Posted on 07/03/2003 3:41:18 PM PDT by Byron_the_Aussie
The lousiest Hollywood actors always did make good Republicans, writes Rod Liddle.
The Hollywood actor Arnold Schwarzenegger is apparently contemplating running for political office. To students of the correlation between acting ability and political sympathy among thespians, it will come as no surprise that Arnie is a Republican.
The rule is almost - although not quite - inviolable. In general, the worse you are as an actor, the more right-wing your politics will be.
There is a formidable rollcall of guileless, wooden dunderheads on Hollywood's right. Charlton Heston, surely one of the worst actors alive, is not merely a Republican but a leading member of the perfectly horrible National Rifle Association. To his name can be added the, um, somewhat one-dimensional John Wayne; the weird, stone-faced pout of Demi Moore and her ex, Bruce Willis; the lumbering Sylvester Stallone; Bob Hope; the astonishingly unfunny George Burns; Frank Sinatra, once his talent and looks had gone; good ol' lovable, one-paced Jimmy Stewart (who was very, very, very right-wing indeed); and, of course - lest we forget - Ronald Reagan.
The only exception I can think of is John Malkovich, who is unquestionably a fine actor. His politics, though, are too idiosyncratic to be described simply as right of centre. And Clint Eastwood, maybe.
I suppose some people might still carry a torch for Sophia Loren and Brigitte Bardot. But Loren merely shagged right-wing men without ever seeming to be especially right-wing. And poor old Bardot's apparent conversion to the extreme far-right Front Nationale seems to be simply more evidence of a burgeoning eccentricity.
Whereas the Hollywood left - well, where to start? The wonderful Burt Lancaster, Robert Mitchum, Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart, maybe. Woody Allen and Mel Brooks. Montgomery Clift, Gregory Peck, Robert Redford, Warren Beatty, Paul Newman, Martin Sheen, Shirley MacLaine, Jane and Peter Fonda. And Jessica Lange and Emmanuelle Beart ... the list is almost endless. Why?
I suspect it is something to do with the collaborative process of film acting; the shared performance and, maybe, the necessity to, temporarily perhaps, subjugate the ego and empathise with the subject. If it is not too pretentious an extrapolation, it's the communitarian demands of acting that are best suited to those of a vaguely socialistic ideology.
With writing, precisely the reverse seems to be true. Writing is a selfish and individualistic occupation and I would argue that the most brilliant and concentrated writing of the past century has come from the right - often the far right. Who, these days, reads those early scions of the radical left, Jack London and Sinclair Lewis? George Orwell and John Steinbeck are both revered more for their humanity and compassion than their ability to write a beautiful sentence.
The most left-wing of novelists - Edward Upward, for example - are impossible to read, except as unwitting satires, and in poetry you would not cross the road to buy anything by Neruda, Mayakovsky or, for that matter, Stephen Spender. But you would for that high Tory T.S. Eliot and the Mussolini-obsessive Ezra Pound.
By and large, the more individualistic and self-obsessed, the better the writing. It is the battle between the tormented genius of Dostoevsky - whom we still read - and the ghastly Leninist social realism of Mikhail Sholokhov, who these days is unreadable, surely (and, in fact, much of his stuff is out of print, despite the fact that he won the Nobel Prize).
And as I say, some of the best writing has come from very, very, far to the right. Louis-Ferdinand Celine was an anti-Semitic crypto-Nazi. Knut Hamsun the same, except without the crypto bit. T.E. Lawrence, Jean Cocteau, Wyndham Lewis, Jean Genet and D.H. Lawrence have all stood the test of time rather well.
We can argue about D.H. Lawrence but the rest most definitely dressed to the right. I suppose you might allege that I'm having my cake and eating it if I say that Ernest Hemingway wrote like a right-winger while voting left.
There are, again, exceptions - Emile Zola and Graham Greene, certainly. And, arguably, that old bore Sartre, who is still, unaccountably, held in high esteem.
Anyway, it's only a theory. And worse, a theory formed in a few moments of terror while forced to contemplate the possibility of Scwarzenegger's ascent to the highest of high offices. At least with Reagan we knew that, at worst, he might start to relive Bedtime for Bonzo and other such harmless, witless hokum. But a US president who starts recalling lines from Terminator and Predator is something else again.
Watch out, Iran.
<|:)~
Two strikes. His movies represent the triumph of individual effort over collective will. That's an unsettling image for the Left, which makes it impossible for them to accept him as trustworthy.
Plus, the peasantry enjoy his films.
The fact that AS is a naturalized citizen and cannot be President indicates how seriously this author's "theory" should be taken.
,,, the lousiest British journos stay right where they're at.
Good point. Obviously, the Guardian's editors rushed this one to print without even checking its basic premise. Fear made their wings beat too fast?
Hang on a minute.
Is my recollection correct, of a lengthy Schwarzenegger interview posted on FR, describing how his hard work, belief in himself, and the opportunity only available in America, overcame language difficulties to make him a huge success? That doesn't sound too liberal, to me. That kind of attitude doesn't go over well in the Dem village.
Arnold is born on 30 July 1947 in Thal (4 miles from Graz), Austria.
Sure. You could same the same thing about every Guardian op ed piece, of course.
Uhh, has this author ever read any Jack London? Especially his South Seas short stories. By most standards, his philosophy, at least on race, would be only a small step to the left of Hitler.
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