The Culture War in Living Color

Beckerman from

The Record, North Jersey writes:

Ten-hutt! 'The culture war' is 2004's big entertainment story. Even, perhaps, the big news story.

Like the Civil War, it's a conflict that - supposedly - is tearing America apart. Also like the Civil War, it's a fight where both sides are identified by color. Only instead of blue and gray, it's blue and red: the blue states of the liberal 'elite' versus the red states of the heartland.

For the reds, it's a war that pits warm, upright, patriotic, God- fearing real Americans against smug, atheistic, tree-hugging, latte- sipping degenerates from the big city.

Blues, naturally, see it in different light. For them, it's best characterized as a battle between enlightened, humane, rational, progressive liberals and Bible-thumping, gun-owning, Toby Keith- listening troglodytes from flyover country.

In a happier world, the two sides might agree to disagree. But the world isn't very happy these days. In the midst of a fraught election year, and with the specter of terrorism rattling chains in the background, disagreement turned to acrimony, and acrimony turned to war, a war whose chief weaponry is pop culture.

Janet Jackson's breast, "Fahrenheit 9/11," the nails driven into James Caviezel's hands in "Passion of the Christ" - these are among the rockets, bombs and grenades lobbed into the cultural fray.

There was, of course, entertainment news that was "values neutral": the end of "Friends," the box-office triumphs of "Spider- Man 2," "Shrek 2" and "The Incredibles," the 11 Oscars for "Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King," the vastly amusing Ashlee Simpson lip-syncing debacle on "Saturday Night Live." But those were the exceptions.