When Hollywood Was Honest About the Clintons

Hollywood is safely in the corner of the Clintons this election season. Celebs have made campaign videos, run expensive fundraisers and heatedly railed against Hillary’s opponents.

However, the Clintons have not always been the toast of Tinseltown. Before this election, there were plenty of examples of artists taking Bill and Hillary to task as the corrupt political couple many Americans already see them to be.

Most of Hollywood’s films portray Republicans and the Right as the dastardly.

Modern takedowns come almost exclusively from the Right, with documentaries like Dinesh D’Souza’s “Hillary’s America” and the viral film, “Clinton Cash.” However, there was a time when honesty was applied to the Clintons from artists on both sides of the aisle.

Related: ‘Clinton Cash’ at Cannes

‘The Path to 9/11’
The most blatant example of such an artistic takedown would be the cult television miniseries, “The Path to 9/11.”

Airing on ABC in 2006, “The Path to 9/11” revealed the unpopular truth that former President Bill Clinton fumbled opportunities to take out terrorist Osama Bin Laden, whose name would shoot to infamy after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

While most of Hollywood’s output has shaped Republicans and the Right as the dastardly, war-hungry villains cluelessly running the War on Terror, “Path to 9/11” became prominent for its refusal to let the Clinton administration off the hook.

The show paid the price for its attack on Clinton. It’s often cited as a prime example of bias against anything remotely conservative in Hollywood.

“It is still the only banned film in America, banned by the company that made it due to political pressure,” screenwriter/producer Chris Nowrasteh told HollywoodinToto about the miniseries, which garnered 25 million viewers over two nights and seven Emmy nominations, but has still been denied any sort of home video or digital release.

Many believe Disney CEO Bob Iger has denied such a release to the series due to its controversy with Democrats and his own fundraising relationship to the Clintons. “Many of the initial questions raised about the movie, in the years since its broadcast, we’ve been proven right. It’s almost a given now … that Clinton had numerous opportunities to get Osama bin Laden and failed. That was the premise of the miniseries that everyone objected to,” said Nowrasteh.

Hillary Clinton shares her husband’s nonchalant attitude toward foreign policy. While much of the media kicked into overdrive to cover up the blatant mishandling of the 2012 events in Benghazi, a famous Hollywood filmmaker decided enough was enough.

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’13 Hours’
“Transformers” director Michael Bay used his clout to push “13 Hours,” a 2016 film starring John Krasinski that dramatized the events of Benghazi and showed the perspective of the soldiers who dealt with the consequences of politicians like Hillary Clinton neglecting their duties.

While Clinton is never directly named in the film, there is much talk of D.C. bureaucrats blatantly ignoring advice from boots on the ground and paying little mind to American lives being at risk. The film never needs to name Clinton or her crony colleagues. It’s a silent damnation of those who dare to put American citizens in harm’s way and then refuse to take the precautions necessary to protect them. It’s probably why Donald Trump hosted a free screening of the film for supporters when it was first released.

‘The War Room’
The Clintons together were examined in the highly acclaimed documentary, “The War Room.” Though the two were only supporting players in the fly-on-the-wall depiction of Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential run, they still don’t come across quite as glamorous as much of the media works so hard to make them today.

Bill Clinton’s scandals, including his alleged Gennifer Flowers affair, are shown to be a headache to suppress for his campaign. It’s a rather ironic film to watch today since the Clinton camp labors to make the presidential race about economic issues and to keep it away from character and personal tabloid stories — things they cling to in this election. Hillary’s passive and robotic nature in the movie doesn’t exactly work to disprove the perception of her as an enabler to her husband’s alleged wild behavior.

‘Primary Colors’
This was another film to examine the Clintons together. Based on the famous roman a clef book by Joe Klein again about Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, “Colors” showed unofficial versions of the Clintons, warts and all.

Bill’s doppelganger, portrayed by John Travolta, is a philandering, lying politician to his bone, and Hillary is an ambitious enabler. “Colors” was a rare and honest look at presidential politics that could never be made today — unless it was about Republicans.

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