There was a distinctly Stalinesque feeling to the 2017 Emmy Awards

Trump Derangement Syndrome at the Emmy Awards revealed that in Hollywood, as in the USSR or North Korea, it’s dangerous to deviate from the party line.

Emmy Awards Dolly Parton
A very surprised Dolly Parton, who didn’t expect her Nine to Five co-stars to go all “Cultural Revolution” on her at the Emmy Awards.

I didn’t watch the Emmy Awards. In fact, I haven’t watched the Emmy Awards in at least 20 years.

I don’t watch the Emmy Awards in part because, with a very few exceptions, I don’t watch television. Those exceptions are: Dancing With The Stars (I know, I know, but I do love the “getting it right” aspect of the show), Supernatural (funny, imaginative, and two handsome guys), and whatever old movies on TCM take my fancy (most often musicals). I’ll also watch the occasional British costume drama, such as Downton Abbey. Otherwise, the TV in our house exists for the family’s pleasure, not mine.

Even if I watched more television, though, I doubt I’d watch the Emmy Awards show. During the Bush years, the Bush Derangement Syndrome was painful. Watching the show was akin to the embarrassment I might feel if a manifestly crazy person started stripping in the subway. Even though the crazy person makes it a public act, the craziness really ought to be in private, so I avert my eyes.

With Trump in the White House, though, those suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome have doubled down. BDS made them crazy. TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) has turned Hollywood into something remarkably akin to Stalin’s Russia or today’s North Korea.

What we’re seeing is no longer virtue signalling for the sheer arrogant, condescending pleasure of doing so. The TDS shenanigans at the Emmy Awards are starting to resemble the madness of a people who are afraid not to spout the party line. I’ll explain this with two videos from the Emmy Awards and two videos from historic events.

This first video is simply a compilation of the obsessive logorrhea insulting Trump:

Note how frantic they are and how some in the audience force their laughter. Our modern celebrities cannot stop themselves. They dare not stop themselves. They must do this — and those watching must laugh and applaud — not just because they dislike Trump, but because to be silent is a form of disloyalty to the dangerous, judgmental world in which they live.

And now take a look at Dolly Parton’s face when she thinks she’s having a showbiz moment with old pals Lily and Jane, only to discover that she inadvertently wandered into a re-education camp:

It’s one thing to make a little fun of a politician, as American comedians and talk show hosts have done for decades; it’s a career-ender, though, to stand by when your fans’ political choice is castigated in the same terms the Soviet Politburo used for enemies of the state. And yet Dolly says nothing. Why?

I think the next two videos show why because they so perfectly illustrate the controlling mindset in Hollywood. It’s no longer a company town; it’s a very rich communist town, with all the group think, coerced behavior, and abject fear that implies.

Here’s a nice video from the Stalin era. Note, please, that he has to press a buzzer to end the applause, because no audience member dares to be the first to stop:

And here’s footage from the public weeping at Kim Il Sung’s funeral. Certainly, some of the people in attendance were genuine in their grief, for they have been told that their leaders are living gods. Most, however, were probably making extraordinary efforts to cry because they knew with certainty that government spies were observing them. Those who failed to show the proper emotion would find themselves — and their family and friends — taken off in the night to one of North Korea’s deadly, inhuman concentration camps:

If the pressure within Hollywood gets great enough, don’t be surprised if, at future award shows, you don’t see scenes echoing that surrounding Stalin’s speech or Kim Il Sung’s death. If you want to make it in Hollywood, you better get with the program, or you’ll find yourself re-educated right into doing dinner theater in Dubuque.