Hollywood Wants Your Money...and Your Mind
Imagine a group so powerful they could beam ideas directly into your head. Well, you don't have to imagine -- it's Hollywood. Ben Shapiro, Editor of the Daily Wire, explains the world's largest mass propaganda machine.
Hollywood beams propaganda directly into your brain—and they’re so sophisticated that they actually get you to pay them to do it.
- Hollywood places political, cultural and moral messaging in seemingly innocuous stories that distract us and make us feel good, compassionate, and decent.View Source
- All the while, we are being manipulated politically and ideologically.View Source
- Major Hollywood executives have admitted to approving of and promoting liberal bias in Hollywood.View Source
- Related reading: “Switching TV to the Right” – National ReviewView Source
- Related reading: “Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV” – Ben ShapiroView Source
We may watch TV for entertainment, but we are getting leftist propaganda whether we want it or not.
- As conservative author Ben Shapiro notes, we may watch TV for entertainment, but we are getting liberal propaganda whether we want it or not.View Source
- Creators of TV shows as varied as “Golden Girls,” “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” and “Friends” have admitted to promoting liberal bias in Hollywood. CBS executive producer Leonard Goldberg commented that leftist bias in the TV industry is “100 percent dominant, and anyone who denies it is kidding, or not telling the truth.”View Source
- As Shapiro puts it, “The best-kept secret is that the TV industry does not cater to the American public.”View Source
- Related reading: “Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV” – Ben ShapiroView Source
Hollywood claims its shows are “representative” of everyday America, when they really represent the lives led by their Hollywood creators.
- Liberals suggest that television shows are “representative” of everyday America, when they’re really just representative of the lives led by their Hollywood creators.View Source
- Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman admitted in an interview with conservative author Ben Shapiro that she “put together a staff of mostly liberal people.”View Source
- The few conservatives remaining in Hollywood are marginalized and face discrimination for their beliefs.View Source
- Related reading: “Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV” – Ben ShapiroView Source
Major Hollywood executives openly admit to—even brag about—including social justice propaganda in their shows.
- While researching his book “Primetime Propaganda,” conservative author Ben Shapiro spoke with nearly a hundred members of the Hollywood community – and many of them openly admitted that they inserted “social justice” messages into their shows.View Source
- CBS executive producer Leonard Goldberg commented that leftist bias in the TV industry is “100 percent dominant, and anyone who denies it is kidding, or not telling the truth.”View Source
- Related reading: “Switching TV to the Right” – National ReviewView Source
Hollywood promotes its liberal agenda by creating sympathetic characters, then having them act in ways most of us would judge wrong.
- Through television series, Hollywood brings new friends and family members into our lives, building our sympathy and identification with them.View Source
- We watch the series for the entertaining stories, but liberal agendas are inserted in subtle ways.View Source
- Hollywood executives have openly admitted to the industry’s leftwing bias. The creator of Friends admitted to inserting liberal themes into the show and having a hiring bias toward liberals.View Source
- Related reading: “Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV” – Ben ShapiroView Source
Despite professing feminism and social justice, the culture of Hollywood is deeply misogynistic.
- Despite professing feminism and leftist values, the culture of Hollywood is deeply misogynistic. The wave of sexual harassment allegations following the Harvey Weinstein scandal demonstrate just how widespread the problem is in Hollywood.View Source
- Liberals suggest that television shows are “representative” of everyday America, when they’re really just representative of the lives led by their Hollywood creators.View Source
- Related reading: “Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV” – Ben ShapiroView Source
The TV industry does not cater to the American public—it’s far more interested in promoting its own agenda and worldview.
- “The best-kept secret is that the TV industry does not cater to the American public,” says conservative author Ben Shapiro. Hollywood is far more committed to promoting its own agenda than producing shows that reflect most Americans’ views.View Source
- Creators and producers have openly admitted to hiring more liberals, and putting liberal themes into TV shows.View Source
- Creators of “Orange Is the New Black” said that the show is meant in part to tell the story of Black Lives Matter.View Source
- Other shows, like “Transparent,” are trying to influence Americans on the issue of transgenderism.View Source
- Meanwhile, Hollywood elites celebrate each other’s “courage” for pushing messages with which they all agree.View Source
- Related reading: “Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV” – Ben ShapiroView Source
TV is not mere entertainment, it’s a powerful way of communicating to millions on an emotional level—and the left controls the industry.
- TV is not merely entertainment, it reaches millions on an emotional level, where most people make important decisions, including political decisions.View Source
- Research has found that television acts like a “habit-forming drug.”View Source
- According to the market research firm Childwise, teenage boys spend an average of 8 hours per day in front of screens. Much of the content they consume is produced by leftwing Hollywood.View Source
- Related reading: “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business” – Neil PostmanView Source
- Related reading: “Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV” – Ben ShapiroView Source
Hollywood’s tremendous influence on our culture has been almost entirely to the left side of the social and political spectrum.
- Hollywood heavily influences public perception of political issues and figures. Chevy Chase likes to boast that he helped Jimmy Carter defeat Gerald Ford in 1976 with his belittling portrayal of Ford on “Saturday Night Live.”View Source
- Comedy Central produced a show, “That’s My Bush!,” to openly mocking President George W. Bush.View Source
- After heaping criticism on President Bush, Hollywood somehow managed to take an eight-year hiatus from mocking presidents while Barack Obama was in power, conservative author Ben Shapiro points out.View Source
- Former Vice President Joe Biden said that “Will & Grace” greatly impacted Americans’ views of same-sex marriage, and the evidence suggests Biden was right.View Source
- Related reading: “Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV” – Ben ShapiroView Source
Imagine a group of activists so powerful that they could beam their propaganda directly into your brain. Now also imagine that they’re so sophisticated, they actually get you to pay them to do it.
Unfortunately, you don’t have to imagine it. It’s real. It’s Hollywood.
As big as the internet has become, Hollywood—and here, I’m talking specifically about television—is still king. Not only does it reach hundreds of millions of people with its messaging, it embeds that messaging in seemingly innocuous stories—stories that distract us from the hardships of daily life; stories that make us feel good, compassionate, and decent.
We watch TV, in other words, because we like it. And just as Americans didn’t think much about the carcinogens in the cigarettes they smoked for decades, most Americans don’t think much about the toxic politics in the television they watch.
But those who create that content do. They spin out hour after hour of slickly-produced left-wing propaganda and give themselves awards for doing it. They applaud each other’s “courage,” even though all their friends think exactly as they do.
I spoke with nearly a hundred members of the Hollywood community when I wrote my book, Primetime Propaganda, and many of them openly admitted they inserted “social justice” messages into their shows.
How they do it is both clever and effective.
Hollywood writers, producers, directors, actors create characters we keep wanting to spend time with, then have those characters act in ways most of us would judge wrong. Then, in effect, they ask us a question: Isn’t it really okay that Rachel from Friends decided to have a baby without first marrying Ross? After all, you like Ross and you like Rachel! How can what they do be bad?
It hasn’t always been this way. For decades, Hollywood promoted traditional American values. That changed, as did so much else in the late 1960s and ‘70s, when Hollywood stopped celebrating American values and started transforming them.
For example, in the early 1970s, abortion was a hotly-contested issue. A year before the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court case, the top-rated TV sitcom, Maude, featured a storyline in which the title character of the show has an abortion. The LA Times described it as “a watershed moment” in TV history. Why? Well, because it removed the stigma of abortion. Millions of Americans, sitting in their living rooms, saw a beloved character do something they did not approve of—and felt sympathy.
Something similar happened in the early 2000s. Vice President Joe Biden was right when he said that Will & Grace had a major impact on how Americans think about same-sex marriage. Before the hit NBC show, though most Americans had a live-and-let-live attitude toward private sexual behavior, few supported the idea of men marrying men or women marrying women. But seeing the charming and funny Will Truman live his life week after week paved the way for a much wider acceptance of same-sex marriage.
Current shows like Orange Is the New Black and Transparent are trying to affect the same change on the issue of transgenderism.
You may think these are all good things. Or that some are, and some aren’t. That’s not my point. My point is that Hollywood has had a tremendous influence on our culture, and that influence has been all to the left side of the political spectrum.
And it isn’t just social issues. Chevy Chase likes to boast that he helped Jimmy Carter defeat Gerald Ford in 1976. He may be right. Week after week on Saturday Night Live, Chase portrayed Ford, probably the most athletic president in American history, as a bumbling, uncoordinated idiot. In the early 2000s, Comedy Central had a show, That’s My Bush!, that openly mocked the 43rd president. And, of course, Hollywood despises Donald Trump. From crime dramas to the late-night comedy shows, he’s relentlessly ridiculed.
Somehow, Hollywood managed to take an eight-year hiatus from mocking presidents during the Obama years. But maybe that’s just a coincidence.
All of this programming has an effect. Scientific studies suggest that watching TV acts like a “habit-forming drug.” According to the market research firm Childwise, teenage boys spend 8 hours per day in front of screens, much of it consuming Hollywood propaganda.
Dedicated religious parents might expose their children to two hours a week of religious instruction. Hands-on parents might spend thirty minutes a day discussing essential values with their kids. Hollywood gets up to forty hours a week. Every week.
By all means, enjoy television. I do! But remember, the people making TV don’t merely want to entertain you; they want to influence you. They want you to think like they think. And, unless you’re aware of what they’re trying to do, chances are, you will.
I’m Ben Shapiro, editor of the Daily Wire, for Prager University.
