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Tom Hanks Backing Barry
By Kyle | May 5, 2008
Tom Hanks endorses Barack Obama….even Hanks seems a little sheepish about giving his celebrity imprimatur to BHO. Can it be that though Hanks is the second-most-popular actor in America (after Will Smith), no one actually cares what he has to say? Celebrities do not live in the same world as the rest of us. They don’t fear terrorists because they live behind high walls with security cameras and travel by private jet. They don’t care about taxes because they get paid $20 million for an eight-week movie shoot. They don’t care about public schools because their kids don’t go there. So what’s left for them to care about? Symbolism. The first three reasons Hanks gives for supporting Obama are that he is black. (First, Hanks says “history with a capital H is going to be made this November,” no matter who wins.” Since John McCain is going to win, I’m not sure what history he is talking about. First ever white male war hero to win? Or is he talking about the first Arizonan? No, Hanks means that Obama’s race (or Hillary Clinton’s sex) is a really exciting reason to vote.
The second reason Hanks gives is that people of Obama’s race were once counted as three/fifths of a person. Bringing slavery into the mix of reasons why we should vote for Obama is a curious tactic for a person who “reads history for pleasure,” since Obama is the descendant not of slaves but of a Kenyan professor. The third reason Hanks gives is that Obama is “breaking barriers.” See above.
Now things get truly loopy when Hanks proclaims that Obama has the character and vision, the integrity and the inspiration, “to unify us.” As examples of presidents who supposedly unified us, he cites FDR, Harry Truman, JFK and Ronald Reagan. These are unifying figures?
FDR’s court-packing scheme was a greater affront to the Constitution than anything any president has done since (though you could make a case that Nixon was worse). Truman was so reviled because of the Korean War, which cost more than 36,000 American lives in an effort that ended with the situation the same as it was before it started, that he was forced to essentially step down as president after losing the New Hampshire primary in 1952, when he could have run for a second full term. His approval rating in February of that year was 22 percent.
JFK is the single person most responsible for the most divisive event in American history in the last 40 years, the Vietnam War.
“Even” Reagan was a unifying force, of course–he is the only president named who actually was that–but in the process RR was vilified by serious, intellectual people as having some sort of madman’s wish to destroy the world. It was not until years later, when Reagan had been rendered less threatening by retirement, that liberals began to grudgingly acknowledge his achievements.
Mixed up in all of this mixed-upness is a brazen plug for Hanks’s own “John Adams” miniseries, produced by his Playtone Productions, on HBO. Adams has exactly nothing to do with Barack Obama, so Hanks drags him in anyway.
Topics: Barack Obama, Movies, Politics |
May 5th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
“Since John McCain is going to win, I’m not sure what history he is talking about.”
Maybe he’s talking about the mass exodus from the Democrat party, after the riots in Denver in August?
May 5th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
I thought your comments on why “A list” actors tend to back the leftmost viable candidate is spot on.
I might add that they have no fear that, even in a country with a bitter poltiical divide, their “brand” will suffer sufficently to affect their careers.
May 5th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
I think it’s because they consider themselves among the elite–who wouldn’t?–and the rules the elite make for the rest of us just won’t apply to them.
But the rules they make for us little people will benefit us little people, really!
May 5th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
I assume you realize what the “three-fifths of a person” comment is about — the rule in the Constitution that for the purposes of the census (on which the allocation of seats in the House of Representatives is based), slaves were to be counted as three-fifths of a person.
This clause is routinely invoked as evidence that the people who wrote the Constitution viewed slaves as less than human. That is indeed true for many of them, but that’s not really what was behind this clause. The southern states (i.e., the slaveholders) wanted to count slaves in full in the census, so as to increase the relative weight of the South in the allocation of seats. The northern states (with few or no slaves) wanted to not count slaves at all, since that would be to their advantage. The three-fifths rule was a compromise. It wasn’t meant to reflect some sort of opinion on the human worth of slaves. After all, it was the slaveholders themselves who wanted to count the slaves in full.
May 5th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Even Ronald Reagan united people.
May 6th, 2008 at 12:15 am
Great post Kyle. Celebrities and most of Hollywood live in their own bubble. Who cares who they support.
May 6th, 2008 at 9:13 am
“Celebrities do not live in the same world as the rest of us. They don’t fear terrorists because they live behind high walls with security cameras and travel by private jet.”
Not to defend celebs (which I have no interest in doing), but other than the very top of the A-lists, most probably travel 1st-class rather than in their own jets. The things you list (private schools, walled compounds) are a function of money, not celebrity. As I’m sure you know, many VERY wealthy people died on the planes and in the buildings on 9/11. Given the targets, I would be quite surprised if the incomes of those who died in 9/11 were not, on average, far above the national mean.
Anyway, main point here is that the rich probably have as much or more cause to fear terrorism more than poor or middle-income.
May 6th, 2008 at 9:39 am
[...] Kyle Smith nails Tom Hanks for joining the ranks of the other heavyweight entertainers who are also lightweight political thinkers. And, as he points out, particularly bad historians. I’ve been saying for a long time (as have others) we desperately need a sequel to Team America: World Police in order to put these twits where they belong: Kim Jung Il’s shark tank. Celebrities do not live in the same world as the rest of us. They don’t fear terrorists because they live behind high walls with security cameras and travel by private jet. They don’t care about taxes because they get paid $20 million for an eight-week movie shoot. They don’t care about public schools because their kids don’t go there. So what’s left for them to care about? Symbolism. The first three reasons Hanks gives for supporting Obama are that he is black. (First, Hanks says “history with a capital H is going to be made this November,†no matter who wins.†Since John McCain is going to win, I’m not sure what history he is talking about. First ever white male war hero to win? Or is he talking about the first Arizonan? No, Hanks means that Obama’s race (or Hillary Clinton’s sex) is a really exciting reason to vote. [...]
May 6th, 2008 at 11:39 am
“They don’t care about taxes”? Well, if you’re referring to Wesley Snipes…
May 6th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
So an actor who can only play himself backs a politician who can only pretend to be something he is not.
May 6th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
@Galton, I’ll bet top actors started flying privately instead of commercially after 9/11. There has been an explosion in private airline travel in the last few years.
May 8th, 2008 at 8:30 am
“There has been an explosion in private airline travel in the last few years.”
A friendly word of advice, Kyle: Don’t use those words while you’re in the queue at the Homeland Security checkpoint….