Before his election last year, Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) was for years a big-time Washington lawyer and a frequently employed Hollywood motion picture actor (“Die Hard 2,” “In the Line of Fire”).
In these capacities, he developed an interesting theory, namely, that Hollywood and the nation’s capital are in many ways mirror images of each other, and their inhabitants are interchangeable.
To be sure, you don’t see members of Congress wearing black T-shirts, double-breasted jackets, Oakley shades and Italian designer jeans, or hanging out in decaf cappuccino joints talking about “points off the gross” and threatening each other with some horror called “turnaround.”
But Thompson’s theory has always struck me as plausible. Hollywood offers fame and fortune. Washington offers fame and power (and fortune, depending on what kind of book-advance deal you get). In both places, egos and hubris accumulate accordingly.
Besides, didn’t Thompson, who campaigned in good ol’ boy clothes and a pickup truck, prove his point simply by getting elected?
His theory has really struck me as plausible during the last few days.
First, I came upon some recent remarks uttered by Elizabeth Hurley, the terribly classy and dishy British actress-model (and main squeeze of English movie star Hugh Grant), on the subject of Hollywood, and the inhabitants thereof she’s encountered.
She found, she said, that approximately 70 percent of the people she has met in Film Land are “idiots” and that, of the 70 percent, “half were fools and the other half were vile.”
“They’ll take phone calls while you’re in the room and are just horrendous,” she said.
Gosh. Phone calls. Eek.
Anyway, this struck me. Those are about the same percentages of idiots, fools and vile persons that you find in Washington.
There are indeed Hollywood types who take phone calls while you’re in the room. But there are Washington politicians who also do that. Not only did Lyndon Johnson take calls while you were in the room, the room he chose to take them in was his bathroom.
Just ask Jack Valenti, a one-time Johnson White House aide (and bathroom attendant) who is now a big Hollywood muckety-muck as president of the Motion Picture Association of America.
What struck me next was Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole’s recent and, golly, really attention-getting diatribe against Time-Warner Corp., accused purveyor of vile and disgusting rap music recordings, as well as the producers of the endearing satire (that’s what they tried to call it) “Natural Born Killers.” Mrs. Dole even sold her stock in Walt Disney, because it’s bought Miramax Pictures, purveyors of movies like “The Crying Game,” which displayed a man’s penis on the big silver screen.
Hollywood responded to the Doles much the same way congressmen do when the C-Span cameras are rolling and they’ve got a hot issue.
Actor James Woods charged “fascism” and “Nazis.” Oliver Stone, the man responsible for “Killers,” charged “McCarthyism.” Others shrieked that Dole was attacking Hollywood while ignoring the gun lobby and talk-show hosts like G. Gordon Liddy, who gives helpful advice on how to whack federal agents. Others shrieked that Dole was attacking the 1st Amendment. Others just shrieked.
But looking at things Fred Thompson’s way, all Dole did was what Hollywood has been doing for three decades. He attacked recordmakers and moviemakers, but not the ones on his side. As has been noted, Dole never uttered a whisper about the stuff purveyed by his Republican pals Bruce Willis (whose male member was just as evident in the 1994 flick “Color of Night”) or Arnold Schwarzenegger, who strides through his films like a one-man hydrogen bomb.
In similar fashion, ever since the first hippie bought a movie ticket, Hollywood has been trashing corporate America for years, portraying corporate CEOs as evil, corrupt polluters, swindlers and exploiters. But never are these Hollywood corporate villains communications companies. Never do these fiendish capitalists make movies.
I was struck again when, in response to Dole, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) last week introduced a resolution calling for Dole to apply the same “standard” to Washington that he did to Hollywood.
What standard? The same one Sen. Phil Gramm used when he invested in his ex-brother-in-law’s skin flick?
What this raucous debate needs, I think, is Elizabeth Hurley. I’d love for her to come over again and meet some of the American public that buys the tickets to all these movies and votes for all these politicians.
I’ll bet you all the stock in Gramm’s former brother-in-law’s movie company she’d find that 70 percent are idiots, and of these, half are fools and the other half vile.
No other explanation.
