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Thursday, March 29, 2012
Those Smart Lefty
Celebrities
Matt
Damon actually went to Harvard for a few weeks.
CLASS. This is dumb, I admit it. When you do all the look-ups you just shake your head and tell yourself, "I know, I know, I know, why am I wasting valuable time on this?" But then you realize nobody else has put all this together in one place before, and so maybe there's some value in seeing the whole empty bag in its awesome emptiness.
Herewith, the academic qualifications of celebrities who have declared George Bush, Sarah Palin, and all the current Republican candidates for president too stupid to merit any respect whatever. Celebrities who think we should listen to their views on politics because they have views on politics. According to Wikipedia:
Sean Penn. HS graduate. (His dad was a
member of the American Communist Party. You'd think dad would have
wanted his son to get an education.)
Tom Hanks. College dropout.
George Clooney. College dropout.
Alec Baldwin. NYU, B.F.A. (That's a Bachelor of Fine Arts. Good for him.)
Natalie Maines. College dropout.
Bruce Springsteen. Community college dropout.
Steven Spielberg. College dropout (degree finally completed in 2002).
James Cameron. Junior college dropout.
Matt Damon. College dropout (Harvard).
Susan Sarandon. Drama degree, Catholic University.
Madonna. Dropout from U. Of Michigan. Dance.
Gwyneth Paltrow. College dropout, UCSB.
Martin Sheen. HS graduate.
Charlie Sheen. HS dropout.
Leonardo Dicaprio. HS graduate.
Rosie O'Donnell. College dropout.
Roseanne Barr. No education cited.
Joy Behar. Taught school, so must have graduated from some college her bio does not name.
Whoopi Goldberg. No education cited.
Angelina Jolie. No college enrollment.
Meryl Streep. B.A., Vassar, M.F.A., Yale.
Jane Fonda. College dropout, Vassar.
Michael Moore. U. Of Michigan-Flint. No claim of degree.
Tom Hanks. College dropout.
George Clooney. College dropout.
Alec Baldwin. NYU, B.F.A. (That's a Bachelor of Fine Arts. Good for him.)
Natalie Maines. College dropout.
Bruce Springsteen. Community college dropout.
Steven Spielberg. College dropout (degree finally completed in 2002).
James Cameron. Junior college dropout.
Matt Damon. College dropout (Harvard).
Susan Sarandon. Drama degree, Catholic University.
Madonna. Dropout from U. Of Michigan. Dance.
Gwyneth Paltrow. College dropout, UCSB.
Martin Sheen. HS graduate.
Charlie Sheen. HS dropout.
Leonardo Dicaprio. HS graduate.
Rosie O'Donnell. College dropout.
Roseanne Barr. No education cited.
Joy Behar. Taught school, so must have graduated from some college her bio does not name.
Whoopi Goldberg. No education cited.
Angelina Jolie. No college enrollment.
Meryl Streep. B.A., Vassar, M.F.A., Yale.
Jane Fonda. College dropout, Vassar.
Michael Moore. U. Of Michigan-Flint. No claim of degree.
I'm really not trying to play a snob game here. But think about it. The MSM journalists are happy to interview them as if their political views are important. Journalists. Meaning people who ask questions of those who are more influential and probably more knowing than they are. With all due deference.
The ones cited here are advocates for Obama. We, and the MSM, should take them seriously WHY?
Yes, they've become financial successes. Particular manifestations of the American Dream. But who are they to tell us about politics? People who spend their lives pretending they're heroes, symbols of humanity, and others of a stature they imitate in manufactured sets or in front of blue screens without ever experiencing the lives they read from lines written by another (or making up same). And there are always stunt people to handle the heavy lifting. But there are no stunt thinkers alas.
Poseurs and fakers all of them in terms of real world issues. The very definition of their trade. They're A-List celebrities who own mansions and servants galore. What does anything in their lives have to do with anything in ours?
Two points I'd like to make.
Note how many of the stars on the list are second generation actors or the progeny of Hollywood families -- Sean Penn, George Clooney, Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie, Charlie Sheen, Jane Fonda. Not one of these silver spoon kids has a college degree. Not one. All that money and they couldn't muster the grit to learn some history, science, math, and economics and pass tests on these basics of western civilization like everyone else. No. They were above all that from the git-go.
Second point. Yes, it's possible to be a gifted dropout. Orson Welles dropped out of Harvard before his first class. And I would never derogate the achievements or capacity for learning of people who worked their way up without formal education. But is that really what we're looking at here?
No. These are mostly people who have entries at the Smoking Gun for the exorbitant demands they make on tour or on set. They're not sitting around reading books and soaking up culture because they so love learning. They're playing the part of "being important" because their educational credentials demonstrate they aren't intellectual heavyweights, and it just kills them to be so much smaller than their public image suggests they ought to be.
They want to be John Lennon, iconic like him but not killed like him.
And they'll contribute millions of dollars and even the last half of the careers they might have had to get there. Pitiful.
But not as pitiful as Meryl Streep. Who never had a self to begin with and is hunting, hunting, hunting some long gone male's approval. Shudder.
There's another celebrity category exemplified by the truly well educated who have a real hard-on against America for other reasons. Samuel Jackson and Spike Lee, for example, are graduates of Morehouse College, the alma mater of Martin Luther King and, it must be said, Herman Cain. I take them more seriously than the list above, but narcissism is no respecter of race anymore than it's a respecter of couch-casted starlets. Stupid is as stupid does.
And the question remains: Why should any of us take seriously anything these spoiled millionaires have to say about how we should live our lives? They're entitled, as we all are, to personal opinions, but I've worked directly with corporate CEOs without ever once being tempted to ask them for advice about how to vote in the next election. I trust myself to answer those questions for myself. Is that such a strange conviction for an American?
