Primetime Propaganda

by Ben Shapiro

  “Everybody was talking. ‘What was going on?’ And ‘How could this happen in California?’ And ‘Oh my God, what’s happened to our town?’ and ‘These poor people . . .’ ”

  The general feeling, Young concluded, was, “No one can hurt us at the Beverly Hills Hotel ’cause it was like a fortress!”1

  Hollywood is like the Beverly Hills Hotel writ large. It takes an exclusive ticket to get in. It’s filled with cloistered people who have little connection to the world around them. And those people revel in their wealth, even as they express sympathy for the plight of those who can’t live in such lush surroundings. At least in New York, the upper-crust liberals sometimes take the subway. In Hollywood, their private chauffeurs drive them to self-aggrandizing awards parties where they all get together to wear ribbons on behalf of the homeless. Even other liberals around the country know that those in Hollywood live in their own self-enclosed utopia—but those in Hollywood are blissfully unaware of that fact.

  They’re stuck in their bubble, and they can’t get out.

  That’s because if the leftists in Hollywood recognized their bubble, they wouldn’t be able to live with themselves. If limousine liberals knew they were limousine liberals, they’d either have to give up the limousine or the liberalism. So they ensconce themselves ever deeper in the charmed reality of their own making, surrounding themselves with those who look, think, and earn like they do, so that they never have to come face to face with the fact that their lifestyle clashes with their politics.

  So how do you get into the bubble?

  It usually requires some help. That help almost always comes from somebody you know or somebody you’re related to.

  It’s not difficult to look around Hollywood and see the generations-long transmission of the television lineage. Jim Burrows, for example, the incredibly successful writer and producer of shows like Cheers, Will & Grace, and Gary Unmarried, is the son of Abe Burrows, a comedy legend from television’s early days. Tom Moore produced Doogie Howser, M.D. and The Wayans Bros.—his dad was Tom Moore, former president of ABC television. Rob Reiner, star of All in the Family, got his big break because his dad is Carl Reiner. Former NBC president Grant Tinker acknowledged that Hollywood was crazily insular. “It’s a tiny little business,” he said. “There is no question that [TV] is sort of a little closed society and very hard for the new guy to get into . . . [and] the product looks like it. It reflects that we are a limited crowd.”2 Tinker should know. When he ran NBC, it looked like a poker game among his old buddies from MTM Enterprises (not that they didn’t merit their special attention). He also helped out his son, Mark, a writer on St. Elsewhere, by greenlighting the ratings failure for another season.

  While familial nepotism remains a problem in Hollywood—Francis Ford Coppola, anyone?—most nepotism in Hollywood isn’t familial, it’s ideological.

  Friends hire friends. And those friends just happen to share their politics. The same people who kibitz at the Beverly Hills Hotel tsk-tsk-ing white racism while Reginald Denny gets the tar beat out of him in South Central hire one another to work on their shows.

  Just look at some of the biggest shows of the last two decades. In the early 1990s, liberal Les Moonves spotted a young, extremely liberal writing team, David Crane and Marta Kauffman, and their producer, Kevin Bright. Crane and Kauffman had worked for iconic liberal Norman Lear. Together, that group would create Friends. Liberal Aaron Spelling worked with a talented and liberal young writer named Darren Star to create Beverly Hills, 90210 and Melrose Place. Liberal Michael Patrick King got started by working with liberal Diane English on Murphy Brown, then parlayed that into a writer’s slot on Will & Grace under liberals Max Mutchnik and David Kohan, and then the creatorship of Sex and the City. Liberal Matt Groening was brought into primetime television by liberal James Brooks, who spotted Groening’s counterculture Life in Hell cartoons and decided to turn them into a series called The Simpsons. Liberal Chuck Lorre would be spotted by liberal Marcy Carsey while writing for Roseanne and would go on to spawn some of the most popular sitcoms of the 1990s and 2000s, including The Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men. Lorre, in turn, would spot liberal Alan Ball and give him a shot in television on Grace Under Fire—Ball would go on to create HBO’s True Blood, among others. Liberal Steven Bochco found liberal David E. Kelley, who would create Picket Fences, Ally McBeal, Chicago Hope, and Boston Public. Kelley found liberal Michael Nankin, who would go on to work on Picket Fences.

  Spotting a pattern yet?

  The people I met in Hollywood generally got into the business through somebody of like mind. “It doesn’t hurt to know somebody,” Larry Gelbart told me.3 Susan Harris, writer of Soap and Golden Girls, said, “of course it’s easier if you know somebody.”4 Abby Singer, a legend in the industry who worked as a production manager and assistant director on everything from Gunsmoke to Hill Street Blues, explained, “a lot of jobs today are from who you know. Who can help you. It’s a really tough business to get into.”5 “There’s definitely some truth to [nepotism in Hollywood],” said Andy Heyward, the creator of Captain Planet, who got into the industry partially based on the fact that his dad was a writer and producer in town.6

  Nonetheless, many of those in Hollywood argue that the nepotism there isn’t worse than it is in any other business. “I think it’s like anything in this country,” opined Chris Chulack, producer of ER and Southland. “I don’t think there’s more nepotism in Hollywood than anywhere else, it’s just that Hollywood is so high-profile and a small community.”7 Michael Brandman, formerly of HBO, agreed: “Same as everything else in America.”8

  They’re right, of course. When it comes to the need to know people, Hollywood’s no different from any other business. People get jobs by knowing somebody who knows somebody, by calling in favors, by flipping through the Rolodex.

  The difference is that the television industry is so dominated by liberals that unless you have a Rolodex filled with liberals, your chances of breaking in are relatively slim.

  Carlton Cuse, executive producer of Lost, explained, “In entertainment . . . you’re basically asking a bunch of disparate people to come together to find a shared vision, because movies and television are collaborative. So prior knowledge of work experience is really valuable in building that trust and sense of confidence with other people to work with.”9

  Michael Nankin, producer on Chicago Hope and Picket Fences, told me exactly the same thing. “People generally like to work with people they’ve worked with before or with whom they’re comfortable. . . . And that mindset, which is entirely appropriate, makes it hard for new people to get in.”10

  It’s a tiny cocoon. According to television historian and sociologist Todd Gitlin, as of 1983, “Fully half of prime-time television [was] scripted by only 10 percent of the Writers Guild’s 3,000 active members.” In order to get a job, writes Gitlin, desperate writers expose themselves to idea theft, throwing out scenes and scripts in the hopes that some executive will bite.11 Today, those numbers have broadened. Still, as of 2007, just 52 percent of West Coast Writers Guild of America members are employed. Many of those work sporadically and non-union at times in the hopes that they can eventually make their way to the big time. The average salary is raised, however, by those who do make it to the big time. The average working WGA member takes home about $200,000 per year.12

  Once you break in, you can live inside that warm cocoon indefinitely. Executives who make it can move from job to job without fear of unemployment. Actually, job mobility is often the best perk of becoming a high-level executive at a network: Executives are almost always paid off when they leave with production deals, first-look guarantees from studios. The perfect career path for an executive looks something like this: Get into the business through Mom or Dad or a liberal buddy, jump from a production company to a network, then get fired or quit the network and receive a lucrative severance package and first-look deal.


  Ben Silverman is the textbook example of that career trajectory. His mom, Mary Silverman, worked as Court TV senior vice president of programming, as an executive at USA Network, and as head of international coproductions for the BBC.13 Silverman went to Tufts, then worked for CBS and the William Morris Agency doing U.K.-U.S. deals (just like Mom!). Finally he started a production company called Reveille, where he turned the British hit show The Office into an American hit show called The Office, starring Steve Carrell.14

  In 2007, Silverman took over programming for NBC as cochairman of NBC Entertainment. Silverman is a massive liberal—“I’m as liberal as Norman Lear was,” he bragged to Nikki Finke of Deadline Hollywood—and he programmed with his politics in mind. Upon his accession to NBC’s entertainment chiefdom, he proclaimed that he wanted to “layer issues with a point of view and create a dialogue,” pushing “big bold TV shows” in Lear’s mold. He also announced that he wanted to run for office after leaving television, and admitted his proclivity for smoking pot.15

  Unsurprisingly, Silverman immediately helped run NBC into the ground. To be fair, he was saddled with a terrible lineup—NBC’s primetime lineup in 2007 featured single-season ratings failures like Bionic Woman, Journeyman, Life, Lipstick Jungle, and The Singing Bee.16 But Silverman did nothing to improve matters; in April 2008, every single new primetime show announced by Silverman was a one-season-and-out failure.17 To strike out on twelve new shows is incredible. To do so while labeling yourself a “rock-star television executive” is unheard of.18 No wonder Peter Mehlman, who wrote for Seinfeld, dismissed Silverman out of hand to me: “I was reading an article where they were talking about Benny Silverman from NBC talking about how brilliant he is adapting shows from other countries. That’s a skill now? Come on.”19

  But proving that quality of management matters less than whom you know, Silverman retained his job until July 2009. Finally he was ousted, leaving the network to form a new company with Barry Diller, the former ABC honcho. Time featured his exit with the snarky headline, “Exit the No-Hit Hitmaker.”20 His replacement, Jeff Gaspin, stated, “I bought Ben’s first show, The Restaurant. I believe I bought his second show, Blow Out, and, as I recall, I bought his third show, The Biggest Loser. . . . NBC and Ben have had a lot of success together, and I suspect Ben will want to continue that relationship.”21

  Once you get into the Beverly Hills Hotel, they have a tough time booting you out. It pays to be part of the clique. But to get in, as they say in the commercials, make sure you bring your Democratic Party membership card.

  KEEPING HOLLYWOOD CONSERVATIVE-FREE

  To get into the clique, you must have the right background. Generally, that means coming from New York or Los Angeles or San Francisco or Chicago. You don’t want to be the hick from the sticks. If you are from a smaller town, you need to make sure you disassociate yourself from the vast unwashed from whence you sprang. You should preferably be young—after all, old coots aren’t going to draw in that coveted 18-to-49 crowd. You have to be talented.

  And most of all, you must be liberal.

  The industry is liberal from top to bottom. Virtually everyone in town is an outspoken advocate of leftist politics. Ben Silverman’s former boss at NBC, Jeff Zucker, was offered a slot in the prospective Gore Administration. Ted Turner stands loud and proud with the left, stating that pro-life advocates are “bozos,” that Christianity is a “religion for losers,” and that Iraqi insurgents are “patriots.” He also offers helpful environmental projections, such as the notion that global warming will cause most of the world’s population to die and that the rest of mankind will turn to cannibalism. Les Moonves at CBS is a committed leftist. Aside from backing President Clinton heavily during his heyday, Moonves also went with several of his friends to visit Cuba and hang out with Fidel Castro, and paid $55,000 for the privilege. At one point, Moonves even encouraged speculation that he’d use Jon Stewart as a part of CBS’s Evening News.22

  Liberal mouthpiece the Huffington Post features the political musings of more Hollywood heavy hitters than attended this year’s Emmy Awards: Carolyn Strauss, longtime HBO executive who oversaw development of The Sopranos, Sex and the City, Six Feet Under, and Big Love; Haim Saban, owner of Univision and former owner of ABC Family; Norman Lear; Kara Vallow, producer for all of Fox’s primetime Sunday night shows with the exception of The Simpsons; and Michael Patrick King, creator of Sex and the City, among dozens of others. It’s no wonder that in 2010, ABC greenlit a pilot entitled Freshman, to be produced by Hollywood heavyweight Greg Malins—and Arianna Huffington.23 Fred Silverman, former head of NBC, ABC, and CBS, sums the situation up nicely. “Right now,” he told me, “there’s only one perspective. And it’s a very progressive perspective.”24

  More troubling, far too often, liberals discriminate against conservatives. Everyone in town knows about the blacklist, by which conservatives are banished if they get too uppity for their own good. And many liberals, sickeningly enough, openly celebrate the existence of that blacklist. Vin DiBona, producer of MacGyver and America’s Funniest Home Videos, blithely informed me, “Well, I think it’s probably accurate and I’m happy about it, actually. . . . If the accusation is there, I’m OK with it.”25 Nicholas Meyer, director of The Day After as well as the movie megahits Star Trek II, IV, and VI said the same thing when I asked him whether right-wingers were discriminated against in Hollywood: “Well, I hope so.”26 Actor Eric Roberts said, “The person who will get snickered at and picked on is the one wearing the McCain-Palin button. But that’s OK. It’s America. A free country. If you’re going to stick your neck out, it’s gonna get whacked.”27 Substitute “black” for “conservative” and these people would recoil in horror. Hell, substitute “communist” for “conservative” and these people would lecture you about the horrors of McCarthyism. But when they have the chance to confront the most blatant form of discrimination within America’s cultural bulkhead, they shy away, or instead, cheer.

  Fred Pierce, president of ABC-TV throughout the 1970s, stated without hesitation that conservatives were discriminated against in Hollywood. “True. That’s true,” he nodded. “The people who are not leaning liberal or left don’t promote it. It stays underground.”

  Why, I asked him, did the industry lean left? “Probably they feel that since it’s a very commercial business, that younger people generally in their youths have liberal ideas,” Pierce said.28 He’s right—the focus on youth obviously pushes the industry left. But there’s something else going on, too: a sense of entitlement that runs throughout the industry, an automatic assumption that conservatives shouldn’t get work, and that barring conservatives from the industry is somehow excusable on the grounds that conservatives are racist, sexist, homophobic bigots.

  Leonard Goldberg, former executive at ABC, now board member at CBS, and producer of the hit Tom Selleck series Blue Bloods, agreed with Pierce that Hollywood is exclusively leftist. “There’s no question about that. I don’t know about the content being pushed, but in terms of the thought about various matters social and political, [liberalism is] 100 percent dominant. And anyone who denies it is kidding or is not telling the truth. I can say that as an independent. There’s no question what the agenda is. . . . Because that’s the personal belief of the people doing the shows. . . . They consider a vote for Prop. 8 to be [worthy of being taken] into the streets and [being] tar[red] and feather[ed].”

  Is conservatism a barrier to entry in the industry? I asked Goldberg.

  “Absolutely,” he answered. “Hollywood is unquestionably a liberal community.”29

  David Shore, creator of House and an unabashed liberal, sensed the discrimination, too. “I do think there is an assumption in this town that everybody is on the left side of the spectrum, and that the few people on the right side, I think people look at them somewhat aghast, and I’m sure it doesn’t help them.”30 If your political position doesn’t help you in Hollywood, it hurts you. T
here’s no true in-between.

  Staying apolitical isn’t an option; in writers’ rooms, politics simply arises too often. Silence is conservatives’ sole salvation in this town. And many liberals are OK with that—they’re not particularly interested in diversity of ideas.

  When I asked Barbara Fisher of Hallmark Channel whether there was nepotism of values in Hollywood, she answered frankly, “I think there’s definitely some truth to it. . . . I mean, I know there’s truth that it is a more left-leaning industry.” Fisher continued, voicing the common Hollywood advice: “I think anybody who’s . . . not welcome because of their politics, they should leave their politics at the door when they’re doing something creative.”31 Naturally, there is truth to this—it’s true of every collaborative endeavor. You don’t want to spoil a social setting by talking politics at work any more than you want to spoil a social setting by talking politics with dissenting family members. The difference is that anger over politics may result in fights with your siblings, but it can result in firings in Hollywood. The other problem, of course, is that if you articulate a radical liberal position in the writers’ room, you’ll be praised as a freethinker; if you laud Ronald Reagan’s presidency, you’ll be bashed behind your back, discredited, and smeared.

  Many Hollywood creators, knowing that conservatives are often the target of discrimination, believe that television should do more to reach out to nonliberal artists. “They should get more writers into TV who are right-wing,” said Tom Fontana, writer for St. Elsewhere and later the creator of Oz. Fontana believes that political diversity in the writers’ room makes for interesting television product. “When I was learning how to write,” he said, “I learned that nobody wants to watch a one-sided football game.”32 Unfortunately, Fontana represents a viewpoint that is all too rare in the television industry—many creators pay lip service to the notion of political debate on television, but they aren’t prepared to hire a former College Republican.