Back in 1996, I was lucky enough to get to interview Charlton Heston, who, at the time, was still a much-in-demand character actor (he made three movies that year) and also at the height of his outspoken political advocacy for the right. He complained to me that conservatives in Hollywood felt besieged and believed they wouldn’t get jobs if their politics were known. "There are more conservatives in the closet in Hollywood than there are homosexuals," he said, repeating a line he’d used in many a stump speech. But surely, I said, his implied comparison with the 1950s blacklist wasn’t serious; after all, he was there in Hollywood at the time, when some movie-industry leftists actually did lose jobs and were even jailed because of their politics. Nothing comparable to that was happening now, was it? Well, sometimes it feels that way, he said. A couple years later, having heard Heston say that the Oliver Stones of the industry wouldn’t hire him, Stone made a point of hiring Heston for Any Given Sunday. So I guess the griping worked.
Cut to today, and nothing’s changed: Conservatives in Hollywood are still complaining that they’re being shunned in an industry town consisting predominantly of liberals. The latest set of complaints comes via this Hollywood Reporter article about the impending launch of BigHollywood, a blog at breitbart.com that hopes to be a right-wing answer to the Huffington Post, with a group of 40 conservative Hollywood insiders as group bloggers. (Andrew Breitbart announced the planned blog back in August, but it doesn’t appear to be live yet.) The gripes in Monday’s THR article follow a similar airing of grievances by conservative screenwriter Andrew Klavan a week ago in a Washington Post op-ed. While I’m not buying any of these claims that openly conservative actors and screenwriters can’t find work — people like Klavan, Jon Voight (pictured), Kelsey Grammer, Patricia Heaton, Dennis Hopper, Robert Duvall, Tom Selleck, David Zucker, Clint Eastwood, and Bruce Willis aren’t hurting for opportunities in Hollywood, just as they weren’t when Heston spoke to me 12 years ago — but the conservatives are correct that there aren’t many overtly conservative movies made in Hollywood. I don’t believe, however, that liberal intolerance is to blame.
Why aren’t more conservative movies greenlit? One might ask that question of Fox chief Rupert Murdoch, who has been willing to lose millions to promote a conservative ideology via his paper the New York Post, but whose entertainment projects at the Fox broadcast network, cable’s FX, and the Twentieth Century Fox film studio are all over the political spectrum. Perhaps he knows that, in entertainment, people want escapism, not spinach or propaganda. It’s why (as conservatives note) few went to see last year’s group of movies critical of the War on Terror (In the Valley of Elah, Rendition, Lions for Lambs, etc.) or this year’s W., but it’s also why few went to see American Carol, either. (It’s not a liberal conspiracy that both Carol and W. are being roundly ignored in favor of talking chihuahuas.) Explicitly partisan movies, left or right, don’t seem to do as well as those that give both sides a voice or whose ideology takes a backseat to plot and character development.
Still, if conservative Hollywood wants to make more openly ideological movies, it should stop whining and make them. That’s what Zucker did with American Carol (and with his conservative affirmative-action program of hiring fellow travelers like Voight, Grammar, and Hopper), and more power to him for raising the money and getting the movie widely promoted and distributed. That’s also what Mel Gibson did with The Passion of the Christ, even putting his own money into the picture (and his $25 million investment certainly seems like a modest sum well spent after the movie’s enormous box office success). Conservative tycoon Philip Anschutz has promoted his agenda by backing Walden Media’s slate of family-friendly movies, which includes the Narnia series, Charlotte’s Web, and Nim’s Island.
Grammer was, for a long time, the highest-paid actor on TV; why isn’t he producing the kind of movies he and his colleagues want to see? Go, make the movies, and let the invisible hand of free market capitalism work its magic with them. Isn’t that how conservatives say it’s supposed to work? If the movies are good, and if they sell tickets, and if there are enough hits among them so that mainstream Hollywood can’t dismiss them as a fluke or a niche product, the studios will come to you to make more of them.
More on conservatives in Hollywood:
Conservative Hollywood unites for An American Carol
Television Commentary: The AMC Project: Rated R: Conservatives in Hollywood
The Final Cut: Columnist Mark Harris on why TV’s quasi-conservatives do liberals a disservice
Ask the Critic: Do you ever get sick of Hollywood’s liberal yarns?
America is from Mars, Hollywood is from Venus
PopWatch: Are stars’ liberal politics turning off moviegoers?
For every actor thats been able to start a sucessful production company and make good, profitable movies there are two who have ended up filing bankruptcy due to wasting their cash on cars houses and drugs.
Actors act, they arnt often known for their business savy. As such, it’s not a surprise that most dont ever put their money where their mouths are.
Also, a bad investment is a bad investment. History shows that movies that politically lean too far to one side most often dont make worthwhile money.
As such, its not just easier but also smarter for the right wingers to complain that other people arnt risking their money on them, rather then risk it themselves.
That said, Id prefer they just shut up.
I agree. They should just shut up. They never have anything constructive to say anyway.
Awesome article Gary!
I agree with the entire last paragraph. Both liberals and conservatives at either extreme end are portrayed negatively in many films, but that’s what comedy is for–to poke fun at extremes. I can’t argue that conservatives probably do feel “silenced” in Hollywood socially, though, so it’s likely that they feel besieged. No one’s going to jail for it, though, so the paranoia needs to go–and they are getting jobs. To blame the lack of box office for propaganda films (of either stripe) on some kind of bias is laughable.
Is this a bad attempt at a joke?
Comparing conservatism in Hollywood to liberalism during McCarthy’s reign or homosexuality even today? Seriously?
Uh, the difference between feeling a political “cold shoulder” (real or imagined) and being imprisoned, harassed, fined, beaten and/or your life and career destroyed is a pretty big one. This is not an apt comparison at all.
Heston was just once again showing his ignorance and insensitivity. And now too is Gary Susman.
If Conservatives are in fact being discriminated against in Hollywood, that is a shame and should be corrected. On the other hand, actors and filmmakers who are outspokenly political (on either “side”) find securing work more difficult than those who keep their views to themselves. So, once again, Heston maybe should have tried shutting up.
I love the “tolerance” voiced by your liberal commenters. It’s ok to be conservative, but just shut up about it. The hypocrisy is unbelievable. I believe that a project – TV, movie, music, whatever it is should stand on its own merit – does it have an audience? Do they enjoy it? Does it make money? Those should be the criteria that judge a project’s worth. This is America and supposedly we have freedom of speech, thought, religion. What is so frustrating to so many is the active suppression of conservative thought by Hollywood and the promotion of the left. Yes, American Carol made no money, but how many left leaning projects were financed in the last 5 years? For every American Carol, there are 10 times as many Valley of Elah, Stop-Loss, Rendition, etc. All losers at the box office, too. If this was truly just an economic proposition, we would see more attempts at right leaning projects. It’s not about money at all, it’s all about promoting one point of view and suppressing another.
Blah blah blah, waaah waahh wahh. That’s all I’m hearing from you. Wow, you sound just like the GOP! Neato!
Yeah, real mature guys.
I know you are, but what am I?
I don’t know about you, but I’d run, not walk, to see a movie written, directed or produced by someone who is “cautious, moderate, tending to preserve the status quo” (Merriam Webster definition of conservative).
Did ya ever think that people who lean towards creative endeavors aren’t generally conservative in their beliefs, just as those who sign up for the military aren’t known for their liberal attitudes?
Or are conservatives looking for some kind of hiring quota or affirmative action system? That would be a delicious irony!
I don’t think this has as much to do with politics as with ideology. A more liberal point of view tends to encourage people to look into the lives of others with curiosity and figure out why people do the things they do. That sort of a view is compatible with making good art. I don’t see that same curiosity in most outspoken conservatives where adversaries are just written off as evil. That kind of black and white thinking isn’t very compelling in art. So is it any wonder Hollywood would lean more toward a liberal point of view?
Bruce Willis identifies himself as an Independent, not a Republican.
Yikes. It blows my mind that Voight, at one time the star of one of the most controversial, envelope-pushing and culturally progressive American films ever (“Midnight Cowboy”) was a guest at a McCain/Palin rally.
I agree with the argument that the movies and shows should be made and let the market dictate the results. Now, can we apply that same argument to Pelosi and the liberals that are trying to outlaw conservative and religious radio because the liberal shows can’t make it in the market. What goes around comes around! If you outlaw one, I could see Rolling Stone, EW, and more being sued over violation of the Fair Access Act they are trying to force down our throats.
To Right Now:
My statement of preference that they “shut up” is not based on their ideology, its based on the fact that they are whining, and are capable of doing better. I would say the same to a far left leaning actor in a comparable situation.
As for your statement that it is not about the money… what business do you think we are speaking of here? In Hollywood, where for every good movie released there are a dozen “Underdog”s, “Alvin and the Chipmunk”s and “Battlefield Earth”s it sure as heck is about the money.
Make absolutly no mistake, if there ever proved to be as much of a market for politically extreme movies as there are for more moderate ones, then they would be made.
There is no vast left wing conspiracy here. The movies you appear to want made are not being made because they have not been proven to be economically viable. They may in fact be so, but the risk involved to find out is currently perceived as outweighing the probable rewards.