‘Dirty Dancing’ Rebellion Against Ayn Rand: Why Hollywood is so far on the political left

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If it’s not yet obvious to the average person, there is a deep hatred for Ayn Rand in Hollywood, which has been infected with a collectivism ideology that runs deep in the entertainment culture. So when Atlas Shrugged Part 2 hit theaters last week, the ripple of anger resounding through the progressive community was one of utmost panic. But where does this anger come from and why is it there? For a hint as to the start of it one has to trace the origins of communist infiltration into Hollywood through the Democratic Party during the 1940’s and 1950’s that was very real in spite of the protests lobbied against the participants of the McCarthy hearings. Ayn Rand, Walt Disney, John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Ronald Reagan and many others joined together to warn movie studios of this invasion coming into America through the entertainment labor unions, and prepared a pamphlet to protect themselves from communist influence. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ACTUAL DOCUMENT.

However, as more progressive political types came into power, and the old guard in Hollywood died off, people like Wayne, Disney, Heston, and Rand—leaving the next generation of film makers to control the financing of movies and what kind of actors, writers, and producers would be in movies, a shift into communist theory began to take hold. This is how Hollywood became so far on the political left. These events happened rapidly during the Reagan White House years as films simultaneously exploited violence and individualism while at the same time promoting collectivism. Studios had to make this concession because individualism is what Americans buy tickets to see, heroic actors like Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson, Arnold Schwarzeneggar, and Clint Eastwood all political conservatives were extremely popular at the box office while the communists worked their long-term plan, the gradual erosion of American value with small doses of collectivism that would add up over time so slowly that like the hands of a clock, were hard to see moving. To see a modern example of this mixed message Hollywood creation of a utopian existence that is the foundation of their communist background just look at the trailer of the new Tom Hanks film Cloud Atlas. (By the way, I’ll probably see the movie because it looks good, in spite of its collectivist, Kant-like philosophic message.)

Tom Hanks is a great actor, but is a byproduct of the modern Hollywood system. Actors by their nature are not persons of great conviction and they are very vulnerable to the type of diatribes discussed at dinner parties and fundraisers that they all attend in order to secure financing for their films. For the last thirty years, many of the people who have been funding films have been George Soros types who openly wish to turn America into a global community by destroying the wonderful images of the past, with demonized appraisal in the current time turning an entire generation of American youth against their parents and grandparents generation, which was carefully outlined in the 1958 book The Naked Communist. For Hanks to survive in Hollywood he adapted his thinking to the movers and shakers of the film industry and gradually they have separated themselves from the Clint Eastwood/Arnold Schwarzenegger ultra-man models. Progressive Hollywood financial backers have been so successful they have even managed to reinvent the ultimate male superman James Bond into a more progressive hero played by Daniel Craig. The modern Bond is much less sure of himself than the Bonds of Sean Connery, Roger Moore, and Pierce Brosnan which is to reflect the progressive Hollywood goal of diminishing individual achievement.

Part of that erosion of the ultra strong male, and the ultra sexy female traits coming out of “old Hollywood” was an eradication of the old symbols. Walt Disney has been smeared as being anti-Semitic; Mel Gibson’s career was completely trashed as he was baited by the media continuously after his very successful film The Patriot—covering The American Revolution in a positive light and of course The Passion of Christ. But behind these schemes was an attempt to eliminate the literary material that Hollywood actors and producers secretly loved, because it made them a lot of money, and that was Ayn Rand and the ubermensch characters of her novels. Their image and their legacy would have to be destroyed otherwise collectivism would never manifest within the entertainment industry the way it was intended. And one of the ways that screenwriters wanting to suck up to film financiers under the advice of movie producers was to smear Rand in subtle—cleaver ways to shape the next generation of youth into a belief that Ayn Rand was the ultimate villain to everything that was good. One film that was produced in 1987 that was very popular, won Academy Awards for the songs it produced and played on top 40 radio stations becoming one of the most popular women’s film in history—the extremely progressive and fashionable film Dirty Dancing.

A year ago my sister had baby twins and while we were in the hospital waiting for their birth some of her childhood friends where there to greet my new niece and nephew to the world. Growing up my sister and her friends were absolutely in love with the movie Dirty Dancing which seemed innocent enough. The songs were catchy and what was the harm in a story, it was just fun—right. Wrong. The plot of Dirty Dancing covers many of the progressive issues so important to specifically the Democratic Party–class warfare, abortion rights, the breakdown of personal family value, and the demonization of Ayn Rand as a writer. There are also seductive allusions toward ménage à trois to help usher in the open sexual relationships and the un-possessive sex of communist utopian fantasy. When the villain of the movie name Robbie declares that some people are more important than others, he then pulls out a copy of The Fountainhead that is well-worn and apparently all marked up with personal notes. He offers it to the female lead character played by Jennifer Grey, who then heroically pours ice down the crotch of his pants and tells him that he disgusts her.

While at the hospital Cincinnati television station Channel 19 wanted to do an interview with me, so I left the lobby to go down into the parking lot to meet with the reporter and while I was gone my wife got an earful from some of my sister’s friends who live in our school district, which was the content of the interview. I was talking about all the reasons the local school levy should fail speaking out against the proposed tax increases which my sister’s friends supported. My wife of course defended me while I was gone, but the gist of the women’s complaints was that they had children in the district who couldn’t ride the school bus because of me, due to the district cutting busing to punish the tax payers for not passing the last school tax increase. My sister’s friends thought I shouldn’t speak out against the levy on TV because they were having a hard time driving the children to school because of the loss of public transportation. She wanted the tax increase to pass so that she had transport for her children to go to school, saving her the responsibility.

When I returned from the television appearance my wife told me what had happened and the rest of the day was stressful. I wasn’t about to back off my position, and they were blaming me for their personal situations. As young girls of 14 to 16 years old in 1987 Dirty Dancing was their favorite movie. Now these people are parents of their own kids, and they still have in their mind the values they grew up with, which films like Dirty Dancing helped shape. Dirty Dancing alone didn’t do all the damage, but it certainly did plant the seeds for progressive thinking. Women like my sister’s friends are more likely to vote in favor of school levies favoring the labor union position, more likely to vote for politicians like Obama, to vote in favor of pro abortion policies because their favorite movie Dirty Dancing was all about those issues, and they think of that movie while they listen to music on the radio to this very day and hear the songs that remind them of that film.

Ayn Rand warned about this, and as can be seen clearly now that hindsight is available to us, the makers of Dirty Dancing were taking the progressive political position against Ayn Rand and the types of characters, and personal philosophy she advocated. Of course the villain character in Dirty Dancing who liked Ayn Rand was a social climber was more like Peter Keating–the villain from The Fountainhead, and certainly not the hero Howard Roark. But young girls seeing Dirty Dancing as 14-year-old girls fantasizing about being Jennifer Grey dancing with a much older Patrick Swayze and they learned that The Fountainhead was the favorite book of the disgusting villain in Dirty Dancing. The result is that they would be against that book for the rest of their lives and would discourage their own children from reading it in the future.

This all comes into play in 2012 now that many of those young 14-year-old girls are now head editors of magazines, newspapers and communications programming positions all over the country. They now have subordinates fresh out of college eating out of their hands willing to scrap their personal integrity like the Bosom Buddies television star Tom Hanks willing to sacrifice their integrity in order to social climb. This is how the hatred for Ayn Rand has become so pronounced. Over the last twenty years, Dirty Dancing is but one small film in a long line of television, movie and popular songs passing through the entertainment culture that advocate against individuality and personal liberty.

The war over personal ideas is currently at a fever pitch. The Hollywood community is absolutely insulted that the filmmakers of Atlas Shrugged Part 2 would even dare to make such a movie in spite of Hollywood’s long term commitment to ending any mention of Ayn Rand. But the fight is not over. Like one of my readers here pointed out recently, and actually gave me the Dirty Dancing reference–she was one that has taken what she has learned today and re-evaluated the past so she could verify the extent of the danger. And the situation is dangerous. The Trojan Horse has already unloaded the communist enemies behind the protective mechanisms of our culture, and it happened so gradually, and so subtly that nobody paid any attention to the messages. Unknowingly, millions upon millions of young people, who are now adults, were taught that Ayn Rand was a bad person that was selfish, delusional, and a diabolical menace to society. The trouble is, Ayn Rand was a menace to society—to the kind of society that collectivists, and communist utopians desired to build for America behind carefully placed messages such as what was seen in Dirty Dancing and thousands upon thousands of similar products produced by the entertainment industry not only to make money for the creative artists, but to undo America from the inside out and to ensure the transformation of America into a society of panicky lovers of Dirty Dancing and the fantasy of progressive social infestation.

Rich Hoffman

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