Hollywood vs. America (Paperback)

by Michael Medved (Author) "America's long-running romance with Hollywood is over..." (more)
Key Phrases: motion picture attendance, entertainment elite, entertainment establishment, New York, Los Angeles Times, Martin Scorsese (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
PBS film critic Medved's jeremiad charges that Hollywood is profoundly out of touch with the values and lifestyles espoused by most Americans.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Film critic Medved, cohost of PBS's Sneak Previews , presents a scathing indictment of Hollywood that is sure to be controversial. Asserting that "the dream factory has become the poison factory," he criticizes Hollywood movies for portraying religion unfavorably, glamorizing violence, and celebrating immorality. Martin Scorcese's The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) is among the films censured at length, and there are many others whose objectionable scenes are singled out, from Total Recall (1990) to The Prince of Tides (1992). Those who lament America's loss of what lately have been generally called "family values" will agree with Medved, while others are likely to dismiss his impassioned text as a windy sermon. A marginal purchase for general collections.
- Richard W. Grefrath, Univ. of Nevada Lib., Reno
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks (August 4, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060924357
• ISBN-13: 978-0060924355
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #142,756 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining and informative, March 7, 2000

By	Jason Rees (Michigan) - See all my reviews

I imagine the reviews of this book will be split two ways: On one side, they'll say Medved is just another member of the Religious Right trying to make everyone conform to a boring religious regime.

On the other side, people will say it's a well-deserved attack on the entertainment industry at large. It is neither. Medved points out that no one movie, no one song title, no one T.V. show should be cancelled, censored, etc.

What Medved does is point out the self-destructive trends of the entertainment industry elite to flood the market with material of little worth in the name of profits or a cause. In the former, he proves that movies have been steadily repulsing more and more of the public, and decreasing the chances of bringing in families, where the real money is. In the latter matter, he shows beyond a doubt that a very narrow viewpoint is being portrayed in hollywood, to the nearly complete exclusion of all other views. A move detrimental to Americans AND the entertainment industry.

Anyone who wants to get an idea of where the entertainment industry has been, and is taking American viewers, should read this book.

26 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent documentation, August 3, 1999

By A Customer

Few people discuss the excellent documentation and cold, hard statistics Medved supplies - perhaps because they are irrefutable. And also because it's easier to make subtle charges of racism and bigotry. One reviewer even claimed Medved wants a world where everyone is white and Christian - Medved is Jewish and discusses his religion at length in the book!!! But then, you'd have to actually READ the book to know that...

Medved shows beyond the shadow of a doubt that Hollywood is more interested in what it thinks of itself than in anything else - true art or even money.

Strange that many of the same movie buffs who decry the dumbing-down of film within the past 15 years suddenly rush to defend Hollywood (even the trash!) in order to avoid agreeing with Medved.

An excellent book - an excellent tool for analyzing American culture.

21 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read The Book Hollywood Doesn't Want You To Read, June 10, 1999

By A Customer

I came to a bookstore shortly after this book was released with $25 in my wallet, which was intended for another book. I flipped through "Hollywood vs. America" and not only couldn't I put it down, I decided that I owed it to Medved to buy the book at full list price, before it went on sale. Finally, someone with some clout was saying what I had been saying for years about show business and the people in charge.

A previous reviewer faulted Medved for detailing a laundry list of vomit and urination scenes, but this is exactly what is necessary to illustrate how far "entertainment" has fallen. True humor and plot development is abandoned in favor of "realistic" special effects gore, more F-words, and bodily function gags.

Especially important is his illustration of the way showbiz takes great pains to prop up evil religious straw-men/women for the purpose of demonizing traditional religion per se. He also shows how "dramatic license" is used to distort the lives of actual religious figures so that their faith is unrecognizable. Medved wrote this seven years before NBC's outrageously inaccurate and blasphemous "Noah's Ark."

If you are a moviegoer, read this book. Peek into the slaughterhouse and see what's in the sausage they feed you.