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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JANUARY 18, 1985
Another post-Vietnam syndrome is the typecasting, in Hollywood, of nearly
all authority figures as evil or immoral, or both. Of course, the movie
industry, like the media, is dominated by crusading left-wing types. Here
is a report by Vernon Scott, UPI's Hollywood reporter, received over our
UPI wire service on January 16, 1985.
The United states of Arnerica is becoming a favorite Hollywood
heavy, second only to Nazi Germany as a source of villainy and
infamy.
There is something about the American government that
filnunakers find inherently evil. If Hollywood movies� made
elsewhere, critics anq moviegoers alike would brand most of them
anti-American propagand�.
Favorite menaces in Holly�ood films the� days are the CIA and
FBI who, according to rnoviernakers, are conspiring at all times to
deny us our rights. Even the KGB doesn't take as many raps as the
CIA. Next in order of menace are the joint chiefs of staff; fol
lowed by an array of high-ranking military officers. Then come
corrupt politicians and oily diplomats. Right behind them are
Southern sheriffs and city cops.
Thereafter, industrialists,
capitalists and finally the just plain rich are singled out as
favorite movie bad guys.
If a movie heavy turns out to be an impoverished criminal, pains
are taken to make clear the felon's plight is a result of pres
sure of some kind from the establishment, which has driven him or
her to commit the crime.
This year•••THE KILLING FIELDS, like THE DEER HUNTER•••falls into
the let's-blow-up-Southeast-Asia-again category. This time it is
Cambodia, which would be a tropical paradise had not Uncle Sam
been· around.
According to this filrn, the blood-thirsty Khmer
Rouge was spawned by the U.S.A•••• ICEMAN indicted almost every
branch of the government, which seemed bent on killing a stone
age man miraculously brought back to life••••
It's not always the United States government and American insti
tutions that make handy heavies for film fare. The USSR takes
its shots, as do the dictatorial governments of South American
countries.
Rarely, however, � insurgents portrayed in � bad
light.
The atrocities of left-wing South American and Asian
regimes rarely are the focal point for villainy as compared to,
say, the old imperialistic nations.
England is a wonderfully
accommodating nation when it comes to playing the villain. A
couple of years ago it was GANDHI, an Academy Award winner, that
revealed the British Empire as the cause of all things evil in
India. This year's down-with-Brits film is A PASSAGE TO INDIA.
Maybe the only picture altogether untainted by Uncle Sam's
calumny was Disney's [rerelease of) PINOCCHIO.
The Kennedy "Crusade" Stirs Up a Hornet's Nest
Senator Edward Kennedy's eight-day trip to South Africa could not have been
more controversial. The liberal Massachusetts politician succeeded in an
gering and in large part uniting South Africa's white community as well as
confusing and further dividing the various black African ethnic groups and