Andrew Gumbel: Outspoken stars battle the home front

Hollywood is often depicted in the American media as a hotbed of left-wing politics and anti-government dissent, but that's not how it feels to Ed Gernon.

Gernon was, until recently, a television producer at CBS responsible for a four-part mini series on Hitler's rise to power, which will air in the United States next month. He thought the timing of the series was apt, and said so in an interview in America's TV Guide.

"It basically boils down to an entire nation gripped by fear, who ultimately chose to give up their civil rights and plunged the whole nation into war," he said. "I can't think of a better time to examine this history than now."

That was way too strong for CBS' chief executive, Lesley Moonves, who fired him. No reasons were given.

Another person who doesn't find Hollywood particularly liberal is the comedian and actress Janeane Garofalo, whose outspoken views against the situation in Iraq have made her the object of a vicious email and telephone campaign that has intimidated ABC into pushing her new sitcom, Slice O' Life, back into next year's mid-season.

The network's fear of losing viewers and advertisers seems rather stronger than its desire to defend one of its stars' freedom of speech.

The emerging pattern is that entertainment personalities who speak out on touchy political subjects - particularly Iraq - do so at their peril.

The group intent on stringing up Garofalo, Citizens Against Celebrity Pundits, has campaigned energetically against everyone, from Martin Sheen, whose anti-war views led to a commercial of his being scrapped, to Susan Sarandon, dropped as a speaker at a Florida branch of the umbrella charity group United Way.

And Sarandon's husband Tim Robbins' invitation to attend the 15th anniversary screening of the movie Bull Durham at the National Baseball Hall of Fame was revoked because the hall's president, a former Reagan Administration press secretary, felt his presence might undermine the efforts of US troops in Iraq.

Powerful radio station chains with strong political ties to the Bush White House have also been orchestrating boycotts and hate campaigns against several anti-war performers.

These include the Dixie Chicks, the Texas country trio now fearing for their safety and their plummeting record sales after singer Natalie Maines' comment at a concert in London last month that she was ashamed to come from the same home state as the President.

One radio chain, Cumulus Media, even arranged for a tractor to crush Dixie Chicks' CDs, tapes and videos, in an episode that carried uncomfortable echoes of historical book-burnings.

The venom behind these campaigns is disturbing enough, but there is also a second strand to the story. And that is that Hollywood may not be such a liberal place after all.

As Robbins, one of the film industry's most outspoken voices, said in a speech to the National Press Club in Washington: "I am sick of hearing about Hollywood being against this war. Hollywood's heavy hitters, the real power brokers and cover-of-the-magazine stars, have been largely silent on this issue."

True, several dozen prominent actors and musicians who were opposed to military action in Iraq signed up for a celebrity-led group called Artists United To Win Without War. But recent experience suggests they are in the minority.

Nowhere was this illustrated more clearly than at the Oscars, when the most outspoken of the evening's war critics, Michael Moore, was booed.

Those who had suggested it might be distasteful to go ahead with the shameless glitz of the Academy Awards with the bombs falling on Baghdad were ridiculed by host Steve Martin.

The wife of a Hollywood entertainment lawyer who attended a high-powered pre-Oscar party was shocked to find that most of the assembled company was heavily pro-war. "Here were all these so-called Hollywood liberals making jokes about peace activists and cheering on the troops," she reported.

There is nothing wrong with Hollywood actors or executives being less liberal than their stereotype, but there is something troubling about the way in which their public image is manipulated, especially by the political spin-doctors in Washington.

Hollywood has long been a favourite target of conservatives, who have blamed the entertainment industry for gun violence or drugs or promiscuity.

Now there is an attempt to dismiss the anti-war celebrities in similar fashion, as morally irresponsible, overpaid know-nothings who should keep their mouths shut.

Mike Farrell, one-time star of M*A*S*H who is now one of the industry's most prominent liberal activists, sees a distinct political strategy at work. "The suggestion that Hollywood speaks with one voice is, of course, silly but the perspective articulated in the media, courtesy of the right wing, is that celebrities are taking advantage of their forum to spew left-wing views.

"What this is really about is stifling dissent on a national scale. It doesn't matter a whit whether we are celebrities or not. What galls them so much is that we have access to the media."

The intimidation is having its effect. In his speech to the National Press Club, Robbins cited an unnamed "famous middle-aged rock-and-roller" who thanked him for speaking out against the war but said he did not dare do the same himself because of the power of Clear Channel, the nation's largest radio station owner which has an unabashed pro-Bush agenda.

The Screen Actors Guild has likened the atmosphere to the McCarthy-era anti-Communist witch-hunts of the 1950s, issuing a statement to say it is immoral to deny work to any performer on the basis of his or her political beliefs.

"Even a hint of the blacklist must never again be tolerated in this nation," it said.

Within three hours of that statement being posted, the guild was inundated with hate mail. Nevertheless, the statement remains steadfastly posted on the guild's website.

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Herald Feature: Iraq war