HOLLYWOOD LOVES DICTATORS
By - Laura Ingraham
In Hollywood films, the bad guys usually lose. They aren't celebrated.
They aren't deified. The good guys don't engage in endless "dialogue" as
innocents are killed and tortured. The heroes are the ones who fight hard
and triumph over evil. Hollywood just doesn't make films exalting leaders
who torture or kill their own citizens.
At least it didn't until Oliver Stone spent some time in Cuba, hanging
with Fidel.
Coming this May on HBO, is Stone's documentary "Commandante," about the
life of Fidel Castro. Jake Tapper of Salon.com reported on Stone's
softball session with reporters recently at the Sundance Film Festival.
"I thought he was warm and bright," said Stone of his amigo nuevo Castro,
"He's a very driven man, a very moral man. He's very concerned about his
country. He's selfless in that way."
Yet does Stone, for a moment, ever think about what would happen to a
Cuban filmmaker who tried to produce a glowing film about President Bush?
Does he think about Castro's jails teeming with prisoners whose crime was
not thinking properly? Of course not. That would divert energy from a
more important task-savaging American foreign policy.
It's easy to write off much of what comes out of the mouths of Hollywood
leftists. They repay the country that made their wealth and privilege
possible by trashing her traditions and institutions. They side with
countries that resent us, and trust dictators like Saddam or Fidel more
than the American voters or the President they elected.
The school-girl crushes that so many among our cultural elite have on
dictators is nothing new. Stalin was a favorite of many New York
intellectuals in the '20s. Jane Fonda cuddled up to Ho Chi Mihn.
American liberals pushing unilateral disarmament 25 years ago thought the
Soviet Union's didn't have the intentions of an "evil empire," but worried
about what Reagan might do. Now these same people are taking field-trips
to Baghdad and Havana so that they may come home and educate us.
Hollywood's more vocal anti-war crusaders--Susan Sarandon, Martin Sheen,
Sean Penn, George Clooney, Sheryl Crow, Madonna and Dave Matthews--want
America to know that they are concerned for "the children." But what
about the children of Iraqi dissidents who are routinely flogged and
beheaded by Sadam's secret police? These same celebrities rally around
slogans such as "girl power." Yet Iraq's women are treated like property,
not partners. These celebrities are for gay rights. But gay pride in
Iraq is punishable by death. These stars say they're for the environment.
But a retreating Saddam set fire to the Kuwaiti oil wells at the end of
the Gulf War.
All that, of course, is America's fault.
Being hopelessly liberal and out of touch with the rest of the country
isn't anything new for the entertainment industry, but this new strain of
anti-Americanism is. Essentially, they believe that in our
"interdependent world," America should start acting, well, less American.
We should stop playing the "superpower" role. (Leave that to Tobey
McGuire or Keanu Reeves.) We should start taking on "more mature" roles,
and model ourselves after the sensible countries in Europe.
Stone's deification of Castro is especially sickening, even by his
standards. Yet so far Hollywood is silent on Stone's glossing over
decades of Castro's bloody repression.
By - Laura Ingraham
In Hollywood films, the bad guys usually lose. They aren't celebrated.
They aren't deified. The good guys don't engage in endless "dialogue" as
innocents are killed and tortured. The heroes are the ones who fight hard
and triumph over evil. Hollywood just doesn't make films exalting leaders
who torture or kill their own citizens.
At least it didn't until Oliver Stone spent some time in Cuba, hanging
with Fidel.
Coming this May on HBO, is Stone's documentary "Commandante," about the
life of Fidel Castro. Jake Tapper of Salon.com reported on Stone's
softball session with reporters recently at the Sundance Film Festival.
"I thought he was warm and bright," said Stone of his amigo nuevo Castro,
"He's a very driven man, a very moral man. He's very concerned about his
country. He's selfless in that way."
Yet does Stone, for a moment, ever think about what would happen to a
Cuban filmmaker who tried to produce a glowing film about President Bush?
Does he think about Castro's jails teeming with prisoners whose crime was
not thinking properly? Of course not. That would divert energy from a
more important task-savaging American foreign policy.
It's easy to write off much of what comes out of the mouths of Hollywood
leftists. They repay the country that made their wealth and privilege
possible by trashing her traditions and institutions. They side with
countries that resent us, and trust dictators like Saddam or Fidel more
than the American voters or the President they elected.
The school-girl crushes that so many among our cultural elite have on
dictators is nothing new. Stalin was a favorite of many New York
intellectuals in the '20s. Jane Fonda cuddled up to Ho Chi Mihn.
American liberals pushing unilateral disarmament 25 years ago thought the
Soviet Union's didn't have the intentions of an "evil empire," but worried
about what Reagan might do. Now these same people are taking field-trips
to Baghdad and Havana so that they may come home and educate us.
Hollywood's more vocal anti-war crusaders--Susan Sarandon, Martin Sheen,
Sean Penn, George Clooney, Sheryl Crow, Madonna and Dave Matthews--want
America to know that they are concerned for "the children." But what
about the children of Iraqi dissidents who are routinely flogged and
beheaded by Sadam's secret police? These same celebrities rally around
slogans such as "girl power." Yet Iraq's women are treated like property,
not partners. These celebrities are for gay rights. But gay pride in
Iraq is punishable by death. These stars say they're for the environment.
But a retreating Saddam set fire to the Kuwaiti oil wells at the end of
the Gulf War.
All that, of course, is America's fault.
Being hopelessly liberal and out of touch with the rest of the country
isn't anything new for the entertainment industry, but this new strain of
anti-Americanism is. Essentially, they believe that in our
"interdependent world," America should start acting, well, less American.
We should stop playing the "superpower" role. (Leave that to Tobey
McGuire or Keanu Reeves.) We should start taking on "more mature" roles,
and model ourselves after the sensible countries in Europe.
Stone's deification of Castro is especially sickening, even by his
standards. Yet so far Hollywood is silent on Stone's glossing over
decades of Castro's bloody repression.
