Deadline Hollywood Daily’s Editor-In-Chief Nikki Finke has declared a Red State Alert over the news that documentary filmmaker and Oscar-winner Michael Moore has just been elected to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Board of Governors. She writes, Hollywood-hating conservatives are going to have a field day with this[.] (And predictably the L.A. Times’ Patrick Goldstein knee-jerks with this: You could hear the outcry in conservative quarters from a million miles away[.])
If for no other reason than she saves me from having to spend money on a “Variety” subscription, I love Nikki, but this conservative has no problem whatsoever with Michael Moore being elected to the Academy’s prestigious Board of Governors, because this conservative believes Michael Moore has earned it.
Yes, Michael Moore is a liar, a shameless propagandist and an anti-American leftist of the highest order. But he’s also one helluva talented filmmaker and it would be wildly hypocritical for me to believe or argue that anyone should be blacklisted from AMPAS due to their political beliefs. And that’s the only reason I could possibly use to argue against this appointment.
In the medium of documentary filmmaking, Michael Moore is one of the very best at what he does, no more or less accomplished than Kathryn Bigelow, who was also elected this year. No more or less accomplished than the other Governors.
We Hollywood-hating conservatives are not the ones looking to hold people back based on their political beliefs. If I have an argument with AMPAS it’s not that they should blacklist Michael Moore, it’s why not elect Jerry Bruckheimer, Jon Voight, Michael Moriarty, or Robert Davi to this board? For they are also no more or less accomplished than many of the others.
I’m sorry to disappoint those looking for outrage over Michael Moore’s new gig, but we’re not the blacklisters here. I despise everything Moore stands for just as much as the Left surely despises everything Jon Voight stands for. But a blacklist is a blacklist is a blacklist.
Big Hollywood will fight Moore in the arena of ideas and expose him as the liar he is any day of the week, and relish it. But my frustration with his agitprop — especially the fact that he’s good at it — isn’t about to turn me into what disgusts me.
UPDATE: Commenter shinsnake says it better than I could….
Difference between them and us: they fight for power, we fight for balance. They fight for submission, we fight for freedom. No one cares that Michael Moore is a tool of a lying leftist filmmaker. We only aim to point out his lies, not to silence them. There’s no doubt he’s talented. He’d have to be to make his propaganda seem interesting and truthful.
I think that’s the single biggest thing people misunderstand when us crazy, right wing, conservatives rail against America-hating Hollywood. We’re not saying they shouldn’t be able to say what they want. We’re merely saying why they’re wrong. And we argue that they shouldn’t keep conservatives out of the conversation. People don’t seem to get that.
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