Hollywood’s New Axis of Evil

With the making of Hollywood’s most recent political thrillers, the politics of Hollywood itself are on display. In films such as Syriana, and Paramount’s 2004 remake of The Manchurian Candidate, traditional villains have been replaced by corporate bad guys. Where Hollywood once easily placed heroes in opposition to such popularly accepted evil-doers as Nazis, Communists, the KGB, and Mafiosi, today filmmakers find themselves in a curious bind. While there is an obvious and dramatic national conflict in Iraq and with jihadists in general, for example, Hollywood has obligated itself to portray the struggle between good and evil with a considered sensitivity towards ethnic and other groups that may take umbrage at being demonized for the purpose of entertainment. Thus, The Manchurian Candidate, a film about the Iraq-Kuwait war does not mention either Saddam Hussein or Iraq even once for fear of “negatively stereotyping Muslims.” In its search for a resident evil whose depiction will not set off any alarms, Hollywood has arrived at the powerful and corrupt corporate executive. With no connection to the advocacy groups who scrutinize scripts for political correctness, CEOs and financiers now have a fundamental role to play in Hollywood’s new “axis of evil.” – YaleGlobal