Another one bites the dust

A little while ago I challenged one of the socialist trolls to name a few Hollywood movies that featured fictional Republican politicians as the hero of the movie. As expected, there was no intelligible reply. Largely due to the fact that in Hollywood, Republicans are considered *evil,* while Democrats are the clear good guys.

When this point is raised as evidence that the is a leftist bias in the Hollywood media, often the response is to point out that Hollywood is run by corporations looking to make a buck, and that somehow this means that Hollywood must therefore have a right-wing bias. But the problem is… this is rubbish. Hollywood movie studios are more than happy to crank out movie after movie that they have got to *know* are going to tank, but since the movies feature a left-wing slant… out they come.

A recent example of this is the Sean Penn flick “Fair Game,” which is apparently an alternate history story about how the Bush administration outed Valerie Plame as revenge against her heroic husband providing proof that the Iraqis had no WMD program. Of course, actual facts are that Wilson, by his own admission, sat on his ass and did no real investigating… and Plames identity was outed by Richard Armitage, a career civil servant, not Bush or Cheney. But as Hollywood so often does, reality can’t stand up to the screenwriters.

So, how is “Fair Game” doing? According to Box Office Mojo, as of this writing it has made $6.3 million domestic, $6 foreign, for a total of $12.3 million… with a  production budget of $22 million. By any usual standard, after a month in release, “Fair Game” is a flop.

And it’s hardly the first. The movie theaters have seen their share of “Iraq/Afghanistan War Movies” since 2003. How have they done? Let’s take a look at the numbers from some movies that cast the US as the bad guys, the Bush administration as the bad guys, the soliders as either bad guys or victims of the Evil Republicans:

“Rendition” (2007) Dom: $9.7M For: $17.3 M Budget: N/A ($27.5 M, IMDB)

“Lions for Lambs” (2007) Dom: $15M, For: $48 M Budget: $35M

“Valley of Elah” (2007) Dom: $6.7M, For: $22.8 M Budget: N/A

“Stop-Loss” (2008) Dom: $10.9 M, For: $0.3M Budget: $25M

“Home of the Brave” (2006) Dom: $0.05M(!), For: $0.5M Budget: N/A ($12M, IMDB) 

“Redacted” (2007) Dom: $0.065M(!), For: $0.7M Budget N/A ($5M, IMDB)

“Green Zone: (2010) Dom: $35M, For: $59.8M, Budget $100M

Now, it could be said that perhaps the reason why these movies all tanked was because the public just ain’t interested in “War On Terror” movies. Alright, it’s a worthy hypothesis. Let’s take a look at some other “War On Terror” movies that *don’t* preach about the evils of the US/the Republicans:

“United 93” (2006) Dom: $31.5M, For: $44.8M, Budget: $15M

“World Trade Center” (2006) Dom: $70.3M, For: $92.7M, Budget: $65M

“A Mighty Heart” (2007) Dom: $9.2M, For: $9.8M, Budget: $16M

“From Paris With Love” (2010) Dom: $24M, For: $28.7M, Budget: $52M

“The Hurt Locker” (2008) Dom: $16.4M, For: $32.2M, Budget $15M

“Generation Kill” (2008) OK, a TV Miniseries, so budget numbers are kinda irrelevant. But I understand it got really good ratings.

Now, I may be no lightnin’ calculator, but to my eye it looks like there’s a bit of a difference… the movies that *don’t* wield a leftist agenda like a club at least tended to make their money back. Those that did… didn’t. Or at least tended to do dismal business in the States.

Hollywood is not run by a pack of idiots, despite what some of the evidence shows. The studio heads who sign off on these flicks *tend* to have some idea of what the movie-going public is actually interested in. Take, for example, some relatively non-political Blow Stuff Up flicks:

“Red” (2010): Dom: $86.4M, For: $67.5M, Budget: $58M

“The Expendables” (2010): Dom:$103M, For: $163M, Budget: $80M

“The A-Team” (2010): Dom:$77.2M, For: $99.7M, budget: $110m

“Skyline” (2010): Dom: $20.5M, For: $26.3M, Budget: $10M

People *do* like to watch stuff get all blowed up, so that’s no excuse for Iraq/Afghanistan movies tanking. And when HolLywood does a straight “war movie,” like “Generation Kill” or “Hurt Locker,” it tends to do pretty well.

The point? Hollywood has flushed a vast sum of money down the sewar in order to produce “message movies” with leftist messages. And with evidence that a war movie set in Iraq/Afghanistan (or at least set agains the backdrop of Islamic terrorism) *can* make buckets of money… Hollywood has made shockingly *few* movies of that kind.

Now, back to the challenge I mentioned at the very top of the page: anyone know of a recent (last 20 years or so) movie or even TV show where the hero is explicitly a modern Republican? A bunch can be rattled off where a Dem is the hero… “An American President,” “Dave,” “Independence Day,”  TV’s “24” (all featured heroic – or at least positive – Dem Presidents), “The Contender” and “Shoot ‘Em Up” feature heroic Dems standing up against evil right-wingers. There are numerous others, but I’m bored.