Posted on 10/30/2003 5:49:49 AM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
The angry buzz over “The Reagans” has grown louder and more pointed. “Advertisers will bail on CBS’ anti-Reagan movie,” commentator Pat Buchanan predicted on “The McLaughlin Group” Sunday. Two days later, a conservative media watchdog group announced a boycott call-to-arms. But CBS isn't showing signs of regretting its excursion into political drama. Based on experience, observers say, it probably doesn’t need to. “The bottom line is, the more attention it (the miniseries) gets, the more people are going to watch it,” said television analyst Marc Berman of Media Week Online. That spells opportunity for sponsors and ad dollars for CBS, he said. “Any network would be pleased if there’s an inordinate amount of publicity surrounding any project,” said industry analyst Bill Carroll of the Katz Television Group. “In the end, if it’s deemed unfair, then they’ll have to deal with that.” Last season, pre-broadcast protests greeted the network’s miniseries about Adolf Hitler’s early years, which some feared would have the effect of fostering sympathy for the Nazi leader. “It didn’t hurt the ratings. It gave it more exposure,” Berman said. The drama ultimately drew solid ratings, praise from previously skeptical Jewish leaders and Emmys. “The Reagans,” a two-part miniseries about former President Reagan and his wife, Nancy, airing Nov. 16 and 18, is being condemned by Reagan friends and supporters as a hatchet job. Media attention for the former president has been mostly positive in recent years, thanks largely to a wave of sympathetic books including 2002’s “A Different Drummer” from former White House aide Michael Deaver and “Reagan: A Life in Letters,” which appeared on The New York Times’ best-seller list this fall. The miniseries has been the hubbub du jour on a number of shows including CNN’s “Crossfire,” Fox News Channel’s “The O’Reilly Factor” and MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews.” “CBS is serving up a new version of the Ronald Reagan story, just before Thanksgiving,” host Robert Novak said last week on “Crossfire.” “That’s appropriate. With all the Hollywood liberals involved, it could be a real turkey.” On Tuesday, the watchdog Media Research Center decided to take action, calling on 100 major companies to review the script and consider avoiding buying ad time on the miniseries. “’The Reagans’ appears to be a blatantly unfair assault on the legacy of one of America’s greatest leaders,” center President L. Brent Bozell III wrote in a letter Tuesday to potential sponsors. “Reagan is being portrayed as a hateful, half-nut homophobe,” he said in an interview. “It’s not that the historical record is being distorted. It’s that the makers of the movie are deliberately defaming him and lying about him.” He and others are largely basing their assessment on a brief CBS clip reel or a description published in an Oct. 20 article in The New York Times. The miniseries, from producers Neil Meron and Craig Zadan (“Martin and Lewis,” “The Music Man”) is in post-production. Revisionist History? Especially troublesome, critics say, is how the script portrays Reagan’s handling of the dawning AIDS crisis in the 1980s. He is depicted as uncaring and judgmental toward those with the disease, according to the Times. “They that live in sin shall die in sin,” he tells his wife in the script as she begs him to help AIDS victims. The author of the screenplay’s final version, Elizabeth Egloff, told the Times there was no evidence such a conversation took place. But “we know he ducked the issue over and over again, and we know she was the one who got him to deal with that,” she said, a contention denied by Reagan White House insiders. “I never saw an ounce of intolerance,” said Ken Khachigian, a senior adviser in the Reagan administration. Former Reagan speechwriter Peter Robinson, author of “How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life,” said he’s seen excerpts of the script: “It looks ridiculous.” Reagan’s son Michael, a radio host, has railed publicly against the project and accused CBS of plunging a “dagger” into his father’s heart. His wife, Colleen, offered him words of comfort, according to Robinson. “Mike, don’t worry. That looks like one of those skits on ‘Saturday Night Live,”’ Robinson quoted her as saying. Martin Anderson, co-author of the newly released book “Reagan: A Life in Letters,” said he had spoken to Nancy Reagan on Sunday. “She is very upset about the miniseries,” he said. A Reagan spokeswoman said the family had no comment. Bozell said the fact that CBS isn’t disputing the Times account “makes me think it’s true.” In a statement, the network said its job was to create programming that “stirs meaningful discourse about the events of our time in a responsible and truthful manner.” “Nobody’s seen the film,” CBS Chairman Leslie Moonves told the cable show “CNBC’s Topic A with Tina Brown.” “So any criticism now, in the middle of October for a film that isn’t finished, is rather odd, we think.” But he added that the rough cut was undergoing some editing “to present a fair picture of the Reagans.” “There are there are things we like about the movie, there are things we don’t like about the movie, there are things we think go too far,” he said in the CNBC interview. That could satisfy some critics, such as Bozell. He called on CBS to remove the “handful of vile scenes. Let’s see if they’re going to take out the dishonesty and let the movie proceed.” But others say troubling aspects remain. Casting James Brolin, husband of outspoken liberal Barbra Streisand, as Reagan is a deliberately provocative move, they contend. Australian actress Judy Davis plays Nancy Reagan. And there are those who question airing any dramatization of the 92-year-old Reagan’s life while he struggles with Alzheimer’s disease. “They shouldn’t do anything while the man can’t defend himself,” said Khachigian. “That, to me, is the worst thing, when a man can’t speak for himself who’s still alive.”
He keeps repeating that lie. Drudge got a copy and shown clips. It may not be the finished product now, but that is only because there is so much outrage. Of course it does look so poorly done it will be hard for most people to take seriously.
That's Judy Davis as in wild liberal, probably more liberal than Brolin, who thinks patriotism is an "evil specter" or something like that.
Mike, Hang in there!
I know how painful it is to have those insensative idiots stepping on your father whae he's down.
My dad doesn't have altshemers but very similar to it!
back in the 80's he fell from a furniture truck and really whacked his head a good one.
We thought we would loose him for sure. He damaged his brian and now he's got dementia.
I'll tell you, if anybody did to him what they are doing to President Reagan now.....well.....They better hope I don't catch up with them!
God Bless you and your family and God bless Ronald and Nancy Reagan!
Becki
I believe you meant to say "the two kids from Jane Wyman". Maureen was one of those children.
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