I just read at Powerline (a conservative blog) that a movie is being made about Margaret Thatcher. Unfortunately, our open-minded, tolerant friends in Hollywood have apparently decided to make Thatcher in their own image, as an imbecile.
Hollywood has a revolting habit of patting themselves on the back for their “bravery” and “speaking truth to power,” but most of what they churn out is nothing of the sort. It’s more akin to Joseph Goebbels’ role in the Nazi regime.
Hyperbolic? Maybe, but like Goebbels, Hollywood and other “mainstream” pop culture media specialize in character assassinations of those who aren’t on board with their stripe of politics; essentially, anyone to the right of Olympia Snowe.
In the topsy-turvy American leftwing media oxymoronic world, a racist, murdering homophobe is a noble and tragic figure, while the duo that brought the Soviet Union to its knees are soulless buffoons. Maybe it has something to do with Marxism and the left’s religious belief that it will bring “social justice” and Utopia to earth, all the while denying they’re Marxist.
Anyone to the left of Lenin, however, is sure to be the subject of some hagiographic memoir that makes you laugh, cry, sing and cheer (Che Guevara, Harvey Milk, Frida Kahlo, and on and on and on). I know the media’s propaganda has been quite effective, particularly over time as reality morphs with each nail the media pounds into the coffin it’s preparing for certain conservative figures year after year.
For instance, I have conservative friends who tell me that Newt Gingrich is not a viable presidential candidate. They say he’s “damaged goods,” but usually have nothing to back this up other than dredging up Gingrich’s affair. I think my friends’ negativity about Gingrich has more to do with the constant barrage of negative press Gingrich received when he was Speaker of the House, and the implication that if he wasn’t simply a lunatic, then he was “extreme”.
Gingrich was targeted by the media, Alinsky style. The media created a hobgoblin image of him that even conservatives bought into following years of unrelenting negative press. The “news” media use innuendo while the pop media bolster the innuendo with lies and distortions. Today’s news cycle is very predictable: CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, The Washington Post, NPR, etc., etc., yada yada, imply through their reporting that the Tea Party is full of racist homophobes, then the bulk of Law & Order‘s episodes are devoted to bringing the white male Christian serial killer to justice, Jon Stewart devotes half his show to smirkily deriding the Tea Party, Janeane Garofalo prattles on and on about how it’s all about “hating a black man” and so on and so forth until the American public is duped into believing it’s all true.
So, while the news media in the ’80s subtly portrayed Thatcher and Reagan, for instance, as heartless demagogues by placing greater emphasis on certain aspects of society that have always been with us (homelessness), the pop media characterize them as doddering old fools who end up regretting their role as monsters.
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