 6:06 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Good lord. You people have got to be tired of patting yourselves on the back. You guys are reading way to much into this article.
If you honestly think the clouds will part and the sun shine down as soon as a Democrat assumes the office of POTUS you need to stop hitting the bong.
Posted by mikeb6804 on March 3, 2008 at 6:28 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Received an interesting mail today and now is a good time to forward the content to all the lefties in this forum. I'll be interested to see the responses from some of these people sooo impressed with themselves --- go to the following:
http://www.bercasio.com/movies/dems-w...
Posted by mikeb6804 on March 3, 2008 at 6:33 p.m. (Suggest removal)
One more note --- ss, don't use tough language like "POTUS" since most of these characters don't understand the concept. And please excuse Cassie --she must not have got her dose of Kool-Aid or whatever today.
Posted by sslocal on March 3, 2008 at 6:45 p.m. (Suggest removal)
You can lead a horse to water...
Posted by Tom_Johnston on March 3, 2008 at 7 p.m. (Suggest removal)
What rock did the Star find Mr Paulson under??
To quote: During World War II, Hollywood created movies to rally the troops and the public to win a war. Today, it shamelessly creates, promotes and honors politicized movies, documentaries and TV shows that are created to whip up anti-war frenzy and bash our culture, our military, our government and free enterprise."
Oh...so movies that "whip up" pro-war fervor are more morally balanced? The creation of politicized movies, documentaties" during WWII was ok because what...the propaganda was on Mr Paulson's side??
— TerryPaulson of Agoura Hills is a psychologist, speaker, crypto-facist, author and host to the politicaltalk.org blog. Contact him at terry@terrypaulson.com.
Posted by mikeb6804 on March 3, 2008 at 7:12 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Tom---you have something against the WW II war movies??
Posted by Tom_Johnston on March 4, 2008 at 5:24 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Mike, actually I like a lot of the old 40's era movies, even the blatantly jingoistic ones. I also like a lot of the newer recent movies. I also recognize that they all often, like a lot of art, take a point of view. I also know that they are fictional, and by presenting a point of view, also carry bias.
Mr. Paulson would seem to assert that popular entertainment should reflect the current (now or later) administrations take on world affairs. Hey, something like 2/3 of the American people don't share Mr. Bush's take on world affairs either.
Are we hated around the world? Well, certainly in some places, but there is little doubt that the Bush administration has squandered the good will we received after 9/11 and has severely tarnished our image in nations that are ostensibly our allies.
Movies had nothing to do with that! Bad leadership (if that is the word for it) by George Bush and the rest of the war criminals in his administration had plenty to do with that.
Posted by keepermel on March 4, 2008 at 8:07 a.m. (Suggest removal)
"Art does not exist ...... It is created to inspire thought and discussion, draw forth emotion and action, or simply to provide refuge and strength from the mundane and horrific in life. It is communication that opens the minds and hearts of both the artist and the audience that receives it."
I think this quote (minus the political part) makes the scary statement that I believe is a big part in our countries decline. The amount of violence and moral decay that is in our movies are inspireing our youth. Inspireing them to violence and hatred and to an entire lost generation. This weeks news is enough to show how it is affecting things. How many kids killed their parents this week? Over a cell phone getting taken away? Maybe that is also because of the push for society not to punish, or say no to kids so we don't affend them. Hollywood will put out what it wants, it is our job not to let it be the only influence that our kids get.
Posted by GuideDog on March 4, 2008 at 8:44 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Keepermel,
Please do not edit an entry for your purposes, although following the line of thought that you derive from it is a logical impossibility. Here (again) was what I wrote above:
"Art does not exist to prop up either failed leaders or faltering institutions. It is created to inspire thought and discussion, draw forth emotion and action, or simply to provide refuge and strength from the mundane and horrific in life. It is communication that opens the minds and hearts of both the artist and the audience that receives it.
It does not always achieve these goals, but with our guarantees of freedom of expression and communication it will do so many more times than not. That possibility is all that freedom and our constitution insures."
Did the part you edited out (particularly the second paragraph) also scare you?
To protect society from the scary stuff reported in the news or portrayed in art, should we not present it?
Do you believe in government management of the news and censorship and regulation of the art and suppression of unapproved works? If so, you might have been more comfortable living in Europe at the height of the Inquisition. Imperial Austria-Hungary, NAZI Germany, Soviet Russia and Taliban Afghanistan also went out of their way to make sure that their view of reality, morality and patriotism was the only one allowed to find expression.
For most of us, we will take our historic, yet imperfect freedoms and do our best to muddle through as we have for over two hundred years.
Posted by keepermel on March 4, 2008 at 9:01 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I left out the political part because I was not going for that part of the argument. I was making a point about the social impact of the "entertainment" that Hollywood releases.
That said, I think that most of what we get FED by the media is crap. They push what they want to push, not giving even time to both sides. The debate at the Regan Library was proof of that. You had to be on fire to get attention if you were on one end of that table.
I had read the article and took it as the writer was fed up with hollywood making us look bad. Not just politically, but as a society. I made my comment based on the society part of the article. My point was if you keep telling a kid how stupid they are, they will believe you. If we keep putting out there how stupid our country is people will believe that as well. I do not what the news edited, that was not my point. My point is I want it to stop being edited. We should get the entire story, not just one side of it. Again I was not talking about main stream media in my first post....and as far as I know either was the article. Movies, entertainment was what I was talking about. The title of the article says the "silver screen".
Posted by lmaxson on March 4, 2008 at 6:57 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Actually Paulson's conservative views denote more of a dislike (somewhat less heated than hatred) of American progress since the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the writing of the Constitution. That progress remains inherent in the Pledge of Allegiance.
The idea that a society or a country has as its ideal and thus its goal "promoting the general welfare" or "liberty and justice for all" runs contrary to political conservatism. Thus no matter how many wear American flag lapel pins, adherence to such ideology demeans any claim to patriotism or any ability to wrap oneself in the American flag...unless that is as close to being an American as they dare. Conservative ideology is definitely not American.
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