View from the Left: Is Hollywood really liberal? Examining Conservative misinformation in media. – Norwich Bulletin

Scott Deshefy| For The Bulletin

Travel anywhere, and whether Nike, MTV, Gap or fast foods with accompanying health disorders, cravings for American products are satisfied. US product proliferation via globalization is part of a conscious dissemination of Yankee attitudes oft-described as cultural imperialism. US corporations, wanting to cash-in on 95% of world consumers overseas, have moved operations accordingly. Such US domination inevitably hurts local markets too small to compete against our politically inbred industrial financiers whose fiscal and military coercion forced Korea and Japan from 19th century isolationism.

If incessant economic growth serves US corporate interests, externalities (i.e., destructive impacts) are ignored, especially ecological. Commercials like Im lovin it (McDonalds) and Id like to buy the world a Coke (Coca-Cola 71) portray US goods as peace-making unifiers transcending ethnic and social divides. In reality consumption of sodas, cheeseburgers and processed foods deforests tropical ecosystems for cattle, sugar and palm oil production while Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Nestle buy rights to limited water resources.

CNN and media conglomerates to which 2 billion people in over 200 countries subscribe can also be harmful. According to Brit sociologist Jeremy Tunstall, unlike other commodities, governments importation of news unavoidably spreads bits of their politics. When resulting imbalances in outflow and control of information enhance political influences of powerful nations, undesirable homogenizations of needs and desires are created, which lead, potentially, to cultural extinctions. Against that onslaught, Italys slow food movement, and resuscitations of nongovernment, non-capitalist, civic spaces parks and village greens, for instance offer only limited pushback (see Barbers Jihad vs. McWorld).

While CNN and MSNBC arent immune to bias, nowhere is media manipulation more evident than Fox News and radio. Except for local TV and some journalists of national prominence, such as Chris Wallace, Fox bevy of high-ratings commentators is conduit for disinformation/ad hominem-assault water torture. Their repetitive drip-drip-drip has undermined attempts to mitigate climate change, contain the pandemic and reestablish truth, science and fact-based reasoning in American culture.

Rabid, mind-numbing insistence that fundamental responsibilities for public health and safety (e.g. mask-wearing and COVID shots) are attacks on personal freedoms and communist takeovers is brain-washing. But Fox isnt alone. Free Press found 91% of weekday-radio talk formats were right-wing echo chambers, byproducts of how FCC doles public airwave access. Of 10,506 licensed commercial radio stations, those controlled by group-owners with 3 or more stations in single markets or who broadcast from multiple towns, aired conservative call-in shows primarily. Because racial and ethnic minorities (1/3 the population) own just 7.7% commercial stations, women even less (6%), that limits diverse public expression.

Is Hollywood really liberal? D.W. Griffiths Birth of a Nation resurrected the KKK long before The Defiant Ones, Home of the Brave, Gentlemans Agreement, Crossfire, In the Heat of the Night and Guess Whos Coming to Dinner. Opposite Frank Capras link between excessive wealth and moral decay in Its a Wonderful Life theres Ayn Rands The Fountainhead. As counterpoint to films decrying political corruption and prison brutality (I Was a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Meet John Doe, Cool Hand Luke, Birdman of Alcatraz, Shawshank Redemption; Preston Sturges Sullivans Travels) are Dirty Harry and Death Wish glorifying law & order police violence and vigilantism.

Countless silver screen expressions of Manifest Destiny preceded Little Big Man, Soldier Blue, Dances with Wolves and Cheyenne Autumn. Strategic Air Command and Red Scare cinema provoked The Bedford Incident, Dr. Strangelove, WarGames, Failsafe and Paths of Glory. Where would we be without that progressive lighthouse?

Scott Deshefy is a biologist, ecologist, film devotee, and two-time Green Party congressional candidate.

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View from the Left: Is Hollywood really liberal? Examining Conservative misinformation in media. - Norwich Bulletin