LA Times Swoons For Producer of Anti-Catholic Films

"For Hollywood's sake, he needs to return." "I miss Harvey Weinstein." "[T]he movies he made were full of class." So says Patrick Goldstein in an April 17, 2007, article in the Los Angeles Times.

"[T]he movies he made were full of class"? Harvey Weinstein is best known as the co-founder (with his brother Bob) of Miramax Films. (He now heads something called The Weinstein Company.) But he is also known as a producer of a string of Catholic-bashing movies.

Here's what the Catholic League said in 2002 of Harvey Weinstein's Miramax (emphasis mine):

Since the mid-1990s, Miramax has been associated with four Catholic-bashing movies: “Priest”; “Butcher Boy”; “Dogma”; and “40 Days and 40 Nights.” Now it has added a fifth, “The Magdalene Sisters.”

The Vatican understandably blasted “The Magdalene Sisters” for a gross distortion of history. The film purports to show how nuns cruelly dealt with wayward young women in Catholic institutions in the 19th and 20th centuries. No doubt by today’s standards, those conditions were harsh. But what is the purpose of maligning nuns, most of whom gave of themselves selflessly to care for and empower these women—women whom society had cast as pariahs? Perhaps the best answer comes from the film’s director, Peter Mullan.

Mullan has compared the Catholic Church to the murderous Taliban. He has said of the movie that it “encapsulates everything that is bad about the Catholic Church,” etc.

You know as well as I do that Disney/Miramax would never be associated with a film that encapsulated everything that is bad about Judaism or Islam. You also know as well as I do that Disney/Miramax has no track record of offending Jews and Muslims. This begs the question: why is Disney/Miramax bent on offending Catholics?

We will not give up on our protest of Disney’s relationship with Miramax until Disney’s board of directors severs its ties altogether. That is what I am requesting of you on Tuesday.

[NOTE, DPierre: Disney and Weinstein did apparently sever their ties.]

Nowhere in over 1400 words does writer Goldstein make any reference to Weinstein's anti-Catholic work. Can you imagine a full-length article about Mel Gibson without mentioning his anti-Semitic tirade? Or a feature on Michael Richards without mentioning his racist rant at the Laugh Factory comedy club?

The Times appears oblivious to the bigotry of anti-Catholicism. Weinstein's body of films are not only acceptable, according to Goldstein, but they are "full of class." Good grief.

Harvey Weinstein "needs to return"? Not if you're a Catholic.

The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice by Philip Jenkins.