Many years ago, I tuned in to The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. He did it right. He understood that his job was entertainment. He made political jokes, but about Democrats and Republicans, who, in those days, mostly weren’t from different planets. Both parties have always been a rich vein of comedy gold, and Carson mined it evenly.
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On that occasion, Tom Selleck was one of Carson’s guests, and Carson, if memory serves, asked why he never spoke about anything political. Selleck replied that his job was to play characters—people nothing like him–as well as he could, and he couldn’t imagine why anyone would care what he had to say about politics.
I’ve purchased every one of his DVDs since.
Selleck’s rational understanding of the role of entertainers and the necessity of not alienating half his potential audience is largely rejected by today’s celebrities. Ed Sheeran, a fellow whose name barely rang a bell and whose music I don’t believe I’ve ever heard, demonstrated remarkable sanity by firing “Macklemore,” a rapper unknown to me, and whose “music” I’m certain I’ve never heard, for pushing Islamist propaganda rather than doing his job as an opening act on Sheeran’s tour. The eternally aggrieved forced Sheeran to issue a weepy apology. Sheeran, like too many people, doesn’t understand that such people can’t be appeased.
Tatiana Maslany, an actress who, through no fault of her own, had the title role in Marvel’s “She Hulk” debacle, apparently doesn’t understand what “entertainer” means. Like some of the other perpetually aggrieved, she was triggered by this Tom Selleck comment:
Graphic: X Post
To their discredit, apparently some Republicans were upset by Selleck’s rational observation that a politician is a “mixed bag.” I’ve never refrained from criticizing Trump when criticism was due. My default holds all politicians to be liars, fools, and scoundrels, but I’m open to being pleasantly surprised, as I have been with Trump. I don’t expect anyone to completely agree with me, but I do expect politicians to uphold and defend the Constitution and to always put America first.
Maslany made a point that seems, on its surface, to be at least somewhat plausible:
“Artists are like mirrors to the world, to society,” Maslany told Mehdi Hasan during a Monday appearance on the Zeteo podcast. “We have to name things — it’s, like, such an important, intrinsic part of our job.”
She was prompted to be a bit more specific:
“I was just watching Tom Selleck, the legendary TV actor, Magnum, P.I., he was on CNN,” the journalist recalled. “Somebody asked him about: ‘You don’t speak out about Trump.’”
“The interviewer [podcaster Mehdi Hasan] asked him, ‘You’re not one of these celebs who’s slammed Trump.’ And he said, ‘Look, I don’t dabble in politics because I don’t understand why you want to piss off half the country if your job is entertaining the country,’” Hasan added.
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“And Michael Jordan said, ‘Republicans buy shoes, too’ — what is your response to that argument?” he asked, to which Maslany replied by arguing, “But, all of it is political, like, everything is political.”
The Orphan Black star went on to insist, “All entertainment is political, because it has a viewpoint, and it has a perspective. It has visual representation of the world we live in or the kinds of things that are funny or acceptable.”
Maslany is correct in that politics affects us all. The Founders created our representative, constitutional Republic to protect us from the worst aspects of human nature and politics and to ensure they affect our daily lives, property, and unalienable rights as little as possible. Maslany’s view apparently comes from the “our democracy” ethos, where everything is indeed about politics, because “our democracy” is merely a temporary steppingstone to a communist, totalitarian, one-party state.
In that kind of polity, everything really is politics, including speech and certainly entertainment. Writers and actors are free only to produce state-approved “art.”
We’ve recently been reminded that classic art such as The Odyssey has endured because it speaks to man’s universal motivators: love, family, adventure, heroism, self-sacrifice, hard work, loyalty, dedication, freedom, and accomplishment. I’ll judge how faithfully Christopher Nolan stayed true to those qualities when I eventually see the movie on DVD. Apparently, there was some attempt to inject contemporary politics into that ancient story, but we hunger for those themes so much—not for politics or “our democracy”—that Americans were willing to overlook them. Nolan’s film was a commercial success in a summer of flops.
I won’t seek out Maslany’s work, but as long as Tom Selleck performs and stays true to entertaining rather than political hectoring, I’ll gladly support him.
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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, lifelong athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer, and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.
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