CELEBRITY SOAPBOXING

Iconoclast ^ | April 24, 2003 | Lin Anderson

[Apolitical]

CELEBRITY SOAPBOXING



by Lin Anderson

The recently-wrapped war in Iraq has produced few absolute certainties. We have, for example, little knowledge yet of what sort of government will be instituted there in the coming months -- except the strong suspicion that there won't be a whole lot of statues built for the people heading that government. We are also presently in the dark about the full extent of Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction. Come to think of it, we're even unsure about whether Saddam himself has been Mass Destructed.

But one very important thing we have conclusively learned from the war is that celebrities know everything. And we probably should have guessed this a long time ago. Or at least gotten the hint from that old pharmaceutical commercial in which a serious looking actor-guy opined that, "I'm not a doctor -- but I play one on TV." What more did we need than that bold statement to identify a true professional bringing with him wise advice about our health?

Similarly, when I took sight of the amply-endowed Denise Richards getting all sweaty in shorts and a tank top at a secret installation in that James Bond movie a few years back, I said to myself: "Yep. There's a nuclear scientist, all right."

So we really shouldn't have been at all surprised that members of the Celebrity Class turned out to be such experts on war and foreign affairs in general. Just follow the logic: we constantly see them looking glamorous on TV and in the movies, therefore it is obvious that their grasp of world politics and international conflict is just as firm as, er, well, their botox-injected Celebrity Areas.

Hits and bombs are their thing, after all.

Take Canadian songstress Avril Lavigne, for example. While being an 18-year-old high school dropout might seem a slight disadvantage to a career in diplomacy, Ms. Lavigne exhibited earlier this month no compunction at all about weighing in on world affairs in the manner of a, well, a Neville Chamberlain springs to mind. Or was that Aaron Neville?

It's so hard to tell these days.

"I don't believe war is a way to solve problems," Avril thoughtfully told a representative of a Far North news outlet while chomping down on a hunk of pizza. "I think it's wrong. I don't have respect for the people that made the decisions to go on with war. I don't have that much respect for Bush. He's about war, I'm not about war -- a lot of people aren't about war."

That's good to know. We can all rest easy that Avril Lavigne will think twice -- maybe even three times, if that's the charm -- about sending our servicepeople, particularly our Sk8er Bois, into harm's way.

And, to reference one of her other jillion-sellers, Avril hardly would seem to find the intricacies of Middle Eastern conflict "Complicated" at all. The opening verse of that platinum triumph is, I think, very indicative of Avril's War College-hewn mindset:

"Uh huh, life's like this
Uh huh, uh huh, that's the way it is
Cause life's like this
Uh huh, uh huh that's the way it is"

See, it's always so helpful to reduce things down to the most simple and direct terms possible. As Avril's interviewer noted: "When pressed about how apprised she really is about the situation in Baghdad, she candidly admitted to not following the news on a daily basis but said she knows the 'obvious things ... I know there's issues in Iraq. I'm not really a political person. It's hard for me to talk about the war. I don't really know what to say but I can say that I'm really proud that our Prime Minister didn't...fight...backed out from it.'"

Political speech for the ages, certainly, and as if to put her mouth where her mouth is, Avril also has announced her intention to record a remake of Bob Dylan's "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" in the interests of world peace. Or world pizza. I always get that mixed up.

While I get the feeling that hearing that bit of info is going to give Bob a touch of those Subterranean Homesick Blues, Bob is, after all, a celebrity who has been much sought-after over the years for his views on war, and should therefore fully understand young Avril's gesture, although she is not about war, uh huh.

However, the fact that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has not been similarly encouraged to offer his considered opinions on Avril's smash current single "I'm With You" speaks volumes about the way this whole Wartime Celebrity thing has developed. As Secretary of State Colin Powell might put it, there has been no quid pro quo here.

Parenthetically, my feeling is that Secretary Rumsfeld, if he has ever thought about Avril at all, believes she is some form of pain reliever, which is pretty much the exact opposite of what she really is on my daughter's CD player, 50 times per day, but there you go.

In fact, it's almost certain that Rummy is blissfully unaware of the entire current BillboardTop 40, having had no time to huddle with Casey Kasem during the present crisis. While that may seem an egregious fault in show business circles, I'm guessing it hardly raises a stir over there at the Pentagon. Rumsfeld, after all, is supposed to know all about bunker busters, not Busta Rhymes.

I'll bet if you asked Busta Rhymes, though, he'd have a whole heck of a lot to say about Secretary Rumsfeld. And you'd probably read about it in Newsweek......

[Apolitical]

Entertaining and insightful celebrity bashing from pundit extraordinaire, Lin Anderson.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Similarly, when I took sight of the amply-endowed Denise Richards getting all sweaty in shorts and a tank top at a secret installation in that James Bond movie a few years back, I said to myself: "Yep. There's a nuclear scientist, all right."

. . . all of which simply is a illustration of the fact that some excellences are uncorrelated with others. Even in the world of athletics, a good baseball pitcher is almost never a good baseball hitter (at the professional level). And that is becase if you're a good pitcher you can make the bigs whether or not you can hit--whereas even the finest-fielding shortstop or second-baseman won't make the majors without some facility with the lumber.

A pitcher, if he's sensible, hopes only to come to bat with no one on and two outs, so nobody's particularly sorry when he makes an out and goes out to the mound to do what he's actually competent at. A high-school dropout celebrity would be well advised to consider an opportunity to opine on world events as an opportunity to make a fool of herself, and just pass. I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that those who lack the prudence to pass on that, also lack the prudence to have a considered conservative opinion on much of anything.

[Greybird]

"The media is sick and tired of people in my position giving their opinions, and yet you ask for my opinion. And then when I give it, you're going to say, 'Why doesn't he shut up?'" -- Daniel Day-Lewis

[Cable225]

Similarly, when I took sight of the amply-endowed Denise Richards getting all sweaty in shorts and a tank top at a secret installation in that James Bond movie a few years back, I said to myself: "Yep. There's a nuclear scientist, all right."

Other believable roles -

Nicole Kidman as a neurosurgeon in Days of Thunder
George Cooney as the Dark Knight in Batman and Robin
Sandra Bullock as an unattractive frump in Miss Congeniality
Bruce Willis as a psychiatrist in The Color of Night
Matt LeBlanc as a fighter pilot in Lost in Space

Anyone else?

[Anamensis]

Brad Pitt as a vampire in Interview with a Vampire
Hugh Grant as sex god in Bridget Jones' Diary
Winona Ryder as Jo in Little Women
Brooke Shields as anything, ever.

[lilylangtree]

"we really shouldn't have been at all surprised that members of the Celebrity Class turned out to be such experts on war and foreign affairs in general."

While, as a general rule, these celebrities have absolutely no political experience outside of a script written by someone else and are among the least educated group.

[Greybird]

[Among sarcastically noted "believable" roles:]
Winona Ryder as Jo in Little Women

I couldn't disagree with you more. Ryder showed the spirit, determination, passion, and grit of Jo as none other had in the filmed role. (Katharine Hepburn came closest, but she wasn't at the top of her craft at that moment, as Ryder was.)

That Ryder does have looks (as did Hepburn in 1936) doesn't make her character's protestations of being "ugly" any less valid or believable -- for the issue in the story is how she sees and values herself. We all have crises of self-image and self-worth. Alcott's writing, and Ryder's acting, was vivid on this score.

Ryder deserved the Oscar she was nominated for in 1994. This version of "Little Women" is not quite a straight retelling of the story -- it's fleshed out with details from the real Alcott's life -- but it's closest to the author's spirit. Especially in her writing herself into the story as Jo.

That version also had Susan Sarandon as the girls' mother, and, o'course, that's enough for some of the politicizers of art around here to trash it, sight unseen -- or even seen and unobserving. And Sarandon's astringent acting improved on the depiction of Marmee in the book, who was impossibly sweet even for the 1870s.

[Greybird]

See reply immediately above. (I delete "To:" names when responding to the poster of the article ... shouldn't have done so here.)