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Dixies, dissent and dollars

I don't believe in boycotting people because of what they say. Sure, I make fun of George Clooney and Madonna for trying to be political pundits when they are not, but I am not going to give up George Clooney movies just because he subcribes to an opposite ideology than I do. I like George Clooney movies.

On the other hand, I don't own anything by Madonna, but that's because I think she is a talentless hack and has nothing to do with her political stance.

So when the Dixie Chicks did their little "I hate George Bush" number over in Europe, I thought it was nothing more than a misguided, opportunistic sound-bite - the girls trying to connect with their Blair-bashing, USA-hating audience. Sure it was crass and even a bit idiotic on their part. But that's what free speech gets you. You take the good, you take the bad. They come part and parcel with the freedom to run your mouth.

Which all gave me just as much right to call the girls idiots or wankers or really bad musicians. Yin and yang, you know?

So months later, the Dixie Chicks are crying that their dissent has cost them dearly. They have been branded and boycotted and berated. This is where the old adage "think before you speak" comes into play. Maybe they have learned something from this.

Actually, they have learned something. They learned that radio-station prompted boycotts are meaningless and no matter how many people want to stamp on your right to free speech, and no matter how many fans of yours claim that they will never, ever listen to your music again and they will tear down your posters and boycott your concerts, American consumers are basically full of shit and when their radio is turned off and their anti-Dixie Chicks newsletter has been deleted from their mailbox, they will run out and buy the new cd.

The Dixie Chicks are more popular now than ever. They have made a career move out of a negative situation. Number one on Billboard, prime-time television interviews, the cover of Entertainment Weekly. Yes, dissent is patriotic, because very public dissent keeps you in the public eye, which leads to that great American past time of keeping the cash registers ringing. Capitalism at its finest.

I mean, who would really know that Tim Robbins still existed (except as Mr. Sarandon) if not for his public tirades against George Bush? Would Bill Maher have a tv show or Michael Moore an Oscar or Arianna Huffington a website if not for loud, public dissent?

It's a marketing tool. The people who decry capitalism and all things America are the ones scooping up the cash by the fistful because they cry the loudest.

Don't cry for the Dixie Chicks. They have risen to the top of the pop culture ladder because they said some nasty things about the president.

Ain't that America?

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» TOOK THE WORDS RIGHT OUT OF MY MOUTH from Heretical Ideas
Michele has a nice little piece about "boycotting" celebrities that pretty much says it all.I don't believe in boycotting people because of what they say. Sure, I make fun of George Clooney and Madonna for trying to be political pundits... [Read More]

Comments

Yeah, I didn't mean to come off like I was boycotting Clooney in a recent post. I just meant I find him personally distasteful now because he pokes fun at guys with Alzheimer's when he has no other argument to offer up. That'll cloud my enjoyment of his work a little, but I won't altogether stop watching him. O Brother Where Art Thou? still rocks the world, especially that picnic scene with John Goodman's Cyclops.

"Our right to free speech is being restricted! It's being restricted all over the cover of an entertainment magazine which has one of the largest circulations in America!" Heh, that's great.

But you know, I really wish I'd had magic marker duty the day of that shoot.

Good eye on the Chicks' cash-register dissent. If the England concert comments were continuing to hurt sales, they would just drop it. But being the victims of censorship, that is priceless pub. Just ask 2LiveCrew.

hahahah

i hope this doesn't mean senator
Satan-ori
will now be more popular
with all his controversial ant-gay crap

FYI
i did the think the dixie chicks had balls
being southern belles trashing bush

was kinda like when katie lang
went anti meat
she lost half her audience

and yeah
im with you
on the whole any news is good news thing
my agent says
the only way i can published is to get known
so im looking to be part of the next
monica lewinsky style scandal
do you know any female political figures
i can shack up with?

www.revoketheoscar.com

"any publicity is good publicity."

"i don't care what you say about me, just spell my name right."

ok. that's all.

So what's wrong with boycotting Clooney, Chicks, et al? Ya'll talk like it's akin to giving up eating green vegetables or something.

If they have to take the good with the bad, then I suppose the "bad" is less $$ in their already fat bank accounts. It's nice for me to know that I can contribute to this in some tiny measure.

Realizing that they have a soap box that is one thousand times bigger than the average Joe's, these dolts should use their brains a little before opening their pie-holes.

Crap, I blew the HTML, I think>

There's nothing inherently wrong with boycotting celebrities. It's just the process complicates one's life, so most people don't bother. I think the issue is, which is easier: to boycott, or to do the mental work of dissociating the memory of a celebrity's political stupidity or bile from the performance you're trying to enjoy. If the second is easier, and undoubtedly for many people it is, then boycotting makes no sense.

Actually, they've been hit & hit hard.
They're #1 on the country chart, but they were dominating the position a month ago while being #1 on the billboard chart (overall, regardless of genre). They're now at #30 and falling fast. 30 spots in a month isn't far from a nosedive.

Their single 'travelin' soldier' was #1. It fell out of the top 20 within three weeks, replaced by Darryl Worley's "Have you forgotten".

Their overall sales are down and their concerts were mainly sold out long before this whole brouhaha began.

The reason they're on a prime-time show is because the official dixie chicks kissup-and-apologize-tour is underway. Their agent gave all that info to a few press outlets & they ran with it and that intervew was about as staged as the Michael Jackson/Lisa Marie kiss a few years ago.

America is a very forgiving nation and things may work out for the gals, but they've been hit with a huge backlash.

They're already rich anyway, so I don't really care what happens to their record sales.

And I might have thought about listening to what they had to say for a second if they had shown up nekkid on the cover of a serious mag, not Entertainment Weekly.

I see nothing wrong with boycotting celebrities because you don't like something about their lives or their viewpoint. I've been boycotting Michael Jackson and Tom Cruise for years. OTOH, even though I don't like what Chrissie Hynde said about the war, I'll still listen to Pretenders music. It's a free market, folks. Spend your money and your time however you like!

They must be hurting awfully bad if they've had to resort to stripping to rescue their careers. The next step?

1. Change genre to Rock
2. Change genre to Banshee-Angst-Princess
3. Change genre to Show-navel-and-gyrate-ass
4. Make a foursome video with Tommy Lee

very observant of you.

Erica Wrote:

And I might have thought about listening to what they had to say for a second if they had shown up nekkid on the cover of a serious mag, not Entertainment Weekly.
[snip]

There's so many things strange about this sentence that I don't know where to begin. (Nothing personal, Erica, but dayum.)

For all of the asshats who have made news during the run up to and during the war (and a special mention to Michael Moore, who is a monumental asshat on any day of the week) I say bravo. You learned the first rule of Hollywood. . .'There's no such thing as bad publicity.'

I don't go out of my way to avoid any of them from my television screen, but then again, I do not go out of my way to purchase any of their products, either.

Besides, the Chicks tried to ruin one of my favorite songs. I don't forgive bad cover jobs with much more prejudice. Heh.

Just my two cents' worth.

Little pink houses for you 'n' me, babe.

Why do we expect a knowledge by people who have just passed one criteria - they're celebrities. They're not more intelligent or more knowing than the average person, I'd bet many celebrities even have a poorer knowledge about politics and stuff than some of the contributors of this site but we care for what they say. I don't get it. When I put a needle into a ballon, how could I wonder that nothing else than air comes out?
And no, of course I don't boycott any celebrity because he supports George Bush. I don't mind, they could support whom they want.

Capitalism? Where? Where?

I said, "And I might have thought about listening to what they had to say for a second if they had shown up nekkid on the cover of a serious mag, not Entertainment Weekly."

And then Margi said, "There's so many things strange about this sentence that I don't know where to begin. (Nothing personal, Erica, but dayum.)"

What I meant to say, and apparently not eloquently enough, was that if they're going to make such a bold (attempt at) a statement in the aftermath of the first bold statement, they could have picked a better mag then Entertainment Weekly. If I saw it on Newsweek or Time or even Rolling Stone, I might think that there was going to be an intelligent article to go along with it. But since it's EW, my perception is that they're sticking with the cheaper variety of sensationalism. And now that I've said all that, I still don't really care what they have to say.

Am I the only one who thinks the women in this country are seriously and disturbingly FUBAR'ed??

I mean gees, the Dixie Chicks get a reality check, and how do they react under pressure? They strip and pose naked for a magazine. What hey? This was the only logical conclusion for them? Strip naked and all their problems will go away? Have they been getting advice from Britney Spears?

Bloody hell.

Erica - Oh. Well, that's different. Heh. I think I agree with Caleb. Although if I say something shitty and then decide to strip to make up for it, I'm quite sure the only thing I would do would be to piss people off, more.

Update.
They're now #3 on the country charts & 33 on the overall sales chart.

Who is #1?
Darryl Worley.