Entering Stage Right ...

By Jennifer J. Foster

Published: January 6, 2009

There’s a new site on the Web today, and it’s promising to bring something you haven’t seen much of before:

Hollywood conservatism.

The site, Big Hollywood, is a project of Andrew Breitbart, of the famed Web news organization that bears his name. According to Fox News, the site “will be a place where center, right and libertarian-leaning celebrities and industry-insiders can weigh in on Hollywood politics, offer film, television and movie reviews, and have an open forum for political discussion.“

That’s a lot of tentacles. Breitbart simply refers to it as “a continuous politics and culture posting board,“ and its underlying, unifying aim is just as simple: “Our goal is to create an atmosphere of tolerance — something that does not exist in this town,“ he says.

It’s kind of funny—and ironic—to read about how conservatives are being encouraged to “come out of the closet.“ Most amusing is the reaction from the agent for Robert Downey, Jr., who is believed to be a “closet conservative:“

Recently, there have been rumors that Robert Downey Jr. is a closet Republican, though his publicist will neither confirm nor deny it, saying only, “We unfortunately have no comment, as RDJ does not comment on political matters.“

But Downey Jr. needn’t worry. Breitbart isn’t out (pardon the pun) to embarrass him; on the contrary, he’s prepared to make significant allowances—for Downey Jr. and others—who want to get involved without really getting involved.

But Breitbart says the goal of Big Hollywood is not to “out” conservative celebrities, and he will not pressure celebrities like Downey to jump into the fray. He says conservative celebs who aren’t comfortable with full transparency will be allowed to write under an alias.

“I want them to come on their own volition,“ he says. “‘Big Hollywood is going to have to be a compelling daily read that speaks to Hollywood conservatives’ unique burden before some will stick their necks out and choose to speak up for what they believe.“

Here’s the thing about that: How do you remove the stigma from being a conservative in Hollywood by perpetuating the stigma of conservatism in Hollywood? Because that’s all the alias provision is doing.

Big Hollywood is up and running as of this morning. I popped in over there and had a look around. It looks like there’s a lot of potential there. One thing did disappoint me, though: All but one of the submitters to this point are white males.

I guess that shouldn’t come as a surprise. It’s indicative of, and a reason for, the poor performance of the Republican Party and its candidates in the 2008 general election.

So go ahead. Check on in at Big Hollywood and have a look around. You know you want to.

Now we’ll finally get to see if celebrities on the right are as annoying as those on the left ...

... and it will offer Larry King some much-needed variety.