# Are Hollywood celebrities really good spokespeople for other areas? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 9, 2017, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hollywood-celebrities-really-good-spokespeople-for-other-areas/776771 "2017-01-09T22:41:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hollywood-celebrities-really-good-spokespeople-for-other-areas/776771/61 "2017-01-12T02:48:23Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > [The question has been studied](https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/11/election-celebrities-trump-clinton-endorsements-beyonce-springsteen-david-jackson-bowling-green/507383/), and the result is that a celebrity spouting about politics drives people away from the position that the celebrity is advocating. :dubious: That’s not at all what your cite says. It says that celebrity endorsements of **candidates** , not positions, can have an overall negative impact on voters, **unless** the voters already have positive impressions of the celebrity, in which case the endorsement has a **positive** impact. The research on celebrities and specific political **positions** reached different conclusions: > [@](#): > > Initially my research focused on looking at the effect of celebrity endorsements on beliefs about particular topics. What that research had shown was that celebrities taking political positions that were popular could make those positions more popular, or celebrities taking positions that were unpopular could make those positions less unpopular. But there wasn’t a tremendous amount of data showing moving from agree to disagree or disagree to agree. In other words, a reinforcement. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hollywood-celebrities-really-good-spokespeople-for-other-areas/776771/62 "2017-01-12T02:54:04Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > No need to speculate about it. [The question has been studied](https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/11/election-celebrities-trump-clinton-endorsements-beyonce-springsteen-david-jackson-bowling-green/507383/), and the result is that a celebrity spouting about politics drives people away from the position that the celebrity is advocating. > > If Meryl Streep, Kate Perry, and George Clooney wanted to get Hillary elected, then what they should have done is endorsed Trump. **ITR** summarises his cite inaccurately. Perhaps because of this, his conclusion is severely problematic. The researcher in question says that celebrity endorsements tend to have both negative and positive affects on different groups, with the total trending towards a negative response to a positive endorsement (and in fact, even that isn’t exactly true; the researcher talks in terms of actually asking if there would be an effect, not whether there \*was \*an effect, for this particular result). To the contrary of what **ITR** claims, the researcher points out that targeted endorsements would actually seem to be effective in inspiring people towards the candidate that is being advocated. He also gives the example of Oprah endorsing Obama in the primaries as something which likely _did_ have a meaningfully positive effect. He also points out that Trump benefited from the celebrity endorsement of… himself. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hollywood-celebrities-really-good-spokespeople-for-other-areas/776771/63 "2017-01-12T03:53:54Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > :dubious: That’s not at all what your cite says. It says that celebrity endorsements of **candidates** , not positions, can have an overall negative impact on voters, **unless** the voters already have positive impressions of the celebrity, in which case the endorsement has a **positive** impact. The research on celebrities and specific political **positions** reached different conclusions: True enough, I left out details. Fact remains that all the celebrities releasing videos telling us why we have to vote for Hillary, probably moved voters towards Trump, if they had any effect at all. Democrats like to bash rich people all the time. Thy hit “the one percent”, brag about making the rich pay their fair share in taxes, and so forth. Clearly they think it’s smart politics. But for some reason, it doesn’t seem to have occurred to the Hillary campaign that folks’ dislike of the rich might carry over even if the rich people in question are Robert Downey Jr. and Beyonce. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hollywood-celebrities-really-good-spokespeople-for-other-areas/776771/64 "2017-01-12T04:22:15Z")
Exactly. Democrats are like Catholics, they seem to believe you can receive dispensation from the “sin” of being successful if you side with the right causes. But if you’ve told people that the rich are bad and not paying their fair share, that’s going to create enmity towards all rich people. Democrats understand how this works with ethnic and religious minorities, yet they seem confused about why this would also apply to rich people. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hollywood-celebrities-really-good-spokespeople-for-other-areas/776771/65 "2017-01-12T04:33:54Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Fact remains that all the celebrities releasing videos telling us why we have to vote for Hillary, probably moved voters towards Trump, if they had any effect at all. Fact remains that what you said there is not a **fact** , but rather your personal gut feeling. It might well be true, but nothing you’ve said or cited actually demonstrates that it **is** true. [QUOTE=ITR champion] Democrats like to bash rich people all the time. Thy hit “the one percent”, brag about making the rich pay their fair share in taxes, and so forth. [/quote] :dubious: It says something important about today’s political climate that merely making such reasonable and unremarkable statements as that the rich should pay their fair share in taxes, and that an economy that consistently enriches the top 1% while decreasing prosperity and security for the rest is not working properly, can be unironically described as “bashing rich people”. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hollywood-celebrities-really-good-spokespeople-for-other-areas/776771/66 "2017-01-12T05:11:57Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > True enough, I left out details. No, no; “left out details” suggests that what you said was correct, but lacking in context. Or not as full an answer as could have been. What you said was not correct. “I left out details” is not an adequate response to making affirmative claims that your own cite disagrees with. What you left out was truth. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hollywood-celebrities-really-good-spokespeople-for-other-areas/776771/67 "2017-01-12T05:25:28Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Exactly. Democrats are like Catholics, they seem to believe you can receive dispensation from the “sin” of being successful if you side with the right causes. But if you’ve told people that the rich are bad and not paying their fair share, that’s going to create enmity towards all rich people. Democrats understand how this works with ethnic and religious minorities, yet they seem confused about why this would also apply to rich people. You really shouldn’t take **ITR** ’s summary of his cite as accurate; to the contrary; it actually speaks against the claim you’re making here. The researcher talks about how celebrities - including some very rich people - very much do entertain liking and respect which carries over to political endorsements, the key points being whether they’re liked and respected already. He even goes into detail as to what factors seem to be important here. He lists, in order, how well-known the celebrity is, how well-liked the celebrity is, and how credible the celebrity is (again, to the audience in question). No “dispensation from the “sin” of being successful” to be noted. Do you have some other source for POV on this? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hollywood-celebrities-really-good-spokespeople-for-other-areas/776771/68 "2017-01-12T05:26:21Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > My question is though, do you think Hollywood stars make good spokespeople? Do you have a reason to assume they wouldn’t? > [@](#): > > I mean to me, the people in Hollywood live in their own private bubble. They know nothing about life in ordinary America. Watching the old tv show “Politically Incorrect” with Bill Maher years ago, Maher would often make this point with celebrities who were spouting off on politics, environmental, social, and economic issues. Do you have a reason to generalize this observation to all celebrities/actors/Hollywood actors (note the sets are not equivalent)? How does, to use a specific recent example, one’s conveniently negative opinion of Meryl Streep’s profession in and of itself justify a dismissal of her expressed opinion? Of course, even a positive opinion of Steep’s profession should not automatically lend authority to her opinion, but that’s a quite different matter. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hollywood-celebrities-really-good-spokespeople-for-other-areas/776771/69 "2017-01-12T06:48:58Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Watching the old tv show “Politically Incorrect” with Bill Maher years ago, Maher would often make this point with celebrities who were spouting off on politics, environmental, social, and economic issues. Which is why of course Bill Maher never states any opinions on those topics. Oh, wait. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hollywood-celebrities-really-good-spokespeople-for-other-areas/776771/70 "2017-01-12T07:16:26Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > My question is though, do you think Hollywood stars make good spokespeople? > > I mean to me, the people in Hollywood live in their own private bubble. They know nothing about life in ordinary America… What exactly makes people in Hollywood different from ordinary Americans? They live in more expensive homes, but so do top politicians, TV journalists and Donald Trump. Hollywood stars work hard, travel a lot, meet a lot of different people. Celebrities have more opportunity to converse with well-informed people. Contrast the celebrity’s life with Joe, an “ordinary American” in the Rust Belt. Joe travels little, feels like his local economy is suffering but doesn’t understand why, gets his knowledge of the world from a few cable-TV sources he selects himself. Between the celebrity and Joe, the fact that one lives in a “private bubble” is a big problem for political discourse in America … but the celebrity is not the one who’s bubbling. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hollywood-celebrities-really-good-spokespeople-for-other-areas/776771/71 "2017-01-12T11:55:24Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Between the celebrity and Joe, the fact that one lives in a “private bubble” is a big problem for political discourse in America … but the celebrity is not the one who’s bubbling. [Cracked.com](http://Cracked.com) periodically runs articles along the lines “7 Celebrities with Wacky Beliefs” but they could as easily find similar nonsense from the Joe Sixpacks and Sally Housecoats of America. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hollywood-celebrities-really-good-spokespeople-for-other-areas/776771/72 "2017-01-12T12:27:43Z")
Case in point… > **[23 Bonkers Celebrity Beliefs](https://www.cracked.com/pictofacts-221-23-insane-things-your-favorite-celebrities-believe)** > > Look, we expect our celebrities to come with a certain amount of insanity. But some seemed to have taken more helpings of crazy pills than other. Believes in UFOs, thinks 9/11 was an inside job, thinks the 2004 Bin Laden tapes were meant to swing the election to Bush, speaks in tongues… Yeah, they’re crazy beliefs. Not that that stops your normal, average, everyday red-blooded red state American from believing that and crazier. Well, okay, Joe Sixpack probably ain’t buying the whole “Star Whackers” stuff, but… ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hollywood-celebrities-really-good-spokespeople-for-other-areas/776771/73 "2017-01-12T13:10:45Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > I am curious about where you read this. The people I know that work in entertainment (mostly musicians and production crew) have said quite the opposite though obviously there are probably some top actor/actresses with god complexes just like there are corporate CEOs who do not want to interact with “ordinary people” who work with them. The only real taboo about interacting with top stars I have ever heard is don’t harass them constantly in the advancement of your own career, in other words extend basic courtesy. My wife works on a site which is in almost constant use for film and television shoots (she doesn’t work in the industry; she just works in buildings that look cool). As I type, Will Ferrell and John C Reilly are filming something called “Holmes and Watson” there (because apparently the world was crying out for a film starring Will Ferrell as Sherlock Holmes :dubious:). And according to her the stars by and large not only mingle with the crew but also sometimes with the locals, schedules permitting - yesterday she spotted Hugh Laurie (also in the film) in the local pub. [Sometimes they even do more](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1318516/Johnny-Depps-surprise-visit-London-primary-school-Captain-Jack-Sparrow.html). If it’s only a few days onsite they tend to fly in, work solidly through those days and fly out again but for the longer shoots they have more mingling time. Yes, some stars are dicks - but then some of any group are dicks. During _Pirates_ filming Johnny Depp actually came into her office to personally apologize for the behavior of some of the crew members (mostly local security hires)who had been acting like major dicks to the officeworkers there. > [@adaher](#): > > Exactly. Democrats are like Catholics, they seem to believe you can receive dispensation from the “sin” of being successful if you side with the right causes. Funny you should use that example, given the contortions Evangelicals have gone through to support Donald Trump while ignoring the fact that he is pretty much the antithesis of every Christian virtue. And indeed some of the contortions others have gone through to excuse those contortions. Motes and beams, man. Motes and beams. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hollywood-celebrities-really-good-spokespeople-for-other-areas/776771/74 "2017-01-12T15:11:21Z")
> [@Corry\_El](#): > > That said, Hollywood money is an important part of Democratic fundraising. And the involvement of stars in that case probably does raise other money. When big liberal celebrity holds a big fundraising party for other celebrities and left leaning rich people and it doesn’t involve the kind of out of touch public comments by Hollywood which often harm the left’s cause IMO, that is a net positive for Democrats: money is money. See I think that is where democrats made their mistake. Sure Hollywood celebrities raised alot of money for Hillary, but the mistake was thinking that group of people would work out for the general public. So Hillarys campaign puts celebrities in ads and thinks that is all she will need to convince voters and they found out wrong. Hollywood is not Wisconsin. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hollywood-celebrities-really-good-spokespeople-for-other-areas/776771/75 "2017-01-12T15:16:40Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > What exactly makes people in Hollywood different from ordinary Americans? They live in more expensive homes, but so do top politicians, TV journalists and Donald Trump. Hollywood stars work hard, travel a lot, meet a lot of different people. Celebrities have more opportunity to converse with well-informed people. > > Contrast the celebrity’s life with Joe, an “ordinary American” in the Rust Belt. Joe travels little, feels like his local economy is suffering but doesn’t understand why, gets his knowledge of the world from a few cable-TV sources he selects himself. > > Between the celebrity and Joe, the fact that one lives in a “private bubble” is a big problem for political discourse in America … but the celebrity is not the one who’s bubbling. I would believe you if even once in a while I saw a tv show or movie that actually looked like real life. It happens but its rare. I’ll give you another example. About 20% of people in the US attend church but its very rare I ever see a realistic depiction of going to church. Oh, they make jokes of it and make every Christian look like an idiot and that is there right. But it also reinforces my idea they are clueless and again, live in their own bubble. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hollywood-celebrities-really-good-spokespeople-for-other-areas/776771/76 "2017-01-12T15:22:15Z")
I think you have a vision of what Hollywood is in your mind and you’re judging people by that rather than the reality. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hollywood-celebrities-really-good-spokespeople-for-other-areas/776771/77 "2017-01-12T15:28:13Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > I’ll give you another example. About 20% of people in the US attend church but its very rare I ever see a realistic depiction of going to church. It’s very rare you see a realistic depiction of going to the grocery store. Or a realistic depiction of a normal day at work in an office. Everyday events don’t seem to fill up much airtime. I don’t think going to church is an odd one out in that regard. > [@](#): > > Oh, they make jokes of it and make every Christian look like an idiot and that is there right. Cite? ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hollywood-celebrities-really-good-spokespeople-for-other-areas/776771/78 "2017-01-12T15:39:10Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > I would believe you if even once in a while I saw a tv show or movie that actually looked like real life. It happens but its rare. > > I’ll give you another example. About 20% of people in the US attend church but its very rare I ever see a realistic depiction of going to church. Oh, they make jokes of it and make every Christian look like an idiot and that is there right. But it also reinforces my idea they are clueless and again, live in their own bubble. This…is bizarre. Your argument is that celebrities are out of touch because the TV shows and movies you watch don’t reflect reality? You are aware that the actors don’t actually live in the towns on those shows or have the families or jobs their characters do, right? Matt LeBlanc and Matthew Perry didn’t have to share a studio apartment in New York, Dean Cain didn’t grow up in Smallville, and Mark Harmon has never been either a doctor or a Marine. I mean, if you want to argue that television shows and movies aren’t realistic enough, fine, although that’s down to scriptwriters and producers rather than actors, and even more down to the fact that American audiences don’t generally want realistic shows and films. But actors are fully aware that the roles they play are not the same as “reality” (again, it’s usually the audience that have the problem making the distinction); acting is their job and there’s an awful lot of behind-the-scenes reality that goes into making the fantasies that you watch. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hollywood-celebrities-really-good-spokespeople-for-other-areas/776771/79 "2017-01-12T15:39:42Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > About 20% of people in the US attend church but its very rare I ever see a realistic depiction of going to church. Watch more BET and Lifetime, turn off HBO, if that’s what you want. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hollywood-celebrities-really-good-spokespeople-for-other-areas/776771/80 "2017-01-12T16:24:46Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > I’ll give you another example. About 20% of people in the US attend church but its very rare I ever see a realistic depiction of going to church. What do you consider a “realistic depiction of going to church”? _Seventh Heaven_ ran for eleven years and was pretty much [exclusively](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7th_Heaven_(TV_series)) about going to church, from what I can tell. For that matter, when have you seen a realistic depiction of _anything_ on TV? And before you say court proceedings, I can assure you that there isn’t a single realistic law-related show on TV. It’s not supposed to be realistic. It’s entertainment. And church is - and I’m not making a value judgment here - boring. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hollywood-celebrities-really-good-spokespeople-for-other-areas/776771.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-hollywood-celebrities-really-good-spokespeople-for-other-areas/776771.md?page=5)