I have an essay in the latest Commentary discussing the left's crusade against Argo, Lincoln, and Zero Dark Thirty. You will, perhaps, recall that Zero Dark Thirty was attacked as an apology for "torture" and that its filmmakers were immoral monsters for having dared show happen what happened in the pursuit of bin Laden. Anyway, here's a taste:
Hollywood’s critics are in high dudgeon. The motion-picture industry has sunk into a moral morass, they say, one that threatens our national self-understanding and traduces simple decency. Only this time, those critics are not religious conservatives bemoaning the cinema’s handling of sex and violence. Rather, movie studios and the creative class find themselves under assault from their left flank for producing art deemed to be unacceptable for mass consumption and rife with politically offensive messages. The hackles of these new moralists have been raised by three successful and popular films of 2012, all of which were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. ...
It is particularly ironic that "ambiguity" has become a bad word to Froomkin and his cohort. Traditionally, liberals tend to elevate themselves above conservatives because they think they are able to view the world with far more complexity than those on the right. In a provocatively headlined 2008 essay for Psychology Today asking, "Is political conservatism a form of mild insanity?" Dr. William Todd Schultz once warned his pupils against adopting the worldview of conservatives: "I always tell my students that tolerance of ambiguity is one especially excellent mark of psychological maturity. It isn’t a black-and-white world."
That essay was cited with joy by many liberal outlets, but the nature of the attacks onZero Dark Thirty suggests that there is more than an element of projection at work here. Liberals don’t embrace ambiguity; rather, they do not like the moral certainties of conservatives while seeing nothing wrong with their own. When one lives in a bubble of one’s own making—when one resides in the echo chamber, hearing nothing but agreeable arguments and haughtily dismissing opponents as either stupid or evil (or stupidly evil)—art that pierces that bubble provokes a reaction that is not always logical.
You should read the whole thing. Between this and the attempted blacklisting of Orson Scott Card, the rise of left's morality police has been something to behold. And, frankly, something to fear.
Anyway, you should read the whole essay at Commentary. I must admit to finding special amusement at the complaints leveled against Argo. "Argh, Ben Affleck showed the Iranians acting maliciously, rabble rabble rabble! All they did was sack an embassy! Is that really so bad?" Um, yes. It is.