There was once a time when the counterculture realm of
musicians, actors, writers, and other artists defiantly stood up to The Man. Today
they eagerly line up to serve as emissaries of a Big Government agenda.
According to The Hollywood Reporter and The Washington Post, President
Obama’s Rasputin – that is, senior advisor Valerie
Jarrett – hosted a meeting Monday with a gaggle of actors, musicians,
writers and producers who a White House official says have “expressed a
personal interest in educating young people about” the laughably mistitled
Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare. You can bet these sycophants
also have a “personal interest” in ingratiating themselves with White House
power and basking in the glow of their Sun King, Obama.
Obama knows that young people are a demographic crucial to his
program’s success; the White House estimates
that of the approximately 7 million expected
new enrollees in 2014, 2.7 million — or nearly 40 percent — of them will be
young people. He also knows how to reach those people effectively, as he has
always done – through pop culture.
Oscar winner and Weight Watchers icon Jennifer Hudson, Kal Penn (who
alternates between TV doctor and Associate Director in the White House Office
of Public Engagement), comic actors Amy Poehler and Michael
Cera, Mike Farah of the
incredibly popular comedy website Funny or Die, The Talk co-host
Aisha Tyler, comedy network
JASH and YouTube Comedy producer Daniel
Kellison, Royal Pains TV show creator Andrew Lenchewski, and singer Jason Derulo attended the meeting.
Representatives from singer Alicia Keys, rocker Bon Jovi, and waning-but-still-influential media giant Oprah Winfrey didn’t
personally attend, but sent representatives. Also present were reps from the National Academy of Recording Arts and
Sciences, the Latin Recording Academy, the Grammys, and the Latin Grammys as well –
naturally, since the White House wants to reach 10 million Latino voters who
will qualify for Obamacare benefits.
“We're thrilled
to work with the president and his staff to build a new marketing effort using
the tools that Hollywood knows how to use best — reaching young people through
social media, interesting content and authentic personal stories,” said Entertainment
Advisory Council co-chair Eric Ortner,
who helped organize the gathering along with Kal Penn and others. One of those “authentic stories” belongs to
singer Derulo, who fractured a vertebra in his neck in 2011 while rehearsing
for a tour. He told the group that his life was saved thanks to his health
coverage. Right, because otherwise doctors would surely have just let him die.
“For the first
time in history,” Penn intoned, “young people tweeting and reading about the
law and passing the benefits along to their friends through word of mouth is
something that is unique to this generation.” Actually, what is even more
unique to this generation is its wholesale willingness to embrace Big
Government dependency and to feel self-satisfied while doing it.
Some who attended
are already promoting the healthcare behemoth. Funny or Die and YouTube, as a
White House spokesman said, are at work “on production for several web videos
featuring well-known comedic celebrities and actors,” such as Will Ferrell, who
has practically made a second career stumping for Obama.
Internally in the
industry, a program at the USC
Annenberg Norman Lear Center called Hollywood, Health & Society (HH&S) has begun holding panel
discussions about Obamacare. The program claims it “provides entertainment
industry professionals with accurate and timely information for health
storylines.”
Last month HH&S featured a panel called “Stayin’ Alive:
The Truth About Obamacare,” which mixed “wonkish facts with Hollywood sizzle.” “We’re
here this evening,” said HH&S Director Sandra de Castro Buffington in
introducing the panel members, “because TV and film are powerful forces in
raising awareness.” “Raising awareness,” by the way, is often Hollywood-speak
for “indoctrinating the young masses.” “Both are mighty allies in providing
accurate information and debunking myths,” said Buffington. It’s also useful in
spreading disinformation and perpetuating myths, depending on the message and
the messenger.
Ironically, Hollywood
is shilling for Obamacare even though it’s about to hit Hollywood studios hard.
Eric Belcher of Cast & Crew Entertainment Services says “It's a
morass of regulations and requirements… and it wasn't written with this
industry in mind.” Mark Goldstein
of Entertainment Partners, which has held 16 seminars to help studios make
sense of this morass, says: “It's going to be a very big deal.”
That’s because
not only will Hollywood producers face hefty fines if they don’t correctly
classify employees as full- or part-time, seasonal or variable – a task which
is more complicated in Hollywood than it might seem – but Hollywood accountants
are still trying to determine how much Obamacare will add to movie budgets. “Do
I expect the cost of doing business to go up? Yes, I do,” says Mike Rose of Ease Entertainment
Services. “[Obamacare] is on everybody's lips,” said one Hollywood payroll
company rep. “Our clients need to know that the days of 100 percent employer-paid
benefits at a certain executive level can no longer exist.”
An additional
consequence: Hollywood has long struggled with the problem of “runaway
production” of movies and TV shows filming in less expensive, less
business-restrictive countries. Obamacare will likely exacerbate this.
Hollywood folk are
capitalists at heart but desperate to prove themselves to be caring saviors. Usually,
their affluence and celebrity largely shield them from the sometimes messy
impact of their social engineering. But maybe not this time.
(This article originally appeared here on FrontPage Mag, 7/24/13)
