David Kahane on Hollywood on National Review Online

David Kahane on Hollywood on National Review Online

June 18, 2007, 6:00 a.m.

Mexicans Do Jobs the Kids from Bel Air Shouldn’t Have to Do
(Just don’t start writing scripts, Jose.)

By David Kahane

Out here in California, we’re a little puzzled by the kerfuffle back east over “comprehensive immigration reform,” whatever that is. The great internecine ruckus among Chimpy McHitler, John McCain, Trent Lott, Lindsey Graham, Jon Kyl, Mitch McConnell, and a bunch of other senators not named Feinstein or Boxer means absolutely nothing to us. Why, just the other day some senator from Wyoming named Craig Thomas apparently died and we all said: Who? Anything the Republican party — almost extinct in the Golden State — wants to do to sink itself nationally is just fine with us.

You see, despite what you may read, “immigration” is simply not a contentious issue here; like Roe v. Wade, or the fact that The Sopranos was the greatest TV show of all time, it’s settled law. For all practical purposes, most of Los Angeles is already part of Mexico and that’s just the way we like it. I mean, where else would we get our maids, gardeners, leaf blowers, and fast-food employees? From so-called “Anglo” America? No way, Jose! Somebody’s got to do the jobs kids from Bel Air and Pacific Palisades just shouldn’t have to do.

But don’t sweat it. For decades, those of us who grew up in California have been told to learn Spanish because some day it would be “useful.” Well, that day never came and it still hasn’t because nobody I know speaks a lick of Spanish beyond por favor, adios, amigo, and hasta la vista, baby. Sure, the Mexicans boo our soccer teams, riot in MacArthur Park, and yell at Arnold when he tells them to turn off the Spanish-language television programs and learn English — after all, what would he know about immigration? But mostly they stay in their barrios, well out of Paris Hilton’s way when she’s rocketing down Sunset Boulevard three sheets to the wind.

“Peaceful coexistence,” I believe the term is. You come to our neighborhoods when there’s menial work to be done and we won’t go to your neighborhoods, ever.

On the other hand, should any of our new immigrants actually want to work in industries that are, shall we say, reserved for, you know... us... the Writers Guild of America would take a very dim view of that. A few years back, when everyone was wringing his hands publicly (and doing absolutely nothing privately) about the dearth of African-American “above the line” talent — writers, directors, producers, etc. — some comedy writer cracked, “there will be blacks in Hollywood when there are Jews playing in the NBA.” Everybody chuckled, hardy har har, but nobody disagreed.

Since then, Hollywood has had its “black Oscars” (Denzel and Halle Berry) and, last this year, its “diversity Oscars.” But if, say, Mexican screenwriters started writing scripts American screenwriters just won’t write — and, worse, if those scripts actually got bought at cut-rate prices — there would be hell to pay. Even for us liberals, liberalism only goes so far, and when it starts threatening the Porsche payments...



Which doesn’t mean we’d ever vote for a Republican. If we did, the next thing you know we’d have a president who never vetoes a spending bill, institutes a No Child Left Behind Act, pushes relentlessly for open borders, appoints Alberto Gonzales as attorney general, refuses to enforce the immigration laws, hands out citizenship like it was candy, appeases the Palestinians, humiliates the Chairman of the joint chiefs of staff by firing him after one term, and generally acts like a tool in Ted Kennedy’s hand. And that’s a Democrat’s job.

So instead of fussing about immigration, or “illegal aliens,” or the Reconquista, or whatever you want to call it, we’ve got more important things on our mind. Really big stuff, more pressing than Paris in chains, or Larry and Laurie David deciding which one gets the Prius before the world ends, or even whether Phil Spector is finally going to get the chair for ruining the Beatles’ Let It Be album.

Hillary or Obama?

Luckily, Uncle Stevie Spielberg settled that one last week by coming down from the mountain and anointing Herself. It’s not that we don’t like Obama: as Joe Biden says, he’s clean and articulate. And we don’t hold his middle name — Hussein — against him. In fact, you can take it to the bank that after “Che” finally runs its course as a chic moniker, “Hussein” will take its place. After all, Yugoslavia — I mean Iraq — never attacked us!

Still, it sure was fun to flirt with the Punahou Kid for a while. Believe it or not, some of us do resent getting pushed around by the Clintons, shaken down for donations and forced to shop at Ron Burkle’s supermarkets when we’d rather be buying Two-Buck Chuck at Trader Joe’s. And so we grumble and groan, and make goo-goo eyes at people like Dick Gephardt and Joe Lieberman and even crazy Albert Arnold Gore Jr.

But in the end, we always go back to the Clintons. We love them. They showed us the way out of the Reagan-Bush electoral wilderness and into the land of milk, honey, and Monica from Beverly Hills. So what if Bill never got even 50 percent of the popular vote, was impeached, and disbarred by the Supreme Court? He’s still a winner in our books, and if he wants his brilliant, brainy, multilingual helpmeet, soul mate, and business partner to follow him into the Lincoln Bedroom, I say: Go for it!

Because there’s another reason we’re going to vote for her, and that’s to get him out of Los Angeles. Remember all that talk about how, when Bill fell victim to the cruel, Republican plot known as the 22nd Amendment, he was going to come out here and take a job as a studio executive? Never happened, did it? No, because the last thing anybody in Hollywood needs is a sexual-harassment lawsuit.

As president, Hillary Clinton will be doing a job that even Mexicans can’t do, yet. Which is just fine with us, as long as she keeps her friends close, and her enemies closer.

— David Kahane is a nom de cyber for a writer in Hollywood. “David Kahane” is borrowed from a screenwriter character in The Player.