It comes as no surprise that the liberal blogosphere did a collective spit–take over the National Review’s recent list of the top 25 conservative films of the past 25 years (full disclosure: the Buckleyites invited me to comment on one selection).
One lefty blogger wrote, “In the end, right-wingers cannot excape [sic] from the fundamental fact that great art challenges assumptions and received wisdom and calls on us to look at the world with new eyes — and therefore is inherently progressive.”
If true, then the left’s claim on the arts is about to weaken. Because the “assumptions” and “received wisdom” of the Establishment these days are predominantly progressive. After all, who is the Establishment now? No matter your ideology, surely you must agree that there’s nothing more tired and cliche than a “rebellious” artist infusing his work with the same old leftist bromides.
In sputtering reaction to the National Review’s shameless audacity, the Daily Kos, a leading liberal destination on the Interwebs, slapped together their own list of the top 25 liberal movies of the past 25 years. Their number-one choice? That sublime cinematic masterpiece, An Inconvenient Truth.
Interestingly, there was one overlapping title: Brazil, Terry Gilliam’s brilliant dystopian fantasy. Whether one pigeonholes Brazil as a liberal or conservative film probably boils down to whether or not one agrees with Jonah Goldberg’s thesis in Liberal Fascism. (One of the Kos picks, Thank You For Smoking, also earned a National Review honorable-mention.)
Looking over the Daily Kos list, however, one can’t help but notice that it seems relatively humorless (only two, maybe three comedies, versus five on the National Review roll) and didactic (six documentaries and five docudramas). So ask yourself, dear reader: assuming you had the means to watch DVDs, which group of movies would you rather have while stranded on a desert island?