Left Good. Right Bad. It’s Called Art.

Here’s my new idea for a thriller. An ordinary guy wakes up one morning and his wife -- who has joyfully devoted her life to him -- has disappeared. His neighbor -- a kind and intellectual Christian conservative -- has become invisible. And his best friend -- a peaceful man who supports the war in Iraq -- has lost the power to speak. It’s scary stuff, all right. I’m going to call it: “The Arts in America.”

I don’t like to make sweeping statements about the arts because there are always many exceptions. But I have a solid observational berth -- I’m a novelist and screenwriter; I’m well read; I go to the movies often -- and I can’t help noticing that, in the last 25 years or so, large segments of the American population have practically vanished from our fictional landscape.

When was the last time you saw a conservative politician who was the hero of a movie -- as opposed to the slavering villains of “The Manchurian Candidate,” “The Contender” or “The American President”?

When was the last time you read a serious novel in which a full-time wife -- not just a mother, but a wife -- was happy with her life choice as opposed to being a Stepford robot or a trapped bird a la “The Hours”?

When was the last time -- outside of pabulum like “Left Behind” or “Seventh Heaven” -- you saw an intelligent Christian who wasn’t a priest or a milquetoast or Mel Gibson?

It’s not that I don’t enjoy the stories being told by American artists -- I do. And I’m not suggesting that the arts should be traditionalist in intent. I just think they should be more -- pardon the word -- inclusive. Self-fulfilled housewives, conservative good guys, intelligent people of faith not only exist, they’re actually pretty thick on the ground, and I believe the American arts should accurately represent the full panoply of American life.

It’s a commonplace and a truth that there are many liberals in Hollywood, and I know for a fact that many in the New York literary establishment are left-wing as well. There’s nothing wrong with that per se, but it can have some unfortunate consequences.

People who associate only with the like-minded can sometimes forget that their opinions are just opinions, that their ideology is, in fact, an ideology and that good and reasonable people may disagree. As a result, alternative points of view may be demonized, and institutional intimidation and tacit censorship can begin to exclude opposing voices on the levels of both production and criticism.

I write crime fiction, much of it what you might call neo-hard-boiled. My stuff is not political -- and certainly not traditional -- but I try to let all my characters speak their minds.

When I submitted my latest novel, “Shotgun Alley,” my editor -- seeking only my good -- suggested I tone down one character’s nasty remarks about feminists. When I demurred, he pointed out that the book buyer for one of the major chains might order far fewer books because of it. I still declined, but I’m established and ornery. If I were just starting out, I would’ve had to be brave, which is much harder.

On the critical front, the cries of “Obscenity!” once meant to censor a “Ulysses” or a “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” have now morphed into such loaded accusations as “Racism!” and “Sexism!” intended to silence dissent against the incredibly uniform outlook of mainstream intellectuals. When such dissent breaks through, man, those eggheads squeal like a Texas newsman caught with his pants down by a blogger in pajamas.

Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” is the most obvious case in point. The whipping Mel gave Jesus in that picture was nothing compared with the bejesus the intelligentsia beat out of Mel.

The cries this time were of anti-Semitism and the methods were vicious. The man’s father was attacked, his motives impugned and, in some genuinely low moments, Christopher Hitchens and Frank Rich hinted that the director was homosexual, a twice shameful thrust in that it slandered its target and reduced a mode of loving to a schoolyard taunt.

And why? Wasn’t it really because Gibson used his artistic talent to present the Christ of fundamentalism? Hey, it’s not my thing either, but if we can bring open minds to the partisan constructs of Oliver Stone and Michael Moore, why can’t we spend a couple of hours believing in Mel Gibson’s God?

Today, traditionalist values have been pushed underground into fantasy -- which may account for the power and popularity of such stories. “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy preserved Tolkien’s complex Christian understanding of evil, and “Spiderman 2,” to these eyes at least, looked very much like an encrypted tribute to our fighting heroes in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But why can’t such voices speak outright? I don’t think I will lose anything if my neighbors are depicted sympathetically, even if they are among those good neighbors with whom I disagree.

After all, if art is meant to broaden minds, shouldn’t it broaden the minds even of those as flawlessly moral, as politically infallible and as spiritually insightful as ourselves?