Political Misinformation: Acting As Though A Thing Were True

About three years ago, writing on another blog, I wrote a post about the leftist skewed politics in Hollywood. Because I think it's still very much relevant, I've revised and updated it.

In my opinion, Hollywood today is the cultural Marxist/Socialist propoganda wing. "Babel," "An Incovenient Truth," and more recently "Capitalism A Love Story" and the technically stunning 3D "Avatar" illustrate this point on a large scale. Many other films support this contention on a smaller scale, featuring brief scenes or bits of dialog that ridicule conservatives, capitalism, the US military or US foreign policy (at least under Republican administrations). The majority of films made in Hollywood today seem to boldly or sometimes subtly say that America is bad. That we degrade, pollute the world. That we oppress people everywhere.

I directed a few plays in my academic career and think I know the difference between "a hawk and a handsaw." I also understand that theatrical acting is an art. Movie acting is also an art. What actors do is take an "untrue" thing (like dialog and action in a scene on stage or in the studio or on location with artificial flats or sets or green screens behind and an audience or a camera in front) and act as if the whole thing were really happening. Nothing wrong with that. As I said. Acting is an art.

But I believe many film actors and the Hollywood establishment in general have become the main tool of the New Left, the cultural Marxists with their "political correctness," "multiculturalism," "diversity," "environmentalism," "economic justice," etc. Their success at this is one reason why the US is in the state it's in today and why we have the current administration in power. The goal of the Hollywood power elite and their political allies is a utopian state of secular bliss which of necessity (and for our own good) must be achieved through strict totalitarian controls. The Audi "green police" super bowl ad satirizing environmentalists isn't unfortunately too far from the truth.



Totalitarian rule, Hannah Arendt argued, is predicated on the assumption that proving that a thing is true is less effective than acting as though it were true.

Is this why the message of many films today is that America is bad? We plunder the world's resources, we oppress minorities of all types, we pollute the earth, etc.

Writers who create the characters in films and TV shows and actors who portray them don't try to prove these things about America. They just "act" as though this message is true. If we see this assumed to be true message enough times, and our children see it, we will eventually come to believe that it is indeed true.

Enjoy the movie if you can, but don't believe this misinformation. Resist. Look through the celluloid. Think.