by Chauncey Dumfry

Created on: February 26, 2007   Last Updated: May 09, 2007

The fact of the matter is that people look up to celebrities, Americans idolize movie stars. As an American I'm not proud of this, I'm actually pretty ashamed to think that because of my nationality I'm probably viewed by the greater part of the world as someone who probably knows more about celebrity relationships than how our government functions. However, I am not one of the many Americans who vote for American Idol but not for anything political.

No movie star has ever pretended to be a "political expert" though I think some celebrities out there are far more qualified than most of the news anchors out there that are "informing" the public on political matters. The political movement that is arising out of hollywood can be seen as comprable to the anti-war movement that happened within the music industry in the 60's and 70's. Back then musicians wrote songs that were infused with political messages and the people got the message. why? because people looked up to musicians. Rock stars were the idols of those decades.

Nowadays, we look up to movie stars. It is an incredibly admirable thing that celebrities are doing when they make public statements about politics. Lets face it, most Americans (including President George W. Bush) do not read the newspapers, but they sure as hell know everything thats going on with their favorite celebrities. They can't find Iraq or Afghanistan on a map but they can point you to George Clooney's estate.

Idolization is a human quality that has been practiced forever, we always look up to someone, be it a father figure, or a superhero, or whatever, and when someone is looking up to you, you have a responsibility to that person. A responsibility to set a good example. Celebrities do this by bring attention to something that is really important, the fact that our nation is involved in an unjust war, that the government is becoming more and more brazen about lying to us, and that something needs to be done. Like I said before, no movie star ever claims to be a political expert, (except maybe Al Gore) what happens is that right wing conservatives, who do not care about the welfare or future of The United States of America, try to debase celebrities opinions by saying that they have no credibility because they are just actors. The fact of the matter is that no one needs any credibility to say that the war in Iraq is unjust and founded on lies, because that is a fact that has been proven many times.

Given this administrations record, I'd sooner believe what a celebrity has to say than G.W. Bush. But that aside, the only thing that celebrities are doing is trying to get common folk motivated to take part in the political process, which is the opposite of what the right wing conservatives want.

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