Celebrities and Politics: Who Cares?

very morning I wake up and start to panic: what will I write about in my blog today? I am always afraid that a new topic will not come to me. Yet like the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, the new topics come to me with invariable predictability, each and every day.

It starts with straightening the items on my dining room table. I've written about the positive effects of housework on the thinking process. Straightening tends to be my first household task of the day. Then I go and sort the laundry and start a load going, if necessary. The next task I perform is dish-washing.

We don't have a dishwasher. Or rather, we do, and its name is Varda. It just isn't practical in Israel to use a dishwasher. We are a water-poor, energy-poor country. So, most of us here just roll up our sleeves and get cracking. That's what I do, anyway.

I don't need a Feng Shui expert to tell me that a water feature is conducive to calm, productive thinking. The minute the water starts running, so my thoughts begin to flow. This morning over breakfast dishes dotted with bits of oatmeal I remembered a status I posted on Facebook last week: Who cares that Katy Perry split up with Russell Brand?

That's when it hit me that this is a topic that has always aggravated me: the intimate doings of celebrities shoved into my face. I don't care what brand of toilet paper Angelina Jolie purchases. I don't care about her relationships, either. I shouldn't care. Neither should you.

But even worse than that kind of drivel, went my brain's train of thinking, is being exposed to the political pronouncements of said celebrities. What do I care what Matt Damon thinks about Sarah Palin or President Obama, just for instance?


What makes people sit up and listen when Paris Hilton makes fun of McCain or comes up with the "Paris Hilton Energy Plan?"



But the public eats this stuff up. We just love to see those pretty faces spouting their opinions.

I tried to find a rationale for caring what actors THINK. I came up with money plus power equals influence. We listen to The Donald, for instance, because of his immense wealth. Regarding finances, at least, he possesses a genius we mere mortals do not. Anyone who is good at his craft is someone worthy of respect that extends beyond the specific sphere of that person's expertise (though I wouldn't want to imitate Trump's marital record).

All well and good. But what about beauty? Are you going to let Heidi Klum dictate your vote in the next election?

To be fair, I love to listen to Jon Voight speak about Israel and the Jews. The reason? He's well-informed and high-profile.



I could say the same about Gene Simmons.



So it's not about a knee-jerk reaction: I don't think that all celebrities are vapid. If a celebrity has something to say that is reasonably intelligent, I'm all ears. And I think that celebrities can play an important role in spreading factual information that the media would rather hide.

The bottom line? Don't expect me to listen to you just because you have a pretty face. It's not going to happen.

What do you think? Should celebrities stay out of politics? Do you care what they think?

Red Lines

Last week, I sacrificed the feelings of a friend on the altar of humor. I heard about a Facebook page with a clever name that made me laugh and I couldn't resist signing on as a fan. As my finger hovered over my left mouse, a little voice niggled at me, "Some of your friends may be offended by the sentiment expressed here—Rhonda, for instance."

The idea put forth by the name of that group crossed over societal red lines by expressing the hope that someone holding a hallowed American office would die. But the way it was worded was so clever! I didn't so much care about the meaning of the words, I just liked the wording. So I ignored that little voice and it's been bothering me ever since. Why did I choose humor over the feelings of a friend?

It isn't the first time I've crossed red lines for the sake of humor. I offended another friend around the time of Michael Jackson's death by quoting an MJ joke on Twitter. The same thing happened. A little voice said, "This might be offensive to Viki, for instance," and I stilled the voice and ploughed forward.

I cannot figure out why I ignored the little voice, not once, but twice. I know that people's feelings matter to me. I did not have the intention of hurting feelings. I think I hoped that the humor would prevail over any offense caused. But why was I so misguided? Why did I repeat and compound the error by ignoring the voice a second time?

I decided to explore the psychology of humor with my limited resources to see if I might gain insight. I discovered the work of psychologist Rod Martin whose research involves studying the ways in which people employ humor. Martin says that being funny may not be an expression of social skills, but rather the sign of a personality flaw.

Humor can be used to improve relationships or help the individual to cope with difficulties. But humor can also be self-deprecating or antagonistic. "It's a form of communication, like speech, and we all use it differently," says Martin. The clown who puts himself down has low self-esteem. When the put-down is directed toward someone else however, it may be an adaptive response. The tense air of the office can be lightened by ridiculing a tyrannical boss in his absence.

The world abounds with Jewish comics. Jews have long used humor to cope with oppression. It breaks the tension. Laughing or causing laughter takes away the stress of the situation. Making fun of the enemy knocks him down a peg or two. Remember the scene in Fiddler on the Roof where the Hassid asks his rebbe, "Rabbi, is there a proper blessing for the Czar?"

The rabbi says, "Of course my son, there is a blessing for everything," and thinking a moment recites, "May God bless and keep the Czar…far away from us!"

Humor is a key facet of my personality. I've always loved generating laughs. Sometimes I'm not even aware I'm being funny until someone laughs. Making others laugh involves generating a kind of surprised gut reaction. Socializing involves a certain protocol, being polite and adhering to norms. Laughter, on the other hand, is genuine and comes unbidden. It needn't conform to the standards of Emily Post. It just is.

So making someone laugh is about the nicest thing I know how to do. I like it better than anything. I don't even care about the sense of the words in the joke. I just want to hear those laughs. But maybe there's something else going on.

President Obama scares me. He poses an existential threat to me, my family, my country, and my fellow Israelis on many levels. I feel a sense of urgency that is not shared by many of my friends. Was my joining that page perhaps a way of pushing the boundaries, saying: "Please see my situation: my dilemma?"

I think so.

So, how do I explain away the MJ jokes?

I guess it boils down to how I view Michael Jackson. He had to change anti-Semitic lyrics in the song, They Don't Care About Us. He swore that these lyrics were benign. But then, in 2005, tapes were aired on Good Morning America, "They suck … They're like leeches. … I'm so tired of it … It is a conspiracy. The Jews do it on purpose."

It doesn't matter a bit to me that he changed the lyrics of that song to accommodate the ADL or got in bed with Shmuely Boteach. As far as I'm concerned, Jackson was an anti-Semite—a very talented person, but an extreme anti-Semite. I can never again listen to his music without the thought of his anti-Semitism coming to mind.

It isn't just his anti-Semitism, though. I also think about the baby-dangling incident. To me, MJ was not a good person. The court cases don't have anything to do with these feelings. I only look at facts. The facts makes him fair game as the butt of jokes—but NOT at the expense of my long friendship with Viki.

I think that joking about these two personalities boils down to wishing that my friends would share my passionate beliefs or at least see and recognize my feelings and fears. I crossed their red lines to make them see my own red lines. I think I would rather make my feelings known through humorous asides than by lecturing or being strident. But twice now, all I succeeded in doing was to cause offense.

I think what I learned from these two incidents is that friendship is not predicated on agreement. No matter how urgent an issue feels to me, it does not follow that a friend must agree. It's hard to take this in when I feel the issues are existential. But losing a friend is even harder.

I resolve to listen to those little voices, the next time they whisper a warning. I don't promise not to fail sometimes, but I hope that setting down my thoughts like this will firm things up in my mind and help me avoid future pitfalls that threaten my friendships with the people I love.