Larry Klayman
Hollywood teach values? It can be done!
By Larry Klayman
Over my many years of fighting government and judicial corruption, I learned along the way that courts and lawsuits are not the answer to restoring ethical values to society. Sure, legal actions can help pry out secret government information and sometimes bring about justice, but the United States has a broader problem: The nation's youth not only suffer from a growing lack of class, but moral values.
To educate the American people on what out second American president, John Adams, declared — namely, that without ethics, morality and religion it does not matter how many times we change our rulers or form of government, we will not have a lasting liberty — Hollywood needs to play a major role.
To this end, in the last several years I have spent a lot of time in Los Angeles trying to promote ethical and moral values through our most successful and influential industry, the entertainment industry. Indeed, there are a number of conservatives, people of faith and other concerned citizens in Hollywood who do take ethics and morality seriously. Two such groups are MovieGuide and the Christian Film and Television Commission.
However, despite their best efforts, which to their credit have resulted in the release of more films of a wholesome family nature, many in Tinseltown continue to cater to the baser elements of society. These classless movies are shown in most movie theaters, like the ones that proliferate in shopping malls. They cater to people in their late teens and 20s, the primary moviegoers who apparently are lining the filmmakers' pockets. The movies not only use vile language and disrespect God and anyone who believes in Him — routinely with revolting sex scenes — but frankly are intellectually vapid, designed for persons with an IQ no higher than 80. Simply put, these Hollywood "works of art" are brainwashing the nation's youth into becoming or remaining low-class morons.
This downward moral spiral, illustrated by increasingly vulgar language and sexual license in the culture, is dangerous to the survival of our nation. It's not just the march to homosexual promiscuity and acceptance that causes a rot to society, but the filthy conduct of our heterosexual youth and baby boomers as well. I am no prude, but the evidence of this steep decline is evident from the content of movies emanating from Hollywood these days — films that are merely a reflection of a decayed and ever degenerating society.
To illustrate this degeneration, I would like to briefly compare two movies of a similar genre; one starring Eddie Murphy titled "The Distinguished Gentleman," produced in 1992, and a recent 2012 film now in movie theaters, "The Campaign," starring Will Farrell and Zach Galifinakis. Both films are comedies and, not coincidentally, are about our corrupt political system.
"The Distinguished Gentlemen" with Eddie Murphy is about a Miami con man who figures out that the biggest con is to be elected to Congress and then to take advantage of that office. When the incumbent white Republican who coincidentally shares his name — Jeff Jefferson — dies, the con man, Eddie Murphy, who is black, convinces the former congressman's wife to relinquish campaign materials, and he wins election in a white, Hispanic and Jewish district based on name recognition alone. The movie, while containing some vulgarity (Murphy likes to use the A-word but does so sparingly), is hilarious and accurately depicts the corrupt cesspool of Washington, as the con-man congressman turns into a saint and fights to reform the system in the end.
"The Campaign," borrowing from some of the themes of "The Distinguished Gentleman" and Farrell's "Talladega Nights," also depicts the seedy side of political campaigns, corrupt lobbyist influences and Washington, D.C., but does so with little to no class. Parts of it are entertaining, but not the disparagement of Jesus Christ and God, a sex scene where Farrell's character, the incumbent congressman running against a weird upstart, has graphic sex with the weird upstart's wife and other cheap, slutty stunts. And as far as language is concerned, vile four-letter words lace the dialogue to such an extent that you want to throw up. Sadly, the film, despite the leftist and atheist leanings of Farrell ("Talladega Nights" also mocks Jesus), Galifinakis and the producers, could have been funny, but in an effort to cater to the moronic tendencies of our nation's youth and others in society, it becomes revolting.
The bottom line is this: Hollywood needs to start setting an example for our nation's generally low-class youth, not feed back the garbage these generations seem to thrive on. Even leftist atheists should have an interest in preserving liberty in our society. After all, it is this liberty that allows our entertainment industry, when it so decides, to produce true artistic works of art that are a credit to and further societal values.
I urge you to rent a DVD of "The Distinguished Gentlemen" and compare it to "The Campaign," now in theaters, and see just how depraved society has become in just 20 years or so. Eddie Murphy's film, while not the paradigm of class itself, is like a Michelangelo painting of the Madonna in comparison to "The Campaign."
I plan to play my role in our nation's entertainment revival (as well as a political, legal and spiritual revival), and I hope and pray you will as well. Educating our nation's youth on Judeo-Christian values is among the surest of ways to save and preserve the republic.
© Larry Klayman
Over my many years of fighting government and judicial corruption, I learned along the way that courts and lawsuits are not the answer to restoring ethical values to society. Sure, legal actions can help pry out secret government information and sometimes bring about justice, but the United States has a broader problem: The nation's youth not only suffer from a growing lack of class, but moral values.
To educate the American people on what out second American president, John Adams, declared — namely, that without ethics, morality and religion it does not matter how many times we change our rulers or form of government, we will not have a lasting liberty — Hollywood needs to play a major role.
To this end, in the last several years I have spent a lot of time in Los Angeles trying to promote ethical and moral values through our most successful and influential industry, the entertainment industry. Indeed, there are a number of conservatives, people of faith and other concerned citizens in Hollywood who do take ethics and morality seriously. Two such groups are MovieGuide and the Christian Film and Television Commission.
However, despite their best efforts, which to their credit have resulted in the release of more films of a wholesome family nature, many in Tinseltown continue to cater to the baser elements of society. These classless movies are shown in most movie theaters, like the ones that proliferate in shopping malls. They cater to people in their late teens and 20s, the primary moviegoers who apparently are lining the filmmakers' pockets. The movies not only use vile language and disrespect God and anyone who believes in Him — routinely with revolting sex scenes — but frankly are intellectually vapid, designed for persons with an IQ no higher than 80. Simply put, these Hollywood "works of art" are brainwashing the nation's youth into becoming or remaining low-class morons.
This downward moral spiral, illustrated by increasingly vulgar language and sexual license in the culture, is dangerous to the survival of our nation. It's not just the march to homosexual promiscuity and acceptance that causes a rot to society, but the filthy conduct of our heterosexual youth and baby boomers as well. I am no prude, but the evidence of this steep decline is evident from the content of movies emanating from Hollywood these days — films that are merely a reflection of a decayed and ever degenerating society.
To illustrate this degeneration, I would like to briefly compare two movies of a similar genre; one starring Eddie Murphy titled "The Distinguished Gentleman," produced in 1992, and a recent 2012 film now in movie theaters, "The Campaign," starring Will Farrell and Zach Galifinakis. Both films are comedies and, not coincidentally, are about our corrupt political system.
"The Distinguished Gentlemen" with Eddie Murphy is about a Miami con man who figures out that the biggest con is to be elected to Congress and then to take advantage of that office. When the incumbent white Republican who coincidentally shares his name — Jeff Jefferson — dies, the con man, Eddie Murphy, who is black, convinces the former congressman's wife to relinquish campaign materials, and he wins election in a white, Hispanic and Jewish district based on name recognition alone. The movie, while containing some vulgarity (Murphy likes to use the A-word but does so sparingly), is hilarious and accurately depicts the corrupt cesspool of Washington, as the con-man congressman turns into a saint and fights to reform the system in the end.
"The Campaign," borrowing from some of the themes of "The Distinguished Gentleman" and Farrell's "Talladega Nights," also depicts the seedy side of political campaigns, corrupt lobbyist influences and Washington, D.C., but does so with little to no class. Parts of it are entertaining, but not the disparagement of Jesus Christ and God, a sex scene where Farrell's character, the incumbent congressman running against a weird upstart, has graphic sex with the weird upstart's wife and other cheap, slutty stunts. And as far as language is concerned, vile four-letter words lace the dialogue to such an extent that you want to throw up. Sadly, the film, despite the leftist and atheist leanings of Farrell ("Talladega Nights" also mocks Jesus), Galifinakis and the producers, could have been funny, but in an effort to cater to the moronic tendencies of our nation's youth and others in society, it becomes revolting.
The bottom line is this: Hollywood needs to start setting an example for our nation's generally low-class youth, not feed back the garbage these generations seem to thrive on. Even leftist atheists should have an interest in preserving liberty in our society. After all, it is this liberty that allows our entertainment industry, when it so decides, to produce true artistic works of art that are a credit to and further societal values.
I urge you to rent a DVD of "The Distinguished Gentlemen" and compare it to "The Campaign," now in theaters, and see just how depraved society has become in just 20 years or so. Eddie Murphy's film, while not the paradigm of class itself, is like a Michelangelo painting of the Madonna in comparison to "The Campaign."
I plan to play my role in our nation's entertainment revival (as well as a political, legal and spiritual revival), and I hope and pray you will as well. Educating our nation's youth on Judeo-Christian values is among the surest of ways to save and preserve the republic.
© Larry Klayman
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