Today is Election Day eve, and how appropriate to have stumbled upon this article from election2008.usc.edu. The article lists several Hollywood stars and moguls which influenced an election at one time or another. I was a bit surprised about some, but knew of others.
My feeling on this is that Hollywood has used their platform and still does to bring out their agenda. And this may have worked back in the day, but I don’t believe it works as well today. Americans know that Hollywood lives in fantasyland, completely out of touch with the people. And so their crude comments, movies, opinions, don’t matter. People turn to celebrities, or movies for entertainment, not political speak or advice. Do you really believe that celebrities have some special insight into politics?
What I find interesting in this article, is that it wasn’t just about movies, comments, or opinions like we have today; it was a bit more. I can’t say that it was all to sway the vote; it was more like the stars were fighting for a particular cause, thus swaying the vote or changing political views on whatever issue or cause they were standing up for.
Example: Ronald Reagan had been working since the 40’s going from state to state talking to “serious conservatives” who wanted to dismantle the New Deal. It was these efforts that made him governor of California for 2 terms, and started the “conservative revolution” of the 80’s.
Louis B. Mayer swayed the vote in 1928 when he arranged a meeting between Republican Herbert Hoover and William Randolph Hearst (Newspaper Tycoon) who then threw his complete support behind Hoover.
Again, Hollywood does things similarly today, but I believe that Americans today are not as easy to fool especially when opinions, comments, movies, are way over the top, seriously.
Read the article to read on other classic film stars and how they influenced their respective elections. And please go out to vote.
