Selecting the stupidest liberal messages in movie history is sort of like trying to pick the world’s most annoying rapper – the competition is intense. There are just so many candidates, and they each suck so badly in their own unique way.
Any attempt to pick the worst of the worst is bound to disappoint someone. This list by no means contains all of the hackneyed, parochial, and just plain obnoxious bits of liberal received wisdom that the Hollywood brain trust has spewed forth over the years. For every nitwit insight on the list, there are dozens more floating around the nether reaches of Netflix, waiting to annoy the unwary. No doubt the commenters will find many more.
So, here my top ten in no particular order:
1. “All American Soldiers are psychos.” – Platoon (1986)
It’s pretty obvious that the American soldier is the greatest force for evil in all of human history – or it would be, if all you watched were post-Vietnam War Hollywood movies. It seems that to most of the hacks in Hollywood, the mere act of donning an Army uniform turns you into a bloodthirsty killing machine with an appetite for murder. And that’s not just on the battlefield. In American Beauty (1999), the conservative Marine neighbor not only abuses his wife and son but murders people because he’s secretly gay! That’s a liberal stereotype trifecta – they probably think it makes him a prime candidate for King of the Tea Party.
Oh, but they support the troops. See, it’s the system that turns these guys into monsters – a meme that lets the Hollywoodoids both trash the guys dumb enough to end up in uniform while at the same time showing how much they care for these pitiful “victims.” So, it’s a win-win…or, more accurately, a libel-libel.
Platoon is a prime example of this despicable trend, made all the worse by the fact that Oliver Stone – who makes his first of his several appearances on this list – is a Vietnam vet. This technically well-crafted slice of propaganda portrays American soldiers in Vietnam as near-savages barely able to contain their bloodlust long enough to function as a military unit. What’s sad is that there are such things as war crimes, and soldiers can do wicked things, but Hollywood has zero credibility left to tell those stories. Regardless, Platoon sort of raises a question about Stone himself – either he’s a scumbag for slandering troops by accusing them of crimes he didn’t see them commit, or he’s a scumbag for seeing such crimes and not standing up to stop them. Either way, Stone’s a scumbag.
2. “All misfits, losers, and malcontents are inherently heroic.” – Animal House (1979)
No one loves Animal House more than I do, but one unfortunate legacy (besides convincing a generation of sheet-clad college drunks that they should try to sing Shout) is that it help popularize the very silly notion that somehow being a total failure confers upon you some sort of superior moral status. Sure, the frat guys are a bunch of creepy jerks whose initiation practices would fit in at a Halloween party at Robert Mapplethorpe’s loft. But in real life, weirdos, losers, and mutations like the Delta House guys are, well, weirdos, losers, and mutations. Their antics may be amusing, but you just don’t want them trying to hang out with you.
Now, the Hollywood elite’s embrace of slobs is no surprise because the deadbeat demographic has become a vital and essential element of the Democratic Party’s electoral coalition. Perhaps putting the lazy and stupid on a pedestal by depicting such doofuses as role models is really a kind of marketing campaign designed to increase their numbers. Combined with the Democrats’ firm commitment to pro-parasite policies, like Obamacare and the expansion of other government handouts to layabouts who refuse to support themselves, maybe what we are seeing is part of a cultural conspiracy of shocking proportions.
Or maybe the Hollywoodoids are just too creatively lazy to do anything else.
3. “Those darn conservatives killed JFK.” – JFK (1991)
Leave it to Oliver Stone to once again not let inconvenient truths get in the way of his conclusions. Why should the fact that a commie piece of human waste who had defected to Russia and who was actively advocating for Cuba shot Kennedy keep Stone from making another technically great movie that instead posits a conspiracy including but not limited to the Pentagon, the CIA, General Motors, Denny’s restaurants, Microsoft, the state of Alabama, miscellaneous Norwegians, three of the Doobie Brothers, the Sham-Wow guy, shiny reverse vampires, and the mastermind, a 12-year old Rush Limbaugh.
We’re through the looking glass here, people. Especially where Costner names noted tool of the rightwing capitalist conspiracy Arlen Specter as one of the ringleaders. Yeah, that Arlen Specter.
4. “Every American who is not an affluent urban elitist is a drooling degenerate.” – Deliverance (1972)
It’s always fun to see how the liberal elites in Hollywood and their comrades in D.C. and New York seem to look at the rest of their country like medieval folk looked at ancient maps – as if the lands beyond the fringes of the known world are described with the words, “Beware! Here be sodomites!”
Now, no one is parochial like a Hollywoodoid. These folks think driving south of the I-105 requires a passport and heading east of the I-5 (except maybe to Vegas) requires vaccinations. The fact that they know nothing of the world outside their manicured lawns is not surprising; the fact that they constantly portray it as at best quaint, but usually malignant, is just getting tiresome.
In reality, the insular Hollywood community of today, drawing as it does new blood only from the same set of prestigious schools and from the offspring of its own members, is more incestuous than any backwoods West Virginia hollow.
5. “Nuclear Power is eeeeevvvvvviiiiiiilllllll” – The China Syndrome (1979)
Hanoi Jane stars as a crusading reporter in this cheap-looking relic that was shot with all the technical flourish of a very special episode of CHiPs. Sure, we know that all corporations are evil, but The China Syndrome teaches us that the nuclear power industry is especially evil. We know this because, well, anyone who opposes the liberal agenda is evil.
The title refers to the idea that a nuclear plant core meltdown would send the core deep into the earth, releasing a cloud of radiation that would destroy, well, if this movie is to be believed, pretty much everything. This silly movie was lucky enough to come out around the time of the Three Mile Island incident, where a little radiation was released and nothing much happened. Sadly, it gave ammunition to the liberal Luddites who oppose safe, clean nuclear power. And who also oppose coal and oil power. And hydroelectric power. And solar power. And wind power (at least in their backyards).
But on the plus side, when we have no electrical power at all, we’ll never have to watch crap like The China Syndrome again.
Stay tuned for Part II.