Hollywood and its waning political influence are both following the same trajectory.
Every time there’s a US presidential election, much is made in the mainstream media of celebrity endorsements. Others promise to bail out of the country if their candidate doesn’t win. Because apparently the democracy they want is the one where the plebes do what they’re told at the voting booth by a handful of entertainers.
Richard Gere is moving to Spain now and the Western press suggests that it’s because he’s angry that Trump conflated terrorists with refugees crashing the US border. That’s actually an interesting debate. One that a guy who lives in a gated mansion on 32 acres, with 11 bathrooms, a guest cottage, and a pool, might be inclined to indulge, long before having to worry about actually grappling with the more glaring and pressing aspects of the immigration issue that the average citizen faces.
Trump’s reelection suggests that voters are too fed up with grossly unmanaged or mismanaged immigration to concern themselves with the details. Which is also why the average American didn’t lose their mind like the establishment did over Trump’s remarks about Haitian migrants in Ohio eating people’s pets. They just ripped off the audio of Trump’s voice and made videos on TikTok starring their own pets looking shocked about the possibility of being eaten. Debate raged about whether the assertion was even true, but it brought the immigration issue to the forefront and, in any case, people were going to vote based on their personal perceptions. Which would at least partly explain why Trump ended up winning in Ohio by 12 points over Harris. Meanwhile, Gere was fiddling with the wallpaper.
Gere’s palace in Connecticut was up for sale long before the election. His wife is from Spain and he’s said that they’d like to spend time with her relatives. It’s not like anyone would even notice where this guy lives, anyway. He and his Hollywood pals are some of the biggest beneficiaries of globalism, constantly crisscrossing the globe for work. Why do they even think that anyone would know, or care, where they spend most of their time, anyway? No one’s going, like, “We can’t lose that Richard Gere guy to Spain! Tell me who I need to vote for to prevent that!”
The singer Cher has said that she’d leave if Trump won because the Trump show is just too stressful. Leave for where? Who knows. A series of luxury hotels, probably. Because although Cher has a massive isolated mansion in Malibu, she always seems to be touring. Her ‘Farewell Tour’ was followed by her ‘Here We Go Again’ tour, so her goodbyes probably shouldn’t be taken too seriously. “When was Cher’s LAST farewell tour,” is actually a suggested Google search. Is actor and Trump critic Tom Hanks still around? Who cares, he’s been a dual citizen of Greece, anyway, where he owns property since 2020.
Game of Thrones actress Sophie Turner said that she’d move to the UK to flee Trump. Except that she’s from there and is English. Did anyone even notice that she had ever left? Returning from a long vacation isn’t really the same thing as moving.
First-generation Latina actress America Ferrera said that, for her family’s sake, she’d move to the UK – fleeing Trump, to whom even Britain’s BBC qualified Latinos as “flocking.” Guess she didn’t get the memo.
Oscar winner Sharon Stone said over the summer, while at the Taormina Film Festival in Sicily, that she was thinking of moving to Europe. “I am deeply concerned with what’s happening in my country now. This is one of the first times in my life that I’ve actually seen anyone running for office on a platform of hate and oppression,” she said in reference to Trump. But Stone is already known for spending considerable time in France, and the Portuguese press suggested last year that she had already invested in that country’s real estate “to be neighbors with George Clooney” near Lisbon.
The Western press has been buzzing about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle potentially uprooting from their Montecito, California, mansion in the wake of Trump’s win – but they’ve long been eyeing a place in Portugal, where Eugenie his cousin already lives with her family.
If Trump hadn’t won, no one would have even likely noticed where these celebrities were living. And it’s debatable whether Hollywood itself is even relevant at all anymore in 2024, let alone the political views of those within it. People seem more interested in watching each other’s homemade videos on TikTok, much targeted by Western governments because they can’t control the China-based app, and which serves up organic diversity compared to the Hollywood offerings that now mandate specific diversity requirements to be considered for awards.
“At least one of the lead actors or significant supporting actors submitted for Oscar consideration” has to be “from an underrepresented racial or ethnic group in a specific country or territory of production” that’s non-white, according to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Also, “At least 30% of all actors not submitted for Oscar consideration” must be “from at least two underrepresented groups.” Such policies would explain, for instance, the NBC News headline from last year: “Cleopatra was not Black, Egypt tells Netflix in growing feud ahead of new series.”
Hollywood closed ranks with an omerta around Harvey Weinstein, ignoring his rampant sexual aggression for years, despite all their public preaching about feminism. Stars at awards show podiums cried about the state of humanity while privately partying with the likes of P. Diddy, now facing federal charges of sex trafficking and sexual abuse, and exploitation of women.
Diddy’s ex-girlfriend, entertainer Jennifer Lopez, spoke at a campaign rally for Kamala Harris and said that every Latino should be offended by a joke about Puerto Rico that a professional comedian made at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally. Yet Trump enjoyed a 14-point bump in this demographic compared to 2020. Guess they know humor when they hear it – which would explain why her “comedic” film Gigli flopped in 2003 and, more recently, Shotgun Wedding on Netflix.
Performer Taylor Swift, arguably the biggest celebrity in the world right now, was going to absolutely crush Trump by endorsing Harris, it was suggested. All her Swifties would dutifully fall in line like little bedazzled soldiers. “I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election. I’m voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them,” Swift posted to Instagram on September 10.
What ended up happening instead is that fans of what several analysts have described as Swift’s ”white feminism” – white female voters – chose 53% in favor of Trump. Maybe they just figured that the guy whose primary concern is to ensure that they have the ability to actually afford the exorbitantly priced tickets to Swift’s concerts is more relevant than Harris’ virtue signaling – pandering to women by talking about abortion and to minorities by talking like Foghorn Leghorn?
I know what everyone’s thinking – who was the cast of that long-defunct show about the fake White House, The West Wing, voting for? Well, at least they must’ve thought that’s what everyone’s thinking. Since they went to the trouble of reuniting just to star in a pro-Harris ad. “We choose freedom. We choose Kamala Harris,” they said in a statement, signed by the likes of Martin Sheen, Allison Janney, and Mary McCormack. The ad, featuring the notoriously anti-war Sheen, was backed by the Lincoln Project, which is rife with neocons – bedfellows almost as strange as neocon Harris campaign surrogate and former congresswoman, Liz Cheney, being told by the left-leaning cast of ‘The View’ that she’d be a great secretary of defense, despite her support of the US-led wars that her dad, Dick, helped kick off.
Clearly, the election didn’t work out the way that many of these celebrities had hoped. Given their resources and options, I’m sure they’ll get over it, in whichever mansion they choose to inhabit. They’d have gotten over it in any case – unlike so many of the average people they ultimately failed to manipulate.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.