Carrie: radical leftist agenda, or just plain scary?

Do you think John Ford was a "lefty?" Orson Wells, arguably the greatest director of our time, said he watched John Ford's STAGECOACH over and over to learn to make movies. Steven Spielberg watches THE SEARCHERS before he directs every film to remind himself of what greatness is. THE GRAPES OF WRATH, THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE, & many more. Guess what? A conservative made them. Do you actually think art is exclusively for liberals? When I hear liberals write things like this, I get embarrassed for my party. It's not well-researched. Look, I've been a liberal all my life but, do you actually believe that or were just trying to funny?

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The author asks you to put the liberals on the left column and compare with the conservatives on the right and it is simple to see that the liberals are better filmakers. I think it is simply because conservative people aren't as interested in the arts as liberal folks are. Therefore there will be more liberal filmmakers than conservative.

I do believe there is more overt hostility to conservatives. At least I read about more nasty comments directed toward the right. Perhaps the conservatives are just more discrete.

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It’s bigotry. This is the exactly the kind of myopic devisiveness that is currently dividing our country. Many liberals are shocked when they discover that talented individuals such as Dennis Hopper and David Lynch are conservatives. As I said, I'm a liberal. Always have been. But I have... let's see... a gay republican friend, a lesbian republican friend and an A-list screenwriter friend who's conservative. All very against stereotype. They constantly remind me to not make generalizations about complex issues. Here’s a simple test: Take that last sentence—"They, like writer/producer Larry Gelbart (M*A*S*H, Tootsie) simply admit that lefties are better filmmakers-- and replace the word "lefties" with the word "white." It would read—"They, like writer/producer Larry Gelbart (M*A*S*H, Tootsie) simply admit that whites are better filmmakers. It’s bigotry. Pure and simple. We are ALL citizens of this country.

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The problem is that conflict, especially moral conflict, is interesting. When you have Americans making movies about how America is great, that's not as gripping. The stories about where we went wrong somehow (Apocalypse Now, Black Hawk Down, Mississippi Burning, etc.) are ultimately going to be more visceral and entertaining. When I think of examples of the opposite, where America and its might are right, all I can think of are a bunch of bad 80's action movies.
I also feel like cinema is doing what it's supposed to do when it criticizes the establishment. That's been the role of the arts for centuries and centuries.

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