Hollywood Babble On & On #1111: Oh Harvey, You So Whacky.

Harvey Weinstein is going to change America, and he's going to do it with a film called The Senator's Wife, starring Meryl Streep. This movie, he claims, will expose the evils of the National Rifle Association and he went on the Howard Stern Show to say: “they’re (the NRA is) going to wish they weren’t alive after I’m done with them.”

There is really only one reaction a sane person can have to such a declaration.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

*cough*

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

Oh, Harvey, you're so full of shit, I'm surprised it's not dribbling out of your ears.

This reminds of the Sundance Channel's announced plan to do a TV series about the NRA called Cold Dead Hands, and I predicted that if they go through with it, it will fail.

If you're too lazy to click the link, I'll do some explaining.

There is a little thing that Hollywood does not understand when it comes to treating controversial subject matter that I call the "Offend/Bore Matrix."

You see people living in what I call the "Axis of Ego" the amorphous community, centred in Hollywood, where almost everyone in the media lives has a problem. They honestly believe that they are the standard of normal and that anyone who doesn't live like them is somehow abnormal or subnormal.

So when it comes to political issues, like the War on Terror, the Tea Party, and Gun Control, Axis of Ego residents assume that everyone else gets their news like they do. From reading what other celebrities write about politics on The Huffington Post, and watching Rachel Maddow on MSNBC or Bill Maher on HBO, and think Michael Moore's films are modern day gospel truths.

They also assume everyone in America watches HBO's Girls.

As you can see, assuming something because everyone in your social circle does it, doesn't make it true for the rest of society.

This means that Harvey's Senator's Wife is doomed to fail.

Why?

Because those that disagree with Harvey about how the NRA is the root of all evil, who make up the majority of Americans, will avoid the film because they know it will do nothing but OFFEND or insult them.

Meanwhile, those who agree with Harvey and want all guns not being carried by their professional bodyguards seized and destroyed, will also avoid the film. Because why would they want to waste their money going to be told something they already know, hence they think it will be a BORE.

But what about those who don't know where they stand on the issue of gun control?

They too will avoid the film, because these "low information voters" would stay at home, blasting  digital zombies, aliens, and terrorists with digital guns on their video game consoles. They will not spend money to watch Meryl Streep in something called The Senator's Wife.

Which is why I call it the Offend/Bore Matrix, and if you're in it, your going to lose your investment.

It's why all those anti-war films Hollywood pumped out during the Bush administration disappeared without a trace except for the red ink their producer's ledgers.

So why is Harvey Weinstein investing his time and effort on something that could not possibly attain the goals of commercial success and political change?

Well, Harvey isn't stupid, and it doesn't matter how ideological he is, he knows that this film will not achieve anything near the hype he's trying to drum up for it. The NRA isn't some penniless indie filmmaker who he can crush like a bug. It's a large, politically powerful organization that will most likely ignore the movie, because it's just a proverbial sermon for the proverbial choir.

I suspect there's some sort of ulterior motive behind all this. I don't know the details, and can't read his mind, but it's probably got something to do with buttering up people in Anti-NRA bastions like the upper social echelons of Hollywood and New York. The sort of people who will praise Harvey for his "courage" in wasting other people's money on a film none of them actually paid to see.

Basically Oscar voters and investors who don't mind losing a few million on a turkey because it's a great tax dodge.

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UPDATE: Harvey Weinstein's had a "Whoops, I look like a flaming hypocrite, so I better cover my ass" moment.