Stallone: America Apologizes Too Much

Sly Stallone has a new action flick in theaters now and the usual critics are braying that it's too pro-American.  Sly doesn't care:

What would John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart think of this?

Sylvester Stallone has been defending his movie "The Expendables" from the dastardly charge that the movie is... too American.

"I'm innocent. I didn't do nuttin," Stallone joked Thursday night on "The O'Reilly Factor." (Click here for video.)

Stallone was responding to an assertion in the Los Angeles Times that "Expendables" was exploiting patriotism in order to put American-made butts into movie theater seats.

All that pro-American schmaltz where right is right and wrong is wrong should be left to country music and Fox News, not Hollywood, suggests Steven Zeitchick in the Times article. He writes, "When times are confusing, we want movies to reflect that confusion, and even to make sense of it. But we probably don't want to pretend that confusion doesn't exist."

The article prompted host Bill O'Reilly to ask Stallone: "There's no, like, subtle promoting-America message to the people of Pakistan" in the movie?

Apparently not.

"It's pretty straight forward," Stallone said. "You're bad, you gotta go."

Stallone compared the Times complaint to similar ones he fielded after making "Rambo: First Blood Part II." It was "blasphemous," he said, to suggest the fictional John Rambo would want to refight the Vietnam War and actually win it this time.

Stallone, though, doesn't apologize for creating characters that are proud Americans and offers the observation that: "America apologizes too much."

Look at the criticism: He made a pro-American movie to encourage Americans to buy tickets to see it.  What a terrible crime.

Why do you think producers put Jennifer Aniston or Brad Pitt in a movie? Because some people will buy tickets because they like seeing those people in movies. It sounds to me like Stallone isn't guilty of jingoism, he's guilty of marketing. Plus, he made a movie the way he wanted to make it. Way too many Hollywood types make movies to impress other Hollywood types, like all the Iraq war anti-American movies Hollywood churned out that died a quick and ugly death at the box office.

Stallone is not a political guy, he's just a guy who likes making entertaining movies that people are willing to pay to see.  Hollywood could take lessons from him.

And speaking of Hollywood types and movies, here's a related story:

WaPo Writer: Twisting Facts in Political Movies Okay in Order to Tell Larger 'Truths'