By Heather Elizabeth Pielke, Member Republican Women of Baltimore County (RWBC)
The following article that I wrote is an historically based critique of Hollywood’s products that seem to encouraging citizens of The United States of America to behave promiscuously, drink alcohol, and use Illegal drugs: all reasons many US citizens do not statically prefer purchases of Hollywood products, compared to working for a living, going to church, socializing with good values, and volunteering in helpful civic organizations, as verifiably accurate published statistics about the US populace prove.
Hollywood products feature and endorse behaviors that lead to forms of slavery. Slavery is a sin according to the Bible. Slavery also is also a crime Republicans have historically stood against. “The first three paragraphs [in one of} of Lincoln’s [Addresses]: ... Lincoln discusses some events leading up to the Civil War, the reality of slavery, and the stain of the war. God’s judgment can be viewed as the war or the tragic extent of the war that atoned for the sins of slavery.” https://compassjournal.org/sermon-from-the-capitol-hill-abraham-lincolns-usage-of-the-bible-in-his-second-inaugural/
Lincoln also quoted the following Bible verse: ““woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” https://compassjournal.org/sermon-from-the-capitol-hill-abraham-lincolns-usage-of-the-bible-in-his-second-inaugural/)
Hollywood understands that sexual promiscuity, irresponsible alcohol use, and drug addiction can lead to people working like slaves, facing violence, to work completing illegal tasks to pay to engage in sexual promiscuity, and drug addition.
This brief history of Hollywood complied from several sources that summarizes the founding of Hollywood and its crimes as an industry:
“Harvey Henderson Wilcox (1832 – March 19, 1891) owned a ranch west of the city of Los Angeles, which his wife Daeida named Hollywood, and that they founded together in 1887. Hollywood became the center of the movie industry of the United States in the early 1910s.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Henderson_Wilcox
“Harvey and Ida moved from Topeka to Los Angeles in early 1883 and tradition says that Harvey rode in the baggage car with two of his prized horses. In Los Angeles Harvey formed the real estate company of Wilcox and Shaw. Harvey and Ida had one child, a son named Harry, who died in 1886 at the age of 18 months. Family tradition says that to console themselves over the death of their baby, Harvey and Ida would take buggy rides to the beautiful canyons west of Los Angeles. Harvey purchased one of their favorite areas for $150 per acre. It was in an agricultural area of fig and apricot orchards. Harvey tried his hand at raising fruit, but failed and decided to subdivide the land, selling lots for $1,000 each. His wife named the tract "Hollywood." On February 1, 1887.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Henderson_Wilcox
“Harvey's obituary in the Adrian newspaper, Michigan Messenger, April 1, 1891, says that he left a fortune of $100,000 ($2.37 million in 2008 dollars), so obviously he did not die penniless as some histories suggest. This obituary also confirms his place in the Aaron and Azubah Wilcox family, mentioning his brother, Lewis Wilcox, who at that time lived in Adrian.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Henderson_Wilcox)
“Hollywood, as we know it today, started its life in the second decade of the 20th century with the rise of production facilities in South California. They were created there by the numerous filmmakers who moved their business from New York in search of a more consistent climate for round-the-year film shooting and, of course, to escape fees imposed by Tomas Edison, who owned many patents on the movie-making process. As the production capabilities of filmmakers grew, the Californian movie industry focused on the city of Los Angeles.” http://www.historyoffilm.net/movie-eras/history-of-hollywood/)
“The influx of immigrants into the United States quickly forced this new workforce to find new business ways. The popularity of movies promptly gave birth to a new kind of movie entity – movie studios. Established by ambitious men like Samuel Goldwyn, Carl Laemmle, William Fox, Louis B. Mayer, and the four Warner Brothers (Harry, Albert, Samuel, and Jack), organized production of movies in Hollywood became standard. Hollywood film production was almost exclusively held by eight studios, five majors, and three smaller ones. Major were Paramount, Fox Film Corporation (later 20th Century Fox), Warner Bros, RKO, and Loew's (eventually becoming Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). They managed to revolutionize the movie-making business by having complete control over the production business (owning filming lots, equipment, editing studios, and long-term contracts with both production crew and actors), distribution firms, and vast networks of film theaters across the USA. Three smaller production companies were Universal, Columbia (they had a similar structure as “Big 5” studios but did not have their distribution network and theaters), and United Artists (which was structured to be more as backer-distributor to the independent producers).” http://www.historyoffilm.net/movie-eras/history-of-hollywood)
“Big Five movie studios (Paramount, Fox, Warner, RKO, and MGM) were supreme rulers of the US movie industry between the late 20s and 50s, dominating the theaters and creating around 700 movies at the height of the short movie popularity in the 1920s. This “Golden Age of Hollywood Cinema” started with the release of the first long-running feature talkie film, The Jazz Singer, in 1927. The popularity of this movie quickly elevated Warner Bros into one of the big Hollywood Studios. All film studios received substantial growth during the years of the Great Depression in the US, with the ever-rising number of people seeking entertainment on silver screens and the adventures of their favorite film stars (especially child sensation Shirley Temple).” http://www.historyoffilm.net/movie-eras/history-of-hollywood/
“Total domination of Hollywood over US territory very quickly started to showcase signs of financial manipulation. Studios owned their theaters, prices were fixed by the studios, and theaters were obliged to buy the movie “unites” packages that consisted of one or two highly desirable films, a few A-budget movies, and a few lesser quality movies. This led to the saturation of the theaters with uninspired movies created “by the formula.” A series of anti-trust court battles started fighting the studio system, culminating in the RKO’s willingness (under the new leadership of millionaire Howard Hughes) to help the federal government break the reign of big studios, who one by one severed their ties with theaters.” http://www.historyoffilm.net/movie-eras/history-of-hollywood/
“With over 19 thousand theaters in the US in 1949, the Golden Age of Hollywood was over, and the post-WW2 consumers and the rise of television forced Hollywood to reinvent itself.” http://www.historyoffilm.net/movie-eras/history-of-hollywood/
“However, in 1948 in a landmark decision, the United States Supreme Court ruled that studios could not own their own theaters where they showed films made only by their studios and only with actors who had exclusive contracts with those studios. That decision marked the unofficial end of the "Golden Age of Hollywood." Soon after, television proved itself to be a lucrative and permanent medium of entertainment, so that by the mid-1950s, these same studios began to provide content for TV.
McCarthyism takes hold of Hollywood
Always the hot spot of controversy, Hollywood was accused by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), of being a haven for communists. The "Hollywood Blacklist" came into being in 1947, when the committee began summoning certain Hollywood entertainment professionals to testify before the committee, on the suspicion that their work was communist-inspired. As the media began extensive coverage of the proceedings, some writers, producers, and directors became known as the "Hollywood 10." All 10 served time in prison in 1950, for up to a year, and were "blacklisted" from finding a job anywhere in media-based production. The blacklist eventually grew to 150 names and persisted up until the 1960s.” https://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h3871.html)
“Pre-Code Hollywood (1927–1934) was the brief era in the American film industry between the widespread adoption of sound in film in 1929[1] and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship guidelines, popularly known as the Hays Code, in mid-1934. Although the Code was adopted in 1930, oversight was poor, and it did not become rigorously enforced until July 1, 1934, with the establishment of the Production Code Administration (PCA). Before that date, film content was restricted more by local laws, negotiations between the Studio Relations Committee (SRC) and the major studios, and popular opinion, than by strict adherence to the Hays Code, which was often ignored by Hollywood filmmakers.
As a result, some films in the late 1920s and early 1930s depicted or implied sexual innuendo, romantic and sexual relationships between white and black people, mild profanity, illegal drug use, promiscuity, prostitution, infidelity, abortion, intense violence, and homosexuality. Nefarious characters were seen to profit from their deeds, in some cases without significant repercussions. For example, gangsters in films such as The Public Enemy, Little Caesar, and Scarface were seen by many as heroic rather than evil. Strong female characters were ubiquitous in such pre-Code films as Female, Baby Face, and Red-Headed Woman. Along with featuring stronger female characters, movies examined female subject matters that would not be revisited until decades later in US films.[2][3] Many of Hollywood's biggest stars, such as Clark Gable, Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Blondell, and Edward G. Robinson, got their start in the era. Other stars who excelled during this period, however, like Ruth Chatterton (who decamped to England) and Warren William (the so-called "king of Pre-Code", who died in 1948), would wind up essentially forgotten by the general public within a generation.
Beginning in late 1933 and escalating throughout the first half of 1934, American Roman Catholics launched a campaign against what they deemed the immorality of American cinema. This, plus a potential government takeover of film censorship and social research seeming to indicate that movies which were seen to be immoral could promote bad behavior, was enough pressure to force the studios to capitulate to greater oversight.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Code_Hollywood
After reading this brief history of Hollywood, it is clear that many efforts on the part of the private sector and United States government have sought to prevent Hollywood from promoting sexual promiscuity, irresponsible alcohol use, and drug addiction. Not only do Hollywood movies, after these significant efforts to deter the bad moral values of Hollywood products, but also Hollywood produced music and many television shows in increasing measure starting during the 1960s hippie movement and until the present time, still feature sexual promiscuity, irresponsible alcohol use and drug addiction.
Out of about 330 million Americans living in the United States, 5.7 million Americans are unemployed; however, most US citizens are employed and functioning well, as employment statistics prove. Most United States citizens apparently would rather work for a living in legitimate employment, rather than behave in unethical ways Hollywood products often feature. Many US Citizens still love God, church, family, socializing nicely, and volunteering in good, credible civic and non-profit organizations, rather than engaging in sexual promiscuity, irresponsible alcohol use, and drug addiction. I think those are wonderful values that I and other US citizen share, and that is why most US citizens behave in healthy ways and are so functional. Hollywood should spend less money trying to advertise products that United States Citizens do not want, as Hollywood’s own financial reports indicate that Hollywood companies spend large sums of money to make entertainment products that rarely generate a high profit margins. Published reports about Hollywood also indicate Hollywood spends large sums of money to advertise its products, more than many companies. Quality legitimate products that US citizens purchase do not need mass advertising budgets because many US citizens want those products, and not Hollywood’s!
Christian based movies that are currently making more money than the traditional Hollywood sexual content, but I warn against mass media as a form of learning and entertainment material. Classic printed news journalism and small classic in person entertainment performances are better ways to learn and enjoy the news and entertainment in ways that protect individual civil liberties in the United States.
As a Christian woman Republican, I hope this article encourages you to feel less pressured to purchase Hollywood products, when there are so many other productive ways in which US Citizens occupy their time.
