Should Hollywood stars really just put a sock in it?

 

Leonardo DiCaprio is a big supporter of saving the planet. George Clooney is always at the U.N., trying to prevent more mass murder and starvation in Darfur. Matt Damon recently criticized Sarah Palin, saying if she were elected vice president it would be "like a really bad Disney movie--'The Hockey Mom.' " Agree or disagree with their stands--would that really stop you from seeing their movies?

 

If you ask conservatives, the answer is yes. I wrote a post yesterday analyzing the box-office failure of Body of Lies, which starred Russell Crowe and DiCaprio in a Middle East political thriller. According to my favorite conservative blogger, Dirty Harry (who was nice enough to call my post "thoughtful"), I missed the real issue. As he put it:

 

"Many Americans no longer trust Hollywood not to insult their beliefs and values.... Goldstein brushes past the idea that the fall of the movie star (other than Will Smith and Adam Sandler) might have something to do with their strident and boorish politicking. Even Americans in sympathy with what DiCaprio and Clooney believe don't want to be scolded about the environment by the private jet, mansion-dwelling crowd. We want to like our movie stars but today's crop just isn't all that likeable. We want to project onto our movie stars and neither in real life nor even up on the screen are we allowed to do so anymore.... When they wig out and go all liberal or outright anti-American it destroys their reliability, likeability and our ability to project all in one fell swoop."

 

He was not alone. The comments inspired by the post were full of similar anti-movie star venom, inspired either because of their bad behavior (there seems to be an entire lynch mob of Russell Crowe haters out there) or because of their political stances. What's fascinating to me is that people aren't just peeved. They're foaming-at-the-mouth incensed.