Bill O'Reilly Manufactures Divisive Outrage About "High School Musical"
Reported by Deborah - August 27, 2007 -
Bill O'Reilly , looking for some left/right controversy, tried to manufacture some divisive outrage in his weekly column about Disney's High School Musical. According to BOR, traditional Americans are "cheering" the wholesome musical unlike some critics. However, he never gets around to identifying these harsh critics of wholesomeness but makes sure to suggest they are mostly "liberals" with this comment.
"Here's what I believe, based upon more than thirty years of working in the media: Many critics are jaded and cynical. Most are extremely liberal. If the property is "edgy," anti-American, or over-the-top offensive, they will like it. If the writers of High School Musical had turned the dancing kids into flesh-eating zombies, the critics would have been wowed."
O'Reilly opens his angry rant yearning for the good old days claiming that rapper's offensive lyrics and the torture movies so popular today would never be tolerated by the mainstream media.
"There is no doubt that some entertainment critics have glorified rap "artists" like Eminem, Snoop Dogg, and Ludacris. Twenty years ago, pro-drug, anti-woman, and pro-violence lyrics would not have been embraced by the mainstream media for fear of public backlash....
The same thing can be said for these revolting torture movies. A number of critics believe they're just great"
It appears O'Reilly didn't actually explore what movies were popular in 1987. Does anybody remember Freddy Kroeger and Nightmare on Elm Street? Horror movies were big in the the 80s and definitely embraced by the MSM. Here's a list that Bill could have accessed.
What about the lyrics 20 years ago? Did Bill forget about Heavy Metal? Here's what Project 80s had to say about the time period.
"Nothing represents the decadence of the 80s more than the heavy metal bands signed from the LA Strip during that time. The song lyrics mostly embodied the "Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll" mentality of the 80's.
80's Heavy Metal lyrics became controversial on Capitol Hill as legislators and parent groups fought to post warning labels on records deemed to contain offensive lyrical content. 80's metal artists like Judas Priest and Ozzy Osbourne were hauled into court to defend allegations that their song lyrics drove several teens to commit suicide."
What really ticked off BOR, was Richard Roeper's column in the Chicago Sun-Times titled, Disney hit is no victory for right-wing Also, the fact that Roeper refused to come on The Factor to answer loaded questions must have really made him mad. Here's what Roeper had to say about O'Reilly's invitation.
"Monday afternoon I was asked to appear on "The O'Reilly Factor" to discuss the "High School Musical" phenomenon. A producer for the show e-mailed that O'Reilly wanted to talk about whether the sequel got negative reviews from some quarters because it was "wholesome and G-rated."
I wasn't able to do the show because of a scheduling conflict, but I would have been happy to go on with good ol' Bill to talk about this. In fact I saw mostly positive notices for "HSM2," but I don't believe most critics, even the liberal ones, would give the movie a negative rating solely because of its wholesome content."
O'Reilly's comment responding to Roeper in his column was dripping with venom.
"That's right, Richard, all those mean conservatives would never like anything tolerant, would they?"
Responding to that comment would take too much time and energy but one only needs to look at Bill's revealing statement in the beginning of the column for a look at conservative O'Reilly's tolerance.
"But today, bring on perversity in the name of diversity. Anything goes"
Bill O'Reilly's weekly column here
