The conservative fringe has a new darling, and he's a former drug-gobbling, hooker-chasing William Morris agent named Pat Dollard. A 23,000-word profile in the March issue of Vanity Fair tells the story of Dollard's transformation from sharp-dressed dealmaker for the likes of Steven Soderbergh to gonzo auteur who survived two roadside bombings while embedded with Marines in Iraq.
For the past two years, Dollard's been working on a film called Young Americans, a music video-style documentary explicitly intended to glorify U.S. troops and the violence they deploy in battle. "The message of my movie is simple: If you're a young person in America, the coolest, fucking most badass and most noble thing you can be today is a combat Marine," he tells Evan Wright. "My goal is to de-sensitize young people to violence. I want kids to watch my film and understand that brutality is the fucking appropriate response to a brutal enemy." Hence the footage of a mosque being destroyed and a Marine hoisting a severed Iraqi head before the camera.