Explaining the Hollywood Left

I found this piece on Big Hollywood a while back and wanted to share it but wasn't able to find the time. So now that I have a few days off I dug it up from their archives. This article from John Nolte does the best job I've ever seen of explaining the Hollywood Left's love affair with tyrannical dictators.

Someone asked a great question the other day: Why is leftist Hollywood so enamored with dictators and socialism? You would think they would fear having their artistic expression stifled under a Castro or having all their wealth confiscated under Hugo’s socialist or communist regime. It seems counter-intuitive, no…? That’s a damn good question but erroneously based on the premise that we’re discussing normal people.

When you and I picture life under Obama’s vision for America, we see a dreary existence spent in breadlines, drab apartments and small jail cells with rat cages strapped to our face conditioning us to say “Herstory” instead of “History.” These Castro-lovers and Polanski-defenders see something completely different.

Watch “The Lives of Others.” Not only is it one of the best films of the decade, it also answers the opening question. You’ll see how life under fascism is the complete fulfillment of every narcissistic desire Susan Sarandon, Barbra Streisand, Oliver Stone, Sean Penn and the rest of their sorry lot has ever had.

Leftist Hollywood is not driven by wealth or artistic freedom, they’re driven by status and the insatiable need to be unconditionally adored. Unfortunately for them, as actors in America, status and adoration is tied to awards and the size of the paycheck – in other words competition and a free market – which they hate. But that’s the least of their worries. All this messy American capitalism forces our favorite artistes into the undignified position of having to beg for money in order to have the millions necessary to watch themselves be all artistic on the big screen, and all this messy American free expression allows people like you and me to criticize and ridicule their hard self-serving work.

Not so under a dictatorship.

The way they see it, with the right dictator, the State would hand them money for film projects and jail anyone who criticized them in print or elsewhere. Hugo Chavez shutting television stations down doesn’t horrify Leftist Hollywood, it makes them giddy.

Certainly the days of the $20 million pay check and multiple homes would be over, but that would come as a relief because status wouldn’t be tied to uncontrollable market forces. There would be no more stressing all weekend hoping those idiot hicks in Middle America make it a box office hit. As long as the State was happy with the product, the State would hand out status like welfare checks in the form of dinner parties, awards, nice apartments and “important” projects.

But what about artistic freedom, you might ask…

These Leftists enjoy complete artistic freedom now and what do they do with it? They flack for the state, undermine liberty and trash religion. All any fascist dictator would have to say is, “Carry on.”

EXACTLY! Hollywood has complete artistic freedom now and they use it to make movies like Rendition, In The Valley Of Elah and Syrania. What would Saddam Hussein have made them do differently?