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Hollywood vs. "Stupid" America
FrontPageMagazine ^ | 11/13/03 | Howard Mortman

Posted on 11/13/2003 12:35:34 AM PST by kattracks

If you’re an American, chances are there’s a celebrity who thinks you’re dumb. Maybe even stupid. Or an idiot. Or something worse, which we can’t print here.

Yes, show A celebrity an American, and that celebrity will show you an ignoramus.

Too sweeping a statement? Perhaps. But what about this Michael Moore screed about Americans in the London Mirror earlier this month? “They are possibly the dumbest people on the planet. ...We Americans suffer from an enforced ignorance. We don’t know about anything that’s happening outside our country. Our stupidity is embarrassing.”

Until Michael Moore pointed it out, you probably didn’t know how embarrassingly stupid you are. In fact, you probably have so little intelligence you didn’t know that Moore isn’t the only celebrity who thinks you’re dumb. Indeed, Moore has colleagues in the celebrity kingdom who think the same thing.

So put on your well-worn dunce cap and check out what other celebrities say about your intelligence. And if the celebrities are correct in their analysis, you’re moving your lips as you read this.

Johnny Depp said a few months back, “America is dumb, is something like a dumb puppy that has big teeth that can bite and hurt you.” (Depp later claimed he was quoted out of context and offered: “I am an American. I love my country and have great hopes for it. It is for this reason that I speak candidly and sometimes critically about it.” But still, we’re like dumb puppies?)

Ted Turner once said this about television-watchers: “The United States has got some of the dumbest people in the world. I want you to know that; we know that.”
       
JANE SOUNDS OFF, TOO

Speaking of Ted Turner, Jane Fonda was in Canada this past April and said: “I don’t know if a country where the people are so ignorant of reality and of history, if you can call that a free world.”

Also in Canada, Martin Sheen said recently: “Every time I cross this border, I feel like I’ve left the land of lunatics. You are not armed and dangerous. You do not shoot each other. I always feel a bit more human when I come here.”

Lunatics, ignorant people, dummies — even dumb puppies. Yes, we got ’em all here.

Where does this superior celebrity intellect come from? It’s actually part of a larger phenomenon, one involving the president. Celebrities sneer at President Bush’s intelligence. And then they think we’re all the same, just dumb Bush-boosters

For evidence of how much smarter celebrities think they are than the president, we start again with super-smart guy Michael Moore. A year ago, he told the London Mirror (he loves those British papers), “I really do believe Bush is dumber than s@?*. What’s odd about all this is that Blair is a smart guy. What’s he doing hanging out with a dumb guy? Back at school if you were smart, you hung out with the other kids that were smart.”

Sticking with the European press, earlier this year Larry Hagman told a German newspaper that Bush was a “sad figure: not too well-educated, who doesn’t get out of America much.” And Sheen told the BBC after Bush became president: “George W. Bush is like a bad comic working the crowd. A moron, if you’ll pardon the expression.”

I’m not sure which expression we should be pardoning there, mind you. Maybe it’s because I’m a moron-American (we’re such a hyphenated nation these days).

But the hits continue. In April, Edward Norton said of Bush: “As an actor, I know in my mind, watching him, what a low-quality mind he has.” And during the 2000 campaign, Cher said, “I don’t like Bush. I don’t trust him. I don’t like his record. He’s stupid. He’s lazy.”
       
SNAP OUT OF IT!

Yikes! Stupid and lazy? C’mon, Cher! Snap out of it!

Also during the 2000 campaign, Rob Reiner said, “We have the single most unqualified man running for president in our lifetime. I’m not making this up! I’m not making this up! The man has no experience, and worse than that, he has no intellectual curiosity.” Gee, he makes Bush sound like a, well, like a meathead.

No celebrity said it smarter than Sandra Bernhard. She asserted her intelligence and belittled Bush at the same time to the Washington Post in March 2002: “I’m an intelligent person from America. I was born in Michigan and raised in Arizona, and while I do reside in New York, I travel the country extensively. Any thinking person who lives in the world would be disturbed at what’s going on right now. I think Bush is amateurish and self-serving, and, frankly, it’s disgusting.”

I would offer a retort to Bernhard, but I can’t think of anything smart to say. I’ve never been to Michigan.


Howard Mortman is a producer for "Hardball, with Chris Matthews."



TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: hollywoodleft
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1 posted on 11/13/2003 12:35:34 AM PST by kattracks
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To: kattracks
When people pay to see the crap these people produce, it's no wonder that they feel this way.
2 posted on 11/13/2003 1:23:23 AM PST by monocle
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To: kattracks
I don't know... In a way Michael Moore's got a point. Anybody who would make celebrities of these people has got to be stupid.
3 posted on 11/13/2003 1:31:26 AM PST by Savage Beast (This is the choice: confrontation or capitulation. Appeasement is capitulation.)
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To: kattracks
Good find, katts'.

I have an urge to comment about the alleged vomitus these alleged people are alleged to have spewed.

But given that I have no idea who any of them is it seems a bit pointless.

Michael who?
4 posted on 11/13/2003 1:39:08 AM PST by Brian Allen ( Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God - Thomas Jefferson)
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To: kattracks
More hate Americans, blame America, undermine America, whining rhetoric.
5 posted on 11/13/2003 2:03:24 AM PST by tkathy (The islamofascists and the democrats are trying to destroy this country)
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To: kattracks
I love freedom of speech, it's wonderful. I would really like to know what makes the people of Hollywierd so much smarter than us dumb puppy Americans. Is it all the money that makes them so superior, or that they get to travel the world and therefore have all this deep insight that us stupid Americans don't.

How come none of these intellectually superior Hollyweird Americans have never been elected president, well except for Ronald Reagan, except for some reason I don't believe Ronald Reagan was ever infected by this Hollyweird elitism. Maybe because he didn't put cocaine up his nose that made him Know it all like these drugged out or alchohol abused minds that live in the unreal world of Hollywierd.

The fools of Hollywierd have this problem that they live all these different lives, from one movie to the next. They don't know who they are, they just have to be better because of what they have learned from the trash they make in Hollywierd.

When I have left the United States of America to train our American Military, I don't get any feeling of leaving an inferior country. I get a deep sense of Pride, of what a GREAT Country I live in. The people in Europe truly live in a world several decades behind that in America. I wonder if that's why Alec Baldwin and his brothers didn't leave this great country when Mr. Bush became our great President.

Canada is a very beautiful Country to the eye, yet they are so undeveloped as a nation. Without the United States as their neighbor, the country would be crap. Why does Hollywierd believe Canada is such a great nation? Can they really feel something when they cross the border? Then make them stay there.

It's time we voted all those in Hollywierd out of our Great United States of America, and replenish the actor pool with true Americans. We need more John Waynes, Jimmy Stewarts, Lee Remicks, and other God Loving true American actors back in Hollywood, instead of a bunch of mentally deficit, Coked out, Alchohlic, depressed morons.

The only thing we can be called stupid for is our continuing to provide this crap pool of actors a means to make a very decent living. It's time to boycott this trash and let them retire in their cesspool minds of euphoria, and dementions of grandure.

herkbird
6 posted on 11/13/2003 2:16:26 AM PST by herkbird
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To: kattracks
Yep. That's me. Dumb. As. A. Rock.

I have a college education and work as a financial analsyt.

I'm married to a wonderful, responsible man who tells me every day how much he loves me.

We are close to our families and we all take care of each other.

Major losers. Not like those hollywood types. I wish I could be like...like...um...wait a minute...

7 posted on 11/13/2003 2:25:57 AM PST by meowmeow
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To: herkbird
The more the geniuses in Hollywood talk, the more they are exposed. Free speech is wonderful.
8 posted on 11/13/2003 4:11:05 AM PST by Loyal Buckeye
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To: kattracks; MeeknMing; PhilDragoo; Ragtime Cowgirl; Alamo-Girl; ntnychik; dixiechick2000; ...




H   O   L   L   Y   W   O   O   D


9 posted on 11/13/2003 4:20:41 AM PST by autoresponder ( http://0access.web1000.com/alreg-xw.gif --> LATEST URL--> http://0access.web1000.com/JDAM.gif)
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To: kattracks
It seems Mr. Sheen does not read the Toronto newspapers. I am sure the people of Toronto would like to go back to the days that there where no gunfights in the streets. Of course that would mean tearing down the false god of multiculturalism and admitting that in fact all cultures are not equal.
10 posted on 11/13/2003 4:27:24 AM PST by Cdnexpat (Mr Bush, please don't speak to any member of a Liberal government on any topic.)
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To: autoresponder
Preferably at the Oscars.
11 posted on 11/13/2003 4:38:02 AM PST by Siamese Princess
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Comment #12 Removed by Moderator

To: kattracks
If you’re an American, chances are there’s a celebrity who thinks you’re dumb...and sadly, these days you probably are. Talk to a high school graduate, teacher, drop-out lately? Clinton got elected twice. NAFTA has gutted the American manufacturing base while taxpayers have subsidized the corporations moving to China. The free market is supposed to determine price, supply, and demand except if you are a farmer then taxpayers subsidize agri-corporations and make sure they make a dollar. You pay 2 to 4 times as much for life saving medication as illegals and canadians. However despicable celebrities might be, even alec baldwin knows when its raining.
13 posted on 11/13/2003 5:00:52 AM PST by RWG
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To: kattracks
Typical of "Hollyweird", biting the hands that feed them.
14 posted on 11/13/2003 5:11:21 AM PST by Chantal
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To: kattracks
If we are all so dumb, why do people from all over the world come here to continue their education?

15 posted on 11/13/2003 5:15:21 AM PST by jawz
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To: Siamese Princess
Hollywood creates its own bombs

Mine rearm and explode again
16 posted on 11/13/2003 5:34:40 AM PST by autoresponder ( http://0access.web1000.com/alreg-xw.gif --> LATEST URL--> http://0access.web1000.com/JDAM.gif)
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To: kattracks
Who's Michael Moore?
17 posted on 11/13/2003 5:39:19 AM PST by Overtaxed
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To: kattracks
With the Left -- shallow Hollywood leftists included -- everything is flipped on its head, always. The Left drones on about "democracy" and "the will of the people", but time and time again it shows that what it really has in its mind when it considers "the people" is distrust. In fact, the entire philosophy of Leftism is predicated on the notion that the group, the people, are always wrong.

The proof of this can be seen in any issue where the Left and Right are squaring off. The Left will invariably take the position which seeks to shift the locus of decision-making, authority, power away from the people and towards the enlightened central authorities. Example: taxes. The central authorities will more wisely dispose of the people's income than the people themselves (according to the Left), so more of the people's money should be siphoned off and routed towards Washington. All other issues follow the same pattern.

So when these Hollywood types sneer at the intelligence of Middle America, they're being perfectly consistent with the rest of their leftist peers in Washington or Europe or wherever. What sets them apart is that they lack the discipline necessary to couch their distrust for the befuddled masses in terms of compassion or pity, and instead express it as contempt. Clever leftists prefer to come across as the savior and advocate for us dummies, but unsophisticated Hollywood types cave in to their urge to sneer.

...plus the people elected President Bush and that drives them bonkers.

18 posted on 11/13/2003 6:14:49 AM PST by Yardstick
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To: monocle; Savage Beast; Brian Allen; tkathy; herkbird; meowmeow; Loyal Buckeye; autoresponder; ...
To be a pure celebrity--to be famous for being famous--is to live and die by PR.

Journalists are celebrities. Like movie stars, they are not expert in the scientific controversies surrounding global warming and so forth. But all celebrities are expert in one thing: knowing what is the safe thing to say.

Whoever says something which flatters the profession of journalism will get good PR in return. And the thing which most flatters the journalist is to be called objective. In the world of celebrity, the "intellectual competition" is over who can flatter the rest of the world of celebrity most subtly.

Why Broadcast Journalism is
Unnecessary and Illegitimate

19 posted on 11/13/2003 6:30:05 AM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion (The everyday blessings of God are great--they just don't make "good copy.")
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To: kattracks; All
And yet, no one here on Free Republic can argue this paraphrased axiom:

"No one in politics ever lost an election by underestimating THE STUPIDITY OF THE AMERICAN VOTER."

The great unwashed proletariat will always elect Socialists to power in America.

I fear for 2004. I will deploy overseas and defend these people, only to return to an America in ruins.

20 posted on 11/13/2003 6:47:00 AM PST by Old Sarge (Serving You... on Operation Noble Eagle!)
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