An American Carol

{{title-italics}}{{Film}}
{{cquote|Far from lampooning the Left, "Carol" insults conservatives by presuming that they are so simple as to be won over by fat jokes and flatulence. But the audience, imagining itself to be persecuted by [[Hollywood values|Hollywood]], is so grateful to be flattered by Zucker and company that they chuckle obediently at every cheap laff. Conservatives, once the scourge of coarsening culture, are happy to play crass as long as the joke is on liberals.|||Michael Brendan Doherty, ''The American Conservative''<ref>[http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/film-rights/ Doherty, "Film Rights", October 20, 2008.]</ref>}}

'''''An American Carol''''', also known as '''''Big Fat Important Movie''''',<ref group=note>Seriously. This is the title adopted in the UK and other countries outside North America (where the release has largely been straight to DVD). See for example the Amazon [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Big-Fat-Important-Movie-DVD/dp/B002AFPZN0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1262632863&sr=8-1 listing.]</ref> is a witless attempt at [[propaganda]] by David Zucker, the politically [[Liberalism|liberal]] turned [[Conservatism|conservative]] co-director of ''Airplane!''<ref group=note name=fhigh>Also known as ''Flying High!''</ref> and director of ''The Naked Gun'', ''Scary Movie 3'' and ''Scary Movie 4''. The film stars a predominately right-wing cast including Kevin Farley, Kelsey Grammer, [[Jon Voight]], James Woods, Robert Davi, Trace Adkins, Dennis Hopper (his last film before his death in 2010, by the way), [[Kevin Sorbo]], and Leslie Nielsen.

==Plot==
Film director/left-wing activist Michael Malone ([[Michael Moore|subtle]], huh?) is campaigning to abolish Independence Day (OMG!), citing the history of America as [[American Indian Holocaust|being offensive]] and [[Slavery|riddled with violence and injustice]]. Malone also has a nephew whom he treats horribly, just because he's a U.S. Navy officer and is shipping out to the [[Iraq War|Persian Gulf]] (because, you know, all left-wingers hate soldiers). Later, Malone is visited by three [[ghost]]s: the spirits of General Patton, [[John F. Kennedy]],<ref group=note>Apparently Zucker is unaware JFK was, if anything, to the left of Obama (although he was more of an interventionist than today's liberals, Kennedy's foreign policy actions were made with a [[Cold War]] mindset). JFK becomes an even odder choice when you consider that the beginning of the escalation in [[Vietnam War|Vietnam]] and the {{wpl|Bay of Pigs Invasion|Bay of Pigs fiasco}} occurred on his watch (neither [[Understatement|a sterling case for military intervention]]), or that JFK ([[Mutually assured destruction|fortunately]]) [[Diplomacy|''didn't'']] [[Nuclear war|resort]] to [[World War III|war]] over the [[Cuba]]n {{wpl|Cuban Missile Crisis|Missile Crisis.}}</ref> and [[George Washington]] try to change Malone's view of America and tell him that war is sometimes a necessary evil. 

After seeing things like a world where [[Abraham Lincoln|Lincoln]] didn't fight the [[American Civil War|Civil War]]<ref group=note>We don't have to elaborate on the [[irony]] of a [[red state]]r agreeing with Honest Abe.</ref> and seeing the New York church where Washington was inaugurated as president filled with dust from the [[9/11|destruction of the World Trade Center]], Malone becomes a changed man and [[Big Brother|comes to]] [[Jingoism|fully love America]].

==Reactions==
In common with movies 
with a conservative point of view
 that are very bad, it received generally poor reviews—at least from [[liberal]]s, because anyone giving the movie a bad review is [[Persecution complex|automatically classed as liberal]]. While the evil media elite like ''[[The New York Times]]'' lambasted ''An American Carol'' for its poor writing, sloppy pace and lazy acting,<ref>[http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/movies/04caro.html Nathan Lee, "Comic Right-Wing Broadside (Very Broad)," ''The New York Times'', October 4, 2008.]</ref> ''true'' bulwarks of taste like [[Rush Limbaugh]], [[Sean Hannity]], [[Glenn Beck]], and [[Mark Levin]] have seen the film and crowed about it being a comedy for conservatives. Even the notable ''Chicago Tribune'' called it a film "for the right wing."<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20081208004337/http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/ent/stories/DN-carol_1003gl.ART.State.Edition1.2699bd1.html/ Review by Michael Phillips on October 3, 2008, reprinted in ''The Dallas Morning News''.]</ref> Truly this is a film for the ages, a great mark in the history of [[satire]].

Michael Moore was shown a clip of the film while guest-starring on ''Larry King Live'' and mentioned that he had heard of the film. When asked how he felt about it, Moore merely said that he hoped it would be funny. Buzzkill!

===Bombs away===
The critics weren't the only ones underwhelmed by Zucker's [[wingnut]] ''magnum 
bogus
 
dopus
 opus''. Audiences responded by staying away in droves. ''Carol'' landed at the box office like a turd at a cotillion. With a production budget of $20 million, it needed a box office take of $40 million to break even. It finished with $7,013,191.<ref>[http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=americancarol.htm Box Office Mojo ''An American Carol'' page]</ref> Conservatives, [[reality-based community|characteristically unwilling to limit themselves to a judicious study of discernible reality]], immediately realized ''Carol'' flopped not because it was unfunny, but because [[persecution complex|those mean ol' liberals sabotaged it.]]<ref>[https://www.huffpost.com/entry/vast-leftwing-conspiracy_b_132988 Vast Leftwing Conspiracy as ''An American Carol'' Goes to the Dogs?], Lisa Derrick, ''[[The Huffington Post]]'', November 8, 2008.</ref>

==WTF much?==
The overall poor quality of the film is disturbing for one of the brains behind ''Airplane!'',<ref group=note name=fhigh /> as the jokes aren't even funny and the acting hovers between the levels of "C-minus" and "phoning it in." This film wasn't even screened for critics, which is understandable. Apart from the fact that most of the alleged comedy comes from the poorly-disguised Michael Moore "parody" either getting smacked in the face or eating too much,<ref group=note>And El Rushbo didn't seem to mind.</ref> the steep conservative slant shoots the movie in the foot, cleans and bandages the wound, and then shoots it again several times. Between the [[stereotype|stereotypical]] conservative view of liberal ideology, tasteless evocation of 9/11 and the ridiculous alternate Americas depicted (billboards for “Victoria’s [[Burka]],” anyone?), Zucker's piece of wingnut [[propaganda]] joined his ''Scary Movie 4'' in the bargain bin at the back of movie stores, and ''An American Carol'' is the last feature-length movie he's directed to date. And even though Michael Moore took the film good-naturedly, Charles Dickens' corpse probably hit 10,000 rpm when it came out.

==External links==
*[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CYSGCoflAA An American Carol - the trailer] (okay, so that bitch slap he gets at the end is pretty funny)
*[http://outlawvern.com/2009/01/11/an-american-carol/ One particular "review"]
*[http://www.avclub.com/article/america-hating-flag-burning-commie-pinko-case-file-72981 ''AV Club'''s My World of Flops] on the film
*[https://www.flophousepodcast.com/2009/03/the-flop-house-episode-33-an-american-carol/ The Flop House] discuss the film.

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note|2}}

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

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[[Category:Culture wars]]
[[Category:Films]]
[[Category:Propaganda]]

Categories: Culture wars, Films, Propaganda