Hollywood's Phony Patriotism: Saluting America When Dems Hold White House

Hollywood suddenly loves America, the White House and probably apple pie again, too.

Consider the patriotic fervor sweeping through this year’s Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down, the latter starring Jamie Foxx as a heroic American president. Both films ask us to root on our Commander in Chief as he battles terrorists, with Foxx’s character serving as a possible stand-in for President Barack Obama.

Foxx’s President Sawyer doesn’t mimic Obama in any overt ways, but in one scene he frantically chews a nicotine gum. Obama has publicly struggled with his addiction to cigarettes. Both politicians embrace far-left political agendas and are eager to withdraw troops from the Middle East before victory is assured.

White House Down is a love letter to President Sawyer, with the primary female character, a cynical teenager played by Joey King, fawning over him as if he were the Celebrity-in-Chief.

Sound familiar?

It’s no accident these films are coming out during a Democratic administration. Consider White House Down director Roland Emmerich’s comments regarding a possible sequel to the 1996 smash Independence Day, one of his biggest hits. He said he didn’t want to make a second film when President George W. Bush is in the White House.

In Independence Day, it was about a king who leads his country into a fight against an outside invader. I didn’t want to make that movie during the Bush years. It was not thought that George W. Bush would have made a great king. Now with Obama, it’s another story.

Mind you, Bush had nothing to do with the first Day,  nor would he likely play any role in a sequel. Most movie presidents have no connection to the presidents serving at the time of a particular film’s production. Emmerich simply found it distasteful to celebrate the American presidency when he disagreed with the policies of the one currently in office.

Now that Obama is in charge, an Independence Day sequel is a go, never mind that Obama has continued many of the War on Terror policies which Bush instigated in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

Later this year, director Peter Berg will bring us Lone Survivor, a heroic tale of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, a project the talented auteur has been nursing for years. Only when Berg agreed to direct last year’s Battleship was he able to gain financing for the film.

During the eight years of the Bush administration Hollywood didn’t make one major film honoring the sacrifices of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, a war far less incendiary in scope than the invasion of Iraq. And no, Robert Redford’s Lions for Lambs doesn’t count.

Now, Lone Survivor will hit theaters in late 2013 in time for Oscar consideration.

So movie goers can go to the theaters this weekend and watch the flag-waving, patriotic White House Down paying tribute to our government. Just understand that if the GOP wins the White House in 2016 such film adventures will probably be suspended for at least four years.