Actors Say Hollywood's Being 'Pressured' to Make War Movies

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By Jim Burns CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer December 13, 2002

(CNSNews.com) - Two American actors reportedly said the Bush administration is pressuring Hollywood to make war movies and violent films to "push" its war machine. They allegedly made the comment in Havana, Cuba, while attending a film festival.

Radio Havana reported Thursday that actors Harry Belafonte and Danny Glover told a press conference there is a struggle within the U.S. movie industry for "quality" versus movies "that bring in large amounts of money."

They pointed out that Hollywood is presently controlled by huge corporations that determine what movies audience will or will not see. According to Radio Havana, they also said the war movies and violent films that are now in fashion are "molded by the interests of the Pentagon and the White House."

Belafonte and Glover also told reporters that they were among a group of actors who recently signed an "open letter" to President Bush calling on him to stop his war plans.

Glover reportedly said he was "against a war whose victims will be Iraqi women and children, who have already suffered enough through bombings and the blockade."

Belafonte told reporters that, "More and more Americans are opposed to the war machine driven by (President) George W. Bush." He was quoted as saying, "The (anti-war) movement is growing among intellectuals and university students and expanding to many other sectors as well."

Belafonte added that the Sept. 11 tragedy provided an "excuse" for Bush to move ahead with plans "to control the world militarily, economically and culturally."

It is not the first time Belafonte has criticized the Bush administration. Last October, on a San Diego radio talk show, he criticized Secretary of State Colin Powell, comparing him to a house "slave."

"Colin Powell's committed to come into the house of the master," Belafonte said. "When Colin Powell dares to suggest something other than what the master wants to hear, he will be turned back out to pasture.

"In the days of slavery, there were those slaves who lived on the plantation and were those slaves that lived in the house. You got the privilege of living in the house if you served the master ... exactly the way the master intended you to serve him," Belafonte said.

-- Anonymous, December 13, 2002


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