Is Hollywood More Out of Touch Than Ever Before?
Conservatives often gripe celebrities live in a bubble that prevents them from understanding what ” real Americans” endure.
Here’s just one example: Stars demand more gun control while living in gated homes and traveling with security outfits.
That bubble critique may never be more true than today.
Consider late night host Conan O’Brien. The comedian, overshadowed by Stephen Colbert and co., posted a picture of him luxuriating in a Haitian resort. Why? To counter allegations that President Trump dubbed the country a “s***hole” (and promote his show, of course)
#Haiti is truly a beautiful country. #ConanHaiti pic.twitter.com/CfxDFvNz2i
— Conan O’Brien (@ConanOBrien) January 21, 2018
Does anyone think his snapshot represents the impoverished nation? Or is this a case of another out of touch star weighing in on geopolitical matters?
Director Rob Reiner fame raged against the President for tearing down our democracy at the recent Women’s March. Yet more news outlets than ever are actively calling Trump a racist without repercussions. That’s not to mention President Barack Obama’s furious attacks on the press which were met with Hollywood silence.
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Screen Actors Guild Awards host Kristen Bell called living in American today “hell” recently. She must not know the economy is roaring on the same cylinders that rusted over during the Obama era.
It’s this last part that may resonate through the 2018 election cycle and beyond. And you can pin it on the industry’s reaction to President Trump’s tax reform legislation. (NOTE: Some adult language ahead…)
Well, they did it. Finally, someone had the courage to stand up for America’s forgotten corporations. Jk – Fuck you, assholes, hope you choke on it.
— Bill Maher (@billmaher) December 20, 2017
The #GOPTaxScam is on its way to Trump’s desk to be signed into law.
Let that sink in for a minute. Then channel your rage by donating to the opponents of every swing district Republican who voted for it here https://t.co/mUj7Aj2L3m
— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) December 20, 2017
What Republicans did last night to the poor and middle class in this country to reward huge corporations and the very wealthy is sickening. So, for all the religious beliefs you hold, rewarding the people who fund your campaigns must be somewhere in the Bible.
— Chelsea Handler (@chelseahandler) December 2, 2017
If you are not a billionaire, today should very well be marked as one of the most disgraceful acts in modern political history. Madness won
— Josh Gad (@joshgad) December 2, 2017
The robber barons lost with The New Deal. They then spent the next 80 years battling back before this victory. Now we the people begin taking back America, again.
— Adam McKay (@GhostPanther) December 2, 2017
Don’t despair. Be angry, of course. The GOP is monstrous; their policies kill, starve & maim. But this is what capitalism does & has always done. NOTHING unique or unprecedented happened tonight. It can be & will be undone. By us.
— rob delaney (@robdelaney) December 2, 2017
That’s just a small sample about a tax package giving citizens more money in their pockets.
Not to be outdone, the Writers Guild of America shared this blistering, wildly out of touch reaction to tax reform:
“The tax bill is a disaster. The fundamental problem faced by America is that for 40 years our economy has become increasingly tilted toward inequality and the disappearance of the middle class. Congress and the President have skewed the tax system heavily in favor of the rich; next they will use the resulting budget crisis to defund Medicare, public education and Social Security, all things that working Americans fought for and pay for.
So what happened next?
Starbucks to give raises, offer new benefits due to tax reform – TheHill.com
Home Depot hourly employees to receive up to $1,000 bonus due to tax reform – CNBC
Apple CEO: Tax Reform ‘Enabled Most of This Job-Creating Plan’ to Invest in the U.S. – Free Beacon
AT&T, Comcast giving $1,000 bonuses to hundreds of thousands of workers after tax bill – CNBC
125,000 Disney employees to receive $1,000 cash bonus due to tax reform – CNBC
That’s in addition to these recent economic headlines:
Black unemployment rate falls to record low – CNBC
Democrats need to admit Trump is boosting the economy – Yahoo! Finance
Trump is right to take credit for the booming stock market, says billionaire Blackstone CEO Schwarzman – CNBC
Will the American public remember what out of touch stars said about tax reform on Election Days to come? If so, all the rhetoric heading our way from Tinsel Town may fall on deaf ears. Or it might even have the opposite effect.
Prior to the last century, actors and the like, we’re considered a notch above prostitutes. This was the frame of thought going back to the beginning of the arts and theatre in archaic Greece. Just read Aristotle’s opinion of actors.
Generally, the same type of people gravitate towards the theatre, today as in antiquity, but today, https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fdd64305c02d04312af88680782e290404ab68a26c4d507401779fe80a2fe2cd.jpg the media makes them darlings.
You’d think that it would be impossible to get worse.
My plumber knows more about politics and economics than these celebrities They live such a cloistered, protect life, they are totally unaware of what real people deal with. These celebrities are fake people. Nothing about them is real. They make their living pretending to be other people. They do nothing that would help them analyze politics. For people who know so little, they screech quite loudly.
My ears have been deaf to celebrities for a long, long time. I don’t know why anyone would ever think that such a pack of shallow, self-serving, many times outright stupid people have anything of their own to say that’s worth heeding. These days, even the words they memorize and spit back at us are worthless, because they’re not remotely entertaining, which ostensibly used to be the entire purpose of movies and television. Now, most of it is just SJW swill.
I hope this does resonate w/ the voters. Don’t underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
Given the hatred the entertainment industry spews…I suggest doing without their products. skip the movies…buy the Dvd in three months…or skip the dvd and ride a kindle book…or skip the kindle and go to the gym…cut tv time down to nothing…record shows and skip the commercials…not commercials on shows with the biggest assholes…write to their sponsor…no longer spending my money on you….heck you’ll have time for letter writing after you cut all the funds flowing to the shits that hate us joe americans……
Borrow movies and TV show seasons @ your local public library, and put mere fractions of pennies in Hollyweird’s pocket. Increase your savings by doing it with books, too, in print, ebook, and audio formats!
I’m Professor 0 and I approve this message.
Well, here’s the thing: corporations don’t pay corporate taxes. The CEO of Apple doesn’t pay those taxes, he simply adds the cost of those taxes to the cost of the iPhones he sells. Same thing happens in any corporation: any taxes levied on them directly are considered a cost of operation, and that cost is added to the goods or services they sell to us. Corporations don’t pay corporate taxes, we do.
It’s like cigarette taxes: do tobacco company CEO’s pay those taxes, or do the smokers pay it?
So, if you give a corporation a tax break, you’re actually giving a break to that corporation’s customers.
Giving out bonuses to their employees is just part of the benefit of cutting corporate taxes for the rest of us.
Not only that, but every time the government cuts tax rates, the tax revenues increase. It’s why JFK wanted a tax cut – he needed the extra revenue to fund the programs for the poor he wanted.
You’ll never hear a leftist say any of that, of course, but it’s true.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4fb4e34a27e6fa631fb5f2ff27fb9402c7f360c744ba1ce41e3d4d74f03b90d3.jpg
Outstanding column!
Thanks for this. I listen to you on Cam & Co.