More Hollywood silliness: actors are now running around shrieking that they might get "blacklisted" for voicing their pedantic anti-war sentiments. The other night on "Access Hollywood," Pat O'Brien opened a segment on anti-war celebrities this way (as transcribed by the Media Research Center):

"We are just eleven days away from the Oscars, but the question Hollywood is asking, 'Will we be at war by then?' From Martin Sheen to Susan Sarandon to Sean Penn, many stars are voicing their opinion against using military force. But is that voice going to get them blacklisted in Hollywood?"

And then later in the same segment:


Melissa Gilbert (president of the Screen Actors Guild): "There is a sense out there, people who've got these Web sites going where they're asking folks to sign petitions to insist that actors are fired off the shows they're on. And it's, they're getting like 30,000 signatures."

O'Brien: "It's scary?"

Gilbert: "That's scary."



Well, Half-pint, it ought to be scary. But not for the reasons you think. It ought to be scary to find out how out-of-tune your union membership is with the rest of the its market.

It amazes me that these people can't think analytically enough to see the fundamental difference between McCarthyism (which involved the use of government power to harass and condemn people for their private acts) and what's happening now, which is that some actors risk losing their jobs because the vast majority of the American public is simply put off by dim celebrities pontificating on issues about which they know nothing. The former is the illegitimate use of government force, the latter is simply the free market at work.

It's a very simple concept, but they are absolutely incapable of grasping it. Entertainment is a purely market-driven entity. Whatever people will watch/pay for is what succeeds. If Michael Jackson runs around molesting children, people are not going to be interested in buying his records anymore. It's not a vast government conspiracy. Its just the buying public deciding it doesn't like something.

The same goes for blowhards like Martin Sheen. If the American people decide that his frequent left-wing outbursts are distasteful, they just might stop watching him on "The West Wing." And if people are tuning out because they don't like Martin Sheen, his network and production company would be perfectly justified in firing him. It ain't the government, and it ain't McCarthyism. It's no more ominous or sinister than Liz Taylor not getting leading-lady roles after she gained 300 lbs. If the kid with the zits down at MacDonalds starts haranguing you with political invective while handing you your Big Mac, he's going to get fired too.