In the movie "Team America," Janeane Garofalo's character remarks, "Our job as actors is to read the newspapers, and repeat what we've read on TV, like it is our own opinion." What was obviously meant as a comedic statement is, sadly, becoming less satirical and more serious in today's society. Celebrities love to hear themselves talk, cheapening the political discourse in the process.
It used to be that you would open a newspaper or turn on the news to get a thought-provoking political analysis. In today's fast-paced world, though, who has time to actually read The Washington Post or watch "World News Tonight" when you can just catch "Extra" or "Access Hollywood"? Who needs Tim Russert when you can listen to college dropout Alec Baldwin call Vice President Cheney "a lying, thieving oil whore and a murderer of the U.S. Constitution"? Who needs Charles Krauthammer when we have Martin Sheen (who played the president on TV, so it's as good as the real thing) give us the brilliant analysis that President Bush is "a moron"?
I'm not trying to pick on celebrities, but why should we care what they think about politics? Correct me if I'm wrong, but being an actor doesn't require a degree in political science, international relations, or anything else. If it did, we'd never see another movie again. If Cameron Diaz and Keanu Reeves can be top-billed actors, it's obvious that there is no IQ test to be successful in Hollywood.
Besides bashing various Republican leaders, celebrities often find time to lecture the rest of us about how we should live. The environmental bandwagon is a popular one for celebrities, from which they can criticize ordinary Americans for driving Hummers and not recycling enough while they sit in their air-conditioned 100,000 square-foot mansions and fly around the country in their private jets. I, like most Americans, don't enjoy being told to cut back and conserve by people who make more money in a year than I will make in my entire life. Here's a deal - I'll switch to a hybrid to help slow down global warming when George Clooney also does his part by not spewing so much hot air.
Celebrities would perhaps be a bit more tolerable if they weren't so one-sided. You could probably count on one hand the number of prominent celebs who are not Democrats (most country singers notwithstanding). Not only do they vigorously support the left, they have a near-unexplainable vitriol towards conservatives, the ignorant bumpkins of the Red States. Jane Smiley, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, neatly summed up the general Hollywood position towards Republicans when she was asked for a reaction to Senator Kerry losing the 2004 election. She explained in Slate magazine that Republicans are expert manipulators of the "ignorant" American people. She also said that Republicans are "predatory and resentful, amoral, avaricious and arrogant" and "love to cheat and intimidate." Democrats, on the other hand, think that "humans are essentially good" (I guess by "humans" she means "non-Republicans").
I'm not advocating a "1984"-style country where free expression is trampled. Everyone, including celebrities, has the Constitutional right to make whatever moronic statement they want to. Of course, I also have the Constitutional right to say that they're a bunch of idiots. Celebrities have no more knowledge of most domestic or foreign affairs than most average citizens do (for example, the only classified information Sean Penn ever reads is whatever secret anti-terrorism program The New York Times decides to reveal this week.)
I, like most Americans, pay good money to watch movies and listen to music. When I want celebrities to make me laugh and cry, I want it to be because of their powerful artistic expression, not because of their ridiculous attempts at political commentary.
Caleb Enerson is a sophomore in the School of Public Affairs and a conservative columnist for The Eagle.
