Posted by
The Undercover Conservative on Friday, November 16, 2007 5:09:38 AM
Well, things must be going awfully well for the Presidential campaign of Senator John Edwards since he can afford to take time off from campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire to fly out to Hollywood to speak to striking screenwriters. I wasn't aware of any liberal Hollywood writers caucus coming up, but apparently Sen. Edwards seems to deem the writers strike a campaign worthy issue. Then again, perhaps the speech which will take place outside NBC Studios Friday is just conveniently on his way to a $200 haircut at Cristoffe in Beverly Hills. We can only speculate.
Maybe Sen. Edwards considers this part of his much touted semi-socialist program to end poverty in America. After all, Hollywood writers love to whine about being, in their own estimation, at the bottom of the Hollywood ladder. They fail to consider the HUNDREDS of crew members such as make-artists to truck drivers who work to put together a TV program or movie. Forget the fact these people only dream of earning a fifth of a typical Hollywood writers salary. Forget the fact that all of these workers are now unemployed right before the holidays due the production shutdown forced by the Writers Guild of America. No, pity the poor writers, who pal around with movie stars and enjoy free Starbucks on the picket line.
And so it is that Senator Jon Edwards has come to the defense of the disenfranchised scribes. I expect his speech will go something like this, "There are two Americas today...the rich Hollywood moguls and the slightly less rich Hollywood writers...those who drive a Rolls Royce and those poor souls who can only afford a Mercedes...those who have a house in Bel Air and a beach house in Malibu vs. those who only have the house in Bel Air." The contrasts are startling. I am just waiting now for Edwards' handlers to announce this visit to the LA as a major policy speech.
We can't be too hard on Sen. Edwards though. He's not the only Democrat to give lip-service to the writers. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have made public expressions of support for the Hollywood writers and demonized the movie studios as modern day robber barons. Indeed, to hear Democrats speak, the typical Hollywood writers' deal is positively Dickensian. In their haste to take up the cause of disaffected screenwriters, however, liberal Presidential hopefuls don't seem to have any problem taking large donations from the "greedy" Hollywood studios they bash publicly. Hillary Clinton accepted substantial donations from Warner Bros. head Alan Horn and Peter Chernin who runs Fox. Sony's Michael Lynton, Universal Pictures' head Ron Meyer as well as Dreamworks' David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg have all held big ticket fundraisers for Barack Obama.
i can only imagine how many liberal Hollywood studio heads are now wondering if it's too late to cancel their checks. This shouldn't surprise them though. For years, Hollywood studios have funneled millions to liberal Democrats with little to show for their investment. Every major studio has bundled big contributions for the Clintons over the past two decades, and yet Bill and subsequently Hillary have virtually ignored issues important to the media industry like media piracy and copyright protection. In fact, President Bush and congressional Republicans have been the most affective proponents of copyright protection and anti-piracy laws oversees. It was Republicans like Sen. Orrin Hatch and President Bush who cracked down on the blatantly illegal downloading of music and movies on Napster.com, not the Democrats.
I certainly won't hold my breath waiting on Hollywood moguls to show any gratitude to Republicans for toughening laws that save major media companies billions in lost revenue due to copyright infringement. Likewise, I don't expect Hollywood studio heads will give Republicans credit for trade policies that have opened up global markets worth billions more to U.S. media companies. No, Hollywood's top executives will continue to praise liberal Democrats and dutifully write the big checks when asked, and Hillary, Obama and the like will continue to mischaracterize our industry leaders as greedy robber barons breaking the backs of wealthy Hollywood screenwriters. It's an odd friendship, but then again, friendship has always been a slightly foreign concept in Hollywood AND Washington.