Conservative movies?
Conservatives can be funny people. I'm not talking humorous. They can be that too. But, in this case, I'm talking unintentionally, of course.
The National Review has a list of the 25 best Conservative movies.
But perusing the list one would have to conclude that many of the films on the list are not Conservative movies but rather movies that Conservatives may like.
You see, they are not all made by Conservatives or really have Conservative values.
#22 is Brazil directed by Terry Gilliam who is on record saying that the film was meant to be fictional but came to life when the Bush Administration unveiled the Patriot Act and Homeland Security.
#20 is Gattaca about how a man in the future learns how to jig the system so he can succeed against genetically modified humans. The review on the National Review site says that by extension it has something to say against abortion. [No, it doesn't - unless you are reading into it].
#11 The Lord of The Rings [trilogy]. Okay, so little guys succeed against evil. How is this Conservative? Oh, okay J.R.R. Tolkein was 'conservative'. But his story is really not so much conservative as universal. I recall Star Wars deals with similar themes of good and evil yet it doesn't make the list.
#10 Ghostbusters. They base this primary on one line that Dan Aykroyd says about the private sector. The same Aykroyd who just mocked the Republicans on a SNL skit. [Yes, he is acting and saying lines in both instances]. [Okay, so the film says something negative about the EPA. I'll grant conservatives that. But they are still reading into the overall message of the movie].
#8 Juno. You know, the film written by a feminist pro-choice liberal. Again, a movie that is not Conservative but one that Conservatives loved because of the pro-choice angle. Errr, I mean pro-life angle. See what I mean? I see it as choice. But that doesn't make it a 'liberal' movie.
#6 Groundhog Day. This is a film about a man who must redo his daily routine again, and again and again until he gets it right. Sound slightly religious? Yes, reincarnation via Hinduism or Buddism. Not sure how this is Conservative [or at least of the right wing American variation].
#1 The Lives of Others. A German film that shows two things. One is how bad the German totalitarian [communist] state makes the people who worked for it as spies. Two is how one spy finds a humanitarian streak in himself and learns to do the right thing while spying on the resistance movement. How this is specifically Conservative is beyond me. Watching it one realizes how fundamentally good people can be. Fighting against totalitarian regimes [whether in East Germany or Chile] is about human rights not about a political ideology. That's something all of us [liberal or conservative] can learn from.
Many of the films on the list are indeed Conservative.
But what this list shows is that some Conservatives see these movies through the lens of their own conservatism. I've been told that Conservatives see things as they are, with no lens and no embellishments and that only Liberals do that. Well, looking at this list I would conclude that is not the case. Conservatives are just as ready to bend a story to their point of view.
In fact, I did a Google search and found Daily Kos had a list of Liberal movies. You be the judge. Any films on this list you consider not Liberal? I'd argue that they are more Liberal than not.
But, really, can we all just go to the movies without politics getting in the way?
[Confession, I'm a Jean Luc Godard fan - but it's not his politics that keep me watching his films.]
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