Pigs are flying ping ...
Posted on 07/31/2008 2:08:59 PM PDT by STARWISE
If you’re one of the few conservatives in Hollywood, you might be used to keeping your head down — and your politics to yourself — and hoping for the best.
There are some signs that things are looking up for Hollywood conservatives, however.
Revered playwright and screenwriter David Mamet recently published a sprawling essay in the Village Voice explaining, “Why I Am No Longer a ‘Brain-Dead Liberal.’”
And Robert Downey Jr., the formerly troubled actor turned smash success with the summer blockbuster Iron Man, recently outed himself as, well, something other than a liberal.
“I have a really interesting political point of view, and it’s not always something I say too loud at dinner tables here,” Downey says. “But you can’t go from a $2,000-a-night suite at La Mirage to a penitentiary and really understand it and come out a liberal. You can’t.
I wouldn’t wish that experience on anyone else, but it was very, very, very educational for me and has informed my proclivities and politics ever since.”
The Washington Times also recently highlighted a loose-knit group of conservatives and centrists that has quietly been gathering in private homes and restaurants, organized by Forrest Gump actor Gary Sinise.
Of course, one or two positive moves in the direction of ideological diversity isn’t about to make a dent in Tinseltown’s near-uniform politics.
Just ask Edgar Award-winning crime novelist and screenwriter Andrew Klavan, who’s had books and screenplays made into movies by Clint Eastwood and Michael Douglas, among others.
He’s one of the few people in Hollywood who’s managed to succeed while openly espousing his conservative politics.
“I’m a real loud-mouth. Especially after they started making films against the war effort,” Klavan told NRO .. “I thought it was the wrong thing to do while our guys were in danger, ...."
(Excerpt) Read more at article.nationalreview.com ...
“I have a really interesting political point of view, and it’s not always something I say too loud at dinner tables here,” Downey says. “But you can’t go from a $2,000-a-night suite at La Mirage to a penitentiary and really understand it and come out a liberal. You can’t.
No wonder he was so convincing as Tony Stark.
Good news about our favorite rehab poster boy.
~~~ Some Hollywood conservatives are coming forward PING!
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Midnight conservative
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/07/021127.php
Early in his career, Jon Voight must have been stationed somewhere on the far left of the Hollywood crowd. When he came up to Dartmouth in the spring of 1970 for a showing of “The Revolutionary,” he clearly identified with the film’s hero.
In the question-and-answer session following the showing of the film, Voight explained in all seriousness that we should know “the revolution” was going to begin in Washington on November 15. Voight’s radicalism was obviously no impediment to his livelihood. Indeed, it may well have facilitated a career of great prominence and distinction, including an Academy Award for his performance in “Coming Home.”
Voight’s career withstood his foolish radicalism, but his turn to patriotism and the middle of the road has raised a red flag, so to speak, in Hollywood. In his Washington Times column condemning Barack Obama,
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jul/28/voight/
Voight speaks from his own experience:
The Democrats have targeted young people, knowing how easy it is to bring forth whatever is needed to program their minds. I know this process well. I was caught up in the hysteria during the Vietnam era, which was brought about through Marxist propaganda underlying the so-called peace movement.
Such testimony is not appreciated in Hollywood, where it has elicited a remarkable column by Jeffrey Wells.
http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2008/07/scratch_him.php
Wells comments:
[I]t’s only natural that industry-based Obama supporters will henceforth regard him askance. Honestly? If I were a producer and I had to make a casting decision about hiring Voight or some older actor who hadn’t pissed me off with an idiotic Washington Times op-ed piece, I might very well say to myself, “Voight? Let him eat cake.”
What’s going on here? Roger Simon explores the phenomenon in “Hollywood’s new blacklist,” an excerpt from his forthcoming book.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the_new_blacklist_excerpt/
My friend Andrew Breitbart calls on the experience of his father-in-law Orson Bean to elucidate the phenomenon in “”Blacklist then and now.”
Bean is a former Communist and current conservative, and he has suffered under both the old and new regimes in Hollywood. Andrew has previously cited Bean’s testimony for the proposition it’s harder now to be an open conservative on a Hollywood set now than it was to be a Communist in the 1950’s. In his Washington Times column this week, Andrew quotes Bean:
“When the blacklist hit, I saw actors walk across the street to avoid me. The doorman at 485 Madison Avenue (former CBS headquarters) turned his back as I walked by. But I never felt hated by the ring-wing blacklisters. They just felt we were terribly wrong,” he said.
“These days, the left doesn’t just disagree with right-wingers - they hate them. People actually shudder when I tell them I’m a Republican. I should have to carry a bell and yell, ‘unclean.’ It doesn’t bother me, though. I’ve been on both ends. Being hated is like voodoo. It only works if you feel hated. And I just won’t. I know it will pass.”
Loved him in that movie .. ;)
I wish Gibson and Willis would get together and try and start some sort of major production company. I know Gibson has one technically, but I’m talking about the 2 of them getting investors and becoming tycoons of a sort.
I would think both of them are completely loaded (though Willis had the divorce).
I know there are also people like Vince Vaughn and I am sure there are a few others like Jon Voight, but you have to be a heavy hitter with a huge bankroll to jump into the bigtime, so to speak.
It’s too bad Robert Downey Jr. can’t be upfront about his beliefs - I for one would be very interested to hear them. Thanks for the link.
RD, jr. is making quite the comeback. Good for him.
That was a great article. Thanks.
“These days, the left doesn’t just disagree with right-wingers - they hate them. People actually shudder when I tell them I’m a Republican. I should have to carry a bell and yell, ‘unclean.’ It doesn’t bother me, though.”
I went and voted early for the primaries today. The lady giving me my card for the computerized ballots said in this really derogatory tone right in front of my daughter “you’re a Republican”....like she was saying you’re a murderer or something. When I walked in the trailer, they had no other voters in it, just 5 workers. They were all friendly and cheerful towards me right up until seeing my voter registration card. Then, I got the cold treatment like I was some lowly wretch or something. So I just poured on being nice.
~ ~ ~
A group of politically conservative and centrist Hollywood figures organized by actor Gary Sinise and others has been meeting quietly in restaurants and private homes, forming a loose-knit network of entertainers who share common beliefs like supporting U.S. troops and traditional American values.
Some of those involved are taking more public steps to counter the entertainment industry's tilt toward liberalism and Democratic politics, such as campaigning for Republican Sen. John McCain or crafting projects to portray America in a more positive light.
The group, whose members call themselves "Friends of Abe" after Abraham Lincoln, was organized as an underground movement because of fears that prominent industry titans with outspoken liberal views would retaliate, said participants. They often were reluctant to name members of the group in interviews for fear it would hurt their careers.
SPEAKING UP: Conservative singer Pat Boone says that "word is getting out that there's many of us in this business."
"It's a growing movement, and word is getting out that there's many of us in this business ...," said 1950s singer Pat Boone, one of the few conservatives to talk about the movement publicly. "If certain studio execs - hirers and firers - learn that this is a movement and growing, and that some of these people that they hire are of this inclination, these people could be unemployed."
Friends of Abe has functioned like a support group, organizing informal gatherings where actors, producers, screenwriters, key grips and other industry types can share common values or discuss concerns like anti-Americanism in Hollywood movies or the perception of industry bias against conservatives and Republicans.
The movement has grown over the past few years from gatherings of a few dozen to one last month that drew more than 600 to a billionaire's California estate, Mr. Boone said.
People familiar with the movement credited Mr. Sinise, whose roles range from the blockbuster movie "Forrest Gump" to the TV show "CSI: New York" for helping organize the movement.
More at link above
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Hallelujah!
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I agree with him. We also lost in the areas of social sciences and humanities for the same reason: Many conservatives don't think they are important and consider them lower form of 'science' or 'unproductive'. Meanwhile, education system (including the higher education) keep teaching these subjects with all leftist agenda. Unfortunately, it happens without any challenge from the Right because no one is available.
Jeeze ... classy you, you showed them
what it’s like to NOT BE A LIBERAL!
Good for you! Courage ...
Most welcome ... ;)
Saw Jon Voight’s interview this morning on Fox and Friends,
and I was shocked to know that he is conservative!
I’ll bet that gives Jolie another reason to gnash her teeth
over her dad! LOL!
Thanks, it really took me by surprise. I’ve never dealt with anything like that at a polling site before. I had done research on those running and voted for all the ones that got the endorsements from the law enforcement and prosecutor associations. Their letters of endorsements had some pretty strong language. Such as, “you’ve shown your commitment towards helping us in the war on crime”, or “making the streets safer for our residents that should expect safer communities”. I always vote in the primaries for the strongest Republicans in regard to crime and punishment issues.
I’m thinking of getting a McCain sign for my lawn and I just can’t bring myself to do it. I’ve never been so down about an election or torn about what I should do. I have decided to vote for him but I just can’t bring myself to putting up a sign for him. I feel like it would be such a betrayal of what I stand for and would make me such a hypocrite and he has so many times shown his disdain for conservatives. I feel like I’m being used and falling into a trap. What choice do I have though? I can’t accept Obama.
Jolie is not as liberal as you might think. She is very pro-gun and pro-military.
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