He has a future in British Steel
Jan. 18th, 2006 09:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vovatOn last night's American Idol season premiere, some guy sang a little bit of XTC's "Making Plans For Nigel." Really badly.
In other news,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
slfcllednowhere had a link on her journal to this article. It's basically another one of those stories about Religious Right groups who think that the existence of movies about gay people is going to turn everyone in the country gay. Here's one choice quote from Janice Crouse:
"If America isn't watching these films, why are they winning the awards?"
The Golden Globes aren't chosen by "America," but by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Indeed, most awards have nothing whatsoever to do with "America"; they're all about industry insiders rewarding other industry insiders. So who cares, really? I get the feeling that these ultra-fundamentalists are among very few people outside the entertainment industry who even give a crap about the Golden Globes.
The whole idea of Hollywood (because apparently Hollywood is a collective entity controlled by some kind of Overmind) having an "agenda" is nonsense anyway. I'm sure individual filmmakers might have their own agendas, but so what? It's not like the fact a movie about something exists is going to change the opinions and attitudes of the American people as a whole, right? But if you look at the people who make the claims about Hollywood being "too liberal," like the "family values" crowd (who hardly represent all Christians, regardless of what they want you to think, and how they're identified by The Times) and Fox News (who had an entire special on this topic), they're often the ones who prey on the gullible to promote their own agenda. If viewed this way, perhaps it's no wonder that they think Hollywood filmmakers are doing the same thing from the opposite perspective.
On my first read of the article, I thought that the sentence beginning, "Religious groups also pointed to the alleged political agenda of winners including George Clooney, who won for his supporting role in Syriana, a film about the ethical pitfalls of the oil business" was implying that they thought attacking the oil industry was a bad thing. On closer inspection, it seems like they're simply criticizing the "alleged political agenda" of Clooney himself, rather than the actual movie. Still, it makes me think of another criticism that people have been known to throw at Hollywood, which is that there are too many movies where corporations or the government are portrayed as evil. I remember Newt Gingrich, when appearing on Fox News (because they love washed-up politicians whom nobody liked when they WERE in office, almost as much as they love washed-up talk show hosts like Geraldo, and washed-up political criminals like Oliver North) saying something about the CIA being "the bad guy" in every movie. Honestly, I haven't seen very many movies where the CIA or a corporation are the villains, so I think this says more about the kind of movie that Newt and his ilk choose to watch than anything else. Nonetheless, I can see why filmmakers might want to make such groups villainous, without there being anything overtly political about it. I think it's typical for films to present "the little guy" as someone to root for. A huge corporation obviously can't be "the little guy." They already HAVE the power, after all. As for the CIA, not only is a government organization, but it's one that, by its very nature, operates in secrecy. And people tend to be fascinated, and usually somewhat frightened, by secret organizations. So I don't see any of this as evidence of a political agenda.
Believe me, I'm no fan of the entertainment industry in general. And, as I hinted earlier on, televising awards shows is largely an exercise in industry indulgence. It just really annoys me when people try to act like ANYTHING they don't like is a sign of some kind of political conspiracy. And believe it or not, I'm not particularly fond of bigotry either. "A mission to homosexualize America," my ass.
In other news,
slfcllednowhere had a link on her journal to this article. It's basically another one of those stories about Religious Right groups who think that the existence of movies about gay people is going to turn everyone in the country gay. Here's one choice quote from Janice Crouse:"If America isn't watching these films, why are they winning the awards?"
The Golden Globes aren't chosen by "America," but by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Indeed, most awards have nothing whatsoever to do with "America"; they're all about industry insiders rewarding other industry insiders. So who cares, really? I get the feeling that these ultra-fundamentalists are among very few people outside the entertainment industry who even give a crap about the Golden Globes.
The whole idea of Hollywood (because apparently Hollywood is a collective entity controlled by some kind of Overmind) having an "agenda" is nonsense anyway. I'm sure individual filmmakers might have their own agendas, but so what? It's not like the fact a movie about something exists is going to change the opinions and attitudes of the American people as a whole, right? But if you look at the people who make the claims about Hollywood being "too liberal," like the "family values" crowd (who hardly represent all Christians, regardless of what they want you to think, and how they're identified by The Times) and Fox News (who had an entire special on this topic), they're often the ones who prey on the gullible to promote their own agenda. If viewed this way, perhaps it's no wonder that they think Hollywood filmmakers are doing the same thing from the opposite perspective.
On my first read of the article, I thought that the sentence beginning, "Religious groups also pointed to the alleged political agenda of winners including George Clooney, who won for his supporting role in Syriana, a film about the ethical pitfalls of the oil business" was implying that they thought attacking the oil industry was a bad thing. On closer inspection, it seems like they're simply criticizing the "alleged political agenda" of Clooney himself, rather than the actual movie. Still, it makes me think of another criticism that people have been known to throw at Hollywood, which is that there are too many movies where corporations or the government are portrayed as evil. I remember Newt Gingrich, when appearing on Fox News (because they love washed-up politicians whom nobody liked when they WERE in office, almost as much as they love washed-up talk show hosts like Geraldo, and washed-up political criminals like Oliver North) saying something about the CIA being "the bad guy" in every movie. Honestly, I haven't seen very many movies where the CIA or a corporation are the villains, so I think this says more about the kind of movie that Newt and his ilk choose to watch than anything else. Nonetheless, I can see why filmmakers might want to make such groups villainous, without there being anything overtly political about it. I think it's typical for films to present "the little guy" as someone to root for. A huge corporation obviously can't be "the little guy." They already HAVE the power, after all. As for the CIA, not only is a government organization, but it's one that, by its very nature, operates in secrecy. And people tend to be fascinated, and usually somewhat frightened, by secret organizations. So I don't see any of this as evidence of a political agenda.
Believe me, I'm no fan of the entertainment industry in general. And, as I hinted earlier on, televising awards shows is largely an exercise in industry indulgence. It just really annoys me when people try to act like ANYTHING they don't like is a sign of some kind of political conspiracy. And believe it or not, I'm not particularly fond of bigotry either. "A mission to homosexualize America," my ass.
