Thursday, September 17, 2009
Matt Damon looks very Political
Well this has swayed my opinion. If I were a resident of New York, and was previously undecided or was voting against Mike Bloomberg, I would change my mind after seeing this. I mean, Matt Damon. In an earlier posting I discussed the role of the public intellectual, maybe I should revisit that.
Mr Damon is a skilled actor, but he is not exactly the first person I would look to for political advice. Or the second. Or the third. I like to consider myself a fairly intelligent person, and all I can get from this add is that Mr Bloomberg's campaign comittee acknowledges that many people are swayed by these kind of things. If they somehow worked in at least a few of Bloomberg's views or policy ideas, the add would be much better. At least it does the rest of the intelligent world a favor and acknowledges that yes, this is a fairly dumb idea, but it appeals to the masses.
I am generally not a fan of celebrities endorsing political candidates, if only because most celebrities seem to know at most one issue their selected politician has taken a stand on. Mr Damon and a few others like him are slightly more involved, but this is not their profession. They are not political pundits, they are people who have public support because, in Mr Damon's case, he can steal millions from a corrupt casino owner and thwart terrorist attacks all in the span of a single year. They are people who have millions of followers on Twitter, but one or two ideas about how run a country.
This ad at least admits that and simply tries to move past it. Ideally, someone like Andrew Sullivan would be in a commercial saying they endorse a candidate. While he may be much more politically inclined and have more knowledge on the topic, he does not have the mass appeal of Jason Bourne. And unfortunately, Jason Bourne is who the masses want to get their political advice from.
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I don't think it's fair to assume that celebrities are uninformed about political issues. Plenty of the celebrities that endorse political candidates (like Obama last year) are well-educated. I'd even give Matt Damon some credit, as he attended Harvard (he didn't graduate, but he went there for four years, so I wouldn't consider him unintelligent).
ReplyDeleteIt's stupid if people trust celebrities to make their decisions for them without any research into the topic. And you're right, that commercial wasn't informative at all. But it was funny, and it's not like Matt Damon could say anything about Bloomberg's policies that he couldn't say about himself during his campaign. Anyone who was really interested could just look him up on wikipedia and find everything they need to know. It's just a good way for Matt Damon to show his support. He has the ability to do so, and that's a great privilege, so why not?
My point here is not to criticise celebs for their support, but rather to express the notion that people are in fact stupid. As you said, It's stupid if people trust celebrities to make their decisions for them without any research into the topic. Unfortunately, people do look to people like Matt Damon (who I even gave a bit of credit to, and is probably one of the more informed celebrities in this area) to make their decisions for them. Because Matt Damon said so, they don't bother looking positions up on Wikipedia.
ReplyDeleteI am all for Damon supporting Bloomberg (or whoever), but it is the fact that his endorsement sways votes not beacuse he went to Harvard, but because he is a spy, that irks me. I am saying as (hopefully) a nonmember of the uneducated masses, celebrity endorsements are not the best because they focus on star power rather than politicians' performance.
If people are indeed stupid like you assert, they probably aren't paying attention to policy issues or really aware of what's going on in an election anyway. It's unfortunate, but that's just the way it is - more people participate in voting for American Idol than they do a presidential election. With that in mind, Bloomberg might be clever to incorporate a celebrity into his campaign. It's a window of opportunity - he's attracting the people who would have never paid attention in the first place. Informed people like you will do their research and find out more and want to hear more about what matters. In this case, however, this is purely about reaching out to the average voter or nonvoter. It's a bit disillusioning, I know, but it's politics, and lot of campaigning is about showing personality. And even though they don't discuss policy, this is one just ad, which admittedly, is kind of amusing. People might be swayed after watching that to Google him and find out more, whereas he might not have ever caught their attention otherwise.
ReplyDeleteAlso, you introduced the idea of the public intellectual in this post. Are you saying Matt Damon, or celebrities who act as pundits, are public intellectuals?
I completely agree with the a la Cart. The issue at hand here is not what kind of credibility celebrities have to make an endorsement, or even whether they truly support what it is. Rather, it's that many people are just too simple-minded to be truly informed about their civic duties. Instead, applying the distributive property makes a whole lot more sense(?): Matt Damon likes Mayor Bloomberg, therefore, I like Mayor Bloomberg.
ReplyDeleteA note to Taylor, I am not advocating that Matt Damon is a public intellectual.
ReplyDeleteI think it's pretty clear that the marginally intelligent would not be swayed by Damon and Bloomberg's little bit. However, there are a decent amount of people who will be seduced by Damon's wit and charm. For this you have to give Bloomberg some props. If this little BS commercial garners him more support he is achieving his goal of influencing the public which is his job as a politician.
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