In times of war, the stars don't shine as bright

[scooper]

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.

[Killebrew]

The even bigger mystery, though, is why anyone ever sought political guidance from the shallow, callow, impulsive and self-regarding personality type known as National Post writer George Koch.

[NoMyths]

Well said, 'Killer.
You must be one of those people who are "for peace, which is to say, no principle or belief is worth fighting for."

[scooper]

I'm actually not familiar with him and came across this piece on another board as opposed to searching out his opinion. It could have been written by Barney the dinosaur but it makes some points that I feel are valid. For a group to go from being center of attention to a back-burner story, could have at least a sub conscious affect on how said celebrities view the current situation.

Everybody has a right to their opinion but the funny thing is I value the protests of Michael Moore, Martin Sheen and Susan Surandon less than I value the kids I witnessed protesting around here the last few days. I really don't know why. Maybe it's because they are more real to me as they are closer to my own situation than a multi-millionare movie star. Up to a certain point, I support the right to protest our actions, just as I have a right to support them.

[Honolulu_Blue]

The Onion said (more or less) the same thing better, smarter, and with a bit less hate, vitriol, anger, and idiocy following the September 11 attacks.




The Onion
October 3, 2001 (The First Issue after September 11, 2001)

SPRINGFIELD, MO—Were this an ordinary Tuesday night, Wendy Vance would return home from her receptionist job at a Springfield chiropractor's office and spend the evening engaged in any number of empty, meaningless diversions: watching old, taped episodes of Friends, browsing the new issue of Cosmopolitan, or driving to Center Square Mall to browse for shoes.

Tonight, however, the 29-year-old is unable to bring herself to turn on the TV or even half-heartedly flip through the new Pottery Barn catalog. Instead, she has decided to visit her grandmother in nearby Mountain Grove.

"If none of this had happened, right now I'd probably be watching that stupid Journey VH1 Behind The Music episode for the 40,000th time. Or talking to my friend Kerri about the Gap skirt I want," said Vance, holding her grandmother's frail, time-worn hand. "Now, all I can think about is how precious life is, and how important it is to spend quality time with the people who matter to you, because everything could change in an instant."

Added Vance: "I just want my regular life back."

Vance is not alone. Shaken by the tragic events of Sept. 11, people across the nation have abandoned such inconsequential concerns as the Gary Condit scandal and Britney Spears' skimpy outfit at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards. No longer are they talking about shark attacks or what's-his-name, that Little Leaguer who was too old to play. Instead, they're focusing on the truly important things in life: friends, family, and being good to one another.

How long can it go on like this?

Three weeks after the horrific attacks that claimed more than 6,000 lives, many Americans are wondering when their priorities will finally be in the wrong place again. Some are wondering if their priorities will ever be in the wrong place again.

"In the aftermath of this horrible tragedy, people find themselves cruelly preoccupied with the happiness and well-being of their loved ones, unconcerned with such stupid bullshit as the new Anne Heche biography or Michael Jackson's dramatic comeback bid," said Dr. Meredith Laufenberg, a psychologist and family therapist at UCLA Medical Center. "Who knows how long it will be before things are back to normal?"

Reading a book to his 7-year-old nephew, Adrian Mauer of Chicago echoed Vance's longing for banality.

"I don't even know what happened at the Daytime Emmys, much less the Latin Grammys," Mauer said. "How could these monsters do this to us? Is nothing sacred? It makes me want to enlist in the Marines and slash bin Laden's fucking throat from ear to ear."

According to Laufenberg, Mauer's anger is a natural response to the current situation.

"Across America, there is a profound sense of grief for the victims of this tragedy," Laufenberg said. "But there is also a profound desire to inflict great pain upon its perpetrators, to make them pay for taking away our ability to get way, way too into the McDonald's Monopoly game."

Even as America's television networks slowly return to regular programming, the vital issues of our pre-Sept. 11 lives are relegated to the background.

"If Access Hollywood would just go back to blathering about Julia Roberts' surprise platinum-blonde makeover and Brad Pitt's new dog and a bunch of other crap that doesn't matter in the least, I'd know everything is right with my world," said Shelley Orr, a Stockton, CA, data-entry clerk. "Oh, my God, what's going on with the whole car-phone controversy? Are they going to ban them? I haven't even thought about it in weeks."

Laufenberg and other therapists are seeing countless cases of Sudden-Reality Shock Syndrome (SRSS), a disorder affecting those suddenly and violently re-grounded in the real world. Crisis and grief-counseling centers across the nation are offering therapy groups for those who need to discuss their newfound inability to care about mass-market crapola.

According to Iris Huffman, emergency-services director at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute, the key to enjoying vapidity again is to extract oneself from the hard realities of the world very slowly.

"The instinct is to immediately throw yourself back into your regular daily routine, but this isn't always best," Huffman said. "Allow yourself time for a gradual return to the petty, shallow, meaningless little life you led before this horrible tragedy. I'm telling my patients: Don't go see Zoolander until you know you're actually ready."

According to Georgetown University history professor Timothy Schuitt, our interest in stupid bullshit is what makes America great.

"The United States is a free country, a strong country, a prosperous country," Schuitt said. "Many veterans gave their lives so we would have the right to focus our attention and energies on the DVD release of Joe Dirt, the latest web-browsing cell phones, and how-low-can-you-go hip-hugging jeans. It is a sign of our collective strength as a nation that we genuinely give a shit about the latest developments in the Cruise-Cruz romance. When Mariah Carey's latest breakdown is once again treated as front-page news, that is the day the healing will have truly begun."

While Schuitt says he is optimistic that Americans will one day obsess over stupid bullshit like they used to, others are not so confident.

"This is a life-changing, society-altering catastrophe of the first magnitude, on par with a Pearl Harbor or Great Depression," said noted historian and author David Halberstam. "The sad truth is, this country may never go back to caring about pointless, inane trifles as we once did."

Where have you gone, J. Lo? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

[Tekneek]

Where was the hate?

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally posted by scooper


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.

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.

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 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.

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.

I edited a bit to leave in the pieces in which I can feel the hate and anger in this man's words. It's pretty evident, at least from what I can tell.

That being said, I'll be honest with you, I have watched every Academy Awards program for years and didn't even remember they happened until Monday morning when a friend of mine mentioned "Chicago" won. Then again, that could be due to the fact I live in Belgium now, have no TV, was up til 6:00 am Sunday morning drinking...

[Tekneek]

I guess it depends on what really bothers you. I see editorial commentary there, not hate.