NBC/CNN vs. GOP!? THE HILLARY CLINTON BIOPIC STUPIDITY!

You know, I really do try to stay away from politics when it comes to this blog. My political views are no secret to anyone of course, but frankly as entertaining as politics can be sometimes, for better, and often for worse I don't really care to deal with it, but sometimes politics forces it's hand into my world, which they should know by now not to do by now, but they still insist, on being they're petty little selves.

So, there's a Hillary Clinton miniseries "in development" at NBC; this was announced by Bob Greenblatt, the Entertainment Chairman at NBC-Universal at the latest TCA Press Tour. By the way, he's not the only one, with a Hillary Clinton biopic project, "in development". There's one by South Korean director Young Il Kim "in development", another by "The Spectacular Now" director James Ponsoldt "in development", and CNN's preparing a documentary that "in development", and I'm pretty sure if I looked a little further I'd find about seven or eight other filmmakers or studios with similar Hillary Clinton projects "in development". "In development", means, basically what it sounds like, they're developing it. It's not even at the script level actually, this is basically the "I have an idea" level, and the idea has been bought by NBC, or in this case, it seems to have been NBC's idea so they already own it, but either way, they got "Frozen River" writer/director Courtney Hunt to work on the script and Diane Lane has agreed to star in it, which considering it's years away, both of those talented women may easily be replaced by the time this ever gets made, if it ever does.

Why would NBC want to make a Hillary Clinton biopic? Well, why not? She's an important, popular yet polarizing figure in our modern time, and NBC's fourth in the ratings, and a push towards event TV, especially considering how well competition like PBS, HBO, Showtime, History, and other channels have been successful at movies and miniseries this past couple years, it's logical for NBC to get back on the bandwagon. I'm not gonna pretend it would've been my idea, but hell, anything that might take "The Biggest Loser" off the air for a week that, you know, isn't dumber than "The Biggest Loser", being on NBC, I'm not exactly gonna complain, nor care that much. Frankly, I couldn't care less about a Hillary biopic and I wasn't going to until the GOP lost what little was left of their minds over it.

For those of you who haven't heard, the leaders of the RNC had a meeting in Boston (Yes, they got together, and had a meeting over this! Over this!), regarding NBC's project, as well as CNN's documentary project, directed by Oscar-winner Charles Ferguson, (CNN, btw, probably a coincidence, is currently headed by Jeff Zucker, the former Programming Chief at NBC) were the leadership voted unanimously that NBC and CNN be barred from promoting or preparing the 2016 Republican Presidential Primary debates, with cooperation from the FNC, three friggin' years away, if they go forward with the programs. Which is moronic, 'cause if there's anything networks would love to counter-program it's when every other network is covering something political and they can put on sheep dancing in pigtails and practically win the night, so on that note it's not a punishment Or if I was NBC, I'd just finish the movie, and air it during the primary debates. BTW, they aren't exactly stopping them from covering the debates, they're basically restricting their ability to put on a debate during Primary season. So, FOX and CBS and ABC, and probably something stupid like, HLN, will host GOP Primary debates that are officially sanctioned by the FNC but NBC and CNN won't, which since there's about thirty other networks and news sources NBC can use, and the possibility that candidates could ignore the ban as well, this is basically like throwing a dart hoping it'll kill an ocean. They can't ban them from covering them, but it basically means they won't be covering things first, or hosting a Republican Primary debate or have a direct impact on the debates. Hopefully they'll come to their senses, 'cause the one thing you don't need, is less of an audience to convey your message to, so it's not a good time to piss off the Cable News Network, nor NBC-Universal. (BTW, Fox Television Entertainment, who is in talks with NBC to produce the project, isn't apart of this ban, so it's clearly political, or else, they would've banned Fox News and all of Newscorp as well) This is all over a project, that probably might not have gotten made to begin with. This famed Hillary Clinton biopic has been tossed around, all over Hollywood for years, there's dozens of them supposedly; it's becomes another Nicolas Tesla project. (Tesla, was Edison's chief competition in his day, and he's a pretty interesting fellow, so many people have supposedly been wanting to make a film about him all the time, it never comes about, it's often code for a supposed project that being abandoned or never gets out of development, every studio has a few of them.) Hillary has basically been the latest of these projects, which again, by the way, they don't know exactly what/how they're going to portray Hillary Clinton, especially the CNN one directed by Ferguson, who isn't known for puff-pieces; he did the Oscar-winning documentary "Inside Job" about Wall Street and "No End in Sight" about Iraq remember.

Besides that, what they're basically saying is that, there message and policies are so weak that, if NBC spends four hours showing a movie about a supposed Democratic Presidential frontrunner, that- What? Again something we don't know yet,- (Ugh!) It's just so stupid. I mean, this is what they care about? Really? This doesn't even make my give-a-shit list, this makes theirs?! Now I have to watch it when it gets made; I was hoping to avoid it like I avoid most TV movies, so thanks RNC, you've made NBC "Must See TV" again. The only Democrat that frankly give a damn about the project is Hillary herself, who isn't involved in any of these projects, and doesn't want to be, 'cause of the many negative ways she can be portrayed at possibly, the worst possible times for her, and basically, despite objections from NBC News itself, NBC's probably gonna go through with the damn project now, 'cause now there's interest you've created! Now we have to see the damn thing 'cause of the attention it's getting.

In preparation for this blogpost, I went to look up any controversy on similar political television movies that that Democrats would be critical about to see their reactions, or took action and/or threatened to take action against. The first one that came to mind was Showtime's film "The Reagans", starring James Brolin as the conservative icon. I thought, maybe Democrats complained about it, but it turns out; the complaints were from the Republicans. In fact, it became a Showtime movie, after their complaints scrapped the original plan to air it on CBS. Oh, and the person who made that decision at CBS/Viacom, was Robert Greenblatt, who's now developing the Hillary Clinton bio, and btw, it was a pretty big hit for Showtime and earned a bunch of Emmy Award nominations. They thought they'd paint Reagan in too negative a light. You see, this isn't about Hillary or Reagan, this is about their paranoia. That's really what this is about. I mean, seriously, how much damage to them can a movie about Hillary cause? What do they think is gonna happen? Most people who don't like Hillary aren't gonna have their minds changed, and that's if they see it and people who do, probably won't either, and again, if they even bother seeing, if it even gets made. I predict it will, it's more likely to now 'cause of the shit, but right now, "in development", so who knows. If HBO had a news division, you think they would've complained about "Game Change" too? It seems like they would've. If they were to actually take a second and realize how petty and absurd it is to even bother in any way, they'd see how ridiculous it is to even bother caring about a supposed biopic that isn't even made yet. (I hope they would anyway) This isn't counting your chickens before they hatch, this is frying the eggs before buying the farm.

I don't think I have to explain the dozens of other ways the GOP have proven themselves to be completely out of touch they are with seemingly everything in the modern world over the past,- I don't even have to go that far into the past actually, but like I said before, this isn't a political blog, and somebody more qualified than me has probably provided that list somewhere else on the internet, but that said, this is what they do, they find something that may remotely have something political apart from their message, and they attack, not even bothering or caring to realize it's relevancy, or lack thereof. It's nothing new, they attack everything including movies and TV shows, from Hearst attacking Orson Welles to Dan Quayle attacking Murphy Brown. I don't remember them actually trying to ban the networks from being apart of their debates before, although I'm sure this isn't the first time they at least considered it, although it's certainly the earliest that they've taken such useless anticipatory actions. (It's also about the only kind of restriction they could've done) If I was NBC right now, I'd do what Greenblatt did with "The Reagans", get it done quickly, and air it immediately. If not on NBC, then on USA or Bravo or whatever-the-hell other channel they own. Put it on Telemundo if they want, it doesn't matter, 'cause now people are gonna watch it for sure. I mean, if you're a member of a political party that's afraid of a stupid TV movie, to the point that they'll make a move as trivial as barring networks from  putting on officially sanction GOP Primary debates, three years from now,- I mean seriously, this doesn't come to the level of boycotting something, this is just acting like a crybaby 'cause your best friend got a bike and you didn't, even though you didn't want one anyway, and it I was a Republican I'd be ashamed right now. Whatever your political views there's more important things in the world than what's on television, and frankly they're the people who are supposed  to do something about that. I'm here, I'll take care of television, believe me. In the meantime, it's another piece of selective time wasting for the GOP, and now it's caused me to waste time on writing this blogpost, so there you go.