The talk show squawkers call
them the “Hollyweirds.” Makes no difference if they’re writers, actors,
directors,
producers, or grips and gaffers. Makes
no difference if they’re poets, artists, sculptors, dancers, cartoonists,
musicians,
or singers. And, it makes absolutely no
difference if they live in Southern California or Iowa. As long as they’re
in the
creative arts, they’re “Hollyweird.”
No one knows when the term
was first used, but it first became popular on radio talk shows during
the Clinton campaign.
The Righteous Ranters increased their screeching
in 1999 when numerous celebrities—among them Ed Asner, Paul Newman,
Barbara Streisand, Martin Sheen, Tim Robbins,
Lily Tomlin, Mike Farrell, Robin Williams, Susan Sarandon, and Rob Reiner
—spoke out against the presidential candidacy
of Texas Two-Step Darlin’ George W. Bush. And, then, having seen Al Gore
lose the election by a 5-4 vote, the creative
community not only had the audacity to oppose President Bush’s let-the-oil
flow
domestic policies, but they, like millions
of others, spoke out against the President’s one-note chorus to go to war
in Iraq on
claims we now know (and many of us knew
then) were built upon a cauldron of lies.
Nevertheless, the conservatives
say that although Americans have the right of free speech, celebrities
should “keep their
pie-holes shut,” since they not only aren’t
knowledgeable enough to be in politics, but that they unabashedly use their
fame
to lure the naïve media into reporting
their views. The celebrities “are abusing their stature [and] need to be
put back in their
place [and] need to understand where they
are in the great food chain of life,” said John Kobylt, talk-show host
at radio
powerhouse KFI-AM in Los Angeles.
Of course, none of the hosts
seem to understand that they are celebrities who use the media to pound
their views into the public.
Rather than challenge their ideas,
the talk show hosts and many of their audience often resort to name-calling,
spitting out venom
that classifies celebrities as whackos
and looney-tunes. During the BushII/GulfII War, the talk-show addicts falsely
and maliciously
claimed that anyone—celebrity or laborer—who
disagreed with the President’s call for war not only supported world-wide
terrorism,
but didn’t support the troops; they were
branded unpatriotic traitors. So powerful is the backlash against celebrities
that Lori Bardsley,
a housewife in North Carolina, collected
more than 100,000 on-line signatures in a little more than one month on
her petition that claimed
celebrities (translation: anyone who disagreed
with President Bush and his war machine) were “using their celebrity to
interfere with
the defense of our country.” Of course,
no one objects to throwing millions of dollars in fees to celebrities to
speak out on everything
from shampoo to Shinola. Advertising pitches
are acceptable; social and political opinions by celebrities aren’t. “The
media created us,
put us on the air, and then says ‘how dare
you use your rights as a celebrity?” TV producer Robert Greenwald told
a major Australian
newspaper
A few celebrities have spoken
out against their fellow celebrities. Charlie Daniels called anti-war celebrities
“the most disgusting
examples of a waste of protoplasm I’ve
ever had the displeasure to hear about,” and said he wouldn’t go to any
of their movies.
“Barbara Streisand has opened her alligator-sized
mouth wide before her humming-bird brain has had a chance to catch up,”
ranted R. Lee Ermey, whose best-known role
was as a drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket. His argument, reported in
London’s
Sunday Telegraph, was that Streisand used
the “bully pulpit, helped by her fame, and people think she’s talking for
Hollywood.”
The misinformed Right conveniently
overlook not only the ‘bully pulpit’ of 24/7 news coverage of anything
the President and his
senior advisors utter. And, they made exceptions
for conservative actor-politicians Ronald Reagan, Sen. George Murphy, Sen.
Fred
Thompson, Reps. Fred Grandy and Sonny Bono,
Mayor Clint Eastwood, and even the ceaseless fiery polemics of 2nd Amendment
fury Charlton Heston.
And now comes body builder/actor
Arnold Schwartzenegger, the best-known of a gaggle of more than 200 legally-certified
candidates (including dozens of businessmen,
the current lieutenant governor, a sumo wrestler, and a porn star) who
are hoping
to recall and terminate 1-1/2-term California
Gov. Gray Davis, then be elected to fill the vacancy. Schwartzenegger—why
don’t
we just call him “Arnold” and give headline
writers a break?—says he has the business and political skills to lead
the state that
has more problems than Halliburton and
the energy cartel have ties to the Bush White House. Unlike other
candidates who gather
their photogenic families before a courthouse,
Arnold used his celebrity status to announce his candidacy to more than
seven million
viewers on the “Tonight Show Starring Jay
Leno.” The announcement was so important that it blew stories about Marines
landing
in Liberia and soldiers being killed in
Iraq off the front pages, was featured on the morning news/entertainment
shows, and led
evening network news reports. The next
day, Arnold appeared on almost all major TV entertainment programs. Look
for dozens
of satellite trucks to leave the Kobe Bryant
circus they created in Colorado and carry the Arnold Juggernaut to millions
of
Californians and hundreds of million Americans.
Arnold’s campaign will cause
talk-show addicts to twist into knots—they don’t like celebrities spouting
their opinions, but the
Austrian-born Terminator is—well—a genuine,
100 percent all-American! The Right kind. Actually, Arnold is a moderate
Republican, who is liberal on numerous
social issues. He’s pro-choice, believes in limited gun control, and is
strong in both civil
rights and educational reform. It’s possible
that this multi-millionaire Republican actor who had the audacity to marry
into the
Kennedy clan is too liberal for the squawkers
and squeakers. We’ll know when celebrity mega-mouth Rush Limbaugh from
his newly-erected perch as an ESPN “commentator”
chirps out who should be the “Right” governor for California.
[Assisting on this column was Rosemary Brasch. Dr. Brasch is
professor of journalism at Bloomsburg University, a former
newspaper reporter and editor, and author of 12 books. His
latest book is Sex and the Single Beer Can; Probing the Media
and American Culture, available on-line or from your local
bookstore.]