Last but not least comes Madonna (who just screams “family values”). During the 2008 campaign, she used a photo montage during one of her performances to compare John McCain to Hitler.NOBODY ON OUR TEAM WOULD BE SO CRASS.
In comments to the article (which is entitled "Hollywood's Oxymoronic Definition of 'Liberal Tolerance'"):
Here's the sitch. These fragile ego'd pretenders in Hollywood feel guilty because they know they know what they do is a joke and yet they get paid well and are fawned over. They feel bad because they play act all day and do nothing of importance yet earn much more than people of real significance. They also are aware of what dirt-bags they are (remember "casting couches" -- Think they went away?) and due to a non-belief in God are unable to ever feel forgiven for their shortfalls. To fight and appease this nagging guilt, they get involved in social causes. Further, most all of them have massive insecurities and so they cannot tolerate anyone who shines a light on their immorality. As such they surround themselves with other dirt-bags, including a dirt-bag President who will not threaten to expose their immoralities and shortcomings.Also the site is entitled Big Hollywood, because conservatives are supposed to like entertainment just like regular folks.
24 comments:
That will show her!
I was going to paste that comment in, or at least respond to it. Political correctness is a terrible thing. Mind you, I'm sure Victoria Jackson would make an excellent female lawyer.
And of course John T. Simpson comes along...
Is it worth mentioning that the wapo's latest explanation for firing froomkin was that his web hits had gone down?
Click the links, or don't. Like so many things in a democracy, it's a choice
And of course John T. Simpson comes along...
Speaking forensically it seemed to me that a maddened hamster with explosive diarrhea had happened by, but if you say that it was J.T.Simpson...
Oh cruelle capcha to label him a knitch
mikey said...
Is it worth mentioning that the wapo's latest explanation for firing froomkin was that his web hits had gone down?
Teh WaPoo hired Michael Gerson and William "My Dad Hates Affirmative Action Because it Harms Meritocracy" Kristol because they boost the ad rates so much.
~
Apart from the biblethumper-ish sections, this bloke hits the bloody nail on the proverbial kopf. Authentic neo-Gramscian cyber-subversives dedicated to overthrowing media hegemony should never mistake Ho-wood liberalism or westside bimbo charity-crats for the ding-an-sich, or somethin' like that.
The thespian generally works for the King, even when it's quoting some Marx-lite, or insisting everyone turn vegetarian, etc
Apart from the biblethumper-ish sections, this bloke hits the bloody nail on the proverbial kopf.
Assuming you mean the comment I quoted, no he does not. It's a vast low-quality generalization plus mind-read and bullshit besides. Not that there aren't particular shits in Hollywood, but really now.
A bit populist, but hardly as crass as say Cher offering up her two-bit political insights.
I been around the Biz, man. It's 90+% Bogus. There are thousands of starving wannabe actors, musicians, screenwriters, directors across El Lay, and a few dozen who made it living up in the chateaus in Ho-wood Hills. Most of 'em now try to hustle animation or disney like manga.
A few real films are made now and then--say Stone's Natural Born Killers, or Beatty's Bugsy--but for most part bubblegum with special effects, and a trite pseudo-PC message. Or soft-porn The porn bidness now generally competes with mainstream flicks--a dirtay secret the media doesn't want us to know about.
I'm gonna keep believing that the mainstream ability to shoot/edit digitally for incredibly cheap will lead to an explosion in independent film making creativity.
The only piece still missing is a simple, mainstream distribution methodology. Bittorrent is still too geeky and tweaky for your average veiwer, but there will be a successful solution in the near term.
Yeah, most of it will be crap, but user reviews and a rating system will allow people to sift out the quality and a buzz to get started. And as soon as these sorts of projects begin to attract large numbers, the studios themselves will have to participate in that kind of production, which will require them to hire the people who have been successful.
Overly optimistic? Maybe, but we sure saw it with music. You look at bands like Roger Clyne who don't need a label to make a good living, and you see the potential...
A bit populist, but hardly as crass as say Cher offering up her two-bit political insights.
Exactly that crass and worth those two bits, or less, as Cher asks a reasonable question, while Mr. Commenter categorically calls everyone horrible whores.
I been around the Biz, man. It's 90+% Bogus.
That's not the same as calling everyone in the industry awful and morally deficient.
The only piece still missing is a simple, mainstream distribution methodology. Bittorrent is still too geeky and tweaky for your average veiwer, but there will be a successful solution in the near term.
Have you looked at Vuze/Azureus lately? There's an attempt to be a front end for that right there, and it's somewhat less geeky than just torrent sites.
The political Twoooth (which you can't handle, RB) lies somewhere between Billy H's moral alarmism and celebrity pseudo-leftism. The hick right continually mistakes Tinseltown feel-good politics for "leftism." Real leftism is like trade unionism of whatever sorts, proles, anti-capitalists. Celebs like Madonna aren't really anti-capitalist marxist sorts: they're sort of faux-Tory liberals, tho' in Madonna's case, untalented tory-liberals. The typical Merican rustic considers PBS, Shakespeare, or lesbian actresses "leftist"--. Nyet. Decadence and libertinism in itself are not leftist--. Maoism is leftist--and Maoist "praxis" has generally censored western culture, whether pop ala Madonna, or opera, schackaspeare, etc.
Zizek discusses this phenomena: at times the hick-right advocates a sort of statist-leftist politics, usually inadvertently (sort of the difference between the GOP yacht club, and GOP Evinrude club) .
I favor censoring the Celebrity spectacle, flicks, pop culture in some way, even a CA Ministry of Information. Make Warren Beatty manager (his first real job)--he could start by pulling Schwarzenegger's macho epics off the shelves.
The political Twoooth (which you can't handle, RB) lies somewhere between Billy H's moral alarmism and celebrity pseudo-leftism.
This and what follows requires buying a whole freightload of assumptions that aren't worth figuring out in the first place, the first being that Billy is staking out a meaningful place in anything but a rhetorical game. The political influence of Cher is so miniscule that the column's a con: it's not moral alarmism, it's just a lie.
The effort it takes to point out that Cher is not walking the picket line is in the service of...what?
To the extent I have the education to say so, I think J-- is narrowly right, but it's ultimately insignificant. There is certainly a PoliSci definition of "leftist", "liberal" or even "socialist". And it is very true that most people who are considered "leftist" don't meet that definition.
But like so many words with firm academic meanings, there is another, popularly accepted meaning of the term, and under that definition the hollywood celebrity liberals are exactly that.
When that dixie chick called out george bush, she wasn't making a particularly political statement, but if you were against bush by definition you were a liberal, or worse, a commie.
So while it's true that words have meaning and meaning is important, it is also true that words can take on more than one meaning and you can stamp your feet and rail against it all you want, but those meanings are important too...
The regs at Crooked Timber may not pay attention to Cher or Madonna, or the rest (tho' I seem to recall a few academic liberal praises of that little freak MJ ), but out in the Heartland, or even Van Nuys land, the celebrity belch du jour does carry some weight. None of 'em walk a picket line (except perhaps the bogus writer's picket line a year or so ago).
And I could say the same to you: why all the energy taking down Hallowell's essay? He's the one saying Ho-wood product is piffle anyway. You seem to agree. One has to see like PCH around the 'Bu on a Friday afternoon with the vipers, Hummers, occasional Rolls and ferraris putting to their coastside chateau--worth a few dozen million on an acre or so-- to realize how f-n obscene most of these people are.
And I could say the same to you: why all the energy taking down Hallowell's essay?
Because I like making jokes.
One has to see like PCH around the 'Bu on a Friday afternoon with the vipers, Hummers, occasional Rolls and ferraris putting to their coastside chateau
One clique of rich people is much like another.
To the extent I have the education to say so, I think J-- is narrowly right
Mind your hyphens!
So while it's true that words have meaning and meaning is important, it is also true that words can take on more than one meaning and you can stamp your feet and rail against it all you want, but those meanings are important too...
But the meanings here are about celebrity pronouncements. There are four examples in Billy's column. One is Cher's, which despite my thinking it's reasonable, has its sole demonstrated consequence in Billy's column. Neither Billy nor his audience are going to be swayed by Cher one way or another, and dutiful whatever-else's aren't either. Is Cher a factor among independent voters? Only time will tell!
The other three have had somewhat more impact on the political world I suppose, but in my lately-limited encounters with celebrity culture I gather people think Madonna's a flake, Perez Hilton is scum, and of Janeane Garofalo rarely.
Debatable. I don't have a problem with wealth, per se, usually. Real professionals should make more than laborers, I guess (how much more an issue however). Doctors outrank nurses, etc. Teachers deserve more compensation than do custodians (not sure if CA union jefes always understand that)
I do have a problem when the chateaus on the hill are chock full of hustlers, producers, porn bimbos, rockers, actors, athletes-- Hefnernomics offends my sense of meritocracy, tho I don't lose any sleep over it. Hallowell seems to understand the absurdity of Hefnernomics, at least slightly.
That it's absurd is a reasonable observation. I'm all for raising taxes on celebrity flake leftists and Randian financial moguls alike.
Oh. I'm not familiar with "Billy". If his premise is that most people, rich and famous or me, who make political statements do so with some expectation of altering the outcome or changing the minds of ideologues, I think that's unrealistic.
I suspect that people make political statements because they believe that the system is either doing something they believe it should and they want to indicate their satisfaction, or the system is doing something they disagree with and they want to indicate their dissatisfaction.
While it's true that a celebrity might have a larger audience for his or her political pronouncements, I would be surprised if they had any real expectation of "impact".
At the end of the day, does Cher reach a larger (political) audience than Glenn Greenwald? And yet, the outcomes are relatively fixed...
Well, two different items I guess and my apologies if I'm jumping back and forth between the two in a confusing way.
Basically I accuse Billy the columnist of completely disingenuous mountain-making from trivial molehills.
The BH commenter...well, he's just got overwhelming contempt for a certain group of people and will mindread to display it.
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