The Senescent Man

Today's (Wednesday's) The Wall Street Journal Opinion Journal offers an excellent piece on the silence of Hollywood on the grotesque murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, whose short film "Submission," about the adverse treatment of women in Islam, became the basis for his murder by Islamo-fascists. Roger L. Simon, too, has been noticing this strange paradox since the death of van Gogh, who is related to the great Vincent. You wouldn't have called van Gogh a conservative - he was cynical and critical about all religious faiths, but was right to point out the universally recognizable unjustice done to women in some versions of Islam - or at least this aberrant ones which appear to be driving the geopolitical rhelm these days. The price van Gogh paid was his life. Hollywood is strangely silent.

Our view is that this is an interesting position for the normally outspoken liberals in Hollywood. In the 1920's and 30's, many in Hollywood, so opposed to injustice against the little guy, that many became overt supporters of Lenin and Stalin to the point of being blacklisted. This new Hollywood generation are a little circumscpect, perhaps, at least about their precious derrieres.

Read the whole thing.