Family Values (A Parody)

INT. OFFICE OF CONSERVATIVE MOVIE PRODUCER -- DAY
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A man is sitting at a chair behind a large mahogany desk. He is reading a copy of The Wall Street Journal. We see pictures of him on the wall with the President of the United States and various corporate dignitaries. We see his name written in reverse on the back of the open door to his office. The phone rings.

CONSERVATIVE MOVIE PRODUCER:
Yes?

VOICE ON PHONE:
Your publicist is here to see you, Sir.

CONSERVATIVE MOVIE PRODUCER:
Send him in, and have him shut the door.

A man walks through the door and shuts it behind him.

PUBLICIST:
You asked for me?

CONSERVATIVE MOVIE PRODUCER:
Yes. I would like to issue a press release. We need to do something before these godforsaken hippie communist film studios take over the country.

PUBLICIST:
What exactly do you mean?

CONSERVATIVE MOVIE PRODUCER:
Look at all of the movies that are up for awards this year. I don't need to remind you that awards mean publicity, publicity means attention, and attention means the public being exposed to issues that don't help our cause. Fear of the unknown and ignorance of government action is something we need to preserve.

PUBLICIST:
What movies are you concerned with?

CONSERVATIVE MOVIE PRODUCER:
Almost all of them! Brokeback Mountain portrays homosexuals in a relationship that might remind people of one of their own. If we don't attack this movie and it becomes less of a values issue than we might lose some of our morals constituency. We pratically rode the San Francisco marriage debacle into a re-election for the president in 2004.

PUBLICIST:
I see your point, sir.

CONSERVATIVE MOVIE PRODUCER:
And along the same lines, Transamerica. We can't let the public see a transexual portrayed in a positive light. Also Capote, which...

PUBLICIST:
Isn't the portrayal of the character in that movie actually rather negative?

CONSERVATIVE MOVIE PRODUCER:
Yes, but not negative enough, there is too much complexity there. We need to preserve a cartoon-like negative connotation in people's minds.

The publicist jots down notes.

CONSERVATIVE MOVIE PRODUCER:
We also need to attack the political movies. Syriana suggests that the government and Corporate America are corrupt, and that our presence in the Middle East might be directly leading to terrorism. People must believe in their government and corporations, or at least be ambivalent, otherwise people might switch sides and new voters could defeat us in the next election. Good Night, and Good Luck might make people think twice about why they aren't getting both sides to every story on the news these days. We've made great progress in this area recently, especially with Fox, and we can't lose that.

PUBLICIST:
What do you suggest we do?

CONSERVATIVE MOVIE PRODUCER:
We'll create our own awards, I've already come up with a name: "American Values Awards for Movies and Television". We will nominate films less distasteful to us, and call for a change to award movies with patriotism and respect for family values.

PUBLICIST:
Which movies did you have in mind?

CONSERVATIVE MOVIE PRODUCER:
The Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Star Wars Eppisode III, and Cinderella Man.

PUBLICIST:
Why those in particular?

CONSERVATIVE MOVIE PRODUCER:
Well Narnia is obvious. Everybody thinks it is about Jesus. In this country Jesus equals morals. Jesus equals conservatism.

PUBLICIST:
But isn't that movie rather violent for young children? And how does exactly does it portray family values or..

CONSERVATIVE MOVIE PRODUCER:
It doesn't matter. Churches organized groups to see this movie in droves. We have to pick it or else we won't appeal to our constituency.

PUBLICIST:
What about Harry Potter? Didn't we just publicly criticize the author of the books for writing anti-christian stories about witchcraft just a couple of years ago?

CONSERVATIVE MOVIE PRODUCER:
People have forgotten about that already. We can say it is a story about good versus evil. The same goes for Star Wars.

PUBLICIST:
Well, forgive me for asking here, but isn't that movie about genocide? Doesn't the protagonist turn evil and murder children? And in the end the bad guys win? Is that really the message we want to be sending? Not to mention that it isn't a big leap for someone to make a connection between the Emperor's quest for more power and military might to the neoconservative agenda of the current administration...

CONSERVATIVE MOVIE PRODUCER:
Please, do you actually think that anyone is going to catch that? It's good versus evil. And the Jedi from the movies remind people of monks.

PUBLICIST:
May I suggest something?

CONSERVATIVE MOVIE PRODUCER:
Go Ahead.

PUBLICIST:
Why don't we promote more appropriate movies? More family oriented movies, or ones that actually promote family values and patriotism?

CONSERVATIVE MOVIE PRODUCER:
Such as?

PUBLICIST:
Well, there's Duma, or...

CONSERVATIVE MOVIE PRODUCER:
You don't get the point. None of the movies you are about to name actually made any money. And we can't include animated movies because people will not take it seriously. Remember, we want to promote these awards as an alternative to the trash the liberal establishment is giving out. If we get really lucky here, we could even compete with the Oscars. Then with less prestigious awards to be won, maybe less of these objectionable movies will be made.

PUBLICIST:
What about Cinderella Man?

CONSERVATIVE MOVIE PRODUCER:
Well, none of our other choices received much critical praise. We've got to include something regarded as a quality film to be considered legitimate.

PUBLICIST:
Okay. I'll work up a press release.

The publicist leaves the office. CONSERVATIVE MOVIE PRODUCER continues to read the paper for a few seconds, when the phone rings again.

VOICE ON PHONE:
Sir, your broker left a message for you. He says you are way up on defense and oil stocks today, sir. Also I have a delivery for you.

The assistant whose voice we heard enters the room and hands over a package to CONSERVATIVE MOVIE PRODUCER. He opens it up, and we see a DVD entitled Policemen with Muscles 17.