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How Are the Mighty Fallen: The End of Europe and Hollywood
In his brilliant book on the precariousness of Western Civilization, How to Save the West: Ancient Wisdom for 5 Modern Crises, scholar Spencer Klavan cites an epic historical change that took place in a single moment. It was the Visigoths burning the city of Rome in 410 AD, observed by Saint Jerome. “Who would believe that Rome would fall, she who had been built up by the conquest of the whole world?” Jerome wrote. Klavan captured the irony that evaded even the saint. “But even as he wrote these words, Jerome himself had already completed a Latin translation of the Bible which would serve as a foundation stone of Christendom in western Europe.”
Then the movie men themselves betrayed the industry. They let politics replace art, and feminists replace filmmakers.
Two transformative events last week made me feel a bit like Saint Jerome, minus the sanctity and the city-torching barbarians — and I’m writing this on the 84th anniversary of another cataclysmic instance in time, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. One was the European Union imposing a €120-million fine on Elon Musk for essentially refusing to censor posts on X. The other was Netflix’s purchase of Warner Brothers for over $82 billion. Both signify the further fall of something great into virtual rubble.
In truth, Europe — Britain very much included — has been in a state of collapse for the entire 21st century, tragically succumbing to a destructive force which it had heroically defeated — communism. After the 1917 Russian Revolution made Marxism a global menace to freedom, western Europe took the right side of the Cold War and survived formidable Soviet threats. They included the Hamburg Uprising (1923), the NKVD in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), the Iron Curtain on Eastern Europe and East Germany (1945-1989), and the Cambridge spy ring inside British Intelligence (exposed in 1963 but active for 30 years).
The fictionalized counter to these threats elevated English literature for the latter half of the last century through the works of new masters of the spy genre: Ian Fleming, John le Carré, Len Deighton, Tom Clancy, and Charles McCarry. Their heroes and their real-life counterparts were fighting not just what Reagan called “an evil empire” militarily, but its evil ideology — whose greatest weapon was communication dominance and the quashing of any other. Europe overcame this abomination in the ’80s — led by lions Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and John Paul II — only to embrace it now.
EU leaders are publicly justifying their fine on Musk by citing fraudulent verification badges that invite scams and fraud. But anyone with a brain, like Elon Musk, knows the real reason for their lashing out is fear. The dread that X can penetrate their statist blockade on noncompliant speech, which they label “hate speech” or “disinformation.” And when German police arrest a 42-year-old teacher for referring to a “trans” Wiesbaden city-council member on X as “he,” and stating “men cannot be lesbians,” it’s clear Europe has entered The Gulag Archipelago territory.
The EU leaders first tried to recruit Musk’s voluntary cooperation last year. Musk not only refused but blew the whistle on them — and his more cowardly competitors — on X of course: “The European Commission offered X an illegal secret deal: if we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they would not fine us. The other platforms accepted that deal. X did not.”
So they switched to financial punishment, which will have the same embarrassing result. Because while the EU governments and the UK are led by socialist progressive dupes, the USA no longer is. And Vice President J. D. Vance rapidly responded to the EU move, on X of course. “Rumors swirling that the EU commission will fine X hundreds of millions of dollars for not engaging in censorship. The EU should be supporting free speech not attacking American companies over garbage.” I suspect the fine on Musk will fall before Europe does.
Which brings us to Hollywood — what’s left of it. As I’ve written here before, the motion picture studio system, which lasted 50 years (1920 -1970), was the most economical and artistically prolific entertainment factory in history. Every studio had its own character and forte — MGM — glamor and musicals, Paramount — comedy, Warner Bros — tough guys (Bogart, Cagney) and women (Bette Davis, later Joan Crawford), Universal — monsters, 20th Century Fox — witty drama, later widescreen epics and melodrama.
Even later, to the end of the century, the corporations that bought the studios left the men who knew movies in charge of them. It would never have occurred to a Gulf & Western executive in 1972 to tell Paramount head Robert Evans who to cast in The Godfather. The symbiosis endured through the 00s, yielding fine pictures like The Lord of the Rings saga, Mulholland Drive, Taken, and Tropic Thunder.
Then the movie men themselves betrayed the industry. They let politics replace art, and feminists replace filmmakers. For 20 years they have done worse than produce nothing of value. They destroyed the creations that built their jobs, because in their mind, they attracted the wrong crowd — sexist, racist, toxic white males. Now a soulless inartistic studio has bought a soulless inartistic industry. But perhaps, like Saint Jerome, I — and other writers like me — have laid down the foundation for the future, at least of the screen trade.
READ MORE from Lou Aguilar:
Carols in a Time of Chaos
A Great American Thanksgiving
WATCH:
The Spectacle Ep. 300: Why Movies Suck: Screenwriter Lou Aguilar Tells the Story
Here’s a lovely new review of my popular Yuletide romantic ghost story, The Christmas Spirit, and why it’s the perfect Christmas gift for your significant other. Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or wherever fine books are still sold.
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