What Conservatives Need to Know About Hollywood

When I was trying to make my first little documentary, subtly entitled “Michael Moore Hates America,” I begged for money. Nothing new there, as begging for money is as much a part of life for independent filmmakers as it is for the myriad windshield washers or single-rose vendors that relentlessly approach my gas-guzzling SUV whenever I pull onto an offramp in any major city. I was turned down… a lot.

One night, I sat in a room in New York where I’d been invited to do a dog and pony show for the vast right wing conspiracy, including four of the nation’s billionaires. I made my little speech and showed them a trailer which I’d ably culled together from the hours of footage I’d already shot (and which was unknowingly financed by Mastercard). I made a great pitch. More than a few of the people in the room approached me to tell me that they thought it was awesome. “This is really what we need. I hope you can find the money,” was the quote of the night. But, alas, conservatives have ventured as far as AM radio and the book store when it comes to imparting their ideas into pop culture. And it seems the movement fears trying new things about as much as it fears Obama’s tax policy.

Hollywood doesn’t like us to begin with – even those of us who are hardcore libertarians and don’t automatically identify with the GOP or social conservatism. They don’t like our pro-American, pro-liberty, self-interested way of life, and they certainly don’t think our ideas would work on film. There is a an old-hat idea that speaking truth to power (especially when the power is a rich old white man or evil corporation) is what makes for the most compelling films. It’s a tried and true formula. And despite its self-aggrandized reputation for creativity and artistic risk-taking, Hollywood thrives on formulas. Hell, they can tell you by noon on Friday what a movie will make over a weekend, because there are teams of people who spend their lives figuring out the formula. But I digress.

The truth about the “conservative film movement” that was whispered about a few years ago is that it doesn’t exist yet. I mean, unless the films involve Jesus getting the living shit kicked out of him, conservatives haven’t proven to be a reliable audience when it comes time to hit the theaters. It doesn’t help that there are a few conservative film festivals that show more speeches on DVD than compelling, emotional films, simply because they think about ideology before entertainment.

What conservatives need to know about Hollywood is that a filmmaker’s first job is to entertain people. To make them laugh, cry, be inspired… to feel. Ideology is secondary to entertainment… which is why they call it the entertainment industry and not the ideology industry (the latter resides across the country in DC). Some people on the right even went so far as to tell me that because my movie got “two thumbs up” from Ebert & Roeper and laudatory reviews in the trades, that we must’ve cowed to “Liberal Hollywood.”

The trick to transforming the very real liberal bias in Hollywood is to change the formula that Hollywood uses by finding AND FINANCING films and television projects that engage people emotionally first and speak to ideology second. If they watch our stuff and walk out of the theater not feeling ripped off, we’ve done our job. If they think about our message, that’s simply a bonus. Check out Adam Sandler’s “Click” for a tutorial on what I mean. It’s a high-concept story that is both funny and poignant with enough star power to draw a crowd. And in the end, the message is about being responsible for your decisions and putting your family before your career… a family values film that sold tickets and lots of DVDs.

And if we do care about our ideology, we’ll definitely need to stretch our comfort zones. Penn Jillette said “Fuck” 14 times in my movie. The 55 year-old mother of grown children at the MPAA cringed as she read the list of vulgarities that earned us an R rating. Yet there was a conservative preacher in the audience at one screening deep in the heart of Texas who told me that she didn’t like the language, but liked the message, so she was willing to suffer Penn’s foul, filthy mouth. We need more attitudes like that if we really want to change the culture.

If you want to make a long-term impact in pop culture about the potential of the individual, about freedom and responsibility, about the greatness of the United States of America, we need to quit trying to make two-hour speeches on film and start telling stories that make people feel things. There are plenty of Michael Wilsons and Evan Coyne Maloneys (the genius behind “Indoctrinate U”) out there, just waiting to do stuff that matters. We just need your trust and the chance to beg for your money. Maybe you won’t be the one to hope someone else writes a check.