As we know progressives and all their offspring are not particularly fond of America or its history. I read somewhere that while the right believes America is fundamentally good and occasionally flawed, the left believes America is fundamentally flawed and occasionally good. As I’ve witnessed the debate over American exceptionalism the last several years, with typical left-liberal denials that there is even such a thing, I’ve thought what a good idea it would be to make a movie about what the world would look like if America never existed. Not me actually making the movie, but that such a movie needs to be made.

I thought of this when I heard about Dinesh D’Souza’s new documentary, America. In it George Washington is killed in battle, and we presume because of that the American experiment never came to fruition, not an unreasonable assumption. You can imagine that those on the opposite side of the political and cultural spectrum would come to different conclusions as to whether that would be a good thing or bad. Most non-ideological Americans would likely come to the latter conclusion. I’d venture to guess that even most of the 23% of self-identified liberals would say on balance the founding of America was a good thing, but I’m sure there is a substantial core of committed progressives who think the world would have been much better off if America never existed.

I was also reminded last night about the importance of conservative perspectives in Hollywood when we saw 12 Years a Slave, this year’s academy award winner for Best Picture. While it was a powerful and disturbing movie, it was certainly not worthy of a Best Picture award, but white liberal guilt made it so. I think this reviewer’s take is right on:

So, look: 12 Years a Slave is a powerful and important movie but not a great one. It is basically the antebellum south version of Forrest Gump, a film that watches passive protagonist Solomon Northup stumble through the lowlights of slavery’s horror—Whippings! Rapes! Slave auctions tearing families apart! The “good” owner who still has slaves and therefore isn’t “good” at all! The bad owner who is a sadist!—before a beneficent white dude comes along to save him. It is, as Armond White noted, more akin to torture porn than great filmmaking. Searing imagery alone does not a great film make.

How many slavery films have come out of Hollywood over the last 30 years? Did we really need another one to remind us how horrible slavery is, and by extension America is for having allowed it? But that’s what you get when you have an entertainment industry filled with raging leftist ideologues.

How about conservatives, and the conservative movement (yep, all you rich guys pouring zillions into elections) commit to raising up a young generation of right-wing filmmakers and writers committed to making great art. Then one day when Hollywood is filled with people who love America, like it used to be, maybe we’ll get a feature length fictional account of an America-less world, a world some liberals may think they would want, but it would be a world likely very much less liberal than the one we have now.