Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon is vowing to expose what he calls “bankrupt” Hollywood with a three-part series by a researcher described as someone who was “embedded” in the industry.
It’s part of a heightened focus on Hollywood and its “liberal agenda” and bias, Bannon said in an interview published on Thursday by The Hollywood Reporter. Bannon returned as executive chairman of the far right-wing Breitbart website after he was ousted from the White House.
The Breitbart series — “Tinseltown Travalogue” — began Thursday, vowing to expose Hollywood’s “stunning hypocrisy and institutionalized bigotry.”
Despite his well-known rants against the media, Bannon insisted in the interview that “Hollywood isn’t a new battlefront for Breitbart; it’s the original battle,” and a key part of the “culture war.”
He gloated that Hollywood is “blowing itself up” in the wake of sexual assault and harassment allegations against producer Harvey Weinstein (and now film director James Toback). “These are the same people who disingenuously seized the moral high ground as they attacked our president based on a standard they do not live by,” Bannon said.
Donald Trump was harshly criticized after it came to light last October that he had boasted on a hot mic to “Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush in 2005 about grabbing women “by the pussy.” Trump said he could “get away with” it because he was a star. He later excused it as “locker room” talk.
A number of women have also accused Trump of groping them, including former “The Apprentice” contestant Summer Zervos. She sued the president for defamation after he called her a liar.
Earlier this month, Buzzfeed reported that Zervos had subpoenaed all documents held by Trump’s presidential campaign about “any woman alleging that Donald J. Trump touched her inappropriately.” Trump is fighting the subpoena.
Breitbart’s series hoping to expose Hollywood is being reported by Patrick Courrielche, a former comedy writer for Tracy Morgan and Sarah Silverman. Breitbart editor-in-chief Alex Marlow told The Hollywood Reporter that Courrielche was “embedded in Hollywood for years working on the project.”
Courrielche complained in the first installment that “I’ve always known Hollywood despises conservatives,” and that “major Tinseltown producers are telling studios and networks not to work with anyone associated with Trump.”
Courrielche wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal earlier this year urging Trump to “ax” the National Endowment for The Arts as “soon as possible” because it’s “politically tainted.”