HBO has become a destination channel for liberals to feel good about themselves, with hagiographic films on Barack Obama, the Kennedys, Gloria Steinem, and now Harry Belafonte. Washington Post TV critic Hank Stuever confessed the Belafonte film was a hagiography, but somehow it was still trustworthy. (Perhaps you have to live in Liberal Land -- which includes The Washington Post Building on 15th Street NW -- to understand.)
Because even Hank Stuever can't quite describe Belafonte as a man of the Left. The headline was "Harry Belafonte's endless march for justice." This would seem to imply Belafonte has never supported or inflicted an injustice. In fact, Belafonte has supported dictators like Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez and seems to share their opinion that America's one of the world's worst regimes.
Belafonte's profile on the conservative website Discover the Networks is a stark reminder of Belafonte's harsh and radical beliefs about America. Ron Radosh's article on Pajamas Media points out what Belafonte said about America in an interview with HBO:
I not only see America headed in the direction of great similarities to the McCarthy period and what went on in America during those crucifying days, but I see America headed to places that can go well beyond. Today we have something that is most horrific written under the banner of “homeland security.” The extremes of those laws allow any citizen to be whisked away without anyone’s knowledge, without charging the individual, and hiding them for an indefinite period of time….That is the basis of a totalitarian state.
Radosh's piece is a must-read, including his takedown of the Daily Beast's puff piece on Belafonte as he trashes black conservatives. Here's how Stuever put it.
This doesn’t necessarily make the films worse or less trustworthy, especially when such arrangements can guarantee an intimate level of access to archives and innermost thoughts. But it does tend to coat things in a gloss of friendliness by allowing the subjects a certain measure of control. A viewer can just tell.
Thus, "Sing Your Song" notes but never probes deeply certain aspects of Belafonte’s ego or some of his less uplifting political stances. Two marriages failed — also noted, without elaboration, and his children speak vaguely of how his long absences affected them. Intriguingly, we learn of Belafonte’s apparent victimization by a psychoanalyst who persuaded him to entrust his business affairs to her husband, who turned out to be a government informant who spied on lefty celebs. But we don’t learn enough about how he became susceptible to them. It is addressed and shelved because, like most broadly biographical documentaries, "Sing Your Song" has much ground to cover.
And it covers it all. Watching Belafonte involve himself — even now — in the lost ’60s art of consciousness-raising makes even more clear how disconnected and politically lobotomized today’s celebrities are. Although they are largely regarded as know-nothing liberals by their critics on the far right, our stars are mostly drawn to "safe" causes, to which they can glamorously ally themselves with a few carefully modulated statements and appearances. They eschew domestic politics and class concerns (have you seen many A-listers at Occupy Wall Street?) in favor of speaking out "against" cancer or furrowing their brows over world hunger. Harry Belafonte could still march circles around them.
