David Mamet: How Liberal Hollywood is just like brain-dead Big Government

I've been reading David Mamet's new book, "The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture," which is a full-frontal attack on American Liberalism, which Mamet views as basically bringing about the end of Western civilization as we know it. Conservatives, who rejoiced a couple of years ago when they discovered they had a new convert (and from the virtually all-liberal world of the arts, no less) have given the book glowing reviews. Liberal commentators, as you might guess, haven't been so kind.

A lot of the book is pretty standard fare modern-day conservativism: global warming is a myth, the ground zero mosque is a cultural obscenity and liberal education has become "an indoctrination in aggressive Identity Politics" that has produced a generation of what Mamet calls Young Stalinists. On the other hand, there's some pretty wonderful stuff inside as well, including a great chapter about Mamet's early years and family roots in Chicago, where Mamet as a young man drove a taxi ("This is how we did things there: one spiffed the mechanic at the cab garage if one wanted to get a working cab to drive").

But as much as Mamet loathes big government and do-gooders, he loathes Hollywood liberals even more. He thinks film schools are a joke ("the refuge of the Leisure Class") and likens film studios to a kingdom, where the "accreted bureaucracy serves the Executive as a Royal Court." (He's really big on Capital Letters.)

But his most fascinating theory explains, to him at least, why writers and actors are so often brain-dead liberals, while directors are more pragmatic in their politics. Actors, as Mamet sees it, need to see themselves as "the Hero," a professional indulgence that lends itself to an overdose of do-gooderism. Writers, he says, are professional fantasists who imagine themselves as heroes, which he argues is why they are so easily manipulated by political charlatans into protecting the rights of Palestinians, Cubans and protesting the American military's efforts to protect our country.

He writes:  "Writers have traditionally been the dupes of totalitarian propaganda, as the visions we have been shown and the tales we have been told sound, to us, like the products of our own imagination." But he claims that few directors indulge in such rancid political grandstanding, Why? Because a director can't deal in fantasy. Directors have to make their day before the sun goes down. More importantly, as Mamet sees it, directors are "exposed to something of which the actors and writers may not have taken notice: the genius of America, and the American system of Free Enterprise."

Unlike writers and actors, directors have to oversee hundreds of people on a film set, promoting the culture of filmmaking, whose tenets Mamet describes thusly: "work hard, pitch in, never complain, admire and reward accomplishment." 

It sort of makes sense, until you puzzle it over a little and wonder -- wait a minute, what about Oliver Stone? Or Steven Spielberg? Or Robert Redford? Or Sidney Lumet? Or Barry Levinson? Or about a hundred other die-hard liberal filmmakers I could easily name? Don't they believe in "work hard" and "pitch in" and "reward accomplishment" on their film sets too? Does Mamet really think that conservatives admire hard work and accomplishment more than liberals?

And if actors are so easily manipulated into, as Mamet puts it, "trotting the globe for a hundred years, petted by and championing the causes of Tyrants," while directors are so cannily pragmatic, then why do so many actors make such good directors? Even liberal actors turned directors like Redford, Rob Reiner, Sean Penn, Warren Beatty and Ron Howard, along with conservative ones like Clint Eastwood and Mel Gibson?

I'm still hoping Mamet will sit down with me and address some of these issues. When I was young and restless, I drove a cab in Chicago too, so I know all about spiffing mechanics to get a good cab. No one has ever done a better job of evoking the strivings of the rough and tumble Second City than Mamet. But when it comes to such glib stereotypes about liberal Hollywood, I'm not buying what he's selling.

-- Patrick Goldstein 

Photo: David Mamet speaking at a Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony this April for actor Joe Mantegna. 

Credit: Gabriel Bouys/AFP/Getty Images

Comments

[Me]

Truthfully what makes Mamet's book and statements interesting is that they present an opposing point of view that are down in print and can be scrutinized and used a point of discussion. Even hollywood liberals cover a spectrum of political positions. As this article proves books like Mamet's bring issues forward and let's readers decide where they stand. Given the contentious political climate that currently exists, voters need to clarify where they stand on a variety of issues. Discussions like this can act as a starting point. Also, maybe Mamet can be called forward to defend his position and show how he claims that a more conservative approach is a better approach.

[lkj]

Kidding, right Mamet? From a guy who writes likes his Words Are Etched In Stone? Words that no human being would ever speak. Here's the thing about cabbies; they never shut up and always think they know the best way to get somewhere.

[ardano]

Mr. Goldstein:

How would you define your personal political views? Journalists should not get a "pass" on this point. I don't really care about whether you drove a cab in Chicago, or any other city; second, third or first. What I do care about are journalists who hide their political views then publish columns like this. As for Hollywood, the liberal/conservative meter is so far tilted towards liberal it should not even be a topic for discussion

[Patrick Quinn]

As a liberal fan of Mr. Mamet's work, would love to see he and Mr. Goldstein sit down and hash it out.

[Xenu]

Mamet is a great example of how a computer is only as good as the data that it feeds on.

[Joe]

Mamet's glib over-generalizations fail to address some basic truths. What about the many, many conservative actors both past (John Wayne, Claudette Colbert, Jimmy Stewart, Bob Hope) and present (Jon Voight, Sylvester Stallone, Clint Eastwood, Mel Gibson)? Not to mention that virtually every well-known actor elected to office - from George Murphy to Fred Thompson to Clint Eastwood to Arnold Schwarzenegger to, of course, Ronald Reagan - was a Republican! What about the many, many films that echo with "conservative" themes - from my '80's youth, not just "Red Dawn" but everything from "Top Gun" (surrogate war against the Russians) to "Back to the Future" (both humanizing and idealizing a '50's past)? Who was more of a "hero" in the movies than John friggin' Wayne!!!! And yet it doesn't seem to have caused him to become a liberal "do-gooder."

How can Mamet honestly indulges in these gross exaggerations? I suppose that his work (which I've always found overrated - overly talky, precious dialogue) always had a tendency to break the world down into Manichean opposites, so perhaps his predisposition to fail to incorporate the nuances of human behavior made his present set of beliefs inevitable.

If you want a theory on why successful actors, writers and directors may tend to be liberal, here's one: the field is filled with people of talent who don't "make it." Seeing those examples, those who do gain success are probably more appreciative of how luck and timing and good fortune and accidents of birth and any one of a host of factors outside one's control can play a key, even determinative role in success in any field. They are less likely to buy into Ayn Randian claptrap. They also may be more empathetic to the suffering and misfortune of others, since they know it may be due to factors outside their control, and also more attuned to the need for a safety net in case, despite all their hard work and best efforts, they fall short.

Besides, anyone who knows anything in Hollywood knows that money trumps both liberalism and conservatism.

And when did conservatives become such a group of whiny babies? My God, not a day goes by when one of them doesn't blame this group or that group or something for things not going how they want. For once, right wingers - take some friggin' responsibility and grow the F up!!

[drfaustus]

There are absurd liberals and absurd redumblicans.

What I have noticed over the years is that when senility sets in, many theretofore intelligent people become redumblicans.

They are not conservatives because they conserve nothing but ignorance.

The research (Ryota Kanai of the University College London) indicates redumblican types have larger fear centers in their brains than normal people. And it is obvious they tend to be very narrowly educated.

So I suspect that people like Mamet are simply senile and very afraid.

[Arye Michael Bender]

Haven't read the book, so I cannot comment on it. Just read the article above, and need to correct a glowering error. Though Clint Eastwood often plays extremely conservative characters, I doubt that he considers himself as a political conservative. In fact, the body of his directoral work points to the opposite direction. His is clearly very open minded. And one, I presume, that abhors stereotypes.

[GeneD]

We know how the game's played, Mogul's Friend. You're a liberal. You can't stand Mamet's current politics, or any conservatives. Meantime the folks at NRO think Moses just descended from Mount Sinai. Six of one.... Of course when the professional ideologues talk, truth is always the proverbial first casualty: Take away all those F-words and poor David turns into Sylvester in "I Taw a Putty Tat" after he's eaten the alum. That he thus makes conservatives look foolish doesn't make you any less small-minded. But then we shouldn't expect better from people who put tub-thumping partisanship first and their readers last.

[DudeAsInCool]

Mamet sounds like an angry man. He should be grateful for the success he's had instead of throwing arrows at everyone else. I particularly take offense to his jaundiced view of our educational system and students today. And on a minor note, he never went to Film School, so what makes him an expert to judge them?