‘Airplane’ Director: My Love for Israel Turned Me Conservative

Acclaimed American filmmaker David Zucker (far right, above) told Politicon this weekend that he had turned his career in Hollywood towards exposing and taking down liberal American politicians using the film medium.

Zucker was participating in a panel discussion in which his satirical political trailers were showcased at the first-ever Politicon event.

Zucker, who used to vote Democrat, said one of his biggest motivations for making the switch to becoming a conservative Republican was “because of his support for Israel.” On the topic of the now-historic Iran nuclear accords, Zucker said “even the Israeli left thinks this is a bad deal”:

I don’t think Israel has threatened to destroy any other country, whereas Iran has said [they will]. And history has taught us that these threats aren’t to be taken lightly. That’s what Hitler said. He said he’s going to do X, Y, and Z [regarding the Holocaust] and he did it.

Zucker is best known for his 1980 parody film Airplane and the Naked Gun franchise.

“I was always afraid of Obama getting elected as president,” Zucker told political analyst Larry Greenfield, who moderated the Saturday afternoon panel discussion. “And so I had it in my mind that someday my kids were going to ask me ‘did you do anything to stop it?’ That’s how serious I felt about it. And so I donated my career to it.”

His 2008 film An American Carol sought to warn America against voting for the current commander-in-chief. It was presented as a spoof on “the mindless chanting of the left” and liberal filmmaker Michael Moore (played by Kevin Farley).

Zucker joked that the film was “a complete disaster…because the left can’t laugh at themselves and Republicans don’t go to the movies.”

He expanded upon his belief that America should be oil independent, and said he is “in favor of building every pipeline” in order to achieve that.

His satirical cartoon Nozzle Rage: Attack of the Pump is a hilarious take on the geopolitical consequences of the oil market, where an American oil consumer must decide at an OPEC pump whether he wants to finance al Qaeda, the Taliban or Hamas with his gas purchase.

Trotting further down the political path, Zucker recalled how he had initially supported outgoing Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) when she first ran for her post and won in 1992, but that he quickly changed his tune. Zucker said Boxer had called her around 2004 to ask that he contribute to her reelection campaign and he knew he couldn’t just tell her, “No. I think you’re a horrible senator and ruining the country.”

Instead, he created a trailer spoofing her “arrogant behavior” during a Senate hearing where she was interrogating a U.S. Brigadier General Michael Walsh, who called her ma’am. In an infamous fit of pique, Boxer asked him not to call her “Ma’am,” but to address her as “Senator.” “It’s just a thing. I’ve worked so hard to get that title.”

Zucker said “it was so arrogant it made me cringe and be embarrassed that I had ever supported Barbara Boxer.” And Zucker’s trailer Call Me Senator was born:

Zucker also produced a trailer on the destructive “side effects” of the now-historic Iran deal:

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