Reaganizing Hollywood

In 1983 Ronald Reagan did as president what he had never been able to do as an actor—he had a significant impact on the movie industry. Not that the president got the Reagan equivalent of PT-109 produced or that his constant moralizing forced Hollywood to cut back on its usual amount of sex and violence. Reagan’s success was more complete than that. American film-makers, liberals as well as conservatives, produced a series of films in 1983 that in effect endorsed the premises...