Where oh Where Is Hollywood?

[NickHedge]

The gulf between Hollywood hypocrites and the oil spill
Andrea Tantaros
Thursday, June 10th 2010, 4:00 AM

In case anyone is questioning it, celebrities are terribly concerned about the Gulf of Mexico. Actor Sean Penn has said he "cares about New Orleans." Actor Brad Pitt has spent days in the region assisting with relief efforts. And Jamie Foxx has raised more than half a million dollars to help those living in the area put their lives back together.

Oh, wait: That was in 2005, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina - when George W. Bush was President.

Back then we saw A-listers come out in droves to shout about the man in charge, draw attention to the need for assistance and help marshal resources in the relief effort.

Angelina Jolie, who has often mentioned her love of New Orleans in interviews, sent letters to members of Congress and the White House. Penn visited the wreckage on a tugboat, with a shotgun (photographer in tow). John Travolta personally flew supplies to the area on his private jet, while dozens of more famous faces donated to and participated in a nationally aired telethon.

Now that the gulf faces a crisis that's poised to be potentially worse down the road for the region, Hollywood celebrities are not only absent from the area - they are practically silent. Unlike after the earthquake in Haiti in January, there hasn't been an overwhelming response of donations, large-scale fund-raisers, contribution-driven Web sites and hotlines or public service announcements encouraging Americans to do all they can to help out the fishermen or the oil-drenched ducks.

Not because celebrities don't want the media attention, but because their guy, Barack Obama, is in the middle of the mess.

On Sunday, at the MTV Movie Awards, which are famous for their red-carpet political talk, you never would have known that the country was being hit by arguably the largest environmental disaster in its history - because any mention would have reminded viewers that the horror movie is still happening and Obama is still playing the role of supporting actor.

At a benefit concert in 2005, Kanye West proclaimed that Bush doesn't care about black people.

If that logic is correct, I guess Obama doesn't care about pelicans. Or fishermen.

It doesn't take much to stretch your mind to imagine the scene if this disaster were happening under Bush's watch. We'd see a concerned George Clooney, standing arms akimbo, surveying the damage, giving thoughtful nods (with a beard, of course, because he's on an expedition) and talking about how we need to move away from fossil fuels as quickly as possible. In the background, we'd see Alicia Silverstone scrubbing off ducks with Dawn, reminding us all about the inseparability between animals and the environment on a federal level.

Because it's not Bush, we hear bupkis. (For the record, I called the offices of celebrities. Penn has no plans to visit the gulf this time around; Jolie's and Clooney's offices didn't return my calls.)

A handful of notables have stepped up, but they have done so with little fanfare. Lenny Kravitz and Mos Def held a small-scale benefit concert in May, and Pamela Anderson said she is "working with" the International Bird Rescue Research Center. But as Hollywood political activists go, these are C-listers - and they are hardly trying.

Remember how quick Tinseltown was to blast Bush for his response? The stars said nothing about the current President's lag time on the leak. And it's not as though the public isn't concerned about the White House's reaction; 69% of those surveyed in an ABC News-Washington Post poll conducted June 3-6 rated the federal response to the Deepwater Horizon spill negatively - a higher percentage than faulted the response in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Never mind that; the bigwigs in Tinseltown have their buddy Obama's back. They funneled millions to his presidential campaign and have a vested interest in having him at the White House. How else are they going to get tickets to the annual Correspondents' Dinner?

The back scratching is mutual. Obama - who hasn't talked with BP CEO Tony Hayward - has reached out to "Avatar" director James Cameron. And not long after, one of the only celebrities to even mention the catastrophe, Spike Lee, encouraged Obama to "go off" - and the President listened. The next day, the always-cool Obama told Larry King he was "furious," and days later he exclaimed that he was looking for asses to kick.

I don't expect celebrities to have the answer on how to plug the hole, but they have tremendous access to mass communication channels, a surplus of passion and the ability to sound the alarm and raise money for relief efforts. Nauseatingly, they use their talents selectively based on political convenience, proving once more that the role they play best is hypocrite.

Link: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2010...spill.html

**************

Newsflash: Celebrities have no answers. They go out because they are sent out. They don't care, they are paid to show up and talk. The only reason they do what they do is because they are paid to do it. Everything is a part being played. People need to wake up and stop worshipping these idiots and realize they are more f'ed up than the regular people.

The only thing this shows is how controlled everything is.

[h3rm35]

to be fair, this isn't exactly at the "human tragedy" phase yet like Katrina was, and I'd expect you'd be hearing more from personalities with animal rights instead of human rights as their pet causes. Bush didn't care about black people, and in this case, Obama seems to care more about political contributions than shrimp and sea turtles, but the two catastrophes are completely different in their scope. This is another right-winger trying to equate this in the minds of the voting public as "Obama's Katrina" which is a talking point that's made its way through the noise machine, but really, when you look at the situation - this isn't people drowning or being forced to evacuate en-masse from their homes. This isn't a situation where a cultural mecca in the US is on the verge of being completely eviscerated. Katrina was more drastic in its impact on humans during the short term, and that's why you had more activism then.

That being said, the crux of the article is just plain WRONG:

Mos Def is a C-lister?

Kevin Costner testified before congress about some kind of centrifuge patent he bought in the nineties, and said he'd enlist the technology for this situation.

James Cameron is donating submarines

Stephen Baldwin is producing a documentary

Stephen Colbert and John Stewart are all over it, almost every night they're on...
there are more, but I think the point is proven.

(although I do completely agree with how idiotic celebrity idolatry is.)

[yeti]

Why is this bitch blaming celebrities? She should go after BP, or STFU.

[FastTadpole]

Oh c'mon celebrities do their part for world crises and humanitarian efforts. See..

   

[Deathaniel]

(06-21-2010 10:42 AM)FastTadpole Wrote:  Oh c'mon celebrities do their part for world crises and humanitarian efforts. See..

shit guess i'm old i don't know who either of the celebs r in the pic...

and i have to agree katrina was worse in the human effect, the oil spill is worse in the long term and the effects it's gonna have on the planet.

but yes it is media right y tripe that this is obama's katrina... be patient he'll get his real katrina, but this was first. he didn't have warning of the spill like bush had with katrina, and he has tried to put some face time to it though. There is shit he as a sitting pres can do bout it but talk, and create new laws to prevent it from happening, since he's got the car companies listening he should be mandating all cars made in / sold in america after 2010 be hybrids and then eliminate off shore drilling, we don't really need that much oil and now that cheney is gone and his puppet bush big oil is done it's century, time to move on!!!

with katrinia they had enough warning and could have re-inforced levies, and done a more secure exodus from the city center, but even with 2 days notice he failed thats why it will stick to him since it was a simple avoidance of the rain issue. BP doing shoddy work should also have been noted as they are a corporation and care only for profits, and the spill started suddenly, but obama should have used his veto powers of the prez to just take over day 5 not obey laws that let them be the responsible for clean up and reporting. maybe give contract to competitor to do clean up in fixed time. and as for them not being able to cap it. they can, but greed is still strong and they want to keep the well thats the issue if they were to use a (small) nuke and cause the shelf to collapse on the pipe and hole then the well would be lost but it would be sealed.

like some have mentioned this is part of a greater agenda, i'd not be surprised to learn the accident was not an accident, hence the censored vid access to the site and them being adamant bout keeping it closed to independent research, not only does it add to ol prices as in clean up cost, let them slide in cap and trade, and keep the media busy, has anyone been watching what ELSE is going on the past few weeks?!?!?!!? and it raises food and marine prices.

i have a friend with a lg salt water tank and he was frantic to buy some new live stock b4 prices fly through roof due to lack of availability. As many species sold in store come from the reefs there or his other concern was how healthy his new specimens would be if pulled from there now.

[FastTadpole]

Quote:shit guess i'm old i don't know who either of the celebs r in the pic...

I don't think the limbless victim knows who the fuck they are either, nor do I but the guy on the right resembles Jason Priestley.

For the most part celebs do as they are directed to or not to do by their agents and inner circle. There are a few rouges though and since celebrities are people too I'm kind of surprised we're not hearing much from Hollywood.

Lenny Kravitz, Mos Def, John Legend and others took part in Gulf Aid, a fundraising concert held in New Orleans and raised $350K.

Actor Ian Somerhalder (Played Boone killed on season 1 of LOST) did a few PSAs and has been very vocal from the get-go.

Kevin Costner had arrived in the Louisiana bayou sporting oil clean-up technology on May 13th.

Justin Bieber, Chelsea Handler, Tim McGraw, Lenny Kravitz, Pete Wentz, Jenny McCarthy star in Larry King's Gulf Coast Relief Telethon on CNN

Korn's John Davis has gotten Lady Gaga, Creed, and the Backstreet Boys to follow him in this effort to stop contributing to BP via boycott. But most US BP stations are wholly own subsidiaries so you're just hurting your local dealer.
‎
James Cameron has offered to use filming technology to get better shots of the leak. Not sure how this turned out though.

Not much though really, only a trickle when you would expect a gusher, strange really - I don't get it. They seem to be mostly tree hugging liberals that want to be carbon taxed. We'll be sure to hear from them later I'm sure. They're probably all at a resort getting coached on what to say and what not to on certain topics relating to the disaster.

[FastTadpole]

Sandra Bullock Vacates Her Support for BP Oil Spill
http://www.newstrump.com/sandra-bullock-bp-oil-spill/
meh..