Author Ben Shapiro is working to expose the Hollywood left’s purposeful attempts to promote a liberal political agenda through entertainment mediums. As we reported yesterday, (below) left-wing messages are being woven into popular television shows — from kids’ favorite Sesame Street to “must see TV” sitcoms like Friends. But as Shapiro’s new book “Primetime Propaganda”demonstrates, that’s just the tip of the liberal iceberg.
In videos sent exclusively to The Blaze from Shapiro, more Hollywood liberals openly admit to how their political biases plague today’s entertainment industry.
Is there a literal “blacklist” against conservatives trying to find work in Hollywood? House creator David Shore says yes:
Video: Primetime Propaganda: Shore Says Hollywood Discriminates Against Conservatives
Marc Cherry, creator of ABC’s Desperate Housewives weaves a pro-gay agenda into his primetime soap:
Video: Primetime Propaganda: Cherry Pushes Gay Agenda on Desperate Housewives
George Schlatter, creator of Laugh-In, sounds off on conservative radio and television host Glenn Beck. (Hint: it’s not nice):
Video: Primetime Propaganda: Schlatter Attacks Glenn Beck
In addition to these interview exclusives, the Hollywood Reporter has more:
[Friends co-creator Marta] Kauffman also acknowledges she “put together a staff of mostly liberal people,” which is another major point of Shapiro’s book: that conservatives aren’t welcome in Hollywood.
Maybe that’s because they’re “idiots” and have “medieval minds.” At least that’s what Soap and Golden Girls creator Susan Harris thinks of TV’s conservative critics. However, the ranks of dumb right-wingers has dwindled, according to Harris, whose video has her saying: “At least, you know, we put Obama in office, and so people, I think, are getting – have gotten – a little bit smarter.”
Some of the videos have executives making rather obvious revelations, like when Larry Gelbart and Gene Reynolds talk about pacifist messages in M*A*S*H or when MacGyverproducer Vin Di Bona says anti-gun messages were a recurring theme in that show.
But an additional video has Di Bona, who also created America’s Funniest Home Videos, becoming remarkably blunt about his approval of a lack of political diversity in Hollywood. When Shapiro asks what he thinks of conservative critics who say everyone in Hollywood is liberal, Di Bona responds: “I think it’s probably accurate, and I’m happy about it.”
Another video has Leonard Goldberg — who executive produces Blue Bloods for CBS and a few decades ago exec produced such hits as Fantasy Island, Charlie’s Angels and Starsky and Hutch — saying that liberalism in the TV industry is “100 percent dominant, and anyone who denies it is kidding, or not telling the truth.” Shapiro asks if politics are a barrier to entry. “Absolutely,” Goldberg says.
When Shapiro tells Fred Pierce, the president of ABC in the 1980s who was instrumental in Disney’s acquisition of ESPN, that “It’s very difficult for people who are politically conservative to break in” to television, he responds: “I can’t argue that point.” Those who don’t lean left, he says, “don’t promote it. It stays underground.” …
In the book, subtitled “The true Hollywood story of how the left took over your TV,” Shapiro also tells anecdotes of bias against conservatives. One example is Dwight Schultz, best known for his roles as Murdock in The A-Team and Barclay in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
The late Bruce Paltrow knew that Schultz was a fan of President Ronald Reagan. When Schultz showed up to audition for St. Elsewhere, a show Paltrow produced, to read for the part of Fiscus, Paltrow told him: “There’s not going to be a Reagan a**h*** on this show!” The part went to Howie Mandel.
IS SESAME STREET SPREADING LEFT-WING PROPAGANDA? EXEC ADMITS, YES
While the theme song to the kids show Sesame Street encourages people to ask how to get there, one author just finished an expose exploring what’s really in the popular show: left-wing propaganda.
Sesame Street, with its loveable and fuzzy characters, is really a mouthpiece for the left’s agenda. That’s the conclusion of author Ben Shapiro, who after interviewing hundreds of industry insiders found that many of Hollywood’s most popular shows, including the popular kids program, are inundated with secret political messages. And he got top executives to admit it.
Shapiro’s new book, “Primetime Propaganda”: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV,” according to it’s description “is the story—told in their own words—of how television has been used over the past sixty years by Hollywood writers, producers, actors, and executives to promote their liberal ideals, to push the envelope on social and political issues, and to shape America in their own leftist image.”
For example, Shapiro quotes Mike Dann, one of Sesame Street’s founding executives, saying it “was not made for the sophisticated or the middle class.” Using the premise, the team worked in all sorts of messages, including Grover breaking bread with a hippie and Oscar the grouch who was supposed to address “conflicts arising from racial and ethnic diversity.” Dann also admitted he used the program in the wake of 9/11 to highlight peaceful alternatives to war.
“Sesame Street tried to tackle divorce, tackled ‘peaceful conflict resolution’ in the aftermath of 9/11 and had [gay actor] Neil Patrick Harris on the show playing the subtly-named ‘fairy shoeperson’,” writes Shapiro, according to THR.
The news may not be surprising considering the left‘s recent use of the show’s cuddly character, Elmo. The furry, red puppet has been 
used to trumpet free internet, lament job loss, and even plug Michelle Obama’s child nutrition bill.
But the left-wing messages aren‘t limited to children’s programs. Adults are inundated, too. The Independent explains:
The TV series Friends undermined family values; Sesame Street taught ethnic minorities about civil disobedience; Happy Days had a subtle anti-Vietnam subtext; and the 1980s cop show MacGyver tried to persuade pistol-packing Americans that guns are bad.
Happy Days? Friends? Believe it. Shapiro even got Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman to own up to intentionally hiring liberals and sending a strong message to conservatives in a popular episode:
Among Shapiro’s most revelatory interviewees is Marta Kauffman, the co-creator of Friends, who recalls how she hired a “bunch of liberals” to run the programme to “put out there what we believe”. In 1999, she admitted casting the actress sister of Newt Gingrich, the prominent Republican, to play a preacher at a lesbian wedding because she wanted to annoy conservatives.
“When we did the lesbian wedding, we knew there was going to be some flack,” said Kauffman. “I have to say, when we cast Candice Gingrich as the minister of that wedding, there was a bit of a ‘fu** you’ in it to the right-wing, directly.”
So how did Shapiro get these executives to say such things on record. According to him, he took advantage of liberal stereotypes.
“There was a certain amount of stereotyping on their part in granting the interview,” he told the Independent. “Many probably assumed that with a name like Shapiro and a Harvard Law credential, there was no need to Google me: I would have to be a leftist. In Hollywood, talking to a Jew with a Harvard Law baseball cap is like talking to someone wearing an Obama pin.”
“I was shocked by the openness of the Hollywood crowd when it came to admitting anti-conservative discrimination inside the industry,” he told the paper. “They weren’t ashamed of it. In fact, some were actually proud of it.”
Source: The Blaze
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