The Gulag Glitterati

National Review  Online, November 1, 2000

Poor, poor Elizabeth Hurley. As a fembot in The Spy who Shagged Me, she tried to get the best of Austin Powers. Her fate? Blown to pieces by Doctor Evil. Brutal, yes, but quick. Ms. Hurley's latest opponents, Gulag glitterati Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, may not be so gentle. The English actress, they say, has done them wrong, and she must be punished. Severely. Her offense dates back to July when she shot a commercial for Estee Lauder. Hurley claims that she was unaware that such filming would be treated as crossing a picket line by her union, SAG, the Screen Actors Guild. Indeed, being based in the U.K., she just "did not know" that the union was on strike. Whatever the explanation, SAGtivist Susan Sarandon was outraged. As for Tim Robbins, her long-time partner, well, he seems to have been channeling Stalin's prosecutor, the late, and much-missed, Andrei Vyshinsky. "We are bringing Hurley to trial," he foamed, "She will not get away with it." Note that "we." As Mr. Robbins, a prominent supporter of the strike, well knows, his comments are likely to resonate with those union officials responsible for deciding the former fembot's fate. The consequences of a "guilty" verdict could be serious. The equally influential Ms. Sarandon has supported calls for a lifetime ban on "scab" actors. If the case goes against Ms. Hurley she may never work in Hollywood again.

This is not a problem that is likely to face her tormentors. The spectacle of two successful stars threatening to destroy the career of a fellow actor, would, you might think, at least raise a flicker of concern or a murmur of protest, but it has not. No one is even asking what it is about Ms Hurley that has so enraged Mr. Robbins. After all, she is not the highest profile performer to have crossed the picket lines. Tiger Woods, for example, broke union rules to shill for Buick (he has since been fined for this offense), while Shaquille O'Neal did the same for Disney. On these cases, however, the exquisitely PC Sarandon and Robbins are not reported as having had much to say. Criticizing Elizabeth Hurley, a foreigner, was one thing. Telling the popular athletes, People of Color after all, where they could or could not work, might have been altogether more awkward.

Awkward questions are not something that Robbins and Sarandon have often had to face. This is despite a history of political activism that has lasted decades and in Robbins's case, even stretches as far back as a "progressive" childhood during which a tiny Tim would occasionally perform on stage with his father, a Greenwich Village folk singer. Susan Sarandon began more conventionally (arrested in Vietnam War protests, worked in a Nicaraguan hospital during the Sandinista dictatorship and so on), but she has now developed a red repertoire equal to that of the great left-wing divas of Hollywood's past. Lillian Hellman may have scribbled for Stalin, and Hanoi Jane was pleased to peer down a gun sight for Uncle Ho, but that was easy. In those days of ideological struggle and clashing armies it was not too difficult to find something dramatic to do. By contrast, until the recent election, the greatest political excitement of our age had revolved around a semen-stained dress, hardly the most glamorous backdrop for an actress who seems to see herself as the most substantial world-historical figure since, oh, I don't know, Vanessa Redgrave.

But that has not stopped our heroine, supported more often than not by Tim Robbins. The couple's causes are many, misguided, and multiplying. It is not difficult to find some recent examples. If Sarandon and Robbins prevail, Hurley is not going to "get away with it," but cop-killer Mumia just might. They are hard on Giuliani, and soft on Saddam (they opposed the Gulf War in 1990, and they oppose the Iraq trade embargo now). However, the Iraqi chamber of commerce should not expect too much business from an America run by these silver-screen dunces: both actors are, of course, anti-free trade and pro-Nader.

There's more. Ms. Sarandon is against sugar, white flour, and dairy products for her kids and against you having a gun to defend yours. Private Ryan, she feels, was a bad thing ("basically tells you if you want to be a guy you now have to kill at point-blank range"), and Dr. Laura is worse. On immigration policy, however, matters are a little confused. Robbins and Sarandon campaigned for the admission to the U.S. of refugees (HIV positive Haitians) from one Caribbean hellhole, while supporting the return of Elian Gonzalez to another.

Nonsense, of course, but unfortunately it matters. Idiots, too, have consequences. Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins may be more extreme than most, but they certainly contribute to the liberal mood music that the media is giving us as the soundtrack of our times. We know the tune, and we have been taught the words. What is depressing is that so many people should choose to sing along on the basis of a celebrity say-so.

Doing what famous folk tell you to do should not be the American way, and yet, increasingly, it is — just ask the presidential candidates who appeared on Oprah. Susan Sarandon too recognizes the power of her celebrity, and, reasonably enough, sees nothing wrong in using it to promote her own agenda. What is unreasonable is that anyone pays any attention. But, dazzled by her glamour, fame, and, yes, money, they do.

The result is an Old Country deference, a courtiers' crawling like that which used to be seen at the feet of princelings and duchesses, a groveling of a type that people once fled to America to avoid.

A quick glance at some recent media comment is revealing. In the course of a tough discussion on the Lifetime cable channel, interviewer Dana Reeve noted that Ms. Sarandon had been "an advocate for human rights ever since..[Sarandon] could speak." The writer of a rigorous profile in the Los Angeles Times, meanwhile, reported that the actress "does not intimidate; she comforts and inspires…she offers hope." To the clear-thinkers at Variety she is a 'model of civic selflessness'.

It is only fair to point out Susan Sarandon supports some good causes as well as the bad, AIDS research, for example, but this only adds to her resemblance to some Lady Bountiful from feudal times, visiting the grateful, but ignorant, peasants to dispense largesse and give out advice.

Sometimes that advice was sensible, sometimes not, and it always had a sub-text: The nobility were superior, enlightened folk, caring sorts who knew what was best for you. And as the peons always understood, it was best not to get on the wrong side of them.

This is a lesson that the unfortunate Elizabeth Hurley is learning. She was quick to write a Bukharin-in-the-Lubianka-style letter to the union, " If I could undo the situation I would, but I cannot. I did not try to hide the situation: I apologized immediately…but I cannot rewrite history. I was then, and am now deeply sorry about what happened and the pain and disappointment that it has caused the membership…. It will not happen again." She also "gave" $25,000 to SAG's strike fund. Maybe that will do the trick, and the Englishwoman will "get away" with a fine and/or a suspension, but, for the moment, she is still facing an end to her career in Tinseltown. However, she has been humbled in a way that should appeal to the most demanding of Lady Bountifuls. Surely then Susan Sarandon will, in the end, offer Miss Hurley some of that famous "comfort," and call for clemency.

After all, isn't she meant to be an opponent of Hollywood blacklists?