Media Mogul Calls for Showtime to Kill Oliver Stone's Anti-American Miniseries

Patrick Goldstein and much of the butt-boy entertainment media have either outright ignored director Oliver Stone’s anti-Semitic comments or have dug a deeper hole for their credibility in attempting to explain why they shouldn’t have to hold their favorite anti-American director to the same standard as the director of the “The Passion of the Christ” after his 2006 incident. Unfortunately for them, this ploy might not be working. According to some excellent reporting in The Wrap, media mogul and Clinton confidante Haim Saban is showing some moral consistency, and he’s claiming that WME Chairman Ari Emanuel is as well.

Like the Anti-Defamation League, Saban is far from satisfied with Stone’s “clumsy association with the Holocaust” apology, calling it “sooooo transparently fake.” And as a money-where-his-mouth-is supporter of Israel, my guess is that Saban’s taking issue with all this crazy talk coming from Stone about how his January miniseries will prove Hitler was a “scapegoat” who deserves to be put in “context.”

A furious Haim Saban has mounted a campaign to get Showtime to cancel its planned airing of Oliver Stone’s 10-part series, “A Secret History of America,” in the wake of anti-Jewish remarks by the outspoken director.

Stone’s apology “is transparently fake,” Saban said in an interview with TheWrap. “He has been consistent in his anti-American and anti-Semitic remarks. I respect his First Amendment rights. I hope he respects mine.”

The billionaire and outspoken media mogul told TheWrap he had contacted CBS chief Leslie Moonves to urge him to pull the series.

He said that WME chairman Ari Emanuel had also called CBS privately to urge the series be pulled.

Stone has previously said the 10-part “Secret History” series would put Hitler and Stalin “in context,” and offer an alternative crash course to the “grossly inadequate history” taught by American schools and proffered by mass media. 

CBS, Moonves and Emanuel did not respond to emails seeking comment.

Saban is also pressuring Stone’s agent, CAA partner Bryan Lourd, to drop the director just like Ari Emanuel did to Mel Gibson after the Braveheart star’s 2006 drunken, anti-Semitic tirade.

Saban says in no uncertain terms of Stone, “clearly [he's] an anti-Semite and an anti-American.” Which might be the first time in years a Hollywood insider used the term “anti-American” as though it were a bad thing.

This is America and Mr. Saban has every right to demand Showtime kill Stone’s miniseries and to call for his agent to let him go. That’s how the First Amendment works in this country that Stone hates so much.

I understand Stone has a close buddy who controls a few television stations. Why doesn’t he ask Uncle Hugo to broadcast all that Hitler context for him?

Crossposted at Big Hollywood.