I Love Art--It's the Artists I can't Stand
An insightful reader sent me a link to this cover story in Entertainment Weekly about George Clooney entitled, "The New Politics of Hollywood." Sorry Entertainment Weekly, but your lame title should have been "Politics as Usual in Hollywood." George Clooney was interviewed for the article about his new movie, Syriana, a movie that (you'll never guess) exposes the lies behind the War on Terror. And of course, you'll be shocked to learn that there is a CIA agent in Syriana who thwarts deomocracy in an Arab country in order to keep petroleum flowing, along with some sympathetically portrayed suicide bombers just to give the audience a sense of the filmmaker's sympathy for Arab murderers. Clooney pats himself on the back for his bravery in bringing this charmer to Warner Bros.:People were afraid to say things. Big stars would come up to me and whisper that they supported me — I thought it was strange that they felt they had to whisper. But people seem to be less afraid now. They're calming down. Lots of people are starting to ask questions. It's becoming hard to avoid the questions. When we started [Good Night, and Good Luck and Syriana], nobody was encouraging us, says Clooney. We jumped in on our own. And there was no reason to think it was going to get any easier. But people in Hollywood do seem to be getting more comfortable with making these sorts of movies now. People are becoming braver.
Sorry George, but preaching to the choir that is Hollywood is not bravery. I didn't hear Michael Moore whispering at the Oscars when he gave his rant about President Bush. Bravery is Mel Gibson shelling out millions and risking his own reputation in the movie business by making Passion of the Christ.
Do you ever wonder how these Hollywood stars such as Clooney can be so clueless about their behavior? I know I do. Clooney and his cronies see themselves as mavericks, even though they live in a world that caters to their every whim. How is it that George can have such sympathy for suicide bombers and terrorists on one hand and so little sympathy for his fellow Americans or even his Italian neighbors while he is filming?
This clueless self-centered behavior is not just an aberration of high level artist-types like Clooney--it trickles down to the masses of artists who seem to believe that their talent (whether good, bad or indifferent) gives them free license to selfish acts of self-expression. How do I know this? Unfortunately, I have lived with a number of these expressive types on an upclose and personal basis.
At the age of 21, I moved to Manhattan to go to graduate school. I lived with a wonderful roommate who was initially an NYU student and then an editor at a big publishing firm. After a few years, she moved in with her boyfriend and left me to the scary task of finding a normal roommate in Manhattan (remember Chandler in Friends with the psychotic roommate--that guy would have been a prize for me!) After meeting with a number of prospects, I finally settled on Dave, a musician and artist at NYU. He was a bit pasty and didn't talk much but I thought that would be a plus. It wasn't. He found girlfriends who talked for him. They talked to me all the time.
I was in graduate school in clinical psych and used all of my time to study and wanted to be left alone. He had two girlfriends who were actually both very competent and cheerful--almost the direct opposite of Dave. Neither woman knew about the other and when not out with them, he was out with numerous other women. It was none of my business except that both of his girlfriends (at different times) were constantly interrupting my work to ask me why I wasn't out partying. Maybe if I was, they concluded, I would meet a great, loyal guy like Dave. I never said anything but would listen and just nod until they left me alone. I never much said anything to Dave and vice versa--until one day, he left his diary out on the kitchen table open to a page of his writing. I figured it was private but he left it out day after day. I figured that maybe this was his way of communicating something to me so eventually I picked up the diary to read the following:
"I know my roommate is in love with me. I already have two of the women of my dreams. I cannot take on another one. I don't know how to break the news to her that I am not in love with her. And maybe I should break up with Kate and Kathleen too. My talent in music and the arts is my first perrogative."
At first I thought I should be angry that he had made such a big assumption--but given his bizzare way of connecting with me, I felt more bemused than anything. A few weeks later he moved out to live with his band. I breathed a sigh of relief but the roommate search continued.
To make a long story short, I next lived with a female photographer who would parade models in and out of the living room (the whole New York apartment was the size of a dollhouse so there was no escape) while I was preparing for exams, even when I asked her not to. Okay, if I were a guy or interested in women, this could have been exciting but I was neither. Next came Alex, a painter who asked if her cousin could stay overnight -- but then she stayed for two months without paying rent. Finally, my old roommate moved back in but we ended up taking in Wendy, a spoiled dancer who was the sister of a friend. She needed a place to stay and had no money for rent. One morning, I woke to a horrible cat fight going on between my kind roommate and Wendy who was fighting her for the bathroom. That was the last straw. I vowed not to take in any more artist types. It was a good move.
I often feel sorry for others who are dealing with some of these artist types who think their purpose in life is to "stand up to the man." I have a friend whose son is an artist and filmmaker. He once showed me some abstract art his son had made of 9/11. It showed men in suits with brief cases falling from the twin towers or running away. My friend told me his son had made it because he "did not feel sorry for capitalistic Americans and they got what they deserved on 9/11." My friend looked at me sadly and asked, "I wonder if his mother and I imparted any of our values on him at all or if he just rejected everything we stood for?" Sometimes I wonder the same thing about the Hollywood crowd.
Update: Here are some related thoughts from Ed Driscoll at TechCentral Station.
posted by Helen at 8:40 AM
44 Comments:
"One morning, I woke to a horrible cat fight going on between my kind roommate and Wendy who was fighting her for the bathroom."
CAT FIGHT?!?! Dr. Helen, you have obviously been brainwashed by the patriarchy if you use such misogynist terms for two grown womyn.
Then again, the womyn in question must have been suffering from patriarchy-induced psychosis if they had been fighting with each other. Sisterhood is too powerful for womyn to actually do something as (forgive the term) male as fight or even disagree! Come the revolution, men (ptui!) will know their proper place and peace and harmony will reign among all womyn.
Or else.
Bravo, Dr. Helen:
Actors are no different than anyone else. Some are well educated. Some are not. Compare, say, Jodi Foster to, say, Tori Spelling.
But many actors are highly narcissistic folk who need constant approval. We seem to notice that type more. We don't seem to pay much attention to good acts done by our neighbors, but boy howdy, when Angelina Jolie speaks out about poverty...we sure do listen.
Because in our society, we worship celebrity even more than money. Even more than beauty. How else to explain Donald Trump?
For some reason, people care what parakeets like George Clooney say. How do any of us know if George Clooney is informed on the facts of any given situation? We don't know a darned thing about the PRIVATE lives of such people. But every time they chirp, the media gives them a platform.
Don't get me wrong. Clooney has a right to his opinion, even if I find it ignorant, simplistic, and one-sided. More power to him.
But he DOESN'T have the right to have his opinion carry more weight than any random person I select from the telephone book.
Oh, I know the story: they want to "use" their celebrity to "do good." The least that they can do, in exchange for their wealth and power, is bother to use their brains before shooting off their mouths.
And I'm not even talking right wing/left wing stuff. Some actor types think long and hard about issues, even when I disagree with them (like Mike Farrell and the death penalty, for example). I learn from them, and I can see why they use their celebrity.
But Clooney? Oh, come on. It's as funny as Leonardo diCaprio (who I always called "androgenous waif-boy in TITANIC) sounding off about greenhouse gases and global warming.
Most of these folks aren't precisely rocket scientists. Come to think of it, it is worse: we treat the parakeets as if their opinions are more important than rocket scientists'.
Sorry for the rant. Clooney and his collection of giant dollars earned by acting like a frat boy starting to go to seed annoys me.
"Eric Blair"
They say Clooney put on weight for his role in "Syriana."
Heck, I did that over Thanksgiving, and I am not even in the movie business!
The traditional way to pan a movie was to first watch it, then talk about how bad it is. The blogosphere has invented a new approach: The lead actor is a really irritating person, so of course no one should see the flick.
Why should I pay money to see a really irritating person? I can do that for free by reading Greg's posts! ;)
Well, I think the point---provided Dr. Kuperberg has read the article, as I certainly have---is that the authors seem to believe that the movie business has never really done very much, politically. Now, of course, they are being brave.
But they are being brave by parroting Howard Dean-ish philosophies.
So the last time a movie was made that critized left wing politics and "progressive" ideals would be....
(sound of crickets)
Clooney blathering on about how Hollywood people are whispering and afraid to speak out against the Evil Bush Empire is an example of the kind of inwardly directed, self-congratulatory, and thoughtless behavior too often seen in the media.
"Eric Blair"
Greg,
"The lead actor is a really irritating person, so of course no one should see the flick."
Well, yeah. Why would I want to shell out eight or nine dollars a ticket to see somebody who I think is a jerk? Historically, the leading man's job has been to ingratiate himself with the audience, which is why Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, Bogie, and today, Jack Nicholson and Bruce Willis get the big, big, big bucks. They're bankable because audiences identify with them and love to see them on the screen.
But lots of actors have made themselves box office poison long before the Blogosphere was invented. On the commentary track for the DVD release of "The Godfather", Francis Ford Coppola said that Paramount made him jump through endless hoops when he said he wanted to hire Brando, because at the time, Brando was considered by most studios to be box office poison--audiences would steer clear of a picture because he was in it, which, roughly between "Mutiny on the Bounty" and "The Godfather" was definitely true. "Burn", the last picture Brando did before "The Godfather" was a huge bomb.
Alec Baldwin also put himself in a similar position long before the Blogosphere. Hollywood now uses his in supporting roles, whereas, earlier in his career, before he became such an outspoken liberal activist, he was headlining in films such as "Beetlejuice" and "The Hunt For Red October".
I'm sure nowadays, Baldwin gets supporting parts from sympathetic directors and producers because of his politics, but it's definitely cost him the brass ring of superstardom.
Ed: As I said, I evaluate movies the old-fashioned way: by watching them. I think that this talk about who is or is not box office poison, and what actors should or should not do to win some brass ring, is at least as pretentious as anything that Clooney has to say. It is at best a breezy pretense of advice. At worst it's nostalgia for McCarthyism, when boycott groups really did parlay political associations into career poison.
Moreover, when I watch a movie, the last thing that I want from the actors on screen is ingratiation. I am not watching the flick in order to pick a high school valedictorian. I would rather have good acting. Since you mentioned Cary Grant, one of my favorite Cary Grant movies is Suspicion. Grant played a complete jerk in this movie, for once, which is one reason that the movie is interesting.
I also do not care about Hollywood personalities and reputations. If anything, it's a distraction to see the Box Office Smash Personality walk onto the screen. One of my favorite Harrison Ford movies is The Conversation, which was made before he became Han Solo. (Have you noticed that Indiana Jones is almost the same as Han Solo?) I don't want to spoil the plot, but Ford played rather worse than a jerk. It was a good movie, but it was discordant to see Han Solo really get his hands dirty.
Needless to say, I couldn't care less how The Conversation did at the box office.
" I evaluate movies the old-fashioned way: by watching them."
But something has to woo you into watching them in the first place. And conversely, there's also a reason why you choose not to watch a movie. And you can argue all you want that it shouldn't be this way, but for the vast majority of filmgoers, a huge part of the decision making process is who's starring in the film, and what associations--and baggage--they bring to their roles.
"Since you mentioned Cary Grant, one of my favorite Cary Grant movies is Suspicion. Grant played a complete jerk in this movie, for once, which is one reason that the movie is interesting."
Actually, RKO was so nervous about casting Grant as the baddy that the forced the film's ridiculous happy ending on Hitchcock, thus obliterating the point of the movie. (Which I agree, up until its ending is great.)
"Needless to say, I couldn't care less how The Conversation did at the box office."
"The Conversation" was made as a low-budget break in-between the Godfather movies, as a sop by Paramount to Coppola, to get him to return to direct to "The Godfather Part II". It's a great film (and great Antonioni homage), but these days, when films are being budgeted in the hundreds of millions of dollars range (a big portion of which is the stars' salaries), instead of the 1.6 million that "The Conversation" cost. There's a lot less safety factor when that much money is on the line. You may not care about whether a film is successful (and there are loads of films I've also admired that have tanked), but Hollywood certainly does.
greg, I take your point, but yet disagree with it. When a movie's premise is known to be yawningly predictable, I don't care how well directed it is.
I recognise this is considered rank heresy in the arts -- I was in the theater in the 70's (not even medium big, but enough to drop some names). I have heard many times the complaint "How can you criticise when you haven't seen/read/heard it?" I overlook for the moment the fact that this complaint often comes from those who commit the same sin in the opposite direction, believing themselves quite capable of commenting on religion, for example. But more importantly, we all can and do make such judgments daily, and usually with accuracy.
The key is whether one has some objective evidence. But actually seeing a movie is not the only source of objective information.
Goethe had a point with his Three Questions, but not an ironclad one. The answer to the first question does sometimes allow one to skip to the third.
Double-post for change of topic.
When one is surrounded by sycophants, one becomes narcissistic enough that even mild criticism is an injury.
A funny thing about this one, I worked for 5 years at a small newspaper where several of the other employees, one was a distant cousin, had gone to high school with George Clooney. Apparently, as a youth, he was a decent sort as no one ever had a bad word to say about him.
George's parents occasionally attend my church. They always speak.
But then again, there is the hero worship and accompaning arrogance that comes with it. I believe after these "normal" people make it big and become surrounded by sycophants, they lose all sense of perspective and believe the sun rises and sets in their armpits.
BTW - word has it that George never is not an intellectual giant either.
Ed: But something has to woo you into watching them in the first place.
That's right. What gets to watch or not to watch a movie is the reviews of other people who saw it. Not just any people — I am not impressed by sheer popularity — but moviegoers who I can trust in some way.
Obvously a lot of people in Hollywood are only interested in money, and don't particularly care about artistic merit. That's their problem. It isn't any more noble than the political pretensions of Hollywood celebrities. Fortunately some of their movies are good anyway.
Not only are there movies I liked but tanked at the box office, there are also movies that I hated but hit the box office jackpot. I thought that the The French Connection was not only boring, but outright offensive. But hey, it not only made big bucks, it won five Oscars. I can't say that I know why.
Maybe I saw Suspicion with a different ending than you did. I thought that it had an ambiguous ending rather than a happy ending. Or maybe it was the Hollywood ending on the surface and Hitchcock managed to trick the establishment.
Assistant village idiot: People here have spent a lot of time predicting the premise of Syriana. But is it actually predictable? In order to know that, someone would have to see the movie.
You know, I would take this discussion a bit more seriously if film critics went to go see BRAINWASHING 201 and similar documentaries from a "right wing" point of view---and actually discussed the movie in terms of moviemaking.
(Again, the sound of crickets)
In another way, how many times have we seen film critics who detest a particular subgenre, like science fiction, and trash the film mercilessly (usually without having paid any attention to the movie in question)?
So the snide comments about not judging a film without seeing it fall a bit flat. We would all feel differently if the "intellectual" among us were fair handed in their approach to cinema.
My favorite part of the discussion above would be the sneers about popular movies. It is a sign of the seemingly paradoxical but extremely common academic sins of snobbish elitism coupled with insecurity.
Oh, and jealousy that someone made money from a film. Imagine!
Here is the awful truth: any movie made outside of a film school is intended to make money. And that means appealing to moviegoers, folks.
And guess what? The moviegoing public is just as polarized in terms of what they like as they are politically. Watch what happens to BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN at the boxoffice, if you don't believe me.
Anonymous 12:55: Whoever you are, you're setting up a lot of straw men. I don't plan to see "Brainwashing 201" because it doesn't interest me. No one I trust has recommended it. But at the same time, I didn't pan the movie or tear down its director. Fair is fair. I don't mind movies that I haven't seen.
What is snide is to rail against a movie that you haven't seen, just because you don't like an off-camera interview with the lead actor. It would be one thing if Clooney's acting were the real problem — I saw Solaris and I must admit that Clooney was only passable. But who cares about his interviews? Tom Cruise's interviews are absolutely terrible, but that doesn't keep me from enjoying Rain Man.
I having nothing against a movie being popular. The point is that I just don't care. Possibly my very favorite movie of this decade is The Incredibles, which did make a ton of money. But the money it made had nothing to do with why I liked it. I liked The Triplets of Belleville almost as much, and for similar reasons, even though it was U.S. box office non-entity. I am not a sheep who needs to follow a herd. If there are many other people at my watering hole, that's fine; if I'm the only one, that's fine too.
I am also not remotely jealous of other people making money. It's like knowing that other people have great sex or great children. Good for them, but it's not my business. I don't particularly admire or resent the rich, because there are good and bad ways to make money. The closest that I come to jealousy is that if someone makes money for good reasons and using skills like mine, then I might wonder if it could have been me. But that has nothing to do with movies, because I would never have made it in Hollywood.
The Incredibles, by the way, has an interesting libertarian message. Since it is also a great movie, I can only accept its point.
What you are sir, is both snobbish and a troll...and I am not the only person, anonymous or not, who has noticed your actions on various blogs. Our hostess brought up Scott Adams' "rules" for being an argumentative blogger, you might see how well they fit you.
You have your world, and welcome to it. Someone on this blog called you "contrarian," and I very much agree. Knock yourself out doing what you do. You fool no one.
I'll change the track a bit here: what I object to is folks like Clooney critisizing us all the way to the bank with our money. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you!
On the theory that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, I'd suggest Clooney and his fellow preachers try leading by example.
As for being afraid to speak out, what would we be subjected to from these people if they weren't afraid? And why is it that the evening news isn't running stories about instances of the Bushhitlerhaliburton minions breaking down their doors and muzzling them? It's hard not to laugh at such insincere claims.
Retread
Evilpundit,
Brainwashing 201 is terrific--you can see it at www.brain-terminal.com. It had me laughing as well as upset at all the nonsense going on at college campuses today. Of course, it is a documentary. I would love to see more libertarian or right-leaning movies out there--but as long as Hollywood types are in charge--that will be hard.
The great thing about the BRAINWASHING documentaries (though I have only seen the first version, not 201---not available to me yet) is that it allows everyday folks to *see* what goes on in academia every day.
Sunlight remains the best disinfectant, as the saying goes. Unless you believe that the Great Unwashed cannot understand the elevated discourse at colleges and universities.
But since the public helps support those institutions, I find that sentiment offensive. I want the public to see what is going on on campus.
And the fellow who did these documentaries---Evan Coyne Maloney, I think--- doesn't do them in a mean spirited Michael Moore fashion...but with a genuine sense of humor.
Since I live in an academic asylum, I may be prejudiced...but I would recommend looking up this fellow's website and checking out his documentary work.
http://brain-terminal.com/posts/2004/09/09/brainwashing-101
Just my opinion, of course.
"Eric Blair"
I won't be seeking out Syriana until it hits the DVD rental counter -- and then I certainly won't be standing in line -- for one simple reason: it looks like convoluted dreck. Even though it's a bizarre distortion of the truth, I may have seen it if it looked like quality movie-making; part of watching a movie is suspension of disbelief, after all.
Clooney and Soderbergh did some very interesting work about politics on the short-lived HBO series K Street. Still, there were times when I felt as if Mary Matalin was the only Republican they has ever met. That seems to be the case with Clooney's work now: he has so isolated himself that people who don't hold his (obviously noble) beliefs are easily demonized. Personally, I don't put much stock into the words of a man who whines about his opinions being suppressed in America from his villa on the shore of Lake Como.
On the other hand, George Clooney is a decent actor and fabulous eye candy. If he continues to cling to the misconception that his appeal lies between his ears, it won't be long before no one in Hollywood will return his calls.
It's as funny as Leonardo diCaprio [...] sounding off about greenhouse gases and global warming.
[...] Come to think of it, it is worse: we treat the parakeets as if their opinions are more important than rocket scientists'.
Actually, parakeets have a long and distinguished tradition of detecting dangerous gasses -- greenhouse or otherwise. Unlike actors who are more noted for generating undesirable gasses than detecting them.
ooh, I loved Suspicion.
I don't really care about an actor's politics. There are some actors who I disagree with intensely but who never fail to blow me away on screen. The problem I have with some is that they turn into very vocal activists -- for whichever cause -- and all I can see when I see them in a movie is their cause. It's distracting. They should believe in, and speak out for, any cause they want to. But I think an actor is more interesting in a role, not a cause.
EvilPundit: And the people I trust are predominantly right-wing bloggers.
That's exactly correct: Right-wing bloggers mainly trust each other. It's called the echo chamber. It's just unusual to see the people in the echo chamber freely admit it. "Right-wing" is also an apt description. Much of the right-wing echo chamber likes to call itself libertarian, but that's just a pretense. The American federal government has substantially undermined libertarianism in the past few years. Its main policies could hardly be less libertarian, but they are in keeping with the fellow travellers of libertarianism that attracted most of the interest: nationalism and plutocracy.
Nor am I interested in the latest Oliver Stone crap, or whatever George Lucas might come up with now that he's finished wrecking Star Wars.
Shrug. I have never seen any Oliver Stone movie either, and with Star Wars I left off at the Empire Strikes Back.
I'd like to see Brainwashing 201, though. Sounds fresh and interesting.
If you think it sounds fresh and interesting, what do you expect it to say that Brainwashing 101 didn't already say?
Speaking of Suspicion, Cary Grant was himself under a cloud of suspicion at the time, because it looked to a lot of people like he had had a gay relationship with Randolph Scott. If enough of the public had believed this, then Grant too would have been "box office poison".
As I said, I haven't seen any Oliver Stone movie. I also haven't seen any Michael Moore movie. I don't know if I will see Syriana, although I am getting curious because so many people here seem to know all about it without having seen it. It is not that I am against political movies, though. I thought that Wag the Dog was amazing. It really did wag the dog: fact followed fiction with the both the Monica Lewinsky scandal and the war in Iraq. I would also like to see The Thin Blue Line.
Nah. The mistake is in thinking that artists in general, actors in particular have anything to say that they haven't already said through the practice of their craft. If they haven't said it through their art, their art is that much the less.
The exception, of course, is writers. Words are their stock and trade. Haven't you noticed at the Academy Awards that the best acceptance speeches are always the writers?
Oh, gimmeafreakinbreakalready, "greg."
Do you not even read what you write? Are you truly that oblivious to the profound irony of projecting the same sort of narcissistic circular argument you accuse others of making? Do you fancy yourself some sort of "brave, independent thinking, true LIBERTARIAN (or PROGRESSIVE, or whatever), whose special polemical gifts allow you to rise above the rabble, cut through the crap and tell it like it REALLY is?
How proud Mom must be right now ...
BN
Dear BN:
No, I think Our Greg is very aware of what he is doing. It is all about stirring people up and demonstrating control---"I can say thing 'A' and get people all upset..."
I guess that is fine. If sad.
"So the last time a movie was made that critized left wing politics and 'progressive' ideals would be....
(sound of crickets)"
(crunch crackle crunch)
Ick! My shoes!
Bleah. Well, the last one I know of would be this -- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041386/
Helen:
What disturbs me is the rampant stereotyping here. Women, men, liberals, artists. Why can't you criticize particular people and situations without turning it into some wholesale statement about a particular group of which that person may be a member? It's a logical fallacy and just plain silly.
There is a weird perceptual principle at work here, I think. We tend to remember incidents that are well publicized as being of much greater impact---because in a way, they are---then quieter approaches.
Thus, a thoughtful film-maker concerned with presenting several sides of an issue sympathetically, demonstrating the complexities of real life, would not get much airplay pro or con. But film-makers who say outrageous things, or make extreme statements....why, they get all the press.
And thus, we see them.
I wish there was a more elegant way to express what I just wrote...but it remains true.
"Eric Blair"
Is Evan Coyne Maloney concerned with presenting several sides of an issue sympathetically?
Oh, just about as willing to do so as CBS news, the New York Times, and so on.
Don't be a troll.
seriously, would somebody please explain to me the definition of the word "troll" as used so regularly here?
Making contradictory or outrageous statements solely to get a response. Here is Scott Adams' view of internet commenting:
http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2005/11/results_of_why_.html
well thanks for the clarification. i don't think that's what greg does at all. he argues, and quite well i think. he's certainly not outrageous. seems some people don't like hearing the opposition. guess Barbara Streisand ain't alone.
I think Clooney is pushing his left wing view to sell his movie. He shows up making political statements (and attacking Bill O'Reilly) whenever he has a movie opening.
Nothing new here. Just an actor using the press for publicity.
Hi Anonymous 7:54 PM...
Your mileage may vary. But my reading of GK's entries in this and in other blogs (look around and see his style) shows that he takes up contrary and inconsistent views, issues "fishhook" comments rife with snarkiness and a lack of self-criticism, all with the goal (I think) of stirring the pot. That is a classic definition of a troll, of course (like The Argument Room in Monty Python sketches).
I have seen spirited debate in these comments between people who do not agree...but yet, at the same time, treat one another with respect and even humor. Heck, even your comment to me is an example of a useful interchange that made me think.
GK's arrogant and superior tone grates. He criticizes for the same of criticism.
But as I say, your mileage may vary. GK may be just the kind of commenter you prefer to make you think. And that is what is great about a diverse society: one size doesn't fit all, metaphorically speaking.
Hmmm - well I don't have the time to wade through the entire long commenting good and bad...
I will say this - I have never cared for George Clooney - either before or after he started talking politics. (I like him way less now because of his big mouth- but that doesn't change the fact that I could never willingly sit through any of his movies)
I see Cary Grant's name mentioned often - He is one of my favorite actors ever - I have no wish to know about his private life or politics... But his acting was once described as Cary Grant being himself in every movie he made. I think whoever said this was right - the thing is that Cary could really pull it off - he was excellent at it!
George Clooney also plays himself in every movie... unfortunately, he can't pull it off. I can't connect with him regardless of the role he is doing. Therefore I no longer waste my time with his movies... I've never seen him in a television show. (I have seen enough of his performances in several movies to conclude this to my satisfaction)
The real problem with the Hollywood star system is... as has been pointed out... the absolute adoration for every utterance from these beings. They certainly have a right to their opinion... the amazing thing is how everyone hangs on each and every thing they say or do.
For instance - one of the Desperate Housewives is from the Boston area... (I do enjoy the show so it's not about her) she came to town for Thanksgiving with her family... the news people were all over her - like the second coming! It was almost ludicrous. She seems like a nice woman and she kindly answered reporters questions when I'm sure she would have liked to move on to her family stuff. I got a big laugh out of it - but it's a sobering thought that so many people think that this is real news!
Last of all - I should note that I love Robert Redford's acting - but loathe his politics... great actors can overcome the liability of spouting opinions I disagree with - good actors can sometimes overcome this...George Clooney is not good enough.
George Clooney is an actor?!
Like the Lina Lamont character (Jean Hagen; "Singin' in the Rain", 1952), celebrities believe their own publicity and are unable to distinguish hype from news. There is no one around them who will tell them that they are not as brilliant, informed, or courageous as the characters they portray.
I don't know greg's writing on other blogs. I don't have a particular objection to what he writes here. I disagree with it, and think he sometimes overcredits his objectivity, but I'm not on solid ground criticizing that. The set of people as objective as they think they are is fairly small.
Greg, the distinction is perhaps too subtle for blog-comment length discussion. There is a continuum of political advocacy in Hollywood that seldom extends rightward. But some of what skews leftward is not necessarily unfair. For me the difference is the fairly obvious intent of the movie. Telling a story which has liberal implications is artistically honest. Agit-prop is not. The interviews with actors and directors may or may not be germane in identifying this. With Clooney, he confirms my suspicion. The premise of Syriania suggests the intent is primarily political, secondarily story or character. But hey, I've been wrong before about those things, and that alone wouldn't push me away. But coming on the heels of his hypocritically McCarthyite movie about McCarthyism, combined with his public statements, it confirms my suspicion. I could still turn out to be wrong about the movie. It might be a subtle, complex, evenhanded treatment. But I am no longer willing to bet my entertainment money that way in the face of three votes otherwise.
Full disclosure: I'm writing crap, really. I never go to movies anyway, and don't have a TV or VCR.
The new politics of hollywood a nest of vipers all the way and GEORGE CLOONEY could poinson a cobra with just his appearnece
Bill Gerber, the producer of The Dukes of Hazard, got the idea to make the film in response to 9/11...
"You know, I think it's time for a real ass-kicking, Smokey and the Bandit-type movie that's about two guys who defend their family and their town and they stand for something."
http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/638/638693p1.html
Of course, he's opposed to defending his country, democracy, and the Free World. And, by the way, he hates the War on Terror, President Bush and all things right of center. Loves Hilary Clinton... A chicken in every pot and a Clinton in every office...
I know him. It's true.
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