Camerahogging celebrities risk derailing grassroots gun control movement
They’re taunted publicly, called “crisis actors” and ridiculed as “disgusting vile abusers of the dead.”
But the survivors of the Parkland, Fla. school shooting — undeterred by gun-crazed supporters of the National Rifle Association — press on with their mission: to overhaul America’s outdated gun laws, after 17 of their classmates were mercilessly slaughtered.
“The Whitney Houston song about letting the children lead the way wasn’t actually (an) operating paradigm for life,” Eagles of Death Metal singer Jesse Hughes ranted on Twitter, freakishly outraged by the prospect of students advocating for gun control.
“And when the truth don’t line up with your bulls... narrative, just hold your breath and stamp your feet and (refuse) to except it. ... Then take multiple days off of school playing hooky at the expense of 16 of your classmates’ blood. It might be funny if it wasn’t so pathetic and disgusting.”
Seriously, have you seen these kids on the podium, pouring their hearts and souls out on behalf of their dead classmates?
Anyone with a conscience can feel their pain is genuine, their guts are churning, their aim is true.
If this is the right wing response to a national gun tragedy and the survivors angling for generational change, then the battle for hearts and minds is already won.
Well, maybe not just yet.
As the stoically determined teenagers embark on their quixotic campaign to combat political inertia, it’s not just rabid gun nuts trying to hijack their agenda.
There is another, more formidable foe ingrained in protest culture that threatens to become an even bigger obstacle.
I’m speaking, of course, about Hollywood celebrities on the prowl for a career boosting photoop.
“Amal and I are 100 per cent behind you and will be marching in DC on the 24th,” actor George Clooney wrote student activists on the eve of last weekend’s historic March for our Lives in Washington, and cities around the globe including Waterloo.
“But we both feel very strongly that this is your march. Your moment. Young people are taking it to the adults and that has been your most effective tool.”
And yet there they were last weekend, Clooney and his wife, posing for cameras with designer shades and fake humility.
As if to say: “Yes, we have armed bodyguards and live in a gated community, but gun control is an issue close to our hearts! And by the way, I’m gonna be accepting the 2018 AFI Life Achievement Award on June 7.” It wasn’t just Clooney.
The viperous, leech-like Kardashians were there, with their designer flak jackets and crocodile grins. As were grandstanding Miley Cyrus with her “Never Again!” protest sign; former basketball star Dennis Rodman — a Trump supporter whose presence has yet to be explained; and talk show host Jimmy Fallon, looking for an easy way to boost his failing late night ratings.
Some of these one-percenters, technically, had every right to be there:
• Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson, who sang Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin,’ lost her brother to gun violence in 2008.
• Rock icon Paul McCartney, who famously lost “one of my best friends,” former Beatle John Lennon, to a deranged gunman outside a New York apartment.
• Pop star Ariana Grande, who oversaw tragedy last year when a suicide bomber killed 23 fans at one of her concerts.
It doesn’t matter.
The camera-hogging presence of these gilded Hollywood denizens risks turning a fearless grassroots movement into a gawking celebrity red carpet no different than the ones that saw #TimesUp pins on display at the Golden Globe Awards and a lot of fist pumping about “inclusion riders” at the Oscars.
And there’s no shortage of causes to support: #MeToo, #TakeAKnee, #BlackLivesMatter, #NotMyPresident, #OscarsSoWhite, #I’mWithStupid (I made up that last one).
If there’s an activist hashtag that goes viral, you can bet every Hollywood trophy hog angling for press coverage will stick it on their lapel even if, as in the case of alleged sexual harasser James Franco and alleged racist Gary Oldman, they’re part of the problem.
The real issue, in this case, is Activism Fatigue.
People see lavishly attired silver spoons blabbing about social justice, throwing around media-trumpeted donations, and they tune out.
“When Black youth were asking for a donation, where was Oprah’s money or where was George Clooney?” mused 11-yearold Basil Mann during a postshooting event in Washington, pointing out the hypocrisy. People aren’t stupid.
They know the commitment of Hollywood actors to social justice is as shallow as the simulacrum of surprise when they ascend an awards podium to accept yet another tacky statuette. Virtue signalling at its finest. It’s too bad. Because there’s real passion behind this movement to move the needle on gun control, with an uprising that rivals the legendary youth protests against the Vietnam War a half century ago.
“My grandfather had a dream that his four little children will not be judged by the colour of the skin, but the content of their character,” intoned Yolanda Renee King, nine-year-old granddaughter of slain civil rights activist Martin Luther King, whose words she echoed last week.
“I have a dream that enough is enough. And that this should be a gun-free world, period.”
Let’s be clear: 2018 is nothing like 1968.
In 1968, there was no cable TV, no home computers, no social media and the societal divides were as much generational as left vs. right.
Today it’s all about hashtag activism, with opponents on each side of the political spectrum facing off like characters in a Mortal Kombat video game.
But Vietnam War or gun control, the schism is the same.
In both cases, a government perceived as corrupt is promoting a political agenda that jeopardizes the safety of its citizens as a youth faction rises up like a coiled fist and shouts “ENOUGH!”
Fifty years later, it seems, The Man is still The Man.
“The people in the government who were voted into power are lying to us,” railed emotionchoked Parkland survivor Emma Gonzalez in a speech that went viral:
“They say tougher gun laws do not decrease gun violence: We call BS!
“They say a good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun: We call BS!
“They say guns are just tools like knives and are as dangerous as cars: We call BS!
“They say no laws could have been able to prevent the hundreds of senseless tragedies that have occurred: We call BS!
“That us kids don’t know what we’re talking about, that we’re too young to understand how the government works: We call BS!”
These are powerful words: passionate, defiant, unembellished — the kind that can shape a generation.
The last thing these young activists need, as they brace for the long battle ahead, is Kim Kardashian dragging her four-yearold daughter to the front lines for a photo-op.