scooper
03-25-2003, 11:28 AM
In times of war, the stars don't shine as bright
George Koch
National Post
Tuesday, March 25, 2003
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CALGARY - It came to me in a flash: I finally understood why Hollywood stars and other celebrities so loathe war. It's because war brutally, profoundly, irrevocably confronts them with their own irrelevance. As narcissists, they can't stand this. They're used to being the centre of the universe. A world in which they're not is intolerable. And war shoves them to the periphery.
It's inarguable that, with a few prominent exceptions such as Mel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone, Charlton Heston and Bruce Willis (oh yeah, and Ted Nugent), virtually all actors, musicians and other pop culture celebs are left-wing. (If there are more of you out there who aren't, write me.)
They're for peace, which is to say, no principle or belief is worth fighting for. Blasting your body full of heroin is fine. But risking your life for your country? Forget it. The hard-core post-modernists among them go farther: They're contemptuous of the very idea of a fixed principle or an unshakeable belief.
This overwhelming concentration of opinion confounded me for a long time. Now I know why: I'd been seeking a logical basis in political thought. Silly me. The cause lies in simple psychology.
In war, the celebrity no longer matters to anybody, while the nobody suddenly matters to nearly everybody. When Tank Engine Oil Changer (4th Class) Earl Beerguzzle from Trailer Park, Arkansas, goes missing, millions of people care. Genuinely. They care about the life of a young man who's doing something real and is prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice in the service of his country.
Our usual neurotic interest in what the stars are doing in the service of themselves -- like, say, how Salma Hayek's eyebrow management program is coming along, or whether it was a female or a transvestite who fellated Hugh Grant in the back seat (or was it the front seat?) -- is cast aside. Private Earl's fate is something that instantly connects with nearly all of us, from any number of perspectives -- parent, child, sibling, friend, colleague or simply one human being reaching out to another across thousands of miles because I know what you're going through.
Instead of the normal display of the aesthetically perfect preening before the assembled cameras and ringed by adoring throngs held back by rented cops and bodyguards, we see front-lawn interviews with slightly overweight, somewhat awkward, a little bit rumpled and overall marvellously imperfect people.
They're the families and friends of those killed or missing in Iraq. Real people sharing real emotions about real events. And we unselfconsciously cry with them. In this light, it just doesn't matter what Nicole Kidman is wearing to the Oscars -- or whether the damned things are even held.
Private Earl went out to do his part to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein and maybe have some kicks blowing up a few things along the way. Unwittingly, he's also pulverizing the elaborate but delicate psychological structures of the Hollywood regime.
In wartime, CNN no longer comes calling at Jessica Lange's place. CNN doesn't care how poor Jessica feels anymore. Today, CNN seeks out people who actually know some things. CNN doesn't care how these people feel, it wants to know what they think.
In short, objective reality has made a roaring comeback -- about as subtly as a barrage of those 155-mm shells screaming overhead that left even TV reporters agape. War has a way of doing that. Oliver Stone's masturbatory obsession with the grassy knoll in Dallas just doesn't stack up against whether or not the 3rd Infantry boys actually seized that bridge across the Euphrates.
Indeed, in the blast of war Hollywood's whole post-modern construct -- the psychopaths of Quentin Tarantino's nihilistic universe or Stone's idiotic conspiracy theories -- crumbles. In Iraq, we're dealing with real psychopaths - General "Chemical" Ali reaching for the poison gas -- and real conspiracies -- Saddam's sons ordering the Iraqi army to divert a flood of refugees into the path of American forces to trigger a civilian bloodbath. Uday and Qusay Hussein? Now those dudes belong in Reservoir Dogs.
Moral lines are clarified. In Tarantinoland, all characters are venal or stupid -- as incompetent as they are violent -- inhabiting a world without hope. Tell that to the Iraqi who finally got to pound his shoe against the shredded poster of Saddam, courtesy of the 1st Marines. I'd say in his universe, there are bad guys and there are good guys -- he'd be incredulous if you tried to persuade him otherwise. And life is suddenly not hopeless at all.
The bigger mystery, though, is why anyone ever sought political guidance from the shallow, callow, impulsive and self-regarding personality type known as the celeb.
George Koch
National Post
Tuesday, March 25, 2003
ADVERTISEMENT
CALGARY - It came to me in a flash: I finally understood why Hollywood stars and other celebrities so loathe war. It's because war brutally, profoundly, irrevocably confronts them with their own irrelevance. As narcissists, they can't stand this. They're used to being the centre of the universe. A world in which they're not is intolerable. And war shoves them to the periphery.
It's inarguable that, with a few prominent exceptions such as Mel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone, Charlton Heston and Bruce Willis (oh yeah, and Ted Nugent), virtually all actors, musicians and other pop culture celebs are left-wing. (If there are more of you out there who aren't, write me.)
They're for peace, which is to say, no principle or belief is worth fighting for. Blasting your body full of heroin is fine. But risking your life for your country? Forget it. The hard-core post-modernists among them go farther: They're contemptuous of the very idea of a fixed principle or an unshakeable belief.
This overwhelming concentration of opinion confounded me for a long time. Now I know why: I'd been seeking a logical basis in political thought. Silly me. The cause lies in simple psychology.
In war, the celebrity no longer matters to anybody, while the nobody suddenly matters to nearly everybody. When Tank Engine Oil Changer (4th Class) Earl Beerguzzle from Trailer Park, Arkansas, goes missing, millions of people care. Genuinely. They care about the life of a young man who's doing something real and is prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice in the service of his country.
Our usual neurotic interest in what the stars are doing in the service of themselves -- like, say, how Salma Hayek's eyebrow management program is coming along, or whether it was a female or a transvestite who fellated Hugh Grant in the back seat (or was it the front seat?) -- is cast aside. Private Earl's fate is something that instantly connects with nearly all of us, from any number of perspectives -- parent, child, sibling, friend, colleague or simply one human being reaching out to another across thousands of miles because I know what you're going through.
Instead of the normal display of the aesthetically perfect preening before the assembled cameras and ringed by adoring throngs held back by rented cops and bodyguards, we see front-lawn interviews with slightly overweight, somewhat awkward, a little bit rumpled and overall marvellously imperfect people.
They're the families and friends of those killed or missing in Iraq. Real people sharing real emotions about real events. And we unselfconsciously cry with them. In this light, it just doesn't matter what Nicole Kidman is wearing to the Oscars -- or whether the damned things are even held.
Private Earl went out to do his part to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein and maybe have some kicks blowing up a few things along the way. Unwittingly, he's also pulverizing the elaborate but delicate psychological structures of the Hollywood regime.
In wartime, CNN no longer comes calling at Jessica Lange's place. CNN doesn't care how poor Jessica feels anymore. Today, CNN seeks out people who actually know some things. CNN doesn't care how these people feel, it wants to know what they think.
In short, objective reality has made a roaring comeback -- about as subtly as a barrage of those 155-mm shells screaming overhead that left even TV reporters agape. War has a way of doing that. Oliver Stone's masturbatory obsession with the grassy knoll in Dallas just doesn't stack up against whether or not the 3rd Infantry boys actually seized that bridge across the Euphrates.
Indeed, in the blast of war Hollywood's whole post-modern construct -- the psychopaths of Quentin Tarantino's nihilistic universe or Stone's idiotic conspiracy theories -- crumbles. In Iraq, we're dealing with real psychopaths - General "Chemical" Ali reaching for the poison gas -- and real conspiracies -- Saddam's sons ordering the Iraqi army to divert a flood of refugees into the path of American forces to trigger a civilian bloodbath. Uday and Qusay Hussein? Now those dudes belong in Reservoir Dogs.
Moral lines are clarified. In Tarantinoland, all characters are venal or stupid -- as incompetent as they are violent -- inhabiting a world without hope. Tell that to the Iraqi who finally got to pound his shoe against the shredded poster of Saddam, courtesy of the 1st Marines. I'd say in his universe, there are bad guys and there are good guys -- he'd be incredulous if you tried to persuade him otherwise. And life is suddenly not hopeless at all.
The bigger mystery, though, is why anyone ever sought political guidance from the shallow, callow, impulsive and self-regarding personality type known as the celeb.