Chuck Woolery and CPAC are not names typically associated together. Woolery is better known for his trademark catchphrase “We’re back in two and two” than as a political pundit. But in the last six months his website Save Us Chuck Woolery has given him such major buzz amongst conservatives. He, along with lawyer-writer Ben Shapiro and filmmaker Steve Bannon (who was behind the Sarah Palin film, The Undefeated), spoke at CPAC during a panel entitled “Does Hollywood Still Embrace American Exceptionalism?”
The short answer is no.
The panel, though sparsely attended, made up for low numbers with a particularly rapt and engaged audience. The crowd was a bit older than the typical student-packed CPAC audience, but they were opinionated and vocal in their support.
The theme both Shapiro and Bannon drove home is that Hollywood has, in fact, lost a their sense of American Exceptionalism at the hands of liberals.
Bannon told a particularly poignant story about Tucker Carlson and Andrew Breitbart having dinner with William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, and Ayers admitting he doesn’t follow politics, he instead follows the culture. Bannon made a point of explaining that the left gets their hooks into people not through politics, but through the culture. They understand the way to the public is through the culture. Bannon became increasingly more impassioned and told the crowd “They (the left) detest everything you stand for.’ His example dealt with the military. He believes the single greatest example of lived American values is the surge in Iraq. Instead of Hollywood making films embracing the military and depicting soldiers as heroes, they make films either depicting them as villains or as people with no love of their county, citing films like The Hurt Locker, Green Zone, and Avatar—which Bannon seemed particularly not to like. In fact, he hated it, evidenced by the line that drew the largest applause: “Anybody,” he said meaning conservatives, “that bought a ticket to Avatar ought to be ashamed of themselves.”
Shapiro further elaborated that conservatives are losing in Hollywood because they’re not doing it right. Rather than subtly trying to get a message across, conservative filmmakers tend to smack you across the face with their message, which only appeals to a small population.
The solution, according to all three panelists, is fairly simple: conservatives MUST get involved in the film and television industry. Shapiro encouraged students interning for film studios in LA rather than think tanks in DC. Bannon encouraged people to take it upon themselves to write and produce conservative-minded movies and television shows.
Woolery, who was likely the main draw, didn’t speak nearly as much as Bannon and Shapiro, but probably had the most impact with the viewing of his Save Us Chuck Woolery videos, which had the entire audience roaring. It was a great example of what Bannon and Shapiro were advocating: conservatives using the culture to tell a story.
