Class conflict - the liberal slant that pervades the University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles film schools - Column

National Review, June 21, 1993 by Arlene Sterling

THOUGH THERE are other film schools around, the Los Angeles landscape is dominated by the USC Film School and its crosstown rival, the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television. Together, these schools have produced a disproportionate number of the world's most popular directors, writers, and producers. Star Wars, The Godfather, Indiana Jones, Lethal Weapon, E.T., and Rain Man are just a few of the films that bear the UCLA/USC stamp.

Since the fame of both schools rests primarily on the huge popularity of such films, you'd expect their students to show at least a healthy respect, if not a profound affection, for popular movies and the audiences that love them. In fact, as I've found as a student at one of these schools, my classmates-the makers of the next E.T. or Star Wars or Ghostbusters--feel a mixture of contempt and embarrassment for the people who go to such movies--at least until graduation.

In fact, around here the term "moviegoer" is never used. When talking about the crowds that plunk down $7.50 to see the latest Bill Murray movie, fflm students refer to "the masses," "the unwashed masses," or "the people stupid enough to pay money for that c---." Those moviegoers unlucky enough to live outside of New York or Los Angeles are known as "hicks," "hayseeds," "Okies in a darkened room," or the generic catch-all "idiots."

The problem, as viewed from USC and UCLA, is that the unwashed masses simply have no taste. They don't like low-budget independent features such as The Crying Game or Strictly Ballroom. The movie elements they do like heroes, happy endings, a good story--are crude and cretinous. In one USC writing class, a student was forced to defend a happy ending. It was a romantic comedy in which a troubled couple gets back together at the end. Her fellow writers felt this was "a cheap shot," "a cop-out," "the easy way," and, of course, "crass."

"Crass" is the all-purpose rebuke for anything that smacks of "Hollywood." A happy ending is the perfect example. One classmate of mine began writing a conventional action-comedy story after finishing one about a black lesbian woman who is persecuted by her racist boss and beaten by her white husband. (At the end of that story, the lesbian kills herself and her children.)

In class, the action comedy was assailed as "crass." "/just hate to see you doing this crass Hollywood c---," said one student. Another added, "Your previous script was so courageous. Now it's like you've been coopted."

"Courageous" is the standard term used to defend anything depressing, nihilistic, and bleak. In an industry in which calling somebody a "Republican" constitutes a vicious personal smear, "courageous" is also used to praise any story that promotes a liberal political cause. For example, a story about two oppressed housewives finding independence through lesbianism would be "courageous."

Often found with "courageous" is "timely." Any script involving gays, lesbians, abortion, minorities, or the evils of Western civilization would be praised as "timely," as well as courageous. Also popular is "ambignous," used to praise material that makes no sense.

One area where ambiguity is not welcome, however, is in anything relating to religion. As if cosmically linked, every film-school script I've seen dealing with religion condemns the church as one of mankind's greatest evils. While popular pro-religion movies such as Sister Act are routinely dismissed as "low-brow" and "reactionary," film students write script after script about characters who grow by losing their faith, or about despotic, corrupt priests and pastors.

During a class script reading, a student read a scene that he had written between a priest and a female environmental activist. In the scene, the priest attempts to show the activist the beauty of his church and his religion.

After the scene was read aloud, another student immediately said, "I've got a real problem with this religious element. Being anti-religious myself, I just shut down when I start seeing crosses and cassocks. My first instinct is, some slope-browed Jesus freak is trying to convert me, which I hate."

The red-faced writer anxiously defended the scene on the grounds that it was being taken out of context. "I'm passionately anti-church," he said. "In the end of the story, the priest realizes the evils of organized religion and gains the courage to break free of it. The activist shows him her religion, which is all about people and nature, not God. Please don't think I'm for God." The writer then presented a later scene in which the priest rips off his clerical collar and has sex with the activist on the altar of his church. This was greeted with enthusiastic praise.

The large contingent of foreign students echo these sentiments in their own fashion. English and French students particularly enjoy trashing American films and filmmakers. During one class discussion of a European film so bad that even the American film students didn't like it, a paunchy French woman stood up and railed for several minutes against American movies, concluding, "The problem with your cinema is that nobody will take the chance to be an artist. You have no imagination. In France, the cinema values the artist. It is beautiful. You should learn from France."