Politainment

David Geffen is an entertainer. He is the “G” in Dreamworks SKG, owner of both Geffen Records (John Lennon, Guns ‘n’ Roses, Weezer, &c.) and Geffen Film Company (Beetlejuice, Beavis and Butt-head Do America), and namesake of the Geffen Center at LA’s Museum of Contemporary Art to name a few.
So why is his recent spat with Hillary Clinton making such waves in the political arena?
Entertainment is among the most profitable sectors in America’s service based economy. In the recent explosion of new media entertainment, thousands of bloggers have focused their pages on the political arena, while 24-hour “news” channels fill their hours with not news but political commentary. Millions of dollars change hands every day in the form of subscription fees, advertising revenues, and the salaries of the talking heads.
The stars are colliding. Geffen is now in major support of Democratic Presidential hopeful Barack Obama. A former talk-show host is President Bush’s press secretary. Voters almost expect a gubernatorial candidate to have acting somewhere on their resume. Nearly every college student would take a bid for the Presidency by comedian John Stewart far more seriously than any of the current players.
Politics has always been considered a service, but over time the service provided has transitioned from carving out a brand new political philosophy (ah, the 18th century!) to endless stump speeches delivered solely to be cut up into sound bites and distributed across the country to become the nation’s evening entertainment.
So here we have it. Americans are more prosperous than ever, able to spend progressively more of their leisure time consuming non-essential services provided by others. Some choose to watch “Reality” TV programming such as “Survivor” or “Fear Factor,” while others partake of MSNBC or Fox News Channel in the spirit of being active participants in the nation’s wellbeing. But I must question whether there is any difference between watching the breakup of a celebrated couple in the tabloids or a bitter partisan exchange between politicians and “experts” on DirecTV channel 360.
Which is worse: to sell voyeurism and self-centered paranoia blatantly as such or to dress these up as “politics,” creating endless conflict for the sake of attracting attention and dividing Americans? Is it more beneficial to take the prescribed dosage of amphetamines to escape reality or consume the bright, shiny, and sweet rat poison wholeheartedly out of service to our fellow man?