Willow Redd’s Reviews > Hollywood vs. America: The Explosive Bestseller that Shows How-and Why-the Entertainment Industry Has Broken Faith With Its Audience > Status Update

He did it! He actually invoked the Hays Office into his argument! I can't believe it!!

A scene in which the Medved family is run off from their planned idyllic picnic by a group of teenagers playing loud music, while meant to illicit sympathy for his plight, instead comes off as a sad example of not being able accept the unexpected and adapt.

While I do think it is ridiculous that Hollywood believes product placement can influence decision making, I don't believe that graphic sex or violence has a lasting effect on the human psyche either. Movies have not made me more violent, more sexually active, or more likely to buy a Lexus.

Don't worry, Michael, in about twenty years' time (this book was written in 1991) there will be a golden age for you where no one will be allowed to say an unkind word against America, no matter how wrong the Powers That Be are.

Heaven help an antihero in Michael Medved's crusade against the Hollywood system. The descendants of Dirty Harry are not welcome. This apparently includes Batman, a character at least 40 years' Harry Callahan's senior who was much darker in his original tales, just like the pulp heroes he was based on, such as the Shadow and the Avenger. In fact, originally, Batman used a gun, Michael!

How dare "the industry" promote violence and "ugliness" on such a regular basis, but don't bother mentioning the news footage of violent crimes and wars that is just as accessible and more impressionable because it is actually happening.

I like how Medved and those he quotes confuse the "innocent days" of film and television with the days of censorship, accepted racism, and overall oppression. Also, anyone who claims Martin Scorsese is "ignorant of film history" clearly knows nothing about the man, so f#%k off! (How's that for "street language?")

Okay, now he's just getting ridiculous and insulting. Not only does he insult any culture that eats insects by calling the act offensive, he also condemns a movie that does not exist (but was apparently in the works if you believe Medved here. I don't) in which the President has sex with a cow. I mean... what?

That's right, Medved, no way the current generation could have pearls of wisdom the previous one could learn from. Let's keep the "father knows best" mentality even in the cases where it is dangerously untrue because that's more traditional.

Medved, through another's quote, just suggested we bring back the stigma towards unwed mothers. That just happened, and I feel dirty for having even read it.