Arianna Huffington and Harry Shearer

Warren Beatty should have included in Bulworth the broadcasters and Archer-Daniels-Midland and big tobacco and the pharmaceutical industry, along with the insurance industry that is his villain-in-chief. Have you seen the movie? I loved it. I saw it at a matinee in Westwood, and the audience broke into spontaneous applause. What I don't understand is why Beatty is saying in his interviews that the movie has no message, that it's just for laughs? What makes it powerful is that it does have a message. I thought that was the point of old-fashioned political satire--that it was intended to produce not just laughs but real change. Is Beatty now saying that he doesn't want change, only laughs? Or is that what the industry professionals are telling him will pack the citizens Mark Twain called "shriveled into sheep" into the theaters?

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I promise to ask you no more questions until the end of the week.

Arianna

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