it is a tough one to answer. why hasn't it been more conservative? they are going with what they believe audiences want by and large. audiences seemed to go with films that tend to be more liberal than films that are more conservative. >> that changes over the arc of american history? can you see the product coming out of hollywood changing at different points in our society? >> well, depends how you define liberal and conservative. so you can go back to the 1930s, for example in the most successful financially mgm series ever was the hardy family series, one of the few things that louis b. mayer really pay close attention to. and it offered a very conservative worldview. if you want to see the roots of reagan this morning in america, you can find them in the hardy family series. and when you get to wartime, whenever you are in a war,

hollywood is always making a pro-war film except where were they totally avoid other than the green beret. but world war ii was making progress soames, world war i. and they were trying to make pro-war films during iraq and afghanistan and discovered they just didn't work. and so they just stuck making them. >> next caller from longview texas. this is wanda appeared welcome to the conversation, wanda. >> hi, this is really interesting. i wanted to ask mr. ross is he a thing -- of course they do have lots of money behind him and try to influence us on a lot of things and a lot of people say no, just entertain us and i'll be lecturing us. do you think that there is a lot of info in? you think they move things today

acquired >> tanks. her question ultimately is how much do movies that the population to appoint a few? how much influence do they really have? >> at the very subtle one. one of the things i would argue his movies mattered the most about the things we know the least. if you see a film about something you know, you can do a reality test to get to the film and just laugh at it or say it's absurd. but if you watch a film about them if you don't know, whether it is a war in iraq were enough guinness and, whether it is about college life today and whether it's about drugs, marriage, whatever, things who are not familiar with it is not one film that matters, but the repetition of the same kind of image over and over and over again i think actually can begin to move the population and begin to reshape the way you think about the world. again for things you don't have much knowledge about. i will just point out one film.

mississippi burning that came out a few decades ago with made by a british director who really knew nothing about american history. if you watch mississippi burning, the fbi is a great hero of the civil rights movement. well, that's about 180 degrees from what actually happened. jay edgar hoover tried everything he could to bring down martin luther king. so you know, those kinds of films can give you misinformation about what actually happened in american life in the american past. >> one other aspect of a running out of time so it's not just using celebrity or studios for messages, it's also dollar contribution. have you studied and are you interested if money goes to the left into the right in terms of actual dollar contributions? >> the various polls that have been done a survey showed there is much more -- it was the right that started collecting money.

hollywood has a longer history of conservatism and liberalism. it's one of the things i argue in the book but it was louis b. mayer at establishing the first relationship between studio and party and he turned mgm as well as many studios in l.a. into a money source for hollywood. it wasn't until the 30s that the democrats really came into hollywood. and now we have a situation where within the industry at the left is getting money mainly on actors. the right is getting money mainly from studio executives. ..

>> we'll be back all gay tomorrow here at the campus of usc for coverage of the los angeles festival of books. we'll again be covering non-fiction books

>> if you started in late 1857. pierce was gone. buchanan was the president. so davis was no longer in control of the project. but he was his great friend in congress because he had gone back to the senate. he was again the senator from mississippi.