If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or email alerts. Thanks for visiting!
Jonah Goldberg has a path-breaking theory on why American are in fact not anti-war as many of the polls seem to show us. To be fair, it was a concept first floated around by that conservative big-daddy, Instapundit. The A-est of A-list blogger in fact is a libertarian in disguise but none of his minions seem to realize it as long as he sprouts inanities like Islamic fundamentalists are baaad and they get to cream their pants. Easy to convince these right wingnuts. Anyway, I digress. The new theory is not based on a Fox News opinion poll but in fact something more scientific, the Hollywood box-office.
Let me explain, it seems that the Iraq War is finally percolating down to the movie-making moguls who seem to have gotten over their World War II and Vietnam War nostalgia. We are seeing a plethora of so-called anti-war movies like Rendition, Lions for Lambs, The Kingdom, In the Valley of Elah. Unfortunately, they are tanking at the box office. So Jonah gets up one night, reads this musing by Instapundit and instantly pens an editorial column that takes care of his weekly paycheck and reveals his mind-numbing stupidity. So the question Americans ponder on a Friday evening is, hmmm…let me see what movie best adheres to my political belief and go out and spend an extraordinary sum of money to watch it. Fox & Friends, that crazy morning show urging another war and narrow-mindedness continues to push the theory that Lions for Lambs flopping says more about Americans sentiments on war than any opinion poll. To know how America-friendly they are, they also feel let down that 24 is not real and suitcase nukes may not exist.
Of course, the fact that the movies may not be well made or are simply rushed to cash in on the hype may not be a reason, according to Jonah. He further says that although Americans might be anti-war, they don’t want to be seen as such and I might add, it even disturbs their shopping since they are out doing exactly as their President told them to. If you never watched the news channels, you would never realize America is at war. The only war most are aware of is between Britney and K-Fed.
Even if we assume people are greatly opinionated about war, Jonah fails to note that people might in fact be anti-war but may not choose to go out and watch all the anti-war movies out there regardless of the fact that they are being made by “award-winning” filmmakers. If the MPAA is to be believed, the reason people are not going out to watch movies is because of those bastard Bittorrent downloaders while more reasonable people attribute the declining quality of not only movies but also the theaters and concession stands. Hollywood is as business-minded as it can get. The studio heads aren’t gonna invest in movies that they know will tank.
In fact, Jonah even offers one such reason. Hollywood studios are less reliant on U.S. audiences and are in fact pandering to their global audiences who are strongly infused with the anti-U.S. sentiment right now (Bollywood seems to be experiencing the opposite trend). So well, what is the problem? Are businesses supposed to be patriotic even if it means that affects their bottomline. Isn’t this the country or rather the political wing that preaches that let the market decide. Perhaps they have a caveat that it should not be a global market but just the U.S one. Nah! too late for that, you opened the gates now ‘bear’ (enjoy?) the consequences. Hollywood has already realized that their market no longer ends at the U.S. borders but in fact stretches to some dingy theater in Shanghai as well.
Now since I along with a great majority of this world, believes in and loves to watch sinking ships and drowning people, let me go and watch Titanic again.
by Patrix | on Monday, November 12th, 2007 at 1:23 pm | 
Current Affairs, Movies, United States . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.
November 12th, 2007 at 3:51 pm reply
Right wingers never look more foolish than when they apply a lens on popular culture. Applying a lens on pop culture was for the longest time the job of underemployed English dept types, and no one does a good job of it.
But frankly, if you think overseas audiences would care about snoozefests like “Lions for Lambs”, you’ve got another thing coming. Even Cruise’s presence can’t rescue that one.
Frankly I’m surprised no one has mentioned the most obvious reason for these films’ release now — Oscar season. And the fact that there’s a good deal of copycat-ism in commissioning movies in Hollywood — that’s why you get pairs like Antz/Bugs Life, Deep Impact/Armageddon and Dante’s Peak/Volcano.
November 12th, 2007 at 4:05 pm reply
Prasenjeet, True. And you are right about Oscar season. Initially I was looking forward to the movies but the Tomatometer suggested otherwise. So as much as a war critic that I am, I’m not gonna waste my hard-earned money on a badly made movie just because it is made on a premise that I agree with.
On a related note, making movie previews is an art they have perfected now. They just make you want to watch all the movies :)