Democrats support marketing filth to our kids

By Jon Dougherty

Actor-director Rob Reiner, who helped host a fund-raiser for Democratic White House contenders Al Gore and Joe Lieberman Monday night in L.A., told reporters that despite hypocritical criticism of the entertainment industry by the vice president and Connecticut senator last week, most of Hollywood will still support Democrats because the DNC reflects American values.

“We care about the same things that all Americans care about,” Reiner said, including health care, Social Security, gun control, and protecting abortion rights.

He also said Hollywood was “a big community with a very big heart,” motivated by more than just movies. Right – and the Clinton administration lived up to the president’s pledge to be “the most ethical administration in history.”

Hollywood is indeed “big-hearted” when it comes to pet liberal causes, and Reiner mentioned the most prominent of those. To insinuate, however, that those are the issues “all Americans care about” is a crock of cowpies.

Maybe that’s how the smut peddlers in Hollywood assuage their own consciences – by convincing themselves that everybody else feels as depraved, cynical, and morally repugnant as many of them do.

A few Hollywood notables and heavyweights – Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mel Gibson, Bruce Willis, Michael J. Fox and a few others – typically side with Republicans and conservatives on most issues.

Most of Hollywood and the rest of the entertainment industry does not, however, and there is a reason for that: Democrats are better representatives and protectors of the depravity currently permeating our ignoble society through the marketing of offensive crap to our kids.

That’s not to say ordinary rank-and-file Democratic voters feel the same way. In fact, I know that lots of good people who have always voted for Democrats are also repulsed by today’s entertainment industry.

They cringe at the garbage people like Reiner produces. And they loathe any insinuation that “all of us” are just like “Hollywood” and entertainment people when it comes to the kind of content we’d prefer our kids to see, play, and listen to.

They are also tired of these people talking out of both sides of their mouths.

Consider: If the gun industry is supposedly responsible for a firearm after a gun maker has legally sold it to a dealer, why aren’t entertainment industry executives being held responsible for the social damage to our kids caused by the legal sale of their content?

If the tobacco industry was knocked specifically because it was marketing an otherwise legal product to children – and it was inappropriate for children to use – why are entertainment industry executives escaping punishment?

Furthermore, where are Gore, Lieberman and Reiner on those issues? Well, you know where they are on them – they support litigation against guns and tobacco.

But they don’t want to hold the entertainment industry responsible – Reiner, for obvious reasons, and Gore/Lieberman because Hollywood is helping pay the bills.

Gore said early in his presidential bid that he would not take money from tobacco companies because he disagreed “in principle” with the product, how it is marketed, and their alleged aim to hook kids on cigarettes. Perhaps its time for him to again make a great leap of honor and integrity by pledging to stop accepting money from another industry now known to be harming our children.

Yeah, right – fat chance of that happening.

I guess it’s OK for Gore to be hypocritical over tobacco (his family raised the crop for years) but not Hollywood, huh? In Gore’s mind, you’re evil if you teach your teenagers how to shoot, but it’s okay to let them watch a host of bloody gun battles on TV.

Director Rob Reiner – and his Democratic allies – are not speaking for me when they insinuate that “all Americans” cherish the same values (or lack thereof) they cherish. If they don’t speak for you either, then forget about silly political alliances and vote for someone else this fall.

If you don’t – and you keep blindly supporting Democrats — then you have no right to complain about the continued degradation of our society through the habitual marketing of filth to your kids by those hypocrites.

Jon Dougherty

Jon E. Dougherty is a Missouri-based political science major, author, writer and columnist. Follow him on Twitter. Read more of Jon Dougherty's articles here.