Friday, December 05, 2003
Wise celebrities are going forth to lecture the young in the ways of Dubyaphobia. Actually, this is a more far reaching phobia that they're looking to disseminate. Take Janeane Garofalo for example
Every time someone says, 'I'm a George Bush Republican, I hear them saying, 'I'm a dick,'' she says.
As for the so-called red states that voted for Bush, well, says Garofalo, dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt, 'I call them the 'pee-on-me states.''
My problem with celebrities trying to sell political messages is that they often mistake their celebrity for expertise. A lot of folks from the states that Garofalo so puerilely scorns actually paid to see her movies and may have actually voted Republican. Somehow I doubt that she is going to forswear concerts in St. Louis, Denver, Atlanta, or Las Vegas, because they're in red states. She's happy to make money from them and then dump on them. Classy.
I'm actually grateful to Garofalo for saying this because it confirms something I'd scented for a while - a real goshdarn bigotry among people who think they're liberals. I say think they're liberals because I think true liberalism cannot coexist with prejudice. Pseudo-liberalism, that self-satisfied and yet angry state of being can and does.
When I called an acquaintance on stereotyping conservatives (the same one who said he'd vote for the Green River Killer over Bush) his defense was that there's truth behind stereotypes. He thinks he's a liberal and he's willing to say something like that. He's a little screwy perhaps, but he's not the only one.
Every time someone says, 'I'm a George Bush Republican, I hear them saying, 'I'm a dick,'' she says.
As for the so-called red states that voted for Bush, well, says Garofalo, dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt, 'I call them the 'pee-on-me states.''
My problem with celebrities trying to sell political messages is that they often mistake their celebrity for expertise. A lot of folks from the states that Garofalo so puerilely scorns actually paid to see her movies and may have actually voted Republican. Somehow I doubt that she is going to forswear concerts in St. Louis, Denver, Atlanta, or Las Vegas, because they're in red states. She's happy to make money from them and then dump on them. Classy.
I'm actually grateful to Garofalo for saying this because it confirms something I'd scented for a while - a real goshdarn bigotry among people who think they're liberals. I say think they're liberals because I think true liberalism cannot coexist with prejudice. Pseudo-liberalism, that self-satisfied and yet angry state of being can and does.
When I called an acquaintance on stereotyping conservatives (the same one who said he'd vote for the Green River Killer over Bush) his defense was that there's truth behind stereotypes. He thinks he's a liberal and he's willing to say something like that. He's a little screwy perhaps, but he's not the only one.
