Cal Thomas Gets
Ambassadorship Nod
"If Hollywood makes more money
with cleaner pictures, they are more likely to make cleaner pictures. For
them, money is the bottom line... About R-rated pictures, one studio
executive is quoted as saying, "you're leaving tens of millions of dollars
on the table with an R-rating. Why? For artistic integrity? Let's be real."
Yes, let's be real." -
Cal Thomas, March 7
Saying "I just can't deal with those
people," President Bush today appointed syndicated columnist Cal Thomas to
be the first U.S. ambassador to Hollywood. "Mister Thomas is both wise and
witty," said Bush, "qualities that will serve him well in negotiating
effectively with our most dangerous enemy in the culture wars. He will take
no quarter."
"Well, maybe one quarter,"
quipped Cal, who in return received an icy glare from the chief executive.
The author of such books as 'The
Wit and Wisdom of Cal Thomas', the man sometimes can't prevent himself
from interrupting, even when he apparently has nothing meaningful to say.
The president noted that "even though I find his interruptions a tad
obnoxious, this is a quality that should serve him well in his dealings with
blowhard studio executives."
"Like that guy over at Paramount,
Brad Grey," interrupted Cal. "I've got my eye on him. Golden boy, big ideas,
young guy. I hear he's paying $25 million for some R-rated art movie called
'Babel'. Not a very pretty title, is it. Towers to the sky, pillars of salt,
what not. Get real, Mister Grey - you want art, buy yourself some
watercolors. And who is the director of this 'art movie', you ask? Alejandro
González Iñárritu, that's who, a man with a history of making blasphemous
films with subtitles. Not a name I would touch, not a very pretty name at
all."
"Go get em, tiger," replied the
president. "I think we need to look at the bigger..."
"Look at the bigger picture, yes
Mister President. By making an R-rated 'film', he's taking millions of
dollar off the table, which wouldn't make me very damn happy if I was a
stockholder. As a matter of fact, I'd be tempted to call it stockholder
fraud, and you know what I think about rich Hollywood executives taking food
out of the stockholders mouths? It's wrong, and it will not stand."
Mister Thomas' first official
visit will come next week, when he flies to the left coach to meet with
George Lucas, who has stunned the country by announcing that the next Star
Wars will be PG-13, instead of the usual PG. "What he is in effect saying,"
explains Thomas, "is that all right thinking Americans can just go to hell.
That's his message, loud and clear. Oh, little Johnny can't go to see
Star Wars because I have to have my artistic integrity. Well, Georgie,
we will just see about that."
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