2012 was arguably the year that
pop culture – of which Hollywood is the gravitational center – and politics
intersected and fueled each other more than ever before. The stories that
defined America in 2012 were the ones that revealed just to what degree society’s
movers and shakers now recognize how crucial Hollywood’s messages and pop
culture influence are.
Here is just a partial list of
notable pop culture/political collisions in 2012:
Hollywood icon Clint Eastwood
delivered a quirky Republican convention address directed at President Obama,
represented by an empty chair. It swiftly became a wildly popular cultural meme
on both sides of the political fence.
In support of Obama’s reelection, Girls creator Lena Dunham narrated and
appeared in an official campaign video called “My First Time,” in which she
compared voting for the President to losing one’s virginity. Hers was only the
most controversial of a slew
of other pro-Obama videos put forth by Hollywood stars like Will Ferrell and
Cher.
The music biz got into the act as
well, whether intentionally or not. Just before his performance before our
President himself, South Korea’s Psy, the “Gangnam Style” rapper behind the
most-watched video in YouTube history, drew fire for an earlier rap in which he
wished death upon American servicemen and their families. Megastar singer Katy Perry,
wearing a skin-tight dress designed like a voting ballot with the box for Obama
checked off, performed
at his campaign rallies, and lesser music stars from aging rocker John
Mellencamp to recording artist will.i.am also assisted
in the last-minute campaigning.
Speaking of directors, Steven
Spielberg released his epic Lincoln,
a surefire Oscar contender, which focused on one of the most historic votes in
American, if not world, history – the vote to end slavery.
At the opposite end of the
cinematic spectrum, the shady filmmaker behind the hilariously amateurish trailer for a film about
the Muslim prophet Muhammad became the center of an international political
storm when the YouTube video was blamed by both our own State Department and
Islamists abroad for violent rioting in the Middle East and the murders of
Americans in Benghazi.
Meanwhile the media debated
possible “Islamophobic” messages in “terrortainment”
such as the highly-regarded Showtime series Homeland
and the bin Laden hunt movie Zero Dark
Thirty. The latter stirred up so much outrage over the issue of enhanced
interrogation such as waterboarding, that bipartisan Senators rushed to issue a
statement
demanding that the filmmakers acknowledge the movie’s “grossly inaccurate”
message.
Most tragically, in the aftermath
of a mass murder in a cinema during a showing of the Batman finale The Dark Knight Rises, and of the recent
massacre of schoolchildren in Connecticut, everyone from senators
to the NRA
pointed the finger at Hollywood for creating a violence-saturated culture.
All these instances, in which the
entertainment biz is intimately bound up with the most dramatic and traumatic
episodes of our time, point to the inescapable conclusion that pop culture is
more than just a shallow, youth-oriented distraction. In 2012 it is a force
that, for better or worse, is shaping our political landscape as well. Maybe
that’s what the Mayans were really getting at when they designated this as the
year of the apocalypse.
(This article originally appeared here on Acculturated, 12/26/12)