Moral Symmetry in Hollywood

Historian Victor David Hanson writes that Hollywood misunderstands terrorism and terrorists. Or rather in their ultra PC world cling to moral ambiguity.

Spielberg's "Munich" assumes just such a false symmetry between the killers who murdered the innocent athletes and the Israeli agents who hunted them down — each in their own way victimized and caught in a cycle of "perpetual" violence.

Lost in this pop moralizing is the reality of 1972, when none of Israel's neighbors were willing to accept the existence of the Jewish state within even its original borders. Then there was no chance that Israeli agents would storm an Olympic event and murder athletes — but every probability that the Soviet bloc, Western Europeans and Middle East autocracies would never hunt down international terrorists who had done so to Israelis.

Actors, producers, screenwriters and directors of Southern California live in a bubble, where coast, climate and plentiful capital shield the film industry from the harsh world. In their good intentions, these tanned utopians can afford to dream away fascist killers and instead rail at Western bogeymen — even in the midst of a global war against Middle East jihadists who wish to trump what they wrought at the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

If Hollywood wants to know why attendance is down, it is not just the misdemeanor sin of warping reality, but the artistic felony that it does so in such a predictable manner.

He makes a good point. People are not entertained by movies that tell them that the good guys are really the bad guys and so will stay away. People like heroes who fight hard, sacrifice, believe in what they fight for, and overcome hardships, deceit, and betrayal. When movies preach liberalism they lose money, you gotta wonder how long it will be before they realize it.