Paramount Entertainment's new comedy The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard starring Jeremy Piven appears to be (haven't seen it but Pivens hasn't seen Saginaw) the latest in a recent string of Hollywood "comedies" that exploit the fictional stereotypes and real-world hardships of working class people for laughs. ––>
It's sad because it's true. Based on all previews, reviews and trailers, this particular mass-mocking of our most vulnerable is yet another attempt to "hard sell" celluloid propaganda to those in need of a shot of supremacy. In this installment, what is especially damaging to the plight of workers is the ignorantly reckless assertion that U.S. workers believe their salvation is tied to escapades in patriotic, nationalistic consumerism. Once again, Hollywood's self-delusion of being "cutting-edge" instantly reveals its pathetic reality: playing a game of catch-up with its audience. Today's working class knows full well its only salvation is through international solidarity and struggle with the rest of the world's wealth creators (a.k.a. "trash").
In 2008, The Goods producer and co-star Will Farrell headlined Newline Cinema's utterly classist snoozer Semi Pro – about a fictional ABA basketball team located in Flint, MI.
On Semi Pro's IMDB page, commenter Bo_Bridges noted :
"Unless you think stereotyping working class cities and people is funny, you won't like Semi- Pro. Will Ferrell, ABA basketball, the 70s, humor, all take a back seat to the real story line and exhausting punch-line: people from blue-collar backgrounds with ambitions and aspirations beyond the world they are suppose to know are foolish idiots for thinking their hopes and dreams are tenable.
It's so bad, you can't help wondering how and why this movie got green-lighted. It's almost as if Hollywood studio execs got together after Michael Moore's famous Oscar acceptance speech to draw straws to determine which studio would sacrifice its reputation in order to undermine and discredit Moore's upbringing and world-view once and for all. Then it was simply a matter of employing the most sinister and subversive weapon in their arsenal: frat- boy comedy aimed at 18- to 35-year old suburban white males."
Commenter Bo_Bridge's allegations of a Hollywood plot against Michael Moore and his point of view may have seemed like an over-the-top conspiracy theory – until David Zucker's An American Carol hit theaters the following October.
As evidenced by the so-called liberal elites', liberal media's and liberal politicians' total lack of understanding and empathy (yes, empathy) of the great wage plunge to the bottom ushered in during the 2007 UAW contract, the auto bailout debate and ensuing auto bankruptcy, "educated liberals" are as guilty of classism as their conservative counterparts. Look it up, the UAW was the bulwark that has prevented the total collapse of wages for most workers in this country. It is now a boss' wet-dream of free profit resulting from the bludgeoning of wages in the bogus name of "competitiveness." Yet at the end of the day, no matter what color your collar is, the fact remains that upwards of 60% of Americans meet the traditional definition of working class.