FIRM Discussions December 10, 2001 - December 24, 2001
Hollywood's Role in Terrorism? re: Jewish Dominance Over Black Filmmakers
Sal
7:19 pm monday december 10, 2001From the African American newspaper LOS ANGELES SENTINEL:
Williams, Samuel, Jr. Writer Claims 'City of Angels' Stolen; Refuses Bochco, CBS Settlement, 12-27-2000, p. A3 "Jerome Metcalf, a black writer and entrepreneur has filed [a lawsuit] recently against [Jewish] CBS television producer Steven Bochco for allegedly stealing the story idea that led to the creation of 'City of Angels' ... The material was submitted to Bochco and CBS and according to Metcalf, both passed on the project. However, after viewing the pilot episode of the 'City of Angels' Metcalf said he and his wife were 'shocked and devastated to see their works, dramatic expressions, literary expressions, ideas, treatment, scripts and property had been stolen' ... The most interesting if not revealing truth surrounding the lawsuit is the fact that Bochco's attorney, Edward A. Rottenberg, contacted [Metcalf's attorney Michael] Lotta recently with a settlement offer. Lotta deemed the settlement inadequate and turned it down ...
A hypocritical truth, whould the court find Metcalf's allegations valid, is that Bochco and the president of CBS Entertainment Leslie Moonves [also Jewish] hosted a screening of the 'City of Angels' at the Magic Johnson Theater Complex in South Los Angeles prior to the series debut. Metcalf said he was particularly insulted that Moonves, in front of invited guests, many of them black community leaders, praised Bochco as the creator of the first black medical drama for prime television."
Lenny Bruce on Jewish Dominance
jj-baker
7:40 pm monday december 10, 2001As Jewish comedian Lenny Bruce once noted in his stand-up routine about Hollywood's Jewish dominance and bias:
"Now the Jew gets into show business. And he writes motion pictures, he's making the images -- he has the film industry knocked up -- he controls it! And the Jew naturally writes what he thinks is pretty, what he thinks is ugly -- and it's amazing, but you never see one Jewish bad guy in the movies. Not ever a Jewish villain, man. Gregory Peck, Paul Muni -- haha! It's wonderful! Who's the bad guy? The goyim! The Irish!" [COHEN, J., p. 37-38] [Apparently even Bruce, like virtually all movie-goers, didn't realize that Muni was a Jewish actor who portrayed non-Jewish characters].
Still MORE Jewish nepotism
jj-baker
7:49 pm monday december 10, 2001The incestuous Jewish world of power in Hollywood may also be noted in the Jewish team of Bert Schneider and Bob Rafelson, who have been influential in a variety of Hollywood projects since the late 1960s. Schneider got his start in his father's Screen Gems company, the television wing of Columbia pictures, rising to become treasurer of the company. The two men later formed a firm called BBS which was influential in the creation a number of hit "counterculture" films like Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces, among others.
Independent filmmaker Jim McBride noted that at BBS, "the truth is, they were very schizophrenic. We used to call them 'the Hollywood Sperm,' because they were all children of successful Hollywood people. They had beards, but in other ways, they didn't seem at all that different." [BISKIND, p. 77]
Another who knew them, Harry Gittes (also Jewish), noted that the "BBS people were the meanest people I ever met in my life, brutal, inhumane inflicted. Respect and loyalty, that was the way BBS operated. They had a gangster mentality. This was the Jewish, Bugsy Siegel-type of hipness ... These were the coldest, toughest Jews I'd ever met in my life to another Jew!" [BISKIND, p. 117]
-- jewishtribalreview.org
Hollywood's Jewish World View
jj-baker
7:56 pm monday december 10, 2001"In a study completed in the 1960s, Muriel Cantor found that almost half of the Hollywood producers of prime time television shows were of Jewish background."[ROTHMAN/LICHTER, 1982, p. 97] And as Stanley Rothman and S. Robert Lichter note elsewhere: "The role of Americans of Jewish background in television dramas was equally pronounced. Michael Robinson and Ben Stein have pointed to the negative portrayals of businessmen, the military, and other 'establishment' groups that characterized dramatic series and soap operas during the 1960s, as well as the counter-cultural themes that were openly introduced in such dramas. Although Stein does not make the point directly, his interviews with television writers and producers suggest the importance of Jews in formulating the social imagery of television entertainment." [ROTHMAN/LICHTER, 1982, p. 107]
Eisner's/Weinsteins' Movie Priest
jj-baker
8:08 pm monday december 10, 2001As Rabbi Daniel Lapin notes about the Disney movie Priest:
"When it came to Priest, there were few courageous Jewish leaders out there who stepped to the defense of Catholics ... It was appropriate for Jews to join in the denunciation of Priest. After all, the head of Disney as well as the heads of its distribution subsidiary, Miramax, are Jewish [the Weinstein brothers]. We may feel that making such an observation is in bad taste. If non-Jews make the same observation we no doubt will immediately recognize them as anti-Semites. However, this kind of intimidation will not stop many Americans from making that observation. Neither will it stop them from seeing as insulting that the companies just happened to choose Good Friday as the dat for this film's national release."[LAPIN, D., 1999, p. 311]
re: FIRM Guidelines/Clarification
jj-baker
8:47 pm monday december 10, 2001CONTEXT: Disney, and its' "Priest" film, etc.
"It makes no sense at all to try to deny the reality of Jewish power and prominence in popular culture,"wrote Jewish author, film critic, and talk show host Michael Medved in 1996, "Any list of the most influential production executives at each of the major movie studios will produce a heavy majority of recognizable Jewish names." [MEDVED, p. 1] ... Consider the well-publicized reshuffling that recently rocked the Walt Disney Company, involving some of the mightiest and most highly paid media moguls. In this game of corporate musical chairs, C.E.O. and Chairman of the Board Michael Eisner lost the services of his movie production chief, Jeffrey Katzenbaum, who became part of the much-heralded new "dream team" (formally incorporated as DreamWorks SKG) with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen."
[In 1990 Forbes magazine called Geffen -- a former agent and record producer -- the richest man in Hollywood." [KOTKIN] The first project out of DreamWorks was also by a Jewish producer, Gary Goldberg, whose earlier "gentle, semi-autobiographical look at a middle-class Jewish family"lasted 35 episodes in 1991-92 on CBS [CEROWE, p. F1]]
"Meanwhile," continueds Medved, "Eisner created a new position at Disney for his omnipotent super agent Michael Ovitz and gave broader responsibilities to his fair-haired boy, Joe Roth, former head of 20th Century Fox ... These headlines underscored the ironic fact that the famous Disney organization, founded by a gentile Midwestern who allegedly harbored anti-Semitic attitudes now features Jewish personnel in nearly all its most powerful positions." MEDVED, p. 37]
Among these personnel is also Michael Lynton, appointed to be the head of Disney's movie division in 1994. At the very start of Eisner's tenure at Disney, Katzenberg headed the Disney studios, fellow Jew Richard Frank headed television, and David Hoberman was the chief at the film division. [SCHWEIZER/SCHWEIZER, p. 5] Joseph Shapiro became a Disney Senior Vice President in the 1990s. Steven Bornstein is (2001) chairman of Walt Disney Internet Group, heading Disney's commercial explorations of the world wide web. Even the president of the Disney-founded California Institute of the Arts is Jewish, Steven Lavine.
In earlier years, during Saul Steinberg's attempt to lead a hostile takeover of the famous WASP firm, some observers were concerned that the "take over battle might be regarded as an attempt by Jews to topple one of the temples of Protestant America." [TAYLOR, J., p. ix] At that time, when Walt Disney's nephew, Roy E. Disney, held the largest individual stake in the company, his lawyer was also Jewish: Stanley Gold. [TAYLOR, J., p. 3] Gold eventually became "a financial power through Roy Disney's Shamrock Holdings and one of the largest foreign investors in Israel." [TUGEND 10-22-99])
As Carl Hiaasen wrote, in his 1998 volume Team Rodent -- How Disney Devours the World:
"In December 1997 Disney chairman Michael D. Eisner exercised company stock options that brought him $565 million in a single swoop. The notion of attaching such a sum to one man's job is both obscene and hilarious on its face, yet it's pointless to debate whether or not Eisner deserves it. He got the dough. It happened in the same month that Business Week chose Disney's board of directors as the worst in America. The reason: Many seemed to have been handpicked not so much for their business expertise as for their loyalty to the autocratic Eisner. Among the company's directors are his personal architect, his personal attorney, the principal of his children's elementary school, and seven current and former Disney executives. 'Fantastic' is how Eisner has described his choices for the board. But critics say it's a meek and malleable group. That's precisely what was needed to sit still for the ludicrous $75 million platinum parachute given to Michael Ovitz [also Jewish] as compensation for fourteen whole months as president of the Walt Disney Company." Hiaasen, C., 1998, p. 38-39]
re: Hollywood's Jewish World View
jj-baker
9:08 pm monday december 10, 2001The Judeo-centric world view of film director Mel Brooks suggests, increasingly, a useful paradigm in analyzing the Jewish entertainment world. As Andrea Most observes:
"The humor in Brooks' movies originate in the idea that everything and everyone is Jewish -- and it is his job to reveal it as such. So the oldest man in the world is Jewish (The Two Thousand Year Old Man), the Indians are Jewish (Blazing Saddles), Sherwood Forest's Merry Band is Jewish (Robin Hood: Men in Tights), the past is Jewish (History of the World) and the future is Jewish (Spaceballs)."[MOST, A., 1999, p. 337]
The Search for Truth
John Cones
1:36 pm wednesday december 12, 2001Here's a relevant thought on our search for truth:
SCIENTIFIC METHOD– . . . the chief social condition of scientific method is a wide-spread desire for truth that is strong enough to withstand the powerful forces which made us cling tenaciously to old views or else embrace every novelty because it is a change. Those who are engaged in scientific work need not only leisure for reflection and material for their experiments, but also a community that respects the pursuit of truth and allows freedom for the expression of intellectual doubt as to its most sacred or established institutions. Fear of offending established dogmas has been an obstacle to the growth of astronomy and geology and other physical sciences; and the fear of offending patriotic or respected sentiment is perhaps one of the strongest hindrances to scholarly history and social science. Morris R. Cohen (1880 - 1947), American philosopher and logician, Professor of philosophy at the College of the City of New York, and Ernst Nagel (1901 - ) American philosopher of science, Professor Emeritus, Columbia University, from An Introduction to Logic and Scientific Method, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1934.
Hollywood and those who support the Hollywood establishment have shown that they are not interested in the truth. They are merely interested in using Hollywood's money and power to oppose any open discussion that might lead to the truth, and possibly weaken their hold on one of the most powerful and influential media yet invented by humankind -- the motion picture.
John Cones
re: Palestinian Control of Hollywood - 2
jj-baker
7:16 pm wednesday december 12, 2001Such a list is endless, and we have many, many, many more instances at our web site of Jewish individuals at the healms of cultural and political power.
A couple days ago we discovered that the new CEO (as of this year) of computer giant Yahoo!, Terry Semel, is also Jewish, and was in 2001 one of the co-chairs of the Israeli Film Festival.
Jews/Hollywood/Christians
jj-baker
7:39 pm wednesday december 12, 2001From WHEN VICTIMS RULE. A CRITIQUE OF JEWISH PRE-EMINENCE IN AMERICA at jewishtribalreview.org :
Even influential horror movies exploring a powerful Satan in a Christian context (particularly, Rosemary's Baby [1968; directed by Roman Polanski, novel by Ira Levin; both Jewish], where the Devil inseminates the lead character, and [Jewish director] William Freidkin's The Exorcist(1974), where the lead character, possessed by the devil, stabs herself in the crotch with a crucifix) were Jewish creations. The National Catholic Office for Motion Pictures condemned Rosemary's Baby, noting "the perverted use which the film made of fundamental Christian beliefs, especially surrounding the birth of Christ, and its mockery of religious persons and practices." [LEAMING, 1981, p. 88]
Defamation of, and attack upon, the Christian world view is evidenced throughout the Jewish entertainment community. Gordon Davidson, also Jewish, has been the first and only artistic director (for 33 years) of the Center Theatre Group at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency notes Davidson's very first directorial effort: "For the inaugural drama of the new theatrical venture, the young Davidson decided to stage, and direct himself, 'The Devils,' John Whiting's tale of a libertine priest, a nun and their sexual fantasies. The Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese and Davidson's bosses at the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors were suitably outraged." [TUGEND, T., 3-6-2000, p. 11]
Conversely, Jewish themes in the largely Jewish entertainment world are portrayed in loving and respectful terms. In 1999, for example, rabbi Jonathan Pearl (who holds a PhD in Judaic Studies) and his wife published a volume about Hollywood's treatment of Jewish themes and characters on television. The Pearls note that "While Jews have been known for millions as the People of the Book, they could also well have been called, for the past fifty years, the People of Television ... Contrary to the commonly held inaccurate belief that serious Jewish issues and truly Jewish characters rarely find their way into popular TV shows, our intense research -- over the course of fifteen years and many thousands of hours of viewing shows -- has revealed that literally hundreds of television dramas and comedies have featured Jewish themes over the past half century ...[PEARL/PEARL, p. 1] ... By the end of his twelve years on television, Archie Bunker, America's best-known bigot, had come to raise a Jewish child in his home, befriend a black Jew, go into business with a Jewish patron, enroll as a member of Temple Beth Shalom, eulogize his close friend at a Jewish funeral, hosted a Sabbath dinner, participate in a bar mitzvah ceremony, and join a group to fight synagogue vandalism ... [This show] was far from unusual. Since the inception of network television half a century ago, hundreds of popular TV shows have portrayed Jewish themes... In nearly every instance, the Jewish issues have been portrayed with respect, relative depth, affection, and good intentions ... [PEARL/PEARL, p. 5] ... It follows, then, that most American television viewers, especially those who have little personal contact with Jews, gain a large portion of their ideas about Jews and Judaism from the small screen." [PEARL/PEARL p. 6]
In 1999, an HBO feature-length movie was aired about the life of famous Jewish mobster Meyer Lansky. (Lansky's murderous associate-gangster, Bugsy Siegel, was immortalized in not one, but three Hollywood feature films about him in 1991 alone: The Marrying Man, Mobsters, and Bugsy). Echoing the times, when Jewish martyrological tradition has become history, even this vicious Jewish thug, Lansky, who headed the greatest criminal empire in American history, is portrayed as first and foremost a victim, the innocent butt of horrible Gentile anti- Semitism and ever entwined, and loyal, to the noble Jewish people. As the Jewish Telegraphic Agency notes, "The two opening scenes set the tone. The first shows the seventy-year old Lansky amid the cluttered tombstones of Jerusalem's Mount of Olives, trying to buy a space for himself next to his grandparents' graves. In a flashback, the seven-year old Meyer Suchowljansky [Lansky] watches in frozen horror as a pious, old Jew is butchered by Polish peasants during a pogrom in his native Grodno."
Later, the film shows Lansky's "muscular pal Bugsy [Siegel] defend him from Irish bullies." [TUGEND, T. 2-22-99] Such material begins, and frames for apologetic context, the mobster's life of crime. As explanation for this special treatment, we may look to Lester Friedman who observes that "writers of films featuring Jewish characters have, from the story idea to the final cut, historically faced a gauntlet of highly placed Jewish executives." [FRIEDMAN, L., p. 3]Or as Jewish film scholar Patricia Erens frames it: "Despite their small numbers in the United States, Jews have enjoyed an advantage unequalled by any other ethnic group in America -- a virtual control over their own self-image on the screen." [ERENS, P., 1980, p. 114]
re: The Search for Truth
jj-baker
7:54 pm wednesday december 12, 2001"Truth is heavy, therefore few care to carry it."
from the Talmud, as quoted by Polano, p. 92
-- jewishtribalreview.org
re: The Search for Truth
jj-baker
7:58 pm wednesday december 12, 2001"Intellectual Freedom is the right of every individual to both seek and receive information from all points of view without restriction. It provides for free access to all expressions of ideas through which any and all sides of a question, cause or movement may be explored. Intellectual freedom encompasses the freedom to hold, receive and disseminate ideas."
-- Office of Intellectual Freedom (The American Library Association)
-- jewishtribalreview.org
Hollywood/Terrorism/Israel
jj-baker
8:53 pm wednesday december 12, 2001This breaking story has everything in the world to do with Hollywood and its power elite, their belief system, terrorism, etc. etc. etc.:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,40679,00.html
Suspected Israeli Spies Held By U.S. Fox News, December 12, 2001
"Some 60 Israelis, who federal investigators have said are part of a long-running effort to spy on American government officials, are among the hundreds of foreigners detained since the Sept. 11 terror attacks, Fox News has learned.
The Israelis, a handful of whom are described as active Israeli military or intelligence operatives, have been detained on immigration charges or under the new Patriot Anti-Terrorism Law. Federal investigators said some of them failed polygraph questions inquiring about alleged surveillance activities against and in the United States.
There is no indication the Israelis were involved in the Sept. 11 attacks, but investigators suspect that they may have gathered intelligence about the attacks in advance and not shared it.
A highly placed investigator told Fox News there are 'tie-ins,' but when asked for details flatly refused to describe them. 'Evidence linking these Israelis to 9-11 is classified, I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It is classified information,' the source said."
-- jewishtribalreview.org
What's this FIRM
Veruka
3:41 am thursday december 13, 2001I may have gotten confused as to who was saying what. From what I read, I had understood that you said the Jews are running Hollywood and blocking people from getting ahead in the business, particularly the WASP male, and that they are the ones being ridiculed in the movies, etc. When I hear generalizations like this, I feel compelled to say something. My attack may have been somewhat personal, but from what I have read of racist literature (despite what you said, I do research) they blame minorities for taking jobs away, etc. and that the minorities are really the ones in power and that the white male is really the minority.
I don't know if it was you, but somebody wrote about Israel being a racist country, etc. I don't want to debate that, but it is just to explain that it was one of the issues that set me off.
What I was trying to say is that, let's say a woman, could just sit there and say "oh, the glass ceiling. The old boys' club. I can't get anywhere". There are women who have risen to the top, despite sexual discrimination, etc. I just hear so many people blaming others for their failures. I'm especially leery when it's a religious group or any kind of minority. When I hear a hint of "those people" are keeping us down, etc. What I meant was that any argument can be built around a set of facts. That politicians can take exact facts and turn them around in their favor by a twist of phrase.
If you listen to Kazinsky, Timothy McVeigh, etc., they all took exact facts and used them to blame others for their extreme behavior.
If this is not your point of view and I was reading someone else's comments, then my apologies. If they were your comments, then I apologize for making it a personal attack. I know how I felt when you turned it around to a personal attack on me, and I didn't like it. This is an issue I feel strongly about and my manner is usually forceful when I feel my point of view is right. I shall try not to turn it personal in the future.
Why I Got Involved in FIRM
James Jaeger
8:18 pm thursday december 13, 2001I hear what you say (below) about taking a set of facts and twisting them around to justify some crusade or explain away ones failure, and I agree that is an irresponsible use of facts. Allow me to give you some background as to why I felt it was important to get involved with a film reform movement and hopefully give you a better understanding that our claims are not generalizations or meant to be targeting any specific ethnic group in general. I have been in the Hollywood-based U.S. motion picture industry since 1977 and 10 years prior to that working around the Philadelphia and Seattle areas. My bio is at http://www.mecfilms.com/jrjbio.htm. I try to evaluate situations from a number of views: 1) my personal experience, as tracked by my bio, 2) the experience of others, 3) by reading books and periodicals, 4) by watching TV media, 5) by debating in public on the NGs and Discussion Fora on the Internet. I have been a reasonable success in the movie business and have associated with many people that were very successful (such as Lee Garmes who was my mentor and who shot, produced and/or directed about 100 classic pictures, including GONE WITH THE WIND. Lee introduced me to a number of members in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. See his credits at http://www.mecfilms.com/leebio.htm).
Lee, at his dining room table, where we used to work, was probably the first person to say to me, in 1979, that the Hollywood-based U.S. motion picture industry was 'controlled by a group of people that remained behind a veil.' Lee never stated anything about their ethnic backgrounds, but he worked for many of the powers that ran the studios for many decades, starting with Thomas Ince. Lee, like others, was a paid employee for the studios and so he never "bit the hand that fed him" while working in the studio system, but by the time I met Lee, he had defected from that system and was an independent producer. Why did he defect?
I basically took what Lee said with a "grain of salt," feeling exactly as you express below, that in essence, cream will rise to the top, work hard, be good at your craft, treat people with respect and dignity and eventually, "timing and circulation" (as Linwood Dunn, a friend who did the special effects for WEST SIDE STORY, IT'S A MAD MAD, MAD WORLD, KING KONG, etc.) will provide break-through opportunities.
Well, unfortunately that's simply not true in Hollywood, and I discovered this while developing a movie about Alexander Contract, called STALIN'S BACK ROOM (the project's merits you can judge at http://www.mecfilms.com/dna/indev/sbr.htm) and another one, called THE NIT WITS, staring Mickey Rooney (who was also a good friend of my late mentor, and who I got to know a little through a series of phone conversations while we developed the project).
After spending about $50,000 on these two projects, and shopping them to most of the major studios (and most of the mini-majors) in Hollywood (at the president of production, senior VP, and VP production levels) and both of them were passed on (and remember I had shopped about 18 other well-developed, reader-approved, projects previously), I began to feel something was strange in Hollywood and that Lee might have been right . . . but I didn't act on this feeling, and continued to develop projects as well as publish books favorable to the industry (See http://www.moviepubs.com).
After Lee died, I worked with Errol Flynn's manager, Jackson B. Mahon (http://www.mecfilms.com/barry.htm), for about 10 years and got to meet and learn about the Feature AND TV industry from a reasonably high level. Barry was considered by many a genius in movie financing/completion bonding, as well as a pioneer for new methods of financing movies deals such as Canadian public master limited partnerships to discount negative pickup deals instead of banks. Barry launched Doris Keating, a powerful CBS/Columbia producer, who produced many CBS MOWs (I worked with Barry at the executive level on about 5 of them, including an MOW on Errol's life called MY WICKED WICKED WAYS). Prior to the movie business, Barry flew over 100 fighter pilot missions in WWII and was the only person to get shot down twice and escape twice from the Germans. The movie, THE GREAT ESCAPE is based upon Barry. I got to know Barry very well, as well as his entire family (Doris was his daughter) and over time I realized that Barry corroborated Lee's views about control in the industry. But being young and idealistic I argued with Barry incessantly, telling him "You're full of shit Barry, your problem is you didn't go to college." And he would say: "James you're full of shit, your problem is you over analyze everything because you DID go to college." We loved each other, but I still took his advice with a "grain of salt" -- that is up until the industry passed on the STALIN and NITWITS projects. Why wouldn't it have not financed these projects, especially when many of the executives knew who I had been working with and knew of my 20 years experience? I thought this was strange.
Then a Christian producer friend, Bill Van Alen, who is partners with Joe Pytka (the highest paid TV Commercial director in the world and director of SPACE JAM and LET IT RIDE) on a project called WHEN THE TRUMPET SOUNDS, recommended that I read a book that a friend had suggested to him. The book was called THE FEATURE FILM DISTRIBUTION DEAL by John W. Cones. The friend who recommended the book to Bill Van Alen was George Jensen, also a Christian and the executive producer of the $30 million, Proctor & Gamble-financed, MOW called A.D. (which aired around 1985 on network TV as a multi-part special). All of these people had experienced similar problems in the Hollywood-based U.S. motion picture industry. Could it have been because they were Christians, I wondered? Even though I was a Christian-Scientologist for most of my years in Hollywood (1977 - 1986), I began to wonder, could the industry be discriminating against people in various religions or with conservative political views? Nevertheless, I took all of this with a "grain of salt," feeling that these people just didn't understand the industry or that they had not "paid their dues."
Eventually, I had enough of my own personal experiences, along with several other producer associates and I began to wonder if it could really be true: IS there discrimination at the highest levels of Hollywood in the 7 MPAA studios and might this discrimination have extended to me, an honest and hard-working filmmaker who had been directing movies since he was 15 years old (and who was even no longer active in Scientology)?! I concluded that it just couldn't be possible because, as you say below, THAT would be "pointing the finger" at those who were 'running Hollywood accusing such of blocking people like me from getting a head in the business, particularly such people who, like myself were WASP males, and . . . this would be a generalization to think such.'
But then I read another book by entertainment-securities attorney, John Cones, entitled, WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON IN HOLLYWOOD! (a full, free, copy at http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/whats.htm) and afterwards, took it also with basically a "grain of salt") until after I read enough of the books in John's "Selected Bibliography" to see where he got his data and what THESE people were saying over the years about Hollywood control. The Selected Bibliography is at http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/resbib.htm in case you want to look it over. After reading enough of these books, including newer books like FATAL SUBTRACTION, and after looking over John's other books on Hollywood control (such as the list of people who have been controlling the studios since their inception at http://www.homevideo.net/control.htm#execlist) I slowly began to realize that there might be some truth to what all of the above people, my mentors and John Cones, had observed about Hollywood's modus operandi. Further, I began to ask the question, first framed by John Cones, is it healthy, in a democratic society of free ideas, for a narrowly-defined group to control the most powerful propaganda machine yet devised by mankind? My feeling was that the answer to this question was "no," and so I finally decided to take action by co- founding the Film Industry Reform Movement (FIRM) with John on March 15, 1998. You can read our Mission Statement at http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/fmission.htm and post your views at the "Current Discussion" c/o http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/archives.htm
So, I hope this gives you a little background into my motives and the reasons FIRM had to be established and I hope you, and others, will feel free to participate in the on-going discussion. Do to time constraints, I am unable to continue private emails, but I, John, or others, will endeavor to address anything you post in the public forum. Thanks for all your concerns.
James Jaeger
re: Why I Got Involved in FIRM
JJ-Baker
10:08 pm thursday december 13, 2001With all due respect, it does not appear that you are aware of one of the key reasons why your "Contract" screenplay was probably (in my humble opinion) turned down. There may be many other possible reasons -- Jewish dominance and ethnocentrism not the least of them, but I can suggest to you one important issue that would have ALONE likely shot it down.
The Jewish community has been PROFOUNDLY disproportionately involved in communist, socialist, and other left-wing movements, since their origins in the 1800s, from Karl Marx on down. Stalin rose to power in a battle against Trotsky (Jewish) and a couple other very powerful Jewish communists. Bela Kun, Jewish, led a communist revolt in Hungary in 1919 and filled most of the communist hierarchy with fellow Jews. Jewish communist/socialists also led revolts in Bavaria and Austria (as I recall). 5 of the 9 SDS presidents (all male) in the 1960s were Jewish. (Even 3 of the 4 anti-war demonstrators shot and killed by the National Guard at Kent State in 1970 were Jewish.) Jews dominated the officers of much of Poland's OSS communist secret security police and were likewise dominant in the first Soviet terrorist secret police -- the Cheka. The number two man behind Stalin was also Jewish -- Kagalansky (spelling) who had a strong role in the enforced starvation of hundreds of thousands of people in Ukraine. Etc. Etc. Etc. There is tons more of this, all documented at our web site. And this fact of Jewish predominance in communist movements has ALWAYS been part of the "anti-Semitic" attack upon the Jewish community.
Per your screenplay, the point is this. The organized Jewish community has been very, very leery of this profoundly disproportionate respresentation of Jews in revolutionary groups that have sought to overthrow the established order. During the McCarthy era, the majority of Hollywood communists were Jewish, including the blackballed ones (Herbert Biberman's "underground' film "Salt of the Earth" is a case in point). Jewish organizations (the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Congress, etc.) bent over backwards to distance Jewry at-large from the huge number of Jews involved in the communist movment (and this was also true in Canada, South Africa, etc.)
When Hollywood produced "Reds," starring Warren Beatty (in a rare Hollywood look at communism that wasn't 100% disparaging), who was the main character? John Reed, a Gentile. A feature film addressing a Jewish communist would be configured as the kiss of death for many in the Jewish community who have long endeavored to reframe history in many ways, including this. The icon of a Jewish revolutionary (there was at least one other Jewish bodyguard for Stalin too) seeking to overthrow the existing Christian/capitalist order is not something the Jewish community at-large wants heralded. Even today. There are still heated debates about all this in Jewish scholarly circles. If you doubt this, again, we've got a ton of information about Jews in the communist movement, mainstream Jewish American efforts to play this down, etc., with bibliographic sources, at our web site.
Who knows what actually happened in Hollywood's evaluation of your screenplay? But I have no doubt that this was a significant factor in its lack of wings. It's a subject the Jewish community is NOT comfortable with.
-- jj-baker
FINAL FANTASY: Hollywood's Days Numbered
James Jaeger
3:06 am friday december 14, 2001Even though shows like ET and E channel desperately continue to promote LA as the film capital of the world, at least two factors will eventually make this a FINAL FANTASY. These factors are:
A. Broadband distribution of features (and all other entertainment) will preempt the MPAA studio/distributors primary bread and butter business; and, | F.I.R.M. Home | Mission | Background Info |
B. Digital stars will undermine the star system and thus remove the basic reasons talent floods into the city or is even needed by producers. All one has to do is screen the recent movie, FINAL FANTASY, to know exactly what I mean in the case of point B above. Did the characters look TOTALLY life-like? No. But after 10 minutes or so, I forgot they were digitally-generated stars and found myself completely absorbed in the story and incredible visuals. And watching this made me understand why Tom Hanks expressed a little alarm about the future of actors in Hollywood, for it is probably safe to say that, in another 5 years, it will probably be impossible to distinguish between a digital star and the real thing on a screen. Plus, the technology will drop in price, just as the once mighty AVID commanded over $75,000 for an NLE editing system, one can now purchase an NLE system for under $5,000 and cut features with the same level of quality. When one considers all the plug-ins which are constantly being created by independent software vendors, its a SURE THING that creating digital stars will be an economical snap in the future.
Combine these advancements in hardware and software with the increasing bandwidth on the Internet, not to mention the multitude of other private and public (fiber optic) networks being built right now on a global basis, and it's easy to see why producers will no longer need the MPAA studio/distributors to finance or distribute features. Almost all of these new networks will completely by-pass the twisted-pair infrastructure of the bell system, and many of them will totally by-pass today's cable and satellite networks as well. Why mix pearls with swine.
So, here we have the ability to deliver features globally (and in far higher quality than a mere DVD which is compressed) combined with the ability to animate narrative drama from scratch -- including stars -- and all this without the excessive salaries demanded by name talent and the endless creative accounting demanded by studio accountants. What function will Hollywood serve in this new "E" world? None. What will Hollywood be able (or willing) to offer the millions of hopefuls that enter the city? Nada.
But of course the Hollywood propaganda machine will continue to promote LA LA Land long after it's dead so it can attract people into the town's rotting service industries (which will include, not only the millions of hopefuls in the acting, writing and directing crafts, etc., but waiters, taxi drivers, painters, servants and the infinite barrage of assistants and suckers with money to spend, all necessary to continue the ponzi) in southern California in an attempt to sustain or drive real estate prices to ever more ridiculous and artificial levels. Remember, the price of real estate is almost solely a function of population. When population decreases, so do real estate values. When population floods mindlessly into an area, the real estate prices increase. It's simple supply and demand of a limited resource - apartments, housing and land. Thus it should be no surprise that the studios, and the worms that feed off them, place much of their holdings in real estate, and use their propaganda machines, as well as their networks, to constantly promote these assets? Also, given the terrorists attacks of 7-11, it is evident to an increasing number of people that living in cities, especially a city like LA which has a huge Jewish population (the avowed enemy of possibly hundreds of millions of Islamic fundamentalists and certain terrorists) does not come without potential new risks. If LA were not concerned about this, the Emmys would not have been cancelled the week after the terrorist attacks on New York City (another city with a huge Jewish population, and the corporate home to all the Hollywood studios).
So, as these factors come into better focus along with A and B discussed above (i.e., bandwidth increases and computing becomes better/cheaper), you can expect to see a mass exodus from cities in general and especially, LA, the Land of Promises, back into the heartland, where savvy talent and investors will realize that their best opportunities for recognition in the entertainment industry no longer will come from Hollywood, but from seeking out those unique new stories right under their neighborhood-noses, producing them on their PC and distributing them directly to millions of people over the broadband networks - - all without the hassle and superficiality of Tinsel Town and its creative accounting, nepotism, discrimination, catch-22 unions, violence ethic, rejection and disrespect for private investors, artists and the disenfranchised.
James Jaeger
NY Times/Hollywood Spin on FINAL FANTASY
James Jaeger
3:43 am friday december 14, 2001>New York Times, July 8, 2001
>Movie Stars Fear Inroads by Upstart Digital Actors By RICK LYMAN>LOS ANGELES, July 7, 2001
>...Aki makes her bid for stardom as the heroine of "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within," a fully digital film to be released on Wednesday by Columbia Pictures... In Hollywood, many people believe digital production and distribution will revolutionize the way movies are shot, edited and sent to a multiplex near you.
True. Hollywood's days are numbered.
>But with movies like "Final Fantasy," filmmakers are beginning to create photo-realistic computer characters that, at least in fleeting moments, will try to convince the audience that actual humans are on the screen.
Not "try to convince" . . . will convince.
>It is called photo-realistic animation, and "Final Fantasy" promises to carry it further than any movie has.
>Not everyone is overjoyed.
Well I guess things are going in the right direction then. :)
>"I am very troubled by it," said Tom Hanks, who does not like to think that his carefully chosen roles and hard-fought performances can be tampered with by after-the-fact computer auteurs, or that someone might make unwanted use of his digital self. "But it's coming down, man. It's going to happen. And I'm not sure what actors can do about it."
Tom Hanks has it right, Steven Spielberg has it wrong.
>The specter of the digital actor — a kind of cyberslave who does the producer's bidding without a whimper or salary —
Oh, let's call them "cyber-slaves," as if Hollywood doesn't manufacture reality-slaves.
>has been a figure of terror for the last few years in Hollywood, as early technical experiments proved that it was at least possible to create a computer image that could plausibly replace a human being. But as "Final Fantasy" makes its way into theaters — the first of what promises to be a string of movies trying to put this challenge to the test — many wonder if the threat is as real as it once seemed, or if it simply takes computer animation down a fruitless cul-de-sac.
Seems lots of terror might be hitting Hollywood.
>"I believe that I have used more digital characters than anyone," said George Lucas, whose Jar Jar Binks, a virtual character in "Star Wars: Episode 1 — The Phantom Menace," helped raise concerns in Hollywood. "But I don't think I would ever use the computer to create a human character. It just doesn't work. You need actors to do that."
Of course, the likely opinion of a producer/director who still needs Hollywood to finance his movies and who needs to assure the acting talent that he won't "fink out" with digital actors.
>Steven Spielberg put it even more succinctly: "It's a nonissue."
Of course, the likely opinion of another producer/director who still needs Hollywood to finance his movies and who needs to assure the acting talent that he won't "fink out" with digital actors. Count on the New York Times to pull out Hollywood's two "heavy-weight" filmmakers to pooh pooh the emerging new industry that's going to be the demise of Hollywood.
>But this has not alleviated the concerns of actors like Mr. Hanks,
That's right because Tom is smarter than George and Steve, or he's in a position to be less politically correct since it may be HIS goose that's fried when digital actors come down.
>who are suspicious of the ways their images could be used in photo-real computer animation.
I postulated this in FIRM posts several years ago. See the FIRM Archives.
"There is a Japanese saying that comes from the art of dollmaking, a sort of catch phrase, that the face is the life of the doll," said Hironobu Sakaguchi, a celebrated Japanese video- game creator who is making his feature-film directing debut with this movie.
Maybe Japan will replace Hollywood as the film capital.
>The greater concern is not that digital actors will replace movie stars — even the most optimistic projections of the technology put that prospect far in the future — but that the technology may make it easier for the unscrupulous to make improper use of actors' images (or of digital creations that are strikingly reminiscent of celebrities).
Not far in the future -- 5 to 10 years. Someone will steal a digital likeness of an actor and make an unauthorized fortune. Whatever can be done, will be done in any given universe.
>So far, the most significant legal challenge came in 1999, from Robyn Astaire, the widow of Fred Astaire: she sued the Fred Astaire Dance Studios for using images from her late husband's films in advertisements. Her suit failed, but she took her case to the California Legislature, which passed a bill making clear that the rights to celebrity images remained with the heirs for 70 years after the celebrity's death.
What about the rest of the world that could care less about Hollywood's laws?
>"I know Tom is worried about it," said Mr. Zemeckis, who has frequently collaborated with Mr. Hanks. . . "But I've taken to making digital scans of all of the actors in my movies," Mr. Zemeckis said.
Good move. Zemeckis is smart, he sees the writing one the wall and that's why he has all those little digital files tucked away "just in case."
James Jaeger
Corporations and Violence
Ralph Nader
9:06 pm friday december 14, 2001 Following last week's tragic homicides at Columbine High School and the mourning over the loss of life there, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Senate majority leader Trent Lott announced they would convene a national conference on youth and culture.That's good. Such a conference is sorely needed.
But it must not be an empty dialogue. Our country needs better. Throughout the last week, politicians and the media have searched for the causes behind the disaster in Littleton, Colo., and have been quick to ascribe it, in part, to the violence in video games, music, the Internet, pop culture, Hollywood, movies, and television.
Such comments, though understandable, do not go far enough. They stop at the symptoms, fall short of the cause. They fail to grasp the central fact of our commercial corporate culture: it is produced by corporations that are getting rich by promoting products to teenagers, corporations governed by profiteering that impels them to respect no boundaries in their exploitation of teenagers' vulnerable minds.
Every day hundreds of companies work in pursuit of one goal: manipulating children and teenagers to purchase video games and music and watch movies and television endlessly and mindlessly.
In their quest for larger audiences and greater profits the commercial media predictably races to the lowest and basest standards, with ever more blatant displays of violence, sex, crassness, and nihilism on television, cable, movies, radio, video games, and music. Our society, even 10 or 20 years ago, would not have tolerated such youth-beamed depravity. These are the motivations that relentlessly drive the creation, production, and marketing of ever more Doom, Quake, Basketball Diaries, Marilyn Mansons, Mortal Kombat I and II and III and IV, Jerry Springers, Howard Sterns, South Parks, and the rest of it.
This poison has got to stop. Enough is enough.
There is a crying need in this country to redraw the lines, establish the boundaries, declare to the media industry in no uncertain terms: "Thus far and no farther." It is time to say that our children matter more than this brutalizing entertainment. There are few critiques that Congress or President Clinton could start that would have such a salutary effect upon our children and, therefore, on our nation's future.
After all, the people own the public airwaves and should be given the time to challenge such video muck. It is easy to point the finger at the Marilyn Mansons. But they are merely instruments. Speaker Hastert and Senate majority leader Lott ought to focus on the deeper problems. Behind every Marilyn Manson are corporations and corporate executives who cynically draw their large compensation packages from the fruits of such work.
The Hastert-Lott national conference on youth and culture will be a charade unless they discuss the corporations and the powerful, moneyed interests that produce this dominating corporate culture and vigorously insinuate it into the minds and pockets of American youth.
Will Speaker Hastert and Senator Lott have the courage to trace the problem to its source, to focus their national conference on youth and culture upon the commercial rewards that give rise to this destructive culture, and on how we might alter these dynamics? Can they enable corporations and civic institutions to produce a culture that nourishes and doesnŐt harm its teenagers? If so, they will provide an important service for this country, its parents, and their children, who are surrounded by debasement and conscripted into violence by methodical, calculating corporate huckstering that our teenagers may not understand.
There is nothing Congress could do that is more important than making America's children safe again from the interests that would rob them of their childhood. Many teenagers and children are powerless to defend themselves against the clever media magnates, their advertising and marketing firms, and their hostility or total disregard for teenagers' health, happiness, and well being. Families and children need help. The question is, will Speaker Hastert and Senator Lott help them?
May 5, 1999
Source: http://www.nader.org/interest/050599.html
re: Corporations and Violencejj-baker
10:00 am saturday december 15, 2001The president and CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America --- a lobbying group (with a staff of 72) for the big record companies -- is also Jewish, Hilary Rosen, who was described in 1997 by the Washington Post as "a powerful woman in an industry dominated by men. One of the most influential yet least known players in the U.S. entertainment behemoth." [WEEKS, p. C1] Rosen became the CEO when another Jewish executive, Jason Berman, stepped down from the position.
C. Delores Tucker, the founder of the National Political Congress of Black Women, has singled out Rosen's organization for special condemnation: "In terms of children, the RIAA is the most destructive lobbying force in America. It is incomprehensible that anyone with an ounce of concern for children would be demanding the promotion, distribution, and sale of gangsta/porno rap to children." [WEEKS, p. C1]
Another organization often under public fire for negatively influencing children and adolescents is the Interactive Digital Software Association, which represents nearly fifty video game companies. Doug Lowenstein, also Jewish, [who was once the Legislative Director for Ohio Senator Howard Metzenbaum], became the first president of the organization in 1994, and he remains in power. Lowenstein is often called upon to defend the excessive violence and decadence found in many of the games. "Video games," he insisted in 1998, "are not the source of violence in society." "The producer of Flesh Feast, Eric Wahlberg," noted one media report, "agreed." [MEDIA AWARENESS NETWORK, 5-29-98; BLOOM, D., 9-23-99, p. L8]
The most controversial video game for the early 1990s was Mortal Kombat, produced by Acclaim Entertainment. In an appeal to video firms, asking for restraint from excessive violence, California Attorney General Dan Lundgren noted that "Mortal Kombat depicts bloody decapitations as well as scenes where a still-beating heart is pulled from a body." [SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, 9-9-94, p. C7] Acclaim Entertainment is headed by Gregory Fischbach, once hired by Elliot Goldman (the president and CEO of RCA/ARIOLA) to head RCA/ARIOLA Record International. (Fischbach represented musical acts Crosby Stills and Nash, Emmylou Harris, Boz Scaggs, among others.)
In 1998, Lawrence Kassanoff, CEO of Threshold Entertainment, was making a weekly TV series based on Mortal Kombat.) [KNOEDELSEDER, W., 6-18-86, pt. 4, p. 3; O'HARE, K., 12-27-98, p. 45]
-- jewishtribalreview.org
re: MORE Hollywood-made Stereotypes
jj-baker
10:29 am saturday december 15, 2001"Jewish theatre and film producers," noted Jewish author James Jaffe in 1968,"have created the wholly mythological figure of the gentle, inoffensive, philosophical, shoulder-shrugging Jew, ready to give the hero the benefit of his wise warm-hearted advice. [Jewish film critic] Pauline Kael detects him in the kindly old pharmacist in West Side Story, and points out that his chief function is to convince the gentile world how harmless the Jew is." [JAFFE, J., 1968, p. 62] Hyper-sensitivity to Jewish themes has a long history in Hollywood, particularly since the World War II (Holocaust) era. Even aside from Jewish insider domination in the shaping of movies, Jews have been so protective of their portrayals in the mass media that in 1948 an umbrella group for Jewish American organizations, the National Community Relations Advisory Council, instituted, in collaboration with the major Hollywood studios, the "Motion Picture Project." "It functioned," notes Neal Gabler, "to give each of the major Jewish organizations a piece of Hollywood... [Its activities involved] reviewing scripts, cajoling producers, keeping the big Jewish organizations informed of any movie that might help or hurt the Jews ... Some charged that an accusation could be made that a 'Jewish group was trying to censor the industry,' which, in fact, was exactly what it was trying to do." [GABLER, N., 1988, p. 303-304] But even before this self-censoring organization was created, in 1947, Hollywood carefully policed its depiction of Jews for the public. Frederic Wakeman's novel The Huckster, for example, (based largely upon the life of MCA mogul Jules Stein) was made into a movie by MGM. Dennis McDougal notes that "In Wakeman's novel, the newly respectable Dave Lash [the Stein character] was a poor Jew who clawed his way to the top by playing footsie with the Mob, then made up for it by giving generously to charities that fought anti-Semitism ... In the film version, there is no hint that Lash, played by grandfatherly character actor Edward Arnold, is Jewish or that his right-hand man is the conniving, deceitful >agent of the novel. The MGM script transformed Lash's odious [Jewish] chief lieutenant into an eager Irish string bean named Freddie Callahan ... The movie gives not hint that Arnold's character is Jewish or that his early criminal conniving had anything to do with being Jewish." [MCDOUGAL, 1998, p. 127- 128] In another such case, in 1945, Jewish screenwriter Barney Glazer struggled with Warners Brothers executive Jeff Wald (also Jewish) about a film to made called Rhapsody in Blue. Originally a play written by Jewish playwright Clifford Odets, Glazer formally objected to his superiors that the lead character (Jewish in the original version) was now Italian-American. The plan to delete the Jewishness of the character, noted Glazer, was that Warners wanted to do "a study of young genius; that for the greater part of it our hero must be portrayed as an out-and-out little sonofabitch; that the same color and sympathy can be had from say an Italian-American family portrait." [BEHLMER, p. 266] Glazer's complaint was to no avail: the lead character in the film appeared as Italian-American In 1994, Newsweek noted another such Hollywood ethnic switching: "When the play 'Other People's Money' was made into a movie, the character of a Jewish corporate raider who takes over a family business was changed into a generic 'ethnic' played by Danny DeVito [of Italian heritage]." [SOLOMON, J., 5-23, 94, p. 50]
re: Corporations and Violence
jj-baker
4:24 pm saturday december 15, 2001"That this [film and TV] industry,"says Michael Medved, "more firmly associated with Jews than any other business in the world, is almost universally viewed as a destructive force in our society should be viewed with concern. [MEDVED, p. 42]
Not even focusing on the Hollywood world, in 1999, Rabbi Daniel Lapin wrote an extraordinarily unusual, and stunning, appraisal of the collective negative effects of the modern Jewish community upon the values of America: "My firm conviction is that we must engage in an honest exploration of the problems and shortcomings of the Jewish community and Jewish communal leadership. Instead of focusing on imagined enemies, we should ask whether dogmatic commitment to a secular-liberal vision is encouraging dislike for the Jewish community. Without such honest self-appraisal, Jews will become more and more disliked -- not by crazed individuals but by decent Americans distressed over their rapidly deteriorating culture and the role of Jews in that agenda. It cannot escape the notice of ordinary Americans coping with the challenge of raising responsible children in a hostile world that many Jewish names and groups lead the fight for policies these Americans see as causing the country's decline." [LAPIN, D., 1999, p. 42]
Origins of anti-Semitism
jj-baker
6:55 pm saturday december 15, 2001Until World War II, there were more Jews in Poland than any other country in the world. And, throughout Eastern Europe, they had their own language: Yiddish. Here's some samples from what you never hear about Jewish tradition, and anyone who points this kind of thing out is deemed an "anti-Semite," a "racist," etc. Jews today portray themselves as historical saints. The following is just a few samples from an avalance of such material at our web site.
To understand history, you must know something about it:
In Yiddish/Hebrew "folk tradition," Romanians are called "amolek" (an analogue to the despised Biblical "Ameleks"), the Irish called "beytzimer" (a pun on the word testes), the Germans the pejorative "deitshuk," the Italians "loksh" (noodle), the Moldevians "moldevan" ("a boor or lout, yokel"), and the Prussians "preissn" (cockroaches). Armenians were called "timkhe." "This Hebrew word in the Bible," noted Jewish scholar A. A. Roback, "with reference to Amalek, the hereditary foe of the Israelites, curiously enough, is employed by Jews in Galicia [Poland], as a nickname for the Armenians, whom, for some reason, they look upon as descendants of that eternally despised people." [ROBACK, p. 141]
"Goy" (the categorical term for non-Jews), of course, means "an illiterate, coarse or lowbrow person." A "goyische kop," continues Roback, is a "Gentile head. A dunce, bonehead. It may be noted that the Gentiles referred to here were peasants, but the Jewish folk mind denies far-sighted, sensitive intelligence, understanding, and brilliance even to highly trained and distinguished non-Jews." [ROBACK, p. 139-140] (Traditional Jewish defamations of those of African descent will be discussed more extensively elsewhere). --from A. A. Roback, A Dictionary of of International Slurs (Ethnophaulisms), Sci-Art Publishers, Cambridge, MA, 1944 [A. A. Roback was a Jewish psychiatrist/psychoanalyst] "and the precept of 'love they neighbor as thyself' is at the heart of Judaism, yet every student brought up on the Babylonian Talmud -- and it must be remembered that for many centuries, especially in Poland, the Jews studied little else -- is inculcated with a disdain for the gentile which has entered into Jewish lore and into the very expressions of the Yiddish language." [BERMAN, C., 1977, p. 35]
Bermant, Chaim. The Jews. Times Mirror, 1977
Brownfeld, Alan. Growing Intolerance Threatens the Humane Jewish Tradition, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March 1999
Cantor, Norman. The Sacred Chain. A History of the Jews, HarperCollins, 1994
Dinnerstein, Leonard. The Origins of Black Anti-Semitism [in Gurock, Jeffrey. Anti-Semitism in America, v. 6, Routledge, 1998
Freedman, Edwin. The Myth of the Shiksa. [in Herz/Rosen, 1982]
Halevi, Yossi. Memoirs of a Jewish Extremist. An American Story, Little, Brown, & Co., 1995
Kramer, Judith/Leventman, Seymour. Children of the Gilded Ghetto, Yale University Press, 1961
Kumove, Shirley. A Collection of Yiddish Folk Sayings, Schocken Books, NY, 1985
Levine, Hillel/Harmon, Laurence. The Death of an American Jewish Community. Free Press/Macmillan, 1992
Lewin, Meyer. Classic Hasidic Tales. Citadel Press, NY, 1966, p. xi
Poll, Solomon. The Hasidic Community of Williamsburg. Schocken, NY, 1969
Reik, Theodore. Jewish Wit. Gamut Press, NY, 1962
Roback, A.A. Dictionary of International Slurs (Ethnopaulism), Sci-Art Publishers, 1944
Shahak, Israel. Jewish History, Jewish Religions. The Weight of Three Thousand Years. Pluto Press, 1994
Sklare, Marshall. The Jews. Social Patterns of an American Group, The Free Press, 1955
James Jaeger's Christmas Message
James Jaeger
2:25 am sunday december 16, 2001I posted this over at misc.writing screenplays.
-------------I would like to spend more time discussing screenwriting and production, but it seems that every time I DO post something on these subjects I am spit upon and ridiculed. This kind of treatment isn't very encouraging. Seems like the Hollywood apologists on this NG have simply made up their minds, and there's no changing. Many of you apologists who have been antagonistic to me profess tolerance, but it seems that you only practice conditional tolerance. When someone dissents and speaks critically about the lack of diversity in Hollywood (at the top of the MPAA studio/distributors), all tolerance evaporates. This is full-blown bigotry, and hypocrisy, at the very least.
Secondly, I feel I have been unjustly accused of being anti- Semitic for simply reiterating the premise of John Cones' research: that studios are controlled by mostly LIBERAL, NOT VERY RELIGIOUS WHITE JEWISH MALES OF EUROPEAN HERITAGE. What's wrong with saying this? It's true. It might be a button, but it's true. Making an observation about the managers of a group of public corporations isn't anti-Semitic. Did it ever occur to any of you apologists that I might be a stockholder of some or all of the MPAA companies and I don't like the lack of diversity in the management of MY companies? And as a stockholder, or owner, since when don't I have a right to complain?
If any of you, who are criticizing me, care to observe the demographics of other public corporations in this country and specify THEIR make up, that's fine too. I have no right to attack you as you have attacked me. I wouldn't consider you anti- Christian if you pointed out, for instance, that General Motors was run by mostly CONSERVATIVE, RELIGIOUS WHITE PROTESTANT MALES OF ANGLO-SAXON HERITAGE. What's wrong with saying this? It's true. And if you went further to say that the cars they make at GM suck, that they are way too expensive or that they all look the same -- I might even agree with you. I wouldn't curse you, slander you or wage a black propaganda campaign against you for observing a simple, observable truth. I just don't get your attitude (unless, of course, you're just psycho from being in the movie business too long).
When I first read WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON IN HOLLYWOOD (and other of John Cones' books) I didn't feel it would be any big deal to relate that message to colleagues in Hollywood and on the East Coast. I was completely amazed when a bunch of you, mostly on this NG, came out of the woodwork and started viciously attacking me as some sort of a nazi or anti-Semite. It just blew my mind. And, in fact, when you did this (and those of you know who I am referring to), it actually piqued my curiosity as to what was going on. The ploy of using "anti-Semitism" as a way of deflecting criticism or inquiry into Hollywood, as John Cones relates in his chapter, the "anti-Semitic Sword" (http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/shields.htm, began to make more sense to me . . . because I could actually see it being demonstrated in hard-reality. The fact is, it's certain people on this very NG, the hard-core apologists, that are actually "creating" anti-Semitism where none existed before. And those of you who are Jewish no less, are setting an even worse example for Jews in general. Just about the only Jew on this NG that I have run across, that I have any respect for, is Robert Morein. The rest of you are disgraceful and deserve to be excommunicated.
So, for the Nth time, here is what my argument comes down to in simple terms:
There are many public and private corporations out there managed and/or owned by many different people. Some of these companies are predominantly managed and/or owned by certain "definable groups," such as Christians, Jews, Muslims or even Scientologists. Other "definable groups" might be males or females; people of different races; and people of different political philosophies. There's nothing wrong any of this, BUT where we have a problem is when:
a) one of these "definable groups" discriminates against people from other "definable groups" by "pushing power" excessively just to members of its own "definable group" to the exclusion of other "definable groups," and;
b) a fixed array of specific "definable groups" forms a "compound definable group" that has even more specificity in its structure than any of the source "definable groups" do alone, and;
c) one of these "compound definable groups" acts as an oligopoly which monopolizes 90% of the major public communication channels of a given country while practicing a) of above in order to gain even more monopoly power to the exclusion of yet more other "definable groups." In the case of FIRM's focus, the "major public communication channel" is the feature motion picture. The feature motion picture is possibly the most potent communication channel yet devised -- especially when one considers all of its domestic and foreign media and markets (such as homevideo, cable, pay-per- view, second-run cable, free TV, syndication and ancillaries). So why should one be concerned with the management of a movie studio that is predominantly Jewish, for instance? They shouldn't, given there is diversity (other "definable groups") representing the other demographic elements. But what about the management of a movie studio that is predominantly Christian? Again, they shouldn't, given there is diversity (other "definable groups") representing the other demographic elements here as well. It does not matter what the predominant element ("definable group") of a particular management group is (whether they are Jewish or Christian, Conservative or Liberal, Male or Female). It's the LACK of diversity that's the problem, the fact that all 7 of the major studios have most of the same elements in their top management positions. In other words, EACH ONE of the 7 major studios has a "compound definable group" controlling it, and again these 7 public corporations preempt 90% of the entertainment markets in the United States (if not a similar market share in the foreign territories as well). Thus the lack of diversity in Hollywood is not only pronounced, it is GROSS, and completely unacceptable in a democratic society where the free flow of ideas should be as fundamental as the right to vote.
So my Christmas message is this: The lack of diversity at the top of the studios will effect each and every one of you and your (writing, filmmaking) careers. Most of you will work very hard writing screenplays that will never be purchased, let alone made into a picture, because you do not serve the interests of the "compound definable group" running the studios. Therefore, this group (also known as the "control group," "the club" or "traditional management") will not "push power" to you in any meaningful way. My observation, after working in the Hollywood- based motion picture/TV industry since 1977 has been that the group in power only pushes power to a) those of its "own kind" who are mostly already in the control group; b) those whose ideas conform to its basic political agenda, life-style and views; and c) those who can bring a assets into the movie business and be conveniently booted out after they have been sucked dry (this includes acting, writing and directing talent as well as money men and government officials). Occasionally there ARE exceptions -- and these ARE widely promoted so it doesn't look like there is discrimination and gross nepotism, etc., going on -- but make no mistake about it, these ARE just exceptions.
Those of you who are between 20 and 40 will, as the years pass, realize increasingly that what I have said here, and what John Cones has written in his books, are honest personal experiences and valid research, respectively. It won't be pleasant to slowly realize this in 2012 and it will probably be too late by then to do anything about it, because you never started early enough. This is what Hollywood is counting on to happen . . . as it has been happening for nearly a century now.
So I'll tell you what, here's another deal: If each of you on this NG promises to read WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON IN HOLLYWOOD! (http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/whats.htm) as soon as you conveniently can AND just tuck this information away in your mind as CONDITIONAL information (meaning information you neither AGREE with or DISAGREE with it), I will be satisfied that you a) got the message and b) that I no longer may need to be here. And again, as the years pass, you will be able to observe whether John Cones and I were full of shit or not (and you should email me or post your experiences). You will be able to observe this not only by experiencing your own progress, but by the progress of your best friends and associates. Note which of them get the sales and which do not, who gets to direct and who does not. More importantly note who gets hired to be the new studio production chief and who does not. Ask yourself upon each appointment: is he liberal or conservative? Is the appointment a male or female? Is he Jewish or Muslim? Does he ever attend church? Where are his parents from? Grand parents? Is he White or Black? Is his or her mother, father or uncle already in the Biz? Is he a Democrat or a Republican? Keep tabs through your morning Hollywood Reporter. Each time a new chairman, CEO, president or president of production is appointed to one of the 7 MPAA studio/distributors, run the above list of questions through your mind. Let me know when you see, for instance, that a Muslim has been appointed chairman of the board at Paramount or when a Black woman has been named president of production Warner Bros., or when a conservative Christian is appointed to the presidency of Disney. Email me. When these types of appointments start happing, the chances for your career will also improve -- that is unless you just "happen" to be a liberal, not very religious, white, Jewish male of European heritage (unlike none of the people on this NG I'm sure). Those of you that fit this particular demographic may experience fewer employment opportunities (and that, of course, is the reason for the yappers on this NG). But those of you that are, let's say, conservative, practicing orthodox Jews who just happen to be female with no relatives from Europe, might experience more employment opportunities. That's what diversity brings. And maybe those of you who have written that new, "politically incorrect" screenplay -- where Adolph Hitler is reincarnated as a studio executive and Hollywood flourishes more than ever before -- will make a six figure sale.
Those apologists who criticize and make fun of what I say here, KNOW that what I have been saying is true. They know it's true otherwise they wouldn't get so bent out of shape by my saying it. Further, they know that I know that they know it, and this probably gives them even more bad-hair days. These apologists are not your friends because they are trying to sucker you into a false picture of Hollywood. They are trying to convince you that what I am saying has no merit, that I am just some ranting anti-Semitic, nazi, troll that failed in Hollywood because I have no talent. If this is the case, then what I said above in connection with your career won't come true, and the observations John Cones has made in the book I asked you to read, won't be observable, so you'll have nothing to worry about. . . but dream on.
James Jaeger
All US Phone Calls Routed to Israel
jj-baker
4:53 pm tuesday december 18, 2001http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,40824,00.html
Carl Cameron Investigates, Part 3, Fox News, December 14, 2001
"BRIT HUME, HOST: Last time we reported on an Israeli-based company called Amdocs Ltd. that generates the computerized records and billing data for nearly every phone call made in America. As Carl Cameron reported, U.S. investigators digging into the 9/11 terrorist attacks fear that suspects may have been tipped off to what they were doing by information leaking out of Amdocs. In tonight's report, we learn that the concern about phone security extends to another company, founded in Israel, that provides the technology that the U.S. government uses for electronic eavesdropping. Here is Carl Cameron's third report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) CARL CAMERON, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): The company is Comverse Infosys, a subsidiary of an Israeli-run private telecommunications firm, with offices throughout the U.S. It provides wiretapping equipment for law enforcement. Here's how wiretapping works in the U.S. Every time you make a call, it passes through the nation's elaborate network of switchers and routers run by the phone companies. Custom computers and software, made by companies like Comverse, are tied into that network to intercept, record and store the wiretapped calls, and at the same time transmit them to investigators ... Adding to the suspicions is the fact that in Israel, Comverse works closely with the Israeli government, and under special programs, gets reimbursed for up to 50 percent of its research and development costs by the Israeli Ministry of Industry and Trade. But investigators within the DEA, INS and FBI have all told Fox News that to pursue or even suggest Israeli spying through Comverse is considered career suicide."
Jewish Media Thought Police (Literally)
jj-baker
7:21 pm tuesday december 18, 2001http://electronicintifada.net/actionitems/20011211.html
The CanWorld Chill: 'We Do Not Run in Our Newspaper Op Ed Pieces that Expression Criticism of Israel,' Electronic Intifada, December 11, 2001
"The 7 December 2001 broadcast of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's As It Happens [online audio link included] uncovered a disturbing example of corporate and political interference in freedom of the press. The program reported on a new editorial policy directive from CanWest Global, a leading Canadian media conglomerate, that impairs readers' ability to make up their own minds about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, among other issues. As It Happens reported that over two dozen journalists at the Montreal Gazette have pulled their bylines to protest a new policy imposed by the newspaper's owners, Southam Newspapers Inc, which is owned by CanWest Global.
The new policy requires the company's main local newspapers to run editorials written at headquarters in Winnipeg by Southam Editor-in-Chief Murdoch Davis. Bill Marsden, an investigative reporter at the Montreal Gazette, noted that up to 156 times a year -- about three times a week -- the editorial would be imposed and that the remainder of locally-written editorials would be required to reflect the viewpoints and stances taken by the paper's corporate headquarters
...[O]n July 31, CanWest announced its acquisition of all of the major Canadian newspaper and Internet assets of Hollinger Inc., including the metropolitan daily newspapers in nearly every large city across Canada and a 50% partnership interest in the National Post." [The owner of CanWest Global, which owns a huge percentage of Canadian newspapers, and the second largest Canadian TV network (as well as some media venues in Ireland, New Zealand, and other countries), is avid Zionist Israel Asper].
re: Jews/Hollywood/Christians
jj-baker
9:12 pm thursday december 20, 2001As Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein noted in 1997:
"Hollywood's impact on our popular culture is profound and undeniable ...
More often than not, filmmakers seem to go out of their way to depict people of faith in the worst possible light. And while Jews and Judiaism are, by and large, portrayed favorably and reverentially, Christians, particularly Evangelical Protestants and devout Cathlics, do not fare so well. One is left with the distinct impression that Hollywood has a very real and pervasive anti-Christian bias. How else do we explain the fact that Christian clergy -- when they are portrayed at all -- are usually shown engaging in morally reprehensible behavior? Or the fact that Christian symbols are associated with characters who prey upon society? Or that the crimes of various antagonists are shown to be religiously motivated?
In Primal Fear, for example, the local archbishop is murdered by one of the waifs he exploited in his self-made porn films. The lead character in Priest is shown in a homosexual tryst with a stranger. The sadistic nurse in Misery wears a cross; the rapist in Eye for an Eye sports one as well. A killer played by Harry Connick Jr. in Copycat repeatedly invokes the names of Jesus. Christian beliefs and symbols are often belittled by Hollywood producers and writers. The cherished symbols of faith are put to blasphemous uses.
Indeed, if there is a Christian character in a film, he is usually depicted as a fool, a liar, a cheater, a diabolical murderer or a crazy person ... Could Hollywood producers ridicule and malign Christians with impunity if the Christian community organized its own equivilant of the Anti-Defamaation League?"[ECKSTEIN, Y. 2-14-97, p. 4]
So Why Even Mention They're Jewish?
James Jaeger
7:07 pm sunday december 23, 2001Okay, so how do you make sure that when criticizing an industry where a lot of Jewish people work, your criticism doesn't set off any sort of fear or political action against Jews in general? What do you do? Not criticize? Not mention Jews in the demographic? Do you explain to people that you are not criticizing because the executives are Jewish, but because of their actions? And if you are criticizing because of just their actions, why is it really important to even mention that part of the demographic of the control group includes the fact that they're Jewish?
James Jaeger
re: So Why Even Mention They're Jewish?
jj-baker
8:45 pm sunday december 23, 2001First, the danger of any kind of far-right Aryan movement in America, as you probably will agree, is probably about zero. The Jewish community has for many decades been active in making sure that such a movement could never happen here. How? They have been the foremost sponsors of the "multicultural" movement and increased migration from a variety of places. The effect is to create a mosaic of American ethnic and racial identities, one in which it would be extremely difficult to single any one out for hostility. [In Germany, the power clash boiled down to a Jewish-Aryan German one]. (This is discussed in some Jewish, and non-Jewish, scholarship). Jews, for instance, dominated the NAACP for centuries. Did you know that? I didn't, until I researched it. It wasn't until Black agitation in the 1960s that they finally got a Black president of the NAACP and the incumbent Jewish president stepped down. Now, why? There have been a handful of good scholarly discussions about this phenomenon, by Jewish scholars even. Any and all benefits accrued to the impoverished African-Americans were likewise accrued to Jews who have zoomed up the American social ladder in all directions. (Jews easily configure as "white" or "minority" as the need suits them). Per your questions, look, Jews DESERVE criticism. Period. Anyone who "runs things" deserves criticism. Period. Whoever the Hell they are. Every since the World War II era though, they have been SCREENED from it. There is SO, SO much to criticize about their community, it is beyond belief. The fact that it all is so securely veiled from view is what outrages me, especially in conjunction with the fact that the Jewish community continues to have a completely free reign in defaming everyone else: Blacks, Whites, Ukrainians, Russians, Poles, Christians, Muslims, etc. etc. One of the foundations of "being Jewish" is to endlessly bitch about "anti-Semitism" (i.e., everyone else is a "racist," "bigot," etc.) Conversely, Jews are saints.
Jews epitomize the "victim" society we are trapped in. In today's society, the "victim" is hero. The "victim" is not responsible for anything. The "victim" merely reaps benefits for his/her heritage as "victim." Everyone must pay homage to the "victim." Jews publicly configure as "victims" even as they are the wealthiest and, arguably, most powerful ethnic group in America.
I do not agree with FIRM's formal position that "Jews" as dominant in Hollywood is irrelevant (i.e., it doesn't matter that those who dominate are JEWISH). That position is noble and "politically correct" (it's also a cop-out), but, again, it is NOT any other group that dominates Hollywood; it is -- and WAS -- the Jewish group. Jews dominated the film industry in Russia too, as well as Germany, and other places. They dominate the field TODAY in many others places in the world too. And they are also profoundly influential in a lot of other social, cultural, economic, and political realms. The obvious question to ask is: Why? And to ask this question in our Thought Police world is to be condemned as a moral criminal.
And the bottom line is this: if Jews dominate so much, how might their world views increasingly influence American mores and culture? (You guys ask this at FIRM in your own way, per the Jewish "liberal" stuff).
The questions you ask above are ethical imperatives. By the same token, how can any informed person -- who recognizes the dimensions to the problem -- NOT speak out against Jewish bias, nepotism, racism, and injustice? If you DO NOT speak out, what are the continuing consequences? Why should anything get better, and not WORSE?
The Jewish community fears that when people catch on to the dimensions of their influence and power, there looms the threat of another Holocaust. This, of course, is impossible for numerous reasons, not the least being that America is not Nazi Germany -- it's an ethnically diverse nation where people have been socialized against fascism for decades. Nor the fact that modern Israel is a military state with nuclear bombs sworn to save the Jewish people -- anywhere.
The moral person must struggle for justice. Period. Moral people will do moral things. I, for one, would have no problem with Jews, as 2.5% of the population, having -- say -- 4% of America's power. But they DOMINATE way, way, way, way, way too much, in such a way that threatens (via their allegiance to Israel and their sway over US foreign policy, their influence in the mass media, etc.) our very safety and security.
The right thing to do is to tell the truth. Always. And trust than when moral, ethical people have all the information before them to solve a problem, collectively they will do the right thing.
-- jewishtribalreview.org
re: So Why Even Mention They're Jewish?
James Jaeger
9:07 pm sunday december 23, 2001Thank you for answering my question; you have some good points and it IS obvious that Jewish people do dominate Hollywood in many ways and I have no problem stating that bald and obvious fact . . . but it seems to me that your criticism of Hollywood stems from the idea that you feel Jews also dominate the best part of the world and since Hollywood is but one small section of the thereof, they dominate it as a subset. That's all fine and logical, given your premise IS correct, but this premise nor its substantiation/invalidation, is the focus of FIRM (as both John and I have mentioned a number of times). One of our major criticisms of Hollywood (among others) is simply that it's not diverse enough at the very top. So it boils down to this: if there were NO Jewish people in Hollywood, but all the other demographics remained, YOU would probably have NO issue with Hollywood whereas we (at FIRM) still would.
John Cones reminds me that it's not really okay to admire the fact of dominance in Hollywood by a single narrowly- defined "interest group" that got there, and have maintained dominance, through the consistent use of unfair, unethical, anti- competitive, predatory and illegal business practices. I agree with this point too, and I'm sure you do as well, but I don't think the Jews in Hollywood acted this way because they are Jewish nor do I feel the way Jews act in Hollywood is represenative of Jews in general. Or do you?
John also says, in reference to my question as to why we even bother mention the J-word, that 'there is a demonstrated relationship between who has the power to greenlight movies and the kinds of movies we see, thus the more precisely we are able to identify the backgrounds of those in control, the more likely we are able to understand why we are seeing the movies we see. In addition, if we do not go so far as to explain that the Hollywood control group is made up of a majority of "politically liberal, not very religious, Jewish males of European origin" then we, by our failure to be more precise, resign ourselves to accepting the dangerous half-truth, that is, that Hollywood is controlled by "white males", misinformation which suggests a whole different set of remedies.'
James Jaeger
Famous anti-Semites
jj-baker
9:23 pm sunday december 23, 2001As you will see in the following list, the charge of "anti- Semitism" has no idelogical boundaries. The idea that anyone who criticizes Jews as a community is an Aryan Nazi is part of our socialization process. Anyone and everyone is subject to this defamation (including Jews, where "Jewish self-hatred" is a veritable institution in the Jewish community since the Enlightenment). The following people have been accused by Jewish authors of anti- Semitism (and documented at our web site). This is merely a partial list:
Voltaire (one of the Enlightenment founders of "tolerance"), Karl Marx (whose grandfather was a rabbi), Montesquieu, Nietzche, Goethe, H.L. Mencken, (former French prime minister) Charles DeGaulle, (former French socialist prime minister) Francois Mitterand, General Patton, Ulysses S. Grant (and civil war generals Benjamin Butler and William T. Sherman), (folklorist) Joseph Campbell (after he was dead and couldn't defend himself), H.G. Wells, George Orwell, (painter) Degas, Alexander Pushkin, George Bernard Shaw, Theodore Dreiser, Cicero, Tacitus, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh.
"virtually every major figure in the early history of socialism" -- so says Jewish scholar Daniel Pipe) including Fourier, Proudhorn, Sobel, Tousenel, Engels, Le Roux, the anarchist Bakunin, John Cheever, William Styron, James Russell Lowell, Thomas Mann, Aubrey Beardsley, William Blake, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Frank Norris, Mother Goose, Hilary Clinton (even! But she survived the charge)
Renoir, T.S. Eliot, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Sylvia Plath, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Henry James, Edgar Allan Poe, Anthony Trollope, Guy de Maupassant, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Truman Capote, Edith Wharton, Willa Cather, Gore Vidal, Doestoevsky, Solzhenitsyn, Jean Genet, (philosopher) Martin Heidegger (closet Nazi), Karl Jung (closet Nazi), Mahatma Gandhi (critical of Israel), Jacques Cousteau, Thackery, Bach, Wagner, Chopin, Rodin, Mark Twain, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, John Quincy Adams, Charles Lindbergh, D.H. Lawrence, "lesbian feminists" Z. Budapest, Rita Mae Brown, and Bertha Harris, Black feminist Judy Simmons (and studies find the highest rate of anti-Semitism in America among African- Americans,
etc. etc. etc.
Why do you think they critized the Jewish community? You don't know. You have no idea. Why do you think you don't know?
-- jewishtribalreview.org
CHRISTIANS/CATHOLICS LISTEN UP!
Seek the Truth
2:06 am monday december 24, 2001Hollywood is the devil's Ministry; the movie theaters his place of worship.
Why does Hollywood have so much power? Because the devil rules this planet. Jesus turned to the pharisees one time and said (I paraphrase) 'You do not understand the things I teach because you are not the children of God. You are the children of the devil."
The pharisees today are the Hollywood elite. They're a condemning, hypocritical, lying, proud, racist, money-loving, treacherous, horrible, cutthroat, evil, despicable, abominable, manipulative, inhuman group of people.
Yet, Jesus taught us to 'love them' so I do. They are not my enemies. I only 'hate' their sins and I do have righteous anger like Jesus did. THE PROBLEM WITH CHRISTIANS AND CATHOLICS IS WE'VE LOST THE RIGHTEOUS ANGER!!!!! JESUS WOULD NEVER HAVE TOLD US TO DO NOTHING. THIS IS COWARDLY. THE ONLY PEOPLE THE LORD WILL BLESS IT SEEMS WILL BE JOHN CONES. THE ONLY MAN TO STAND UP AGAINST TODAY'S HORRIBLE PHARISEES.
More Judeo-centrism
jj-baker
12:08 pm monday december 24, 2001Jews represent merely 2.5% of the American population, but they dominate the screenwriting and Hollywood worlds. Although they are apparently trying to flood the airwaves with Jewish themes, the viewing public is NOT overwhelmingly Jewish and, hence, receptive:
"Three of the most-hyped new shows, one for each major network, just disappeared. And they all had something in common: They were about Jewish men [Inside Schwartz, Danny, Bob Patterson] ... Hopefully, the indisputable failure of these depictions of 'Jewish manhood' will cause TV writers and producers to reassess their depiction of Jewish men and of Jews in general."
from:
Jewish Manhood Strikes Out, Jewish World Review, December 24, 2001
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/elliot/gertel.html
re: Famous anti-Semites
jj-baker
12:50 pm monday december 24, 2001"Anti-Semitism" in the Jewish community has been a virtual institution since the Enlightenment. It is popularly called "Jewish self-hatred."
"Self hatred, in fact," declared Jewish author James Yaffe in 1968, "is a word often used to describe a common phenomena -- Jewish anti-Semitism ... The Jew believes all the epithets that the anti-Semite throws at him, even the ones that contradict each other. He believes that Jews are clannish and pushy, miserly and ostentatious, vulgar and excessively intellectual ... [YAFFE, J., 1968, p. 70] ... In his attitudes toward anti-Semitism, the self-hating Jew is especially confused. The subject is on his mind constantly. He is far more sensitive to so-called 'Jewish traits' than most gentiles are ... [YAFFE, J., 1968, p. 72]
...So why not recognize the truth? Hardly any Jews are entirely free from the effects of this disease [of Jewish self-hatred]. In AJC's Baltimore survey [the American Jewish Committee’s study of the Jews of Baltimore in 1962], two-thirds of the respondents admitted to believing that other Jews are pushy, hostile, vulgar, materialistic, and the cause of anti-Semitism. And those were only the ones who were willing to admit it." [YAFFE, J., 1968, p. 73]
re: So Why Even Mention They're Jewish?
jj-baker
5:11 pm monday december 24, 2001Thanks for the thoughts. I agree with much of what you say. But here, no:
>So it boils down to this: if there were NO Jewish people in Hollywood, but all the other demographics remained, YOU would probably have NO issue with Hollywood whereas we (at FIRM) still would.
The origin of my complaint about Hollywood, and everything else, is social injustice. Like you, I'd be complaining about WHOEVER ran Hollywood. But, again, those who run Hollywood are largely Jewish. The "why" of this is an area that FIRM formally rejects as being beyond (however incongruously) its scope of interest.
>have maintained dominance, through the consistent use of unfair, unethical, anti-competitive, predatory and illegal business practices. I agree with this point too, and I'm sure you do as well, but I don't think the Jews in Hollywood acted this way because they are Jewish nor do I feel the way Jews act in Hollywood is represenative of Jews in general. Or do you?
Again, FIRM formally rejects any discussion of this kind of area because it is not expressly about film-related issues. It is also not a pleasant realm of debate and discussion. It is also an enormous issue. The "ethics" of coming to power in any field is obviously problematic. No one rises to power (in the business world) based upon qualities like compassion, kindness, benevolence, sharing, etc. etc. etc. Business is a brutal game. And when the stakes are so high (making movies, making and destroying careers/lives, etc.) deal-making can be extraordinarily ruthless. Much of Hollywood -- and the entertainment field generally -- has always been a fairly corrupt realm (layola, payola, various kinds of Mafias, etc. etc. etc.) The question, again, why is it Jews who have exceled in this milieu? There are no easy answers, but there is plenty of historical material to work with. To categorically reject any possibilities in an investigation, even before such a query has been launched, is self-delusion and self-fulfilling. In other words, there ARE issues of Jewish "ethics" that have been well- known and discussed by both non-Jews and Jews for centuries. We elaborate upon them at our web site.
re: James Jaeger's Christmas Message
Steven
9:51 pm monday december 24, 2001>>Well, James, it seems that not only do you fail to understand Hollywood, or us, but you likewise fail to understand the meaning of Christmas.
>Quite the contrary, there will be those on this NG (even if silent) that will read what I have said, act on it in some way
Okay, I've asked you this before, and you've ignored it, but I'm gonna try again, damn the cost*.
Let's first get a little business out of the way. If I've been understanding you correctly all of these years, your point is that Hollywood isn't sufficiently diverse, especially at the very highest levels. That it reflects a too-narrow scope, culturally speaking. To whit - too many white, male, not-very-religious Jews of European heritage in positions of power. That this is caused by nepotism and cronyism and rascalism and it has, whether by accident or design, caused a situation wherein otherwise worthy and talented people who are _not_ a part of that specific cultural delineation are unable to participate in the powerful image-making, public-opinion-forming, very lucrative business of Selling The (Now Perverted) American Dream To The World, that is 'Hollywood.' You cite a number of published sources, including several books by John Cones, to support your position
You further posit that this situation needs to change, so that there is more diversity at the top, and throughout the rank and file. In other words, more people who are whatever-you-are, and less Jews (either by percentage or by raw numbers) - not because there's anything wrong with being Jewish, but because such domination by _any_ single group is unhealthy, both for the industry and the society which it serves.
Is this a fair description of your position, after all these years?
The reason I ask is because I managed to figure this out from about your first or second post, and while I've used more polite language than some others might (in this instance, at least), I expect that if I were to ask anyone here what your basic position was and is, they'd have pretty much the same answer.
In other words, we get what it is you're saying.
Doesn't mean that we _agree_ with it, but we _get_ it. We understand your point of view. Getting most of us to agree with it would take more skill as a debater than you've thus far demonstrated; simply saying the same thing, over and over and over again, isn't much of an argument. If it wasn't convincing the first 279 times, #280 isn't going to be the charm.
So, that business aside, my question is... What do you want anyone to _do_ about it? You say, "act on it in some way..." What way? What, specifically, do you want me, as a screenwriter, to do? What, specifically, do you want me, as a screenwriter, to _not_ do?
Specifically?
'Cause, considering that you've gotten your message out, loud and clear and long ago, if you don't have a next step, what are you going on about?
Exactly?
> and save themselves quite a lot of anguish. That's the spirit of Christmas, to give without thought of receiving. Do you think I get paid to do this?
I can't imagine anyone who'd pay you to come here, day after day, just to be annoying - except perhaps John Cones, whose books you endlessly pimp.
> Secondly, the "meaning of Christmas" is to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, nothing else.
So, that whole "to give without thought of receiving" thing, that was all crap, then?
> Hollywood, and its demented apologists, have been doing its best to reduce this most sacred event to nothing less than an orgy of commercial gluttony.
Really? It's Hollywood that's done this, not the toy manufacturers and the people who make greeting cards and Christmas decorations and the like? Christmas wasn't being commercialized before there were movies? Currier & Ives were donating all of their prints to the poor and needy?
> You have a lot of gall promoting an industry that contributes to such disrespect for 1.1 billion Christians across the world and then accuse ME of failing to understand the meaning of Christmas. Pah-leezz.
Pah-leezz explain, then, which it is - "to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, nothing else" or "to give without thought of receiving"?
>>Your "Christmas message" was filled with your usual verbose spewing of hate, and paranoia.
> Speak for yourself.
He was, but I imagine that there are many, myself certainly included, who feel he was speaking for us as well. I, for one, also feel that your "Christmas message" was filled with your usual verbose spewing of hate and paranoia.
>> I really feel sorry for you. You must be a very unhappy man.
> No need to feel sorry, I'm sure I'm happier than you because at least I don't have to suppress my feelings about an industry that we all are victims of, whereas you DO, in order to merely survive in its clutches.
Amazing. For any of us to survive in its clutches, we must suppress our feelings about the industry in which we choose to work, and in which you desperately _want_ to work, but in which you have (so far) failed to find employment?
If you hate this industry so much, why do you want to work in it? Why do you assume that Bob Stone, who I believe has 'outed' himself as a Jew in the last few days, must have such feelings about working in this industry that he has to suppress them just to survive? If you're so much happier on the outside looking in (bitching and moaning about how the Jews won't let you work in the business) than the people who are doing the work you say you aspire to do, then... what's the problem? Why aren't you glad that you can't get in, where you'd be so much less happy?
And this little exchange, between you and Bill Rabkin:
>>>Many of you apologists who have been antagonistic to me profess tolerance, but it seems that you only practice conditional tolerance.
>>Tolerance does not mean we have to embrace stupidity, bigotry, and ignorance.
>Sure it does. Don't you go to Sunday school?
I don't any more, but I used to. Tolerance is not the same as embracing something (perhaps this is why you're having such a difficult time breaking in as a writer - you don't have a F.I.R.M. grasp of the English language); we tolerate the KKK organizations who put up websites, because we recognize their right to free speech even if we hate what they choose to say. We tolerate you here at mws, because as annoying as you are, we'll still defend to the death your right to be annoying. That hardly means that we embrace your point of view; just that we won't actively seek to prevent you from expressing it.
We might beg you to shut the hell up once in a while, but that doesn't mean we're calling your ISP and asking them to cancel your account or anything. We tolerate you without embracing you.
*The cost - my computer is on its very last legs; the SCSI port is dead which means I can't load any new software via CD Rom or Zip or anything except floppy disk, and my current usenet software a) won't fit on a floppy disk, and b) is corrupted. I can't change the settings but my ISP has changed their settings, so every time I try to post to usenet, the whole system crashes (which is why y'all haven't seen me here much lately). I'll get myself a new 'puter after the holidays, but for now, it's down to just lurking and this one little post, followed by rebooting and hours of trying to get the beast back online.
God, how I love technology.
re: James Jaeger's Christmas Message
Sal
9:58 pm monday december 24, 2001>Okay, I've asked you this before, and you've ignored it, but I'm gonna > try again, damn the cost*.
Kind sir,
Your argument is astoundingly hypocritical. And, apparently, blind (natural, or self-enforced, who knows?).
Jews dominate Hollywood. Jewish people in Hollywood -- certainly of all people -- know this the best. The people at this forum who scream "Nazi" and "racist" and "asshole" at Jaeger are the ones who most strongly do not like non-Jews stating bluntly what they already know. These people shout insults and epithets at Jaeger as if that will scare him away and, inexplicably, assuage their own consciences. As if beating their chests and menacingly waving sticks and other threats meant anything to anybody.
There is a profound hypocrisy in this local double standard of Hollywood as a Jewish fiefdom. Jews, as all the Jews at this forum well know, have been for decades the primary activists against perceived discrimination in the WASP (and Christian)world, throughout the American scene.
Jews griping about "anti-Semitism" always and everywhere, and demanding, demanding, demanding more room for upward advancement, is one of the hallmarks of today's Jewish identity -- zooming up social ladders in so many fields in the last few decades.
Jews are also at the very core of the entire "separation of Church and State" scenario because they don't like being lost as Jews in an otherwise overwhelmingly Christian milieu. Jews have been profoundly influential in destroying the old "melting pot" idea (Horace Kallen, Jewish and an ardent Zionist, is one of the most influential figures in this realm), and Jews have been dominant forces in demanding more and more immigration (particularly, from their point of view, more Jews) in order to create a suitably non-Christian milieu and greater room and comfort for Jewish ethnocentric identities.
To turn your own questions to Mr. Jaeger around ("What do you want us to do?", etc.), the Jewish community collectivized and began a decades-long war of demands upon the existing establishment a long, long time ago. Why aren't non-Jews entitled to do this in Hollywood? Why the double standard? There are way, way too many Jews running the "show." Period. If the "WASP (or Christian, or whatever) establishment" is fair game for critical attack everywhere and anywhere by Jewish complainers, how come Jews get to be so UNCONTESTED as racist and ethnocentric clans in their own fiefdoms (at this forum, we're discussing Hollywood -- but Jewish influence is far greater than this).
Mr. Jaeger is merely speaking to an issue that Jewish community should recognize in an instant (since, again, this very same community has been pushing for open advancement up the social ladder throughout WASP/Christian society THE VERY SAME WAY JAEGER HAS per JEWISH Hollywood. Actually, correct that. Jews have mastered the finesse of collective complaint with tons of lawsuits, poured millions into the AJCommittee, AJCongress, ADL, etc. etc. etc. to do the dirty work for them). But again and again, the overwhelming evidence is that the Jewish community is comfortable with a double moral standard.
Jaeger is a harbinger of new things, new complaints, to come. Sooner or later. Muslims alone are going to get more and more politically agitated in this country, and they number about as many Jews (about 6 million). There's change going to happen here whether all the comfortable Jews nestled in Hollywood getting another nice gig from Uncle Mort like it or not.
Sorry, folks. This ain't democracy we got today. This is a scam.
Those who are "bigots" and "paranoids" (and all the other smears pointed Jaeger's way) are obviously those who hurl those epithets at him. What else, when faced with all the facts, can those with so much to lose if Hollywood changes, say? Again and again at this site, they are speechless. Except for vulgar defamations. And, the old fall-back standby: troubled silence.
re: James Jaeger's Christmas Message
James Jaeger
10:26 pm monday december 24, 2001>Okay, I've asked you this before, and you've ignored it, but I'm gonna try again, damn the cost*.
>Let's first get a little business out of the way. If I've been understanding you correctly all of these years, your point is that Hollywood isn't sufficiently diverse, especially at the very highest levels.
The top 3 executives of the 7 MPAA studio/distributors. See http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/control.htm#execlist
>That it reflects a too-narrow scope, culturally speaking.
True.
>To whit - too many white, male, not-very-religious Jews of European heritage in positions of power. That this is caused by nepotism and cronyism and rascalism and it has, whether by accident or design, caused a situation wherein otherwise worthy and talented people who are _not_ a part of that specific cultural delineation are unable to participate in the powerful image-making, public-opinion-forming, very lucrative business of Selling The (Now Perverted) American Dream To The World, that is 'Hollywood.' You cite a number of published sources, including several books by John Cones, to support your position
John Cones says that it's not really okay to admire the fact of dominance in Hollywood by a single narrowly- defined "interest group" that got there, and have maintained dominance, through the consistent use of unfair, unethical, anti- competitive, predatory and illegal business practices. I agree with this point too, and I'm sure you do as well, but I don't think the Jews in Hollywood acted this way because they are Jewish nor do I feel the way Jews act in Hollywood is representative of Jews in general. John also says, in reference to my question as to why we even bother mention the J-word, that 'there is a demonstrated relationship between who has the power to greenlight movies and the kinds of movies we see, thus the more precisely we are able to identify the backgrounds of those in control, the more likely we are able to understand why we are seeing the movies we see. In addition, if we do not go so far as to explain that the Hollywood control group is made up of a majority of "politically liberal, not very religious, Jewish males of European origin" then we, by our failure to be more precise, resign ourselves to accepting the dangerous half-truth, that is, that Hollywood is controlled by "white males", misinformation which suggests a whole different set of remedies.'
> You further posit that this situation needs to change, so that there is more diversity at the top, and throughout the rank and file. In other words, more people who are whatever-you-are, and less Jews (either by percentage or by raw numbers) - not because there's anything wrong with being Jewish, but because such domination by _any_ single group is unhealthy, both for the industry and the society which it serves.
> Is this a fair description of your position, after all these years?
Yes it is.
> The reason I ask is because I managed to figure this out from about your first or second post, and while I've used more polite language than some others might (in this instance, at least), I expect that if I were to ask anyone here what your basic position was and is, they'd have pretty much the same answer.
Okay. Good, so many of you understand FIRM's position.
> In other words, we get what it is you're saying.
Okay, good.
> Doesn't mean that we _agree_ with it, but we _get_ it. We understand your point of view.
Okay.
> Getting most of us to agree with it would take more skill as a debater than you've thus far demonstrated; simply saying the same thing, over and over and over again, isn't much of an argument. If it wasn't convincing the first 279 times, #280 isn't going to be the charm.
Why do I need to get most of you to "agree?" If you understand what's going on (and you do) but do nothing about it, then aren't you condoning a narrow viewpoint having the ability to greenlight movies to the exclusion of all others?
> So, that business aside, my question is... What do you want anyone to_do_ about it? You say, "act on it in some way..." What way? What, specifically, do you want me, as a screenwriter, to do? What, specifically, do you want me, as a screenwriter, to _not_ do?
If you are willing to do something about it, because you understand that greater diversity in the Hollywood control group would only mean greater opportunity for others (including yourself), all I would ask you do as writers is use your god-given gifts and don't be afraid to write honestly about the diversity issue, the union catch-22 issue, the violence in the movies issue and the creative accounting issues. If it makes you uncomfortable mentioning Jews in your description of the Control Group, then don't. It made me uncomfortable at first too -- and then I began wondering why it was okay for Jews to make fun of everyone else, yet one can't even point out their dominance in the Control Group with out being labeled anti-Semitic. At this point I decided that they were really wrong and that they were making a mockery out of my rights. So now I don't care any more what they say or call me. I don't care if anyone labels me anti-Semitic or if I even AM anti-Semitic by some people's definition (as I now realize that the game is to simply label one to thwart criticism). The more important thing is to state what I believe is the truth about why Hollywood needs reform. I would ask that you as writers take responsibility for arriving at this point as well. And you might as well because your odds of making it in Hollywood won't really be effected that much anyway. On the other hand, if all your voices force change in Hollywood, at least you will have a level playing field to deal with.
> Specifically? 'Cause, considering that you've gotten your message out, loud and clear and long ago, if you don't have a next step, what are you going on about?
Steve, you have to realize that thousands of people flow through these NGs who have not heard what I have had to say even once. Since MWS is an active group, the posts scroll off relatively quickly. So for those of you who have heard my message many times, please don't feel that I am trying to insult you with repetition as if you are not capable of "getting it." I know you are, and most have. I am trying to speak to the others who will confront all this sooner or later in their careers. It's not fair to them for you to get what I am saying and not they. I'm not asking you to respond to me any more, but I do wish those of you who are attacking me would please stop because, by the same token, I GET YOUR ATTACKS and ARGUMENT AS WELL. When you persist in cursing me and spitting on what I have to say, you poison the NG environment so those new to the group feel hesitant to say anything that doesn't "fit in" with you, who they possibly even look up to. If you are all indeed truth seekers, I would think you would at least be curious to see if any FIRM-positive posters WOULD emerge given a more neutral and receptive NG environment. And who knows, maybe we would BOTH learn something from other views.
> Exactly?
> > and save themselves quite a lot of anguish. That's the spirit of Christmas, to give without thought of receiving. Do you think I get paid to do this?
> I can't imagine anyone who'd pay you to come here, day after day, just to be annoying - except perhaps John Cones, whose books you endlessly pimp.
Well I will assure you I make no money pimping John's books.
> > Secondly, the "meaning of Christmas" is to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, nothing else.
> So, that whole "to give without thought of receiving" thing, that was all crap, then?
Well logically you're correct, the word "nothing" is a superlative and so I should rephrase this to say this: For Christians, Christmas is to celebrate what they consider one of the most holy of events, the birth of Jesus Christ. Among Christ's many teachings was the idea that it's better to give than to receive. Also, as the story goes, three wise men brought gifts to the baby Jesus. When one combines these two ideas we get giving gifts at Christmas. My only point here is that the primary event is the celebration of the birth, not the giving of gifts. When people end up giving gifts, which are material objects, instead of love and joy and respect to their families and friends at Christmas, my feeling is that there's something wrong with the spirit of Christmas. I realize that for many people who retail, Christmas is their big season and I don't wish them anything less than a prosperous business -- but I also feel their commercial exploitation of Christmas has gone too far. Since I have studied TV on this issue, I know that there is an almost non-stop programming of spots selling stuff, especially during Christmas. Many of these spots originate in NYC agencies, but the shows they are embedded in, to no small degree, originate from Hollywood studios, or their subsidiaries.
> > Hollywood, and its demented apologists, have been doing its best to reduce this most sacred event to nothing less than an orgy of commercial gluttony.
> Really? It's Hollywood that's done this, not the toy manufacturers and the people who make greeting cards and Christmas decorations and the like? Christmas wasn't being commercialized before there were movies? Currier & Ives were donating all of their prints to the poor and needy?
Not anywhere near the degree it is today. Hollywood product is a big factor. Look at all the movie ancillaries. The toy manufacturers you mention above pay the studios royalties to use character rights etc., from various pictures. It's endless. So again I say: Hollywood, and its demented apologists, have been doing its best to reduce this most sacred event, Christmas, to nothing less than an orgy of commercial gluttony.
> > You have a lot of gall promoting an industry that contributes to such disrespect for 1.1 billion Christians across the world > and then accuse ME of failing to understand the meaning of Christmas. Pah-leezz.
> Pah-leezz explain, then, which it is - "to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, nothing else" or "to give without thought of receiving"?
See above.
> > > Your "Christmas message" was filled with your usual verbose spewing of hate, and paranoia.
> > Speak for yourself.
> He was, but I imagine that there are many, myself certainly included, who feel he was speaking for us as well. I, for one, also feel that your "Christmas message" was filled with your usual verbose spewing of hate and paranoia.
You're entitled to your opinions.
> > > I really feel sorry for you. You must be a very unhappy man.
> > No need to feel sorry, I'm sure I'm happier than you because at least I don't have to suppress my feelings about an industry that we all are victims of, whereas you DO, in order to merely survive in its clutches.
> Amazing. For any of us to survive in its clutches, we must suppress our feelings about the industry in which we choose to work,
Well put.
> and in which you desperately _want_ to work, but in which you have (so far) failed to find employment?
I worked in Hollywood for 11 years. If I hadn't decided to go above-line as a producer, I would have been fully employed most days of my life had wanted. I have never not been able to get and hold any job (provided I could ignore or play the game, as necessary). When I did become work my way into independent producing almost every investor I met or spoke with told me that they HATE movie deals. And most of these (accredited) investors told me this BEFORE they had even seen ANY of my work - so it couldn't have been my work that was the cause of their hate for movie deals. When I ask them exactly why they hated movie deals, they told me basically the reasons found in FATAL SUBTRACTION, THE FEATURE FILM DISTRIBUTION DEAL and even some of the information in WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON IN HOLLYWOOD! (See the various law suits and distribution articles at http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/bginfo.htm for details and more reasons.)
> If you hate this industry so much, why do you want to work in it?
As I have said many times, I don't hate the industry, especially the talent and production people that work in it. In fact it is my great care and admiration for them that gives me the strength to post messages like this year after year and spend my time and money trying to reform the business as well as setting up a better distribution paradigm (as demonstrated c/o http://www.homevideo.net and http://www.pay-per-view.com).
> Why do you assume that Bob Stone, who I believe has 'outed' himself as a Jew in the last few days, must have such feelings about working in this industry that he has to suppress them just to survive?
What do you mean?
> If you're so much happier on the outside looking in
I have already been in there and done much more than most of you guys and gals. If I wasn't so fed up with the unethical business practices and submission one has to undergo, I could still be "in there" kissing ass and living with my head in a glamorous hole just as you are doing or trying to do. But since I know Hollywood is on its way out anyway, I really have nothing to lose by speaking out at this point in time.
> (bitching and moaning about how the Jews won't let you work in the business)
Well first of all, is it true that there are Jews working in the business that would not finance my films because they heard on the grape vine that I was labeled anti-Semitic? Is this true? Because if it IS true, than I guess one can safely say that Hollywood does blackball people over rumors. And if that is true, should one complain about it or just curl up and go away, like so many others?
> than the people who are doing the work you say you aspire to do, then... what's the problem? Why aren't you glad that you can't get in, where you'd be so much less happy?
The Hollywood system has already caused the damage. Private investors hate movie deals. The major studios can't even sucker Wall Street into investing in them any more. When was the last time you saw an SLM or Silver Screens Partnership? I am happy that MEC has been able to build a better mouse trap and that FIRM has been able to expose the current Hollywood for what it is. YOU are actually on the outside now looking in as MEC and our new system of Automatically Parsed Royalties (See http://www.mecfilms.com/mid/agr-dist.htm#parsed) will some day surpass the Hollywood studios' ability to attract capital. They will then have two choices: 1) go out of business or 2) allow us to purchase/merge with them (as you saw the 5 year old AOL do with the 80 year old Time-Warner, for instance) under the new recoupment paradigm.
> And this little exchange, between you and Bill Rabkin:
> > > >Many of you apologists who have been antagonistic to me profess tolerance, but it seems that you only practice conditional tolerance.
> > > Tolerance does not mean we have to embrace stupidity, bigotry, and ignorance.
> > Sure it does. Don't you go to Sunday school?
> I don't any more, but I used to.
I see. Has Hollywood changed you?
James Jaeger
> Steven
| Dialogs | Discussion Forum & Archives | Press Releases |
| Research | Help F.I.R.M. | Bookstore |