Stupid Celebrity Tricks

Hollywood celebrities, in their never-ending quest to rationalize their frivolous existence, love to become the self-proclaimed champions of popular causes. You've got Leonardo Dicaprio lending his intellectual gravitas to the go-green movement, Brangelina raising Africa out of poverty by adopting a couple of African children (while posing in pictures with a few more), Tom Cruise crusading against the evils of psychiatric drugs, and so on and so forth. But there aren't many causes quite so popular among celebrities as that venerated grand-daddy of celebrity causes, first amendment rights. Every year, various celebrity organizations congregate in order to hand out cute little awards to the celebrities who possess the most zeal for the defense of free speech. It's usually easy to spot the main contenders; they're the ones that annoy the general public by taking every opportunity to talk incessantly about how the Bush administration won't let them talk incessantly about how bad the Bush administration is, and then proceed to talk about the growing gap between the noble poor and filthy, self-centered rich people like themselves, and why the Bush administration is at fault for not taking more of their money for redistribution. In other words, just about every celebrity qualifies for these coveted first amendment awards, and ultimately, the winner is probably selected at random.

Last year, the prestigious Christopher Reeve First Amendment Award happened to be awarded to Sean Penn, who graced the ears of his audience with an eloquent acceptance speech about --of all things-- the evils of the Bush administration. Naturally, the speech was filled with the whiny, self-righteous moralizing, grand-standing, and pretentious theatrics that characterize most of the anti-Bush rants that usher from the mouths of the Hollywood elite. Sean Penn was in his element, standing as the lone beacon of truth in the midst of a vast Republican ocean of corruption and deceit:

Should we speak truth, we stand against government efforts to intimidate or legislate in the service of censorship. Whether under the guise of a Patriot Act or any other benevolent-sounding rationale for the age-old game of shutting down dissent by discouraging independent thinking and preventing progressive social change.
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globally, the United States is number one at demanding accountability and backing up that demand with imprisonment. But, when it comes to our president, vice president, secretary of state, former secretary of defense...this insistence on accountability vanishes. All of a sudden, what's past is prologue. And we're just "forward-looking." But some people can't just look forward. Men and women stationed in Iraq at this moment, under orders of a Commander-in-Chief so sufficiently practiced in the art of deception, that he got vast numbers of American journalists and the most esteemed media outlets of this country, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, and PBS to eagerly serve his agenda-building for war. And the process also induced vast numbers of artists and performers (probably even some in this room tonight) to keep quiet and facilitate the push for an invasion in Iraq.
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Christopher Reeve promised to get out of that chair. Well, I don't know about you, but it feels like he's up now and I wouldn't be standing here if it weren't on his shoulders. Let it be for something.

Of course, after the speech was over, applause was the only thing that Mr. Penn received for his daring monologue. He didn't receive jail time, sharp reprimands from the media, a pink slip, or any negative consequences whatsoever. He continues to live his life in obscene luxury, untroubled by the supposedly far-reaching tentacles of the Bush administration.

Meanwhile, down in Venezuela, critics of the government can actually run into real trouble. Hugo Chavez, the goblin-esque leader of Venezuela's socialist government, has been proactively cracking down on the country's independent media for years. Recently, RCTV, the second largest television station in the country, was shut down by Chavez due to the stations history of airing material that presented criticism of his administration. Just last month, the Venezuelan legislature passed a law that allows for the deportation of any foreigners that criticize the government. Venezuela is now classified as "Not Free" by Freedom House, ranked 115th out of 168 in press freedom by Reporters Without Borders, and a US Senate resolution has been passed condemning the Chavez administration's increasing hostility towards the free press.

So, you'd naturally expect that an outspoken defender of freedom of speech like Sean Penn wouldn't be the first in line to cozy up to Hugo Chavez. And you'd be wrong:

(From the Associated Press)
CARACAS, Venezuela - Sean Penn applauded President Hugo Chavez as the Venezuelan leader lambasted the Bush administration and demanded an end to war in Iraq.

Chavez met privately with the 46-year-old actor for two hours Thursday, praising him as being "brave" for urging Americans to impeach President Bush.
Chavez said he and Penn discussed the question of "why the (U.S.) empire attacks Chavez so much," saying Venezuela's oil wealth is a key reason.

He also said Washington is "afraid that the people of the United States will learn the real truth" about the situation in Venezuela, citing his social programs for the poor.

"If the people of the United States, those millions and millions of poor people ... if that nation realizes what is truly happening here, there would be a revolution in the United States," Chavez said, eliciting applause from Penn.

Some Chavez opponents were angered by Penn's visit.

If I was the kind of person who gets upset when a celebrity does something stupid, I would be angry as well. But, being who I am, I have to say that I find Penn's ignorant international faux-pas more amusing than infuriating. An actor behaving in a hypocritical manner? Whodathunkit!

But the event serves to highlight one of the dangers that the more-red-than-pink variety of liberalism presents to our country. While some conservatives will eagerly sacrifice liberty for security, certain liberals would be equally willing to sacrifice that same liberty for "social progress". While they can talk for hours about the importance of a free press, in actuality, many on the far left consider free press to merely be a means to accomplish the end of radical social change. They believe, as the marxists of decades past believed, that the masses need to be incited to rise up against their upper-class masters, and the inflammatory power of the media is the perfect tool to accomplish this feat. Once the desired changes in society have been made, the tool is no longer necessary, and can be replaced with a state-run apparatus designed to perpetuate the new order.

Due to this mindset, Penn is all for freedom of speech in America, because he hates Bush and wants to oust him from the White House. But on the other hand, Penn is indifferent to freedom of speech in Venezuela, because he likes Hugo Chavez's socialist policies and anti-Bush stance, and wants him to remain in place. Apparently, Penn believes that freedom of speech is sacred in places with governments he doesn't like, but can be tossed out the window in countries with "progressive" governments. I don't think I need to say that this is stupid, but I'll say it anyways: this is stupid.

I don't know if I've ever actually seen a movie with Sean Penn in it, but if I have, I sort of regret watching it. I also sort of regret that Sean Penn is one of the only big actors to have acted in a movie partially shot in Omaha.

I guess we still have Jack Nicholson.