Still another reason to love Cary Grant
What he said about politics:
Grant did not think movie stars should publicly make political declarations. Grant described his politics and his reticence about them this way:
“I’m opposed to actors taking sides in public and spouting spontaneously about love, religion, or politics. We aren’t experts on these subjects. Personally I’m a mass of inconsistencies when it comes to politics. My opinions are constantly changing. That’s why I don’t ever take a public stand on issues.”
What a guy.
Tom Cruise couldn’t shine Cary Grant’s shoes. Other notable stars who dwarf today’s lightweights are Bob Hope and Jimmy Stewart.
“What a guy!” And he looked liked like a man, too–not these boy types we have today.
In comparing some of the actors of the past with today’s, can you imagine any contemporary American actor volunteering for military service, especially for our side.
Can someone please send this quote to Madonna, Susan Sarrandon, Matt Damon, that Ugly Betty girl… well, pretty much the whole of the US entertainment industry!
Many people in the entertainment industry have neglected to take to heart- or to even learn – Abraham Lincoln’s classic quote:
As Cary Grant pointed out, most people in the entertainment industry know precious little about politics.
Another thing that highly politicized entertainment people have ignored is that when you take political stands, you take the risk of alienating a substantial proportion of your audience. That can have an effect on sales of various types- which entertainers depend on for their living. Many entertainment people are cutting off half their potential audience by their political stances.
The Dixie Chicks found that out after they pandered to a British crowd opposed to the Iraq War by stating that because of George W. Bush’s actions, they were ashamed to be from Texas.
A number of people on this blog have commented over the years that they will not render any financial support to various lefty Hollywood types. Call it a political boycott, if you like.
Celebrities are voting Americans, so I don’t mind if they share their opinions about current affairs or politics when they are asked as long as they’re honest and factual.
What irks me is when they use their celebrity to assert something that they know is blatantly wrong or false to advance their politics as Sean Penn clearly does in this interview with Piers Morgan:
http://www.breitbart.tv/sean-penn-tea-party-is-the-get-the-n-word-out-of-the-white-house-party/
In it, Penn says, “…yet there’s another problem. You have what I call the ‘Get the ‘N’-word out of the White House party,’ the Tea Party.”
Notice how Penn maximizes the effect of his smear of the millions of Tea Party sympathizers by imagining that Tea Partyers don’t want a nigger in the White House? He wants the millions of CNN viewers to think of Tea Partyers as racists bigots who think of Obama as a nigger. Penn is just an awful, disgusting man.
Morgan not only let’s him get away with it, but he even reinforces the idea by saying Morgan Freeman just recently said something similar about the Tea Party. Funny how it doesn’t occur to a well informed professional interviewer like Morgan to ask Penn why many Tea Partyers want Herman Cain in the White House instead of Obama.
One of my favorite lines in a movie was spoken by Audrey Hepburn (another class act) to Cary Grant in “Charade”. She asked him, rhetorically, “Do you know what’s wrong with you?”. When he paused to try to answer, she said “NOTHING”.
I have added so many entertainers/actors/writers to my private ‘don’t’ watch, or support list in the last year, and last five years that my list has expanded geometrically (I think that is the expression) in recent times: it used to be that Jane Fonda was the only one whom I seriously boycotted, also Cat Stevens, because of his support of the Rushdie fatwah.
Now my list is in two figures – and some of them being personalities whose performances I had enjoyed, or whom I just thought better of. Sean Penn. Susan Sarandon. Jeanane Garafolo. (What happened – she used to be funny and charming – who could forget “The Truth about Cats and Dogs.”? Morgan Freeman. Rosie O’Donnell – she had the funniest line evah! in “A League of Their Own”! Whoopie Goldberg. Matt Damon. Alec Baldwin. Danny Gover – although he went a little nuts years ago, now the nuttery is a little too hard to accept. And there is Michael Moore – although I always thought he was a manipulative fraud. Oprah Winfrey – not for anything she has said overtly, but for being fool enough to throw her considerable support behind B. Obama in the first place … (and gee, putting herself on the cover of her magazine every issue? I think even Martha Stewart gives it a rest, every now and again!)
Seriously – I am a military veteran, a retiree from 20 years in the Air Force, starting at a time when most of us didn’t really like wearing uniforms in public because of the resulting hassle, a fiscal conservative and a social liberal in the sense that I don’t care what you do in private, as long as you are not doing it in the road and frightening the horses. I have also been active in a local Tea Party.
Do you think I will pay any money to watch your movies, pay for your books or watch your TV shows – just to be insulted, libelled, and to have my values denigrated?
I am also in a small way – something of a personality, as a regional and small-press author. I know better than to uncork my own personal opinions on various hot-button issues which have nothing to do with my books in a public or broadcast venue, unless I phrase them very gracefully. What is with these people, that they seem to think that at least half of the general public will not take immediate offense?
Scott wrote,
“Celebrities are voting Americans, so I don’t mind if they share their opinions about current affairs or politics when they are asked as long as they’re honest and factual.
What irks me is when they use their celebrity to assert something that they know is blatantly wrong or false. . . .”
But how do you know that Sean Penn didn’t believe what he said? Let me carry the thought one step further. The problem with celebrities is not that they have opinions just like each of us, but that they use their celebrity status like a megaphone to pronounce their opinions. Their clebrity status has nothing to do with the accuracy of their opinions. They use a megaphone built in one arena (entertainment) to push opinions of a completely different sort that are purely personal. Furthermore, they are so catered to by the public and the press that they actually believe that they add something to the national dialogue.
IMO, just as they give up a certain amount of privacy in return for their fame and fortune, they should also recognize that they give up their right to pronounce their opinion in a public forum.
Everybody wants to be like Cary Grant. Even Cary Grant wanted to be like Cary Grant.
Bravo to Cary Grant!
Among current celebrities, I’ve noticed that another one we’ve discussed here before, Bernadette Peters, seems to stay mostly quiet on political issues and controversies, which only seems to heighten her carefully-cultivated image as a cross between a bubbly girl next door and an exuberantly sexy and confident woman. From what I’ve been able to figure out, her main cause, such as it is, is Broadway Barks, a charity that supports rescuing animals from shelters. Aside from that, she seems to have supported some fundraisers for AIDS and some gay groups in New York, but she’s a Broadway actress, and in this day and age there’s nothing the least bit unusual in her willingness to support such causes. But aside from that, unless I’m mistaken, she’s had the sense to steer clear of other sorts of political involvement–at least publicly.
The problem is not celebrities mouthing off idiotic statements like Penn’s (tea party is the get the N out of the white house, party), or Rosie O’Donnells – 911 was an inside job – “steel doesn’t melt…Bay of Pigs…Google it.” Etc.
Just like the problem is not Obama, Nancy, Harry, and the rest of the Lefty gang with their hypocrisy — big corporate donor whores (“President Goldman Sachs”) but yet who are “standing with” those protesting greedy capitalist companies like…..Goldman Sachs.
Just like the problem is not Al Gore and his cronies flying hither and yon in their private corporate jets and living in huge mansions, while they declare that climate change is going to make the world come to an end !! unless we working stiffs trade in our 19 mpg mini-vans for tiny hybrids and all install those horrible neon twisty bulbs…..
No. It is the media. These people are never CALLED on their bull-s–t. Only conservatives are. Aside from “alternate” media like the internet; AM talk radio, and SOME of Fox News….the other 90% of the media – t.v., print, NPR radio, internet — and this INCLUDES — which is CRITICAL to note — the entertainment media also……is absolutely in the tank for the Left.
The “narrative” being followed, is what is important. Truth is not. Fairness, objectivity, providing INFORMATION and FACTS instead of a propaganda message? Forget about it.
If we had a fair, objective, and professional media establishment in this country, Obama’s approval rating would not be 40+%. It would be in the teens.
Why wasn’t Penn challenged with the obvious follow-up question: “If the Tea Party is filled with racists who hate black people, how do you explain their favorite candidate being Herman Cain.”?
Easy answer: It might disrupt the narrative.
Tea partiers are racists may not be the actual truth, but it is indeed …”Pravda.”
My “moderate” friens who are not really into politics — and won’t be until the election gets closer – they don’t frequent conservative sites or visit Drudge, etc. They get their news from the heirs of Uncle Walter. And they think the Tea Party folks are extremists and “far right.” Mission accomplished. They think Palin is a moron, was slutty as a young woman, may not be the mother of her kid, and was far too inexperienced to be on McCains ticket. Mission accomplished.
send a copy to sean penn
You’ve described the problem perfectly, Southern James. I know lots of folks like your “moderate friends” and I’m pretty sure all of them voted for Obama in 2008. The trouble is that they don’t even consider reading or looking at alternative media websites or getting their information from other sources. They tell themselves they are too “moderate” to bother with “extremist” new sources of any sort, and many of them still consider the New York Times “mainstream.”
What it takes is something that jars them from their comfort and complacency with the “mainstream” media sources. But even something that really puts the bias of the media into sharp relief is usually not enough: they need to keep seeing it over and over before they begin to catch on.
It’s not that contemporary celebrities have opinions. It’s just how they come across as needing to disrespect anyone who might disagree.
SteveH and Gringo: Amen.
Why an actor would go out of his or her way to annoy half of the potential audience is beyond me. Seriously. Don’t they know that their livelihood depends utterly on their popularity?
Or do they honestly believe, as too many liberals seem to do, that all the real people are Democrats, and Republicans are too few and far between to worry about? (How many times have you heard a public speaker, at a non-political event, speak as though it was a natural assumption that there were no Republicans in the room?)
Or do they not realize that, if hated Conservatives and despised Tea Partiers pay money to see their movies and shows, the money is just as good as if it had come from someone else?
Yup, Cary Grant was a class act. Johnny Carson comes to mind as another old-time entertainer who Got It. (He’s on record as saying that he’s just an entertainer, that he knows it, and that politics come at the expense of being entertaining, so why would he want to ruin his stock-in-trade?)
Daniel in Brookline: I addressed that topic and tried to answer the question in one of my earliest blog posts, here.
He just didn’t want to end up being fingered as a communist…