Nowadays Hollywood seems to be dominated by Liberals or at least to lean a lot to the left side from the center. But has it always been that way? Looking at the history of Hollywood you can say: Yes!...at least on the shiny side of life..
Jim Larrison writes in his article about the political tendency in Hollywood. Once again he attests the assumption that Hollywood has a left bias:
There are plenty of data points to support the fact that Hollywood leans left (or left-of-center based on research out of Rutgers University), but the biggest is the financial contributions that are given by those in the film industry to political causes and politicians. There is overwhelming evidence that over 80% of the elite in Hollywood support the Democratic party, and that of the top 20 candidates and pacs that received donations from 2000-2007 all 20 were left leaning or liberal in nature. Also if you look at the Presidential election of 2000, where George Bush won to Al Gore, albeit by a very tight margin, less than 8% of Hollywood voted for a Republican candidate.
Larrison also puts some effort in explaining why Hollywood has become this way. According to him there are two main aspects that has to be mentioned to do so. The first aspect is a historical one: In the early days of Hollywood there was a strong Republican support, which lasted until the early 1930's. Under the "laissez faire" approach of the Republicans, studios offered low-paid jobs and binding long-term contracts, that denied the acting stars and other employees to freely market their services to other studios. This unsurprisingly led to an ill-will of the creative people working for Hollywood productions. For this reason, though Louis B. Mayer and a few other studio heads were prominent Republicans during this era, most actors and writers were Democrats, predominantly on the left side.
The other main reason for liberal tendency is according to Larrison simply related to the nature of actors, actresses and creatives as artists. He puts it this way:
...artists may be more sensitive to personal suffering and more personally interested in major social themes and statements than non-artists. They may be more likely to perceive tension between their artistic freedom and the constraints placed on them by the marketplace of consumers. Moreover, civil liberties and censorship issues are very important to artists, and the Democratic Party has generally been less amenable to restrictions on free speech.
Further more, talking about the personal intentions of the artists, you have to take into account that Hollywood is a brand, only working with the attention of a great audience. Hollywood is known for it´s glamour and exclusivity. Thus, it´s important that this exclusivity isn´t associated with elitism and a rich, ignorant class. To make people adore the Stars and Stories in and around Hollywood, they need certain moments of identifying and sympathizing with them. Thus, Liberal opinions are more likely to be expressed and stressed by many individuals in Hollywood. They popularize.
Pop culture, true opinions, revolution, economical success. All those factors influence the Hollyticosphere and it´s creative outcome, that most of us love to enjoy: movies made in Hollywood!
(If everybody is showing the true face is another question, but common`, we here deal with a class of very good actors :)
Read the whole article of Jim Larrison: Does Hollywood have a political bias in general?
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