I am America (and so can you!) (102 page)

2. Has led a large coven of fanatical followers

Mirror” (episode #33, original airdate 10/6/67).

who called themselves “The Lesbians.” I had a

three-way with her and Jane Fonda.

4. Enjoyed blowing people up through the mail.

fig 11.
S T E P H E N C O L B E R T

C H A P T E R 9

“Those Hollywood nights, those Hollywood Hills.”

–Bob Seger, Rocker Laureate of General Motors

CAN MATCH THE EXHILARATION

OF SETTLING INTO YOUR SEAT IN

NOTHING
A DARK MOVIE THEATER, HEADY

WITH ANTICIPATION. THE SCREEN

LIGHTS UP! FINALLY, THERE IT IS: THE FIRST PRE-

TRAILER ADVERTISEMENT. WILL THE HERO BE ABLE TO

DODGE THE MYRIAD OBSTACLES ON HIS WAY TO THE

Pepsi machine? Will the girl-next-door fall for the arrogant pretty-boy with the substandard wireless service or the lovable goof with America’s most reliable network, Verizon? That’s what they call the “magic” of the big screen. Bravo!

Then the feature starts and the evening quickly turns

sour. Within minutes, you find yourself ushering

your children out the exit while you desperately try

to explain to them that God is not Black.

I DON’T UNDERSTAND
movies today. They

romanticize the liberal lifestyle, cram gays into our

living rooms, and make children believe it’s safe to

spend time with Robin Williams.

Mrs. Doubtfire should

be both doubted and

TOO FAR!

fired.

131

I A M A M E R I C A ( A N D S O C A N Y O U ! )

Let’s face it, next to hybrid vehicles, anchor babies, and heirloom tomatoes, there’s nothing in America quite as corrosive as our so-called “Entertainment”

Industry.

CULTURAL CORROSIVENESS PH SCALE

1
Entertainment Industry

2
Infotainment Industry

Increasing Acidity

2.4
Vinegar

3
Cultural Relativism/Mint Jelly

4
Mesquite Flavor

4.5
Welfare/Tomato Juice

5
Gossip

6
Juicy Gossip

Neutral

6.5
Milk

7
Milquetoast

8
Arts and Crafts Furniture

9
Etiquette/Hand Soap

10
Milk of Magnesia

11
Good Breeding

Increasing Alkalinity

12
Bleach

13
Abstinence

14
Holy Water

Don’t believe me?
Even my editor, Gayle, has pressured me to make this book “entertaining”! But I don’t play that game.1

This chapter isn’t going to transport you to a glamorous world of magic where wishes come true and even sociopaths like Jason Bateman can become the slam-dunking lupine beasts of their dreams.

No, this is a runaway train to Cold, Hard Realityville.

First stop, the Good Old Days, because while there’s nothing more antiAmerican than Hollywood today, there was nothing more
All
-American than Hollywood yesterday.

132
1
Other games I don’t play: Boggle, Scrabble, Scatagories, travel Yahtzee.
2

2
I will play the stationary version of Yahtzee in a vehicle, but only if the vehicle is parked and/or docked.

NEWS ON THE MARCH!

The Time: The 1930s.

The Scene: Hollywood!

Fresh-faced hopefuls from around the nation stream to Los Angeles
with dreams of becoming the next “Steamboat Willie.”

Elsewhere: Nazis!

THAT’S RIGHT:
There was once a “Golden Age” of Hollywood. It was socalled because the original studio heads were the children of gold prospectors who settled in California, struck it rich, and then converted to Judaism. Back then, movies worked. Whether they were “talkies,” “soundies,” or the
The first film editors were
moyels.

short-lived “loudies,” the films of the Golden Age had one thing in common that made them timeless classics: corporate hegemony. From the crank on the cameras to the films’ shipping canisters to the dusty hat on the wrinkled old usher with the air of defeat, the “Big Five” studios owned every dimension of moviemaking. They even owned the stars.

Studios would pluck promising young actors from obscurity, and with a simple name change and an ironclad lifetime contract larded with morality clauses, turn them into Hollywood legends.

Actors like Joan Crawford (born Shprintzel

Anatevkawitz) and Cary Grant (born BalgokUth, Devourer of Souls) got more than just starring roles in the hit movies of their day.

They got firm moral guidance. Women could

not appear in public without their makeup.

Homosexual men could not appear without

their “beards.” Beardless heterosexual men

could not appear without their “mustaches.”

Exhibit A

133

I A M A M E R I C A ( A N D S O C A N Y O U ! )

Here’s a handy chart of the Big Five studios. If you don’t find it handy, try holding the book in your other hand. (See “How to Read This Book.”)

Studio

Early Strength

Razzmatazz

“Remarkable

Buck-toothed

Moxie

Realistic

verisimilitude in

manservants

hobo bindles

its depiction of

the appearance

and customs of

the fierce Indian

Squaw!”

Golden Age

Love Comes to

The Jumpy

Rin Tin Tin Goes

$top That Train

What a Dame!

Classic

Football Town

Negro (1927)

to Washington

o’ Dollar$!

(1936)

(1948)

(1932)

(1938)

Sign of Decline

Lion no

None. Proud

Happy Feet

Bought by tire

No longer

longer devoured