ORBUSMAX GUEST OP-ED: SHOW BIZ KIDS AND SPECTACLES: IN AN OVER-CONNECTED SOCIETY, THE WRONG THINGS MATTER

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*** ORBUSMAX GUEST OP/ED *** SHOW BIZ KIDS AND SPECTACLES: IN AN OVER-CONNECTED SOCIETY, THE WRONG THINGS MATTER - BY DAN BROWN November 16, 2003 As I read an article on MSNBC.com by Howard Mortman the other day entitled "You and Bush are likely too dumb for this thankfully, we have stars to tell us so," A line from an old Steely Dan tune came to me unbidden: "Show business kids makin' movies of themselves, You know they don't give a F#$% about anybody else…." The subjects of Mr. Mortman's rant are disparaging comments made about President Bush in particular and today's America in general by people he refers to as "celebrities." He quotes several well-known entertainers including Cher, Sandra Bernhard, Edward Norton, Larry Hagman, Michael Moore, Johnny Depp, Martin Sheen, and Rob Reiner. He is obviously angry, even furious, and it is equally obvious his anger is the anger born of fear. Fear? Yes. He, like many conservatives, is obviously afraid the opinions of these celebrities matter, that they greatly influence the opinions of the "average American." Fear? Yes. Conservatives, people who generally pride themselves as being logically oriented, are expressing themselves in emotional terms, bitterly deriding the comments made about George W. Bush and Joe Averageman by people who earn their living in the almost prostitutional purveyance of fantasy. Mr. Mortman asks, "Where does this superior celebrity intellect come from? It's actually part of a larger phenomenon, one involving the president. Celebrities sneer at President Bush's intelligence. And then they think we're all the same, just dumb Bush-boosters." I have a better question. Why do their opinions matter at all? Two small digressions for context: I am one of the very few people who voted for GWB but today would vote to recall if I could. I voted for him because the only other person with a reasonable expectation of victory was unacceptable. I knew what he advocated, and I disliked much of it. In fairness, I think that as Presidents go, he has been very good at sticking to his campaign promises, including the one to "deal with Iraq." My objections center on the apparent manipulation of evidence in the casus belli for the Iraq war and what I see as post 9-11 over-reaction. And, in fairness, I doubt any other President would have reacted differently: 9-11 was just too traumatic for our people. I don't watch TV. I took a chainsaw to my antenna years ago. I have a TV and a VCR, but no outside connection. When I hear "Cher," I think of Sonny & Cher singing duet. When I hear Rob Reiner, I remember All in the Family. I have no idea who Johnny Dep is; I doubt I could pick any of these people out of a Police lineup. So to a small extent, I'm outside looking in. And I'm perplexed. What makes somebody that spends their life pretending to be someone else worth heeding? Especially when that person is employing an insulting carrot and stick approach, implying no "smart" person could disagree with them not because of their reasoned analysis but because of who they are. Oh, I'm sure they are talented people, intelligent in one sense or another. To assume otherwise would be to ignore their success in the free market. But as Mr. Mortman notes, "Celebrities sneer at President Bush's intelligence." To accept their view is to assume a fool can achieve an MBA from one of the most highly respected of American Universities, fly a fighter jet, and be very successful in American Politics. Oh, it's true he butchers words and sometimes seems a bit confused; he doesn't have great charisma. But we just got done with eight years of a President that could cry on cue, a very "Hollywood" President. And every day we see more evidence of what an appallingly poor President he was. I recall reading in Groucho Marx's memoirs his early recollections of growing up among the Vaudeville crowd. According to Groucho, his peers were accorded approximately the same social status as prostitutes. He related that ordinary, hard-working people regarded entertainers with great suspicion. But that was a time when an average person probably spent more time in a church than a theatre. That was before mass media made it possible for people to spend hour after hour filling their minds with the fantasies of the show biz kids… The message or the medium? How about the trauma of 9-11? Please do not interpret this as an attempt to minimize what was certainly a very significant event. But when you listen, really listen to the things people say and what they remember, it was the visuals. It was the sense of literally being there that has prompted so many people to consider 9-11-01 as a day when EVERYTHING changed. It was "being there" that prompts people to use terms like "a post 9-11 world." Did "everything" really change? Or was it more like Columbus discovering America, discovering something always there and known to many. Hatred of America and terrorism has long roots. The message or the medium? It bears consideration, I suggest. There is a considerable amount of pretty good science that suggests TV affects people much like a drug, bypassing much of the rational mind to directly affect the emotional mind. And common sense says it is far easier to manipulate people with feelings than with reason. TV isn't life, but it becomes more lifelike all the time and apparently more influential. And it is equally apparent that people of all political persuasions know this and do their best to use it to their advantage. When a pretty face stands in front of a camera and makes a political pronouncement, how many people view that performance through the filter of critical thinking? When DOD prepared their plans for the Iraq war, provision was made for a significant press presence. Tanks, troops, and cameras…. But do those cameras really inform, or do they just make the world a stage where everyone becomes an actor and the "truth" is an edited two dimensional representation? When the mis-adventure of a pretty girl private draws more attention than mass graves, can it truly be said Americans are informed? Maybe the biggest story of all is the tool of the storyteller.

----------------------------------------------------------- Dan Brown is a Materials Management Chemist, a graduate of the Evergreen State College, and of the University of Adversity.