Trump's very old-school outreach to Tinsel Town

At some point, cultural conservatives need new talent and new money to be relevant

When I heard about Donald Trump appointing a trio of ambassadors to Hollywood, I have to admit that my first reaction was: I assume that Clint Eastwood was too busy for this job?

Maybe you saw the headlines, including this one at Variety: “Trump Names Sylvester Stallone, Mel Gibson and Jon Voight as ‘Special Ambassadors’ to ‘Troubled’ Hollywood: They’ll Bring ‘Lost Business’ Back.”

Gibson asked if the job came with an official residence, a witty response since his Southern California home had just burned down. Meanwhile, here is some additional old-news context from that Variety article:

Trump’s announcement comes four days before his inauguration in Washington, D.C., and as wildfires have destroyed thousands of homes and buildings in Southern Los Angeles. Many businesses are struggling to recover, and the cost is estimated to be around $250 billion. The domestic box office in 2024 was also down from the year prior, as the Hollywood release calendar took a hit from the 2023 actors and writers strikes. Last year’s revenues were $8.7 billion, down 3.3% from 2023 and 23.5% from 2019, the last pre-pandemic year, which reached $11.3 billion.

I wasn’t joking about Eastwood, who is 90-something and still hard at work as a producer and maybe even a director. He is old, but very relevant as an artist.

Personally, I wish that the White House folks had asked actress Patricia Heaton (or maybe they did, behind the scenes). Is the talented writer-director-actress Bonnie Hunt a right-of-center figure in Hollywood?

Pause for a moment: In the comments section, please name a major Hollywood artist or executive that you would nominate to take part in a project of this kind (set aside your opinions of Trump) because you believe he or she represents a truly alternative point of view. Extra credit for nominations of players who are under the age of, let’s say, 45. Extra credit if they have won an Oscar.

It isn’t easy, is it?

In the Trump-nominated trio, Gibson is clearly the filmmaker whose work is still considered important — even if most Hollywood leaders think that he is a wild man, at best. I mean, we’re not talking about a Jimmy Stewart figure.

I have always thought that Gibson was at his best when he was (a) sober and (b) going to Confession. However, I think “Hacksaw Ridge” made a strong case that his powers as a director remain solid. At this point, it appears that his ability to “hug the cactus” and face the reality of his sins remains intact.

Writing in Crisis Magazine, a conservative Catholic publication, Patrick Giroux opened his “Mel Gibson, Old School Sinner” essay with this quote from Gibson’s recent interview with Joe Rogan:

The next thing I am going to tackle is going to take more out of me. I even have to change my entire life to do it. You can’t go into a project as profound in nature as [The Resurrection of Jesus Christ] without somehow preparing yourself for it. It’s like preparing for a fight. You have to spiritually prepare yourself for that, and that’s going to take some sacrifice. I have to try and be better somehow in order to go in and make that film. So, what does that mean? I think I know what it means.

What does that mean? Giroux noted:

In Christianity, fear of the Lord is a type of awe and reverence toward God and a healthy respect for holy things. What fascinates me about Mel — and others like him — is that while he clearly possesses this gift, in this podcast he owns the fact that it doesn’t necessarily reflect in his behavior and daily living.

Even though Mel knows he has things in his personal life that need correcting — the most glaring example being that he was previously married and is now in an illicit relationship — he has the honesty to acknowledge this contradiction. It takes humility to admit: “I profess this and I profess that … I am not a great example of Christianity.”

OK, but let’s face it. At the age of 69, Gibson is not, well, young (even though he is the youngster among Trump’s Hollywood ambassadors).

In a Substack piece called “Can old people save Hollywood?”, the always provocative Marcus Pittman of LOOR.tv stated the obvious:

All three of these men were born before color television. They were all alive during the original broadcasts of I Love Lucy. They witnessed three antenna TV channels become four, and then the rise of cable and deep cable. Not only that, but they have seen television screens go from round, to square to widescreen, and picture quality change from SD to HD. They have all been a part of Hollywood Blockbusters, and have seen the shift from Theater to Home Streaming.

No one doubts the talent or the historical importance of these guys. But here is Pittman’s thesis statement:

As much as I respect these men and their amazing accomplishments over many decades within Hollywood, my fear is that this is just another attempt by conservatives at attempting to restore an institution as opposed to building something entirely new.

To be blunt, cultural conservatives in America are much better at trying to conserve something than they are at seizing the technology and economics of a new era and building something that will impact mainstream consumers (as opposed to those who are already consuming conservative niche media).

Part of the problems is that “conservatives” are often afraid to handle complex, messy, stories. To paraphrase a key piece of my interview with the great Robert Duvall, religious conservatives understand the process of sin, repentance and redemption, but they are often not comfortable with gritty, realistic stories about the sin stuff. Hollywood, on the other hand, majors in all that sin stuff, but has trouble with repentance and redemption.

In conclusion, let me ask a question that, in circles linked to Christian higher education, I have been asking for a decade or two: Name a quality “conservative” college or university that has a solid program teaching screenwriting or the financial skills needed to thrive in entertainment media.

Where are the young “conservative” women and men who are being offered the financial resources they need to BUILD something new?

It isn’t easy, is it?