TV vs. Cinema, Rupugs vs. Progressives, Strategies & Tactics?

[Guns Aximbo]

OK, Bear with me as I have a limited vocabulary (unless I'm cussing).

The Repugs have known for years that Hollywood is predominantly a Progressive propaganda tool and is an asset for progressive ideals. They have tried many times in many ways to take over Hollywood and have failed.

In their quest to compete with Hollywood, they have turned to Television - all aspects of television as their fascist propaganda tool.

Can Hollywood compete with T.V.?

Which is a larger medium?

I think T.V. is a more powerful medium than Hollywood and in the end will win out. How should we, Progressive/Dems, control T.V. as well as hollywood?

[AP]

1. Both TV and film have their share of conservative and liberal programming.

Buffy, Veronica Mars, Without a Trace, MASH, Simpsons, All in the Family: there have always been shows that make arguments about progressive values (relating to class, race, gender, war).

And there have always been films that push conservative values: Gone With The Wind, plenty of John Wayne and Clint Eastwood movies, and even X-Men, which is very good on race and class, has a strange argument about gender.

Anyway, a lot of the TV broadcaters are owned by the same companies producing the films, so it makes it even hard to argue that different factions guide their agendas.

I really think the tug-of-war in broadcasting and film production is between producing stuff that is not too critical of a culture of consumption, but also giving people product they're willing to watch.

So, Veronica Mars really taps into a lot of anxieties young people must feel about the polarization of wealth and the disappearance of the middle class. The show talks about things conservatives would like to cover up (class differences) because UPN knows that by talking about them, they're talking about things kids actually experience today, and that's going to get them to watch.

However, you're probably never going to see a Holywood studio or TV broadcaster make something like The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, which really gets to the heart of the sort of neoliberalism the big media companies are counting on for their future profits. That would be too much of bighting the hand that feeds. OK, Michael Moore gets to do it, but he's making movies that profit 200 mil on 10 mil investments. Money like that will always create at least ONE exception to the rule.

(X-Men, by the way, is, I think probably a work where the creators were given a lot of leeway to say what they wanted to say, and therefore it is a very good commentary on fascism (because that's what the comic books were criticising) but, because the movie is probably made by boys, ended up being bad on gender).

[unpossibles]

2. hmm

"X-Men, which is very good on race and class, has a strange argument about gender."

I am not sure I agree, but I am curious why you think so. As a longtime comic reader, X-Men was probably the first to have female lead characters that were powerful and multi-dimensional instead of objects to be rescued.

That said, the medium in general (comics and the movies they spawn) is very biased toward boys as I would guess most of their audience is male.

I heard someone once claim that X-Men was racist because they actually are dangerous. I see it as the opposite. Anyone can be dangerous. The X-Men is and has always been about how people's distrust of anything strange and different (ie: class, race, citizenship) can lead to very dangerous results.

Anyway, I am curious and am not trying to be antagonistic.

[AP]

4. There's just something about Rogue and Mystique that isn't

quite right. Their powers make them dangerous: the power to touch and to change.

I have a friend who made this argument to me, so I can't take credit for it, and I probably can't do it justice. But if you look at other charcatres, (with storm being the excpetion) the male characters' powers are generally about strenght and creating things, and they do good things with those powers. But Rogue's power come from touching -- it's a femine sort of power, but it causes death. She could go around killing people with a kiss. Yikes. Whereas magneto can bend the bars of a concentration camp in an effort to save his mother, and Wolverine can chill a warm beer with his breath.

Mystique is most dangerous because she can take any form. It's perhaps a subtle statement about women going beyond traditional roles. You'd think that would be a good thing, but it's used to undermine not only the bad guys, but to pull tricks on the good guys, and is almost always agitating when you see it happen.

I'll talk to my friend again and get the full argument. It was very convincing.

[Guns Aximbo]

3. I agree but...

I think the two mediums are becoming MORE polarized. You have Disney (arguably Hollywood) which owns ABC and refusing to release Moore's film F911. ABC is becoming more & more right wing in their commentary and reporting of the news. Cable Television is becoming more RW every day, (in my opinion). CNN used to be a fairly reliable outlet that was "fair & balanced" (I've heard that somewhere before, hmmm) but is now sliding way off balance to the right.

I don't know... I think the Repugs are trying to take over the Television Broadcasting Industry in order to compete with Hollywood. Just want that out in the open so that people are aware of their strategy.

How wrong am I?

[AP]

5. Television is Hollywood. The TV broadcasters and the film distributors

and producers are the same companies.

[Guns Aximbo]

6. mmmm yeah, your right. maybe thats the tactic the fascists are using.

T.V. will own hollywood. hollywood will then conform.

The strategy and their tactics are revealed. You watch. I'm right

[AP]

7. No future tense. It exists. WB has a TV station and film production

distribution company. Same with Disney-ABC-Miramax, and News Corp-Fox, and Univeral-Viacom-CBS.

There used to be a law that TV companies couldn't own the production companies that made TV programming. That law is gone.

There is incredible vertical integration of the channels of entertainment distribution from beginning to end, and it's not just in TV and Film, but most of these companies own publishing houses and publish magazines and own raido networks.

[Guns Aximbo]

8. Fascists are looking to control ALL propaganda mediums

I know I sound like Chicken Little but, the sky is falling. Am I spreading paranoia or the truth?