Bruce Willis: Celebrities Shut up.

This is in response to an article that received over 5000 diggs recently on Digg.com. http://digg.com/political_opinion/Bruce_Willis_Tells_Hollywood_To_Shut_Up

Here is the quote in particular that caught my eye and made me cringe.

"I don't think my opinion means jack s**t, because I'm an actor. "Why do actors think their opinions mean more because you act? You just caught a break as an actor. There are hundreds - thousands - of actors who are just as good as I am, and probably better. "Have you heard anything useful come out of an actor's mouth lately?" He adds, "Although I liked George Clooney's documentary on Darfur."http://www.floppingaces.net/2007/05/13/bruce-willis-tells-hollywood-t/

I don’t think Bruce was put up to saying this by any large interest group, but I do think his opinion reflects that of a large portion of this country. So to begin with, at the end of his statement he brings up one very good reason that celebrities should speak up. To be accurate, Mr. Bruce, it is not necessarily that their opinion means more than the rest of the population, just that their soap box is so much bigger than everyone else’s. I would hope that this party train of activist celebrities keeps going and they say something conscious, positive, whistle blowing or progressive at the very least.

What sparked me writing this article was that last night I saw Deal or No Deal on NBC and thought it was maybe about time to watch my second episode of it. At around 8:30 pm I sat down to watch it and previews of the nightly news started to come on. The biggest headline was something about the pet food scare from 5 or more weeks ago… Talk about mind numbing news. It is hard to say that this (the poor quality of news media) is not by design or that they are covering this issue for the ratings. So if the nightly news media is not going to cover issues that are worth hearing about, how are the people going to hear about them? Celebrities are the answer to this, or at least bold high profile people in the news media like Bill Moyers. http://www.pbs.org/moyers/ Other places include Harpers, antiwar.com, and other internet news locations. Reddit.com digg.com rense.comPrint publications like AdBusters are also great for good content that is hard to find elsewhere.

Let us look at a few issues that have been in the public eye in the last couple years that celebs have helped out redirecting public attention towards.

Darfur – George Clooney, and many others. (There are many other genocides currently going on now as well.)

AIDS – Too many to count!

911 Truth - Charlie Sheen, Rosie O’Donnell, David Lynch, and others.

Global Warming (not totally convinced on this yet) Too many to count!

Environmentalism - Many, many, many, people.

Human Rights – Gay marriage to helping starving people get food – same.

Many more issues could be touched on, but I want to keep this blog post short.

So in brief, if the nightly TV news won’t cover these things well, who will? Non mainstream Internet and print media will. With the help of the celebs and the masses combined , the proper issues to focus on, will with luck, get the attention they deserve.

Please do consider becoming active in anything you care about. A warning up front may be useful... organizations however benevolent they seem up front, may be funtioning only to make certain people more wealthy.

In conclusion, Mr. Willis, I disagree with your statement, but love your movies.

Peace