I love it that Leigh Scott agrees with me.
It takes a healthy dose of cynicism, a dash of historical ignorance, and a lot of gullibility to fully embrace modern statist rhetoric. Hollywood drinks the kool-aid by the gallon. Yet, in their pursuit of good story telling and their aspirations towards art, they more often than not end up making really good conservative stories.
When you get right down to it, the reason there are so few “conservative” films out there is because most films are inherently conservative. Any film that champions the rise and strength of the individual is conservative. Any story that tells of the triumphs of good over evil is conservative. The subtext of films that resonate, films that capture our imaginations, are based on the romantic ideals of conservative thought.
We all know the classic romantic comedy formula. Boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. The backbone of this formula is individual achievement. Note that it isn’t boy meets girl, then boy gets government to force girl to be with him in the interest of “fairness.”
Of course, it's not like I needed validation. I knew I was right.
The Gunslinger, EOTIS
Para Bellum
Any depiction of what is Good, Beautiful and True, will necessarily, to that extent, be in opposition to leftist thought; a simple glance at what passes for the ideals of Modern 'art', whether visual, aural, sculptural or literary, will show that to be true.
ReplyDeleteThe 'art' that the leftist enthuses about, is always concerned with moral failing, crude behavior, the more blatant the better, and violent, coarse, interactions. If you look at those movies that seem to be movies of triumph that seem to be exceptions to that, you'll find that the part the left enthuses about, will be where the central character is opposing some cultural norm such as manners, decency, beauty, truth, which they've cast as being mindlessly old fashioned, traditional, or shallow, while their leftist ideal is cast as being rebellious and sensible (in a pragmatic way), which produces 'good' and almost certainly very physical pleasures, which are uncritically presented as justification enough for their being acceptable and desirable.
Leftist 'art', is concerned with presenting in your face Ugliness, raw, 'naturalistic', unprincipled behavior (unless it is concerned with behavior that is unprincipled on principle (some form of pragmatism)), emotional passion over reasoned response - these are the ideals of the left - and whether you look at the matter from a religious or a secular view, sorry, but it is at its core, evil.
The problem the leftist faces, as you noted, is that to tell a story that Joe American will recognize as a Story, it must have a discernable plot, a Hero, and something the Hero overcomes. The ideal leftist movie, or story, will be just pointless stuff happening, without any clear plot, and with a central character (anti-hero), who is deeply flawed, and which ends with no sense of satisfaction for the viewer or reader. "The Good Girl", with Jennifer Aniston, was a relatively benign example of this. And unless they've found some new way to be startling and shocking, they generally make zilch at the box office.
Along the lines of what you said, I think what set the left back in the eighties, more than most anything else, was movies like Star Wars! Good guys in white doing heroic deeds, bad guys in black being cruel & heartless, and the good guys winning! Wham Bam, suddenly wimpy anti-hero's like Dustin Hoffman were chucked to the curb, and then with more like Indiana Jones, etc... look back at the commentary by the full lefties... they were horrified by it all!
It's kinda funny, one of the lefts biggest strongholds, Hollywood artist types, is fully undermined by their desire to tell good stories, do them well, and make megabucks doing so.
Gotta love good comedy!
One of my favorite examples is the original Matrix.
ReplyDeleteCouldn't be a more perfect example of the individual versus the collective; risking it all, willing to live a life decidedly less comfortable, safe and agreeable for the sake of TRUTH and FREEDOM.
Did you ever notice that the "open your eyes" pill was the RED one...and the "stay asleep, ignore reality and remain a slave" pill was the BLUE one?
Even the execrable "V" (the movie) with all the heavy handed attempts to label the "Right Wing" State the tyrannical enemy...(and celebration of terrorism) was about individuals fighting an oppressive government—Hollywood being unable to grasp that that is the very definition of the Conservative position.
They get it in their gut, but they consistently mislabel their sides and mis-define their terms.
The "Men of the West" motif of Lord of the Rings must have driven them crazy...once they understood it.
Thought the same...there are a few actors who play roles in movies with the above subtext,then you hear them spout the usual pc lines in interviews. If they're NOT in lockstep-groupthink with the Flake Fringe,they have to be cagey,like Gary Sinise...
ReplyDeleteOdd contradiction,that...Hollywood "culture" is all about individual freedom if it pertains to sex and drugs lifestyles,yet the "party line" spiel is to advocate minding other people's business as to energy consumption,cigarette-smoking,how-to-raise-your-child,etc. OF COURSE,they exempt THEMSELVES from the Rules.THAT'S their hypocrisy...
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