Censorship! A Hollywood Leftist's Best [bleeping] Friend!

I’ve said before that liberals love to lose — be it elections or Oscars –because it “proves” they are enlightened victims living among the great unwashed.

They never come right out and say they love to lose. Instead, when their movie of choice loses the Oscar to “Crash,” they say things like, “Hollywood’s homophobia could be on par with Pat Robertson’s.” The case of “Crash” versus “Brokeback Mountain” turned into an absolutely hilarious pissing match that saw liberals clamoring to stake their claim to being at least as liberal as the next whiny liberal.

About the only thing liberals love more than losing is claiming they’ve been victims of — gasp! — censorship! If I seem like I’m making light of — gasp! — censorship! it’s because, well, I am.

In the vast majority of cases of — gasp! — censorship! there has in fact been no censorship.

Take Harvey Weinstein’s latest claim. The Hollywood Reporter reports that ABC asked for three cuts to the trailer for “Our Idiot Brother,” on the basis that three shots violated its “long established ad-guidelines.” Where you and I might see an entity exercising its right to purchase and air WHATEVER THE HELL THEY CHOOSE TO PURCHASE AND AIR, Harvey sees an opportunity to reassert himself as the undisputed champion of hemming and hawing about so called censorship. The Weinstein Company quickly cut together a new red band trailer, which Harvey knew would be useless without a press release that made him look like a victim. Putting on a happy face, Harvey proclaimed, “”We’d like to dedicate our new red band trailer for Our Idiot Brother to censorship everywhere. Enjoy!”

Is this censorship? No really. I’m asking: Is. This. Censorship?

If a writer pens a spec script, sends it to The Weinstein Company (TWC) and TWC rejects it, refuses to buy it, or film it, or distribute; has that writer been censored?

I find these kinds of claims fascinating. The Super Bowl has in the last few years become a bizarre battleground for claims of censorship. There was the whole Janet Jackson affair, which was either a fiasco or an unbridled success, depending on your point of view. I recall a story in Rolling Stone, in which some journalist wrote- … … … …

(Sorry. I was laughing hysterically at the idea of Rolling Stone employing journalists to do journalism, and a swallow of Newcastle went down the wrong pipe.)

— Anyway, Rolling Stone decried critics of Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction as hysterical Bible-thumping, pitchfork-wielding, stake-burning prudes. Their accompanying photo of Janet Jackson really hacked me off; the so-called offensive part of her anatomy…was blurred. Or, censored.

I’m averse to in-depth research, but I found this story, published four years later in Rolling Stone, where in they shriek, “The incident led to an almost-censorship of live events, with tape delays becoming the norm to avoid future unscripted situations.”

“Almost-censorship.”

Alrighty, then.

Another fantastic censorship whine-fest from the last decade involves none other than The Dixie Chicks. Perhaps I’m too thick-skinned, but I wasn’t exactly offended by what Natalie Maines said in London. Why? Because being offended by what she said lent her credibility. She’s a country singer. A pretty damn good one, in my opinion. I don’t expect her to have earth-shattering opinions about George W. Bush or any other President. It was a goofy thing to say.

The ensuing hullabaloo made a mountain out of a mole hill in my opinion. Her comment deserved nothing more than an eye roll and a, “Dadgum, that Natalie done lost it. Put on ‘Goodbye Earl’ and let’s get good and ripped.” Getting together with a bunch of other people and burning Dixie Chicks CD’s was, in fact, about the silliest thing I ever heard of until Al Gore weighed in on the matter.

“They were made to feel un-American and risked economic retaliation because of what was said. Our democracy has taken a hit,” said Gore. “Our best protection is free and open debate.”

Wait — What?

Gore commits a classic blunder here, in defending the poor, poor, pitiful Dixie Chicks. Yes. They have freedom of speech. They could have said even worse things about Bush, and have. And I, and other loons, are free get offended and to burn their [bleeping] records in retaliation.

For her part, Maines apologized for her “brave” Bush rant, and later reneged on said apology. Why?

“I’m Not Ready to Make Nice,” she crooned on the lead single from their next album. Yes, it seemed that The Dixie Chicks had taken a page from the Weinstein playbook, and figured out a way to profit from the controversy. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if Harvey himself coached them on how to ride this particular gravy train. After all, Harvey’s company distributed “Shut Up & Sing,” the documentary/whine-fest about the Dixie Chicks horrible ordeal. When NBC and the CW rejected ads for the movie, Harvey gravely intoned, “It’s a sad commentary about the level of fear in our society that a movie about a group of courageous entertainers who were blacklisted for exercising their right of free speech is now itself being blacklisted by corporate America.”

I am telling you what. Crying about censorship is good work, if you can get it.