is the real reason the Dems can’t talk about, much less show their support for, the turnaround in Iraq. Happy Feet is how they’re working on their kids. Rich points out that the press doesn’t want to report improvement in Iraq. Ralph Peters makes the same point, and goes on to highlight all those failed anti-Iraq films. But the real issue here is Dances with Wolves.
Now I think Dances With Wolves is a fantastic film. That’s the point. Dances With Wolves spins out an incredibly powerful and appealing narrative in which the American army features as the villain. That’s the narrative Hollywood has craved since long before 9/11. As for Happy Feet, those cute animal films (not to mention An Inconvenient Truth) are excellent opportunities for Hollywood to argue that “the enemy is us.”
What Hollywood can’t abide is any John Wayne-style theme in which Americans are good guys, fighting a tough battle and prevailing over enemy bad guys. In the current cultural environment, that sort of war is equated by Hollywood with “genocidalimperialismracism.” So the Iraq war is unquestionably part of the culture war, and the weapons of the left go far beyond all those anti-Iraq Hollywood flops. Films like Dances With Wolves and Happy Feet do much better. And that’s why Hollywood is still very much in the game.