There is a venerable tradition of conservative books on Hollywood’s pervasive liberalism. 

Carl Betz (left), Buddy Ebsen in ‘Barnaby Jones’ (1973)

Getty Images

Ben Stein got the ball rolling in 1979 with his groundbreaking The View from Sunset Boulevard: America as Brought to You by the People Who Make Television. Stein argued, based on interviews with top executives, that there is a certain worldview that Hollywood writers and producers share that is reflected on the screen. This view was not necessarily liberal so much as skeptical of large organizations—think the military, corporations, and organized religion—as well as rural America. The origins of the perspective stemmed from the shared demographic characteristics of the mostly urban, Jewish executives, and could be distilled in your average episode of Barnaby Jones, where the aged, milk-drinking detective would come to a corrupt small town where the outwardly religious local sheriff was also the bar owner and, ultimately, the
bad guy.

Another entry in this series was Michael Medved’s Hollywood vs. America (1992), in which the author argued that Hollywood is a small town that is not economically rational. G-rated movies, Medved found, earn more money, but filmmakers seem to prefer to make R-rated movies because they are more prestigious among their avant-garde peers. Medved argues, convincingly, that if Hollywood truly wanted to maximize profits it would make more G movies and far fewer R movies; but filmmakers are looking for validation from their friends rather than maximizing profits. This validation, he found, comes from pushing the boundaries of decency rather than specializing in inspiring moral tales that appeal to the families that support the most successful artistic ventures.