From the Easy Chair

Religious Mentality of the Media

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 1-214

Genre: Speech

Track:

Dictation Name: RR161A1

Year: 1980s and 1990s

Dr. R. J. Rushdoony, RR161A1, Religious Mentality of the Media from the Easy Chair, excellent colloquies on various subjects.

[Rushdoony] This is R. J. Rushdoony, Easy Chair number 32, November 22, 1982.

The last time we were together I discussed a very important work about what is going on in Hollywood. David McClintick, Indecent Exposure: A True Story of Hollywood and Wall Street.

One of our problems, of course, is that the media in this country gives a distorted picture of the United States. Not too long ago, as you know, because we reported it here, Douglas Kelly was in Europe on a trip for Chalcedon. While there he met in France, specifically, the wife of a British foreign service officer. She spoke about the fact that she had, in the various countries where she had been stationed, seen a lot of the American television programs, our detective and crime and hospital and other stories, the whole variety of them. They are, you know, shown all over the world and with foreign subtitles or voices dubbed in as the case may be.

She said that having seen so much of these pictures as well as films, she felt she knew the United States and was therefore very distressed when her husband a few years back was given an assignment in the United States. To her it was a nightmare to come to the country depicted in films and on television.

To her amazement, however, she found there was no connection between the America portrayed on films and in television programs and the reality of American life. She remarked that she had never seen a more Christian country, a place where people were essentially law abiding, where most people went to church and where the family was important to people. In fact, she said, she hoped some day she could migrate to the United States and settle down here in some smaller city or community and enjoy the stable life there.

Now I could go on and cite other examples of that same experience. I cite that because it is a very recent one. It happened to Douglas Kelly just a couple of months ago when he was in France.

The simple fact is that we do not get an honest picture of what American life is about either in this country or abroad. As a result, foreigners have a very false image of American life and Americans themselves have a distorted image of what life in this country is about.

This means that we have a real problem with the media. The problem is essentially religious. Humanism governs the media. We know from recent polls taken that 80 percent or better of the men in newspapers have no connection with any church. We know that the percentage in movies and television is just as high if not higher. As a result, the picture they give of this country is militantly anti biblical. It reflects their faith which is Humanism.

I would like to read from the book I mentioned earlier Indecent Exposure by David McClintick. On page 243 he cites an enthusiastic movie review which appeared in the Los Angeles Times an article about Close Encounters a popular film of just a few years ago. And the review was written by a very prominent science fiction author Ray Bradbury. This is what Bradbury wrote and I quote.

“We feel ourselves being born truly for the first time. Close Encounters is, in all probability, the most important film of our time. For this is a religious film in all the great, good senses, the right senses of that much battered word. Spielberg has made a film that can open in Dew Delhi, Tokyo, Berlin, Moscow, Johannesburg, Paris, London, New York and Rio de Janeiro on the same day to mobs and throngs and crowds that will never stop coming, because for the first time someone has treated all of us as if we really did belong to one race.

“I dare predict that in every way aesthetically or commercially it will be the most successful film every produced, released or seen. It will be the first film in history to gross one billion all by itself. Every priest, minister, rabbi in the world should preach this film, show this film to their congregation. Every Moslem, every Buddhist, Zen or otherwise in the world can sit down at this movable feast and leave well fed. That is how big this film is. That is why it will be around the rest of our lives making us want to live more fully, packing us with its hope and energy,” unquote.

Now Bradbury says this is a born again experience to see this film. Well, that is what our current films are all about so that you can have a religious experience, but not a Christian one, a humanistic one. To be born afresh as a Humanist, as Bradbury would have it.

So we are getting a radical distortion. We are getting a missionary message preached on television and in the films and our three networks are dedicated to the gospel according to Humanism.

Now the important question for us is: What can we do about it? And to me this is the key question. We have all too many people, some of them very powerful people who bewail what is on the networks and on film. And that is all they do. In fact, if they are interested in doing anything about it, they go to the very characters—I had to fish for a decent word to use—that are giving us this garbage.

Now, on is Easy Chair we ... we are going to discuss what can be done practically. And we have one of our Chalcedon people here with us, John Saunders. He is an actor, a film writer and a producer. Right now he has just received word that he shall be producing an important documentary.

John has also appeared on a number of films and his face is familiar to everybody, although you may not know his screen name which is John Quaid. He appeared, by the way, in the Clint Eastwood films Any Which Way, both of them as the chief of the motorcycle gang, you might recall. He is a dedicated Christian, an able lay preacher who preaches to groups up to 12,000 and is in demand for conventions of businessmen because he is an able, forthright and thoroughly Christian conservative speaker.

John, we are glad to have with us today.

[Saunders] Well, I am glad to be here, Rush, very much.

[Rushdoony] Now, you have read McClintick’s Indecent Exposure and you are familiar with this problem. Would you agree with what I said about Humanism being the militant religion of films and television?

[Saunders] I would not only agree with you, but I would ... I would go considerably beyond that. And just I would like to go back to one thing you said...

[Rushdoony] Surely.

[Saunders] ...when you were quoting... when you were quoting Ray Bradbury a while ago. I know Mr. Bradbury having met him at the Actor’s Studio West in Hollywood when I was there several years ago. And it is interesting that another friend of mine who is a painter, Joe Taylor.

[Rushdoony] Yes, I know Joe.

[Saunders] I... we are all familiar with Joe Taylor’s work. Joe just recently did a review of Close Encounters from a thoroughly Christian perspective and he went through and he documents that the film maker, in this case Spielberg, goes through and specifically borrows virtually... I think it is somewhere around two dozen specific Christian motifs and techniques and retranslates them into his motion picture. For example, if you ... if you remember the one sheets or the ads that you see in the newspaper with the hand of E T touching the hand of the young boy. Well, that is a direct parallel from the work, I believe, by Michelangelo.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Saunders] Ok. Now that is only one parallel that he uses. But he also goes through and points out time and time again how the dialog is essentially the humanist reinterpretation of Christian evangelistic techniques. He also goes through and documents the fact that Spielberg himself, as well as a number of other film directors and writers openly acknowledge the fact that their religion is the occult. Now that is exactly what Spielberg said.

So it shouldn’t surprise us that the humanistic perspective in films and television is taking the direction it is taking and becoming more and more militant, more and more insistent at times even screaming its humanism. It shouldn’t surprise us as all, as far as I am concerned. It is just the logical consequences of the ideas they hold insofar as how they interpret the world.

[Rushdoony] Well, you know, the sad fact is I actually had one reasonably prominent Christian who I believe is now associated with a religious foundation call me long distance to tell me that this was a remarkable film, very Christian. But it came so close in so many things to paralleling the gospel and we should be encouraged and so on. He failed to see that it was an obvious parody of the gospel from a radically humanistic perspective.

[Saunders] Exactly.

[Rushdoony] This is one of our problems that people out there are unable to make the distinction between Humanism and Christianity.

[Saunders] Well, that is primarily because the idea ... the idea of authority itself is not clear in people’s minds. In most... in many Christian circles today the Christian has no real concept of what the biblical authority of a sovereign God, what this is in real terms as over against the humanistic concept of authority. As a result of that, Christians can see Humanists using a lot of ... of obviously or what appear to be Christian concepts and ideas, but they don’t understand that by virtue of the Humanists’ radically different concept of authority behind those ideas, what the Humanist means by the words and terms he uses and what the Christian means by the words and terms he uses are two entirely different things. And Christians without that ... that... that really solid and broad based comprehensive idea, what the Christian authority is all about, without that as the rock and the {?} and the foundation from which one interprets reality, then your ... then you are sucked into that whole Humanist perspective and ... and you take a false sense of hope that perhaps the world is going to turn around to a certain extent, because look at what the Humanists are doing over here. They are being almost evangelical. Yes, they are being evangelical. No question about it, but it is an evangelism that has to do specifically with Humanism and the propagation of the Humanist concept of authority.

[Rushdoony] John, at several times in the past you have told me and gone on to document it very specifically that the film studios are very vulnerable today and in a very insecure position as far as their financial future is concerned and that the television networks themselves are highly vulnerable. Do you want to tell us more about that now?

[Saunders] Well, there is a lot... there is a lot of reasons why this is the case. The... the basic problem is this, is that ... as we all know, Humanism is essentially a closed system of thought. It has no external source of revelation or authority by which to measure or mark its progress, its advance or decline. As a result of that, it can’t see the logical implications of its own ideas.

Example, for over a decade now almost every major polling service in the United States has told the networks time and time and time again that the total percentage of viewers watching television is declining. All right? Now the networks have tried to find, along with their ad agencies partners and... and... and along with film and television producers, a number of ways to try and explain this phenomenon. They blamed cable. They have been ... and they have blamed other sports or the advent of... of major sports events that are... are at a much higher rate of frequency and drawing in a vast number of people for weekend ventures away from the home and away from ... there is all kinds of diversions going. And... and the majority of it fails to just simply deal with one basic problem. The networks are not producing the product that the people want to see.

There are other opinion polls and surveys taken time and again which demonstrate that over 60... I think it is 64 percent and a fraction of the American people are fundamentally conservative in their world view. The product they are getting in films and television is fundamentally liberal. Now the sheer bottom line facts in the case as far as any ... any first year businessman would say is that the... the producers are not meeting the product demands of the market place. Now that is... that is the bottom line. And the networks know this. They have... and they have k known it, because, as I have said, for over a decade they have seen this coming. And they have tried to find ways of... of turning it around. They have attempted many, many different kinds of programming techniques. They see... for example, we have had these news magazine formats. Now, in part, that is... that is one way to capitalize on... on the interest that people have today in the latest news. You know, a society in panic really wants to know what the latest news is. So the networks exploit that... that in these news magazine formats, 20/20, 60 Minutes and a number of other ones.

We see a very high mortality rate among new programs, a very high mortality rate says very simply that the producers and the networks don’t know what the public wants. And they ... they... they employ a shotgun approach and they get... they figure if they put out enough programming, that one or two of them is bound to hit and that will give them some kind of indication as to the mood of the populace. And we see these shows come and go.

It used to be that a... that a show could stay on the air for 13 weeks before it was pulled. Now if you don’t get a substantial market share in the first three or four weeks of... of the show, of the show’s being aired, it comes off immediately and is replaced immediately.

The point is, is that the networks themselves are in a very, very advanced state of what we would call epistemological blindness, presuppositional blindness. They can’t interpret the reality about them. They can’t interpret what the audience needs. They can’t interpret the world. And they are just putting out products hoping something will click and hit.

When you bring this information up to them, they, of course, deny it and find all kinds of ways of explaining it. But one very interesting little event happened her about a year and a half ago in Ojai, California in which there was a committee called together, a, group of Hollywood’s elite, you know, the producers, directors, writers, ad agency types, network people. They had... even had two or three theologians who, of course, were from the liberal camp and were, of course would be in agreement with most of the major concepts being presented. And these people came together in order to deal with the question of the proliferation of pressure groups in prime time television. How in the world are we going to deal with these radical new right Christians that are coming along and screaming about product and the quality of product?

Well, they kept the media out of this three day conference, but after the conference closed, they published their own summary which is available, I think, from the academy of motion pictures arts and sciences and it is about 45, 50 pages. But in this summary some very revealing statements are made. One, the networks know that they are not producing the kind of product the public wants because one direct quote from the thing, from the report is that it kind of tough to talk to these people in the new right when you have dirty hands. Now that is exactly what the man said. When you have dirty hands, it is very tough to talk to these people.

The other point was—and I think it was Harriet {?} said that... she said, “We have to recognize that we in the media are the elite and that perhaps it would help our cause some if we brought some people into our group from the lower socioeconomic ladder, ladder rungs of society.”

Well, it is fairly self evident that the networks don’t want to talk to the new right. They don't understand it. They don’t want to deal with it. They are not going to produce products for that market place. And furthermore they are going to do everything possible to try and destroy and undermine that marketplace, because it constitutes a threat to their own economic well being.

The bottom line in... to use another film and television term is the bottom line is very simply this. The networks know they are in trouble. They suspect very strongly why they are in trouble, but they have no alternative philosophy or world view from which to produce a radically different kind of programming and they are just hanging on by the skin of their teeth right now. And... and the vulnerability of the networks is... is... is absolutely immense.

We recently went though a whole spate of first writers’ strikes and then directors’ strikes and then actors’ strikes and everyone was calling everybody names and there was massive controversy. In a previous year prior, rather, to the strikes, I was working as much as I wanted to work as a film and television actor. And during the strike I think I had off and on five weeks work over an 18 month period while the networks, of course, took what steps they could to try to counteract that. And the writers and directors and producers took steps to, you know, solidify their own positions and try and protect themselves. But in the final analysis the situation now is even worse than what it was before.

For example, there is a floor under the cost of production in Hollywood. A typical one hour dramatic television episode, episodic television it is called, episodic television in one hour format takes somewhere between 600,000 and 800,000 dollars an hour to produce. Well, if a network who presents that program is limited in terms of the number of minutes of commercial time, say 10 or 12 minutes an hour. I think 12 minutes is about standard now. And if they can only charge, say, 60 or 65,000 a minute, you see, for their commercial time, because the... the amount they charge is ... is based directly on the ratings the show gets, then that means that the networks have a certain minimum floor, producers have a certain minimum floor and below that floor they cannot afford to produce programming.

Well, the situation is that the union demands and the studio, the building operating costs to the studios and things of that nature has pushed this floor up every single year to a higher and higher figure. And advertising revenues have not kept pace with this. So now the networks are in the position where if a show doesn't garner those ratings in the first three or four weeks, they... they are forced to pull it off the air. The producers are so vulnerable, because they don’t know from one minute to the next whether the show is going to be on the air for another week or not, as... as some of our people may know. They are shooting Seven Brides for Seven Brothers right here in our vicinity. I was just down there today talking to some of the people on the crew and I said, “Has the show been picked up for another 13 weeks?”

And the guy said... one of the guys says, “Well,” he says, “I don’t know,” he said, “We are just kind of producing the show from one week to the next,” he says. “They just ordered a couple of more scripts so,” he said, “whether it is going to last or not...”

Well, that is typical, you see? Because a show by virtue of its ratings is hovering around the break even point, you see. And very simply the... the show is not meeting the market needs of the public and the resultant revenues are not showing up on the books the way they should.

[Rushdoony] Now how vulnerable, then, would the networks be if a fourth network were established by Christians?

[Saunders] Well, it is very simple in terms of the numbers. All one would have to do would be to take somewhere between one and a half and two points away from each of the three networks.

[Rushdoony] That is from their audience.

[Saunders] Yes.

[Rushdoony] One and a half to two percent of their audience.

[Saunders] One and half... not ... not percentage wise, but ratings points, ok. Take one and a half to two rating points away from ABC, CBS and NBC and you effectively reduce the maximum income that those networks can realize in terms of advertising revenue, below the cost of production. Now you don’t even have to be... now, see, you don’t have to seriously challenge the three major networks in terms of their ratings. For example, you look at... at Variety and... and the ratings and... and the week when they are... when the weekly Nielsons come out or the over night Nielsons or what have you. And you see that... that ratings of 10 and 11, 12, 13, 15, those are the nominal numbers. All right?

Now a fourth network doesn’t have to be a network which has a 12, 14 or 15 rating in terms of a given hour of programming. All it has got to be is six or a seven.

[Rushdoony] And that would wipe out the others.

[Saunders] And that would...

[Rushdoony] ...economically.

[Saunders] That would destroy the whole economic foundation.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Saunders] ... of each of the three major networks, because they simply cannot produce and market the programming for the kinds of dollars.... for... for the... for anything less than what they are doing right now.

[Rushdoony] So they are extremely vulnerable.

[Saunders] No question about it.

[Rushdoony] And the problem with our side is that... well, one of the things that has irritated me, John, since I was a young man, that everybody in our camp, Christian and or conservative is always bewailing what is going on and they are never doing anything about it.

[Saunders] Yeah.

[Rushdoony] They are not ready to implement the action. That is one great evil. A second great evil is that they have no respect for thinking. So we are trying to produce thinking here and this is an example of it. We are ... we are called a think tank.

The opposition respects thinking and finances it. Our side does not.

Now, what you have said here is very important. It tell us how we can topple the present networks and do it very simply if the people in our camp are ready to put up money to do it.

[Saunders] You see, the... the thing that really has to be brought home is that not only are we talking about a philosophy and... and a ... a theological perspective, a religious perspective, we are being open and... and epistemologically self conscious about it, I guess is the term we should use. But the point is that not only is it viable and true and right that this should be done, but there is a marketplace out there for this particular philosophy. Every single poll taken in the last 10, 11 almost, well, there is a couple of them that even go back I think 12, 13 years. Every single poll which is attempted to gauge the philosophic perspective and world view of the American people has indicated time and time again that they are not getting from the current media producers the product they want and that they would prefer a different kind of product.

Now the conservatives, as we... as we ... as we have said time and again, time and again, the conservatives constantly bewail the fact that there is such a liberal domination in terms of the media, not only in news and documentary programs and... but in the... the philosophy which underlies the dramatic programming.

But the conservative himself who has the market place on his side and, let’s face it, the conservatives have the majority of the major dollars in America right now. The only way the liberals survive is by hoodwinking and stealing the conservatives’ money in the first place. And ... but the conservative has the market place and he has the dollars to do it, but he will not commit his dollars. He will not put his money where his mouth is, to be very, very blunt about it. And as a result of that, the conservative position today has no hearing whatsoever in the media and when it does, when any conservative appears on television the conversation is structured in such a way that the conservative view will never get a hearing, you see?

And all the conservatives have to realize is as they put their money where their mouth is and they set about to produce a consistently conservatively based product that it will... that the market place will respond to that product and it will put its money where its mouth is, you see? All the conservative has to realize is the fact that he is going to have to ... have to quit preaching and start teaching and doing those things that the has been preaching for so long.

[Rushdoony] Yes. You know, I have had some very interesting experiences along that line. About 10, 12 years ago there was a premier in a country in Asia who was on our mailing list. Subsequently his government was toppled and I don’t even know if he is alive and I have forgotten what his name was. The thing that amazed him was the difference between the kind of thinking he encountered when he got our material and when he met with some conservative Americans who apparently represented a broad strata in this country and what he found representing this country.

I am talking with some hesitation, because I don’t want to say too much here, because we also have a similar situation now in that we were called today to provide materials to the president of another country whose problem is that he is severely misrepresented here. And he sees two kinds of Americas. And one governs the other and the other does nothing. So this is the problem we face as we deal with the networks and with the film industry today. It would be so easy to topple them.

[Saunders] No question about it. It... if... if ... if people ... for example in American history. Now we just recently saw a television series labeled as a major media event, The Blue and the Gray, ok? Now based upon my own knowledge of... of film and television, they more than likely spent a million and a half, maybe two million dollars an hour, ok, and I don’t remember whether it as six hours or eight hours or whatever it was in order to produce The Blue and the Gray, which represented itself as a ... a... a... an accurate portrayal of the events of the war between the states. In reality it was an oversimplified, gross distortion of the events during the war between the states and I found it very, very interesting that the only time it ever showed any member of the Confederacy it showed them in a very, very negative light. It never... it gave to Robert E. Lee, one of the most important figures in American history and one of the most ignored, it gave to Robert E. Lee, I think, some total of about four minutes of screen time and then that was when he was defeated.

Now the facts in the case are that that particular television series was shallow. It was asinine in the way it dealt with the basic problems in the war between the states which have never been dealt with publicly in the media. It totally failed in terms of historical accuracy.

I had people call me from all over the country after that show was on saying, “Do you realize that we never have Thanksgiving until after 1863?” And yet in the television show a guy says during one period that is supposed to have taken place in 1862, “I will see you at Thanksgiving dinner.”

And there was time and time again gross historical inaccuracy, gross misrepresentations of facts. And this particular piece of tripe is labeled as a major media event.

[Rushdoony] Well, I think some of those who are listening might be interested in the fact that you have quote a circle of actors, screen writers and a number of the best technicians that you have put together and all you need is a go ahead. As a matter of fact, I think people will be interested to know that for a little better than a year you had me give a course on faith and doctrine to these writers so that their perspective would be better informed. It was a very successful course.

[Saunders] Yeah. I... I think ... I think that ... I don’t think that... that the majority of the people outside the media fully realize how many Christians there are, Christian based artists and how many there are in working today within the secular media that the humanistic media. The majority of them are unhappy, but there is no alternative place for them to work. And they... they continue to allow themselves to be intimidated by and to be used by the ... the Humanists and... and.... and the people who have the money already at the major networks and in reality there are more than enough Christians in terms of technical people, on camera, off camera, writers, philosophers, historians, marketing people, advertising agents. I could... the list goes on.

There are more than enough people out there who are qualified in terms of, you know, their credentials to staff and support a production effort to mount this fourth network and to do an excellent job of it. But the problem is that, again, there is no viable economic entity in existence to which they can turn.

[Rushdoony] Yes. And the sad fact is that when people on our side are interested in doing something, whether it is a short subject documentary or on film, they go to the people with notoriety who are best known because they belong to the opposition so it is the {?} and the Bagelmans and others like them who are put to work by our side and certainly they are not for us. They are not going to give us what we need.

[Saunders] Well, there is a very, very interesting phenomena that goes on in this situation. Time and again as I ... now I am... as you mentioned earlier, I am getting ready to do my third picture as a writer and director and I know that initially when I tried to get the support for some projects that I wanted to do, the major stumbling block I had to face was even from conservatives, ok, the major stumbling block I had to face was: What have you done?

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Saunders] Ok? Now at... now that sounds very, very humorous, but there is... there are thousands and thousands of people involved in the media who are constantly faced with that same kind of situation.

Example. You cannot get into he screen actor’s guild, ok, unless you have got a job, but you can’t get a job unless you have got a screen actor’s guild card. Do you see the catch 22, the vicious circle that is involved?

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Saunders] Now that is true of all the unions in Hollywood, ok? It is true of the whole establishment in Hollywood. You can’t get a picture funded unless you have gotten one funded before, ok? But you can’t get one... you know, and it goes on and on and on.

Well, the problem is, is that at some point in that whole vicious circle, someone has to step in as an act of faith, you see, and break that vicious chain. For example, if an actor wants to do a particular role in a film and a producer agrees to put him into the film, the producer gives the actor a letter of intent which says that the wants to use him. The actor then takes the letter to the screen actor’s guild, gets his card. Then he can go back to the producer and say, “Ok, I can go to work for you now.”

Now the producer has to step in and cast the actor and then... and then give him written notice of that fact before that chain is broken, that vicious circle.

Now the problem that boils down to this ... this whole mess if ... if the average person never gets the opportunity until he has already been or done, then quite simply if we carry that to its logical conclusion, nothing ever gets done. It is... I find it amazing that some of the greatest art in the history of man was done through patronage. You see? In which the patrons themselves never expected to be financially remunerated, ok, for supporting a particular artist. Now I am... I am not a patronage devotee. I believe that every work of art has to stand its own place, its own... down its own two feet in the market place. But I also find it very interesting that when I went to the conservatives they gave me the humanist argument for not getting involved in the funding of a project, because they didn’t believe that the conservative philosophy was marketable. They didn’t believe they could make money with it. So they went to the liberals and, of course, the liberals to took them to the cleaners. You see? And they ended up losing their money anyway, so... I thought, well, you might at least try to support some people in your own camp if you... if you... if you are going to lose the money, let’s do it in our own camp and not... not give it to the liberals.

[Rushdoony] One of the things that McClintick called attention to was that a very high priced film was popular, because it was easier to steal.

[Saunders] Yes.

[Rushdoony] If you made a 10 million dollar film, you could steal a million, but you couldn’t steal a million if it was a million dollar film.

[Saunders] That is very true.

[Rushdoony] Would you like to comment on that and the fact that the people who walk into Hollywood are regularly taken to the cleaners because they go to the wrong elements?

[Saunders] Well, it is... theft is a way of life in terms of the production of a motion picture project. I will give you an example of how it works t the lower levels. You just mentioned the big bucks, ok? The 10 percent right off the top which goes into the producer’s pocket along with his friends. But it happens all the way down through the ... the production company. For example, a production manager or unit manager, an associate producer, et cetera, one of those three people may have the responsibility for setting the location arrangements insofar as hotel accommodations are concerned when a motion picture television company goes on location.

At any rate, whoever is responsible for making the location accommodations, hotel, meals, et cetera, can easily go into a hotel manager and say, “We are a film production company. We want ... we want to rent x number of rooms for x number of weeks while we are here on location.”

And the hotel manager will say, “Fine. The corporate rate or the industrial rate or the discount rate, et cetera, is such and such, but since you are going to be here for such a long period of time at such a high rate of occupancy, we can lower that to such and such and such and such.”

The production manager will say, “Fine. Bill at your standard discount rate and you and I will split the difference.”

Now that kind of thing goes on constantly. And when you begin talking about multi million dollar picture budgets you find he vast rather considerable quantities, I should say, of money in the form of cash untraceable disappears into a myriad of rat holes. And that is one of the reasons why the cost of production is... is so high. The other reason, of course, is the union structure where you are forced to use, for example, drivers, ok? You are forced to use on certain productions, you are forced to use a certain number of drivers on a particular show. Most of those drivers will only work 20 minutes in the morning or 30 minutes in the morning, 20 or 30 minutes in the evening. The rest of the day they do nothing but sit in the back of the prop truck and play cards. All right?

Now the idea that a man could drive his own vehicle to a set and then work all day and drive it home, all right, is set aside because of union regulations. And they also say, “Well, we also have insurance considerations.”

Well, both of those are just false to the core. And another illustration of the philosophy at work in terms of the cost of production has to do with the camera rental. Now you see it a lot of times on film and television credits, cameras by Panaflex and Panavision. Now most people don’t know what that is, but that is a wide screen anamorphic lens system that mounts on a standard camera. Now this Panaflex camera system can rent... the package, the camera package can rent from anywheres from 2500 to 3500 dollars. Now you can buy for 16,500 dollars the same movement and housing in a more stable camera body, all right, but no one buys it. Why? Because Panaflex is the camera with all the bells and whistles and lights on it. Or you can rent that same 16,500 camera for 800 dollars a week, but because it is not as pretty as the Panaflex camera, even though it is a better camera—and I speak now to Mitchell BNCR. I own the Mitchell BNCR. It is a better camera movement than the Panaflex, but the mentality is not the quality of the equipment, you see, it is who else uses it.

Why, everyone uses Panavision equipment, so we use Panavision equipment. Even though it is three times as expensive and doesn’t do as good a job.

Now that kind of mentality it doesn’t take anyone with a.... with a degree in... in business from Harvard to understand that those kinds of cumulative effects build up and you can, right off the top of the bat you can probably cut most motion picture budgets by 25 to 30 percent right off the top.

[Rushdoony] In other words, the more expensive a camera or whatever it is...

[Saunders] Exactly.

[Rushdoony] ...the... the greater the appeal, because it is not quality, but an opportunity to get a rake off.

[Saunders] That is one... that is one of the classical... one of the classical modes of operating insofar as the whole film and television industry is concerned. And .... and naturally, of course, if... if some famous person uses a particular piece of equipment, that is also a primary criteria.

Again, the individual is not concerned with the specific quality of the tools he is using. He is... what is in it for me? And that is... that is... that is a basic modus operandi in the whole industry.

[Rushdoony] Well, it is no wonder that our politicians and bankers go home with a world of the media. They have a lot in common.

[Saunders] Yes, they do, as a matter of fact. It is... it is... it is... it is really interesting. For myself to sit back on a motion picture and television set and watch all this go on. Most actors never concern themselves with that kind of thing. The actor himself is only interested in how much he is getting in his per diem, you know, when he is away on location. And how much his salary is and how long his limo is and how big a home or mobile trailer he has got and things of that nature. Those are status symbols among actors. I would just as soon take the money. And... and I will use a standard dressing room. I don’t have any other needs for it.

But it... it is very, very interesting to sit back and watch this kind of thing go on insofar as a production is concerned, because it... all of them are guilty of it. In one form or another they are all guilty of it.

The union structure is built to protect its members and to pad their accounts and to pad their situations. For example, if you just did away with minimum wage guarantees insofar as the union contracts are concerned, you could probably cut the cost of production another eight to nine, 10 percent. For example, you have to guarantee certain union categories a minimum number of hours in terms of their salary, all right, whether they work them or not. All right. And those minimum hourly contracts are fairly standard throughout the industry. Otherwise, you don’t... the... the rationale is otherwise we can’t get the good people.

Now... now that is... that is... is... is the rationale behind it. And yet it is a manifest... it is... it... it should be self evident to anyone who sits back and looks at a motion picture company at work that they don’t necessarily have the good people and yet they are paying the premium salary.

[Rushdoony] You mentioned the fact that the number of new productions on television is decreasing marketing.

[Saunders] It was survival rate, their survival rate.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Saunders] They are producing more and ... and... and getting less on. That is what it does.

[Rushdoony] How about the number of films produced per year?

[Saunders] Well, the number of films being produced, of course, has been steadily declining for even longer than... than television. It is very strange that the argument that the film makers used to make when television first came along that it would destroy the film and television market, the same argument was used by the television people when cable came along, that it is going to destroy the television market when, in reality, the whole industry has been in decline since the 50s.

There is exceptions to that, of course. I am not denying the fact that there are exceptions to that, but you find the problem is not so much that... that the rate of production isn’t declining as it is the fact that the producer himself doesn’t know how to interpret the needs of the audience. And that is why there are fewer films being produced, because films today are less successful on the average, or at least that is what it says on one set of books. There are usually two or three sets of books with respect to a particular film production.

But films themselves are not as successful at the box office as they once were on average. Now you get the exceptions, again, from the shot gun approach. If you have one Star Wars that can make up for 30 or 40 bombs. You see, one Star Wars will pay for 30 or 40 bad motion pictures. In the old days the motion picture almost every motion picture had to stand on its own two feet in the market place and you had some... some tighter controls than you do today.

But the reason why there are fewer films being made is just because that there are fewer people capable of making the products the public wants. If... if... if the film makers could really make the product the public wants, then you would find the number of films being made doubling and tripling and quadrupling, because as people like the Star Wars, Close Encounters, et cetera and other kinds of films are evidence to the fact that there is no shortage of people to build these motion pictures, you see? That is... that is... that is the major flaw in the whole argument, you see? There is no shortage of bodies out there to go watch motion pictures, to put down the five or six or seven or 10 dollars. There is more than enough of those people. It is just that there is no... no one making this product the public wants to see.

[Rushdoony] So the same answer holds. We have got to have men on our side who are ready to go into every field. We can’t sit back and criticize. That doesn't change anything.

[Saunders] The problem is ... the problem is right now not a shortage of audience, not a shortage of need, there is no drought in the market place. There is not a shortage of funds. There is not a shortage of material. You can take every television production that has been made in the last 25 years and reinterpret it from a conservative basis and have a radically different program. There is no shortage of material. There is no shortage of talent. There is only a shortage of those people who are willing to ... to take their conservative, their conservative perspective, their biblical base, there is only a shortage of people who are willing to take themselves seriously as conservatives and as Christians.

[Rushdoony] One of my gripes in this area is that when anyone on our side gets into the field, they substitute the cause for quality. In other words, if something Christian is produced it is usually very shoddy, cheap. It seems to feel that showing the cross periodically is a substitute for content.

[Saunders] Yes.

[Rushdoony] And it is all excused in the name that is for the Lord. Also very dishonest business practices.

[Saunders] Yes.

[Rushdoony] You know, somehow they are sanctified because it is for the Lord. I have seen some documentaries produced that were conservative, political documentaries. But, again, they were shoddy productions. The idea apparently was, let’s get as many important senators into this or important political figures so that everybody in Washington will be happy that somehow their face appeared in this documentary. And the result is you get, again, a very shoddy production.

We have had a few like that and I won’t mention the names of them, none lately, because none have been produced in the past few years. But a lack of quality seems to characterize what is done on our side.

[Saunders] Well, that is, again, because of the... of a failure to see the full implications of doctrine insofar as the Christian is concerned. The modern Christian no longer holds to the... to the reformational view in terms of the priesthood of believers, man is a prophet, priest and king.

He holds only to the idea that it is just enough to preach the gospel. It doesn’t have to be done with quality, because quality is no longer seen as a reflection of man’s position with God.

In... in earlier history the quality of a man’s workmanship said something about the quality of a man’s relationship to God. The modern Christian is totally pragmatic. All he has got to do is show the cross line, as you said, in... in every other frame or show it symbolically with a piece of light reflection in a... in a... in a cross in a lens. He has got to quote the Bible every... every two or three minutes and he has got to have the standard four spiritual laws concept and I am... you know, I am not negating the evangelical motivation in a lot of these films. But the problem is... is that that is not the end all and be all of the Christian world view. Evangelism is not our only calling. Our calling is to interpret every single moment of life from a Christian foundation. And it doesn’t matter whether we are talking about politics or whether we are talking about art or whether we are talking about education or economics or everything... anything else. Every facet of life has to be reinterpreted from the Christian foundation, from a full orbed, comprehensive, Christian foundation.

Now, contrast that with Humanism. The Humanist doesn’t come out and start demanding at the end of his... at the end of the Incredible Hulk, we don’t see an evangelical message there which says, “Renounce your Christian concepts and ideas and accept the Humanist manifesto to chapter four verse eight.” We don’t see any of that, you see? But the facts in the case are that the show is still nevertheless interpreted in every single frame and every single moment from the Humanist perspective.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Saunders] Now there is a difference between Christian art and Christian base art. Christian art is self consciously Christian. It constantly talks about being Christian. It ... it quotes the Scripture. It goes through the standard evangelical mode of operating and... and the ... and the whole nine yards. Christian base art on the other hand interprets the whole of reality from the Christian foundation.

We may never hear of... of a verse of gospel, of... of ... of the Scriptures in Christian based art. We may never see the cross, et cetera, but ... and we can deal with any subject, but we can carry that subject to its logical consequences from the Christian base of perspective.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Saunders] For example, we don’t... we can never let an abortionist off the hook. You see? And if the Humanist deals with abortion, he always makes it look in his films as if the person who had the abortion had no other choice. All right?

Christian based, on the other hand would point out that the person did have another choice. Christian based art would also take the abortionist to a logical consequence of his ideas and force him to deal with those, i.e., infanticide, euthanasia, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Another example. Recently there was a film on television here a while back, a movie of the week with George Peppard in which he played the rising and successful architect who... and who was having an affair with a married woman who had three children. All right? And throughout this whole movie they talked about love and how much they loved each other. But at the end of the film he went back to building his building and she went back to his home.

Now my wife and I sit there and look at that film and we said, “Why did they split up? There is... if... one... they don’t have any definition of what love is.”

From the Christian perspective they were committing adultery which is failure to keep the law. The Scripture says that if you love me, keep my commandments. That is the absolute biblical definition of love. Well, when that definition has been set aside, then why... on what motivation should they have ever broken up the relationship? Why not cheat? They are already breaking the law. They have already redefined love.

But we have allowed the Humanists, you see, to redefine the whole of reality. We have allowed him to redefine love in the media. We allow him to redefine the nature and purpose of civil government. We allow him to redefine education, to redefine history. And then Christians and conservatives sit around and complain all day because the ... the Humanist is... is portraying in the media all of these wrong images and concepts and ideas of what Conservatism is all about.

I saw a television program here just a few days ago in which the Christian was portrayed, always, of course, as a bigot who was prejudiced, who was biased, who was probably a neo Nazi or a Fascist, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, you see? Well, now that is certainly not the characteristic and the basic definition of what a Christian physician is all about, but because the Christians are not involved in the media, that is the only stereotypical image that the liberal will ever present.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Saunders] And the conservatives have no one to blame, but themselves for that consequence in the arts.

[Rushdoony] Yes, well our time is just about up. What you have said, John, is very, very true, because too often when we get Christian art, all you really have is humanistic art with a Christian label put on it.

[Saunders] Amen.

[Rushdoony] And a few Bible verses sprinkled into it. But as far as its character is concerned, it belongs to the enemy.

But the Humanists don’t label their material. The present the faith. And what we need to do is to present the faith instead of some labels.

Well, I hope somebody out there will take this seriously and do something about it and start praying about and maybe we can get some action here and see a fourth network, see some good productions in the area of film.

By the way, I neglected to mention that John’s background is theoretical physics.

Well, it has been good to have this time with you again and we would be interested in your reactions to this Easy Chair as well as others.

Thank you for listening and we will be with you again in two weeks.

[Voice]

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