The American landscape is spectacular in its diversity of topography and climate. So is the American political landscape: Italian-Americans seem to be mostly Republicans, as do Cuban-Americans and a majority of White Evangelicals; other Hispanics tend to be Democrats I think, as do Jews and Blacks. But even African-Americans, who are probably the most faithful to the Democrats in the voting booth, still vote Republican about ten percent of the time. A diversity of opinion is truly an American defining characteristic, for in groups as different as auto mechanics and physicians, teachers and fishermen, there are those who lean to the right and those who lean to the left.
In Hollywood, California however, there is a surprising lack of variety in the scenery. The political landscape is a vast flat patch of asphalt, as far the eye can see. Is it just me, or is it hard to tell the difference between the Democratic Convention and the Academy Awards?
The papier maché tanks and plywood fighter planes of Hollywood, supported by their digitally rendered Howitzers and Tomahawks, are all arrayed against George Bush and the Republican Party in a political unison not seen in America since the days following 9/11. We are not ignorant of the dissidents, the Clint Eastwoods and Bruce Willises. To us in the Purple Mountains and the Fruited Plain, however, they look like Benedict Arnold Schwartzeneggers, who have failed to assimilate into the sinister Borg Kollektive. They have failed to keep their disturbing thoughts to themselves.
As a physician trained to think scientifically, I cannot ignore so marked a divergence from the expected pattern. What could possibly explain the amplitude of the difference between those in the entertainment industry and those who toil? What common experience must they have that is of sufficient power to erase variation, and replace it with an unharmonious monotone, like a People’s Liberation Army parade? It would be a difficult question for a well-funded think tank, let alone for one busy physician. One of the saints of internal medicine, William Osler, said “Listen to the patient and he will tell you the diagnosis.” Perhaps the wisdom of medicine will lend us a clue to this perplexing question.
While I was watching the Democratic Convention a couple of weeks ago, I observed John Cusack in an energized conversation with Barack Obama. “I made more money under George Bush,” he observed, “but I don’t feel good about it.” And I recently read something of a similar timbre in the July 22-28 edition of the French Magazine Paris Match. In an article called “Quand Hollywood fait campagne” (when Hollywood fights a campaign), Paul Newman is depicted as a hemorrhaging Flagellant (their metaphor) when he says “The reduction in taxes for rich hoodlums like me is categorically criminal (NB: My translation of a translation of Newman’s words).” If these two quotes are a window into the broader mind of Hollywood, it seems that actors have a very different attitude toward their own money than most of the rest of us do!
In their song “Lifestyles of the Rich and the Famous,” the Punk band Good Charlotte captures the existential vertigo many of us feel when we hear ultra-wealthy actors hating themselves for their success. The hope of even modest wealth is a glorious sunset that has sustained innumerable millions of ordinary Americans through long shifts and muscle rending labor. What strange reality is this when a life more aglitter than a world of jewelry stores is apparently so noxious to those who dwell within it?
Now for the record, I enthusiastically agree with John Cusack and Paul Newman and Barbara Streisand that George Bush is not very good for this country. Like them I believe that the invasion of Iraq was wrong morally and by a few other calculations besides. I have plenty of other problems with his policies, foreign and domestic. But I will not be savoring their hors d’oeuvres or drinking their rare champagne. For in my opinion just as bloodletting was not the answer to Yellow Fever, John Kerry is not the solution to the problem of George Bush.
The dreams of the Hollywood sector of the ruling class are troubled by their enormous and unnatural wealth, and yet they cannot part with it. Wouldn’t John Cusack and Paul Newman have felt better about themselves had they just given most of their money away? Powerless to separate themselves from their riches, do they then yearn for a society that will take it from them by force? I suspect many celebrities do not even know how much money they have, and I believe their lifestyles are not affected as much as their consciences by modest changes in the tax rates. The price of their peaceful slumber, however, is very dear to those who struggle to pay mortgages, educate children, save for retirement, and reach for the stars. For as they wage war against George Bush, the actors and actresses also make war on those who struggle to climb but a few feet up the mountain whose peak is their very own gated neighborhoods. By allying with rich socialists like John Kerry, the glitterati are pouring boiling oil on those who need a five or ten percent tax differential to have a real chance at a better life. In all times and in all places, the price of the socialist illusion of security will be opportunity itself; the price of the peaceful sleep of Hollywood is the dreams of Charlotte, Omaha and Salt Lake City.
We should perhaps remember that actors, actresses, and directors are not like ordinary people because they live on the other side of the silver screen. In their world, “the Little People” take care of countless details, and there are oceans of adoring fans that would trample one another just to get a nod or a smile. So the Hollywood Nomenklatura (1) can be forgiven for not appreciating that the reality of ordinary people is a galaxy away from their own. Their solution to the problem of disparity has the essential feature of everything Hollywood produces: illusion. For illusion is the only reality in Hollywood, and illusion is the only reality Hollywood can create. It is wonderful to be entertained by illusions, but not too wonderful to be governed by them.
War is hell, and in the war on George Bush, perhaps the greatest casualty is art itself. Al Franken is a gifted comic and I have always been a devoted fan of his cerebral and philosophical comedy. In my opinion Humor is the highest calling in entertainment; doesn’t wisdom hold that humor has intrinsic medicinal value? But he has traded his divine gift for the horrifyingly commonplace. Nowadays if I wish to be entertained by him I have to listen to a political radio program, where his considerable intellect is harnessed in the production of the black cloud of political talk radio. He seems lost in the illusion that by adding his own choking fog to that of Rush Limbaugh the sky will become somehow cleaner, when in reality they are all together one big Mordor Smoke Stack.
We do not mind that those we so admire are so astonishingly rich; after all, we are the ones who made them that way! We enrich them because they enrich our lives, they make our burdens lighter, and we love them for it. The price of a movie ticket is not too high for that. On the other hand, ten dollars is a lot of money to pay to be told you’re not intelligent enough to manage your own affairs, and that you are keeping too much of your own money. My prayer is that the Al Frankens up there in the Hollywood heavens will find some charities and give their money away until they have to move into a 2400 square foot ranch and drink Bud Light. Then perhaps they will need some money and they will start making us laugh again, instead of cough.
(1) A Russian word from the Communist era referring to influential members of the Communist Party.
Copyright 2008 Robert Albanese (oringally written and posted 2/19/2004)
Addendum 12/11/2011: It is now fashionable for websites to post slide shows of "Celebrities Who Lean to the Right." I would argue that more actors and actresses are willing to make their conservative or libertarian beliefs known, but even still, these celebrities remain a small minority, and it is precisely that they are unusual that their values are of interest. I have viewed a number of these slide shows and if you take out the Italian-Americans, the Cuban-Americans, the Action Movie Stars, the Country Music Stars and the Southerners, very few are left.
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