Re: A Filmmaker Is Murdered, And Hollywood Loudmouths Say Nothing.
tim gueguen
"D. Spencer Hines" <pogue...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:NP5pd.366$Om2....@eagle.america.net...
> "TINSEL TOWN DISPATCH"
>
> "Look Who Isn't Talking
> A filmmaker is murdered, and Hollywood loudmouths say nothing."
This has nothing to do with the military newsgroups. Please cease this and
similar posts at once. Better yet, cease posting, it just makes you look
stupid.
tim gueguen 101867
D. Spencer Hines
"Look Who Isn't Talking
A filmmaker is murdered, and Hollywood loudmouths say nothing."
BY BRIDGET JOHNSON
Wednesday, November 24, 2004
The WSJ
"Since Nov. 2, I've had an icky feeling in the pit of my stomach. As an
ardent Bush backer, my queasiness has nothing to do with the glorious
election results, but is prompted by a murder that occurred the same day
in Amsterdam.
Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh's short film "Submission," about the
treatment of women in Islam, written by female Dutch parliamentarian and
former Muslim Aayan Hirsi Ali, had aired in August on Dutch TV. Van Gogh
was riding his bike near his home when a Muslim terrorist shot him,
slashed his throat, and pinned to his body a note threatening Ms. Ali.
This appears to be an organized effort, not the act of a lone nut; Dutch
authorities are holding 13 suspects in the case.
After the slaying, I watched "Submission" (available online at
ifilm.com) and my mind is still boggled that 11 minutes decrying
violence against women incites such violence. There've been many films
over the years that have taken potshots at Catholics, but I don't
remember any of us slaughtering filmmakers over the offense. You didn't
see the National Rifle Association order a hit on Michael Moore over
"Bowling for Columbine."
One would think that in the name of artistic freedom, the creative
community would take a stand against filmmakers being sent into hiding a
la Salman Rushdie, or left bleeding in the street. Yet we've heard nary
a peep from Hollywood about the van Gogh slaying. Indeed Hollywood has
long walked on eggshells regarding the topic of Islamic fundamentalism.
The film version of Tom Clancy's "The Sum of All Fears" changed
Palestinian terrorists to neo-Nazis out of a desire to avoid offending
Arabs or Muslims. The war on terror is a Tinsel Town taboo, even though
a Hollywood Reporter poll showed that roughly two-thirds of filmgoers
surveyed would pay to see a film on the topic. ******
In a recent conversation with a struggling liberal screenwriter, I
brought up the Clancy film as an example of Hollywood shying away from
what really affects filmgoers--namely, the al Qaeda threat vs. the
neo-Nazi threat. He vehemently defended the script switch. "It's an easy
target," he said of Arab terrorism, repeating this like a parrot, then
adding, "It's a cheap shot." How many American moviegoers would think
that scripting Arab terrorists as the enemy in a fiction film is a
"cheap shot"? In fact, it's realism; it's what touches lives world-wide.
It's this disconnect with filmgoers that has left the Hollywood box
office bleeding by the side of the road.
President Bush wasn't the only one to receive a mandate on Election Day.
Voters showed that they don't give a hoot about celebrity endorsements.
The dollar democracy of the box office has shown for years that those
same Americans are tired of the old shtick. Hollywood hasn't paid
attention to its chronic illness, and now even once-powerhouse Miramax,
under the tutelage of uber-liberal Harvey Weinstein, has been handing
out pink slips. Purse strings are pulling even tighter across town as
studios can't continue to stomach the same flops.
But there is an exciting undercurrent flowing through Hollywood, buoyed
not only by the election but the campaign that highlighted divisions so
oft pointed to by the left. It's something the general public can't see
yet, but will when the talents of the conservative filmmaking movement
in Hollywood--writers, producers, directors and actors--begin to make it
past the distribution hurdle and to the cineplex.
We saw a sneak peek during the campaign: a funny commercial for the Club
for Growth, denoting Kerry's flip-flops with a groom who keeps changing
his mind at the altar and a bomb-squad specialist who can't pick which
wire to cut. The producer was David Zucker, a self-described "Sept. 12
Republican," who made such classics as "Airplane!" and "The Naked Gun."
Meanwhile, loudmouthed liberal celebrities were crucified in the Trey
Parker/Matt Stone comedy "Team America: World Police."
A liberal friend asked me what conservative filmmaking was, envisioning
staid, G-rated pictures. The movement is better described as rebellion
from the Hollywood status quo, the dream of being able to make a feature
film whose political content won't be altered to make the Republicans
evil, in which politically incorrect yet pertinent material won't end up
on the cutting-room floor. It's about having faith in filmgoers that
they'll eagerly support pictures to which they can relate. It's about
creating content for movie houses in the red states as well as the blue.
A month before the election, the Liberty Film Festival in West Hollywood
generated a palpable excitement among conservatives in the industry and
those lining up to catch a glimpse of the flicks. The diverse and hip
crowd joined producers Stephen K. Bannon ("In the Face of Evil"), Lionel
Chetwynd ("Celsius 41.11"), Doug Urbanski ("The Contender"), Mr. Zucker
and others.
One film, by Brain-Terminal.com's Evan Maloney, "Brainwashing 101,"
highlighted attempts to stifle free speech on college campuses. After
the film, an immigrant in the audience who identified himself as Boris
angrily proclaimed, "This is just like Soviet Union!"
Another film, "Relentless," exposed Yasser Arafat's doublespeak in favor
of the destruction of Israel and chillingly showed children on a
Palestinian TV show expressing their desire to be suicide bombers, urged
on by the host--who blew herself up in Jerusalem a week before the
screening.
Movie after movie showed filmmakers on the edge, taking risks, telling
truths that needed to be told. But Mr. van Gogh paid the ultimate price
to make his film, and the ensuing silence of a community purportedly so
interested in free speech is maddening. Agree with the man or not, what
warranted his violent death?
Giving Hollywood the benefit of the doubt, I did one more search to find
industry response to the van Gogh murder. I found the blog of novelist
and screenwriter Roger L. Simon, who confirmed that I wasn't the only
one who'd been wondering: "It's stunning how silent the American
artistic community, Hollywood in particular, has been about the murder
of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh in Amsterdam," he wrote. "Do they even
know what happened to one of their own? Have they even heard of him? Do
they care someone was killed for making a film which protested violent
abuse against women? Are they even interested?"
Earlier this year, I was shopping a script that included Arab terrorist
characters in addition to good Arab characters. Companies were
interested, but after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, a wave of scripts
were returned to me the next week. Confused, I narrowed the potential
culprit down to a small Geneva Conventions joke by one brash character,
and I changed it before sending it out again. The response was
noticeably warmer, but I still encountered some trepidation over the War
on Terror theme.
When I began meeting and networking with other conservative filmmakers,
I put the lines back in the script. I'm not changing it again. Nor will
I compromise my story. It would look pretty silly for European neo-Nazis
to be traipsing around the Pakistani border, anyway."
"Ms. Johnson is a journalist and screenwriter in Southern California."
DaveD|||
Hadn't thought of that, had you? You dolt.