Hollywood

Michael Medved provided many convincing arguments in supporting the thesis in his essay, “Hollywood Poison Factory”. He argues that “popular culture is viewed now as an implacable enemy, a threat to their basic values and a menace to the raising of their children” (212). He refers “their” (212) to the majority of the American public who disapprove of how Hollywood distributes films which contain bad messages. Medved mainly supports his arguments by providing different movies to illustrate his views and does a very good job of that. He does not criticize the actors, directors, and does not name specific people. Instead, the author focuses his opinions on movies that include negative messages which concern dysfunctional marriages and religion bashing. These are the two main arguments, that Medved provides, to support his thesis.

Medved makes some strong arguments in regards to how different religions are n

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The arguments, Medved provides, shows that he really cares about the movie industry. The author provided some good facts of how Hollywood must reconsider on some of the negative messages they send. Religion, being the focal point in these movies, does make the viewers feel uncomfortable, and puts these religions in a negative light. Therefore, movies should be more appealing to people, if they do not contain any anti-religious undertones. The director, Martin Scorsese, wanted the remake to show that both the hero and the villain have flaws,

Medved shifts his focus to dysfunctional marriages. Michael does a good job of providing many examples, however, he does not point out the main message that the director is trying to show us. Medved succeeds well in supporting his opinions, by providing examples from films from the early 1990s. In his well explained argument, the author explains how Hollywood depicts marriage “as a disaster , as a

dangerous situation, as a battleground…” (214). The reason was that Nolte’s character deliberately misled the judge by hiding some important facts which would acquit his client (De Niro’s character). He alludes to this film, as showing “religious Jews operating a brutal bordello right next door to a synagogue and forcing women into white slavery” (213).

Medved provides another convincing argument in pointing out that Hollywood tends to be bias. For example, Medved criticizes a film directed by Martin Scorsese, called The Last Temptation of Christ. He explains that with the recent pessimistic portrayals of different religious groups in Hollywood. For instance, in Mortal Thoughts, “Bruce Willis beats up his wife and he is killed by his wife’s best friend” (214). Medved failed to point out that this was done on purpose to fit the plot.

Approximate Word count = 614
Approximate Pages = 2 (250 words per page double spaced)

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