I am not now, nor have I ever been, a huge fan of New Year's resolutions. One reason for this is that they almost never are sustained, the second is that the turning of a calendar is a silly reason to think that you're going to start anew and suddenly live a new life that you haven't for how ever many prior years you've schlepped along the surface of Gaia.
That said, I think, collectively, that the New Year CAN provide us with new opportunities to look at some things since we feel that we are "closing" one chapter and "starting" another on Jan 1. With that in mind, it's high time that, as a society, we come to an agreement that being "famous" for whatever the reason, is no reason for a person to be allowed an outsized influence where their opinion is concerned.
In short: No, to Kanye West for President. Just no.
Nor should we care what Leonardo "grunts" DiCaprio thinks about climate change, or that Katy Perry cried on election night, or that Lena Dunham has a deep desire to kill unborn babies to increase her activist cred. This also means that the political rantings of Amy Schumer, Harry Belafonte (who?), Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, George Clooney and Samuel L. Jackson should be roundly ignored.
When you consider that the bar for fame has been lowered to "willing to strip bare for Instagram" you start to see just how silly our infatuation with fame really is. Now, granted, I'm not a fan of fame, I've never watched a "reality TV" show, I couldn't pick many of the Kardashians out of a police line-up. Given that I'm probably akin to an old man sitting on my e-porch screaming about "those damn kids". But, and this is important, those kids are just doing what the media tells them they should do.
On the one hand, we obsess over STEM classes and knowledge while, on the other hand, we glorify a bird who thinks STEM is short-hand for people's reaction to her legs and who believes that nude selfies are the epitome of high art. Then we all sit around and wonder why Donald Trump becomes President?
Now, I don't have any problems with actors, artists, musicians, dancers, models doing their thing. I laugh at comedians, watch films with liberal actors enjoy watching dance and like a wide variety of music. But long ago I quit worrying about the political opinions of those whose songs/shows/movies/art I enjoyed because it really doesn't matter.
If I stuck a political filter on my entertainment choices then I'd be stuck watching Kirk Cameron "Left Behind" movies and listening to the worst song ever recorded (Lee Greenwood's "Proud to be an American") on an endless loop. And that would be awful.
The fact is that I don't care whether or not Samuel L. Jackson declared he would move to Canada if Trump won and then didn't because it's not going to affect the movies he's in. It doesn't matter to me that Mark Ruffalo is a left-wing bigot/idiot of massive proportions because he was entertaining as hell in Avengers movies and in the "Now You See Me" duo. Niki Manaj is a political dunderhead, but I enjoy her songs so I really don't care.
Granted, I don't find Amy Schumer funny or Lena Dunham all that entertaining, but that has nothing to do with their politics and more to do with their lack of talent. I'm not a Leonardo DiCaprio fan either but I did enjoy "Catch Me If You Can". (I did, however, find The Revenant to be an over-indulgent, boring piece of crap movie that had little going for it other than moaning and grunting interspread between gore. To each their own)
When it comes to movies I just want to be entertained. If I'm watching a move about monsters/robots/aliens attacking then I just want to see stuff get blown up. If I'm watching an action movie I want good fight scenes. If I'm watching a drama I want a compelling plot and characters I can get behind, a comedy, I want to laugh, etc. When I listen to music I want the hook to be catchy. When I watch dance I want the choreography to be innovative and make sense with the narrative of the dance. I want art to be beautiful.
If the people that make it are turds? I honestly don't care.
Nor do I care that Leo is now grunting his way across the globe in a carbon-spewing airplane lecturing the world on our wasteful ways, or that Amy Schumer based her career on telling "I'm a slut" jokes and then dumped on a fan for joking that she's a 'slut'.
I don't care about any of these things, and neither should you.
Alec Baldwin plays Presidents on TV, he would make an awful one.
Don't confuse play-acting with real-life ability, and stop giving these walking bags of ego undue influence on things you care about and important issues. They are usually no more qualified to weigh in than your pet. But they're famous, so society has decided we need to care.
It shouldn't. And neither should you.
