Jun 14 2009
Does ‘Celebrity’ give you the right …
to speak for me? My family? My belief system? My religious convictions? My view of the world? Um-m-m-m let me think … Unequivocally NO! Does being a gazillion-dollar earner in the world of entertainment equate to being this omniscient being who is able to speak for the masses? Um-m-m-m let me think … Hell no! Anyone remember the fiasco called “Hanoi Jane”? Look people ‘celebrity’ status unleashes a lot of perks in our society. It always has. Certain persons or groups of persons look up to these individuals … follow them — I do it — we all do. I mean who looks away when the latest shocking scandal is on TMZ or Entertainment Tonight? But when Sean Penn or Tim Robbins or Susan Sarandon or Madonna or Kanye West or the Dixie Chicks or any other celebrity presumes to know our hearts, our convictions or what’s best for me or my family … based on their precarious, oft-time troubled multi-million dollars lifestyles and ideologies; and then goes to another country that we are conflicted with to say that we, the United States of America, are somehow inhuman or wrong — then we need to look within and withdraw the supposed power these people seem to possess over our lives. I’ve never met any of these people — never had any conversations with them. I know (in part because of press agents and the omnipresent paparazzi) what they seem to be about … do they know anything about me? Or you? Barbara Streisand is an enormously talented woman and seems to be a wonderful person. I still do not give her the right or the privilage to represent me in any fashion! I like George Clooney and Matt Damon movies — but I would much rather not pay outrageous prices to see their new movies (and subsequently hit their wallets where they truly live) than to see them represent anyone in the United States without being duly elected to do that very thing!
C’mon people! ‘I earned ten million dollars this year pretending to be someone else.’ ‘And that gives me the power and the right to speak for the ‘unwashed masses’??!’ Hell with that! Better you should just stick to what brung you to the dance: entertaining and pretending to be someone else for our entertainment! Don’t get me wrong — everyone (under the Constitution of the United States of America) is entitled to free speech and freedom of thought and expression. But unless you intend to be like: Sonny Bono or Ah-nold or others who have sought public office and servitude in lieu of your billion-dollar glass houses and lifestyles, don’t ever feel or think for one minute that you can speak for — or represent me in any fashion!
