More and more celebrities using fame to back causes
Posted on 12/25/2002 7:49:55 PM PST by MeekOneGOP
More and more celebrities using fame to back causes
12/26/2002
NEW YORK - From the moment Sean Penn arrived in Baghdad, eager to advance the cause of peace, he was doomed - a dead man talking.
He was a celebrity, like so many other celebrities who have waded into the treacherous waters of politics or international relations. So he walked gingerly - he was there, he said, "to learn and not to teach." He avoided reporters. And he was careful not to say or do anything that would cause a meltdown at home.
So the Iraqis did it for him.
Mr. Penn "confirmed that Iraq is completely clear of weapons of mass destruction and the United Nations must adopt a positive stance toward Iraq," the official Iraqi News Service reported.
Before Mr. Penn could deny it, the New York Post had published its top 10 reasons Mr. Penn would be a great U.N. arms inspector (No. 2: "After 'Shanghai Surprise,' Mr. Penn certainly knows what a bomb looks like."). Craig Kilborn of the CBS Late, Late Show also scorned Mr. Penn's peace efforts.
"Hey, isn't that Bono's job?" Mr. Kilborn said.
No. Bono is the one who flew to Africa with the since-defenestrated treasury secretary Paul O'Neill promoting the fight against hunger. Not to be confused with the late Sonny Bono, who was elected to Congress because he sang next to Cher (who called radio stations during the 2000 presidential campaign to support Al Gore).
Sometimes, it seems, there are more actors on soapboxes than in soap operas.
Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, Edward James Olmos, the various Baldwin brothers, Ted Nugent, Tom Selleck, Harry Belafonte, Woody Harrelson, Angelina Jolie, Ben Affleck, Warren Beatty - the list of politically active celebrities is long and growing.
Jesse Ventura started out administering sleeper holds and ended up Minnesota's governor; Bill Bradley started out shooting jumpers and ended up in the Senate; Ronald Reagan started out co-starring with a chimpanzee and ended up in the White House.
Charlton Heston started out parting the Red Sea, moved on to marching with Martin Luther King and ended up waving a musket over his head for the National Rifle Association.
"Celebrities often have assumed political roles, but it's becoming more frequent all the time," says Darrell West, director of the Center for Public Policy and American Institutions at Brown University and co-author of the book Celebrity Politics.
Mr. West says celebrity politics is almost inevitable. Anyone with an opinion and a platform is likely to speak out, and political groups are eager to help them.
Do they know more than the average nonentity? Probably not. "You just have to hope that they have smart people advising them," Mr. West said.
Most of the time, Mr. West said, notables know enough not to generate bad publicity. But occasionally, they fail.
An early example is Charles Lindbergh, whose solo flight across the Atlantic made him one of the most famous - and admired - people in the world.
But Mr. Lindbergh visited Germany in 1939 and came away convinced that the Nazi military machine was invincible. He helped create America First, which advocated that the United States stay out of the war in Europe.
For this, Mr. Lindbergh's reputation took a nosedive. "Hitler wrote to Lindy, said 'Do your very worst,' So Lindy started an outfit that he called America First," Woody Guthrie sang.
The most famous example of ritual celebrity disembowelment was that of Jane Fonda, who went to North Vietnam in 1972, at the height of the Vietnam war, and posed in an anti-aircraft gun. Thirty years later, despite her apologies, she is still widely known as Hanoi Jane.
Others have suffered lesser debacles. In October, Democrat Barbra Streisand was excoriated for a performance at a party fund-raiser. She had read a quote - "Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war," it began - and attributed it to Shakespeare, falsely.
In fact, a poll by The Hollywood Reporter this year found that Ms. Fonda, Alec Baldwin and Ms. Streisand were the celebrities least admired for their political views.
The flip side were those most admired for their politics: Bono, Oprah Winfrey and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
In an online forum in 2000, actor William Baldwin - Alec's brother - said everyone, celebrity and noncelebrity alike, should "use the voice you're given."
But Mr. Baldwin knows that the effectiveness of his voice is a function of the box office.
"First and foremost, I'm an actor," he said. "If I have a hit movie, it gives my show business career a shot in the arm, and it gives my advocacy career a correlating shot in the arm."
Ever since Julia Roberts said that Republicans are in the dictionary between reptile and repugnant, I have decided to boycott her movies, and anyone else that wants to insult those of us on the right side of politics.
It's beyond me how many Republicans continue to patronize these idiots at the box office.
I could like Barbara Streisand today if she were not such a political idiot. She has a beautiful voice, but turned me off years ago. The same goes for untold others for me personally. Long Cut is right on his posts on this article, imho.....
I think maybe you left off your sarcasm tag?....or maybe not. Happy News Years in any case, my FRiend!
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