Behind the scenes with America's most radioactive right-winger
A new film about Ann Coulter hopes to make her opponents a "little more open to dialogue"
Kathy Shaidle - September 27, 2004
Patrick Wright has produced documentaries about controversial subjects before--from AIDS to sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. But he wasn't prepared for the reaction his latest work received at a film festival in May.
"I got called a right-winger for the first time," recalls Wright. "And I loved it."
In Is It True What They Say About Ann?, directors Wright and Elinor Burkett tackle one of the most divisive subjects in the United States today: Ann Coulter. The conservative columnist once tried (among other things) to rehabilitate Senator Joseph McCarthy in her 2003 book, Treason, and famously wrote of the Muslims behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks, "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."
Her long, blonde hair, longer legs and take-no-prisoners rhetoric have earned her plenty of enemies (who refer to her, unflatteringly, as the right's answer to Michael Moore) as well as admirers, who have even created a market for Coulter-related merchandise, including a Barbie-like, talking Ann Coulter doll that, when you push a button, says "Why not go to war just for oil? We need oil" and "liberals hate America."
Wright was moved to make the film when, during the last U.S. election, a friend happened to mention that he would never deign to have a Republican over for dinner. "I was stunned," says the Kentucky-born 38-year-old. "That's most of my family. That really got me thinking: what is this monster called a 'conservative'?"
Wright called up Burkett, author of So Many Enemies, So Little Time, released in March, and a friend with whom Wright had been looking to collaborate for years.
Burkett--a liberal, Pulitzer Prize-nominated reporter--had met Coulter while researching her 1998 book, The Right Women: A Journey Through the Heart of Conservative America, and, to her surprise, had discovered they had much in common.
Both filmmakers found the left's visceral hatred of Coulter a source of fascination. Coulter was a lawyer, an author, the fabled independent woman of liberal feminist lore, and yet liberals typically react to her many TV appearances by switching off the channel in disgust. With a US$1,800 grant from the Maryland Institute College of Art (where Wright chairs the video department), Wright and Burkett went on the road with Coulter. It's only 38 minutes long, but Is It True What They Say About Ann? attempts to provide the audience with a more comprehensive picture of Coulter than the standard two or three minutes they see during her regular appearances on Fox News and CNN.
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