Woody Allen exposed as communist sympathizer
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The Wall St. Journal is a must-read newspaper these days, especially now that it’s done a great job of beefing up its political, lifestyle and cultural coverage. But for liberals like me, its editorial and op-ed pages are also something of a guilty pleasure for the way they continually hammer away at all sorts of crackpot conservative mantras, be it the glories of incessant tax cuts, the alleged failure of the New Deal or the disastrous consequences of strict environmental standards -- for the Journal, mocking the Prius is right up there with sneering at teachers unions.
Today’s Journal is a perfect case in point. Just pages away from Journal film critic Joe Morgenstern’s typically astute and perceptive film reviews -- he has an especially fine appreciation of ‘Gomorrah’ in today’s Journal -- is an unintentionally hilarious op-ed essay from the publisher and editor of the conservative Movieguide, which claims that box office success can easily be understood by a simple formula: pro-capitalist and faith-oriented movies make lots of money, while pro-Communist and anti-capitalist films are box office losers. According to the Movieguide apparatchiks:
‘As in past years, films with strong pro-capitalist content -- extolling free-market principles or containing positive portrayals of real or fictional businessmen and entrepreneurs -- tended to make the most money.... Movies with a positive view of democracy and property rights, for instance; that were pro-life or anti-abortion; or that promoted freedom of speech or the right to bear arms -- were much more successful at the domestic box office, on average, than movies with content that attacked America, were politically correct, inserted some politically correct messages, etc.’
As I said, this is pretty comical stuff. By their reckoning, ‘The Dark Knight’ was successful not because it was the year’s most exciting, special-effects extravaganza, but because its hero was a ‘billionaire capitalist’ who defended Gotham City against a terrorist anarchist. Other films the Movieguide crew claim as pro-capitalist include ‘Australia’ (sadly, a flop domestically) and ‘Bottle Shock,’ which qualifies as pro-capitalist because it ‘extols the virtues of the California wine industry.’ On the other hand, they claim that films with ‘pro-communist content’ were box-office flops, most notably Woody Allen’s ‘Vicky Cristina Barcelona,’ which is wrong on virtually every count, especially since the film was Allen’s biggest hit in years. (If any of my conservative pals who read this blog -- Dirty Harry or Christian Toto, are you listening? -- can explain how ‘Vicky Cristina Barcelona’ qualifies as pro-communist, I’d be forever in your debt for the scoop on that.)
The essay is full of other howlers: It claims that ‘The Visitor’ was ‘anti-American,’ that ‘Mamma Mia!’ was full of ‘very strong libertine content,’ while praising ‘Defiance’ for its conservative content, even though it turns out that the licentious ‘Mamma Mia!’ was a far bigger hit. The piece also conveniently forgets to mention a variety of huge hits that don’t fit its formula, notably ‘Wall-E’ (an unabashedly left-wing critique of runaway consumerism and capitalism), ‘Hancock’ (whose superhero is the epitome of anti-family-values) and the licentious, politically correct ‘Sex and the City,’ which easily outperformed the pro-family ‘Bolt’ or the ‘pro-capitalist’ ‘City of Ember.’
It’s no wonder that conservatives have such trouble cracking the entertainment business. Hollywood has long realized that audiences relish films that are entertainments, and entertainment is often sublime, sexy and subversive. In politics, conservative heroes may wear bow ties and flag pins, but in movies, our heroes are full of flaws, often spout comic nonsense and engage in outlandish behavior, happily mocking the status quo. If you want to hear about pro-capitalist family values, you can listen to Rush Limbaugh, who has that act down cold. But if you want to have fun, you go to the movies.
The real joke is that these Movieguide guys are even more ridiculously politically correct than the most humorless feminist, railing against Hollywood for not creating more female superheroes. If they think kids went to see ‘Iron Man’ because its hero is a capitalist playboy who ‘uses his wealth to defend America and its free-market values,’ they’re doing more to lampoon prissy conservatism than Bill Maher could ever hope to accomplish.