Ned Rice on Andrew Breitbart. The title? “Can Andrew Breitbart Save Hollywood?” The whole thing is great but this may be the best part:
But beneath the sunny exterior, behind the eyes some might actually call merry, Breitbart is a man unceasingly obsessed with politics and the daily battlefield reports from a culture war he’s convinced we must not lose.
“I can’t turn it off,” he admits.
Speaking of his wife, Susie, he says, “She didn’t sign up for this. She’s like a military wife whose husband is frequently gone on mental deployments.”
Now, I’ve spent a lot of time reading Big Hollywood. And I still don’t understand what its mission is, beyond making fun of Hollywood. I understand what Breitbart’s personal goal is because he states it clearly:
“The American people need to know that there are thousands of people in Hollywood—people who are liked, admired, people who are hot!—who are also conservative. They’d be surprised to see a group picture of all the conservatives in Hollywood.”
But how does his blog help accomplish this goal?
Is this another example of wingnut reasoning that has grown too complicated for outsiders to follow? Or is there some obvious way in which writing a widely-mocked blog will convince Americans that there are lots of hot conservatives out there in Hollywood?
dmsilev
Oh for the love of God
No, she fucking well is not like a military wife. Not unless she waits at home with the knowledge that the phone might ring or there’s a knock on the door, and it’s someone bearing tragic news.
And no, tragic news is not “some liberal cut me off in traffic again”.
-dms
srv
Hollywood, the enemy of all that is moral and good, is filled with thousands of conservatives.
I think Breitbart has accidently esploded his premise.
srv
You know, when you can pay top stars to be in your crazy religion, why can’t the Republican party afford to do the same?
Or did Gary Sinese blow their budget?
Left Coast Tom
If Hollywood is filled with so many konservatives then Breitbart should just go home and comfort his “military wife.” He’s achieved his objective, the war is won.
Whether any of us care about his “victory” might be a different question. But such is the case for all four-year-olds playing soldier.
N M
Do not ask how deep the rabbit hole goes. Instead, ponder how deep you are in it already…
guster
If you want people to know about all the Hollywood conservatives, couldn’t you maybe list them? Interview them? Feature them?
Surely getting press for hot and admired Hollywood people isn’t all that tough.
erlking
Couldn’t they just, you know, put out a calendar of hot conservative Hollywood-niks and call it a day?
Old Gringo
Let’s see, there’s Gary Sinise, Bruce Willis, Alice Cooper, Gene Simmons, Dennis Miller – did I mention Gary Sinise?
And Drew Carey! Let’s not forget Drew Carey. I know I’m leaving a few out.Granted, if Breitbart is counting Scientologists, there are thousands of hot looking wingnuts in LA.
Comrade Vida Loca
Because the blog’s real goal is the inflation of the overarching vanity of one Andrew Breitbart?
Laura W
TZ is getting pretty cranky waiting for you to post about some hot! Italian wines, you know.
Lev
Now, if by “mental deployments” he means “involuntary trips to the insane asylum” then I could agree with that. But if showing people hot conservatives is their best idea to winning the culture war, conservatives might as well just give up.
kommrade reproductive vigor
And Brietbarf falls into none of those categories.
No blog post about A.B. is complete without this. Also.
Left Coast Tom
@Laura W:
About 8 years ago I visited Firenze…restaurants had ordinary Chianti house wine for 4,000 lire for a 1/2 liter carafe…about $2. I was shocked to visit Rome the next year and find restaurants asking $4 for the same quantity of house wine. Highway robbery, I tell you.
Ked
I haven’t read that much Big Hollywood, but my brief swings through the site left me with the impression that it’s no more than .6 or .7 wingularity masses. Not incomprehensible, not wholly disconnected from the rest of the universe, but pretty damn stupid and feeding into the overall rush to oblivion.
geg6
Yeah, all those Pat Boones, Gary Sinises, Billy Baldwins, and Walker Texas Rangers, unsung and unacknowledged because, and only because, they are Republicans. There could be no other reason they aren’t on the career level or have a Q rating equal to Tom Hank’s (that talentless commie) than that the DFH libtards who run Hollywood persecute them and make their careers failures.
gex
@Old Gringo: Didn’t Drew Carey become more of a glibertarian during W’s administration?
Delia
And once upon a time I thought Mel Gibson was hot. Dammit, once upon a time Mel Gibson was hot. Of course that was before we all learned what a crazy-ass loony he is.
grimc
The surprised reaction won’t be, “Wow, there are a lot of hot conservatives!” It’ll be, “This is what conservatives consider ‘hot’?”
mistermix
When I substituted “wanking” for “mental deployment”, suddenly it all made sense.
tigrismus
“She’s like a military wife whose husband is frequently gone on mental deployments.”
“Out to lunch” is not quite the same as a tour of duty.
Kevin
My favourite conservative Hollywood moment was during the 06 elections, where Michael J Fox did his commercial for stem cell research, and then you had a counter-commercial from the wife from Every Body loves Raymond and Jesus from the Mel Gibson movie (talking in Aramaic no less!). I think they really missed the point on that one (being, who the hell cares what they think? Michael J Fox actually has a disease that could be cured by stem cells. They are just actors (well, maybe the Jesus guy isn’t. Not sure why he was talking Aramaic. Maybe he really is Jesus..)
Paulie Chestnuts
If the Hollywood conservatives don’t have the yarbles to publicly declare their political bent, I don’t see why Breitbart should even bother to stand up for them.
Farley
As someone who actually was a military wife, someone whose husband was on actual physical deployments, I can assure you, Mr. PopTart, your Partner in Lunacy doesn’t have a fucking clue.
Doug you are fabulous, but “wignut reasoning” is an oxyfuckmoran.
tc125231
El Cid
@tc125231: Agreed.
Maude
Just as long as he keeps it in Hollywood.
He’s veddy important. And so dramatique.
Reagan was true Hollywood and the right wing fell for it lock stock and barrel, while at the same time condemning Hollywood.
The box office money is what counts.
Hot, as in, burn in hell?
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
Just want to say that “mental deployments” is the Bestest Phrase Ever.
JB
Don’t forget what a wonderful job Brietbart did whining about his ribbing at the hands of the Daily Show, the ultimate example of how the guy is fighting a war he’s in no way qualified to fight.
Bill E Pilgrim
Uhm, Hollywood is full of thousands of conservatives and this is supposed to be news how exactly?
If I hadn’t already figured that out from the fact that a huge percentage of TV shows and Hollywood movies push the same, tired, BS right wing themes as they always have then I’d certainly be surprised to hear it yes, but er, in fact sadly no.
The — “Hard-bitten alcoholic cop chases some ‘”scumbag” criminal (they make sure you get this because the “talented” star actually calls the criminal a “scumbag” as part of the brilliant script he co-wrote (it’s amazing, he just comes up with these lines himself!) chases him down and tortures him, then some judge throws the case out on a “technicality” which usually isn’t even the torture but some paperwork or procedural thing.. ….damn liberal judges!!” — plot is so ubiquitous as to be just absurdly familiar to anyone reading that, right from Dirty Harry to 24 and everything in between.
Almost anyone in the criminal law world will tell you how insanely tilted in the opposite way it is, yet everyone in America “just knows” that it’s an “activist liiberal judge” jungle out there, because Holywood keeps telling them so.
Yeah, there are some wimpily- and vaguely liberal-themed plots too, but to say that they’ve got a lock on things is to never have watched the stuff that comes from Hollywood.
Enlightened Layperson
Amen to Bill E. Pilgrim. Hollywood is full of movies glorifying police brutality, armies of one, and other blood-and-guts fests with the overall theme that civilian leadership is too lily-livered to handle the truth and what we really need is to let our army/police/intelligence agencies go rogue and not tell us what they’re up to.
Steeplejack
@Enlightened Layperson:
Forget the movies–you can see it every night on prime-time TV: any episode of CSI (any flavor, but Miami is the worst), Numbers, Criminal Minds, 24, etc., etc., ad nauseaum. Apparently the only thing standing between us law-abiding citizens and the onslaught of serial killers, terrorists and wackos is our law enforcement agencies’ willingness to think and act “outside the box,” so to speak.
Bill E Pilgrim
BTW I agree that “mental deployments” is a new world-class right wing gem.
Taking the notion of fighting keyboardists to a new virtuality, now you don’t even need the keyboard. Just think strong, patriotic thoughts, defend Democracy against the DFHs in imagination only, and you then get to claim full solidarity with “the troops” with all the respect accorded them.
Marco
I don’t think I’ve been to a site allegedly about the entertainment industry that is less entertaining.
Brachiator
Why should any rational person care about the political beliefs of an actor or director.
Sometimes I stay and watch the end credits of movies. There is no universe in which it would matter to me in the slightest if I saw a credit which read, “Key Grip — John Doe — Peace and Freedom Party.”
But of course the Big Lie here is not simply that there are conservatives in Hollywood, but that these conservatives are afraid to declare themselves lest they be blacklisted.
But the nastier reality is that you could be a convicted child molester and Hollywood will work with you if they believe that you can deliver a profitable movie.
asiangrrlMN
@Bill E Pilgrim: Agreed. It’s like how lib’rul the media is in general, yes?
@Steeplejack: Hey! I watch Numb3rs! At least I know how that it’s not real, though, right? I do like the show, and Navi Rawat is hot.
The Populist
Breitbart is an idiot and a very, very big smug elitist.
I am independent, former rightie and I think he’s full of shit. I work in Hollywood and 95% is liberal or Ron Paul type libertarians (in terms of foreign policy and live and let live libertarianism – not the pro-life psycho Ron paul).
Steeplejack
@asiangrrlMN:
Amen on the Navi Rawat hotness factor. There is that.
But, c’mon, that show sucks and blows. The routine mangulation of science is worse than when the Asian CSI lab guy “enhances” a blurry parking-lot security-cam picture to reveal not only the license plate number but the species of bug the car last ran over.
jcricket
Mental deployments has to be one of the most unintentionally hilarious turns of phrase since, I dunno, forever.
Although my first thought when hearing that phrase was he was describing his excessive masturbation habit.
Steeplejack
@asiangrrlMN:
Okay, I’m bitter because I used to watch Numbers myself. (What else is on on Friday night?) I could overlook the bullshit science and most of the plotting because I liked the characters and the actors playing them. But it just seems like over the last season–can’t remember a specific point when I stopped watching–they crossed over into wingnut land because of some decision to make the show “edgier” or something.
asiangrrlMN
@Steeplejack: Yeah, I know. I actually thought the season before last was the weakest and that last year wasn’t so bad. Besides, did I mention Aya Sumika?
I like edgy, though, and the last episode was pretty dang good. I think I also like it because of the diversity.
Steeplejack
@asiangrrlMN:
Damn your eyes, woman! Why must you plague this middle-aged honky with the memory of these hot ethnic babes?! Hot ethnic law-enforcement babes, I might add. It’s enough to make my whitey-white-white head explode. Just the thought of a woman with more vowels than consonants in her name blows my mind.
Susan. Betty. Susan. Betty. Susan. Betty . . .
Anne Laurie
Delia, take my word: If ‘crazy-ass loony’ status disqualified Teh Hot, my family tree would have ended abruptly many generations ago. And not mine alone, either.
Col. Klink
I always liked my Hollywood conservatives smoking hot on the outside, but medium rare inside.
Thlayli
@Brachiator:
This is not a hypothetical, BTW. See “Polanski, R.”
drunken hausfrau
Hollywood is not about ideology — it’s about money. If you make movies that make money, you are “hot.” If not, you are a loser wannabe whining about how liberals are keeping you from making that blockbuster movie — waa, waa, waa.
DougJ
The presence of such cheap, nameless wines is the reason I haven’t wine-blogged yet. Why pay 15 Euros for a good interesting bottle when you can have cheap drinkable stuff for almost free (4.50 a bottle)?
Darkrose
@asiangrrlMN:
Have you seen “Thoughtcrimes”? It was a series pilot that sadly, never went anywhere. Navi Rawat was a telepath, and Joe Flanigan was the NSA agent assigned to work with her. They were not only both hot, but they had fantastic chemistry, and in retrospect, I almost wish that had taken off and the Flan hadn’t gone on to do SGA.
And to tie this into the main thread, Joe Flanigan is a Republican who is hot. I try not to think about the Republican part.
Comrade Baron Elmo
Good gravy… When will right-wingers cease their silly bitching about liberal politics in Hollywood? Even when the GOP was dominating the entire government, one could count on a steady stream of high-octane whine about those mean ol’ Tinseltown lefties and their treasonous refusal to prostrate themselves before conservative values and George Bush.
What is most amusing about Breitbart’s holy crusade is how he rolls out endless boilerplate on the need for conservatives to Take Over Hollywood as if he were the first to dare yearn for such a cultural Eden. Funny – my first thought upon visiting Big Hollywood was “Oh, Lord, not THAT dead horse again,” accompanied by a well-timed upward roll of the eyes.
Why can’t conservatives learn to deal with the cold, hard truth that, in general, artists tend toward left-wing politics? (There are exceptions, of course, but hell – there were Democrats who voted for John McCain.) I’ve never understood this seemingly willful myopia on the part of the right. When was the last time you heard a liberal griping about an excess of Republican investment bankers, or bemoaning the lack of progressive gun store owners?
Second point. The problem with “conservative art,” is that culture created for the specific function of pushing political agitprop – in which the ART is subservient to the POLITICS – tends to be utter crap. Yes, a certain percentage of left-wing culture falls under this rubric (though far less than denizens of the right think)… and for the most part, it is crap as well. (I would cite the Academy Award winning film “Crash” as a particularly obnoxious example of this.) It speaks volumes about Breitbart that he damned the movie “Milk” as nothing more than a leaflet for gay marriage, rather than a portrait of a fascinating, charismatic individual whose flaws are presented as unflinchingly as his virtues.
(Of course, I’m certain that Andrew never sullied his eyeballs by actually WATCHING the film in question. A movie about ho-mo-sex-shuls that doesn’t condemn the lifestyle? Perish the thought – though at least Harvey Milk is appropriately punished for his deviant lifestyle. Maybe some enterprising wingnut computer geek could construct a new ending, where Harvey goes to hell after he dies.)
And much as conservatives love to appropriate works of art and bend them to their needs (the National Review’s “50 Greatest Conservative Rock Songs” is an especially laughable example), it’s rather doubtful that the creators of said works would concur. Despite right wing insistence on seeing “The Dark Knight” and “Gran Torino,” as secret crush notes to George Bush, I’d bet the bank that neither Christopher Nolan nor Clint Eastwood would care to have their creations pigeonholed as “conservative films.” That’s because the intent was NOT to make a piece of right-wing propaganda – it was to make a good movie. (Though it is quite interesting that with “Gran Torino,” Clint has bought his way back into the good graces of the wingnut universe after the much-ballyhooed moral and political shortcomings of “Million Dollar Baby,” and his WWII films.)
But hey, conservatives – don’t let my reservations stay you. Knock yourselves out, let a million right-wing films and TV shows bloom. Only don’t blame the public for avoiding future equivalents of “An American Carol” or “Expelled” or “The 1/2 Hour News Hour” as if they carried typhus.
gex
How can these guys simultaneously laud all these movies for their great conservative themes while loudly whining about how liberal Hollywood is?
If they aren’t going to listen to themselves, why should we? Perhaps they should just shut up.
Laura W
@DougJ:
I’m all about the cheap drinkable stuff! Plus, having never been to Europe, I have fantasies about those intimate little cafes where they plunk down a house wine like a pitcher of water. I’d still be interested in hearing about all that and what the wines taste like, grapes used, etc.
Maybe you should email me? I
mightmust be the only one here who cares.JR
Wait, there are conservatives in Hollywood? To the pitchforks! Round them up and let’s feed them to the mechanical shark at Universal Studios!
—
The thing I most love about conservatives bitching about Hollywood’s liberalism isn’t just that it’s kind of like bitching that Picasso should have been more even-handed when he painted Guernica (“where are the cubist soldiers giving candy to one-armed kids, Pablo? And pluck that flower, you hippie puke!”), but that our side doesn’t really run our Hollywood celebrities for jobs like Governor of California or Manhattan District Attorney (I’m remembering that correctly, right?) or President of the United States. Yeah, Danny Glover and Harry Belafonte like Hugo Chavez and advocate left-wing causes, but they only try to persuade people to agree with them–they don’t try to, you know, gain control of our nuclear capabilities and armed forces. Susan Sarandon doesn’t like the death penalty, but she isn’t trying to run for governor anywhere so she can issue commutations. Really, nowadays the closest thing we have to a Hollywood Liberal with dreams of national domination is Kal freaking Penn.
Persia
@JR: And Al Franken.
David Rayy
He’s married..to a woman? I thought he was dating Matt Drudge!
Jim/The Velvet Blog
Love this bit:
Good lord–talk about out of touch.
JR
@Persia: Ah, yes, forgot that he already spelled out his plan for global domination.