Hollywood blogger Christian Toto can be forgiven for perhaps—perhaps—over-estimating the influence of celebrities on public opinion; he does live in Tinseltown, after all. But if he’s off in his alarm, he’s not off by much. Reacting to superstar Jennifer Lawrence’s political rants in a new Vogue interview, Toto writes in part,
There’s no reason for Lawrence to get political in a Vogue feature story….Lawrence mentioned politics to gin up support from her fellow progressive stars. It’s a career choice, and arguably a smart one considering the state of the industry. It still hurts the country, and apparently she doesn’t care.
Conservatives will blast her comments. Liberals will either nod in agreement or think she’s gone too far. Everyone, though, will acknowledge the obvious. It’s another sign of a country teetering toward a breakup.
Yes, Lawrence is just one celebrity. And no, celebrities can’t stop climate change, gun crimes or other maladies. They can’t even pull off an Oscars ceremony without a physical altercation …
They do have bully pulpits, though, and when their interviews go viral the messages reach the masses. For better and worse.
Lawrence’s message is clear. Hate half of the country that doesn’t align with your political party, even if they’re your own flesh and blood…she’s so intolerant she can’t share empathy with her family.
Where does that leave the rest of us?
Well, unless we recognize that in most cases celebrities don’t know what they are talking about when they delve into topics unrelated to their specialized niche, and have been made stupid by bias, narcissism and living in an echo chamber (if they weren’t stupid already), it leaves us being influenced by fools.
In the Vogue piece, Lawrence explained that she can’t forgive her conservative Kentucky family for having different views than she does:
“I just worked so hard in the last five years to forgive my dad and my family and try to understand: It’s different. The information they are getting is different. Their life is different. I’ve tried to get over it and I really can’t. I can’t. I’m sorry I’m just unleashing, but I can’t fuck with people who aren’t political anymore. You live in the United States of America. You have to be political. It’s too dire. Politics are killing people….I don’t want to disparage my family, but I know that a lot of people are in a similar position with their families….
What beliefs is Lawrence so certain about that she has cut off her family except for the occasional angry political text message? Oh, for example:
- Not wanting Hillary Clinton to be President: “It breaks my heart because America had the choice between a woman and a dangerous, dangerous jar of mayonnaise. And they were like, Well, we can’t have a woman. Let’s go with the jar of mayonnaise.”
So she knows nothing about either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump except progressive propaganda. Got it.
- Overturning Roe: Vogue: Lawrence is “beside herself that a conservative-majority court could take away a right that roughly 85 percent of Americans believe in, and that the so-called party of small government didn’t view this as overreach.”
And Lawrence hasn’t read Dobbs, couldn’t comprehend it if she did, doesn’t understand what constitutional rights are, relies on fake statistics, and isn’t considering the human fetus side of the issue at all.
She is, however, a very talented, rich and famous actress, so she feels qualified to use her giant metaphorical megaphone to mislead Americans who think that success in the arts indicates general wisdom, acumen, and scholarship.
Jennifer Lawrence didn’t even graduate from high school. She considers herself “self-educated,” but has been surrounded by actors all of her adult life.
Toto has advice for Lawrence if she’s interested in understanding that the issues are more complex than she seems to think:
You start by having an open conversation with those who disagree with your worldview. Then, you begin reading respectable news sources outside the New York Times/Washington Post axis. Next, you do your level best to have an open mind.
Then, slowly, you learn the information you’re getting is not only different, but some of it may be more propaganda than fact. Start with the media’s dismissal of the Hunter Biden laptop, and then work backward.
Nah, Jennifer knows she’s right. Everyone around her says so.
Over on “The View” today, where clueless celebrity women make gullible Americans dumber every day, there was another orgy of ignorant certitude. Regular co-host Sunny Hostin, a reality show lawyer, responded to Peter Doocy’s cool “gotcha!” on Biden’s paid liar Karine Jean-Pierre, as he read her past emails claiming the 2016 election has been “stolen” (the Mark of the Fascist, according to Karine’s boss) by announcing that she, Hostin, was “wrong” to call him an illegitimate President.
Wow, good for you, Sunny! You were a full participant in the four year effort to undermine the elected President, but now, two years after the damage was done, you admit that he wasn’t illegitimate after all. This self-serving announcement triggered instant fury from “The View’s” B-celebrity idiot, Joy Behar, who said, “You don’t know that he wasn’t talking to Putin!”
There it is, the logic of an ABC TV celebrity political pundit. We don’t know that anyone wasn’t talking to Putin, you moron. Biden, Kamala, Tom Cruise, you, me—it’s impossible to prove a negative like that. Anyone capable of saying something that stupid should be banned from the airwaves.
Whoopi Goldberg, the one A-list celebrity on the panel, justified Hostin’s claiming that Trump’s election was illegitimate with Behar-level cretinism, saying that Hostin had “every right” to call the former President “illegitimate” because “that’s the way you felt.”
Dear Whoopi: when someone says something they did or said was “wrong,” that doesn’t mean they didn’t have the “right” to do it. Americans have the “right” to do all sorts of wrongful things. You just told millions of viewers that a hoary rationalization justified wrongful conduct: Rationalization #24, Juror 3’s Stand (“It’s My Right!”), and because you’re rich, famous and are allowed to shoot your mouth off on TV, a lot of people believe you. Justifying a wrongful statement on the basis of feelings is, arguably, even more irresponsible. See Rationalization #53, The Hippie’s License, or “If it feels good, do it!” (“It’s natural”)
Whoopi, like Jennifer, is a high school dropout. She is, however famous, and has a right to say stupid things that far too many people take as authoritative.
Ethics Alarms 
What is so damn fascinating about people in the entertainment industry. I have never understood why people should care what they think or do. Growing up, my grandmother always had the various tabloids lying about but most of those had stories of the pig nosed boy, alien babies, or the upcoming divorce of Elizabeth Taylor. Then, the stories were just stupid.
It seems today that far too many feel the need to have the reassurance of the popular. Are people’s lives so shallow and insecure that they feel that by not ascribing to the beliefs of popular celebrities, they will be ostracized from the community. These celebrities do give a hoot about their fans, except to the extent they like them because they are fans, because they are so wrapped up in their own narcissism to take the time to understand most of these issues.
At least Hollywood celebrities of years gone by like Ronald Reagan, Charlton Heston, Elizabeth Taylor, or Paul Newman understood the narrow issue that became their cause after their careers had reached its zenith. It is too bad that we have far too many sophists with too big a megaphone today.
The obsession with celebrity is one of the drawbacks of American culture.
No one is claiming that Americans shouldn’t appreciate and enjoy the work of the artists, actors, singers or athletes and, of course, all Americans have the right to express themselves, even the famous. It’s the weight that we as a culture tend to give these folks that’s the problem.
To be sure, there are educated and intelligent celebrities out there. They are not immune to that bubble environment where they live and work that reinforces the rightness of their views, unfortunately. The few that can think outside the bubble find their work prospects dry up pretty quickly if their incorrect beliefs become known.
I’ve often wondered, though, if celebrities just become pseudo experts in order to mask their lack of education. Could the Jennifers and Whoopis of the world want to prove how smart they are despite their lack of high school diplomas? Could difficulties in school create a latent desire among the creatively talented to use their fame to demonstrate their profound intellectualism?
What is so damn fascinating about people in the entertainment industry. I have never understood why people should care what they think or do.
I’ll tell you exactly why — because a lot of people want to be just like Lawrence and her ilk. It has ever been thus, and is the primary driver of our celebrity culture. In a way, it is “you can be anything you want” gone mad — very few can actually be like Jennifer Lawrence, but vast swathes of the country want to be famous like her.
But they’ll often accept aping her politics.
Nicely done. I was going to make the same comment. Carlson must terrify these people if he is a bigger threat to their collective safety than Weinstein.
jvb
I like how she laments that the news and information she and her family each receive is different, but it apparently hasn’t occurred to her that there might be some gaps or flaws in her information feed. For her, the problem is obviously 100% on the other end.
I’m also always amused by people who are worth hundreds of millions of dollars disparaging the wealthy. “Wealthy” is one of those words with a sliding scale, where whatever you have is enough and appropriate, but anyone having more than you is excessive and abusive.
I applaud you Jack, and anyone else who has the intestinal fortitude to actually sit in front of a TV that is broadcasting “The View.” I spent two years in a jungle war and do not possess that level of fortitude.