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\n\tThe protests and petitions over Jimmy Kimmel<\/a> reflected Hollywood\u2019s politicized mood this week but also raised this question: Will this \u201870s-type zeal impact policy, or even color content?<\/p>\n \n\tHollywood veterans see a sad irony in the passing of Robert Redford<\/a> last week, since his political and social presence rivaled his impact as an actor. Redford, like several others of his generation, defied the myth that political roles would be career-killers. Indeed they made little effort to disguise their political leanings compared with the new generation of \u201cinfluencers\u201d who are eager to push products rather than politics.<\/p>\n \n\tThose unabashedly on the left included the likes of Redford, Paul Newman, Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, Barbra Streisand and Jane Fonda. Their right-wing colleagues included John Wayne, Charlton Heston, Jon Voight and George C. Scott. The upshot: Movies of that epoch were bolder and more strident in their narratives, reflecting a Kimmel style of chaotic humor.<\/p>\n \n\tExamples:<\/p>\n A liberal Hollywood spin doctor is hired by a conservative president to cover up a scandal by starting a war, albeit a totally unnecessary war.<\/p>\n A right-wing senator escapes his disastrous involvement in a conflict-of-interest case by hiring an assassin for a hit job \u2013 and he is the target.<\/p>\n A hard-drinking TV host decides to kill his autocratic boss when he realizes that he\u2019d actually been hired to engineer a right-wing political coup.<\/p>\n \n\tWould movies like Wag the Dog (1997), Bullworth (1998) or WUSA (1970) find financing today?<\/p>\n \n\tToday\u2019s cinephiles remember Warren Beatty, age 88, chiefly for the suspense of Bonnie & Clyde (1967) but forget his intellectually demanding drama Reds (1981). In that movie Beatty cast himself as a politically na\u00efve newsman who became sympathetic to the Bolshevik (later Communist) cause. He then fled Russia with Diane Keaton, a social activist, whose politics were equally exotic.<\/p>\n \n\tRedford, like Beatty, was a producer as well as an actor in All the President\u2019s Men (1976) and The Candidate (1972). Streisand was producer, director and star of the groundbreaking Yentl (1983) and confounded even her fans by opting for the role of a young boy.<\/p>\n