Speak no evil: With presidential campaign, celebs are taking sides

Brrr. It's the height of summer, but there's a chill in the air. We're talking about the deepfreeze that can set in when entertainers get deep-sixed for sharing their political views.

The latest evidence? In little more than a week, three entertainers have experienced audience rage, the loss of a contract and being dropped from a booking -- all for speaking their minds.

Exhibit A: Linda Ronstadt -- who performs tonight at Pier 62/63 -- was booed by some audience members, while others tore her posters and threw drinks in the air at the Aladdin hotel in Las Vegas after she dedicated the '70s hit "Desperado" to filmmaker Michael Moore, whom she called a "great American patriot." Hotel management said she was hired to entertain, not espouse her political views. She was "asked to leave the property immediately."

Exhibit B: Whoopi Goldberg was fired by Slim-Fast for, well, being Whoopi Goldberg. At a star-studded fund-raiser for John Kerry, Goldberg, well-known for her liberal bent, riffed on her genitalia and the president's name.

Exhibit C: Feminist, bisexual comedian Margaret Cho, no stranger to speaking her mind, was fired before performing for the liberal, gay-rights group the Human Rights Campaign this week in conjunction with the Democratic Convention. (The group says its gathering is about gay unity and Cho plans to go beyond that topic. Her camp responds that the political climate drove the decision.)

So far Ronstadt's July 17 experience has been generating the most debate, possibly because people were surprised at both the dedication and the hostile response directed at the genteel 58-year-old singer. Letter writers to the Las Vegas papers have pondered whether Ronstadt would have been booed for dedicating a song to President Bush.

"Maybe I've been oblivious, but I haven't seen her on the frontline of any anti-war rallies," said Peter Blecha, a Seattle curator and author of "Taboo Tunes: A History of Banned Bands and Censored Songs." "I thought she was a mainstream, moderate, nice patriotic person, but Bush has crossed the line and has brought people like her out of the woodwork."

It's not news that a majority of artists and entertainers seem to identify themselves as left-leaning and many already have been attacking the Patriot Act and complaining about a climate of hostility to expression. Conservatives say they're simply out of touch with much of America.

Though few are questioning Ronstadt's or any other performer's First Amendment rights to free speech, at the same time, some are happy to shout them down. Shut up and sing, they say. And if you dare to speak your mind, well, prepare to pay the price.

Kirby Wilbur, a morning show host at conservative talk radio station KVI, said both sides of the political divide try to take advantage of such situations. Most of his listeners who called in said the casino management has a right to fire Ronstadt.

"That's the free market. And it's a risk that celebrities take," Wilbur said. "If you don't want to take that, shut up, play your music and take your millions."

Most artists seem to understand the risks, but they still abhor the chilling effect on speech, and the nastiness with which some people respond to their remarks.

"I received hate mail at my house. I've had people drive by my home and shout things out," singer Jon Bon Jovi told The Associated Press last month after being criticized for holding a fund-raiser for John Kerry. "And I think that they question my patriotism because I decided to stand up and have a voice. And I stood up to have a voice because I think that's the most American thing that you can do."

Ronstadt isn't shutting up either.

"I'll damn well say what I please, as I always have," she told the Tuscon Citizen. "And if they cancel my show, they'll just be doing me a favor. They'll still have to pay me and I could use a day off."

She continued to make her encore dedication to Moore at sold-out concerts in San Diego and the Bay Area, where some fans angrily walked out in response. In Los Angeles, the dedication received a loud standing ovation, according to the Los Angeles Times. With a more liberal audience here, it's a good bet she'll do so at tonight's pier show.

And apparently we have not heard the last of Ronstadt at the Aladdin, which has prospective new owners who say they plan to invite her back, along with Michael Moore. The filmmaker wrote a letter to the current casino owner proposing that he and Ronstadt sing a duet of "America the Beautiful."

Shut up and sing? No way, fire back many artists and entertainers, who say they're not parrots who entertain on command. The very nature of what artists do is express themselves.

"It's up to the artist(s) to determine what's appropriate in their performance. It's not up to the audience," says Ann Powers, senior curator at Experience Music Project. "If you want a night of harmless music and no political statements, then you can stay home."

Paul Severin, of One Reel, which is producing Ronstadt's Seattle appearance, says they've received a few unpleasant e-mails, but no ticket cancellations.

"We never ask an artist, 'What are you going to say?' " said Severin. "That's not our role. We're a producer."

If artists speaking their political minds bugs you, get ready for a bumpy campaign season. This year, it seems that just about everyone in entertainment is spouting off or getting involved in politics. At a time when the country is deeply polarized, and civic discourse often has become, well, uncivil or downright hostile, it's not terribly surprising that performers are feeling the heat when they speak out.

Some are saying this election year has seen more artists get political than any time since the Vietnam era.

In the hip-hop music world, Public Enemy, Eminem and Slum Village held a Hip-Hop Summit in April and vowed to register 20 million new voters to oppose Bush.

Around 200 liberal or left-leaning bands, including Green Day, No Doubt, Blink 182 and Foo Fighters, have banded together at www.punkvoter.com to help oust Bush and have organized a series of concerts called "Rock Against Bush."

Flip the coin and you find lesser-known bands (Michale Graves of Gotham Road, for example) and others joining together at www.conservativepunk.com to share their right-leaning views with other punkers. Retired punk rocker Johnny Ramone has been increasingly outspoken as a conservative in the past few years.

There also probably are plenty of celebrities who conceal their right-leaning ways for fear of losing work in Hollywood and entertainment circles, which generally are perceived as leftish.

For artists, predicting when a remark will cause ire and set tongues wagging is a bit like dodging landmines. Plenty of celebrities have said more polarizing things than Ronstadt, but their remarks haven't necessarily crackled over airwaves or generated rebukes and defenses.

Madonna said in an interview earlier this year that Bush and Saddam Hussein are alike because "they are both behaving in an irresponsible manner."

It seems, at least in part, to be a matter of expectations. People expect Madonna to be edgy and mouthy and out there. This is, after all, the woman who made simulated masturbation part of her concert routine.

"It's interesting to see what makes waves and what doesn't. It's random and that's what's scary for artists," said Powers of EMP.

It also may be that movie stars have more latitude than musicians, said KVI's Wilbur, because they often appear in one or two movies a year and don't face live audiences as often as music performers.

Last year's poster girls for setting conservative radio phone lines ablaze were The Dixie Chicks, one of country music's best-selling acts. When lead singer Natalie Maines told a London audience in March 2003, "Just so you know, we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas," the punishment came swiftly.

A radio chain stripped the Chicks from its playlist and advocated a boycott. A radio station sponsored a CD-burning party and plenty of fightin' words, including death threats, were directed at the ladies.

It seemed to flare largely because those words weren't expected by or acceptable to a country music audience, where flag-waving is the norm.

Just a month after the Chicks became public enemy No. 1, Pearl Jam went further. When lead singer Eddie Vedder "impaled a mask of President Bush on a microphone stand, then slammed it to the stage" while singing the group's anti-Bush song "Bushleaguer," several dozen people exited the stadium, according to the Rocky Mountain News.

But their display didn't create weeks of right-wing radio chatter or hand wringing, perhaps because people expect the members of Pearl Jam to wear their politics on their sleeves.

(It's interesting, too, that the standout instances of remarks followed by outcry seem to have affected largely female performers.)

Of course, controversy can swirl the other way and pump up album sales and movie ticket sales. Call something bad, wrong, slanted or taboo and a lot of people suddenly want to see it for themselves. Michael Moore obviously has profited from the contentiousness surrounding "Fahrenheit 9/11": Movie-going crowds have made his film the highest grossing non-fiction film. And the Chicks did just fine in stores and on their sold-out tour after the blow-up.

"It's hard to find someone who has been the target of a boycotting campaign who has not recovered and, in the long run, benefited," said Blecha.

It's also interesting that the knife seems to cut one way on this: It's liberals or Democrats getting pounded for expressing their views.

After all, Dennis Miller, a comedian like Goldberg, didn't get vilified or lose ad support for his CNBC show when he implied -- at a Bush fund-raiser -- that John Kerry and John Edwards, both married heterosexuals, have a sexual relationship with each other.

"Those two cannot keep their hands off each other, can they? ... I think I have a new idea for a new campaign slogan. Use the bumper sticker 'Hey, Get a Room,' " said Miller, the Washington Post reported.

Blecha, the music curator, said it's tough to find an example of a pro-Bush artist being boycotted or censored, but he cites one example, albeit not a clear one.

Two years ago ABC declined to have Toby Keith perform "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)," on its Fourth of July special. At the time, Keith told USA Today the song (a Sept. 11 response that says, in part, "We'll put a boot in your ass. It's the American way.") was vetoed because the show's host, Peter Jennings, is a Canadian. The network responded that other performers had been considered and Keith's conflicting tour schedule was the main factor in his being dropped from the show.

Searching for other notable examples, all we could find was the 1977 case of Anita Bryant. The former beauty queen contestant and singer was the spokeswoman for Florida orange juice when she became incensed about a Dade County ordinance that granted civil rights protections to gays and worked to repeal it.

"If gays are granted rights, next we'll have to give rights to prostitutes and to people who sleep with St. Bernards and to nail-biters," she said.

Bryant won the ordinance battle, but she also was hit in the face with a pie and lost her orange juice job after gay activists organized a boycott.

So far, there doesn't appear to be a serious boycott effort aimed at Ronstadt. Nor does she seem cowed.

But the freeze is still hovering.

THE POLITICS OF ENTERTAINMENT

DEMOCRATS OR LEFT-LEANING:

Besides the obvious folks, such as Susan Sarandon, Martin Sheen, Rob Reiner, Sean Penn and Robin Williams, the who's who list includes Jennifer Aniston, Brad Pitt, Ben Affleck, Leonardo DiCaprio, George Clooney, Michael Douglas, Tom Hanks, Sarah Jessica Parker, Billy Crystal and Julia Roberts. And, Woody Harrelson, Scarlet Johansson, Danny Glover, Kevin Bacon, Alicia Silverstone and Aaron Sorkin are reportedly working on TV ads against Bush's presidency for the group MoveOn.org.

REPUBLICAN OR RIGHT-LEANING:

Drew Carey, Charlton Heston, Ted Nugent, Dennis Miller, Arnold Schwarzenegger (OK, he's crossed the line to full-blown politico now), Kelsey Grammer, Bruce Willis, Brittany Murphy, Mel Gibson, Heather Locklear, Kid Rock, Lara Flynn Boyle, Matt LeBlanc and Clint Eastwood.

P-I reporter D. Parvaz contributed to this story. P-I reporter Kristin Dizon can be reached at 206-448-8118 or kristindizon@seattlepi.com.

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