Propaganda in Hollywood

[rah]

Hollywood leans left. WHAT A F***ING surprise.
How many movies/tv shows have there been where being gay was wrong/bad (in the last 10 years)?
How many movies/tv shows have there been where being gay was good/heroic (in the last 10 years)?
How slanted are movies like Fern Gully or Avatar and the host of other environmental films.
Compare the number of anti-war movies vs. pro-war movies (after 1960)

Compare the number of movies where pot is portrayed as harmless vs. it's the ultimate evil.

[Dinner]

O'Reilly is just mad that liberal shows get better ratings. "Desperate Housewives" isn't on the air for years because TV programmers are trying to make you leftist; it is because lots of people want to see housewives cheating.

This.

[Dinner]

Who here has watched Avatar?

That aside, it's no secret that the film and television industries tend more liberal than the general public.

Nonsense. Hollywood makes movies and TV shows which aren't stone age in their outlook because that's what sells. Every time they make some hard right drivel it bombs (see the latest crap Ayn Rand movie which bombed so badly they cancelled the sequels and pulled it from the theaters early). Hollywood is out to make money so it produces what sells and if something doesn't sell then they dump it. As Imran says people like watching house wives cheat and Hollywood makes shows like that because it sells not because there is some vast secret conspiracy.

[Dinner]

The word "better" is an adjective that modifies the noun "ratings".

Fox, especially Bill O'Reilly, loves to talk about ratings and how he supposedly has such good ratings. The reality is nonevent run of the mill Sunday morning Golf shows get many times the ratings of Billo while Fishing shows almost always get more ratings then all the news/political opinion shows put together. It's a complete cannard and, yes, given Billo's fixation with bragging about ratings I'd say he is jealous that his partisan hack program gets beat by fishing shows and golf.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Oerdin makes a good point in comparing the Ayn Rand movie which died. A lot of Christian movies also fail to make much movie (for example, Fireproof starring Kirk Cameron). Mel Gibson's "The Passion" is a notable exception.

[regexcellent]

Bill O'Reilly probably isn't worried about his ratings. I'd post a link but I can't because of post count. The Fox News Channel has been raking it in and Bill O'Reilly is a major part of that.

Denying that Hollywood is liberal seems politically tendentious. The fact that it is liberal isn't an accusation or some conservative talking point. It's like saying that gay people vote Democrat: it's just a fact. I'm not calling Hollywood evil, nor am I calling it a conspiracy. Film, music, and television have always been this way, and denying it is just silly.

In any case, Hollywood movies do not usually beat viewers over the head with a political message (Avatar being an exception). That doesn't mean it isn't there. Consider Independence Day, as I mentioned. It struck me as having a fairly conservative set of values. It also was a really good movie. It did really well. Will Smith

It's simply not true that people are averse to conservative movies. The examples you're giving are the blatantly political kind that turn people off through that nature alone. Avatar had something to offer besides its anti-corporate, anti-military, environmentalist message. The Passion of the Christ is also not an exception in any way. It got its audience in the same way as Brokeback Mountain: it was controversial. If a movie came out that positively portrayed bombing abortion clinics, I'd put money on it making a killing simply because people would watch it just to see what all the fuss was about.

[Dinner]

There is also the issue of the big media companies having an aversion to risk and preferring to go with the sure thing as that is a less risky option. Rather then trying to come up with a movie about (to use Rah's example) evil gays molesting little boys they're more likely to go with the proven Catholic priest molests little boys because that theme has sold in the past. Notice how when Grey's Anatomy won all sorts of awards and got smash ratings in its first year suddenly every network released their own drama show about doctors? Being risk adverse they're more likely to copy a past success then risk big money on an entirely untried theme. One could claim that's the result of a secret left leaning conspiracy or we can apply Occam's Razor and accept that the media companies are just trying to cash in on proven formulas for success instead of risking the house on an unproven theme.

[Cort Haus]

I was wrong in reg's debut thread. He clearly isn't Drake.

Independence Day was a really terrible film, though. LOLzers teh a1i3nZ use Windows.

[rah]

Oerdin
While I agree with a lot of that..... look at the stats. Just recently the percentage of Americans that don't appose gay unions edged over 50% That means there are still a considerable number of those that probably wouldn't object much to see a negative portrayal of a gay person. As proven by many national elections, there's a lot of stupid people out there. (either side depending on how you lean) What makes left leaning safer than right leaning. The percentages are not that different.

[DinoDoc]

If they are going to complain about propaganda on TV, did they bother to mention Dick Wolf?

[Al B. Sure!]

LOLzers teh a1i3nZ use Windows.

Maybe computers were captured alien technology from Area 51 so our computers were compatible?

[Al B. Sure!]

And wasn't that a Mac, anyway?

[Dinner]

Oerdin
While I agree with a lot of that..... look at the stats. Just recently the percentage of Americans that don't appose gay unions edged over 50% That means there are still a considerable number of those that probably wouldn't object much to see a negative portrayal of a gay person. As proven by many national elections, there's a lot of stupid people out there. (either side depending on how you lean) What makes left leaning safer than right leaning. The percentages are not that different.

Yes, I agree there are still large numbers of gay hating bigots. Just look at the Republican anti-gay initiatives and laws passed during the Bush years (almost always proposed on an election year too just to give the bigots in their base an extra reason to make sure they show up to vote). That said, how much TV does your average home schooling, three time a week church going, middle aged white bigot actually watch? Clearly not that much other then Fox because most of the stone age themed shows designed to appeal to these bigots bomb. We can speculate about why that is, I personally suspect that bigot demographic is the most brain washed into thinking "Da media is full of leftists and communists so I won't watch them!!11!!!!ONE!" so they avoid most TV shows, but really we don't need to since the companies have already figured out where the money is and they've gone chasing after it. Guess what? The money isn't in pandering to religious bigots especially since overt pandering to the bigot class would likely offend other more profitable demographics who watch more TV thus the media companies won't risk losing a bird in the hand to try to get one in the bush.

[rah]

Ok, again, I'll go along with most of that Oerdin, but now explain the explosion of reality TV. A lot of stupid people still watch.

[Al B. Sure!]

It suddenly occurred to me that That 70's Show was a Fox Network show.