The Hollywood Disconnect

National Review columnist Jonah Goldberg today makes a point that I've noticed for several years now: For an industry that once churned out war movies by the dozens, Hollywood now seems strangely reluctant to even mention the current war. One would think that with our modern realities of terrorism and war, screenwriters could compose some fairly compelling plots with that source material. Instead, the plotting acrobatics required by political correctness have subjected audiences to increasingly absurd and contrived villians, even by Hollywood standards. For instance, in 2002's The Sum of All Fears, an adaptation of Tom Clancy's greatest novel, the Islamic terrorists of the book were replaced by rich neo-Nazis, because, as we all know, it is the constant threat of skinhead terrorism that dominates headlines today. In the recent remake of The Manchurian Candidate, the communist bad guys were replaced by, you guessed it, evil corporate executives of a company that bore a striking resemblance to Halliburton. Osama who?

The war against Islamic terrorists is the first war in cinematic history in which Hollywood has refused to portray our enemies as, well, our enemies. Fear of being branded "intolerant" is obviously a factor, but it's not as if the film industry can't bring itself to show the horrors of war. Hollywood was not afraid to cast Nazis as the villains during World War II (in fact, Nazis are still the villians), and those crafty commies were often up to no good in Cold War-era films. One of the most refreshing attributes of the otherwise disappointing The Great Raid was its unflinching portrayal of the barbarity of Japanese POW camps. Try making a comparably realistic picture on the atrocities committed by Iraqi insurgents and you'd have a lawsuit on your hands.

But the most convincing evidence that Hollywood is out of touch with America during this war? Left-wing activist Oliver Stone, a friend of Fidel Castro, has been commissioned to direct the first major movie chronicling the events of 9/11. And they wonder why their movies don't resonate with audiences as they once did. Hollywood has always been the land of fantasy, but now it would do well to come back to the real world.