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Morning Jolt . . . with Jim Geraghty July 12, 2013 You Stay Classy, San Diego Mayor! One of my all-time favorite Republican candidates is Nick Popaditch, a Purple Heart and Silver Star–winning Marine who lost an eye in the first battle for Fallujah, who ran for Congress in Southern California in 2010 and 2012. In his 2010 race, he lost to longtime incumbent Bob Filner, who later went on to run for mayor of San Diego and win. The guys you like don't always turn out to be heroes – COUGHbobmcdonnellCOUGH – and the guys you don't like don't always turn out to be creeps. But sometimes they do, and it's somewhat satisfying. Sounds like Filner's a Grade-A Jerk:
Filner released a statement on Thursday afternoon apologizing to city residents. "As someone who has spent a lifetime fighting for equality for all people, I am embarrassed to admit that I have failed to fully respect the women who work for me and with me, and that at times I have intimidated them. "I am also humbled to admit that I need help. I have begun to work with professionals to make changes in my behavior and approach. In addition, my staff and I will participate in sexual harassment training provided by the city. "Please know that I fully understand that only I am the one who can make these changes. If my behavior doesn't change I cannot succeed in leading our city. "In the next few days, I will be reaching out to those who now work to those who now work in the Mayor's Office or have previously worked for me - both men and women - to personally apologize for my behavior." Filner then said that residents have every right to be disappointed in him. "I only ask that you give me an opportunity to prove I am capable of change, so that the vision I have for our city's future can be realized," he said. Does "give me an opportunity to prove I am capable of change" work for harassment in other workplaces? How about Nick Popaditch for mayor? Once More into the Breach of Conservatives' Struggle to Influence the Culture Rod Dreher, crunchy con and former contributor to National Review, now writing over at The American Conservative, examines and expands upon the common lament that conservatives need to become better storytellers:
Through the stories we tell, we come to understand who we are and what we are to do. This is true for both individuals and communities . . . Stories work so powerfully on the moral imagination because they are true to human experience in ways that polemical arguments are not. And because the moral imagination often determines which intellectual arguments—political, economic, theological, and so forth—will be admitted into consideration, storytelling is a vital precursor to social change.
"The smart people on the Right are working in the conservative infrastructure," he says. "You want a conservative view on healthcare? It comes from Heritage, or maybe the Wall Street Journal op-ed page. Except most people don't care. It's too confusing." It would make a much greater difference, MacDonald believes, if conservatives were bringing their insights to bear writing for the network medical drama "Grey's Anatomy." But that is hard to imagine, he says. Well, no kidding. My views about, say, the need for tort reform would catch on a lot quicker if Patrick Dempsey were to express them, shaking his fist in righteous indignation, about how the hospital's fear of a lawsuit is interfering with him performing a high-risk but needed surgery on the critically ill adorable little girl of the week.* I'll cast Ray Wise as the ambulance-chasing lawyer and the audience will instantly know he's the bad guy. "Hi, I'm Ray Wise, perhaps best known for playing Leland Palmer and The Devil. When I appear as a guest star on your favorite show, you can rest assured that I was indeed the one who committed the murder the protagonists are trying to solve." But a writing gig on Grey's Anatomy or any other highly-rated network drama is hard to get. This is where the discussion amongst conservatives usually turns to, "and liberals in Hollywood will never hire a conservative writer, or allow a conservative message to get through!" And that's true, at least in some cases. A few years back, Ben Shapiro did a great job getting interviews with producers and executives who more or less openly admit that they see their work as a chance to promote their viewpoints, and that sometimes they put in story elements to emphasize a message of "'f*** you' to the right wing." But the obstacle isn't purely ideological. Some of the obstacle is that there aren't that many high-quality shows with mass audiences, those shows only have a certain number of full-time writing gigs, and the supply of potential writers is way, way, way higher than the demand. Yes, there are probably a bunch of talented conservatives trying to make it in Hollywood and finding the doors closed. But there are probably some talented liberals trying to make it in Hollywood and finding the doors closed. Trying to be a screenwriter in Hollywood requires being willing to endure a lot of rejection, with no guarantee of success, and probably trying to write, on spec, some sort of brilliant, attention-catching, so-good-the-producers-can't-possibly-pass work while simultaneously holding down a day job to pay the bills. It means living in Los Angeles — with a cost of living 36 percent higher than the national average — and spending a lot of time trying to make connections in an intensely competitive field. And of course, the process of bringing a concept for a show or film to the airwaves or silver screen is legendarily complicated, arbitrary, consensus-driven, and difficult. We've heard a lot of "we need to take back the culture!" and "Breitbart warned us, 'politics is downstream from culture'" in the past nine months or so. Jonah reminded us:
Obviously, the market is a big factor. No doubt many Hollywood liberals would like to push the ideological envelope more, but audiences get a vote. And that vote isn't cast purely on ideological grounds. There's a difference between art and propaganda. Outside the art house crowd, liberal agitprop doesn't sell. Art must work with the expectations and beliefs of the audience. Even though pregnancies are commonplace on TV, you'll probably never see a hilarious episode of a sitcom in which a character has an abortion — because abortion isn't funny. The conservative desire to create a right-wing movie industry is an attempt to mimic a caricature of Hollywood. Any such effort would be a waste of money that would make the Romney campaign seem like a great investment.
The underwhelming reception from the public raises a question: Are audiences turned off by the war, or are they simply voting against the way filmmakers have depicted it? . . . The Iraq war-themed "In the Valley of Elah," starring Tommy Lee Jones and Susan Sarandon, received mixed critical notices and did little business upon its release last September (total domestic gross: $6.8 million). "Redacted," a Brian De Palma-directed film about a renegade Army unit, was barely seen when it came out in limited release in November (it grossed just $65,388). An even more paltry reception greeted "Grace Is Gone" (2007), in which star John Cusack deals with the aftermath of his wife's death in Iraq; "Home of the Brave" (2006), about a group of soldiers (including Samuel L. Jackson and Jessica Biel) adjusting to life after the war; and "The Situation" (2006), about a love triangle set amid the conflict. Notice that we don't lack conservatives who can thrive in radio and more recently podcasting, web videos, etc. I think a big factor is that those products are cheap to produce. *Why, no, I don't watch Grey's Anatomy out of the corner of my eye while Mrs. CampaignSpot watches it on the DVR, and by no means do I mock that every episode ends with some patient croaking in melodramatic fashion during a montage set to Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars" ("If I lay here.. If I just lay here . . . Would you lie with me and just forget the world?") leading to perpetual basket case Dr. Grey offering a voice over with some sort of pseudo-philosophical Chinese-cookie-worthy life lesson that the doctors learned while botching their latest life and death surgical procedure ("You spend your entire life searching for a place to call home, and only when all seems lost do you turn around and realize, you've been there all along" ) and I absolutely totally don't mimic EKG flatline noises every time "Chasing Cars" comes on the radio. ADDENDA: If you missed last night's SharkNado on SyFy channel, I'm sorry. (Don't blame me, that's how the network spells its name, perhaps hinting that its programming executives aren't that interested in science fiction.) Of course, if you watched it and wasn't watching the mocking live commentary on Twitter simultaneously, I'm even more sorry. It was like a giant, national Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode, mocking the so-bad-its-good, lowest-of-low-budget, unrealistic computer-generated-imagery, clichéd dialogue, and everything else. It was, from the weirdest of sources, a giant, unifying national moment. Years from now, we'll all ask each other, "where were you when the Sharknado hit?" NRO Digest — July 12, 2013 Today on National Review Online . . .
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