Fake homilies no substitute for hard action
But one voice in a sea of hypocrisy may be all it takes
In the wake of the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, country singer Jason Aldean — who had the misfortune to be onstage when bullets started flying at the Route 91 music festival in Las Vegas — did what any responsible, Godfearing country boy would do.
He booked an appearance on “Saturday Night Live,” where he read a strategically-worded statement saluting the victims, proclaimed the power of American resilience and performed a twangy version of Tom Petty’s defiant anthem, “I Won’t Back Down.”
It was the classic post-massacre counterpunch from a red state yokel whose unswerving belief in the twisted Second Amendment ran head first into the blood and guts fallout from a gun-crazed wacko who took the whole “right to bear arms” thing a little too seriously.
“This week we witnessed one of the worst tragedies in American history,” the po-faced superstar noted in an awkwardly-recited introduction.
“Like everyone, I’m struggling to understand what happened that night and how to pick up the pieces and start to heal.” Nice speech. Hit all the marks. Expressed regret and condolences.
The only thing missing: Any semblance of support for gun control laws to stop the next aggrieved nutbar with a bump stock semi-automatic from mowing down a crowd of innocent bystanders.
Aldean, like other country musicians making great fake speeches of regret, is “struggling to understand” something perfectly obvious to those not obsessed with personal armaments and a “well-regulated militia” — more gun regulations mean less bloodthirsty carnage. It’s not surprising. The 40-year-old Georgia native owns a hunting company, which I suppose is par for the course, and plays for an audience who equate the right to carry firearms with open roads, beer, tailgate parties and some bastardized version of the American dream.
If he spoke out and acknowledged reality, what do you think the reaction would be?
“I’ve been a gun control activist for 20 years,” singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash wrote in a powerful opinion piece in the New York Times.
“Every time I speak out on the need for stricter gun laws, I get a new profusion of threats.
“Last year, I performed at the Concert Across America to End Gun Violence with Jackson Browne, Eddie Vedder, Marc Cohn and the Harlem Gospel Choir, and we got death threats.
“People wanted to kill us because we wanted to end gun violence. That’s where we are: America, 2017.”
And so most country stars do nothing, content to stay in the good graces of the powerful gun lobby — the National Rifle Association — that subsidizes many of their careers and has become synonymous with the values of chart-topping “bro country.”
Lest you think this “see no evil, hear no evil” phenomenon is the purview of rightwing bumpkins whose cowboy hats cut off blood circulation, guess again. The left wing is just as culpable. As we saw this week when Harvey Weinstein — the corpulent movie producer with the raging libido — was outed as an alleged serial sex abuser not by the Hollywood superstars he pals around with, but by just about everyone else.
Angelina Jolie, Ashley Judd, Rose McGowan, Gwyneth Paltrow, Mira Sorvino, Kate Beckinsale.
As the list of aggrieved actresses multiplies daily, longtime supporters like Meryl Streep and George Clooney find themselves in damage control mode, reaching for their thesauruses to express horror and sympathy while not, of course, implicating themselves.
Like Aldean, they’re “struggling to understand.”
“I am saddened and angry that a man who I worked with used his position to intimidate, sexually harass and manipulate many women over decades,” wrote gravitas-toned Ben Affleck, called out as a liar by actress Rose McGowan, who alleges she was raped by Weinstein and that Affleck knew all about it.
“This is completely unacceptable, and I find myself asking what I can do to make sure this doesn’t happen to others. We must support those who come forward and condemn this type of behaviour when we see it.”
Matt Damon: “As the father of four daughters, this is the kind of sexual predation that keeps me up at night.
“I did five or six movies with Harvey. I never saw this.”
George Clooney: “I’ve known Harvey for 20 years. We’ve had dinners, we’ve been on location together, we’ve had arguments.
“But I can tell you that I’ve never seen any of the behaviour — ever.” Heartfelt. Sincere. Conciliatory. Dammit, if only they had known. But wait, how could they not have known?
“It was an open secret,” British producer Alison Owen told the BBC.
“If you were in the film industry there was no way you could not have heard those stories about Harvey.”
“I was warned from the beginning,” confirmed actress Jessica Chastain on Twitter.
“The stories were everywhere.
“To deny that is to create an environment for it to happen again.”
This “conspiracy of silence” is corroborated by Weinstein’s alleged victims, who stress the power imbalance and pressure to accommodate his perverted whims. But forget the A-listers. With few exceptions, they won’t speak out. They have too much to lose. There’s that next endorsement deal to think of, the next movie, the next stadium tour.
If they get fingered as whistleblowers, their careers are toast.
Which makes people who do speak truth to power even more impressive, and commendable.
“I’ve been a proponent of the Second Amendment my entire life,” tweeted Caleb Keeter, guitarist for the Josh Abbott Band, who played the Route 91 country fest and found himself in a hail of bullets.
“Until the events of last night, I cannot express how wrong I was. We need gun control RIGHT. NOW. My biggest regret is that I stubbornly didn’t realize it until my brothers on the road and myself were threatened by it.”
Keeter, it seems, is the only artist who played the festival to forgo the “struggling to understand” defence with a clear call for action.
His sentiments were echoed by rising country singer Margo Price, who told the Los Angeles Times: “People have had all these opportunities to speak out, and instead they just say vague things like, ‘This is a song against hate’ but not talk about reforming gun laws. They’ve got to get their heads out of the sand.”
You can bet she and Keeter will be demonized, along with Cash, by the notorious NRA, which cozies up to country musicians and uses them as a front to extend its insidious hold on American culture.
Then again, if a change is gonna come, it’s going to be outliers like them who lead the charge, rocking the boat until, eventually, the whole damn thing tips over.
On the Hollywood front, it will be actresses like McGowan, Sorvino and Ashley Judd, who after targeting the industry’s sexually voracious white whale, may find decent roles hard to come by.
“Find strength in moral conviction — even if it comes with a price tag, which it will!” wrote Cash, whose stoic integrity seems channelled from her late father, Johnny.
“Don’t let them bully you into silence. That’s where their power lies — in the silence of rational voices and in the apathy of those who can speak truth to power.”
She’s one voice in a sea of “struggling to understand” hypocrites, an outlaw Americana artist attempting to turn the tide of public opinion against powerful forces with the chips stacked on their side. The good news: Sometimes, if your timing is right and your cause righteous, one voice is all it takes.