Celebrating the Escape Artists

Last night, Chris Rock brought down the house.  Thespians in outfits worth more than my car shook with laughter as the comedian denigrated President Bush with tired lines.  Even without the creative content for which he is known, Rock successfully entertained his immediate audience at the expense of his broader one.

With their smirks aimed at national TV cameras, the members of the audience were ridiculing the majority of Americans who voted Bush into office with more votes (by percentage and cumulative total) than any of Hollywood’s candidates have gotten in decades.  With each chuckle, they proved how far removed they are from the Americans they entertain.  Gala’d up together, they were thumbing their collective nose at the serfs who pay for their California castles.

On Monday morning, no one is surprised—and not just because the red carpet rolls far from the heart of the country.  They’re entertainers.  Their job is to take us away from our stress, our to-do lists, our weighty mortality for an hour or two a week.  Every day they go to work to create an alternate reality.  Why would it surprise us that they live there?

During the past election season and in the aftermath, hundreds of television, radio, and print voices have asked, “Why is the country so divided?  And how did it get that way?”   Even though I think the queries absurd, I’ve not heard a sufficient explanation yet.  The Oscars, though, may just have given the answer, even if not in one of their gilded envelopes.

The country is divided.  Always has been.  If it weren’t, our election results would look like Iraq’s during the Hussein regime.  And one of our political parties would be puppeting devil’s advocates for the other in fixed votes at WWE volume.  As to the reason of this division, call it human nature or battling schools of thought—the collective and respective personality of our citizens, especially as the world’s melting pot, makes it impossible for 300 million people to think as one.  And how it got there . . . well, it's been that way since at least the Continental Congress and maybe even Creation.

Neither is the severity of the differences any different.   Polarity in politics didn’t arrive with the advent of cable news or talk radio; it holds the health of a republic and the vigor of public discourse.  Someone more historically rooted than I could argue that even today’s volume of rancor comes with precedence, though in my 27 years I don’t remember such an adrenal din.

So, if our current political climate doesn’t need these questions, why would we need the answers?

These questions prove euphemistic for what’s getting asked in the back seats of Suburbans and off-campus coffee shops, in studio lot trailers and tour buses: “Why are the Republicans winning elections? How could 51% percent of Americans be stupid enough to vote for Bush?  How can we get the Democrat message out?”  

Maybe a few more retaliatory roasts by famous emcees.  Maybe some more of the smirks holding back stuck out tongues.  Maybe some more of the denial.

Hollywood and those who align with them are divided from their past political power because they are out of touch with the reality of the majority.  The left coast reality, like the shows by that moniker, has been edited from the raw footage of everyday America—cut and embellished to fit a plot.  [I always wondered why “reality” shows listed writers in the credits.]

Tyrants and torturers don’t follow the script of liberalism or the Geneva Convention.  Terrorists aren’t intimidated by words from scowling actors; suicide bombers aren’t scared of Volvo drivers holding hands in a circle.  Capitalism beats socialism in every bout; and governments, like grocery stores, take in more money the less they mark up their product.  Private education outscores public; the stock market outperforms social security; and moral absolutes frame a safe society.

By denying these centuries-proven principles and condescending to those of us who chase the American Dream within these parameters, Susan Sarandon and her peers prove their own ignorance, their own denial, their own agenda.  In so doing, they qualify themselves as the perfect candidates to guide our own escape from reality—the short, cathartic journeys for which we readily pay to read, to listen, to watch.  

© 2005: nonymous, ink.
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