Actors and actresses, comedians, musicians and singers are like windup dolls whirling across the celebrity stage. At their best, they may amuse. (Of course, entertainment bears no relationship to edification.) At their worst, they can be insufferable boors, over-indulged brats and mouthy ignoramuses
In this election year, with the nation polarized as never before, the Barbies have turned into demented Chatty Cathies – rabidly anti-Bush and determined to inflict their political views on a nauseated nation.
Take Linda Ronstadt, washed-up ‘70s pop icon.
During a Las Vegas performance last week, Ronstadt was driven to put in a plug for lefty filmmaker Michael Moore and his Bush-haters’ fantasy "Fahrenheit 9/11." But describing the mammoth Marxist as a "great American patriot" who is "spreading the truth," was beyond the pale for some in the audience.
Ronstadt’s remarks were greeted by boos and catcalls. In the lobby, concertgoers threw drinks on her posters and engaged in other forms of symbolic protest. (James Hirsen, author of "Tales From The Left Coast," told me: "Ronstadt found out what every savvy performer, comic and musician who works in Vegas knows: People who come to Las Vegas are from so-called fly-over country and have values far different from those who live in that parallel universe called Hollywood.")
The management of Aladdin’s Hotel/Casino was not amused by the singer’s antics. Staff checked Ronstadt out of her room and escorted her from the premises.
Aladdin President Bill Timmins explained: "We hired Ms. Ronstadt as an entertainer, not as a political activist…. If she wants to talk about her views to a newspaper or in a magazine article, she is free to do so. But on a stage in front of four and a half thousand people is not the place to do it." Especially when they came to be entertained, not propagandized.
On Wednesday, The New York Times weighed in. Timmins’ "behavior assumes that Ms. Ronstadt had no right to express a public opinion from the stage," the Times’ editorialist sniveled. "It argues, in fact, that an artist like Ms. Ronstadt does not have the same rights as everyone else."
The Times has never had a firm grasp of the First Amendment (not to mention reality), but does it really believe that Aladdin’s had an obligation to provide Ronstadt with a political forum? How far should this extend? What if she’d chosen to hum a few notes and spend the rest of her "performance" discoursing on the issues of the day?
If the paper accepts my letter-to-the-editor, would I then have a right to invade its newsroom and harangue reporters and editors on my politics?
I don’t recall The Times defending the free-speech rights of Dr. Laura, when the talk-show host was attacked by homosexual activists intent on pulling the plug on her short-lived TV show. It seems only leftist celebs have "the same rights as everyone else."
While not in the same league as a Streisand, a Sarandon or a Sean Penn, still, Ronstadt has an agenda -- a perhaps learned at the knee of her former beau, Jerry Brown (dubbed Governor Moonbeam when he was California’s chief executive).
In a May interview with WABC, the songstress cum constitutional scholar opined that Bush should be impeached now, rather than waiting for the November election.
In a recent interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune, Ronstadt confessed that if she knows there’s "a Republican or fundamental (sic) Christian" at one of her performances, "it can cloud my enjoyment." And it’s conservatives who are supposed to be narrow-minded and fearful of opposing views.
Ronstadt has no regrets about the fracas at Aladdin’s. Says she: "This is an election year. I want people to get their head up out of their mashed potatoes and learn something about issues and go out and vote. I’m not telling them how to vote. I’m saying, get information about the issues."
Did you hear that, Mr. And Mrs. America and all ships at sea? Linda Ronstadt wants you to get informed, get educated. Get thee to that fount of impartial analysis, the Leni Riefenstahl of the left, Michael Moore.
Lately, the glitterati has been doing a whole lot of educating. At the Stockholm jazz festival last week, singer Bonnie Raitt enlightened the Swedes by dedicating her song "Your Good Thing (Is About to End)" to the president. (‘We’re gonna sing this for George Bush because he’s out of here, people!’) In the nation that traded with Hitler while the Nazis goose-stepped across Europe, this attack on the alleged great warmonger went over big.
According to an article in USA Today, celebrity "anti-Bush rhetoric appears to be spinning out of control," and "is alienating both Republicans and democrats." Doesn’t the newspaper know that this is just Hollywood’s way of instructing the masses and motivating us to do our civic duty? Here are a few examples of education a la Beverly Hills:
- At a July 8th Kerry fundraiser, Whoopi Goldberg made obscene jokes about the president’s name.
- At a July 14th concert, Ozzy Osbourne sang "War Pigs" while images of Bush and Hitler alternately flashed on a screen behind him.
- The Dixie Chicks (dubbed "the French Hens," by Jerry Falwell) haven’t clucked much lately. But last year the trio created a firestorm, when their lead singer told a London audience, "Just so you know, we’re ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas."
- About the same time, performing in Denver, Eddie Vedder (lead singer of Pearl Jam) impaled a mask of Bush on a microphone stand, stabbed it into the floor and began stomping on it.
In an attempt to explain the phenomenon, presidential scholar Doug Brinkley of the Eisenhower Center observes: "Artists like to see themselves as anti-war. Being a pacifist comes with the territory."
It didn’t always. During World War II, stars who weren’t in uniform (like Jimmy Stewart and Clark Gable) were entertaining the troops or making war films.
That was when entertainers understood that freedom isn’t free. Nobody in his right mind likes war, but it’s better to fight than go silently into the death camp or gulag.
Heeding Jane Fonda’s and Donald Sutherland’s advice in the ‘60s helped to create a million Vietnamese boat people and the Killing Fields of Cambodia.
If we’d listened to song-birdbrains like Ronstadt in the ‘80s (she used to perform at No Nukes concerts), the Berlin Wall would still be standing, Daniel Ortega would be in power in Nicaragua, Sandinista clones would rule most of Central America, and the USSR would still be in business issuing stock dividends.
But now, something new has been added to the mix: Americans are no longer willing to take Hollywood’s educational activities without protest. Besides the uproar at Aladdin’s, over 100 people requested refunds on tickets for Rondstadt’s Los Angeles show later in the week.
After Ian Anderson, front man for the Brit band Jethro Tull, told a New Jersey newspaper, "I hate to see the American flag hanging out of every bloody station wagon, out of every SUV, every little Midwestern house in some residential area," WCHR, an FM station on the Jersey shore, stopped playing the band’s songs. Audience response was overwhelmingly positive.
Complaints about her Bush-bashing led to Goldberg’s eviction as a Slimfast spokesman. After their London tantrum, The Chicks saw sales of their No. 1 album plummet and had their recordings banned by patriotic radio stations. There was even an instance of former fans in Louisiana crushing Chicks’ CDs with a tractor.
Country Western fans are expected to react angrily to crude attacks on the commander in chief in time of war. But the grunge crowd has never been known as a bastion of conservatism. So it came as a shock when dozens of Pearl Jam fans stomped out of the aforementioned Denver concert.
As Jack Nicholson says in one of his more ironic roles, "Not only has the worm turned, he’s armed with an uzi."
Is Middle America punishing these artists for expressing themselves? You bet we are – and how sweeet it is! No longer is the public willing to take their political ravings in the supine position. No longer will fans, like good little zombies, rush out to buy the concert tickets, purchase the CDs and consume the products leftist celebrities endorse.
I guess this is red-white-and-blue America telling Hollywood political commissars to get their heads up out of their cocaine and learn something about the issues.
Ronstadt had mega-hits in the ‘80s, with her albums "What’s New?" and "’Round Midnight," in which she crooned torch songs and ‘40s favorites. If they’re ever re-released, she might consider adding the Harold Arlen ditty from The Wizard of Oz, "If I Only Had A Brain."