On this episode of the Bespoke Parenting Podcast, host Julie Gunlock talks to Christian Toto—an award-winning journalist, conservative film critic, and radio show co-host. Christian says he likes to offer the “right take on entertainment,” and he certainly does that on this week’s episode as he covers woke Hollywood, the changing viewing habits of today’s youth, and his own recommendations for parents. Tune in!


TRANSCRIPT

Julie Gunlock:

Hey everyone, I’m Julie Gunlock, your host for another episode of the Bespoke Parenting Hour. For those new to this program, this podcast is focused on how parents should custom-tailor their parenting style to fit what’s best for their families, themselves, and most importantly, their kids. Today I am excited to have on my friend Christian Toto. He is an award winning journalist. He’s a conservative film critic, and a radio show co-host. He also has his own podcast that I won’t name. No, I’m kidding, it’s called Hollywood in Toto podcast, he offers the right take on entertainment, and I’m hoping he’ll give us the right take today. Christian, thanks for coming on.

Christian Toto:

That’s a lot of pressure now. Come on.

Julie Gunlock:

You’ve got to be right.

Christian Toto:

That’s right.

Julie Gunlock:

So, Christian, tell everyone a little bit about yourself and how a nice conservative guy like you got involved in Hollywood.

Christian Toto:

Yeah, recovering art major, I switched over to journalism, kind of elbowed my way into the entertainment desk on a couple of newspapers. Then I moved from D.C. to Denver, where I am now, and kind of went solo and realize that the vast majority of people who review movies are left of center, and there’s no crime in that. But it seems like you could use a right of center voice, and there are very, very few people who do that. So, I decided to throw my little hat into the ring.

Julie Gunlock:

Well, it is important too that that perspective be heard particularly on something cultural, like Hollywood and the movies they produce. I think a lot of people are glad you’re out there.

Christian Toto:

Yeah. I think it’s more pronounced than ever on two fronts. One is that the people who are reviewing movies are leaning into their left of center biases in ways that they weren’t when I first started this business. Also, the product in Hollywood is leaning into its biases, which again, are similarly left of center, and sometimes dramatically so. Yeah, I think that half the country should be represented in the critical phase of things, and that’s where I come in.

Julie Gunlock:

Well, it’s interesting, since 2006, you’ve seen this lurch leftward and this inability to accept any different positions or thoughts. That is particularly true in Hollywood. Tell us a little bit about Hollywood … Like the numbers. Obviously with COVID, we’ve seen things released on these streaming services now, theaters … some of them are open, I’d actually like an update on that, if you know that. But how is Hollywood doing in terms of actually selling tickets and selling their products?

Christian Toto:

Well, before the pandemic, Hollywood was struggling a little bit on this end because they kept rising prices, the numbers weren’t awful, but the tickets sold were not what they wanted to see as far as the data goes. And of course, everything shut down, the pandemic, and now the theaters are bouncing back, I think they’ve bounced back a little more quickly than I imagined. But there’s certainly still a gap between the old and the new.

A couple of films have done very well like a Quiet Place Part II, in part because it’s entertaining. But a lot of times have underperformed dramatically, like Cruella. I think what’s happening is that the industry is really changing right now. I think a lot of the studios are thinking, “Gosh, we can go straight to streaming, we keep more of the revenue, we have more control over the product, we can push up our particular streaming channel of choice, and this could be the future.” I think that’s what may shake out. I don’t know if the theatrical model is going to go away. I don’t think so. But I suspect it maybe reserve more for the razzle dazzle blockbuster movies like Black Widow as opposed to more thoughtful films that are made for adult audiences.

So, we shall see, it’s a work in progress. But the numbers aren’t quite there yet, and most theaters from what I can tell are open, I think most have rebounded as far as they’re not shuttered anymore, but we’re seeing some movies that you would think would make X and Y at the box office making quite a bit less.

Julie Gunlock:

Yeah. I always feel like Hollywood doesn’t listen, it doesn’t listen to women like me who don’t want these big CGI, bright lights, loud noise movies. I know this is not going to come as a big shock, but I really like things like Downton Abbey. I mean, that’s so old now and I’m still referencing it because there really hasn’t been a replacement for that. I know that there have been Bridgerton and there’s some … Well, Bridgerton wasn’t exactly Downton Abbey, but they’re trying to repeat that.

But why does Hollywood never seem … for instance, Downton was incredibly popular, it’s a very safe show to watch with kids. Why is it that they always seem to go … I get it, blockbusters are very popular, but it does seem like there’s other markets out there that they never really are interested in tapping into. Is that true?

Christian Toto:

Well, I think that Hollywood is really conservative in the worst ways in that it’s very afraid to take risks and chances. That’s why they go with the reboots and sequels and remakes. I think from a theatrical level, something like Bridgerton, an original presentation is riskier than Fast and Furious Part 12. But some of the titles you’re mentioning are doing well on the home front. Downton Abbey is originally a TV show, they didn’t make a movie out of it, but that’s where it began, and Bridgerton was based on Netflix.

So, I think that you’re seeing a split between interesting stories that speak to different audiences where you can watch them at home, and then what do they create on the theatrical level? Which is often big and loud and quite often dumb, honestly. I don’t mind that at times, but it does rot my brain other times.

Julie Gunlock:

Well, it does. You look at the original Star Wars franchise, now, I know there’s a lot of criticism of them, and I know about this whole subculture that thinks that Hollywood went in the toilet when the Star Wars franchise came up, and that started the blockbuster, the Hollywood only caring about these big moneymakers. But the original franchise did have some major religious and mythological themes, and this idea of truly good and bad, and then as you went further into that series, it was really hard to tell who are the good guys and the bad guys. Will Hollywood ever go back to having depth or are we looking at … should I just continue to only watch ’70 Shows now, because it’s a future of woke crap that we’re going to have in our future from now on?

Christian Toto:

Well, the woke argument, I think, is both separate and intertwined with what we’re seeing today. So it’s hard to tease out at times. But I will say Star Wars worked because it was just a classic top story, and a well told story.

Julie Gunlock:

Yeah.

Christian Toto:

You mentioned good and evil, you mentioned some of the potentially religious undertones, but it was a well told story. I think that Hollywood often struggles to do that, which sounds ridiculous. It’s Hollywood’s what they do. It’s their whole purpose. But in the late ’70s, early 80s, they made these three wonderful Star Wars films. And then when it came time to reboot them and make new films, the three sequels got increasingly worse. With all that money, it wasn’t Disney owns the franchise now, they have every resource at their disposal to make the greatest stories with the greatest dialogue and the greatest everything but they cared more about the effects, the callbacks, the Easter eggs, the teasing out a new franchise, the synergy and the marketing behind these movies rather than the stories.

I grew up in Star Wars, I love those movies. I’ve seen the last two films, if I never saw them again, I’d be very happy. They offered me nothing, zilch, zero. And I was their audience. I was the guy who grew up in this stuff and wanted to relive my childhood through these movies and they didn’t get there for me, for sure. I don’t know. I do think sometimes that with the smaller screen efforts, like with Netflix is very good at not letting the studio’s interfere, they often will let the artists just say what they want to say and do what they want to do. They don’t get millions of notes saying, “Oh, this character must be X or Y or the character is dumb, or you need narration here to explain it to your dumb audience.”

So I think sometimes the better entertainment often pops up on the smaller screen, and we’ve seen that with shows like Fargo, which is sensational, Justified, even Sons of Anarchy, it’s over the top, which is really a rock-solid show.

Julie Gunlock:

Yeah. I have taken a different track, and honestly, I feel like I’m going to be all over with this podcast because every time you say something, I want to go off on a different tangent. So I am going to be a little bit all over the place. But I’d mentioned that I’m only watching ’70 Shows and you talked about, you love these shows, but I don’t feel like some of the current content coming out of Hollywood is anything I want to share with my kids.

So, I was interested because certainly over COVID I’ve been playing old movies for my kids, Towering Inferno, Poseidon Adventure, The Great Escape, some really great films of the last 30, 40 years. I was wondering if you had any, we can certainly go back to this but like, what are the kind of films that you watch with your kids? I know your kids are kind of my age kids, they’re still at home. I was wondering if we can talk about what you watch with your kids. Do you watch current television? If so, what do you watch? And also some recommendations for older stuff that you think kids should. . . I feel like there’s things and pop culture that kids should all see. So I’d love to talk to you a little bit about that.

Christian Toto:

This is an odd topic for me, and it shouldn’t be. But my kids are 10 and 12, and they have an odd relationship with movies now. They prefer YouTube shorts and things like that.

Julie Gunlock:

Oh, I know.

Christian Toto:

Sitting down for a movie is not their natural state of being. So I have coaxed them to watch movies like Jaws, which we all loved, and it’s essentially just one of the best movies of all time to me. We’ve also enjoyed What About Bob, which I remember being pretty clean, and the kids just absolutely howled over it starring Bill Murray-

Julie Gunlock:

We watched that recently.

Christian Toto:

Yeah, it’s very solid entertainment. When I go back to some of the ’80s films that I grew up watching, the Ferris Bueller’s of the world, you can’t top.

Julie Gunlock:

Sure.

Christian Toto:

I will say that we’ve been watching in recent months, Bob’s Burgers on Fox, which is mostly clean, once in a while to be an elbow or something that’s a little uncomfortable. But it’s a very sweet story, it’s very funny. But one of the revelations for me of late is, I’ve been watching Modern Family, and I know it is a great show, lots of Emmys, blah, blah, blah, 11 years. But I’m really astounded at how rigorous it was, it was just a beautifully told story that had a lot of great messaging.

And as you watch the later seasons, you can sense the woke culture encroaching on it. But they process it in ways that you don’t expect or that they actually poke fun at it, kind of acknowledging it and ribbing at the same time. I don’t even think if you made a show today, you can get away with that. I think it’s more hands off. You can’t disagree with it. You can’t make fun of it. Another thought is just how the characters, especially the gay couple, Cam and Mitchell, they’re deeply flawed. They’re selfish, they’re silly, and yet you love them because they’re so real, and they’re so flawed and so interesting and layered.

And I think it’s another area where often with storytellers today, if there’s certain groups that are marginalized, that you have to be very careful with what you do and say about them, which only restricts the storyteller. Because these are characters that are interesting, and I think they connect with us more, because they are who they are, and because they’re not immediately lovable and flawless. They’re odd.

Julie Gunlock:

It reminds me of Archie Bunker, what is the show there? I’m forgetting-

Christian Toto:

All in the Family.

Julie Gunlock:

All in the Family. I feel like you could never get away with that. But maybe you can. And there’s a show that I watched recently, it’s out of Canada, and it’s about … and I’m going to forget it. This is what happens when you go off on a tangent. I wasn’t prepared to talk about this. But you may know it. Again, it’s something Canada, I think it’s a Canadian show, and it’s about an Asian family who runs a little grocery store. Does this ring a bell?

Christian Toto:

Is it Kim Possible? Is that?

Julie Gunlock:

No, I don’t think it’s Kim Possible. They make fun of all of the woke culture, they make fun of everyone. And it’s this equal opportunity, sort of slamming on all these sacred cows, which is really refreshing. I hear about these shows, and I think, “Oh, this would never be made today.” And then I watch one that is. So there’s still some risk takers out there, and my husband and I really enjoyed the show. Obviously, I didn’t enjoy it enough to actually remember it, but I don’t watch a lot of modern shows. My husband was watching it and I caught a little glimpse of it.

But it was refreshing to see that that is still possible, and that they were making fun of Asians, they were making fun of the gay community and they’re making fun of over sensitivity. So, it’s a great show, hopefully I’ll remember it by the time we’re done with this. But it is nice to see that, but it’s interesting what you were saying about how kids are different today. This is a parenting podcast, so I do want to talk a little bit about that. You mentioned your kids are watching videos, same with mine. They get on their tablets, and they watch the YouTube videos.

We have a lot of filters and we really watch what they’re watching. But they watch … This is the weirdest thing to me, they watch people playing video games. For the life of me, I could be 1000 years old, I will never understand the attraction of that. I’m sure, my kids are the same age as yours, and I have boys. But I will tell you, I insist on movie nights. I love movies so much. Obviously, when we were growing up, we didn’t have YouTube videos and that kind of stuff. So I understand there’s, again, more competition for their time and attention.

But we make it an event, and I’m really happy because they are seeing these movies that I think everyone should see, sort of classics, because I think it makes you a more well-rounded person if you have some understanding of these classic movies. So I don’t know, maybe it’s that I throw candy at them that they sit down and watch these movies, but I do enjoy experiencing that with them. And I do think-

Christian Toto:

I do too. I mean, selfishly, it feels like I’m reliving my childhood in a good way. So there’s that aspect. But yeah, I also think that just from an attention span point of view, I want my boys to be able to sit down, concentrate, enjoy the experience and not have to run to the room to check their phone or to check on another … whatever is capturing their attention. So I think that matters too, whether our movie nights are enough to stem that tide of instant gratification they get from their phones, I don’t know. But it does help. And yeah, there are certain movies that have messages. One of my favorite movies of all time, which was my dad’s favorite movie, which is my child’s middle name, is Shane, it’s a great western from the 1950s.

Julie Gunlock:

Oh, Shane. Yeah.

Christian Toto:

For boys to watch that movie, it is essential. It’s a story about sacrifice, about standing up for your fellow man, about staring down when you’re afraid of something, fidelity that there’s a temptation between the Shane and the rancher’s wife that he could fall into something like an affair. But their, I think, cooler heads prevailed, spoiler alert, but it just got so many different wonderful elements. It’s over two hours, and maybe that’s attention span wise, not the greatest thing for kids-

Julie Gunlock:

Wow, that’s-

Christian Toto:

My kids hung in there with it, and it’s just a wonderful movie.

Julie Gunlock:

Well, I think part of the problem too is that they hung in on it, they hung in there, because it’s a great story. When I talk about these movies, I mentioned Towering Inferno, and The Hindenburg and Poseidon Adventure, those aren’t like drama with great character development, but it has some, and you care about these, you actually grow to care about these characters. So in those days, I feel like a lot of those exciting action movies, they still did try, because there’s always an arc. Right? It’s the same thing where they get on the ship, and everything’s great, or they go to work in the big building, and everything’s great. Right? And then the disaster happens, it feels like …

But by the time the disaster happens, you know these people. So I think we don’t give kids enough credit. I think it’s not that kids have shorter attention spans, because they’re on YouTube watching shorter videos, or playing games all the time. The content isn’t good. I don’t have a long attention span when the content isn’t good. I think in movies where there is a little bit more character development, I’m often surprised that my kids do pay attention and probably yours too, and that’s a function of the movie being really good, I think. Maybe you disagree with me, but that’s…

Christian Toto:

No, I agree, I think the art of storytelling has suffered some body blows in recent years. I also think that … I almost feel like I’m an ambassador to movies. When I first met my wife, she was not a movie watcher at all, and I felt this insane pressure. Well, if we’re going to have a movie night together, besides it being like a romantic evening for us, it’s something that I want to be really good. I don’t want to waste her time with a mediocre movie that she is like eh, you know… but I basically inundated with really good films. I think it turned her toward that whole process where she knows it’s going to be, hopefully, a fun experience. I’m a film critic, I see a lot of terrible movies. I’m not dissuaded from the art just because I love what I do. But if I sat through 20 bad movies in a row, I think I’d dread number 21.

Julie Gunlock:

What is your idea of a good movie or the things it has to have?

Christian Toto:

There’s no real checklist, I often at a screening, I bring a pad and pen and I try to take notes, and I love it when I just put the note pad down. I’m so wrapped up in the movie. I’m like, “Okay, I’ll figure it out later. I’ll write the notes later. I’ll try to remember from my brain or something.” When it takes me away, and this is a very odd example, but I’ll throw it at you anyway.

Recently, I had a tough day, and I was exhausted, and I poured myself one single glass of wine just to chill out, and I watched at random Road House, which is an absolute slab of ’80s cheese the likes of which I didn’t remember, because I haven’t seen it in 30 years. And it was so absurd and so over the top and so ridiculous, and yet it leaned into every element of that, and I had a grand old time, my troubles just vanished. And ultimately, that’s kind of why I do what I do and why people watch movies, they want to escape. They want to be entertained, they want to be distracted. Life is hard.

If you can take me away for two hours, that is just the most amazing thing. And Road House is not technically a good movie. It’s absurd. You could even say it’s bad. But there is something about that film that is over the top and outrageous, and it’s really R rated, it’s not for the kiddies. But I had a great time. As a critic, you can’t ignore that, you got to ultimately say, “Was it fun or not? We were looking at you watch, or we were just having a blast and laughing along with it.”

Julie Gunlock:

Well, you mentioned … That’s the job of movies, take you away, let you have some fun, but that is not happening as much now, we have a lot of lectures coming from Hollywood. It’s not just in the movies, it’s also in award show that’s probably why the ratings for award shows are in the toilet. But it’s also in the movies, it’s weaved into the movies. I feel like it’s interesting now that sometimes I just watched that… There’s a new HBO show called Mayor of … Her name is Mayor, and she’s in Pennsylvania, it takes place in Pennsylvania. It’s typical cop murder kind of mystery.

But it was very good, Kate Winslet stars in it. She’s just very compelling. I thought her portrayal was very realistic. Then her daughter, she’s divorced and she has children, and one of her children has died. But then they made the daughter gay and in a relationship, which is … to quote Seinfeld, “not that there’s anything wrong with that,” but I feel like sometimes there really wasn’t a very big … there was a weird start story arc, actually, with the daughter, and some alcohol involved, and just some sort of bizarre behavior, but I didn’t really feel like…. I feel like sometimes they try to stick it in.

They got to fit a quota. They have to have one of each characters. That gets tiresome to be honest with you. Not that, a character has to be gay and then has to have a gay storyline, or that has failed. And so in some ways, maybe you could say it’s actually refreshing that it wasn’t made a big deal in the movie. But I do feel like in general, Hollywood lectures Americans, and again, both in storylines in the movies and in Hollywood. I mean, do you think Hollywood is sort of … I’m sure you do. I think we can agree on most of these things, but has lost its way? Has it forgotten that its main role is to entertain and take people away?

Christian Toto:

At times, yes. I mean, I think there’s a lot of good product out there that makes me excited to go watch it. I do think that there are certainly moments in a lot of programming, small screen, big screen, where there’s the either … A colleague of mine used to call it the sucker punch, where it was aimed at either mocking someone who is right of center, or had a message. To me, I call them lectures, I think that they stopped the movie cold. And also much worse, even if you agree with him, they often take you out of the movie. And just to give you a quick example.

Julie Gunlock:

Yeah.

Christian Toto:

I just previewed a horror movie, comes out in a few weeks ago, the embargo isn’t in place. I can’t say what it was. But the film features a very bad person, he may be sexually exploiting a child. That gives some context there. And then you see him get in his car and drive off. So it’s his car. What do you see on the bumper sticker of the car?

Julie Gunlock:

Of course.

Christian Toto:

It’s Make America Great Again sticker. Now, you don’t need that for the story. You already know this is a bad dude. It doesn’t really add anything of consequence. But immediately that means to me, says, they wanted to make fun of a Trump supporter. They wanted to make a political statement, and they did so risking the fact that when you see it, you’re taken out of the experience, because up until then, I’m watching car drive away. The story is compelling. I am hoping that the kids who are in harm’s way get out safely. It was very typical, because you do see that quite a bit.

I think it does the story disservice; it does the storytellers a disservice. To me, like I said, I want to get lost in the story. I don’t want to get involved and then get yanked out then have to work my way back in. Dazzle me, distract me, entertain me, that’s all great. I think that there are stories where you can weave in some commentary, I think that often makes it richer, even if I don’t agree with it. The classic example is Dawn of the Dead, the horror movie from the ’70s. There were images of these zombies walking around a mall, and it was the directors sly commentary about how consumerism eats away at us and how we’re all zombies, weren’t walking.

It was brilliant, and I’m not an anti-consumerist guy, I don’t care about that. But you know what? If you missed it, great, if you caught that little nuance, even better. It didn’t stop anything. It just made it a little bit richer and more texture.

Julie Gunlock:

Yeah. Yeah. I think, though, to some degree, Americans, part of this, you can’t just get some popcorn, sit down, and just relax. I mean, this is my job. Politics is my job. It is your job to some degree, you follow this stuff. I follow you on Twitter, and you comment on a lot of things. At the end of the day, you talked about pouring yourself a glass of wine and watching some, a big old slice of cheesy ’80s movies, which was a great line. I love that line that you said, but there is some escapism there. I feel like it’s harder and harder to get away from some of the politics. And you’ve seen this leftist takeover of higher ed over the years, big tech, obviously, K through 12 education with critical race theory, and…

Christian Toto:

Sport, don’t forget sports.

Julie Gunlock:

100%. Sports. Like everything. Every major organization like medical organization, they’re all being taken over by sort of … And every corporation out there is now issuing woke statements about things. There’s really no escape. Then it’s frustrating, obviously, when you see it from Hollywood. Yesterday, there was a pop star Olivia Rodrigo. Am I saying that right, Christian? Do you know about this?

Christian Toto:

I vaguely heard that she was pitching for the vaccines, I believe?

Julie Gunlock:

Yeah, she was pitching … I think that the White House Director of Digital Strategy, Rob Flaherty, is trying to influence young people. Right? So they bring this young girl, I mean, she has the number one album in the country. She’s on this popular Disney+ show. But it seemed like a stunt a little bit like a stunt. And this idea that children are consistently influenced by big tech and consistently influenced by these Hollywood starlets, and I agree that she probably does have some influence. But what do you think about that when you have this cross pollination between these really important subjects like the vaccine, and then having this young girl at the White House trying to persuade young people about these important public health issues?

Christian Toto:

Well, it’s kind of why I do what I do, because I think that half the country should be represented on a cultural perspective and to be made aware what’s happening. When it comes to the vaccines, I’ve taken the vaccine and in favor the vaccine, I certainly don’t want information about it or debates about it to be stifled. So I’m against that. But there’s a reason why people of left of center took over Hollywood and used it to spread their message because it’s often effective.

So it’s not a surprise they’re doing this, I find this one of the less egregious examples. But what I would really like is that, and this is something that I kind of scream about from any anywhere in any pulpit I can, is that I wish that people in Hollywood would stand up for free speech, for the ability to speak one’s mind, to blast big tech whenever it censors us, which is early and often apparently. I think that this particular creative community could speak almost as one in that direction without even being overtly political, because I think at its core, it’s not a political issue.

Yeah, I mean, listen, there’s a reason why all these messages we’re talking about are happening, because they want to change our behavior. They want to change the way we vote. I think it’s all connected.

Julie Gunlock:

Well, the problem is that it’s always obviously … I feel like they never have anything good to say about America, certainly not talking about being a square in Hollywood, if you say something good about me, but it’s not just that, it’s that they actively despise half of the country, mock them and dismiss them and dismiss their wishes and their concerns, their religious beliefs, their own personal convictions, and again, make fun of them for having them in the first place. Do you ever think that Hollywood will start to balance out, do you think that stars or entertainers will start to see that they also have a role in helping the country or are they just citizens of the world now?

Christian Toto:

No, it will not balance out. I don’t think the stars will change their behavior until it hurts their bottom line. I do think that people who are on the right tend not to use the power of their purse or wallet to make change, which is a significant problem. There’s no consequence to a celebrity embracing a hard left cause because they will not lose any work for it. They will not lose any job for it, they only get benefits from it, if anything. It’s funny, Joe Rogan recently talked about Hollywood and why it thinks the way it does, and he described when you come to the town, there is an established groupthink there. And if you come in, and it rattle the cage, you’re done.

And if you’re a young actor or actress desperate to get that first big role to change their career and lived your dreams out, what are you going to do? You’re going to say, “That Trump guy isn’t so bad?” You’re going to say, “Gosh, I hate the fact that we’re trying to stop …” You get it?

Julie Gunlock:

You have most of the stars who are in favor of Trump, or who speak out, or who aren’t totally insane about Trump, are those who are much older, they’re the types that work when they want to and take roles that they want to, they certainly don’t need these roles anymore. And they’re secure in other words, they’re secure. They’re not in a situation where they’re working actors anymore or trying to gain additional fame. They’ve made it. But I see that throughout all parts of the country, it isn’t just…

I mean, in very blue cities, I live in one for instance, I mean, you are not welcome if you are not … At least in my … Again, I practically live in Portland, Oregon. Alexander Virginia is weirdly, weirdly left. I mean, very radically left. And if you don’t toe the line, then you don’t really … You can be quiet, that’s fine. You’ll be more accepted into the society if you’re quiet, but if you are loud … So I do think that Hollywood operates like many liberal towns, it’s really no different. It’s no worse.

But I think the stakes are higher obviously there, when there’s so much money to be had. Look, you’re an actor… I’m sure you have friends that you know who are actors who stay very quiet. I certainly have a very good friend who was quite successful working actor in Hollywood and she was terrified that someone would find out I was her friend. But she was very quiet about things. But I think that’s true. And especially now that cancel culture is so prevalent in our society, in our country. It’s expanded beyond Hollywood and beyond the corporate world. But it’s, I think, frightening for people.

Christian Toto:

Yeah, Hollywood is reflective of that. The story that I write at least once a year and it pains me that no one else is picking up on this theme is that, for years and years, Hollywood would do movies and TV shows and plays about the blacklist, the 1950s McCarthy era, and you could certainly understand why it impacted Hollywood directly. Famous screenwriters were punished as a result, it spoke to a lack of free speech and the ability to think what you want to think. I mean, for every obvious reason, the industry is a aghast, we’ve seen it in films like The Front, Above Suspicion, Good Night, and Good Luck.

Julie Gunlock:

[crosstalk 00:33:49]

Christian Toto:

Fine, I get it. Let’s talk about it. Let’s revisit it. Let’s learn some lessons from it. At the very same time, today’s Hollywood actively discriminates. If you like Trump, if you’re right of center, if you’re pro-life, if you’re pro Christian, in varying degrees. About once a year, a major news outlet will basically acknowledge that, and then just go on like, “Oh, yeah, by the way, if you’re right of center, you can’t get work in Hollywood even if you worked harder. And your place that with any other group, if you were gay, if you were Muslim, if you were part of any other individual group, and the same thing was said, it would be scandalous, they would be charges, they’d be investigations. We need to fix this. There’d be apologies. Never with this, though. It’s amazing. It’s truly amazing.

Julie Gunlock:

It really is. Their ability to see only what they want to see or to hear only what they want to hear, even the gas lighting of Americans making … It’s so obvious what they’re seeing, and then making Americans feel like their conspiracy theorists are saying things that aren’t there is pretty awful. I don’t think that the industry … I mean, I think you’re right that the industry won’t recover, but I do think and I suspect you feel the same way that the proliferation of streaming services and entertainment options are the thing that keeps it in check. But even these new, they all follow the same political line, they’re all cranking out content that is hardly conservative. But sometimes there’s a secret message in movies or you’ll watch it and you’ll go, “Oh, well, goodness, that had quite the conservative.” I remember when there was that … it was a cartoon, Invincible or what was it?

Christian Toto:

Incredibles.

Julie Gunlock:

It was a family of Incredibles, people were saying, because at one point … It’s so funny too, because conservatives anytime they get like one line, I remember Robert Downey Jr. Robert Downey Jr, I think he wore a Cato t-shirt, and everyone was like, “Oh my God.” We were so excited because we get grumpy all the time. So the Incredibles, they had that line about like, “You’re special, it’s okay to be special or something.” He said something similar to that. Going against this idea of like, “Oh, well, every kid is a genius, and every kid is perfect.” If there ever been movies … I’m sure there have, but do you have any movies that you can cite that do sometimes sneak in more, I don’t know, free market ideas or conservative principles? Certainly, it’d be a shock if there was a vaguely pro-life movie or something. Is there any that come to mind? I don’t mean to put you on the spot like that.

Christian Toto:

No. Well, I mean, pro-life, you could look at Juno and Knocked Up as two samples. That is, to keep the baby in the story is key to it. And actually, some critics were aghast at those themes by the way. The first Ghostbusters had a anti authority message, which is interesting, and certainly you wouldn’t quite get that today, a quiet place, the first film, much more than the second film is a powerful tribute to families, to parents to moms and dads who will do anything and use every creative resource at their disposal to protect their children.

I think rom-coms are often incredibly conservative in that it’s always boy meets girl, and they’re going to the chapel, they’re not going to have an open relationship or do a ruffled thing. They want to be together at the end of that movie. Right? I mean, it maybe, coincidentally, that’s why they don’t make as many at the theatrical level anymore, because they don’t want to do that story, I don’t know. But those are couple of examples. Also, this is one I mentioned, often because it didn’t get much attention. It’s called Still Mine, it’s a very sweet love story about an older couple, James Cromwell, a very good actor, who was super progressive, is the star to get the female star.

And his wife is getting older, and she may be having some dementia issues, and he’s a builder. So he wants to make a house that would make it more amenable to her, where she could live with him for a longer period before maybe her condition worsened. And all it is, is about him fighting the red tape and the bureaucracy and he just wants to build the house that he knows how to do better than anybody. In a way it was sort of a sly anti-big government message, told by an actor who’s far left.

Julie Gunlock:

Yeah, yeah, that’s wonderful. I think at some of the older movies that I’m showing the kids, especially some of the war movies, you mentioned Shane… these used to be not ever considered right or left but just principles you would want to teach your children but still reaching back into the past, The Right Stuff is a great example of a movie that my children love, about the first astronaut program, it’s such a great film because obviously it shows family life and obviously courage and exploration and excitement.

But that didn’t have a political message at all, it was just these are great principles to teach your child and great Americans to emulate, and nowadays, it’s kind of sad that those movies, if they were made today, you would say, “Oh, they’re really covering some conservative principles, where those are principles we should all share. Anyway, it’s interesting to think about that. What are some other resources parents can go to for good movies? There’s Common Sense Media and obviously your website, but are there some other resources you suggest to people?

Christian Toto:

It’s tough, Common Sense Media by the way, although it does a lot of good things, it’s certainly liberal in its approach. So, just know that going in. There a couple of reviews I read that I thought were rather shocking in that, it might have been an attack on No Safe Spaces, which is one of the best documentaries in the last, gosh, 10 years. And they were complaining about that because people on the left don’t like free speech at this point, sadly. I hate to say that out loud, but it’s true. It just is.

I think Dove has certainly a very strong Christian view of entertainment, but I believe they have an online resource. I know Movie Mom, I used to know her back in my D.C. days and Nell Minow, who’s a very sweet woman, and her website, often will have commentary, but whether something is appropriate for children or not, she’s left of center, but just so you know, but I think she’s pretty straight shooter. Otherwise, just read the reviews carefully, usually like a rotten tomatoes will have like a bare bones description of why it’s R rated or why it’s PG-13. They seem to have that the very bare minimum, but also reach out to your friends. I mean, that’s one of the joys of online living, is that if you’re a parent, and you know lots of fellow parents, just float a movie that came out and say, “Hey, has anyone seen this?” And often, that kind of peer to peer feedback can be the most effective.

Julie Gunlock:

Well, look, I really can’t end this without getting your thoughts on the Britney Spears issue. I’m half joking, but I’m also half not joking, because it actually is a pretty … Well, everything having to do with Brittany is pretty crazy. But this is a really serious issue. In fact, two of my colleagues that IWF … two lawyers on our staff, Jennifer Braceras and Inez Stepman are going to be doing one of their programs at the bar, about the team Brittany versus team conservatorship issue. This is what you do. You are in the Hollywood bubble in a way, and reviewing everything that goes on there. Will you have any feelings on this issue?

And for listeners who don’t know, Britney Spears claims that she’s a hostage to this conservatorship, which is run by her father and a team of lawyers and other people to protect her. And everybody can remember that Britney had a bit of a meltdown years ago, but it wasn’t just shaving her head, she actually had locked herself in her home with her children, and she said she was going to self-harm. There’s some pretty significant stuff going on with Brittany. But, Christian, I’m just interested in any opinions you have on this issue.

Christian Toto:

Two quick thoughts, one, often with these high profile cases, it can reverberate across the culture, where it’s just one person and one situation, but sometimes there is a domino effect or it could have an impact far beyond the person itself. Number two, I don’t exactly know why, but I have rigorously avoided this story. I think in part because there’s a lot of celebrity attached to it.

One of the things I did when I went solo and left a couple of different organizations was, I didn’t want to do the gossipy “What is Justin Bieber up to these days stories and the Kardashians…” I made a personal vow myself, and if you go to my website, I don’t write on those stories, I don’t tweak them with my little news section on my sidebar. So, even though I don’t discount that there is worth to the story, for some reason, I have just aggressively not dug in, so I apologize profusely.

Julie Gunlock:

So, I guess I’m not going to get anywhere if I ask you where you are on the Queen, Meghan Markle argument. Right? Okay, fine. I get it. And what is Justin Bieber up to these days, Christian? I’m just curious.

Christian Toto:

I’m the last person to ask about the royal blackout. I just think…

Julie Gunlock:

Really, no.

Christian Toto:

In 2021 is, I’m aghast at that.

Julie Gunlock:

You’re an American after all. Right? Why do we even care about this stuff? Before the revolution, so we didn’t have to care about this stuff. Well, Christian, I always love talking to you, and I could go on and on because I do love movies, and I love everything you write and review. I want you to mention to the audience where they can find you and give a plug for your podcast.

Christian Toto:

Sure. The website is Hollywoodintoto.com. My work also appears on The Daily Wire, Newsbusters, justthenews.com, RealClear Investigations. I have a book coming out in January, and it is about woke Hollywood. So I can’t tease it too much more than that, because it’s still a few months away. But it’s a book that we need. Let’s just put it that way. If there were 20 books that came out before mine that addressed the issue, I’d be happy because I think people need to know what’s happening in Hollywood.

Just a quick final note, for people who are right of center and care about the culture, be culture warriors. And by that I don’t mean pick up a sword or shield, I mean, support good right of center art. Because if we don’t support it, it’s not going to happen, and because there are forces at play that don’t want it to happen, and if we don’t use our economic influence to rise up and to share the stories that aren’t being told, they will never be told.

Julie Gunlock:

What a great way to end this? I do hope to see people support Christian, his work, his efforts, he is, I think, the best, absolutely the best and a good friend. He’s good friend of IWF. He really will help you and guide you to better shows, he’s very balanced. Christian and I disagree on a lot of things, I pooh-pooh a lot, I think a lot more that he’s very balanced in his reviews. He’s also on Twitter. What’s your Twitter handle?

Christian Toto:

It’s @Hollywoodintoto. Got to keep that brand consistent.

Julie Gunlock:

Yes, yes. Well, thank you so much for coming on. I hope you’ll come back when you have your book out. I’d really like to review it, but I’d also like to chat with you about it. So I hope you’ll come back.

Christian Toto:

Oh, sounds great.

Julie Gunlock:

Great. Thanks, Christian. Thanks, everyone for being here for another episode of the Bespoke Parenting Hour. If you enjoyed this episode, or like the podcast in general, please leave a rating or review on iTunes. This helps ensure that the podcast reaches as many listeners as possible. If you haven’t subscribed to the Bespoke Parenting Hour on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts, please do so, so you won’t miss an episode. Don’t forget to share this episode and let your friends know so they can get Bespoke episodes on their favorite podcast app. From all of us here at the Independent Women’s Forum, thanks for listening.