Should Haim Saban really be telling CBS to get rid of Oliver Stone?

Haim Saban isn't just mad at Oliver Stone for his controversial remarks about the Holocaust and Jewish domination of the media, which caused such a conflagration that Stone was forced to issue a speedy apology. According to this post in the Wrap, the Israeli-born media tycoon has launched a campaign to get Showtime to cancel its upcoming 10-part series, "A Secret History of America," which Stone has produced. Saban said he has already called Les Moonves, the CBS chief who oversees Showtime, demanding that he cancel the series, which is designed to provide an alternative look at U.S. history subjects rarely taught in public schools.

Saban said that WME Chairman Ari Emanuel had also "privately" called CBS to urge that the series be yanked from the Showtime schedule (though I guess now that Saban revealed that Emanuel has made the call, it isn't so "private" anymore). Saban says that Stone's apology was "transparently fake," adding that "this guy should be helped in joining Mel Gibson into the land of retirement, where he can preach his anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism in the wilderness where he belongs."

I know that some people are outraged by Stone's remarks, which included the nutty charge that America's support for Israel was the result of Jewish domination of the media. For one thing, it's pretty lame on Stone's part to ignore the fact that the U.S. is a natural ally for Israel on its own merits, since it's the only true democracy in the Middle East. On the other hand, I was surprised to discover that many of the people who left comments on my original blog post about Stone seemed convinced that the Jews actually do control both the media and the entertainment business, apparently because a lot of Jews work in media and showbiz. I hate to burst everyone's bubble, but that is transparently dumb on every level.

The most obvious: If you were putting together a list of the most powerful men in entertainment and media, you'd start with Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp. owns 20th Century Fox and innumerable TV networks and newspapers; Brian Roberts, whose Comcast empire includes NBC/Universal and is a dominant player in cable TV; and Phil Anschutz, who controls innumerable sports teams, showbiz arenas, newspapers and Regal, the largest theater chain in the U.S. You know the punch line: None of them is Jewish. [UPDATE: I stand corrected: The Roberts family is Jewish.]

Haim Saban is a pretty wealthy and powerful guy himself, but he's a pisher compared to guys like Murdoch and Anschutz. I admire Saban's passion, but I don't agree with his trying to bully CBS into dumping Stone's series. This is a free country, so there's nothing wrong with Saban saying how distasteful he finds Stone's remarks (we're in agreement on that score). But getting a network to pull a show simply because its producer has espoused some crackpot conspiracy theories opens the door for all sorts of unsettling decisions. It's really not so different from the reasoning behind the infamous 1950s Hollywood blacklist, where hundreds of actors and filmmakers were denied work because people in powerful places didn't like their politics.

To put it in a more modern context, Mel Gibson has completed work on a new film, "The Beaver," which is in post-production at Summit Entertainment, the company behind the "Twilight" series. Should Summit simply refuse to release the movie, saying it finds Gibson's personal views and behavior repugnant? I'm sure that would make a lot of Gibson haters happy. But even though I find Gibson's antics wildly repugnant too, since he seems to hate every minority group on the planet, I think the film deserves to rise or fall on its own merits. If people loathe Gibson, they can--and should--refuse to see the movie. If it flops, the fans have spoken, but at least it was given a chance to be judged on its own merits.

I feel the same way about Stone's TV series about America's hidden history. In a free country, one of the freedoms that's worth respecting is the freedom to hear all sorts of opinions and attitudes, not just the ones we agree with.  

RECENT AND RELATED: OLIVER STONE HAS APOLOGIZED FOR HIS ANTI-SEMITIC RANT: BUT IS THE DAMAGE ALREADY DONE?

Photo: Oliver Stone, left, with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in a scene from Stone's documentary "South of the Border." Credit: Jose Ibanez / Cinema Libre

 

Comments

[Gábor Fränkl Budapest, Hungary (Central-Europe)]

A humanistic view from far away Hungary, mine:

To the morally tainted American apologists of racist hatred propagated here among the comments, and to the writer of this unqualifiable rubbish, mentioned by his name in the article I bring:
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=183073

This IS the really BIG picture Goldstein!

[Gaith]

The AV Club put it best: "Non-media-dominating Jews demand that Showtime cancel Oliver Stone series"

"Well, this situation didn’t take long to turn deeply ironic."

Indeed.

http://www.avclub.com/articles/nonmediadominating-jews-demand-that-showtime-cance,43581/

[HF]

Some very cogent points - strong article. Note that Oliver Stone's comments, aside from being bigoted, moronic, and scary (in a psychotic way for those around him), really continue to uncover and accurately track his statements for many years, be they about "contextualizing" Pol Pot, Stone's support of Castro, even though Castro has imprisoned many artists (writers, poets, etc..) and, of course, Stone's clear claim that LBJ, as V.P. sat in on a meeting and encouraged the assassination of JFK, promising that, when it was done, "I'll give you your damn war."

SHOWTIME is in big trouble on this. From what I've heard, if they so much as include one iota of Stone's work, they'll see a branding and cancelling and public relations tsunami that will make Chinese dog food look like a stale Oreo cookie.

Regarding a specific point from Stone's addled brain - it's quite revealing Stone would equate the murder of unarmed Jewish women (many elderly, young) and almost 2 million children, systematically hunted, tortured, shot or gassed - all by trained, heavily equipped military gestapo, nazis, etc.. - equate that with the deaths of soldiers or civilians in a war zone, on a war-footing. Clearly, Hitler victimzed so many it's hard to keep track. However, it's revealing that Stone feels a need to diminish the targeting of Jews and others of similar ilk.

[Gary]

Uhm, Patrick, did you miss the part where Stone insisted Hitler was the result of "cause and effect" and you can't put all the blame on him, in the same sentence in which he claimed the Holocaust isn't debated because of the Jewish domination of the media (and "so what about the Holocaust anyway, after all 25 millions Russians were killed")?

You trivialize Saban's concerns by ignoring the thrust of Stone's comments. His main points were that Hitler wasn't fully responsible for his actions, and that the reason the Holocaust gets discussed so much in the media when only 6 million Jews died as opposed to 25 million Russians, is because of Jewish "domination" of the media. I guarantee you only a tiny portion of Saban's anger was reserved for the "Jewish domination of the media" part of what Stone said. The rest was directed at the fact that Stone was seriously trivializing the intentional, calculated, extermination of 1/3rd of the entire Jewish people, almost all civilians, including 1.5 million children gassed and shot en masse, by comparing it with the deaths of millions of Russian soldiers. Don't forget 40,000 American Jewish soldiers died in the war too, but you don't see Jews raising a hue and cry about that. Why? Because they were soldiers--that's what happens in war. But rounding up 90% of the Jewish population of Poland (3 million) from every village, town and city in that country and transporting them to camps to be gassed in chambers or burned in ovens or shot in front of pits simply because of their religion? That's not war. That's the single greatest crime in the history of humanity. And for Stone to trivialize it--that's what rankled Saban.

[Bigmo]

Although Saban has lived in the United States for nearly thirty years, he remains deeply connected to Israel. He watches Israeli news shows, via satellite, throughout the day, and is a devout fan of the Ha’gashash Ha’chiver (Pale Pathfinder), a popular Israeli comedy troupe that performed for decades. “He knows every sketch of theirs by heart, and he uses their language very often when he speaks Hebrew,” his friend Dan Gillerman, the former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, said. His hundred-year-old mother and his brother live in Israel, and Saban travels there frequently. Through the years, one of his closest advisers has always been an Israeli and, in business meetings with others on his team, the two would occasionally slip into a side conversation in Hebrew.

He remains keenly interested in the world of business, but he is most proud of his role as political power broker. His greatest concern, he says, is to protect Israel, by strengthening the United States-Israel relationship. At a conference last fall in Israel, Saban described his formula. His “three ways to be influential in American politics,” he said, were: make donations to political parties, establish think tanks, and control media outlets. In 2002, he contributed seven million dollars toward the cost of a new building for the Democratic National Committee—one of the largest known donations ever made to an American political party. That year, he also founded the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, in Washington, D.C. He considered buying The New Republic, but decided it wasn’t for him. He also tried to buy Time and Newsweek, but neither was available. He and his private-equity partners acquired Univision in 2007, and he has made repeated bids for the Los Angeles Times.

By far his most important relationship is with Bill and Hillary Clinton. In 2002, Saban donated five million dollars to Bill Clinton’s Presidential library, and he has given more than five million dollars to the Clinton Foundation. In February, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered a major policy address at the U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Doha, co-sponsored by the Saban Center. And last November Bill Clinton was a featured speaker at the Saban Forum, an annual conference attended by many high-level Israeli and U.S. government officials, which was held in Jerusalem. Ynon Kreiz, an Israeli who was the chairman and chief executive of a Saban company and Saban’s closest associate for many years, attended the conference, and when I commented that his former boss appeared to be positively smitten with Bill Clinton, Kreiz replied, grinning broadly, “No! No! I remember once Haim was talking to me on the phone, and he said in Hebrew, without changing his tone so Clinton would have no idea he was speaking about him, ‘The President of the United States, wearing his boxers, is coming down the stairs, and I am going to have to stop talking and go have breakfast with him.’ ”

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/05/10/100510fa_fact_bruck?currentPage=2

Interesting.

[virg]

so what you are saying Gary is that lives aren't equal. To you, a jewish life is worth more than a russian life. I hate to tell you this, but a life is a life. No matter the intention, innocent people who happened to be non-jewish were still ruthlessly murdered. (Japanese starved, raped, murdered, and also used their prisoners for experimentation) 40 million chinese died during this war, under horrible circumstances. Maybe is there were more Chinese and Korean executives in hollywood more people would know that suffering was not simply limited to the Jewish people.

[Gábor Fränkl Budapest, Hungary (Central-Europe)]

Comment from me, 2nd try
Please consult this article as a response to this one:
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=183073

So what is the LA Times afraid of?

I look forward to my post being published on the thread.

[justin]

what a laugh of an article Goldstein...you really are a tool of the highest order...

[Ivan Chernyakhovsky]

Oliver Stone, as one that his father is Jewish, knows surely, if he was lived in World War Two under the Nazi Germany he could have been exterminated. In view of this knowing Oliver Stone could be understood mainly in the psychological level, and this represent syndrome of many that have some Jewish ancestor.

[Mike]

"I know that some people are outraged by Stone's remarks, which included the nutty charge that America's support for Israel was the result of Jewish domination of the media."

Come on........... you'd have to be from another planet not to know that Jews dominate decision making in the American media. Reality is what it is and it reminds me of Orwell's 1984 when I read stuff like " it's a fact that the U.S. is a natural ally for Israel on its own merits, since it's the only true democracy in the Middle East."

Yea....it's a democracy if you are a Jew, but if you aren't, it's a democracy like the American South was a democracy for blacks in the 1950's.

Everyone knows the media is run by Jews just as American produce is harvested by Mexicans. Stop with the silly Orwellian newspeak.