Democrats, Hillary should be able to take satire

Fly on the Wall is reporting that Paramount pictures has asked director Jonathan Demme to go back thru his final cut of The Manchurian Candidate and excise any "Hillary like gestures" that Meryl Streep may make in this upcoming movie. I say that's hogwash--censorship to placate a powerful member of the government by squashing the statements that two artists (Demme and Streep) wanted to make. According to Fly:

Paramount Pictures is worried that Meryl Streep's edgy, chilling performance as a U.S. Senator in The Manchurian Candidate, which opens at the end of next month, is too close to the real Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, a pal inside the studio tells me...
"Meryl has the Hillary hand gestures totally down pat," my insider tells me. "I don't know whether this is something she picked up subconsciously or an idea Jonathan gave her, but she's totally dead on. You feel like you're watching Hillary Clinton conspire to take over the world. The Republican Hillary-haters should totally eat this up."

I'm sorry, but I don't think we need this kind of help from the studios. Unlike some Republicans who freak out whenever some criticizes the president and accuse them of "obstructing the war on terrorism," I would expect liberals and progressives to know that in a free society you have to protect free speech--particularly the free speech that you disagree with. Forcing artists to reshape their work to avoid hurting the feelings of government officers is positively Stalinesque.

Hillary should denounce this move on the part of Paramount.

Satire is supposed to have a core of truth. Propaganda is what they want you to believe.

Be nice if people at DU, at least, could make the distinction.

On edit, and if Meryl did this, I'm ashamed of her and I never have been before.

Sorry, but what you call satire a close-minded Republican would call propaganda (or worse). When someone satirizes our side, that doesn't make it automatically unfair or propagandistic. It just makes it critical of our side. My belief is that liberals are grown up enough to handle satire without trying to censor artistic expression they disagree with.

Perhaps you feel otherwise.

But one would have to be an idiot to watch this movie and conclude that the real Hillary is plotting to take over the government. In fact, most idiots already believe that. What Demme and Streep are doing is free speech, using art and borrowing elements from a public figure's persona to create an impression of what a corporate coup would look like.

Not to overnudge an obvious point, but the movie's script depicting the coup plotters as big corporate villains is culturally a point for our side.

who gives a shit....

I thought Emma Thompson did a fairly creditable job of imitating Hillary - nobody got hurt. What's the big deal? Meryl Streep could play a brown paper bag and it would be worth seeing

I agree, they don't need to censor the scene.

Let's not jump to a conclusion that this is a matter of censorship. Paramount may have a legitimate (i.e., non-political) reason for making the cuts.

It seems as if Meryl Streep may have used Hillary Clinton as a study for her movie character. Could it be that Streep's performance incorporates so much of that well-known person's appearance and habitual gestures that it distracts the audience?

From the post: Paramount wants "this to be seen as a serious thriller and not something campy." That would be a good reason to make cuts.

I wouldn't get too excited about this. The only source for this story is an unnamed "insider". People have been duped by that before.

The movie is brilliant as it is. Are we that bereft of ideas that to make any political statement we've got to dredge up older political statements?

The original is great. This one looks... well... to Hollywood. Not bad. Just stylized and Hollywood.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

DEMME, JONATHAN
NEW YORK,NY 10022
SELF/DIRECTOR
2/20/2004
$500
Hinchey, Maurice

DEMME, JONATHAN
NEW YORK,NY 10022
SELF-EMPLOYED/DIRECTOR
1/28/2004
$500
Victory Campaign 2004

http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/search.asp?NumOfThou=0&txtName=Demme%2C+J&txtState=%28all+states%29&txtZip=&txtEmploy=&txtCand=&txt2004=Y&txt2002=Y&txt2000=Y&Order=N

What's the point?

That's what they want to see, not necessarily what is actually portrayed.

I'll bet they were never asked any such thing.

Streep is a liberal. I don't think she'd set out to discredit Hillary. This smells of spin. Rightwing freeper spin.

especially as it is inconvenient to your political inclinations.

as someone pointed out, if Paramount is making the decision to maximize their profit or improve their product then that is their perogative. if they're bending to a political preference somewhere along the chain of command, then i agree with you fully.