RIGHT TO THE CHIN

Crocodile Crock: It’s “our way or the highway” when it comes to celebrity discourse

So, Elton John says stars are “scared” to speak out against the war in Iraq because of “bullying tactics” used by the U.S. government to hinder free speech. The toupeed tunesmith told New York magazine that there’s “an atmosphere of fear in America right now that is deadly,” and that everyone is “too career-conscious.” He says that, in the ‘60s, artists were constantly writing and talking about what was going on, and that it’s simply not happening now.

Is Elton John out of his mind? For all of the so-called “biased” Fox News Channel personalities or “hateful” talk hosts like Rush Limbaugh, there are exponentially more celebrities all too eager to publicly unleash their venom towards our current administration. In case you haven’t noticed, it is not exactly popular in Hollywood to admit that you don’t actually share the current and pervasive hate for our President, or that you might actually (gasp!) like him and what he’s done.

When a celebrity says something, we are free to respond. Even if the celebrity doesn’t like the response. And, if the celebrity responds to the response, anybody can respond to that, too. And so on. This is called debate. And though the best idea doesn’t always win out, there is nothing wrong in putting it out there, regardless of dissent. These are not “bullying tactics,” but simply freedom of speech. If you happen to be wrong or lose an argument it doesn’t mean that the other guy is a bully. It means you lost. Maybe you’ll win next time.

Celebrities are paid to play a role, to pretend to be somebody else, if you will. And because they are (almost always) not paid to be themselves, they desperately seek to appear real in their very public private lives; to stand for something and show us that, yes, they are real people. And because, in our collectively sick minds, we have heaped unworthy amounts of respect on these pretenders, we often fall prey to—and mindlessly adopt—their often fake and misguidedly misinformed views. If we are so willing to speak freely, why can’t we think freely, too?

Sir Elton says that Toby Keith is entitled to his overtly patriotic opinions, but that the Dixie Chicks “went down in flames” last year and “were treated like they were being un-American” when they criticized the President. I guess the record-buying public—the people who gave both Elton and the Dixie Chicks the platform to speak in the first place—are not entitled to say what they want about them, are they? Who do these people think they are to demand that folks keep quiet and passively accept their crap?

I’m sure that Mr. John is also outraged about the recent “treatment” of Whoopi Goldberg. At a recent fundraiser for the Kerry/Edwards campaign, Goldberg, according to the New York Post, “fired off a stream of vulgar sexual wordplays on Bush’s name in a riff about female sexual genitalia.” Slim-Fast fired her soon afterwards, saying they were “disappointed” in her remarks. Is she entitled to say whatever she wants? Sure. But Slim-Fast sells products to overweight people of all political persuasions, not just the ones that are sympathetic to the views of Whoopi Goldberg. And if the company thinks their association with Goldberg might lose them money, they are perfectly within their rights to dump her.

That’s what’s great about free speech: it applies to everyone. You can say whatever you want. And so can I. But it’s a risky proposition, and hinting that we should remove certain peoples’ right to speak, or even deem any particular speech to be illegal, robs the power of free speech from all of us.

What does Elton John know about free speech, anyway? I mean, Bernie Taupin wrote all of his lyrics for him, didn’t he?