Eminem, gangsta rappers, Marilyn Manson, and others who advocate morally offensive things in their performances. Although I am not a demographic they are making any effort to attract - quite the opposite, I am sure.
Although it is more the specifically offensive performance I avoid rather than the artist in general. I don’t go to see (and I don’t allow my children to see) slasher films, but I don’t boycott Jamie Lee Curtis because she was in Halloween.
Regards,
Shodan
I like bad movies.
I find that I’m not as fond of movies with Sonny Tufts or Barbara Payton as I used to be. Sonny Tufts was a wonderfully bad actor who would never have had a career if he hadn’t been really good looking AND 4-F draft status during World War II, and Barbara Payton wasn’t a bad actress (and was remarkably easy on the eyes), but she was in a fair number of cheesy films.
Sonny’s career went down the tubes after all the real actors came back from WWII, and he became a running gag for Johnny Carson. He drank himself to death fairly young.
Barbara’s offscreen antics (re: drugs and men) became sensational enough that her career took a beating; no one wanted to hire her. She slid from the A-list to the B-list to the Z-list, and finally off the list altogether. Became a pathetic alky and drug addict, turning tricks in alleys for booze money.
Knowing all this, somehow, very much lessens my enjoyment of their films.
I’ve always been lukewarm on Woody Allen, so the Soon Yi thing is a convenient excuse for not watching his movies. Oddly, it’s easier to explain that to people than to try to explain that I find his films dull.
I’m a little rabid on the Roman Polanski thing, I will not let one thin dime of my money go to a child rapist. I know his films are often brilliant, and I’m sure I’m missing out on his artistic vision, but I can live with that.
I think that’s it at the moment.
I haven’t officially boycotted, but I can’t stand Jane Fonda films.
Treason doesn’t sit well with me.
He didn’t just have sex with her. He drugged her, then assaulted her. I don’t boycott him, but I can certainly see why people do.
Sean Penn, for being a drugged-up, wife-beating asshole. Well, maybe he doesn’t do drugs anymore. But remember when he was married to Madonna, back in '88? That ended when he tied her up to a chair for THREE DAYS until she finally escaped to the Malibu police station. It wasn’t that big a story, presumably because she wanted to get over the situation and on with her life and career (minus Penn, of course!) Oh, the papers did report that he let her up to use the bathroom – but according to “inside info” I got from the Malibu P.D., the media lied about that part. For the good of all involved, I assume. Can’t prove it with a cite, of course, so take that as you will.
I do like watching The Falcon and the Snowman, though. I hope there was a giant turd in the john when the Mexican police shoved his head into the toilet…
Must be tough then, walking around knowing the majority of Americans feel the same way Jane Fonda does about the Vietnam War and might well have done the same things if given the opportunity. Maybe you should try to have us all tried and convicted or something.
The majority of Americans didn’t go to North Vietnam, pal around with the NVA, lie to the world and state that our POW’s were treated well and denounce America to a state we were at war with.
There’s a big difference between opposing war and aiding the enemy, although the distinction seems to be lost on you.
Bowling for Columbine is full of deliberately deceptive crap, to the above person who mentioned it. There is just no other way to view it; and it’s been exposed time and time again as what it is.
I wouldn’t watch that hateful lying piece of filth.
The term “Hanoi Jane” says it all…
I’d watch Barbarella II if she was caged in a swamp of muck, begging and pleading to be released only to be alienated by her own people so the hungry doll babies could feed on her wrinkly, skanky butt…and no, I am not advocating for a snuff film here; I just want her to be miserable for a long, long time…
Evil, i’m not an American, but i am a leftist who firmly believes that the war in Vietnam was an immoral one. Also, i don’t think that simply making a journey to North Vietnam during the war was inherently a bad or stupid thing to do.
However, i do think that Jane Fonda’s trip, and some of the things that she did and said while on it, were rather reprehensible. In the face of considerable evidence to the contrary, she denied that captured American troops were being mistreated, stated that many of them were contrite over their involvement in the war, and when returned POWs claimed to have been starved and tortured, she called them liars and war criminals. She made a mistake that some other anti-war people made–blaming the grunts for the actions of their superiors and their government.
Many nowadays believe that Fonda should have been tried for treason on her return to the US. I think that if the Nixon administration had not been scaling back American involvement, and if it had not been frightened of making a martyr out of a prominent anti-war activist, there was a pretty good chance that they could have made a charge of treason stick under the “aid and comfort to the enemy” part of the law.
Some have argued that the Vietnam War was not formally declared, and so was an illegal war, making an act of treason impossible. But, AFAIK, the nation does not have to be officially at war for a charge of treason to be sustained.
Of course, in all the vitriol aimed at Fonda, there have also been the inevitable exaggerations and fabrications. One was that Fonda received secretive notes from some American POWs while in Vietnam, and that she turned these notes over to the North Vietnamese, resulting in at least one prisoner’s death. Another says that an American POW spat at Fonda, and was beaten by the NVA as a result. The POWs to whom these stories are attributed deny them completely, and the main alleged “source” of the story about the notes denied that he ever even met Fonda.
If you want to read a recent account of the whole Hanoi Jane story, may i suggest Edward J. Renehan, Jr., Lest We Forget: The Case Against Jane Fonda (2002).
In summary, i’m a big Vietnam war opponent, and i have little time for those who label all anti-war activists as commies and traitors. But, whether you call them treason or not, i think Fonda’s actions showed, at the very least, complete stupidity and gullibility, and, at worst, malice aforethought that gave “aid and comfort” to the NVA, and needlessly vilfied American soldiers.
I know Charlton Heston was mentioned in the original post, but if Jane Fonda deserves so much space, I think he should be repeated. It isn’t that he’s pro-gun and right wing ; after all, I’ll still watch a good Reagan movie, although I can’t think of one other than Kings Row. But Heston is so outstandingly obnoxious, he gives Jane a good run for her money.
Also, Robert Blake always has been an actor to avoid, and even more so now.
Oh BTW, do any of you guys like Richard Wagner’s music?
Yes I do, but there are many churches that will not play the Wedding March (Lohengrin) because of his anti-Semitism. (Trivia: Wagner wore tight fitting gloves when he had to play works by Mendellsohn or other Jewish composers, then at the end of the evening he burned them.) OTOH, sales of Wagner CDs don’t directly benefit him or even his grandchildren at this stage of the game.
Re: Hanoi Jane- I used to live close to the POW Museum in Andersonville, GA, and went there pretty frequently. I was amazed at how many people I overheard repeating the “little slips of paper” myth about her, including at least one park employee. I corrected a few, but stopped after a while as they didn’t appreciate it and didn’t believe me anyway.
While I can easily imagine those two idiots going at it hammer and tong I do have some trouble believing this purported “fact” re the “Madonna tied to chair and beaten” incident. This was bandied around as a gossip tidbit some time ago, but other than nattering gossip of the “Gere does gerbils! Dude It’s true!” nature, is there even one teeny, tiny shred of real evidence that he actually did this? Something in “The Smoking Gun” maybe?
Seems a lot of these posters should visit a good Urban Legend debunking site.
Anyway, since I have done many postings villifying John Wayne (and I still don’t like him), I would agree with mhendo that Jane Fonda’s actions were based on gullibility and stupidity. To me it’s the equivalent of going to your local police station and asking the officers “any police brutality occurring at this precinct?” You really think you’d get an honest answer?
Or maybe visit your local town hall and ask “Any corruption going on here? Patronage jobs? Kickbacks?”
Well, you get the idea. Sometimes to get the real story, the worst place to go is the source.
I’m in the “judge the art, not the artist” camp, myself. I don’t give a shit about their personal lives/ethics/beliefs. All I care about is what they can put up on the screen (or stage, or page, or whatever). I understand the impetus to not want to give money to a wife beater or child molester, but I think it’s a bit silly. Putting Sean Penn out of work is certainly not going to make him less abusive towards any future spouses. Not watching Ferris Bueller’s Day Off isn’t going to stop Jeffrey Jones from lusting after teenage boys. And while not having a movie career might cut down on the quality of the drugs Robert Downey, Jr. ingests, it’s not likely to greatly impact the quantity.
Robert Downey, Jr., has a drug problem?
Yes. Several times he’s been incarcerated and been unable to purchase drugs and that’s been a problem for him. However, when he’s free, he’s been able to get them quite easily. 
Miller…I wonder if putting Sean Penn out of work WOULD keep him from going to a country when we’re on the brink of war with it and making an utter ass out of himself. It might be worth a try, at that.
Of course my own personal watching or not watching won’t put him out of work anyway. It would take a hell of a big boycott to put him “out of work”. Boycotts, though, are as American as apple pie; and if we don’t want to spend our hard-earned money on some asshat actor or the Dixie Chicks or Michael Moore then we damn well won’t spend it. They don’t have a “right” to my money; nor a “right” to be a star. If Janeane Garofalo feels a pinch in her next paycheck, she can always check out McDonald’s; after all they’re usually hiring.
I wasn’t going to watch the Pianist because the child rapist made it AND won an award for it, but I was bored and ended up watching it. What a stupid stupid mistake that was. It totally sucked ass.