The Sound of the Crowd • November 5, 2003January 3, 2023

Censorship-Reagan Movie

I wanted to point out a good article on this subject at Salon, I’ll post the the first part and if you want to read the whole thing, a link. Remember, if you’re not a Salon subscriber you’ll have to watch a short ad to get all the content.

Here’s the lead:

“Anyone looking for signs of a return of 1980s-era culture wars probably couldn’t dream up a better one. At the center of it – again – are the Reagans. Only this time, it’s “The Reagans,” a fictionalized biographical miniseries that was set to air on Nov. 16 and 18, but was dumped by CBS on Tuesday after heated political pressure from the right. And while it was immediately announced that the movie would eventually air “sometime in 2004” on Showtime (a cable channel also owned by CBS parent Viacom), its future still seems shaky, at best.

The decision came after weeks of debate – fueled by the right-leaning Fox News Network and conservative watchdog group Media Research Center – about the movie, which stars James Brolin as the former actor, California governor and president, and Judy Davis as his second wife, Nancy. The biopic reportedly focused on the couple’s relationship, with special attention paid to Mrs. Reagan’s controlling personality and astrological fixations.”</a>

If you decide to read the whole thing, check out the comments by Larry Gelbart, one of my heroes.

Further.

Ben Varkentine