Jon Stewart and Larry King had a pretty engaging interview last night. One of the most interesting parts of the interview was when they talked about "the great culture war" that exists between Hollywood and the more conservative people in our country.

Jon Stewart contends that the Culture War is a largely manufactured entity and that it probably doesn't really exist. He said something to the effect of the Culture War being not much more than something made up by the pundits and the 24 Hour news services to help fill all 24 hours of broadcasting time. He contends that Hollywood is neither red or blue, but green. That all they care about is making money. He went on to say that there isn't a studio in the world that makes a movie hoping that a certain sect of the population won't go see it.

But I'd just ask Jon Stewart how many conservative people he knows, because I've seen this cultural war from the front lines of both College Campuses, the United States Marine Corps, and family discussion. The Culture War is vast, and transcends political ideologies. For every conservative upset at "Brokeback Mountain," I can find a liberal minded person upset at "The Passion of the Christ" or something made by Tyler Perry.

So often the Culture War is seen as one of the fingers of the Religious Right's arm, yet I think that it's just as much a problem with the Left as it is with the Right. It's one of those things that the more polarized the ideologies become, the more they become alike. I really don't see much difference between a neocon talking about a show like "The Book of Daniel," and a liberal talking about a show like "The Man Show." It's ultimately the same argument, only with different shows. "This is offensive to me and my sensibilities."

If there is a difference between the Right and Left sides of the Culture War it's in how this war is waged. The Left will moan and grumble about a show, but you rarely see them mobilize to actually take a show off the air, whereas the Right will get all their cavalry soldiers together and get a show taken off the air or changed in content. Don't believe me? Just ask Howard Stern, the creators of "The Book of Daniel," or the producer who has to run the 8 second delay on the Super Bowl.

Though the Culture War may be something that the pundits have made more of than it actually is, the Culture War is indeed very real, so it'd be detrimental to progress for anyone to ignore it's impact. I think this is a very real problem, because it hits right at the heart of our ability to empathize with "the other side," as well as hitting on certain levels of disenfranchisement that exist in our country.

For a Culture War to even exist, there has to a segment of the population that feels that their attitudes and beliefs aren't being represented through popular forms of media. Part of the reason why "The Passion of the Christ" and "The Left Behind" book series are so popular is because they are targeted to specific audiences that don't get as much attention as other demographic groups.

But if you watched any of the 10,000 televangelists at the time "The Passion of the Christ" came out, you'd know that part of what made that movie such a success was it's fan base making a point to go see the movie as part of a concerted effort to make a statement to the Producers of Hollywood. To these people, Hollywood had been ignoring their views and interests for so long, that they saw that movie's success as a means to rub their disenfranchisement into Hollywood's face. And in some ways, I can't really blame them.

If you don't believe me or fully buy the thesis I'm advancing, then cut and paste that same post into a new window and substitute "Fahrenheit 9/11" for "Passion of the Christ." Then it might make a little more sense. I know firsthand that part of that movie's success largely depended on people seeing it multiple times to "send a message" to the other side.

In both cases, I think that hard left and hard right leaning movies tend to galvanize audiences, because both the hard left and hard right are vastly under represented in popular media. Popular entertainment rarely falls in line with polarized political views, because the majority of the populace consider themselves to be more of the center than either the left or right. So in both cases, the hard left and hard right are somewhat justified to feel like their stories aren't being told, and they are certainly justified in feeling that they have every right to promote their movies just as much as a mainstream movie.

But I think where both sides find error is in feeling that the other side's view point is an attack on everything they hold dear. But for me, this line of thinking begs me to ask just what I want from popular media. It is my view that tv, movies, books, and music should have something for everyone. Im a big believer in everything equalizing itself out. Maybe I should tattoo the Yin/Yang symbol across my forehead.

If I don't like "The Man Show," then it should be my responsibility to change people's hearts and minds so that they too don't like "The Man Show." But I don't feel comfortable just out and out calling for the end of that show.

What's ultimately frustrating to me about this whole Culture War is how cyclical it is. This debate has so much potential to double back on itself, that it's almost too difficult for this hard core leftie to write. Because I have very strong view points on a lot of key issues, I tend to feel as if the world should share my views. So in some sense, "The Man Show" is an affront to a lot of the views I hold, so why shouldn't I fight it with every method at my disposal?

It's very frustrating. Being a believer in all things balanced, I feel that the only chance for salvation this country has is to move to the center. If this country wants to continue to be a country, I think a move to the center will be the only thing that can save us.

The cool thing about this all is that I don't think we have much distance to travel. The country is already pretty centered on a lot of key issues. But it's definitely not centered right now. No, it's a lot more right leaning than anything else. On a 100% scale (with 50% being total centrist views), I'd place our country at about 65 to 70%% conservative. Maybe even more. On everything from capital punishment, to gender equality in representation, to fair wages for lower income workers, to health care for all of it's citizens, we routinely rank more right leaning than most of our more left leaning European counterparts. When you look at how we view sex, violence, and profanity in pop culture, we're *a lot* more conservative than our European counterparts.

Ideally, what we need is a media landscape that embraces all forms of art, whether or not we agree with the message being presented. If one doesn't agree with "The Passion of the Christ," then debate the issue. Write columns about it. Engage in discussions about why you didn't like the movie. But in this idealized world, you'd have to be happy that a movie like this exists because it ultimately means that our country would embrace a movie of differing viewpoints with equal aplomb. We need to adopt the "Live and Let Live" philosophy.

hmmm...i have more to say, but i'll leave that for a different post.

matt out