Ann Althouse has a blog post about a NYT article on celebrities and politics. Her post ends with the question, "does the near-unanimity of celebrity endorsement for anti-Bush create a deep-seated feeling that all the cool people are on the left?".
I guess it depends on how you define "cool". Is coolness determined by who has the most CD or movie ticket sales? Is it a popularity contest? Does being more popular with younger people make a celebrity cooler than one who is liked by older people? Are rock musicians cooler than country musicians?
For me, neither success at one's job nor popularity indicates coolness. (If being good at your job made you cool, then in high school only the A students would be cool.) The people I've known who I would consider cool were well liked but not necessarily the most popular. Coolness isn't based on their talents, it's whether or not they are enjoyable to be with.
Rock may be considered cooler than country music but does that make rock musicians cooler than country musicians? I'm generalizing here and it may have as much to do with how the stations cover the artists but when I watch shows on MTV, VH1, or CMT about different artists, it seems as though the country stars are more willing to spend time with their fans and to give the fans more credit for their success than the rock stars do. That's cool.
So, is Alec Baldwin cooler than Stephen Baldwin? Is Bruce Springsteen cooler than Alice Cooper? I liked Alec Baldwin in Hunt for Red October and I've seen a couple other movies he's been in. I don't think I've ever seen anything his brother has been in. I enjoy more Springsteen songs than I do Cooper ones although I've bought records by both. I haven't met any of these people. The only way I have to judge their personalities instead of their job performance is by interviews I've read or seen on TV. Going by that makes me think that Alice Cooper is intelligent, funny, and doesn't seem to take himself too seriously. Again, that's cool.
Posted by marybeth at August 29, 2004 05:00 PM Other Stuff