* * political doodle * *

Did Hollywood See This Coming? [John Ennis]

Does the proposed bailout of the Big 3 automotive companies seem entirely too complicated for you? Are you tired of all the contradicting claims concerning the causes of the current crisis? Fear not, for it was all explained decades ago by a visionary film director. His name is Ron Howard.

In 1986 Mr. Howard produced one of the most underrated comedies of that decade. It's name was Gung Ho, and it told the story of a Pennsylvania town crippled by the shutdown of its automotive plant. The folks send Michael Keaton to recruit a Japanese firm to re-open it. The movie focuses on the ensuing culture clash between the blue collar workers and Japanese management.

Nestled in the film are little details pointing to the current crisis. The workers return to the assembly line without a contract. Out of desperation, they make labor concessions unheard of a decade earlier.

Of course, Gung Ho is fiction, not a documentary, but, the fact remains that the Japanese auto companies who entered the U.S. in the 1980s operate under much more favorable conditions than Detroit does. Furthermore, their contracts from the 1960s and 70s don't just cost them in terms of dollars and cents. Mickey Kaus ably explains how the Big 3 must deal with byzantine work rules that their Asian competitors are free from:

Why have unionized Detroit auto manufacturers manifestly lost out to their non-union Japanese competitors, even when it comes to building cars in the United States--to the point where Congress is presented with a choice of bailout or bankruptcy? There are some obvious culprits: shortsighted American managers, schlocky designers, an insular corporate culture. Here's another: the very structure of Wagner Act unionism. The problem isn't so much wages as work rules--internal strictures that make it hard for unionized competitors to constantly adapt and change production processes the way the Japanese do. 

The Big 3 can only be saved if they are operating under the same conditions as the Japanese firms. A bailout that doesn't recognize this can't succeed. The United Auto Workers union and its Congressional allies haven't conceded this yet. They won't until they are standing over the abyss. The recently rejected $15 billion bailout would have merely postponed that moment for a few months, hence it was worthless. 

Bettie's True Page In History [John Ennis]

From The New York Times (emphasis added):

Bettie Page, a legendary pinup girl whose photographs in the nude, in bondage and in naughty-but-nice poses appeared in men’s magazines and private stashes across America in the 1950s and set the stage for the sexual revolution of the rebellious ’60s, died Thursday in Los Angeles. She was 85.

Nude photography was not invented by Bettie Page in the 1950s. Nude photos had been around since the invention of the camera and the ones of the 1950s did not "set the stage for the sexual revolution of the rebellious '60s." The widespread availability of oral contraceptives triggered the sexual revolution. In 1961, Britain's National Health Service made 'the pill' available to all. In 1965, the United States' Supreme Court struck down most remaining state laws barring access to contraceptives. 

I'm as big a fan of Ms. Page's photos as anyone. But, they did not trigger the sexual revolution. The drastic reduction in the risk of pregnancy the pill offered did. The rebelliousness the Times mentions was the result of access to a technology the supposedly staid 1950s developed. The sexual revolution was going to occur as soon as the pill became widespread - no matter which decade it occurred in. 

Hollywood Rejects The New Puritanism [John Ennis]

AP has a story out today about a strategic shift in Hollywood's global warming agenda. Gone are the days when the Left Coast produced environmental disaster flicks like "The Day After Tomorrow" and "An Inconvenient Truth." It's time for them to repackage and tone down the alarmism (emphasis added):

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Hollywood insiders and climate change experts agree that they can't shove messages about global warming down audiences' throats.

They met at the Skirball Cultural Center on Tuesday to discuss how storytelling in film and TV can translate broad issues about climate change to everyday audiences.

"The storytelling has to trump everything," said "West Wing" actor Bradley Whitford.

 The key syllable there being "story". Later on:

Howard Frumkin, director of the National Center for Environmental Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, agreed that viewers are turned off by accusations and hectoring. He said dispensing incorrect information about climate change can also elicit depression and a "sticking-your-head-in-the-sand" attitude from the public.

"One thing we've learned is that apocalyptic stories don't work very well," said Frumkin.

How are you going to get people to spend 50% more on energy without threatening them with the apocalypse? Here's one idea:

David Rambo, a writer and supervising producer for CBS' "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," pointed to the eighth-season episode "The Case of the Cross-Dressing Carp," which explores the issue of water treatment contamination, as an example of how an environmental topic can be woven into a compelling story — and not offend advertisers or public officials.

"It is a challenge," said Rambo. "A lot of the industries that we point the finger at when we talk about climate change are the very ones that make our livelihoods possible, but there's so much pressure on the corporations that advertise to be responsible world citizens, at this point, they pretty much make their own case for the things they're doing."

In the bold segments, Mr. Rambo is referring to television taking advertising money from companies that emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. But, isn't Hollywood also a monumental emitter of CO2? Rambo is distancing himself from a company like GM, which might advertise on CSI, but how about the production company that makes CSI? Can Rambo separate himself from that? After all, studio lots are not exactly energy efficient.

The AP writer might have seen this problem and notes in the next, and last, paragraph:

Many attendees said the major studios have successfully gone green in recent years. They cited e-mailing scripts and call sheets instead of printing them on paper, employing reusable cups instead of plastic water bottles and using hybrid production vehicles for transportation on set instead of gas guzzlers.

I'm sure their carbon footprint is now close to nothing.

It's clear why selling the apocalypse or lecturing was not working for Hollywood - who can stomach having a jet-setting starlet tell you that your car and lightbulb are threatening the globe? So, Mr. Rambo's approach might get better results:

1. Argue that your own industry is green (we know it's implausible, but the media is not going to attack your industry, which it either is owned by or depends upon).
2. "Point the finger" at other companies.

Under this battle plan, global warming is no longer the fault of people, it's the fault of bad corporations. Therefore, there'll be no more hectoring of individuals, and global warming alarmism is now guilt free!

We all knew when push came to shove Hollywood was never going to be convincing salespople for The New Puritanism. Their behavior is too divorced from their beliefs. So, they'll no longer lecture Iowans about driving SUVs, they'll smear the auto companies for not making more efficient ones.

What's truly audacious is that television will continue to take advertising dollars from companies while ripping their products as Earth-threatening. How do they get around the hypocrisy? Rambo has the answer in his quote: rationalize, and say there's already pressure for these companies to be good citizens - we're only doing our bit. (Of course, Hollywood started that pressure and broadcast it for decades, but let's avoid that chicken/egg quandary).

So, get ready for Hollywood to start taking more shots at corporate America. It won't just be toxic polluters, nuclear power plants and gun manufacturers in the vice. Get ready for evil corporate execs to include the manufacturers of fluorescent lightbulbs. The Wizard of Menlo Park is now a public enemy.