It was 1993 when Bill Clinton was first inaugurated. Playing at the inaugural ball that year was Fleetwood Mac. They played what seemed like a never ending version of ‘Don’t Stop.’ The band was actually no more, but Clinton used his powers of persuasion to get them together just to play at his inaugural.
This was the true beginning of the Hollywood crush on Democratic politicians insofar as we were entering a new age of media coverage. Hollywood players had always hobnobbed with DC’s elite and Ronald Reagan, was of course, once head of the Screen Actors Guild.
That said, it was the Clinton era along with the fast rise of the 24 hour news station and the Internet that gave us a peek into just how much the world of Democratic politics and Hollywood stardom often intersected. It was somewhat subtle at first. Nowadays you have Leonardo DiCaprio addressing the UN on climate change.
This is how far we’ve come. I just often wonder why people get so crazy about it.
This will not be a “This is why we lose!” post, nor will I lecture people on the need to “Focus!” because I know most people can walk and chew gum at the same time. Lashing out at something stupid a celebrity says won’t detract from us telling people how badly Obamacare is working.
I just have trouble understanding why people get so worked up about it. Nor do I understand why people may actually be surprised this happens. Gwyneth Paltrow had a fundraiser at her home for Democrats. Barack Obama was there and apparently, she was reduced to a mess of slobbering goo, reaching for the fainting couch to tell the President how handsome he supposedly is.
Considering Ms. Paltrow married Chris Martin and has two sons she named ‘Apple’ and ‘Moses’, I wouldn’t have held out much hope for her anyway in the smarts department. It’s not new. Whether it’s Ben Affleck getting his ass handed to him by Bill Maher, Whoopi Goldberg talking about “rape rape”, Sean Penn praising Hugo Chavez or Cher saying….well anything, really…we’re faced with the every day reality that a good number of people in Hollywood are just plain stupid.
They are also not very self aware. There’s something sadly amusing at the notion of the people in Hollywood, the overwhelming majority of whom are white and rich, warning the public in 2012 of electing Mitt Romney because he was…..white and rich.
The average Hollywood liberal is going to fall over themselves for the average Democrat politician because they both think along the same lines. Liberalism is essentially a political ideology that is centered around feelings and intentions, not results. Therefore it is relatively easy to support Barack Obama because he says the right things and of course, “has the best of intentions.” So it matters not that the poverty rate under Obama has been at 15% for more than three years. It doesn’t matter that a record number of people are on food stamps and it doesn’t matter than the workforce is at its lowest levels since 1978. He “cares” and “empathizes.” It’s all that matters.
If there is something that bugs me about all of this, it’s the way in which none of this is ever scrutinized by the media. Stephen Miller aka @redsteeze on Twitter said the following:
Completely lost on me how the party of the middle class does nothing but party with Hollywood millionaires and still get away with it.
— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) October 10, 2014
It is maddening, but they get away with it because the media is just as starstruck — with both Democrats and the Hollywood elite. Have you seen the behavior of the DC media at the White House Correspondents Dinner? It’s like watching a bunch of screaming girls at a Beatles concert. It was bad that a lot of A-list celebrities avoided the dinner this year because they were tired of being mugged by media types and DC bureaucrats looking for photo ops.
The lack of scrutiny is not surprising however. Once upon a time, members of the media did not make the kind of money they do today. There was a scene from the movie ‘The Paper’ where Robert Duvall’s character, Bernie was telling Glenn Close’s character Alicia that the newspaper simply could not pay her any more than they already were. He knew why she wanted more money and he told her:
“The people we cover – we move in their world but it is their world. You can’t live like them, Alicia. You’ll never keep up. Now, if you try and make this job about the money, you’ll be nothing but miserable, ’cause we don’t get the money – never have, never will.”
That was then. Before the meteoric rise of cable news (Fox News for example, wasn’t launched until 1996) and the Internet. Now, Matt Lauer for example, makes $20-$25 million a year and gets helicopter rides from his ranch in the Hamptons to NBC studios whenever he wants. They do live in that world now. There’s no turning back.
So expect this to continue. As we get into 2016, expect to see the Hollywood elite rage at people Rick Perry, Scott Walker, Bobby Jindal as “rich white guys” (Yes even Jindal – we’re talking about pretty stupid people, remember?) who want to kill the poor and ruin the environment and that only ** Insert Democrat ** can save the world because after all, they care.
In the meantime, laugh at the idiocy of people like Gwyneth Paltrow, but at the same time, remember that such vapidness is not worth getting worked up over.
Snicker, yawn and move on.