American Movie Classics reran an excellent documentary this morning titled “Rated R: Republicans in Hollywood.” This was originally produced in 2004, but is still relevant and well worth watching. Patricia Heaton (‘Everyone Loves Raymond’) and others discussed the political and professional polarization of Hollywood’s conservative and Republican entertainers. According to Heaton, there is no exchange of ideas in Hollywood. Apparently everybody views the ‘other side’ (not their own) as biased and intolerant. Finally, the narrator muses aloud about the further commercial possibilities of films and entertainment that don’t shrink from depicting a Christian religious view.

We know that some of that commercial appeal has been soundly confirmed in films like “The Passion of the Christ,” but not because conservatism is welcomed in Hollywood.

Yet there is a values debate going on in the entertainment industry, even if it’s not being carried out by actual persons. The ever-raunchy South Park, in the revered tradition of satire, offers a sly take on everyones values and motives, especially in the entertainment industry. The shows on the commercialization of religious beliefs are widely offensive, but characters and situations endlessly clash over values, offer genuine if tasteless wisdom, and couple it (usually) with a lot of common sense.

It’s a ‘fair and balanced’ approach, if you will, for the wicked?by which they seem to mean absolutely everyone.

Addendum: This corresponds well to some points in John Hood’s Daily Journal today, someting I should have noted above.