Bug Hall, who played Alfalfa in The Little Rascals and executive produced and wrote Netflix’s A Tale Dark & Grimm, explains why he believes film and TV is “objectively evil.”
As part of an interview with Nick De La Torre, Hall said, “All the movies you watch have grave evils associated with them. In the means to produce them whether it’s the grave evil of usury, whether it’s all the way back through the process.”
De La Torre then clarified, “So there’s a ton of layers that at some point there’s explicit participation in evil no matter what the film is.”
Hall concurred, “No matter what the film is. I was a producer for 10 years. I ran my own development company, sold shows to Netflix. I know every model. Even The Passion [of the Christ]. The Passion was self-funded by the way, but then you have to go back and look at Mel Gibson’s previous career, the things that he did to acquire the career. … And I understand that that’s a separate issue. All I’m saying is The Passion doesn’t happen without evil.”
“There’s also plenty of moral principles. You can say, ‘Well, we are allowed to materially remotely cooperate with evil to a certain degree. You can dig into all of that if you want. But, first of all, no one is obligated to and you have to at least be truthful enough to say, and I also have the knowledge to be able to say it comfortably. Every film you’ve ever watched you’re participating in grave evil. Grave evil. Somewhere in the process.”
After sharing that the average American spends around 5 years of their life watching film and TV, he said, “Imagine standing before our Lord. And this is why I finally came to that conclusion because when I was running my company we were a secret Catholic company. All of my investors were millionaire and billionaire Catholics and we sold them the idea that we’re Trojan horses and we’re going to convert the world. And I believed it. I never lied. And then one day I didn’t believe. Part of the reason I didn’t believe it was that I realized there is a-. Even though good might come of this evil, I can’t keep committing evil. I can’t keep participating with evil just because I’m hoping some conversion’s going to happen somewhere in the world. Because God doesn’t need me to do it.”
He goes on to contrast it with using a cell phone and shopping at Kroger, “This is just not a necessary one. This is one what we have built an idol out of. And our children are being lost to it. How many Catholic kids, especially traditional Catholic kids because they love beauty? Those are some of the biggest cinephiles I know. Because they’re like beauty and art and I’m going to be a writer. God’s calling me.”
Later in the interview, he heavily criticized films with carnal scenes, “We have the gall to be like, ‘Well, my intention is to watch the beauty in this movie’ even though there was a young woman whose innocent was completely destroyed by baring herself on screen. And she wept for four hours before filming.”
When asked if this was a specific movie he was in, he elaborated, “Almost every movie that I ever did that had a scene like that, a love scene, a carnal scene of any sort if the actress had not previously engaged in scenes like that before it was three to four hours of uncontrollable weeping.”
He went on to confirm that his happened in American Pie Presents The Book Of Love with Beth Behrs, “So Beth Behrs, it was her first movie. She became a huge star. She was one of the main characters in 2 Broke Girls. … When I worked with her she was just this sweet, innocent Midwest girl and she begged the producers and she cried and she wept, wept. And I saw this 10 times in my career, maybe more than 10 times. She wept and she went off to her trailer, ‘I need to compose myself.’ … But also it’s 100% of the time. Every time it’s the first time. That’s the process. And the producers all know that’s the process. They schedule it in. It’s scheduled in. Why is this scene scheduled for a full day when a quarter of a page scene would normally take you six hours, five hours? Why is it the full day. They know. ‘Well, we’re going to have to deal with the actress. It’s her first time. We’re going to have to deal with her for about 4 hours.’ It’s just part of the process.”
After detailing this, he shared, “My position on Hollywood is multifaceted. It’s not one thing. … The fact that usury is intrinsically linked to basically every film financing in some way or another. And usury is a grave evil. It’s a grave evil. The fact that the carnal aspect is linked to every project you watcher whether it’s through the producers, that’s how they got they start, whatever the case is. Or the actresses in it almost always have to go through that process at some point. There’s a million things.
“But the other big one is: Every single Catholic I ever knew who said God’s calling me to Hollywood. I would always challenge them, ‘Well what are you going to do when this comes up, when that comes up.’ ‘I’ll just keep my head low. I can say no to that stuff. And then once I’m Mark Wahlberg then I can do things the way I want.’ Sold your soul to get there. But here’s the thing what people don’t realize about Mark Wahlberg. Mark Wahlberg is an empire. Mark Wahlberg has 300 people that work for him. He’s a massive business. You really think that when you’re a billion dollar business, you think that the weight of temptation is less? There’s way more at stake. You can’t keep it together when there’s almost nothing at stake. You think you’re going to keep it together when you’re Mark Wahlberg?”
He then added, “This is the other problem with Hollywood because it’s the central glorification of our culture: the attachment. I just don’t believe that any human at this point-. It’s like saying, ‘I can be a bartender at the such and such carnal bar down the street, but I know I’m a virtuous enough man to deal with that and I’m not technically participating in any evil. I’m just serving drinks. I need a job and I’m serving drinks. I’ll be fine. Trust me. I’ll be fine. I’m a virtuous guy I can do that.’ First of all, I don’t think that temptation comes close to the temptations that you face in Hollywood. I don’t believe that anybody makes it out.”
“I just so strongly believe that it’s lost. It’s a lost cause. I think you’re holding your own soul in your own hands when you go out there,” he declared.
NEXT: HBO Chairman And CEO Reveals Release Window For Game Of Thrones Spinoff
Precisely. The reach of evil touches it.
This is why I say that when someone buys a ticket to see a stupid movie, they are directly funding child trafficking, rape, and murder.
I know he's been strongly affected by the evils of Hollywood, and he's certainly right about the sex stuff (and maybe some of the "usury", though that doesn't mean now what it used to), but by his logic here, we should never engage in anything, because something evil probably happened somewhere along the long, long line of tangential events getting to the "now" of whatever we're doing.
Bug sounds like he's either suffering from scrupulosity, or trying so hard to make his point that he's overstating it.