The Global Globes is the minor leagues for the Academy Awards. No matter. Show biz fans probably care about this:
Television cares because of the huge amount of advertising movie producers spend. In short: MONEY.
Art runs a close second to “the children” when it comes to parasites hustling tax dollars. Even if you believe motion pictures are an art form the government has no business forcing taxpayers to subsidize an “art” a majority of Americans want no part of.
Bottom line: If movie producers fail to sell their product they should eat the loss, not lay it off on taxpayers before or after the fact.
Incidentally, the artist scam actually began with photography.
Socialists had to show the world that their system of government was artist friendly; so mechanically generated motion pictures, and still pictures, became art for the masses. Labeling photography art was the best thing Socialist propagandists could come up with since a true artist cannot create simply to decorate a system of government even if he or she wanted to. Michelangelo’s superb eye-hand coordination may have flourished under the patronage system, but artists in every field thrive where the most individual liberties exist. And I doubt if any tax-dollar artist can create something like this ceiling:
For the life of me, I cannot see how any politician can justify supporting government artists. That is what art was all about in the defunct Soviet Union, and I do not see any museums being voluntarily built to house the output of Communist-sponsored artists.
In addition to the above, the so-called interpretative art community was brought onboard through the National Endowment for the Arts. The entertainment industry is considered the most important component of both the artistic community and the propaganda apparatus. In plain English the people that counted the most, and played ball from a Socialist/Communist point of view, are taken care of with enormous amounts of tax dollars.
Being forced to fund the National Endowment for the Arts is just as offensive as is being forced to fund an alien religion. Aside from the political aspects, I doubt if any American (other than the folks who benefit financially from the Endowment) would choose to fund toe dancers, finger painters, and assorted con “artists.” The NEA is the one bureaucracy that most Americans find really offensive. Rather than me trying to convince anybody why the National Endowment for the Arts should be shut down lets hear liberals tell us why the NEA is necessary government.
Sad to say, Socialist parasites can rest easy. No one’s snout is going to be summarily jerked out of the public feed tub. Not the National Endowment for the Arts, not the Dept. of Education, not the Ministry of Propaganda, not the National Endowment for the Humanities. And it is not only ‘artists.’
Back in 2000 I heard a news blurb on my car radio that said maintenance workers at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts were paid between two and three hundred thousand dollars a year. I assumed that the duties of a building maintenance worker included keeping the place clean. If so, that is a lot of dough for cleaning bathrooms. I did not know the exact number of janitors that were earning two hundred large a year, but there were seven buildings under the Lincoln Center umbrella; so I was looking at some serious money in 2000. This article from 2009 about stage hands, etc. God only knows how much they are paid today:
Youngsters who read Ahearn’s piece should have seen the need for a college education. There has to be a lot of competition for those well-paying jobs; so a master’s degree in the art of cleaning toilet bowls cannot hurt.
Democrats created tax dollar funding in varying forms and amounts for every show business entity beginning with funding college drama classes, film schools, etc. I believe the Lincoln Center gets approximately 20 percent of its funding from taxpayers —— taxpayers who will never see the Lincoln Center let alone attend a performance. Worse still, every private donation to the arts is a tax deduction that is passed along to working people who actually work.
Just so I am not misunderstood, it is only fair that entertainment industry luminaries, wealthy Socialists, politicians, etc., have some place nice to go when they don their tuxedos and gowns for yet another evening of blowing smoke up every keister in attendance. Much of that crap is shown on television. The message is: Every American should want to be just like those wonderful people. In truth, freedom-loving Americans are finding it almost impossible to avoid the influence of such people.
And it would really be too painful to learn that taxpayers pay to manufacture all of those awards. If you know for certain tax dollars pay to make all of those statuettes, plaques, and whatnots show business hand out every year please do not tell me. I read somewhere that there are 400 different entertainment awards shows annually. That is more than one award a day. Hell, manufacturing all of those prizes is bigger than U.S. Steel.
It is the culture of tax dollar artists that is most depressing. Peer approval is everything because they all know they will be paid whether or not the public buys their product. Ticket sales is not important to government artists. Peer approval is all that matters. Sally Fields let the cat out of the bag when she said:
It never occurrs to tax dollar artists they should find another line of work to support themselves when they cannot sell enough tickets for their particular schtick. That is exactly what us poor plebeians have to do.
Show business consists of many parts, but most people think of movies as the cornerstone of the entertainment industry. Few realize that movies are the contemporary equivalent of the Roman Circuses during the time of the Caesars. Real killing was used to numb Rome’s citizenry. Fictional killing on film accomplishes the same thing although Hollywood does not butcher animals in its games as did the Romans. Hollywood’s Caligulas concentrate on slaughtering people.
Incidentally, dancing has become choreographed violence in movies. Many moviegoers who would not watch Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers for five seconds cannot get enough of violent killing and brutality in martial arts choreographed dance scenes.
Censoring celluloid bloodbaths will not work because then the movie-going public will be left with the touchy-feely heartwarming movies which do far more harm to the soul than do the bloodbaths.
There are a few ——very few —— movies that qualify as pure entertainment containing no message worth mentioning. Simply put: Not enough creative people work in the movie industry who can supply the pure entertainment merchandise needed to keep movie theaters open seven days a week, or fill the shelves in video rental stores. Keeping movie theaters open is the main reason so much crap is produced every year. Crap and propaganda of one kind or another is the stuff that replaced the absence of entertainment.
Unfortunately, it is usually Socialist propaganda that is most-often manufactured by the kissy-kissy brigade in Hollywood. Once upon a time in Tinseltown there lived a movie studio mogul who said, “If you want to send a message, call Western Union.” Nowadays, Hollywood sends more Socialist advocacy messages than Western Union could ever handle.
Also, the accepted image of slavery can be laid at Hollywood’s door. That image contributes to contemporary slavery.
Cecil B. De Mille, and Hollywood epics in general, instilled the image of the Pharaoh’s soldiers whipping slaves into moving huge stones into place for the latest pyramid. The subliminal message in Hollywood’s image is that government troops are not standing over me with a whip; therefore, I am not a slave. Tax dollar slavery is never mentioned. In truth, few people know the reasons for what happened last week —— never mind the reasons for what happened thousands of years ago; so how the hell does Hollywood know why and how the pyramids were built?
Some historians claim that building pyramids were government make-work programs. That view makes a lot more sense to me than the one Hollywood puts forth. Ultimately, slavery of any kind destroys initiative, creativity, and true compassion which is fundamental to the growth of the human spirit; so how can an industry that is such an integral component of the slave-driven welfare state in this country claim to be an industry populated by creative artists? Hollywood’s denizens are about as creative as were the Pharaoh’s troops portrayed in biblical epics.
Then there is hard core pornography to consider. There will always be fornication and numerous counterfeits; so there will always be a limited audience for that “art form.”
Insofar as mainstream movies go, it can be said with some truth that movies not containing graphic sex scenes are nothing more than pornography for prudes —— show a buxomly female bosom or an ample butt now and then —— just enough to keep Mother Thumb and her four daughters interested —— but do not go too far.
When mainstream movies fade into history because even the prudes do not want them anymore, hard core pornography will still be selling. I will bet you that Hollywood’s spokespersons never mention that bit of truth when they testify before a Congressional Committee about their artistic contributions to civilized society.
Do not ever expect the media, print or electronic, to criticize Hollywood. Just look at the amount of tax deductible advertising dollars Hollywood spends to promote their latest product model. Newspapers and TV stations would be foolish to jeopardize that income. Hollywood gets it from the tax collector —— the media gets it from Hollywood —— and everybody involved smiles all the way to bank. Everybody, that is, except people who can do without Hollywood’s product.
Since I criticized it is only right that I at least offer a solution that will curtail, or possibly stop, the damage Hollywood/television is doing.
Take every form of government funding away from the entertainment industry; including TV’s tax deductible advertising dollars. That includes subsidies paid to Public Television, and Public Radio. My suggestion will not amount to censorship, but it will hamper attempts by social engineers to micro manage every facet of American life with the help of propaganda tax dollars.
Just to stress the point one more time: I am not advocating censorship, I am talking about funding. Let show folk say anything they want to say —— just do not force everybody to pay for it.
Finally, show folk are determined to label their efforts an art form. Having that definition accepted is essential whenever “artists” descend on Washington trying to justify their spot at the trough. Everyone knows about the “show” in show business, but how many people know about the business?
p.s. Makeup artist people were the only people who were called artists in the old days. I am not sure if another job description is considered an artist in the endless credits run at the end of today’s movies.
Golden Globes: The winners list
By Chloe Melas, CNN
Updated 4:27 AM ET, Mon January 7, 2019
https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/06/entertainment/golden-globes-winners-2019/index.html
By Chloe Melas, CNN
Updated 4:27 AM ET, Mon January 7, 2019
https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/06/entertainment/golden-globes-winners-2019/index.html
Television cares because of the huge amount of advertising movie producers spend. In short: MONEY.
Art runs a close second to “the children” when it comes to parasites hustling tax dollars. Even if you believe motion pictures are an art form the government has no business forcing taxpayers to subsidize an “art” a majority of Americans want no part of.
Bottom line: If movie producers fail to sell their product they should eat the loss, not lay it off on taxpayers before or after the fact.
Incidentally, the artist scam actually began with photography.
Socialists had to show the world that their system of government was artist friendly; so mechanically generated motion pictures, and still pictures, became art for the masses. Labeling photography art was the best thing Socialist propagandists could come up with since a true artist cannot create simply to decorate a system of government even if he or she wanted to. Michelangelo’s superb eye-hand coordination may have flourished under the patronage system, but artists in every field thrive where the most individual liberties exist. And I doubt if any tax-dollar artist can create something like this ceiling:
For the life of me, I cannot see how any politician can justify supporting government artists. That is what art was all about in the defunct Soviet Union, and I do not see any museums being voluntarily built to house the output of Communist-sponsored artists.
In addition to the above, the so-called interpretative art community was brought onboard through the National Endowment for the Arts. The entertainment industry is considered the most important component of both the artistic community and the propaganda apparatus. In plain English the people that counted the most, and played ball from a Socialist/Communist point of view, are taken care of with enormous amounts of tax dollars.
Being forced to fund the National Endowment for the Arts is just as offensive as is being forced to fund an alien religion. Aside from the political aspects, I doubt if any American (other than the folks who benefit financially from the Endowment) would choose to fund toe dancers, finger painters, and assorted con “artists.” The NEA is the one bureaucracy that most Americans find really offensive. Rather than me trying to convince anybody why the National Endowment for the Arts should be shut down lets hear liberals tell us why the NEA is necessary government.
Sad to say, Socialist parasites can rest easy. No one’s snout is going to be summarily jerked out of the public feed tub. Not the National Endowment for the Arts, not the Dept. of Education, not the Ministry of Propaganda, not the National Endowment for the Humanities. And it is not only ‘artists.’
Back in 2000 I heard a news blurb on my car radio that said maintenance workers at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts were paid between two and three hundred thousand dollars a year. I assumed that the duties of a building maintenance worker included keeping the place clean. If so, that is a lot of dough for cleaning bathrooms. I did not know the exact number of janitors that were earning two hundred large a year, but there were seven buildings under the Lincoln Center umbrella; so I was looking at some serious money in 2000. This article from 2009 about stage hands, etc. God only knows how much they are paid today:
MY WIFE and I have season tickets for events at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. At intermissions, we sometimes watch absently as three or four men in gray suits emerge from the wings to move a piano into place or bring out extra music stands and chairs.
What they do is essential but unremarkable. Turns out that it is remarkably well-paid, however. Would you believe $422,599 a year? Plus $107,445 in benefits and deferred compensation?
That is what a fellow named Dennis O'Connell makes at Carnegie Hall. He is the props manager, the highest-paid stagehand.
Four other guys, two of them carpenters, two electricians, are paid somewhat lesser amounts, ranging down to $327,257, plus $76,459 in benefits and deferred compensation, for the junior member of the team, John Goodson, an electrician.
The New York Times broke this story last week. The reporter, Daniel J. Wakin, got it from a publicly available document, Carnegie Hall's tax return for the 2007-08 season.
The hall was legally obliged to disclose the pay of the chief executive, Clive Gillinson, and the names and pay of the next five highest-paid employees. All five were stagehands.
Gillinson, who doubles as artistic director, was paid $946,581, nearly twice as much as O'Connell, the props manager, but not out of line for top arts executives in Manhattan.
The Carnegie stagehands' pay was something else again, but not, as it turns out, unique. At Avery Fisher Hall and Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center, the average stagehand salary and benefits package is $290,000 a year.
To repeat, that is the average compensation of all the workers who move musicians' chairs into place and hang lights, not the pay of the top five.
Across the plaza at the Metropolitan Opera, a spokesman said stagehands rarely broke into the top-five category. But a couple of years ago, one did. The props master, James Blumenfeld, got $334,000 at that time, including some vacation back pay.
How to account for all this munificence? The power of a union, Local 1 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. "Power," as in the capacity and willingness to close most Broadway theaters for 19 days two years ago when agreement on a new contract could not be reached.
Wakin reported that this power was palpable in the nervousness of theater administrators and performers who were asked to comment on the salary figures.
Kelly Hall-Tompkins, for one, said, "The last thing I want to do is upset the people at Carnegie Hall. I'd like to have a lifelong relationship with them." She is a violinist who recently presented a recital in Weill Hall, one of the smaller performance spaces in the building.
She said she begrudged the stagehands nothing: "Musicians should be so lucky to have a strong union like that." Uh-huh.
The minimum Carnegie charge per performance for stage labor at Weill is $540. The minimum rental paid by an outside presenter like Hall-Tompkins is $1,475 for a weekday afternoon, so the labor charge would represent about a third of that.
Carnegie rentals range up to $15,600 for a weekend evening at Isaac Stern Auditorium, the historic, gloriously renovated main performance space.
Carnegie Hall, like other artistic venues in the city and in New Jersey, is suffering from the recession. Its budget, $84.5 million two years ago, has shrunk to $70 million. The administration refused to tell the Times reporter what portion of it is devoted to stagehands.
Many city arts patrons are Jerseyans.
All of this is of interest to New Jersey patrons, as well as those who live in the city and its northern and eastern suburbs. A survey a few years ago found that about a third of subscribers to organizations like the New York City Ballet, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and the chamber music group Orpheus live in New Jersey.
That means that a substantial portion of the sums we pay for tickets is going for stagehand pay, even as we are asked to increase contributions to make up for recession deficits.
Sir Clive Gillinson, who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II four years ago, says Carnegie Hall's five high-paid stagehands are the only permanent stagehands the building has. Hiring part-timers on a permanent basis is impractical, he says, because the number and types of productions cannot be predicted from year to year.
He also maintains that it would be no less expensive to hire other stagehands to fill in as needed for the permanent five. The work has to be done, for three stages, with 800 events a season, and it requires expertise and experience.
The five men practically live in the building in season, often working from 8 a.m. to past midnight. Their average workweek is 80 hours. After 40 hours, the pay goes up to time-and-a-half, then to double or triple time. They get extra pay for recordings made in the hall.
However, given the accommodations that members of other unions are making in the recession, on both sides of the Hudson and nationally, it would seem that the stages of Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center could be adequately served by men paid less than $300,000 to $500,000 a year.
Alternatively, one of these nights we could see the gray-suited guys decked out in new garb: top hat, white ties and tails.
What they do is essential but unremarkable. Turns out that it is remarkably well-paid, however. Would you believe $422,599 a year? Plus $107,445 in benefits and deferred compensation?
That is what a fellow named Dennis O'Connell makes at Carnegie Hall. He is the props manager, the highest-paid stagehand.
Four other guys, two of them carpenters, two electricians, are paid somewhat lesser amounts, ranging down to $327,257, plus $76,459 in benefits and deferred compensation, for the junior member of the team, John Goodson, an electrician.
The New York Times broke this story last week. The reporter, Daniel J. Wakin, got it from a publicly available document, Carnegie Hall's tax return for the 2007-08 season.
The hall was legally obliged to disclose the pay of the chief executive, Clive Gillinson, and the names and pay of the next five highest-paid employees. All five were stagehands.
Gillinson, who doubles as artistic director, was paid $946,581, nearly twice as much as O'Connell, the props manager, but not out of line for top arts executives in Manhattan.
The Carnegie stagehands' pay was something else again, but not, as it turns out, unique. At Avery Fisher Hall and Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center, the average stagehand salary and benefits package is $290,000 a year.
To repeat, that is the average compensation of all the workers who move musicians' chairs into place and hang lights, not the pay of the top five.
Across the plaza at the Metropolitan Opera, a spokesman said stagehands rarely broke into the top-five category. But a couple of years ago, one did. The props master, James Blumenfeld, got $334,000 at that time, including some vacation back pay.
How to account for all this munificence? The power of a union, Local 1 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. "Power," as in the capacity and willingness to close most Broadway theaters for 19 days two years ago when agreement on a new contract could not be reached.
Wakin reported that this power was palpable in the nervousness of theater administrators and performers who were asked to comment on the salary figures.
Kelly Hall-Tompkins, for one, said, "The last thing I want to do is upset the people at Carnegie Hall. I'd like to have a lifelong relationship with them." She is a violinist who recently presented a recital in Weill Hall, one of the smaller performance spaces in the building.
She said she begrudged the stagehands nothing: "Musicians should be so lucky to have a strong union like that." Uh-huh.
The minimum Carnegie charge per performance for stage labor at Weill is $540. The minimum rental paid by an outside presenter like Hall-Tompkins is $1,475 for a weekday afternoon, so the labor charge would represent about a third of that.
Carnegie rentals range up to $15,600 for a weekend evening at Isaac Stern Auditorium, the historic, gloriously renovated main performance space.
Carnegie Hall, like other artistic venues in the city and in New Jersey, is suffering from the recession. Its budget, $84.5 million two years ago, has shrunk to $70 million. The administration refused to tell the Times reporter what portion of it is devoted to stagehands.
Many city arts patrons are Jerseyans.
All of this is of interest to New Jersey patrons, as well as those who live in the city and its northern and eastern suburbs. A survey a few years ago found that about a third of subscribers to organizations like the New York City Ballet, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and the chamber music group Orpheus live in New Jersey.
That means that a substantial portion of the sums we pay for tickets is going for stagehand pay, even as we are asked to increase contributions to make up for recession deficits.
Sir Clive Gillinson, who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II four years ago, says Carnegie Hall's five high-paid stagehands are the only permanent stagehands the building has. Hiring part-timers on a permanent basis is impractical, he says, because the number and types of productions cannot be predicted from year to year.
He also maintains that it would be no less expensive to hire other stagehands to fill in as needed for the permanent five. The work has to be done, for three stages, with 800 events a season, and it requires expertise and experience.
The five men practically live in the building in season, often working from 8 a.m. to past midnight. Their average workweek is 80 hours. After 40 hours, the pay goes up to time-and-a-half, then to double or triple time. They get extra pay for recordings made in the hall.
However, given the accommodations that members of other unions are making in the recession, on both sides of the Hudson and nationally, it would seem that the stages of Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center could be adequately served by men paid less than $300,000 to $500,000 a year.
Alternatively, one of these nights we could see the gray-suited guys decked out in new garb: top hat, white ties and tails.
Ahearn: For backstage labor, rich rewards
Sunday, November 1, 2009
By JAMES AHEARN
RECORD COLUMNIST
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2652568/posts
Sunday, November 1, 2009
By JAMES AHEARN
RECORD COLUMNIST
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2652568/posts
Youngsters who read Ahearn’s piece should have seen the need for a college education. There has to be a lot of competition for those well-paying jobs; so a master’s degree in the art of cleaning toilet bowls cannot hurt.
Democrats created tax dollar funding in varying forms and amounts for every show business entity beginning with funding college drama classes, film schools, etc. I believe the Lincoln Center gets approximately 20 percent of its funding from taxpayers —— taxpayers who will never see the Lincoln Center let alone attend a performance. Worse still, every private donation to the arts is a tax deduction that is passed along to working people who actually work.
Just so I am not misunderstood, it is only fair that entertainment industry luminaries, wealthy Socialists, politicians, etc., have some place nice to go when they don their tuxedos and gowns for yet another evening of blowing smoke up every keister in attendance. Much of that crap is shown on television. The message is: Every American should want to be just like those wonderful people. In truth, freedom-loving Americans are finding it almost impossible to avoid the influence of such people.
And it would really be too painful to learn that taxpayers pay to manufacture all of those awards. If you know for certain tax dollars pay to make all of those statuettes, plaques, and whatnots show business hand out every year please do not tell me. I read somewhere that there are 400 different entertainment awards shows annually. That is more than one award a day. Hell, manufacturing all of those prizes is bigger than U.S. Steel.
In tough economy, Hollywood stars make novel arguments for arts funding
By Christina Wilkie
04/29/11 06:19 AM ET
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/...d-stars-make-novel-arguments-for-arts-funding
By Christina Wilkie
04/29/11 06:19 AM ET
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/...d-stars-make-novel-arguments-for-arts-funding
It is the culture of tax dollar artists that is most depressing. Peer approval is everything because they all know they will be paid whether or not the public buys their product. Ticket sales is not important to government artists. Peer approval is all that matters. Sally Fields let the cat out of the bag when she said:
It never occurrs to tax dollar artists they should find another line of work to support themselves when they cannot sell enough tickets for their particular schtick. That is exactly what us poor plebeians have to do.
Show business consists of many parts, but most people think of movies as the cornerstone of the entertainment industry. Few realize that movies are the contemporary equivalent of the Roman Circuses during the time of the Caesars. Real killing was used to numb Rome’s citizenry. Fictional killing on film accomplishes the same thing although Hollywood does not butcher animals in its games as did the Romans. Hollywood’s Caligulas concentrate on slaughtering people.
Incidentally, dancing has become choreographed violence in movies. Many moviegoers who would not watch Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers for five seconds cannot get enough of violent killing and brutality in martial arts choreographed dance scenes.
Censoring celluloid bloodbaths will not work because then the movie-going public will be left with the touchy-feely heartwarming movies which do far more harm to the soul than do the bloodbaths.
There are a few ——very few —— movies that qualify as pure entertainment containing no message worth mentioning. Simply put: Not enough creative people work in the movie industry who can supply the pure entertainment merchandise needed to keep movie theaters open seven days a week, or fill the shelves in video rental stores. Keeping movie theaters open is the main reason so much crap is produced every year. Crap and propaganda of one kind or another is the stuff that replaced the absence of entertainment.
Unfortunately, it is usually Socialist propaganda that is most-often manufactured by the kissy-kissy brigade in Hollywood. Once upon a time in Tinseltown there lived a movie studio mogul who said, “If you want to send a message, call Western Union.” Nowadays, Hollywood sends more Socialist advocacy messages than Western Union could ever handle.
Also, the accepted image of slavery can be laid at Hollywood’s door. That image contributes to contemporary slavery.
Cecil B. De Mille, and Hollywood epics in general, instilled the image of the Pharaoh’s soldiers whipping slaves into moving huge stones into place for the latest pyramid. The subliminal message in Hollywood’s image is that government troops are not standing over me with a whip; therefore, I am not a slave. Tax dollar slavery is never mentioned. In truth, few people know the reasons for what happened last week —— never mind the reasons for what happened thousands of years ago; so how the hell does Hollywood know why and how the pyramids were built?
Some historians claim that building pyramids were government make-work programs. That view makes a lot more sense to me than the one Hollywood puts forth. Ultimately, slavery of any kind destroys initiative, creativity, and true compassion which is fundamental to the growth of the human spirit; so how can an industry that is such an integral component of the slave-driven welfare state in this country claim to be an industry populated by creative artists? Hollywood’s denizens are about as creative as were the Pharaoh’s troops portrayed in biblical epics.
Then there is hard core pornography to consider. There will always be fornication and numerous counterfeits; so there will always be a limited audience for that “art form.”
Insofar as mainstream movies go, it can be said with some truth that movies not containing graphic sex scenes are nothing more than pornography for prudes —— show a buxomly female bosom or an ample butt now and then —— just enough to keep Mother Thumb and her four daughters interested —— but do not go too far.
When mainstream movies fade into history because even the prudes do not want them anymore, hard core pornography will still be selling. I will bet you that Hollywood’s spokespersons never mention that bit of truth when they testify before a Congressional Committee about their artistic contributions to civilized society.
Do not ever expect the media, print or electronic, to criticize Hollywood. Just look at the amount of tax deductible advertising dollars Hollywood spends to promote their latest product model. Newspapers and TV stations would be foolish to jeopardize that income. Hollywood gets it from the tax collector —— the media gets it from Hollywood —— and everybody involved smiles all the way to bank. Everybody, that is, except people who can do without Hollywood’s product.
Since I criticized it is only right that I at least offer a solution that will curtail, or possibly stop, the damage Hollywood/television is doing.
Take every form of government funding away from the entertainment industry; including TV’s tax deductible advertising dollars. That includes subsidies paid to Public Television, and Public Radio. My suggestion will not amount to censorship, but it will hamper attempts by social engineers to micro manage every facet of American life with the help of propaganda tax dollars.
Just to stress the point one more time: I am not advocating censorship, I am talking about funding. Let show folk say anything they want to say —— just do not force everybody to pay for it.
Finally, show folk are determined to label their efforts an art form. Having that definition accepted is essential whenever “artists” descend on Washington trying to justify their spot at the trough. Everyone knows about the “show” in show business, but how many people know about the business?
p.s. Makeup artist people were the only people who were called artists in the old days. I am not sure if another job description is considered an artist in the endless credits run at the end of today’s movies.
