Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles have more in common than you might assume: They both significantly influence society. The nation’s capital is home to the country’s lawmakers and Hollywood is home to the storytellers of our nation.
Conservatives spend a lot of time focusing on the first but less on the latter. Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) is trying to change that.
Speaking at Heritage earlier this week, Santorum noted that conservatives are often criticized for being out of touch with popular culture. “The problem in the past is that you have these people who create these Christian films — great message, terrible acting, horrible editing,” Santorum said. “They are not entertaining, they’re preachy.”
The primary goal of a movie should be to entertain. “That’s what people go to the movies for,” he said. Santorum believes that if you “entertain them and leave them a good message … people will show up.”
So how can conservatives entertain an audience while still promoting a principled message? Send your children to Hollywood. “I want people who see the world the way conservatives see the world in Hollywood,” Santorum declared.
In fact, Mark Rogers, Santorum’s former chief of staff, is currently in Hollywood “tying people with red state money to blue state creative energy.”
New members of Congress have come to the Capitol this week to get to work on the priorities of the American people: reduce the reach of the federal government, cut spending, lower the deficit, get people back to work. For conservative values to be espoused by Hollywood, conservatives must begin working in Hollywood.
While new leaders bring energy to the 112th Congress, creative people must also take that energy to Hollywood and begin entertaining America, as Santorum said, “to produce content that is … true and beautiful at the same time.”
