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The Philibuster: American movies shouldn’t be politicized

Columnist

Published: Thursday, February 16, 2012

Updated: Friday, February 24, 2012 00:02

conservative movie

ROLAND PARKER / The Daily Reveille

These days, America is equally red and blue, Republican and Democratic, conservative and liberal.

Not in the movies, though.

Movieguide, an arm of the Christian Film & Television Commission ministry, released last week a 2011 box office analysis asserting "conservative" films are five times more profitable than "liberal" ones.

It's not an altogether astonishing discovery, as Entertainment Weekly blogger Jeff Labrecque wrote last week.

"If a studio is going to spend $200 million to produce and market a blockbuster movie, the script will likely take great care to deliver a reassuring, crowd-pleasing experience that doesn't rock anyone's boat," he reasoned.

Nonetheless, the conservative movie watchdog's 76-page report does beg the question: What exactly makes a film liberal or conservative?

I don't even know if Mitt Romney is liberal or conservative, so I don't dare presume to know the political leanings of the X-Men and the Muppets.

Movieguide categorizes films' content as capitalistic or socialistic, for example. Films may be feminist, politically correct or pro-homosexual — or any other of Movieguide's two dozen evaluative criteria.

Ultimately, Movieguide assigns films either of two badges: "Conservative/Moral" or "Liberal/Leftist."

Which, apparently, is to say: "Liberal/Immoral."

"What we find every single year is that movies with strong Christian content do better at the box office; movies with strong faith and values do better at the box office," said Ted Baehr, Movieguide's founder and editor.

Indeed, last year's most family-friendly films — movies like "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close" — averaged gross receipts of $40.7 million in the U.S. and Canada.

Comparatively, the least family-friendly movies — the ones with dick jokes, basically — only averaged gross receipts of $19.8 million. This includes films like "Bad Teacher."

But isn't such a disparity predictable? "Family-friendly" films aren't age-restricted by the Motion Picture Association of America, meaning there are more potential audience members who can purchase tickets.

Anheuser-Busch's sales aren't going to outpace Coca-Cola's, after all.

But in the face of this, "the average person wants movies that are not just entertaining, which is good," Baehr said. "We look at the entertainment value, but [people] want movies with good triumphing over evil, and they want movies with faith and values."

They want movies that suck, essentially.

Faith and values, of course, thrust "The Hangover Part II" to the all-time highest-grossing opening for a comedy film. Or "pagan" faith and "hedonistic" values, according to their report.

In turn, among the films heralded by Movieguide as "Conservative/Moral" are Oscar frontrunners "Hugo" and "The Artist."

The former is a Martin Scorsese-directed adaptation of the Caldecott-winning book "The Invention of Hugo Cabret." It's not your typical Scorsese flick, though, with no violence and no amoral sociopathic lead.

Scorsese, of course, directed "The Last Temptation of Christ," controversial for its depiction of Christ's sexuality.

Faith and values, alright.

"The Artist" is French — i.e. socialist — director Michel Hazanavicius's charming black-and-white silent film. It laments the demise of silent cinema and the rise of "talkies," a historical phenomenon brought about by capitalism.

And if there weren't already enough reason to be suspicious of the report, Movieguide also praises "Battle: Los Angeles."

"The press may not get it, but the studios are getting it because more and more movies have strong faith and values," Baehr said.

More and more movies suck, in other words.

Baehr's right, but I don't get it.

American cinema really hasn't ever been political, unlike its European counterpart.

And it shouldn't be politicized now.

 

Phil Sweeney is 25-year-old English senior from New Orleans. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_PhilSweeney.

 

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Contact Phil Sweeney at psweeney@lsureveille.com

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2 comments

Adjunct R
Sun Feb 26 2012 18:14
An article that to its credit attempts to address a serious issue but does so in a manner that is hopelessly muddled. The issue is why does the entertainment industry aka Hollywood churn out so many movies that espouse what can generally be described as left/liberal points of view? Especially when it can be shown over and over again that such films do poorly at the box office? Films that espouse what can generally be described as a conservative worldview (for the purposes of discussing this issue, they do not denigrate religion, America, or freedom) do quite well. And yet the entertainment industry seems oddly reluctant to produce many of these. Which proves that for them it's not primarily about making money. It's primarily about advancing their ideology.

Meanwhile the Reveille writer says conservative films suck and we shouldn't politicize them. I see.

What?!? It's precisely *because* Hollywood politicizes so many films - with left/liberal ideology - that the movie industry and in turn the movie theater industry continue to suffer decline year after year. Actually Mr Sweeney you will find conservative film goers are not all about the politics. They are all about the art. Good stories, good characters, good acting, good directing, and so on. The writer recognizes the problem, and neatly arrives at exactly the wrong conclusion. The problem isn't Hollywood it's people like me who are sick of its relentless leftism?!? Get rid of the obnoxious leftist politics - to which artistic concerns often take a back seat - and you might be surprised at how movies can thrive.

Anonymous
Fri Feb 24 2012 09:10
Considering how many SELF PROCLAIMED leftist producers/directors have publicly talked about how they dislike the military (Examples include David Russell, Michael Moore, anyone who produces any films for HBO, etc) specifically make their films to demonize the military, these films can definitely be considered Leftist. When directors who have publicly stated that they are conservative, and said that their films will protray their conservative beliefs, such as the two directors of Act of Valor, or Battle LA, and these films do much much much better than any of the lefty movies that portray these heroes in these movies as villians, then it should show that people are swinging more right, and are giving more support to movies like this, instead of movies like Green Zone, that spend just as much on production, advertising, high action, and actors, if not more, but dont make nearly as much money because people are sick of that kind of crap in theaters, where these lefties decide to advertise their hatred of the military in a two hour film that will be loved by the academy awards, but not watched by anyone who has a conscience. The military movies are just one part. Look at the religious films that do not demonize christian faith, but celebrate it, like the passion of christ, in comparison to the box office flop, Dogma. The passion spent very little on effect, and actors, but Dogma, spent much much more on actors, action, production, and made probably half as much in the US in theaters.

Basically, people are getting sick of movies that are towards the left. They like honesty, so they like more CONSERVATIVE films







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