Hollywood’s Backlash to the War on Terror

Although War Inc. still performed poorly at the box office, 48% of the profit was made in the US, a far higher percentage than any of the others managed. An interesting tally of a film’s controversy is its domestic takings versus those made abroad. Even the most financially successful of the films, Lions For Lambs ($15 million profit – still only half its budget), relied on 76% of its takings from the foreign market.

Hollywood now makes many films through semi-independent companies such as United Artists, where celebrities decide which films to make. Corporations dictate distribution deals but are reluctant to turn down a potential profit maker. Provided there is an audience of paying cinemagoers for anti-war films, at least some will be released. But if the best the celebrities can offer is to recoup half the film’s budget, the movement may be over before it really began.

This month saw the first return salvo from Hollywood’s pro-war contingent. The backlash to the backlash. An American Carol, directed by Airplane! writer-director David Zucker takes aim at liberalism in the United States, seeking to reform a Michael Moore-inspired filmmaker who wants to abolish the Fourth of July holiday. It’s a painfully self-righteous spoof that appeals to the worst in slapstick gross-out humour. Although the film took more in its opening weekend than most of the anti-war movies, it’s still considered a huge flop. Rather than take it on the chin, the producers claimed last Tuesday that they had received reports of “ticket fraud”, and suggested that it could be the reason why the film’s weekend box-office figures were so low – anything but the film’s politics.

An interesting comparison has to be made against the opening weekend of Bill Maher’s film Religulous. Up against Zucker’s film – one of the most deliberately conservative movies in memory – was Maher’s, one of the most liberal. The film takes square aim at middle-America’s holiest of holies, religion itself. The per-screen average takings of Religulous was three times that of An American Carol. Three times as many people showed up in each theater to see it. It’s tempting to see this as a liberal victory in the culture war. Perhaps it’s not so much a win for the message, as the delivery. Maher made Borat and Curb Your Enthusiasm, and his film is one of the funniest of the year.

Entertainment value is still the central factor to a film’s success. Audiences like their politics kept to TV and documentary, and won’t pay $11 to be preached to or challenged. Hollywood may be finding ways to sneak those politics into comedy, but it has to be funny. The key is in juggling relevance with entertainment. Released in the US this week, Oliver Stone’s Bush biopic W. is hyped as both. No stranger to controversy, Stone is adamant that America needs to understand the faults of the past eight years if it’s to move forward. Whether the Cineplex is the place to do it depends on how ready America is to laugh in the face of the man most responsible, and how funny that man’s story really is.