On his preferred social media platform, Truth Social, 45th U.S. President and current candidate Donald J. Trump recently remarked of George Clooney, “Movies never really worked for him!” This insult — which may have something to do with the fact that Clooney is not a Trump supporter — notwithstanding, Clooney is indeed a major movie star and a writer and director whose work is frequently concerned with American politics.
While much of the time celebrity commentary on politics elicits “stay in your lane” reactions from those on the opposite side of whatever position that celebrity espouses, Clooney is largely recognized as a smart guy worth taking seriously. So, not long ago, when President Joe Biden was still in the race to remain in the White House, Clooney’s July 10 New York Times Op-Ed urging him to drop out was significant. And until a well-researched Biden biography hits stores, we may never know how significant. Clooney’s subsequent endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris in her presidential bid has been making news in both the mainstream and the showbiz press.

George Clooney, testifying before the U.S. Congress in 2012 about the violence in Sudan, is largely recognized as a smart guy worth taking seriously.
Celebrity has little to no impact on Canadian politics, so you can’t blame a Canadian observer of the current American scene for not believing that celebrity has almost everything to do with politics from where I’m writing. Trump is vying for a second term — one that his opponents have warned will be a disaster for the country and for democracy — by running on his signature catchphrase “Make America Great Again.” His campaign speeches aren’t so much about what policies he’ll enact to achieve that aim, but rather sharks and electric-powered boats and “the late great Hannibal Lecter.” The celebrity supporters enlisted to boost him at the Republican National Convention — model and media personality Amber Rose, blustery wrestler Hulk Hogan and dissipated rap rocker Kid Rock — are C-listers well past their prime, but like Trump they’re colourful and make an awful lot of noise.

Hulk Hogan spoke before Donald Trump’s appearance at the recent Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
Trump, whose profile with most of the American public was established via his sophomoric TV competition “The Apprentice,” is running, for better or worse, as an entertainer who needs no introduction. For his 2016 campaign, which he unforgettably won, he ran in part in the guise of a successful businessman, but mostly, as he’s doing today, as a showman. The leftist filmmaker Michael Moore had lost a step or two when he made the 2018 documentary “Fahrenheit 11/9,” so it didn’t have the impact it might have had, which is a shame. It’s one of his most astute films, examining the Trump phenomenon from the position of one political performer examining another.
On the blue side of the American divide, things look a little more conventional. Usually the connection between politics and celebrity is logical, straightforward. Celebrities have money (and a platform); politicians need money; fundraising efforts anchored by celebrities bring money and voter awareness.
But every now and again someone famous makes a gonzo suggestion. Aaron Sorkin, creator “The West Wing,” largely seen as a Democrat-sympathetic figure, proposed in a July 21 New York Times piece that the Democratic Convention nominate the Republican Mitt Romney for President. Sorkin once struggled with an addiction to smokable cocaine, and some unkind souls on social media suggested that he was doing so once again. Once the Biden/Harris issue appeared relatively sorted — Biden put his support behind Harris, as did a slew of celebrities, like Barbra Streisand, Spike Lee, Cardi B and Julia Louis-Dreyfus — Sorkin sheepishly rescinded his suggestion.
The current social media wish for a celebrity to make the definitive endorsement that will Change Everything has a lot in common with the “if only” thought patterns of drug addicts and alcoholics. For a long time the plea was “Taylor Swift Endorse Biden.” Now that Biden’s out of the picture, it’s “Taylor Swift Endorse Harris.” And maybe she will. It would not be off-brand, nor would it be a panacea.

The new X account @Swifties4Kamala hopes to mobilize Taylor Swift fans to help get Harris and other Democrats elected.
On the other hand: In July, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter saw the debut of a new account, @Swifties4Kamala. Its profile bio reads, “Coalition of Swifties ready to mobilize Taylor Swift fans to help get Democratic candidates elected […] (Not affiliated with Taylor Swift).” A similar TikTok account soon cropped up. The feed is mostly retweets — excuse me, reposts from other feeds, but the overall feel of the account is optimistically matter-of-fact in its activism, with little in the way of pie-in-the-sky entreaties for Swift herself to intervene. It’s the politics of affinity rather than wishful thinking, which is commendable.
Though in the current social media atmosphere, the politics of affinity has an arguably silly tinge, as in the British pop star Charli XCX’s “Kamala IS brat” endorsement, which ties the presidential candidate to the title and theme of the performer’s new album, “Brat.” Harris has in turn embraced this embrace, because why not, if it gets the attention of younger would-be voters who might otherwise skip the ballot box.
Of course, this always brings us back to the question of not only whether such activism will work but exactly how it would work. One recalls the first career peak of Bruce Springsteen, whose songs in solidarity with the working man were sometimes misunderstood, even by his most ardent fans. The title track from his 1984 album “Born in the USA,” a grim story of an alienated war veteran hung out to dry by his country, became a fist-pumping anthem with arena crowds who didn’t quite process the lyrics. When Springsteen reportedly shouted, “Don’t vote for that f—king Bush” from a concert stage in 1988 (meaning George H.W. Bush, who went on to defeat Democrat Michael Dukakis in that year’s election), he was likely not just expressing a specific opposition, but a larger frustration at his work being taken the wrong way.

British pop star Charli XCX has endorsed Kamala Harris for President, branding her a “brat.”
Finally, there’s the question of why this phenomenon is nearly entirely absent from Canadian politics. Perhaps the great Canadian director David Cronenberg summed it up best at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival in his remarks at a press conference.
“In Canada, we think everyone in the U.S. is completely insane.”
Glenn Kenny is an American film critic and historian; his latest book is “The World Is Yours: The Story of ‘Scarface.’”
*****
Credit belongs to : www.thestar.com