The Swinging Pendulum of Cinematic Politics

It's only bad in the movies!  In real life, guns are patriotic.

The politics of the mainstream media, and more specifically, the mainstream movie industry, are surprisingly inconsistent and complex, despite what Fox News may have you believe.  It's true that there are more, and certainly more prominent, proponents of the leftist politics in the Hollywood community, but like Clint Eastwood reminded us last fall, there definitely is a political right wing to every community, including Hollywood.  You hear talk about the weird and wacky behavior of Hollywood, the leftist campaigning and what many perspectives condemn as immorality, but that's not actually because it's Hollywood.  Hollywood is like a small town community but with a higher average income and disproportionate media attention, and like any small town resident will tell you, it's all about the gossip, but that media megaphone blasts those grapevine highlights out at the whole world, and gossip is not about the flattering or restrained; it's about what's outrageous, what's incredible and what we can condemn or occasionally praise.  Leftist Hollywood is more myth than anything else.  There's a truth to gossip, but relying on that source alone, without scrutiny, is too easy and allows us to do exactly what we want by reminding us how good we are for not being as weird or immoral as others.

Many movies are easily identified as political statements and many more at least feature some sort of political statement on the side.  The outrage at a supposed majority of movies opposing our "moral" viewpoints however, seems mainly based in the desire to believe ourselves and our demographic to be persecuted, which justifies the universal tendency to sympathize more with ourselves, despite the possibly more severe suffering of others.  Most major mainstream movies actually avoid any deliberate political leanings of any sort, because even if a political statement may draw audiences that share their perspective, it will alienate those audiences of a different perspective, but when a film studio invests big money in a major movie, they want to bring in audiences of all perspectives that have money to spend.  However, most movies have some sort of agenda beyond pure entertainment, however how potent, but even then, the political leanings of those agenda-involved films is not set in one direction.  Instead, the political leanings of mainstream movies swings like a pendulum, repelled from whatever political wing stands in power.

We aren't talking in absolutes by any means; there will always be detractors, but there tends to be a higher concentration of liberally-slanted films during a Republican administration, and in contrast, a higher concentration of conservatively-slanted films during a Democratic administration.  It usually becomes most apparent if and when a political party carries on into a second term of power in the executive branch, and often a few more will trickle out during the first couple years of a new administration, having begun production during the previous administration.

For example, during the recent summer-fall election season and continuing still now, with the re-election of Democratic President Barack Obama, there has been an increased concentration of films sympathetic to conservative sentiments.  See:

Bane (Tom Hardy) works overtime to kill job creators.

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (July 20):  While the politics were most likely unintentional, and Christopher Nolan has said as much in interviews, the antagonistically manipulated version of class warfare was all too well-timed with the Occupy Wall Street movement.  Much of it was inspired from Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities and the blatantly leftist 1927 film METROPOLIS, but Batman/Bruce Wayne is a member of the 1%, so applying him to a class warfare story has certain political implications.
director/co-writer
WON'T BACK DOWN (September 28):  Although it flopped at the box office, this anti-union school reform drama was a plentifully conservative Hollywood release from 20th Century Fox, co-produced with Walden Media, owned by notable far-right businessman Philip Anschutz.
HERE COMES THE BOOM (October 12): A Happy Madison MMA comedy starring Kevin James, this one was laced throughout with strong elements of American exceptionalism ideology, including an overwrought citizenship ceremony finale and pro-Americanization sub-plots; unfortunately, the Happy Madison tendency toward racism-based humor hinders the conservative messages.
RED DAWN (November 21): This remake of the 1985 cult classic was originally intended for a 2010 release, but MGM's bankruptcy delayed it until FilmDistrict bought the U.S. distribution rights and minor modifications were made for an international market.  Regardless, the finished film is thick with right-wing American ideology to an unusually extreme level, including exceptionalism, gun culture and jingoistic fantasy.
JACK REACHER (December 21): Starring Tom Cruise as a Tom Clancy-styled ex-M.P. officer and loose cannon, this action-thriller was laced throughout with pro-conservative quips, as well as a dose of pro-gun ideology with Robert Duvall as a gun-dealing ally of Reacher's.
PARENTAL GUIDANCE (December 25): A Billy Crystal/Bette Midler family comedy that happily ridicules modern parenting techniques in favor of old-time, tough-talking child-rearing , and even has Midler going nuts all over a stereotypical Russian music teacher with Soviet-era terminology.
ZERO DARK THIRTY (January 11):  This historical film about the pursuit of Osama Bin Laden has a remarkably convoluted political history; when production began, conservatives accused it of having pro-Obama sentiments (a groundless assumption based in President Obama having gave the mission order) and then accused the Obama administration of overindulging the production with government records.  Toward its release, prolific Hollywood liberals condemned the film for allegedly endorsing the Bush-era's use of "enhanced interrogation" torture, and conservatives praised the film in turn, also for allegedly depicting the Obama administration as a hindrance to the hunt for Bin Laden.  You really have to see it for yourself, but I believe that it does not condone torture or comment on Obama's policies and instead just shows what happened with impartiality and then lets the viewers decide for themselves.  Either way, it has a reputation.
THE LAST STAND (January 18):  Arnold Schwarzenegger's return to leading roles was a box office flop about an old-school border sheriff beating the hell out of Mexican drug cartels and anyone (including those pussy-footing liberals) who gets in his way.
TOP GUN 3D (February 8):  Tony Scott's 1980's classic of unintentionally homoerotic antics in the wet dream version of the U.S. Air Force got a stereoscopic 3D-conversion re-release.
A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD (February 14):  The fifth film in this Bruce Willis-starring action franchise was the truly bizarre result of an attempt to make an American exceptionalist film while being more interested in the international market than in the domestic U.S. market.
G.I. JOE: RETALIATION (March 28):  The sequel/reboot to 2009's disappointing G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA was originally slated for release in June 2012 but was held back, inexplicably, for a stereoscopic 3D conversion.  In addition to the obvious jingoistic tones, there are heavy American exceptionalist themes, an anti-nuclear disarmament plot and assorted pro-conservative quips.

Hollywood doesn't look quite so biased when you line things up like that, does it?  So where does all the talk of liberal Hollywood come from?  There's actually an incredibly complex history to all such theories, full of an unreasonable number of affecting elements, but in our contemporary culture, it can largely be traced to the non-Hollywood independent film industry and the viewing preferences of politically-related demographics.

Never has there been a president so friggin' evil.

Admittedly, Hollywood does have their own affection for the independent film industry; the films generally come ready-made, inexpensive and the studios can pick them up cheaply enough for distribution then make a suitable profit.  Also, independent films, outside of studio executive influences, are closer to what a lot of Hollywood big shots started out hoping to make; independent films don't have to try to please everyone, so they can bite who they please.  Those kinds of films get a lot of talk on their own, without massive marketing campaigns, and have an aura of importance, real or imagined, and when you're in the entertainment industry, there's a certain insecurity about winding up with a body of work completely made up vapid product.  Entertainers want to feel like they weren't just some passing pleasantry in time; they crave history's remembrance, so they find room to make statements with hopes of historical credence while the dollars are rolling in for the big escapism movies.  Anyway, independent cinema genuinely does have a solidly liberal sentiment.  There definitely is a conservative presence in the independent industry too, especially lately, with ATLAS SHRUGGED and the surprisingly successful documentary 2016: OBAMA'S AMERICA, but those political films are still a fairly minor percentage.  One simply has to take a look at the film lineups of any major film festival life Cannes of Sundance to see the impressive array of liberal propaganda in the independent industry's output, such as the pro-euthanasia winner of the 2012 Palme d'Or, AMOUR, Sundance's 2012 Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic winner, BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD, which involved various liberal elements including themes related to global warming, or almost anything Harvey Weinstein ever produced.  Most of those "liberal films" that conservative groups protest are not Hollywood products, but are instead independent films that Hollywood studios purchase the distribution rights to for inexpensive profits, such as BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (2005), FAHRENHEIT 9/11 (2004), MILK (2008) or THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT (2010).  Hollywood is just too timid to bet significant money on something that might seriously alienate a major paying demographic, but they admire those films enough to curate them.  What makes this high concentration of liberally-slanted independent films a bit peculiar is that independent film production can't be traced to an actual industrial body like Hollywood's closely associated set of major film studios, so there isn't an actual influence to direct blame at.  However, it is clear that independent filmmaking has a much stronger reputation for artistic value than mainstream filmmaking (of course, they can't sell their products on massive production values like Hollywood can), and artistic communities do have a very consistent

Lesbians aren't hot anymore.  Thanks Hollywood!

reputation for liberal sentiments, but the psychologists and scientists can debate the merits of all that on their own.

The effect of viewing preferences between demographics is a really interesting phenomenon in and of itself.  Although family values are certainly not exclusive to conservatives, they certainly have a much stronger interest in the "old-fashioned" family values of simpler times than liberals do, and as conservatives, naturally they are more reserved in their tastes, so the favored type of films for conservatives are "family films", where as liberals are usually more likely to venture toward novel films with edgy content and themes.  What's extremely odd though is that the family film industry, most specifically, the family film core of animation, tends to draw very liberal types of filmmakers.  The early days of Walt Disney's animation studios involved animators and other artists of less than stable backgrounds in major positions, and a few top animators were notorious alcoholics and frequenters of establishments with unsavory reputations.  Today, the Disney studios have a uniquely diverse makeup, including highly-positioned gay filmmakers.  Jim Henson's Muppet Studios have also always been a draw for leftist performers high on individuality and liberal values.  In the world of family entertainment, there's a disproportionate presence of insensitive and pompous "one percenters", flat-out antagonistic businessmen and an infinite supply of pro-tolerance, anti-violence lessons.  Among the major films marketed toward families in recent years are the environmentalism fable THE LORAX (2012), pro-tolerance PARANORMAN (2012) (although, despite the marketing, it wasn't very family friendly), pro-environmentalism WALL-E (2008) and THE MUPPETS (2011) who were antagonized by evil oilman Tex Richman.  Goodness knows why it all works out that way, but those are the films that most conservatives are seeing, and going by those films alone, yeah, you'd really think movies were all about the evil capitalists.