If you want to know just how far to the left today’s elite liberals are trying to pull us, take a look at Amy Zimmerman’s article in The Daily Beast. Called “Hollywood’s Liberalism in Crisis,” the article proceeds to whine about a handful of superstar liberals who are apparently not following the left’s marching orders at every possible junction. Specifically calling out Matt Damon, Meryl Streep, Ben Affleck, and others, Zimmerman seems personally offended by any stars who might actually have a mind of their own.
Damon, one of the most outspoken liberals in Tinseltown, is in trouble twice-over with the extremists. His sins? He didn’t specifically choose a pair of black contestants to win HBO’s Project Greenlight competition. Oh, and he told The Guardian that actors should keep their sexuality to themselves. “I think you’re a better actor the less people know about you, period,” he said.
Ben Affleck is a terrible person for trying to downplay his slave-owning ancestry.
Meryl Streep and Marion Cotillard are to be shamed because they don’t identify as feminists.
Zimmerman concludes that “Hollywood is a horrible place” for minorities, undeserving of its progressive label. Apparently, if you’re anywhere to the right of Noam Chomsky, you deserve to be shunned.
We’ve seen this before, not even that long ago. Liberals tore into Patricia Arquette earlier this year when she wasn’t feminist enough in her Oscar acceptance speech. If you’re not hitting every college-campus talking point these days, it doesn’t matter if you are a card-carrying Democrat. It’s not good enough anymore.
This has depressing implications, and the effects on Hollywood are the least of them. The left is patrolling its borders carefully, and these loony toons are ready to put up a wall. On one side of the wall – themselves. On the other – everyone who disagrees with them on even the smallest of points. Would-be allies like Richard Dawkins, Bill Maher, and the aforementioned Hollywood liberals have been deported. Caitlyn Jenner even risks being shipped over to the intolerant side of the wall for her insistence on remaining a Republican and her doubts about gay marriage. You either buy into the whole thing, or they don’t want you at all.
This might turn out to be a good thing, actually. Once you decide that anyone who fails to meet your ideological purity test is actually just as bad as your sworn enemy, you make for yourself a tidy little echo chamber. And as the echoes get louder and crazier, more liberals are going to find themselves wondering what’s on the other side of the wall. Soon, the extreme left territory will be so small that we won’t have to listen to them anymore.
But that’s an optimistic view. In reality, the opposite seems to be happening. The wall keeps moving, and liberals keep jumping to stay in progressive good graces. White people are gladly willing to concede that their “privilege” means that their opinion doesn’t matter in comparison to a minority’s. Straight people seem ashamed of their sexuality. Christians tie themselves in knots to distance themselves from the Bible parts no longer acceptable to the left.
What’s really interesting is that, with all of this going on, the media continues this story about extremist right-wingers taking over the GOP. Maybe one day, a mainstream reporter will finally look around and come to the conclusion that there might be just a hint of projection in that assertion.
But that’s awfully optimistic, too.
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