Hollywood Activists, Or How Norma Rae Got Norma Raed

The cruel exploitation of the impoverished masses has been a staple of Hollywood storytelling since the earliest days of movie making. In fact, thanks to big-screen classics from The Grapes of Wrath to Slumdog Millionaire you might say that grinding poverty has been a real gold mine for Tinseltown. Given Hollywood’s progressive politics you might also think that a good chunk of the vast box office earnings inspired by the world’s poor might by now have filtered down to the same unwashed throngs who are, in a sense, responsible for it. And in most cases you would be wrong.

Crystal Lee Sutton, 68, died a couple of weeks ago of brain cancer. You might know her better by her Hollywood name: Norma Rae. Crystal’s life story was the inspiration for the 1979 Sally Field blockbuster that grossed $22 million (in 1979 dollars), four Oscar nominations, and two Oscars including Best Actress for the aforementioned Ms. Field. Norma Rae’s character is #15 on the American Film Institute’s list of all-time greatest screen heroes; Norma Rae is rated 16^th of their “100 Most Inspiring Movies of All Time.” Given all this you probably think that Crystal Lee Sutton died in relative comfort, content with her life’s work and unencumbered by material concerns such as medical bills. Well, guess again.

I’ll never foget watching those hypocrites jump upen masse at the Oscars and give the real Shine Guy a standing ovation the year they made a pile of dough on the movie about him. I hadn’t watched that crap (the Oscars) since the 1970s and, boom, I clicked it off immediately as the Shine guy came out on the stage—BECAUSE I KNEW THIS WAS THE LAST TIME THEY’D EVEN ACKNOWLEDGE THE GUY’S EXISTENCE.

What a load they are out there.

From the artcle:

it’s not just actors who won’t walk the activism walk. Michael Moore has built a career out of parlaying social activism into a series of lucrative “documentaries,” if an investigative film whose findings are written before shooting starts is your idea of a documentary. Moore has been called… OK, by me… the only filmmaker in Hollywood who shoots three different ending to his documentaries and then uses the one that tests the best. For all of his blathering about “the little guy” and workers’ right, Moore is notorious for not paying his crews union wages, not giving his writers the on-screen credits they deserve, and generally being a miserable person to work for. Moore’s four most popular films alone have grossed over $300 million; if his earnings for TV, publishing and speeches are included his tales of exploited G.M. workers, exploited teens, exploited Iraqis, exploited sick people, and exploited victims of the banking crisis have generated close to half a billion dollars. Some might say that capitalism, described by Moore in his latest offering (which I refuse to plug here) as evil, has been pretty good to him. But if Michael Moore is re-distributing the millions he’s pocketed to the victims he and his film crews have, uh… well, exploited in order to make those millions, it’s the best-kept secret in Hollywood.

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