Re: Look Who Isn't Talking
Ron Hinds
Murray...
"Murray O'Donnell" <mod...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:Xns95AB54E8...@69.28.186.158...
> Look Who Isn't Talking
> A filmmaker is murdered, and Hollywood loudmouths say nothing.
>
> BY BRIDGET JOHNSON
> Wednesday, November 24, 2004 12:01 a.m. EST
>
> 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 à
> 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 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.
>