conservatives Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Over at Moviefone's Inside Movies blog, a lively discussion is going on about animated family films. Jason Newman is concerned that many recent movies like Wall-E, Battle for Terra and the upcoming Astro Boy may be presenting young audiences with a hidden left-wing agenda.

I've watched a fair number of children's films for someone who has no kids of her own, and I'm not seeing the "blatant socialist themes" to the extent Newman is. For one thing, I disagree about Wall-E. Saying that Wall-E promotes liberalism is insulting to conservatives, as though they are the equivalent of the slothful humans on the spacecraft. "Don't be wasteful" isn't a liberal agenda, it's something most parents try to teach their kids. Astro Boy won't be in theaters until Oct. 23, so I can't say if it really contains "Marxist" themes and story elements. However, Newman says these story elements are played for laughs, and it strikes me that laughing at Communism is traditionally a right-wing practice.

Can a horror movie have a political agenda? Well, that was the question I asked myself after reading '15 Horror Movies Socialists Could Love''. So as I started to think back to all the hacking and slashing I'd seen over the years, I looked for some some pattern or connection between what I choose at the box-office and what I do at the polling station -- and what did I come up with? Well, I'll get to that, but first I wanted to take a moment to look back at some of the films that have gained a reputation with critics and fans alike as movies with a so-called conservative or liberal state of mind:

'Red State Horror':

Friday the 13th (1980)
Conservatives supposedly love this movie because it's all about no-good kids getting what they deserve. Sexy teens don't stand a chance in this franchise from the moment they take a drink, get high, or get naked. Plus, it's one of the few horror films with a moral about the importance of a good work ethic.

Frankenstein
It's science vs. religion in the story of a man who presumes to know more than God...and I think we all remember how that turns out.

Lost Boys
Family values are all over this one, and when a divorced mom pays more attention to a her love life than her two sons, look what happens. So even with a pot-smoking grandpa, plenty of critics agree that this film is all about Regan's America and the triumph of family over no-good, rock n' roll loving, motorcycle-driving youth gangs.

Tremors
2nd Amendment fans praise this tale of a band of locals fending off giant worms and the gun-toting survivalists that help save the day -- Take that Brady Bill!

Check out the rest at HorrorSquad!

Hollywood isn't known as a place for a 'conservative' frame of mind. I think Sean Penn reminded us of that quite nicely during his Oscar acceptance speech when he endearingly referred to the crowd of tinsel-town elite as "You Commie Homo-Loving Sons of Guns". But that doesn't mean our Red-state friends don't like to go to the movies just as much as their liberal brethren -- so what's a Conservative to do? Well, the National Review has come to the rescue and compiled a list of The Best Conservative Movies. And how does a movie arrive on such a list? According to NR, "Conservatives enjoy these films because they are great movies that offer compelling messages about freedom, families, patriotism, traditions, and more" -- because I guess it is impossible for someone with Liberal political views to care about those things. So even though the political leanings of the cast and crew reportedly did not come into play for the list, I'm not sure I believe the addition of David Mamet's The Edge wasn't inspired (if only a little) by the filmmakers political 180 earlier this year.

Now for the list itself, well, there are the obvious choices like Red Dawn, 300 and The Dark Knight that are praised for their themes featuring individuals fighting against a terrorist, invading hoards, and a chorus of naysayers (sound familiar?). But the rest of the list isn't so obvious, and there are some weird selections in the bunch. Juno was noted for being pro-life (but punished for its heroines "unrealistic level of self-confidence"), Brazil for its tale of bureaucracy run amok, Groundhog Day for promoting small town values, and The Incredibles was even noted for bringing a little Ayn Rand back to the kiddie set. Personal politics aside, I have to wonder just what, exactly, some of these people were on when they included Ghostbusters on the list (I know, I know, an EPA guy is a bad guy, but c'mon, leave Dr. Venkman out of this).

A couple of people have been griping about Wall-E director Andrew Stanton's refusal to admit that his cute little movie about a robot in love actually contains some pretty upfront green politics, but there's a far more polarizing reference in the film than its harmless pro-environment agenda. It's no major plot spoiler to reveal that, about an hour or so into the story, Fred Willard appears in a recorded message as the mysterious president of Earth's corporate government and orders the ship's captain (Jeff Garlin) to "stay the course." Wait, we've heard this one before: It was the go-to statement used by the Bush administration for about three years or so when describing its modus operandi in Iraq (the term was abandoned when staying the course started to sound like a bad idea). In Wall-E, the context is quite different -- it's an order to not do something, rather than take action -- but hard to ignore nonetheless.

Certain critics with (surprise!) conservative slants have taken issue with this. At Dirty Harry's Place, John Nolte expresses his disappointment in the first paragraph of his review: "Have we lost the wonderful studio who brought us The Incredibles and Ratatouille to Bush Derangement Syndrome?" he asks. New York Post critic Kyle Smith picked up the rant and decided to write his own, even though he hadn't seen the film yet: "This kind of crack, lame as it is, also breaks the spell of the movie by hurling you out of the theater and back into reality."

Complete the following sentence: "I do the dance, trying to figure out who the fellow ______ are when we're all afraid to speak up."
(a) Closeted homosexuals
or
(b) political conservatives?

If you picked (b), you're a winner! Looks like filmmaking isn't just for pinko lefty radicals after all: conservative groups are getting in the game with film festivals, distribution companies, and even night clubs. (Hey, we all need a place where we can feel safe.) What with the liberal agenda in filmmaking (didn't you know Carrie was all about how kooky Christianity turns little girls evil?) some conservative groups want to take back Hollywood. Others, not so much. They, like writer/producer Larry Gelbart (M*A*S*H, Tootsie) simply admit that lefties are better filmmakers.