Conservative Hollywood

Often Derided as Out-of-Touch Liberals, Hollywood’s Biggest Hits Have Been It‘s Most Conservative

Are there any group of words more synonymous with “liberal” than:

• Hollywood
• Elite
• College teachers
• (Somehow) teachers (now)
• Unions
• Artist
• Hippie

Which of these things is not like the other?

I’m not saying all Americans who vote conservative are the devil.

But Republican lawmakers have been doing a very good job of

• making their true intentions invisible:

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• of positioning themselves as victims:

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• and projecting themselves onto others:

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In other words, convincing people of truths that don’t exist.

I’m also not saying that Hollywood isn’t populated by a majority of people who identify as Liberal.

What I am going to argue is that Hollywood is a system, an institution, and the products it creates aren’t as liberal as we are led to believe.

I’m also saying I’m a hack for using “the greatest trick the devil ever pulled…” scene for this article. There are certainly more deserving articles whose use of such a well written bit of dialogue, such a classic scene in film history, spoken by such an alleged pederast, would be much more in keeping with the social import of their topic.

There are institutions – including Hollywood itself – that are invested in the narrative that Hollywood is a liberal bastion.

People in Hollywood who might disagree with the idea that Hollywood is extremely liberal:

• Everyone who tweeted #OscarsSoWhite

• Black screenwriters who want to write black movies

• Asian leading men

• Judy Garland

• Hispanic female directors

• The trans people who literally live in Hollywood

And

• the highest grossing films of every decade

That’s right, the highest grossing films of every decade very strongly disagree with the proposition that Hollywood – as defined by the films it creates – is an entirely Liberal, extremely progressive industry.

The Politics of the Highest Grossing Films By Decade

And A Weirdly Long Diatribe About Bambi I Never Expected to Make

Let’s summarize these classic films with catty single-sentence synopses and decide which side of the aisle won the box office in each of the last 11 decades.

1910s

The Birth of a Nation (1915)

Politics: literally the story of the KKK killing a black man accused of raping a white woman.

The nation being birthed is certainly a racist one.

Safe to say this decade goes to the Conservatives.

1920s

Ben-Hur: A Tale of The Christ (1925)

Politics: A movie where Jesus makes multiple appearances and heals a leper.

Can’t say I’m going to watch this 100 year old movie just for this article so this decade goes to the Christians.

1930s

Gone With The Wind (1939)

Politics: A spicy lady falls in love with a bunch of dudes. Oh, and the South’s cause was just.

The 1930s go to the Conservatives.

Not only the 1930s but the next 25 years because that’s how long this movie was the highest grossing film.

It wasn’t out-earned until 1966 what the fuck.

1940s

Bambi (1942)

Politics: The coming of age tale of an entitled deer.

Not gonna lie, this one is kind of hard to politicize. I’m going to have to really stretch my Liberal imagination to make this one sound conservative.

But check this out: Bambi was Prince, his father was the King of the Forest.

Bambi was in line to inherit the entire forest. He was royalty.

Bambi is the story of an Elite family’s nepotism.

While we’re told the Elite are inherently Liberal, they are not.

In political and sociological theory, the elite (French élite, from Latin eligere, to select or to sort out) are a small group of powerful people who hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege, political power, or skill in a society. 

Wikipedia, baby

The Elite are the group in society that have the most invested in keeping things the same: they literally have more money invested in society because they literally have more money.

The Elite are not who we’re told they are. The right wing media has weaponized the term, and distorted it, to equal extents.

By and large, the Elite are not college professors.

Depending on what type of world political theory you embrace (Elite Theory holding that power is independent of democratic elections), the Elite in America, the people actually making the decisions that impact the most people are:

1) those elected to public office, and

2) those rich enough to influence those elected to public office.

I don’t think any political science worldview would disagree that members of Royal families are in the Elite, or Ruling, Class of whatever society they exist in.

Bambi was next in line for the throne.

That could all be true.

Or, Bambi is just about man’s destruction of the environment which is definitely a Liberal cause no matter how many time Republicans tell me Nixon created the EPA.

I know my argument sounds like a long winded conspiracy theory casting Bambi as a Conservative values infomercial, espousing the merits of generational land wealth and inherited Ruling Class status, while most people would say it’s obviously a film meant to have viewers sympathize with animals and the cause of wildlife conservation, but how much of the movie is actually impacted by Man?

Certainly its biggest turning points are: the death of the UNNAMED mother (women don’t need names bro) and the forest fire, but what are we doing the other 65 minutes (Bambi is only 70 minutes wtf) but watching a story of anthropomorphized nobility?

Humans are the McGuffin of Bambi: props used to move the plot along.

As human-like as the animals are portrayed in this movie, we are supposed to think of them as humans. Otherwise, what the fuck is happening?

Deer are friends with bunnies and they talk?

And, like, how would Bambi ever know that that deer is his dad? His mom can’t talk.

Is it a familial pheromone thing?

How do deer family structures even work?

I’m asking because Bambi taught me nothing about deers.

It’s just western European power structures in a forest – a forest under attack – released at a time (1942) when western European power structures were literally under attack.

The 1940s are at best, a push.

1950s

The Ten Commandments (1956)

Politics: It’s about the ten commandments.

Score another decade for the Christians!

1960s

The Sound of Music (1965)

Politics: An Austrian family escapes the Nazis.

Calling your political rival a Nazi is as American as fighting a war against them.

Released only 20 years after the end of World War II, it’s relatively safe to say Conservative Americans were anti-Nazi when The Sound of Music hit theaters.

However, in our decade, the leader of the Republican party doesn’t disavow Neo-Nazis out of hand.

The 1960s go to America! Or maybe Austria!

1970s

Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope

Politics: A rebel group destroys the big bad empire.

The 70s goes to the Liberals.

But this r/EmpireDidNothingWrong revisionist shit is a different story.

1980s

E.T.: The Extra-terrestrial

Politics: The big, bad, scary scientists who are probably also the government are here to take your alien.

Whether they’re supposed to be the nameless, faceless government, or just scientists in dehumanizing suits (see! our hero walks around the alien and he doesn’t wear those suits!), the government scientists are the bad guys imposing on every American’s right to own our own aliens!

The 1980s go to the Conservatives.

1990s

Titanic

Politics: A movie about young love in 1912, a love divided by class where…the poor one dies.

Hard to get more conservative than that.

Yes, “love transcends class”, is what everyone says the movie is about.

And that is certainly an egalitarian, liberal ideal.

And yes, the female lead defies her stodgy upbringing to find real love with a Poor.

But the cost of transcending that class division is the death of the poor person.

People attacked Bonnie & Clyde for glorifying criminals, a movie whose ending is the grizzly murder scene of said criminals.

People attacked Scarface for glorifying a criminal, a movie whose ending is the grizzly murder scene of said criminal.

Two examples aside, it is a bit of a moral cop-out to do whatever you want for 2 hours and then just kill someone and say, “see! it was anti-that thing that happened the whole movie!”

But the morals of those movies were both defended by their bloody endings (and, you know, the killing of women and kids, etc.) and to analyze a story without including the consequences of its ending is to not analyze it at all.

Yes, Titanic wouldn’t be as good of a story if DiCaprio didn’t die.

And yes, Cameron had to make interesting a story everyone knew the ending to.

But why do we feel the story is more powerful if it ends with Jack dying?

Why didn’t the woman die?

Because it’s more manly for men to sacrifice their lives for women?

Especially when it’s a poor man dying so a rich woman can live?

Because this ending is more honorable? More in-keeping with our values?

And no studio would back the most expensive film in history to date if the youthful woman dies and the cowardly man lives at the end?

Scared money makes money all the time.

The 1990s go to the Conservatives.

2000s

Avatar

Politics: A native people is destroyed by a more technologically advanced society.

James Cameron has 2 of the Highest Grossing Movies of All Time. Not, he has two movies in the Top 10 of the Highest Grossing Movies of All Time.

He has literally made the highest grossing movie in history, twice.

He broke his own record. His stories are our most popular by definition.

Like Titanic, Avatar has us rooting for the underdog only to kill that underdog in a historically accurate, more or less, manner.

Titanic was on Jack and Rose’s side. Avatar is on the side of the Na’vi.

Who a story chooses to have at its center can be the strongest political statement a film has to make. This is why equitable representation in film – our shared stories – is so important.

But the endings to both stories do nothing to challenge our values as a society. They are not as radically progressive as we’re told. They hide behind history the way casting directors hid behind history, with only recent, few exceptions, to not cast diverse actors in historical roles, when Hamilton proves we could’ve been doing it all along.

Why couldn’t the Na’vi win? Because it’s not believable? The story about the blue aliens and avatar technology?

Because it’s a most heart-wrenching story this way?

We’ll give Avatar, and the 2010s, to the Liberals because while its story is not as liberal as we’re told it is, Avatar still makes a powerful case for the values of a native population…of blue, dragon riding aliens.

Not Gonna Touch Endgame

It’s a little too soon to dissect the highest grossing movie of the 2010s, and now, of all time.

What are the politics of superhero movies?

Is Avengers: Endgame progressive because Thanos wants to conserve resources by killing half of the universe?

Is that all it takes to be liberal? Not promoting the murder of half the universe?

“You were going to bed hungry, scrounging for scraps. Your planet was on the brink of collapse. I’m the one who stopped that. You know what’s happened since then? The children born have known nothing but full bellies and clear skies. It’s a paradise.”

Thanos

“Overpopulation is the problem!” tends to be a cry of the fringe, conspiratorial right more than the left, and that perspective ends up (spoiler alert I guess) on the losing end of the…end game.

Or is Endgame conservative because it doesn’t challenge our politics? Because it’s arguably a 4 hour escapist action flick?

Historians usually need at least 10 years before they start weighing in on the meaning, and even outcome, of historical events, and I am certainly not an Historian.

So I’m going to punt for now and sum up the last 100 years:

• 1910: Birth of a Nation. Conservative.
• 1920: Ben-hur: a Tale of Christ. Conservative.
• 1930: Gone With The Wind. Conservative.
• 1940: Bambi. Tie, even though I think I made a pretty good case for Conservative.
• 1950: The Ten Commandments. Conservative.
• 1960: The Sound of Music. Tie.
• 1970: Star Wars. Liberal
• 1980: E.T.. Conservative.
• 1990: Titanic. Conservative.
• 2000: Avatar. Liberal.

5-3 with 2 ties, Conservatives take the century.

All of these movies are too complex to evaluate with a single label – this article could be a dissertation – but it’s important to at least challenge the narratives we’re told, especially when those narratives have elements of truth to them.

Truths like: Hollywood seems to be a place where liberal stories are told more often than conservative ones.

Another truth: the Conservative audience, as seen in its electorate demographics, is more homogeneous than the Liberal audience and electorate.

This means, when Conservatives unite, they really unite and when they unite around a movie or sitcom (Everybody Loves Raymond, 2 and a Half Men, The Big Bang Theory, the most popular sitcoms of the last 20 years) that movie or sitcom becomes the most popular.

Both ideas are true: Hollywood is full of liberals and Conservatives decide its most popular products.

The Hollywood-as-liberal-epicenter narrative should not overshadow the fact that the stories Hollywood tells, and the morals those stories promote, are not as radical as powerful, moneyed interests want us to believe.

Hollywood stories are, after all, American stories.