Hollywood Goes All In On Obamacare
As a news media critic, I follow many websites and blogs that cover the media in general, you can call it the “Hollywood Media” if you like. I don’t normally care much for the Hollywood gossip stuff, but sometimes I run across a piece where Hollywood and liberal politics cross paths. I found one of these crossing path stories today, it involves Hollywood promoting Obamacare.
On one hand, I was not surprised by this report, but on the other, I was kind of shocked how brazen they are about it. Perhaps I carry a willful naivety about these things because I do not watch much if any network drama-sit com programing, it’s just not my thing, I am a news hound by trade after all. I made an effort to break this report from Deadline.com down to quotes, but I really couldn’t, so I will offer it to you in whole with some of my thoughts and points in between. I think you will find it quite shocking as well. My husband, whose conservatism makes me look like Jimmy Carter (Sorry, that’s a libertarian joke), actually does watch many of these type shows and he had quite a bit to say about this. I will add some of his thoughts as well.
Posting an entire news story, and offering my husband’s thoughts, minus the expletives, is not my normal way of reporting, but I felt this is very important for opponents of Obamacare to know. If your children watch Disney Channel you certainly need to know this. Please bear with me as I go through it. The title of the Deadline story is, “Obamacare Angles For Starring Role On Primetime TV” and begins with this;
“Will Obamacare become plot fodder for CBS’ Hostages and Under The Dome? A $500,000 grant awarded this week to USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center’s Hollywood Health & Society program certainly suggests it’s a possibility. In the latest push to get Tinseltown to promote President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, the decade-old program has received the money from the private California Endowment to give Hollywood producers, writers and execs details about the newly launched health insurance initiative.”
“Our experience has shown that the public gets just as much, if not more, information about current events and important issues from their favorite television shows and characters as they do from the news media and online resources,†said Hollywood Health & Society’s Martin Kaplan in a statement today. “This grant will allow us to ensure that industry practitioners have up-to-date, relevant facts on health care reform to integrate into their storylines and projects.†Hostages’ co-EP Jennifer Cecil sits on Hollywood Health & Society’s Advisory Board as does Under The Dome EP Neal Baer. So does Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan and Disney Junior’s Doc McStuffins EP Chris Nee among others. The grant comes just over a week after Jennifer Hudson appeared in a pro-Obamacare Scandal parody video produced by Will Ferrell’s Funny Or Die.” (EP means Executive Producer)
Those are the first two paragraphs of the story. At this point, I have to say this. It is a sad commentary on the state of the American people when a Hollywood executive who knows his audience can say, “the public gets just as much, if not more, information about current events and important issues from their favorite television shows and characters as they do from the news media”, and say this with authority.
The next topic I would like to breach here is that I have no problem with these people giving their private money to this effort, but having said that, I know just a little more than a bit about campaign finance law. A private group or individual can give all the money they want to a Super PAC that supports a political candidate running for office. This PAC can support the candidate but the PAC cannot directly coordinate an advertising message with that candidate, this is clearly and without question illegal. I will admit that this law is a bit fuzzy on supporting causes a particular candidate may back, but it is still illegal to coordinate directly with that candidate. Once they hold office, that is where the law is fuzzy.
To me, using this private money to back Obamacare at least violates the spirit of campaign finance law. In other words, it seems if not dirty certainly seedy to me. I could just imagine what the liberals would say if a conservative group gave money to a TV show to promote a pro gun-anti gun control message. They would be up in arms, just not firearms, demanding legal action. But liberals abuse the court system all the time, it’s the way they get things done. The Deadline story continues;
“The last month has also seen social media advocating from the likes of Nashville’s Connie Britton, Olivia Wilde, Taye Diggs, Kate Bosworth, Lady Gaga and Sarah Silverman. “These are just the opening moves in a multi-pronged campaign using Hollywood as a platform for the ACA,†one insider told me. The formal use of pro-Obama Hollywood in promoting ACA was first revealed at a July 22 meeting at the White House with Amy Poehler, Michael Cera and Hudson among those in attendance along with high-level administration officials.”
Read this line again, and let it sink in, “These are just the opening moves in a multi-pronged campaign using Hollywood as a platform for the ACA.” What could this “multi pronged campaign” be? Deadline tells us here;
“With half of the total going toward Spanish-language programming, Hollywood Health & Society says that it will use the cash infusion to educate industry pros and track how often Obamacare shows up in TV dramas. It also will be used to produce pro-ACA PSAs in conjunction with series’ storylines. And the group certainly has the experience, having worked on storylines for Disney’s Doc McStuffins, ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy, CBS’ NCIS and The Good Wife, NBC’s Law & Order franchise, Fox’s 24 and Bones, AMC’s Mad Men and Breaking Bad, Showtime’s The Big C and Dexter and HBO’s Boardwalk Empire among dozens of shows. Hollywood Health & Society has previously received grants from the CDC, the Gates Foundation and the federal department of Health and Human Services.”
I want to reiterate, conservatives could never get away with this. Public Service Announcements (PSAs) on Obamacare running in “conjunction with series’ storylines?” I kept reading thinking this was a joke, or a comedy program script, but no, it’s true. That paragraph is the end of the Deadline story, so there is no more. There is no joke ending to it. I’m sorry folks, this is called propaganda. Plain and simple, no doubt about it. The story did note something that is important to point out, this “Hollywood Health & Society” has received grants from the Gates Foundation, which is Bill Gates of Microsoft, but also from the federal government, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the good ‘ole Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) which just happens to administer Obamacare.
Just like Planned Parenthood, which accepts government money, claims they never mix money and spend no taxpayer funds on abortions. This Hollywood Health & Society, that sounds like a front name to me, I am sure claims they don’t mix funds. That is crap, all these semi private, I say semi private because they take taxpayer funds, mix their money, private and public, in a big pot and then dole it out to whatever lefty cause they support this week. If a news reporter or organization, much better than myself, wanted to win some journalism award I would tell them to follow the money on this deal because I am willing to bet HHS money is funding this Obamacare propaganda campaign. That would be a blockbuster news story.
It is bad enough what parents these days have to deal with raising children. They pay taxes, then send their kids to public school, the liberal teachers teach them Liberalism 101 in the 1st grade. The kids come home, they don’t know the Pledge of Allegiance or how to add 2 +2, their minds all warped on global warming, social justice and there is no God.
Then, once the child comes home the parents have to deal with garbage on TV that exposes kids much to young to things and subjects they shouldn’t see. So, you put on Disney Channel or something like it just hoping for anything wholesome and now they are teaching kids about how wonderful Obamacare is. Liberals never stop, they never quit, they never give up. It’s absolutely disgusting.
I guess they will hit all the programs, music, video games and movies teenagers watch too. I can see it on the silver screen now, the hero swoops in to save the girl, but he is hurt, maybe shot or cut by a samurai sword (Liberals say they hate violence, but love it in movies). The girl says, “You need to go to a hospital, Obamacare will save you!” I hope you see why I gave up on my screenwriting career in my 20s and stuck with journalism, but I made the point. Only how they market it on film will be much more insidious than my silly example.
Lastly, I’ll deal with the adult TV programing. As I wrote earlier, my husband Bob watches these shows, the network dramas and cable serial shows. He said that while he enjoys these shows, and I want you to understand I am being very careful here quoting him due to his direct language once I read him this story from Deadline, he said if he sees any of this Obamacare “stuff” or PSAs during the show, he will no longer watch them. Bob said he will call the network and the program’s sponsors to complain. I said, “Bob, boycotts almost never work.”
Bob knows the show biz media well enough from our ten years together to call me on this by saying, “It only takes a few thousand complaints to get a major sponsor to threaten to yank sponsorship of a program. A major “laundry soap brand”, “automotive brand”, or “diaper brand” does not need these headaches, nor will they pay good money for those headaches.” Just a note, I can decipher Bob’s French and leave out the F words so well, but back to the point at hand. Bob said all he can do is bitch about it as one person, but Donna you can tell the people about it and we as a group of conservatives can nip this in the bud.
I just told you about it, I hope you understand what you need to do. I will also add that while Congress is in recess, and in their home districts for the rest of the month, call them, go to town halls, tell them about this story, and ask them just where did the money for this Hollywood Obamacare offensive come from? I’d like to hear the answers, because it’s not like anybody else (news media organizations) are going to investigate this. Well, if enough of you email Fox News maybe they will. Just a thought. Bob and I can’t do it alone.
