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Acting out - Hollywood antiwar sentiment is loud and clear. And so is the opposition
Philly.com ^ | February 20, 2003 | By Beth Gillin

Posted on 02/28/2003 11:18:02 AM PST by MeekOneGOP

Posted on Thu, Feb. 20, 2003 story:PUB_DESC
Acting out
Hollywood antiwar sentiment is loud and clear. And so is the opposition.

Inquirer Staff Writer

Martin Sheen and James Cromwell turned out for Saturday's protest on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles. Celebrities do affect public opinion, media experts say.
Martin Sheen and James Cromwell turned out for Saturday's protest on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles. Celebrities do affect public opinion, media experts say.

It's the largest outpouring of star-powered anti-war sentiment since the Vietnam War.

Barbra Streisand, Martin Sheen, Jessica Lange, Spike Lee, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Martin Scorsese, Sean Penn, Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Ossie Davis, Robert Altman.

Some of the country's biggest stars are loudly against invading Iraq.

Edward Norton, Tyne Daly, Danny Glover, Rob Reiner, Penelope Cruz, Alec Baldwin, Mike Farrell, Janeane Garofalo, Woody Harrelson and Rosario Dawson.

The list goes on.

They're marching and speechifying, signing petitions and making commercials to rally opposition against Gulf War Two: Return to Iraq.

Not everyone is impressed.

"If Washington is a Hollywood for ugly people, Hollywood is a Washington for the simpleminded," cracked maverick U.S. Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.).

Nevertheless, people are listening. "Celebrities have credibility with the general public," said Dennis Broe, a professor of film, media and television history at Long Island University. "As they raise the profile of the opposition, it hurts the president."

"They definitely influence opinion," agreed Paul Levinson, chairman of communications and media studies at Fordham University. "There's even a term for it in propaganda: false association, or appeal to false authority."

What this means, he said, is that a person admired as an authority on moviemaking or acting is easily accepted as an authority on politics as well.

The current rage for Five-Minute Ordinary People Celebrities hasn't dimmed the power of Hollywood stars by so much as a watt, Levinson said.

"Joe Millionaire is still an average Joe. He lacks the clout of a star whose work we've admired over and over on the screen."

But can they stop the war? So far, the Hollywood Left has managed to seriously annoy some in the American Middle.

By yesterday afternoon, 30,531 people had logged on to www.ipetitions.com to sign an online petition called "Citizens Against Celebrity 'Pundits.' "

The petition protests movie- star marchers "using their celebrity to interfere with the defense of our country."

Accompanying many signatures are blistering comments - "low-intelligence egomaniacs," "stay in your fantasy world and out of foreign affairs" - as well as boycott threats.

It may seem that the antiwar stars speak for all of Hollywood. They don't. Many actors are Republican (Heather Locklear, Kelsey Grammer, Babylon Five's Tracy Scoggins, Senator-turned-Law-&-Order-star Fred Thompson.)

Others are libertarian (Drew Carey, Lisa Kennedy, Kurt Russell, Penn and Teller, Tommy Chong, Russell Means).

Emma Caulfield, who plays Anya on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, describes herself as "ultraconservative." Conservative Everybody Loves Raymond star Patricia Heaton is honorary chairperson of Feminists for Life.

Professionally they may all get along. But when it comes down to the political and the personal, Hollywood Hawks and Tinseltown Liberals can clash.

There was Bush supporter James Woods, tooling down the highway in his car on Feb. 3, when he heard David Clennon, star of CBS's The Agency, on the radio comparing the "moral climate" of America to Nazi Germany.

Except, Clennon told Sean Hannity, host of the national syndicated show, Hitler was smarter than Bush.

Furious, Woods called the show and peppered Clennon with quotes from Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, who famously called war "the continuation of politics by other means."

In January, Woods came under fire for telling the host of a Los Angeles TV show: "If they harbor terrorists, we should wipe them off the face of the Earth. Eventually, one of these terrorist diaper-heads is going to come around and do something more horrible."

Callers complained that the insult was a racist slur. "I think Mr. Woods is off his medication," said Jean Abinader of the Arab American Institute in Washington.

Last month, hawk Ron Silver almost caused an international incident at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Enraged that Patrick Cox, president of the European Union parliament, called the United States an imperialist nation, Silver jumped from his table and lectured Europe for sitting on the sidelines in the Balkans while America fought for peace.

Afterward, he and Cox went out for a drink. Lately, Silver's been popping up on TV talk shows, urging viewers to give war a chance.

Pro-war or anti-, celebrities seem to over-emote when overseas.

In Spain last fall, Jessica Lange said, "It is an embarrassing time to be an American. It really is. It's humiliating."

Conservative John Malkovich caused an outcry last summer when he told a group of Cambridge students he'd like to shoot a certain anti-Israel, anti-American member of Parliament.

When Bush supporter R. Lee Ermey, a former Marine who played the scary drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket, was asked by a London newspaper about a certain well-known diva's anti-war statements, Ermey thundered:

"Once again, Barbra Streisand has opened her alligator-sized mouth wide before her hummingbird brain has had a chance to catch up. Ms. Streisand does not speak for me or many other folks in this business."

Indeed, the biggest majority in Hollywood is silent.

Perhaps fearful that any position they might take could impede the flow of box-office receipts, most stars are straddling the fence.

Even Bruce Willis, White House spokesman for children in foster care, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, who may run as a Republican for governor of California, are mum on Iraq.

Robin Williams, who has entertained troops in Afghanistan, says he's still making up his mind.

"It's difficult," he told the New York Post. "Winning the war would be quick. Occupying the country is the second part of the equation... . How long would we be there? And how much will it cost? Nine trillion dollars? Ah, what's that among friends?"

Even if the country goes to war and Americans rally around the President, Levinson said, the celebrities who advised against it aren't likely to suffer long-term effects.

He points to Jane Fonda, who won an Oscar for Klute in 1971, and sparked outrage the next year when she went to Hanoi to protest the Vietnam War. Her career went into eclipse, but by 1978 all was forgiven and she won another Oscar, for Coming Home.

"And if she made another movie today," Levinson said, "I've no doubt she'd be embraced."



TOPICS: Canada; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Germany; Mexico; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; Russia; US: District of Columbia; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: antiwarfreak; bubyesaddam; hollywood; imminentiraqwar; iraq; liberallosers; saddamhussein
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To: shadowman99
Not me.


21 posted on 02/28/2003 11:44:32 AM PST by SpookBrat
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To: MeeknMing
Everyone named is on the downside of his/her/its career.
22 posted on 02/28/2003 11:46:28 AM PST by gaspar
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To: Happy2BMe
Ping per your interest in the subject matter.
23 posted on 02/28/2003 11:46:44 AM PST by SpookBrat
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To: william clark
Malkovitch - I am thrilled to hear of his conservatism as well. A fine actor with a filmography second to none.
24 posted on 02/28/2003 11:47:31 AM PST by eleni121
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To: william clark
"By the way, does anyone besides me feel that the Democrats have stopped being a political party and are now essentially a full-blown religious cult?"

Make that MARXISTcult and you will be right on.

25 posted on 02/28/2003 11:48:08 AM PST by cibco (Xin Loi... Iraq)
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To: nothingnew
Yes, he did. Too bad about his politics as I think he does a great job on screen.
26 posted on 02/28/2003 11:48:25 AM PST by cruiserman
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To: MeeknMing
Citizens Against Celebrity Pundits"
27 posted on 02/28/2003 11:49:10 AM PST by joesnuffy
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To: MeeknMing
John Malkovich is a conservative?
28 posted on 02/28/2003 11:49:17 AM PST by CaptRon
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To: MeeknMing
I think that as the numbers signing this petition rise, the Leftist voices of appeasement from Hollyweird will begin to shut up - because then they will realize (or maybe their agents will tell them) that this nonsense is costing them money. Sign that petition, and forward information about it to all of your email buddies - we need to get 1 million signatures. THAT will have an impact.

Here's what I said:

These folks should shut their pieholes. I'm going to boycott any movie, TV show or music album involving any of those who've already made public statements against action against Iraq's government; only a public apology will change my mind.

29 posted on 02/28/2003 11:51:24 AM PST by Ancesthntr
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To: MeeknMing
Celebrities have credibility with the general public,"

LOL this is a good one.

They have credibility with Sucker Moms, and that's about it.

30 posted on 02/28/2003 11:52:38 AM PST by Guillermo (Allergic to Cats)
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To: MeeknMing
And, do these celebrities realize that they're one of the main reasons why Muslims hate us???
31 posted on 02/28/2003 11:53:32 AM PST by Guillermo (Allergic to Cats)
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To: MeeknMing
There's no point in any of us here ranting about all this until we're willing to give up all movies and cassette rentals. It won't work to pick and choose what movies we will see, and ones we won't see. There are liberal hacks in all movies. Our problem is, we like our entertainment too much to actually put our money where our mouths are. I wonder what it would take for us all to really do it?
32 posted on 02/28/2003 11:54:08 AM PST by babylonian
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To: skeeter
Conservative John Malkovich There's one I wouldn't have guessed.

Me either. I think that people and/or journalists sometimes mistake that having common sense is the same thing as being a conservative. While conservatives have may have common sense, the opposite isn't necessarily true.

33 posted on 02/28/2003 11:55:35 AM PST by Ranxerox
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To: MeeknMing
Jane fonda might be embraced by Levinson but not by most of us Americans. She's a trator pure and simple and that is her legacy just like Monica Lewinsky is clintin's.
34 posted on 02/28/2003 11:56:11 AM PST by cubreporter
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To: SpookBrat
We should send Lee Ermey and James Earl Jones to talk to Saddam, not Sean Penn and Dan Rather.
35 posted on 02/28/2003 11:57:06 AM PST by oyez (If I'm double posting. I'm sorry)
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To: MeeknMing
Furious, Woods called the show and peppered Clennon with quotes from Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, who famously called war "the continuation of politics by other means."

For those that are unaware, James Woods is a one seriously smart dude. He holds a political science degree from MIT.

36 posted on 02/28/2003 12:02:49 PM PST by Sloth (I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!)
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To: eleni121
Malkovitch - I am thrilled to hear of his conservatism as well. A fine actor with a filmography second to none.

And one of the few actors ever to have his name appear in the title of a movie (Being John Malkovich, a strange movie if ever there was one).

37 posted on 02/28/2003 12:03:59 PM PST by TrappedInLiberalHell (Let's Iraq and Roll!)
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To: MeeknMing
We put them where they are.

mikhailovich, who has seen 2 Hollywood movies in 10 years, by choice.

38 posted on 02/28/2003 12:08:31 PM PST by mikhailovich
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To: MeeknMing
And btw...why didn't Alec Baldwin et al leave the country after Bush won election 2000 anyway, huh ?! ...

Bump! : )

39 posted on 02/28/2003 12:09:47 PM PST by nicmarlo
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To: CaptRon
John Malkovich is a conservative?

YAY! He's obviously one of those who actually uses his brain for thinking. I've always been impressed with his dynamic performances, even when he scares the cr** out of me (such as in "Line of Fire").

40 posted on 02/28/2003 12:09:56 PM PST by alwaysconservative (In search of a good tagline)
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