Political storm cloud hangs over Hollywood

Last week the lunch chatter in Hollywood was all about William Morris chief David Wirtschafter’s ill-fated New Yorker interview and Pat O’Brien’s lascivious answering machine messages. As usual, Hollywood is worried about the important things in life.

What they’re not paying attention to is the fact that since the reelection of George W. Bush last fall, cultural conservatives have been flexing their muscles not only in the political arena but also on the entertainment front. Earlier this month, the chairmen of the Senate and House committees overseeing the broadcast industry said they were considering action that would make cable TV outlets such as HBO or MTV subject to the same indecency rules as network broadcasters, which, if nothing else, would cut most “Deadwood” episodes to the length of a cartoon short.

More recently, the New York Times reported that a number of Imax theaters, including some in science museums, have refused to exhibit movies that mention evolution or the big-bang theory, fearing protests from religious groups who object to films that don’t support biblical descriptions of the origins of Earth. One would hope that won’t apply to “King Kong” when it reaches theaters later this year. An official at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History said the museum had decided against showing a science film called “Volcanoes” because members of a test audience had viewed it as “blasphemous.” And, of course, all this comes in the wake of Clint Eastwood’s Oscar-winning “Million Dollar Baby,” which was attacked by Rush Limbaugh and others as “a million-dollar euthanasia movie.”

The industry response has been muted, to say the least. In Hollywood, when it’s not an election year, few people worry about political storm clouds until the lightning hits their roof. But in an era in which Congress is willing to inject itself into baseball’s steroid scandal or family decisions, as in the Terri Schiavo case, it would hardly be a stretch to imagine a few stray sparks setting off a political crusade against raunch and violence in Hollywood. If James Dobson can accuse SpongeBob SquarePants of being part of a pro-gay agenda, can charges of devil worship in “Bewitched” be far behind?

Anyone with a sense of history knows that Hollywood has a lousy track record when it comes to standing up to political attacks. During the Red Scare in the 1950s, once the House Un-American Activities Committee began holding hearings, studios blacklisted comedy writers whose biggest crime was going to a Woody Guthrie concert. As one of America’s most outspoken bastions of liberalism, will Hollywood stand up to a new round of cultural attacks? Or will it cave in at the first sign of political pressure? I consulted my satiric crystal ball for a look into the future to see how much backbone we could expect from a showbiz community under fire.

April 15: After protests from conservative bloggers about “The Interpreter,” the new Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn thriller set inside the United Nations, Universal Pictures announces it will attach disclaimers on all prints of the film, saying the studio’s multimillion-dollar marketing campaign promoting the film is in no way an endorsement of continued U.S. support for the U.N. “We think people can draw their own conclusions about whether the U.N. is actually an organization devoted to global peace or a pathetic assortment of ungrateful losers, snail-sniffing Francophiles and pipsqueak debtor nations,” studio chief Stacey Snider says. She says reports that the studio had paid longtime liberal activist Penn an extra $1.5 million not to do any press for the film are “slightly exaggerated.”

May 22: CBS network chief Les Moonves announces the launch of a new installment of its successful “CSI” crime-detection series. The series, titled “CSI: Crawford,” will be set in Crawford, Texas, not far from President Bush’s 1,600-acre ranch. Moonves insists the locale had nothing to do with the network’s attempt to appease conservative critics who have bashed the network for its alleged liberal bias and the Janet Jackson breast-baring incident at last year’s Super Bowl. “We’re always looking for towns that feel vibrant and hip, so Crawford was an obvious choice,” says Moonves, who calls it “the sheerest of sheer coincidences” that the president’s ranch is just a stone’s throw away. Asked about reports that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) had agreed to do a guest spot as a doctor with a remarkable ability to make diagnoses from distant locations simply by looking at videos of patients, Moonves dismisses them as “premature.”

June 17: MTV Networks Chairman Judy McGrath announces plans for what she terms a groundbreaking new programming feature, the network’s first Abstinence-Only Spring Break Special. Debuting next March, the special will follow the “fun but faith-based antics” of 200 college students at an entertainment resort complex on the campus of Bob Jones University. McGrath says the move is “totally unrelated” to a barrage of criticism leveled at MTV for such shows as “Jackass,” “MTV I Want a Famous Face” and “50 Cent’s Spring Break Candy Shop.” McGrath says the special will also include “an exciting batch” of new videos programmed by guest veejay Lynne Cheney.

July 4: In a move intended to bolster the network’s most successful reality-TV franchise, NBC U Television Group President Jeff Zucker says the latest spin-off of “The Apprentice” will star GOP political guru Karl Rove. The show, being rushed into production next month, will test contestants’ ability to hire friendly questioners for presidential news conferences, obtain footage of political opponents windsurfing off Martha’s Vineyard and avoid reporters who don’t work for Fox News. “Karl just exudes charisma from head to toe,” Zucker says. “Like Donald Trump, he’s a real role model to young people in terms of good sportsmanship and playing by the rules.” Zucker says he considered hiring Democratic consultant James Carville but felt he “had been on way too many TV shows already.” Zucker declines to confirm reports that the show’s winner will relocate to Tehran to advise the U.S.-backed candidate hoping to unseat Iranian president Mohammad Khatami.

Sept. 10: At a hastily called news conference at the Toronto Film Festival, filmmaker Michael Moore blasts the top executives at Hollywood’s major studios, saying he hasn’t received a single offer to distribute his new documentary investigating the healthcare industry. “The silence has been deafening,” the angry filmmaker says, wearing a baseball cap with the logo, “I Am Not Lindsay Lohan’s Dad.” “They’re willing to spend millions on Jamie Kennedy and Hilary Duff, who are cold as ice, but they won’t ante up for a guy whose last movie made $120 million.” Moore is especially upset with Warner Bros. chief Alan F. Horn, who had initially expressed interest but broke off negotiations, saying that until it completed filming its epic remake of “The Poseidon Adventure,” the studio was “scrambling just to pay the electric bills.”

October 16: In an announcement that sent shock waves from Washington to Culver City, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld says he is resigning to take the starring role in Sony Pictures’ new James Bond film, “Never Say Never,” a thriller loosely based on the American military’s heroic efforts to achieve peace in Iraq. Sony Chairman Amy Pascal says the hiring of Rumsfeld, who is nearly 20 years older than longtime Bond star Pierce Brosnan, has “less than zero” to do with his being a popular figure in conservative circles. “Don is just a sexy, cool guy,” Pascal says. “He’s got a great sense of humor and, believe me, he knows more about international intrigue than any of the guys we’ve paid to write this script.” She refuses to confirm reports that the studio has been in discussions with Al Franken to play an evil terrorist mastermind, though Pascal does say, “Anyone who wants our villain to die a slow, horrible death will not be disappointed.”

November 9: In an effort to employ some star power to bolster its sagging TV ratings, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences chief Frank Pierson announces that Mel Gibson will host the 2006 Oscar telecast, scheduled to air Feb. 26 on ABC.

“After going back and watching Mel’s work in ‘What Women Want,’ we thought this was exactly the right direction to go,” Pierson says, making the announcement outside Gibson’s church in the Malibu hills. “We told Mel he should feel free to really cut loose.” Pierson says the academy is also introducing a new award, best religious film, which will be selected by the newest branch of the academy, to be headed by producer Joel Silver.

Gibson says he has already met with comedy writers to work on material, boasting, “I guarantee you’ll get more laughs from me than you’d ever get from Sean Penn.”

The Big Picture appears in Calendar on Tuesday. Comments and suggestion can be e-mailed to patrick.goldstein@latimes.com.