Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Live Earth? How about live irony? (Rex Murphy)
Toronto Globe & Mail ^ | Saturday, July 14, 2007 | Rex Murphy

Posted on 07/16/2007 12:24:41 PM PDT by GMMAC

Live Earth? How about live irony?

By Rex Murphy
Toronto Globe and Mail
Saturday, July 14, 2007 – Page A23


The reviews are in concerning last weekend's eco-sanctimony staged by global warming's Nostradamus, Al Gore, and most of them aren't pretty. It was, according to the advance hype - and the hype for this event matched anything Hollywood roars up for Johnny Depp in a bandana, or a new Jessica Simpson big-screen onslaught - going to command an audience in excess of two billion. There is nothing original in rounding up a beaker full of rock stars and movie celebrities, faded songsters and a rapper or two to variously strum, gyrate and posture for a cause du jour. We have had We Are the World and Live Aid, Willie Nelson doing his minstrel bit for the American farmer, and last year's care-a-polooza, the Make Poverty History jamboree, which didn't.

NBC gave three hours of prime time to last Saturday's effort, which trawled a measly 2.7 million viewers, a number that would be embarrassing for a home-cooking show or a rerun of Three's Company. Not even such class-A world-dominating entertainers as Madonna and Shakira, assisted by those cleavage climatologists, the Pussycat Dolls, could lure the torpid and the unaware, in any numbers, to the home screen. Nor could Snoop Dogg (the bard of Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang) appearing on stage in Hamburg (Hamburg? Who knew?) jolt the sing-a-long into a zone of even mild and credible buzz.

What happened?

I suppose the spectacle of the world's most wasteful people, rock-star plutocrats with their cribs and bling, caravans of trailer trucks and 100,000-watt amplifiers, taking a day out of their wealth-stuffed lives to preach to the less well off of the world on the moral importance of consuming less "to save the planet" set the hypocrisy bar so high that it put too great a strain on the digestion of ordinary people. "Private jets for climate change," the phrase of one rock star who declined to join the bandwagon, summed up this aspect most wickedly.

Unless outfitted with a cast-iron stomach - and I mean a real one - how could anybody endure Madonna of the Nine Mansions wrapping herself in the ascetics of the eco-movement? Hyper-indulgent, super-pampered, colossally wealthy, manically consumerist entertainment celebrities preaching restraint to others: Live Earth was a weird and monstrous journey to a whole new dimension of live irony.

Come back Uriah Heep: All is forgiven.

Not even the professional environmentalists could stay their gorge at Madonna's participation. They gave the world the news that the Material Girl owns shares in the most politically incorrect enterprises, such as Alcoa, the American aluminum giant, the Ford Motor Company and Weyerhaeuser, which ... chops trees for money.

Then there was the sheer deep folly of it all. What has Shakira, or her hips, got to offer on the question of the world's weather over the next hundred years? But Shakira is Robert Oppenheimer on steroids compared with Geri Halliwell of the long-forgotten fluff band the Spice Girls - "Yo, I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want etc. etc. etc. etc."

Geri Halliwell, Snoop Dogg, Shakira, Madonna and the Pussycat arborists are an unlikely think tank (maybe a tank top) on global warming or anything else. They are career publicists of themselves, artists in the merchandising of fluff and ego.

But beyond the obvious hypocrisy, beyond the saccharine Mickey Rooney "let's put on a show" conceit of the Live Earth dud-spectacular, I think something rather deeper and, perhaps grimly encouraging, accounts for its failure.

The public has just gotten tired of "stars." These luminescent bodies are now in much the same leaky boat as most politicians, because, in so many ways, stars themselves, by trying to wed some aspects of politics to strengthen or underwrite their highly capitalist careers, are seen as manipulative in precisely the same cynical way politicians are. Entertainers are, primarily, politicians of their own careers.

They don't have the cred they used to have. They have been exposed as shills for themselves, before anything else. And so it's not the elephantine "carbon footprint" of Madonna or the big bands that turned people away from Live Earth.

It's the growing perception that the strutting icons up there on all those stages are playing a game just as the politicians play a game, and for very much the same self-serving, egotistic reasons.

It's an Animal Farm moment for our time. "The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

Now it's: Which are the stars and which the politicians? Madonna and Gore - can you spot the difference?

Rex Murphy is a Commentator with the National and host of CBC Radio's Cross-Country Checkup


TOPICS: Canada; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Political Humor/Cartoons
KEYWORDS: agw; algore; environonsense; greenhypocrisy; kyoto
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-31 next last
RELATED / ADDITIONAL 'CANADIAN CONTENT' --- A Habitable World? ~ Mark Steyn, New York Sun, Monday, July 16, 2007
1 posted on 07/16/2007 12:24:47 PM PDT by GMMAC
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: fanfan; Pikamax; Former Proud Canadian; Great Dane; Alberta's Child; headsonpikes; Ryle; ...


2 posted on 07/16/2007 12:26:14 PM PDT by GMMAC (Discover Canada governed by Conservatives: www.CanadianAlly.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: GMMAC
last weekend's eco-sanctimony staged by global warming's Nostradamus, Al Gore
Maybe the best description of this event to date.
3 posted on 07/16/2007 12:28:11 PM PDT by samtheman
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: GMMAC; beaversmom; basil; DrewsDad; Gracey; The Bat Lady

Enjoyed this post!


4 posted on 07/16/2007 12:29:51 PM PDT by TXBubba ( Democrats: If they don't abort you then they will tax you to death.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: GMMAC
I suppose the spectacle of the world's most wasteful people, rock-star plutocrats with their cribs and bling, caravans of trailer trucks and 100,000-watt amplifiers, taking a day out of their wealth-stuffed lives to preach to the less well off of the world on the moral importance of consuming less "to save the planet" set the hypocrisy bar so high that it put too great a strain on the digestion of ordinary people. "Private jets for climate change," the phrase of one rock star who declined to join the bandwagon, summed up this aspect most wickedly.
I can't believe it. He's topping Mark Steyn and Jonah Goldberg. This piece deserves a freaking Pulitzer (or whatever the award is for Best Opinion Piece Ever).
5 posted on 07/16/2007 12:31:43 PM PDT by samtheman
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: GMMAC
Hyper-indulgent, super-pampered, colossally wealthy, manically consumerist entertainment celebrities preaching restraint to others: Live Earth was a weird and monstrous journey to a whole new dimension of live irony.
This is Thomas Paine. This is give-me-liberty-or-give-me-death.
6 posted on 07/16/2007 12:33:15 PM PDT by samtheman
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: GMMAC
They don't have the cred they used to have. They have been exposed as shills for themselves, before anything else. And so it's not the elephantine "carbon footprint" of Madonna or the big bands that turned people away from Live Earth.

Ouch.

It's the growing perception that the strutting icons up there on all those stages are playing a game just as the politicians play a game, and for very much the same self-serving, egotistic reasons.

Double ouch!

It's an Animal Farm moment for our time. "The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

Call the ambulance!

7 posted on 07/16/2007 12:33:56 PM PDT by The Blitherer (What would a Free Man do?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: The Blitherer

Guess Mark Steyn isn’t the only good writer coming out of the Great White North.


8 posted on 07/16/2007 12:35:05 PM PDT by dfwgator (The University of Florida - Still Championship U)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: The Blitherer

I hope I live long enought to see “Carbon Footprint” as an obscure crossword puzzle question.


9 posted on 07/16/2007 12:37:17 PM PDT by AU72 (`)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: samtheman


10 posted on 07/16/2007 12:44:42 PM PDT by MotleyGirl70
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: GMMAC
It's Animal Farm once again, all right!

"stars"...are playing a game just as...politicians play a game, and for...the same self-serving, egotistic reasons.

When the majority of voters understand that politicians--like "stars"--are self-serving, the nation and the world will become far safer.

Those who claim altruistic motives--especially those who "want to give back"--are the worst.

When the electorate realizes that the politicians in Washington are NOT their friends but are a parasitic, ruling class, we can all sleep more peacefully.

If Madonna et al. raised the public awareness of this--even just a little bit--perhaps they unwittingly did the world a service.

11 posted on 07/16/2007 12:46:03 PM PDT by Savage Beast ("History is not just cruel. It is witty." ~Charles Krauthammer)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MotleyGirl70

excellent!


12 posted on 07/16/2007 12:48:58 PM PDT by samtheman
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: GMMAC; Alberta's Child; albertabound; AntiKev; backhoe; Byron_the_Aussie; Cannoneer No. 4; ...
"Private jets for climate change,"
13 posted on 07/16/2007 12:56:14 PM PDT by Clive
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: dfwgator
"Guess Mark Steyn isn’t the only good writer coming out of the Great White North. "

I've read that Elvis once immediately replied, when asked whose music he listened to: "Roy Orbison's".
Apparently, Mark Steyn is quite fond of the writings of his longtime friend & fellow Canadian David Warren.
To me, the generally unheralded Warren writes with virtually absolute moral clarity & is arguably Canada's finest conservative Catholic pundit.
14 posted on 07/16/2007 1:07:51 PM PDT by GMMAC (Discover Canada governed by Conservatives: www.CanadianAlly.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Clive

“Private jets for climate change,”

Ouch. Better put some ice on that.


15 posted on 07/16/2007 1:21:38 PM PDT by teddyballgame (red man in a blue state)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: GMMAC
It's an Animal Farm moment for our time. "The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

I sincerely hope that the oh-so smug readership of the Mope & Wail choke on their organic munchies reading this.

Rex occasionally crafts a gem of a column - this is one of those times!

16 posted on 07/16/2007 1:25:41 PM PDT by headsonpikes (Genocide is the highest sacrament of socialism.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: GMMAC

I rather enjoy it that Rex works for Mother Corp.


17 posted on 07/16/2007 1:26:29 PM PDT by Clive
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: GMMAC

18 posted on 07/16/2007 1:35:40 PM PDT by TChris (The Republican Party is merely the Democrat Party's "away" jersey - Vox Day)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: GMMAC

While from the Great White North, Rex is relly a Newfie. He has always been able to laugh at himself and EVERYBODY else.

He is a gem and it’s one of the few credits to CBC that they recognize his talent.


19 posted on 07/16/2007 1:38:42 PM PDT by BillM
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: GMMAC; dfwgator
It’s even better to listen to Rex — when this stuff is spoken with his Newfie accent, it can’t be topped.
20 posted on 07/16/2007 2:20:53 PM PDT by USFRIENDINVICTORIA
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-31 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson