Analysis & Commentary Rick on 02 Feb 2008 10:50 pm
Let Celebrity Endorsements Ring
It’s the silly season again. No, I don’t mean the Oscars–it’s election time, when all the stars (and many of the not-so-starry) take up their celebrity and try to influence our electoral process. They speak on behalf of candidates, make appearances with candidates, and just generally make themselves obnoxious about the whole thing. And I’m always suspicious about it, I wonder how altruistic it all is, because it certainly cuts both ways . . . get your picture taken next to a major candidate and it’s, like, gold, man . . .
The majority of Hollywood types seem to support Democrats, and hasn’t that worked out for the Dems in the last couple of elections cycles? True, they took back the congress in’06, but just barely, and so they haven’t been able to do much with the victory. It’s hard to tell whether the industry support has helped or hindered Democratic candidates. After all, Republicans have been pretty successful at painting Hollywood as full of Liberal pansies who want to abort your children and force you to marry gays.
True, the Republicans have their own Hollywood celebrity endorsers, but they’ve chosen them carefully, if not very creatively. Mike Huckabee has two-fisted he-man Chuck Norris and John McCain has two-fisted he-man Arnold Schwarzenegger (but does Arnold count as Hollywood anymore?). But my favorite Hollywood endorsement so far is Wilford Brimley, who came out in favor of McCain. What’s that supposed to play to–the octogenarian, space-traveling oatmeal eating demographic? (see, Brimley was in Cocoon and all those Quaker commercials . . . oh, never mind).
But it could be worse. Peter Bart over at Variety writes that
“. . . the most forceful argument for muzzling actors can be summed up in two words: Tom Cruise. He never planned it this way, but Cruise has made himself the poster boy for those who feel that stars should keep their political and religious opinions to themselves.”
That’s right, Presidential candidates, you just think you have it bad with Wilford Brimley and Sean Penn. You could be endorsed by Scientology’s favorite cheerleader, also known as Operating Thetan VII. It makes me wonder: do Barak and Hilary wake up screaming after dreaming about a Tom Cruise press conference? Do they scour the DVD libraries of their campaign aircraft, purging them of Top Gun and Mission Impossible III? Only their spouses–and campaign managers–know for sure.
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