<<I point out that the few dissenters against our military response hardly pose a danger to our country, the support by the citizenry for our military actions being close to ninety per cent. The only reward for demonizing and attempting to intimidate into silence our fellow Americans is the gratification derived from expressing anger and of course from having found OBL-surrogates to scapegoat. >>
I would point out that a few people posting on an obscure website (and getting more obscure all the time, judging by the declining participation in SI) hardly pose a danger to free speach. And as for "attempting to intimidate into silence our fellow Americans", well I think you are really stretching if you think that this thread is capable of doing that. Perhaps you think that postings on the stock discussion threads on SI are capable of moving markets, too? Would that it were so.
Give it a rest.
Speaking of self-importance, I enjoyed this article in today's paper and thought I would post it here, since silencing dissent from Hollywood has been one of the goals of this thread. (I'm kidding, so ease up)
opinionjournal.com
You Mean Terrorists Don't Read Variety?
Hollywood grapples with its unimportance.
BY ROB LONG
Monday, November 26, 2001 12:01 a.m. EST
LOS ANGELES--Jerry Lewis once bid farewell to a nightclub audience
with this heartfelt prayer: "May all of your friends," he intoned, "be
show business people."
What he meant, I guess, is that show business people--or, in the
earlier jargon, "show people" and in the earliest jargon, "carnival
people"--have uniquely deep and satisfying friendships. As Frank
Sinatra was once overheard saying to a close friend, "I wish that
someone would hurt your family so that I could find that person and
hurt them back."
You see, out here in Hollywood, we like to feel useful. And to be
useful, we must first feel important. But it's hard to feel important
when the biggest terrorist of them all, Osama bin Laden--really, let's
face it, the guy who practically defines the A-list of villains--hasn't had
the common courtesy to so much as name us in a fatwa.
"Of course, the studios are next," a studio executive told me at
lunch, in the days following Sept. 11. "They'll definitely hit one of the
big talent agencies," a big talent agent told me on the phone a week
or two later. "Probably not one of the smaller literary ones, but an
Endeavor, a CAA, yeah, I'm sure they're next," he went on.
"Really?" I asked. "Do you really think al Qaeda reads Variety?"
Eyes were rolled in my direction. "Rob," an entertainment industry
attorney said to me, "everyone reads Variety, okay? Don't be naive."
So the studios barricaded themselves with concrete barriers and
bomb-sniffing dogs, mail was opened and checked for mysterious
powder, and the town braced itself for what was surely going to be the
next wave of attacks. We are, we told ourselves, the single most
influential group of people in the nation. We are the exporters of the
American way of life, the sellers of the American dream, and the
picture postcard image of decadence for every nerdy, dateless Islamic
extremist from Bishkek to Istanbul. When people think of America,
they think of blondes, "Baywatch," and the beach. On the great heap of American society, we're at the top; if America is a
fashionable nightclub, we are very much sauntering in at the front of the line.
I mean, aren't we? Because with the war almost over and the wave of anthrax mailings last week's news, we're suddenly
not so sure that we're on the A-list of people worth murdering. It's impossible to wrap your head around, I know, but
maybe, just maybe, all of our music and television and movies--the collected work product of thousands of talented
people-- is, well, marginal. Irrelevant, even. Nice to have around, but a quiet-now-the-grownups-are-talking type thing.
"I miss Clinton," a development executive at a television network said to me last week. "First off, the guy was always in
town. I mean, he must have spent half of his eight years in L.A. Second, he listened. Really listened. I remember back
then we had a sitcom on the air and one of the actresses on it was really concerned about . . . I don't know, air quality or
something . . . and she marched right up to him and started talking air quality policy stuff to him and he just listened for,
like, half an hour."
It's true. When Bill Clinton was president, we were more than entertainers and campaign contributors. We were policy
makers and deep thinkers. Our ideas on environmental protection and space exploration were sought after by the White
House. Articles were written in important chronicles--well, Vanity Fair, but still--about the "New Establishment" and the
"Powerful Media" and guess what? They were talking about us! We were the New Establishment, and we had the president
in town to prove it. We slept over in the Lincoln Bedroom and had all-night snack and policy fests in the White House
kitchen and got Important Briefings from Important Staffers. It was a glorious time, let me tell you. Even I miss it, and I'm
a Republican.
Not long ago, Karl Rove convened a meeting of Hollywood's top executives to discuss how we could join the war effort. The
days that preceded the event were a blur of furious jockeying for seat placement and wheedling invitations. Hollywood is
prepared, the various executives promised, to support the president and the war effort. But when the meeting was over,
the only concrete outcome was an agreement by the studios to supply first-run movies to our armed forces overseas.
That's it. That's where we are on the food chain these days--somewhere in the middle ranks of Defense Department
suppliers.
In the wake of his masterful handling of Sept. 11, our president has been compared to Shakespeare's Prince Hal, the
callow youth who transforms himself into a warrior king and into the leader of a great nation. In many ways, this
comparison rings true. But what happens to Falstaff, Prince Hal's entertaining and pompous companion? What happens to
the clown when the party hats are put aside for the real and grim business of war?
He sinks to his rightful place, is what happens. And after eight years of Bill Clinton, Hollywood is back where it belongs. At
the great Thanksgiving dinner of American society, we are back eating at the kids' table. Among the not-so-terrible
casualties of Sept. 11, along with Bill Maher's career and Susan Sontag's credibility, we must now add Hollywood's flatulent
self-importance.
Just my luck. Now that we've got a Republican in the White House, I've joined the ranks of the unimportant.
Mr. Long is a writer in Hollywood and a contributing editor of National Review. He is the author of "Conversations With My Agent"
(Penguin, 1998). |
