Hollywood Babylon

The New American ^ | March 21, 2005 | William F. Jasper

[w6ai5q37b]

The recent Academy Award celebration of last year's movie fare has made transparently obvious the huge chasm between the cultural elitists and Middle America.

The year 2004 is certain to go down as a defining point in the decades-long war for the heart, mind, and soul of America. The cultural elites who reign over the fields of entertainment, the arts, the news media, and academia are triumphantly celebrating our descent into a post-Christian, neopagan society. They are celebrating an ongoing revolution that threatens to transform a culture of life, light, virtue, and hope into a culture of death, darkness, degeneracy, and despair.

This celebration of our moral decline was nowhere more blatantly displayed than at the 77th Academy Awards on February 27. Considered by many to be the premier annual cultural event, broadcast to a global audience of hundreds of millions, the Oscars have been sliding down a slippery slope for many years. But this year's nominees for the coveted golden statue comprised, in the words of USA Today, an especially "bleak slate."

In a February 25 cover story entitled, "Exploring Oscar's Dark Side," USA Today described the grim reality behind this year's glamour and glitz:

Open the winning envelope? For this year's Oscar hopefuls, it's more like opening a vein. Drug addiction, mercy killing, mental illness, genocide, abortion, ill young mothers and borderline alcoholism — these are a few of Oscar's favorite things this year. Here are a few more of Oscar's favorite things, as deduced from the Academy's nominees: homosexuality, pederasty, adultery, pornography, nudity, incest, blasphemy, profanity, and Communist revolutionaries.

[Darkwolf377]

"Or better yet, refute it. 'Requiem for a Dream' gave me a headache. It's like one of those 'Scared Straight' PSAs x 100."

Uh, ok. I guess they should have made a fun movie about drug addiction? It's one of the best movies of the past ten years.

[cynblogger]

The Andy Griffith show is the same way. Each and every show depicts morals and values that can teach a lesson.

[kaylar]

According to Michael Medved (Hollywood vs A,merica) the domestic audience is increasingly less relevant to Hollywood : They get more and more of the revenue from overseas audiences. And those audiences have no objection-far from it-to grotesquely antiAmerican films. If anything, US films that depict the USA as a nightmare of violence and preversion are popular because of that depiction. Therefore, a mass boycott of Hollywood productions by US citizens would have little impact.

[timtoews5292004]

The audience for movies has dropped significantly since the introduction of the MPAA ratings code back in the mid 1960s. The reasons for the record box office results are not because more people are going, it is because tickets are costing more, and there are more people who watch a movie multiple times. Less individuals are watching movies in the theatre than 10 years ago.

[John Lenin]

Liberalism =Mental Illness

Need more proof ?

[timtoews5292004]

excellent point. Forgot about medved's book there for a second. There has always been a disconnect between the hollywood mindset and the general public. They just do not care.

[BobS]

In addition to your fine post:

The effete elite who dominate the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences apparently went out of their way to select Oscar nominees that are especially offensive to the vast majority of the American public. Middle America, in some measure, still adheres to the Christian faith and morality that are so abhorrent to the atheist and hedonist sensibilities of Hollywood.

[tang-soo]

And Hop Sing would be a cross-dressing, heavy metal, beastiality freak.

[Safetgiver]

You actually pay to see people play someone else? Read a book, newbie.

[Borges]

Uh, ok. I guess they should have made a fun movie about drug addiction? It's one of the best movies of the past ten years.

No but they could have had something new to say about it. That movie reeked of its source...an overwrought novel written shortly after the 60s ended. A 'Utopian dreams are gone and now look where we are' sort of thing. The characters were thin and had no chance. It was like watching a 2 hour march to the scaffold.

[Borges]

You actually pay to see people play someone else?

Yeah, people who go to the theater to see productions of Shakspeare, Checkov and Ibsen are wasting their time. /sarcasm

[colorado tanker]

Box office goes up, but not attendance. They've been making money by increasing prices on tix and concessions. And the newer tricks of the trade you mentioned.

[Borges]

If anything, US films that depict the USA as a nightmare of violence and preversion are popular because of that depiction.

The problem is that this article was focused on the Oscar nominees none of which fit this description.

[Borges]

Concessions are not counted in movie grosses.

[ComplexUnion182]

This is the exact problem with Hollywood, Politics. Around, as early as the 60's, Hollywood elitists thought they could dip their hands in how this economy should be ran. You've all heard of the "Not in our Name" petition going around? This is ridiculous, these people are not politicians, half of them don't even have political science degree's or the likewise.
Art is made to inspire and splurge extraordinary thought, this can bleed into government value. But the problem isn't just with the entertainment world, it's everywhere. Homes, business, the government. We don't parent our children anymore, instead we befriend them, we don't work for the goodness of positive production anymore in our jobs, and our government hasn't worked for the "people" in 50 years.
The film industry, yes, is slightly to blame for the jargon they produce to the masses, but people still attend because it's what they want to see. This is how we're entertained. But has it not always been this way, if not gotten a bit better? What about Rome, Gladiators. At least now we don't enjoy real life massacres. Even boxing shortened the maximum amount of rounds a fight can last because 15 was to many for the fighters health. So there are some perks to our moral of entertainment. The problem is everyone expects someone else to do something about it. Yes we shouldn't block our first amendment, but there needs to be a line that should be drawn not just by parents for the kids, but by this nation for its "kids".

[American Quilter]

>> When do you think the schism occured? <<

It goes at least as far back as the 30s, when so many hollywood actors and writers became Communist party members or fellow travelers. They began inserting pro-Soviet sentiments into their movies during WWII.

[Borges]

It goes at least as far back as the 30s, when so many hollywood actors and writers became Communist party members or fellow travelers. They began inserting pro-Soviet sentiments into their movies during WWII.

So basically since the sound era? That's a position I've not heard! :-) most of those Soviet favoring films were essentially war porpaganda that was sanctioned by the goverment.

[technochick99]

especially that hotel rwanda movie

I have that in my netflix queue... Did you find it worth watching at all?

[Christian4Bush]

BTPAT

[Borges]

there needs to be a line that should be drawn not just by parents for the kids, but by this nation for its "kids".

I'm not a kid thanks and can decide for myself. Keep goverment out of it.