Silver-Listed

There is a very annoying word that Hollywood conservatives insist on uttering over and over again. That word is "blacklist". The scenario is that Hollywood is controlled by Evil Communist Fascist Muslim Nazi Liberals who make damn sure that no one to the right of Chairman Mao ever gets to work in show business. I assume this is done by teams of leftist operatives constantly combing coffee shops and night clubs in the L.A. area and approaching aspiring actors/directors/whatever to casually ask them their views on issues like taxation and school choice. If they say anything like, "Golly, never put that much thought to it. I suppose people who work hard for their money should be allowed to keep it," then BAM! they're waiting table for the rest of their freaking lives thinking to themselves, "My audition for the role of Seth Rogen's drinking buddy was brilliant. I know the director was impressed by how I could fart and puke at will. Why didn't they cast me?"

It's been a few weeks since I first wrote about Parcbench.com and, frankly, I'd almost forgotten it existed. I couldn't tell you why I looked it up today. Maybe I sensed that something there would annoy me which would mean I was in a mood to be annoyed. I never realized I was a masochist, but that's a subject for another day. Anyway, sure enough, I look down their front page and see the dreaded B-Word.

Just posting on Facebook prompts fear in some, “Will this cost me work?” Imagine how Ron Silver felt before he gave his speech in 2004 supporting President George W. Bush...

"After I made that speech … Hollywood and Broadway dried up on me," Silver told radio station magnate William O’Shaughnessy. "The phone stopped ringing . . . nada . . . not a thing."

Let me qualify this by saying I hate to speak ill of the dead, especially when "the dead" in question is Ron Silver. He was a special talent who is missed by me and the rest of the world. That being said...

OH COME ON! Seriously? Ron Silver got blacklisted? I remember not being able to turn the TV on between 2004 and the day Silver died without seeing him on it. Who would write crap like this? Why that would be Bob Fois, a name that invokes images of absolutely nothing because you've never heard of him before. His Parcbench Profile tells you absolutely nothing about him which makes me think he isn't real. I suspect the folks at Parcbench, instead of actual human writers, use something called Microsoft's Right Wing Bloggetizer 2009. You just punch in whatever subject you want and it automatically starts talking about how liberals, working mainly in the interests of Osama bin Laden, have somehow caused whatever the hell they're talking about to become a threat to America.

If a prominent and talented actor like Ron Silver was the victim of discrimination because of his politics, I suppose I can no longer deny that there is a serious problem of Hollywood conservatives being the victims of leftist bigotry. This has made me nostalgic for the wonderful acting of Ron Silver. I think I'll go check out his IMDB profile to get some ideas for Ron Silver Netflix rentals.

Those of you who clicked that link see the claims made by Bob Fois/Bloggetizer don't hold up to scrutiny. In the 4+ years that spanned his 2004 speech to the date of his death, Ron Silver had around 20 acting jobs in movies and television, including two episodes of Law and Order and ELEVEN damn episodes of The West Wing, a show made by liberal advocate Aaron Sorkin. Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick, don't we all wish we could be victims of a "blacklist" like that? When Silver said his phone stopped ringing, he must have meant he was getting jobs through email and texting.

Oh, but when Silver said, "Hollywood and Broadway dried up on me," maybe he was just focusing on Broadway and mixed in Hollywood by accident. It's true, Silver did not work at all on Broadway after he made that speech. In fact, his last role on the Great White Way was his Tony Award winning role in David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow. If you happened to click that link, you know that his last performance in that play DECEMBER 31, 1988. For the last 20 years of his life, he didn't set foot on a Broadway stage due, I assume, to the fact that theatrical producers somehow knew 16 years in advance that he would someday campaign for a Republican President.

Honestly, I wish a claim of this nature would be made that didn't take me 30 seconds of research to demolish. Fois/Bloggetizer has access to the same internet that I do and he could have easily checked all this garbage before presenting this work of fiction as the ultimate piece of bright, shining evidence that Hollywood is run by mindless liberal automatons who, due to a glitch in their programming, keep insisting on giving jobs to outspoken conservatives like Jon Voight and Kelsey Grammer. Had he lived, you can bet your ass Ron Silver would still be working but that could just be because even the movie business's evil liberal overlords couldn't keep down the guy who set the acting world on fire with brilliant portrayal as the villain in Timecop.