Entertainment & Arts
Who runs Hollywood? C’mon
By JOEL STEIN
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm ... story.html
Dec. 19, 2008
I have never been so upset by a poll in my life. Only 22% of Americans now believe
the movie and television industries are pretty much run by Jews,
down from nearly 50% in 1964.
The Anti-Defamation League, which released the poll results last month, sees in these numbers a victory against stereotyping. Actually, it just shows how dumb America has gotten. Jews totally run Hollywood.
How deeply Jewish is Hollywood? When the studio chiefs took out a full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times a few weeks ago to demand that the Screen Actors Guild settle its contract, the open letter was signed by: News Corp. President
Peter Chernin (Jewish), Paramount Pictures Chairman
Brad Grey (Jewish), Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive
Robert Iger (Jewish), Sony Pictures Chairman
Michael Lynton (surprise, Dutch Jew), Warner Bros. Chairman
Barry Meyer (Jewish), CBS Corp. Chief Executive
Leslie Moonves (so Jewish his great uncle was the first prime minister of Israel), MGM Chairman
Harry Sloan (Jewish) and NBC Universal Chief Executive
Jeff Zucker (mega-Jewish). If either of the
Weinstein brothers had signed, this group would have not only the power to shut down all film production but to form a minyan with enough Fiji water on hand to fill a mikvah.
The person they were yelling at in that ad was SAG President
Alan Rosenberg (take a guess). The scathing rebuttal to the ad was written by entertainment super-agent
Ari Emanuel (Jew with Israeli parents) on the
Huffington Post, which is owned by
Arianna Huffington (not Jewish and has never worked in Hollywood.)
The Jews are so dominant, I had to scour the trades to come up with six Gentiles in high positions at entertainment companies. When I called them to talk about their incredible advancement, five of them refused to talk to me, apparently out of fear of insulting Jews. The sixth, AMC President
Charlie Collier, turned out to be Jewish.
As a proud Jew, I want America to know about our accomplishment. Yes, we control Hollywood. Without us, you’d be flipping between “
The 700 Club” and “
Davey and Goliath” on TV all day.
So I’ve taken it upon myself to re-convince America that Jews run Hollywood by launching a public relations campaign, because that’s what we do best. I’m weighing several slogans, including:
Hollywood: More Jewish than ever!;
Hollywood: From the people who brought you the Bible;
and
Hollywood: If you enjoy TV and movies, then you probably like Jews after all.
I called ADL Chairman
Abe Foxman, who was in Santiago, Chile, where, he told me to my dismay, he was not hunting Nazis. He dismissed my whole proposition, saying that the number of people who think Jews run Hollywood is still too high. The ADL poll, he pointed out, showed that 59% of Americans think Hollywood execs
do not share the religious and moral values of most Americans,
and 43% think the entertainment industry is waging an organized campaign to
weaken the influence of religious values in this country.
That’s a sinister canard, Foxman said.
It means they think Jews meet at Canter’s Deli on Friday mornings to decide what’s best for the Jews.
Foxman’s argument made me rethink: I have to eat at Canter’s more often.
That’s a very dangerous phrase, ‘Jews control Hollywood.’ What is true is that there are a lot of Jews in Hollywood,
he said.
Instead of “
control,” Foxman would prefer people say that many executives in the industry
happen to be Jewish,
as in
all eight major film studios are run by men who happen to be Jewish.
But Foxman said he is proud of the accomplishments of American Jews.
I think Jews are disproportionately represented in the creative industry. They’re disproportionate as lawyers and probably medicine here as well,
he said.
He argues that this does not mean that Jews make pro-Jewish movies any more than they do pro-Jewish surgery. Though other countries, I’ve noticed, aren’t so big on circumcision.
I appreciate Foxman’s concerns. And maybe my life spent in a New Jersey-New York/Bay Area-L.A. pro-Semitic cocoon has left me naive. But I don’t care if Americans think we’re running the news media, Hollywood, Wall Street or the government. I just care that we get to keep running them.
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jstein@latimescolumnists.com