Posted on 10/25/2003 4:05:17 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
A frequent argument from liberals is that talk radio and the conservative opinion givers are some of the most dangerous things in America. That's a lie. The biggest danger in the manipulation of political opinion is Hollywood.
Conservatives like to throw out terms like "liberal Hollywood propaganda" lightly. Most times it's used in a very vague sense, but the term has much truth in it. It seems Hollywood is becoming bolder and bolder as each week goes by.
I went to see a movie this week: "The Runaway Jury." By looking at the average reviews and trailers, it promised to be exciting and suspenseful. It would have been, if it weren't for the context of the film.
The movie begins with a man and many of his co-workers being gunned down by a former employee. Years later, his wife sues the manufacturer that created the gun that killed her husband.
First things first: the attorney, Wendell Rohr (Dustin Hoffman), and his client happen to be compassionate, nice, emotional humans. The defendants are evil, mean, rich, white males – they have no compassion and their only drive is money.
Before the trial begins, an early scene in the movie shows several gun-manufacturer owners sitting around in a mansion, smoking cigars and paying off Rankin Fitch – the character that Gene Hackman plays – who is a "jury consultant" that will rig the trial.
The gun camp schemes throughout the film, attempting to kill some people, threatening jurors, stealing, conspiring and doing every illegal and unethical thing possible. The hatchet job on the freedom to own firearms is a theme through the entire movie.
Furthermore, the ongoing message throughout the movie is that the problem of gun violence would be solved if the gun manufacturers would be held responsible.
I won't give away the ending for those who plan to waste their money on such trash, but later in the movie, Rohr is offered a deal to rig the jury – of course he refuses it. In addition, the only juror arguing on behalf of the gun manufacturers and the Second Amendment is a hate-filled ex-Marine who likes to yell a lot.
Liberal propaganda at it's finest. Another propaganda hatchet job is "The Reagans," a CBS telefilm set to air in November.
By now, most of you have heard of it. While President Regan is unable to defend himself on his death bed and neither is Mrs. Reagan, CBS is planning to air a film that, according to the Drudge Report, fails "to mention the economic recovery or the creation of wealth during his administration, nor does it show him delivering the nation from the malaise of the Jimmy Carter years."
Moreover, the film depicts the former first lady as a "pill-popping control addict who set the president's schedule based on her astrologer's advice and who had significant influence over White House personnel and policy decisions."
Matt Drudge reports, "Complicating matters is the film's charge that Reagan believed AIDS was biblical revenge – as actor James Brolin [who plays Ronald Reagan] finds his family in a real-life fight with the disease!"
Excerpts from the script show scenes where Nancy slaps her daughter Patti, Nancy's mother calls Hollywood "wall-to-wall Jews and queers," and a scene where President Reagan curses his staff: "Rank amateur! Who does that sonofab---- think he is? I'm the g--d--- president of the United States. I'm his boss!"
Matt Drudge aired numerous clips of the film on the "Rush Limbaugh Show" on Friday. The entire thing is a hatchet job on the Reagan Revolution, the revolution of modern-day conservatism. This is nothing short of a retaliatory strike on the GOP.
The entire thing is completely despicable. Although news stories report on a film that has yet to air, I'm confident that the final product will turn out worse than expected. It's another example of the dangerous power of the media.
No, talk radio is not dangerous. National Review, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Pat Buchanan, et al are not dangerous. When readers and listeners take in their opinions, they know they are opinions. They can choose to accept them, reject them, consider them or do whatever they want.
With "Runaway Jury," moviegoers let their guard down and open their minds to what promised to be an exciting, suspenseful movie. With the upcoming "The Regans," television viewers, no doubt, will expect an interesting movie and hope to learn some insights into the life of the Reagans, but instead will see liberal propaganda.
With entertainment, viewers aren't expecting politics; they're expecting non-agenda-driven entertainment.
This Hollywood bias is much more dangerous than news media bias. This is an all-out assault on conservatism in an attempt to revise history, an attempt to demonize gun manufacturers just like "big tobacco," an attempt to manipulate the political compass of Americans.
They are at the center of a multimillion dollar legal hurricane: twelve men and women who have been investigated, watched, manipulated, and harassed by high-priced lawyers and consultants who will stop at nothing to secure a verdict. Now that the jury must make a decision in the most explosive trial of the century, a precedent-setting lawsuit against a giant tobacco company. But only a handful of people know the truth: that this jury has a leader, and the verdict belongs to him...
While the jury tampering and planning may be the same, the book was written about cigarette companies. Someone wanted to twist this story to use it against gun manufacturers. It seems pretty deliberate. I am surpised Williams didn't use this as part of his thesis.
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