July 11, 2005

Don’t Criticize What You Can’t Understand, Cont’d

Proving once again that conservatives never have any plausible explanation for anything on Earth other than ‘liberal bias,’ actress/screenwriter Govindini Murty has a piece in the LA Times purporting to explain this summer’s box office slump. And shocker- she doesn’t blame it on the general poor quality of the films, or on sunny weather, or on the widespread availability of home theater systems. Murty’s alternative culprit? You guessed it, liberal bias.

What's Murty’s evidence? A few cherry-picked quotes from various directors and screenwriters, supposedly comparing Bush to the villains in their movies. A few problems with the premise:

First, the ‘quotes’ are dubious at best: First she complains of "George Lucas implying that his latest 'Star Wars' film is intended as an anti-Bush parable about the Iraq war, in which America plays the evil empire." Lucas has never used those words, and has made it clear in interviews that the "Star Wars" saga was mapped out 30 years ago and not ‘intended’ as anything having to do with Bush. Next, Murty attributes to ‘War of the Worlds’ screenwriter David Koepp the belief that "aliens in his movie are stand-ins for the U.S military." In fact, Koepp merely stated that the film’s symbolism is in the eye of the beholder, and that "we tried consciously to never lead with the politics. That's a guaranteed way to make a piece of crap."

(Numerous other fallacies dot the piece- for instance, Murty tells us "The Passion of the Christ" was snubbed by the Oscars "because of its perceived conservatism, even though the movie saved last year's box office." ‘Passion’ was outperformed at the box office in ‘04 by both "Shrek 2" and "Spider-man 2"- is there some hidden political reason why neither was nominated for Best Picture?

Murty says that post-’Passion,’ "no studio movies have been made celebrating traditional religious faith." But, as Murty surely knows, many are in the works-most notably the big-budget adaptations of C.S. Lewis’ Christian-oriented ‘Chronicles of Narnia’ series. And Murty cites `Chris Rock’s ‘anti-Bush diatribe’ at last year’s Oscars- which barely nicked the president at all, and was probably the tamest routine of Rock’s career.)

Also, the vast majority of people who follow films have never heard these "damning" quotes, unless they’re faithful readers of conservative blogs- in which case, they’re most likely so anti-Hollywood to start with, that they probably won’t be seeing the films anyway. Indeed, Hollywood has always been left-wing, and the right has always been anti-Hollywood, and not any more so now that at any point in the past 40 years. Missing from Murty’s critique is why, exactly, this has resulted in a box office downturn this year, of all years.

And thirdly, the films Murty cites as responsible for the slump due to the perfidious political leanings of their makers- "Star Wars" and "War of the Worlds,"- have been the two biggest HITS of this summer box office season. Koepp’s quote has gotten one one-thousandth the media attention as Tom Cruise’s various exploits this summer- and somehow, neither kept audiences away from "War of the Worlds."

This would seem to indicate that most moviegoers couldn’t give a hoot about what the writer or director has to say about politics or religion- the only thing that will keep them out of the theater is if the star throws a phone at a hotel concierge. And most of the films this summer that have flopped have had no political component at all.

I can’t vouch for Murty’s stories of her own personal experiences pitching pro-war-on-terrorism films to Hollywood execs. But the way Hollywood works, as Murty seems to misunderstand, is that studios (all of which are owned by multi-national corporations) will make what they believe will be profitable. If that’s a 9/11 film (such as the one planned by Oliver Stone), that’s what they’ll make.

In other words, for Murty’s thesis to be true, millions of theater-goers must have heard these quotes, interpreted them exactly as Murty did, and decided, this year and no other year, that Hollywood is evil, and not worthy of their business. Either that, or they simply prefer their home theater systems, complete with no commercials or yapping teenagers. I’m going with the latter.

Just as idiot critics like Frank Rich and the entire arts team at the Village Voice see every single movie, play, and song as being Really About Bush, the dumbasses on the right continue to see anti-Bush bias around every corner and under every bed. Thus, the bipartisan circle jerk continues, in both Washington and Hollywood.

Posted by Stephen Silver at July 11, 2005 09:41 PM
Comments

I think it's your liberal bias that prevents you from seeing the truth about liberal bias in each and every thing in the universe.

Maybe her film pitches aren't working because she has a whopping 2 IMDB credits to her name. She's not too well known around town.

Posted by: Bill McCabe at July 12, 2005 07:09 AM

"the bipartisan circle jerk" ... would be a good band name. or a good blog name.

Posted by: LilB at July 12, 2005 02:53 PM

I'm sure the slump at the box office has nothing to do with raising ticket prices and the relative affordability of home theater systems and DVDs at all. Nope. It's the friggin' crack-smoking, homo-humping, orgy-loving liberals trying to push their agenda on an unsuspecting public.

You people are evil, Steve. EVIL, I say!

Posted by: Emily at July 12, 2005 03:26 PM
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