A Common Right-Wing Cliche

There's a common right-wing cliche that people in “red” states understand the “blue”-state viewpoint better than the other way around simply because they've been exposed to Hollywood propaganda. I disagree with my fellow loons on this issue. One way to check that is to see if equivalent movies on the right and left are equally well distributed.

Let's take two films that are works of fiction that were intended to be documentaries: Fahrenheit 911 and The Passion of the Christ. According to a a graph in The New York Times, all of the 50 highest-grossing theaters of Fahrenheit 911 were in blue states whereas the 50 highest-grossing theaters of The Passion of the Christ were in both red and blue states. It looks like the blue states are better exposed to red-state ideas (at least borderline nutty ones) than vice versa.