Wednesday July 30, 2008

HOW DID RED DAWN EVER GET MADE? How odd to see Orson Bean, one of my favorite talk-show guests in boyhood, quoted extensively by his son-in-law Andrew Breitbart in the Washington Times:

"Aside from the inconvenience of having a career ruined, being blacklisted in the '50s was kind of cool," Orson recalled over watered-down dark rum pina coladas poolside at Club Med.

"You were doing 'the right thing.' Hot, left-wing girls admired you. You hadn't 'named names.' The New York Times was on your side. And you knew it would pass. Things always do in America..."

On the other hand, these liberals today:

"These days, the left doesn't just disagree with right-wingers - they hate them. People actually shudder when I tell them I'm a Republican. I should have to carry a bell and yell, 'unclean'"...

So the blacklist was okay, because Orson Bean got trim and the support of the Times in exchange for employment opportunities, but today liberals shudder at him, which is worse. What was Dalton Trumbo bitching about?

It's a curious point of view, which even Breitbart seems to realize, because he refers to Orson as "once again on the wrong side of the censors," presumably to make the point that shudders mean censorship. I suppose he really means self-censorship: "'Repugnant' Reaganites and 'reptilian' Bushies planning to work on the 'Ocean's 14' set have mastered a code of conduct: silence." Yeah, look at Bruce Willis, who "doesn't talk openly about politics anymore" -- after he stumped for Bush the Elder in 1992, Willis was shunted off to obscure projects like Pulp Fiction, Nobody's Fool, and Die Hard: With a Vengeance. Bruce did hard time, man, so we can forgive him for taking the easy way out now. He just couldn't take the shudders. Could you?

It might be easier for guys like Breitbart if there were Senate Committee hearings and publications (Red State Channels?) that made their martyrdom more overt. On the other hand, like most Hollywood types, they have vivid imaginations, and can cook up a witch-hunt out of a few dirty looks.