Save the Town...and the Dog!

I watched a movie on the Hallmark Channel tonight. Of course I watch the Hallmark Channel.  I watch Lifetime too. I curl up on my chair with my Kleenex and Makers Mark. Can life get any better?  Haven't you heard about us compassionate conservatives?  Don't mess with us.

At any rate, tonight Hallmark showed a movie about Barry Watson kissing some girl at a summer camp called Pine Lake. The movie was set somewhere in America’s northwest, fluttering a nondescript state flag because the movie was actually filmed in Canada to skirt union rules. The story line involved young Luke who is a "philanthropic entrepreneur" (is that like a white Hispanic?) who buys the summer camp of his youth from his uncle only to find it sinking, literally and figuratively, under heavy expenses and safety code violations. While walking through this muck filled dilemma in an uber picturesque setting with lots of rain, he reunites with his childhood sweetheart Zoe (would you expect anything less?) who works for the bad guy developer who wants to run our young hero Luke off the land to build a golf course. Does it get any more politically correct than this?

The wonder isn’t that business is vilified while celebrity is idolized (big bucks all around), with movies like this popping up 24/7/365, the wonder is there are any businesses left at all. Between those movies where the big, bad corporations want to buy the real estate to build a mall; lease the real estate to mine for coal or drill for oil; buy the local cannery to close it down (did I hear Mitt Romney somewhere?); or shut down the camp to put up a golf course, the theme is the same. The folksy hero has to save the town from greedy corporate America.

These movies are ripe with town hall meetings, rallies, wise minorities exuding unlimited wisdom about the  the secrets of life; usually there is a dog or a horse or a goat...all lined up to “ save the town.”

It is even more telling that these movie moguls who use every tax break available to them, some of which the American public would never believe, define the hero kissing this broad at Pine Lake as a “philanthropic entrepreneur.” That must be the politically correct version of a businessman. Running a summer camp must be good business. Running a golf course must be a bad business.

That is the lesson Barack Obama is teaching in America. In 2008 he visited a small business: a muffin shop. That is an acceptable small business. An unacceptable small business (albeit the typical small business) employs 500 people in a non-union shop making all sorts of things. Those are the bad guys…the ones that want to shut down the town, shut down the cannery (a cannery??? Really???); or steal the land. These are the ones who aren't paying their fair share while 50% of working Americans pay no income tax at all.

Is there any movie in which a businessman is portrayed in a good light? Is there a television program anywhere that portrays business as actually doing good…like employing people and making money? The last one I remembered was My Three Sons where Dad worked for the television equivalent of Boeing. Other than that, all business people are scum.

Not to be confused with celebrities or athletes who make way more money than the typical business person, and no one says a word about them. Not one word about football or basketball player contracts worth between $50 and 100 million. Nope, Barbara Streisand and her hundreds of millions of dollars are verboten among those criticizing wealth. Only business people are greedy…unless you are a Kennedy, or Nancy Pelosi, or John Kerry or John Edwards.

Meanwhile, us poor schmucks looking for a movie are reduced to Barry Watson kissing Mia Kirshner in front of a lake somewhere in the Canadian Rockies in the rain…as they save the camp. Look for them this Christmas, where I am sure they will be saving the town.  You know what would be nice...how about a movie where they save the town with a dog.  A dog would be real nice.  And the farm.  There we go, save the town, save the dog, and save the farm...with carolers.  That's the ticket.