Meddling stars just aren’t as influential as they like to think
Much titteration because the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are featured in Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential list for 2021, but why? It was only a matter of time before the couple were honoured in these most spurious of non-awards — the global equivalent of a Milk Monitor badge or a Good Attendance certificate.
Why, even the Duke and Duchess of cambridge made the list back in 2011 (actually, Kate has been on it three times), along with such fellow visionaries and global motivators as former Prime Minister David cameron, Bruno Mars, Sting and colin Firth.
Yet the question of who does and who does not influence us, especially among the celebrity brigade, is an interesting one.
Today, social media gives them a reach and power to use and disabuse their fame as inclined; to plunge into politics and public health matters, to meddle and muddle the waters in ways that are often unhelpful.
Particularly as so many of them are blinkered, hand-wringing Lefties determined to show the public why they are wrong, while they themselves are right.
For example. Just before winning his Most Influential award, colin Firth announced his support for the Liberal Democrats — this was during the 2010 general election. I sincerely hope no one back then was influenced by his avowed stance, as the actor withdrew his Lib Dem support a few months later, following their u-turn on tuition fees.
What a complete waste of time for all concerned, but especially for Firth’s politically vacillating fans, potentially looking for a sign from their hero. Were there some of them, so thrilled by his turn as harry the banker in Mamma Mia!, that they decided to vote Liberal Democrat, too?
This is the terrible question, the great unknowable of the modern age — but surely such blind faith is what stars hope lies behind any kind of declaration or endorsement on their part? Think like me.
PerhAPS Time magazine itself was influenced by the fact that Firth had just won an Oscar for his role in The King’s Speech. ‘I’ve got the feeling my career has just peaked,’ he famously joked as he accepted the award, although sadly it turned out to be all too true. Ahead of him lay the sequel Mamma Mia! here We Go Again, plus the third Bridget Jones film — and a complete silence on the political front, thank heavens.
Of course, I adore colin, but the only thing he has ever influenced me to do is reconsider the allure of a damp regency shirt.
Meanwhile, there has been uproar over rapper Nicki Minaj telling her 22 million Twitter fans that her Trinidadian cousin’s friend’s testicles ballooned after he had the covid vaccine.
She doesn’t say if she was there at the time and witnessed this sight with her own eyes, but surely that might be the explanation? With her terrifying cleavage, claw manicures and fierce personality, Nicki might well make a great number of young men’s testicles swell in fear. Yet what is behind her harmful stance on this life-saving matter? Sheer ignorance and the misbegotten desire to influence millions into not having the jab, just like her?
The vaccine hesitancy among ethnic minority groups makes her position seem even more irresponsible, yet despite all expert evidence to the contrary, Nicki is the kind of woman who still thinks she knows best. And she does not discourage her followers from concluding that anyone who disagrees with her is racist, misogynist or worse.
chris Whitty, White house chief medical adviser Dr Anthony Fauci and Trinidad’s health minister and various others have all challenged her views, but she will not budge and is even having a ferocious online row with Piers Morgan.
This is unfortunate, as it forces many bystanders to think about Piers’s own testicles, and whether they are shrinking in horror or distending like furious timpani at Nicki’s impertinence, particularly as she has called him a ‘stupid piece of s***’ on Twitter. Which sums up the intellectual rigour of her argument.
Of course, Nicki Minaj has been on the Time Most Influential list, too. She was there in 2016, along with Barack Obama, Donald Trump and the supermodel Karlie Kloss.
Meanwhile, Alexandria Ocasiocortez, this week’s other great influencer exhibitionist, made the list in 2019. On Monday night the Democrat politician (right) saw no hypocrisy in turning up to the £21,000-ahead Met Ball in a couture gown that had ‘Tax the rich’ emblazoned on the back. But where else would you wear such a thing? It just wouldn’t have the same impact at your Auntie Betty’s party, would it?
My point is that if you hang around long enough, in a silly dress or otherwise, you’ll get onto Time’s Most Influential list. And considering the number of dopes who make the cut, there seems to be an unhappy conflation between fleeting popularity and actual, enduring influence.
EveN Bart Simpson got on it one year and, speaking of misunderstood sons, we need to talk about this year’s prize pick, Prince harry. Don’t you just love his nerve? Last week he made a virtual appearance at the GQ awards and said he was worried about families ‘being overwhelmed by masses of misinformation across news media and social media’ about the vaccine.
Yet here he is, pictured on the Time magazine cover with a mass of misinformation glued to the top of his head. What was that stuff, clearly designed to mislead the public about the abundance of his hair?
A computer-generated pelt of pumpkin-coloured turf — or something tufty harvested from the nether regions of an unlucky squirrel gambolling in the grounds of the Sussexes’ Montecito mansion?
Search me. however, if you are thinking this column has been all balls, then for once you are right.
‘IN A world where everyone has an opinion about people they don’t know, the Duke and Duchess have compassion for the people they don’t know,’ reads the gushing citation to the couple’s Most Influential award.
Shame they don’t seem to have much compassion for those they do know. Particularly their respective fathers, the Prince of Wales and Thomas Markle.