A Rising Political and Pop Culture Star

With the buzz word of the election year being “change”, John McCain, someone who has been in Washington D.C. for over 20 years, needed to shake his campaign up and energize his Republican base. With the pick of Governor Sarah Palin from Alaska to be his running mate, Senator McCain did just what he needed to do. Mrs. Palin became a political rock star over night and a pop culture icon among many people. She is the equivalent of what Barack Obama did to excite the Democratic base. Even as the left wing press rushed to discredit her, by sending reporters and the like up to Alaska to dig up any dirt they could find on the woman, she still greatly energized the Republican base that had some issues with some of Sen. McCain’s previous positions. But not only did she energize the base of the party, she can appeal to some of the Hillary supporters that are still bitter over Sen. Clinton’s loss to Barack Obama. What is also refreshing about Governor Palin is out of any of the other politicians running; Sarah is the most down to earth, average mother of 5 going through the same problems that every other American family goes through.

Governor Palin is about as far away from the Washington elite cocktail parties as you can get. In an era of disgust with business-as-usual politics, she does bring the outsider aspect to the ticket. Sarah's husband is a blue collar, union worker, getting his hands dirty as a commercial fisherman and an oil fielder on the North Slope. Another asset which can attract independent voters or moderate democrats that voted for Clinton in the primaries in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. Now it is reasonable to have the debate about whether or not she is ready to be second in command of this powerful nation, but nobody can deny the energy she brought to the Republican ticket.

The New American Dream

Americans usually always try to look their best no matter what. We go to great lengths to achieve that look we all want. Americans spend billions every year collectively on designer clothes, jewelry, gym memberships, tanning, nails, dietary supplements and hair styling. Americans spend more per capita on beauty products than any other modernized country on earth. All of this can be attributed to that want to be thin, strong, and attractive. It hasn’t always been like this though. Over the past half century, this phenomenon has increased greatly. Back in the frontier days, nobody cared about their waist size or breast size, they didn’t care about what kind of cloths they wore or perfume they sprayed on themselves, they cared about providing for their families and making sure their children lived better lives then they did. As the world started to change and technology which made the basic necessities of life much more easily available, Americans worried more about material items and looks and less about stuff their grandparents worried about.

It all started with the Barbie and Ken dolls and the unattainable and false proportions of the body that those dolls represented. People every day strive to match that image of a slim and toned body and pay lots of money to look like that perfect image. More recently though, people have found a new way to try and have the perfect proportions and that is plastic surgery. Nearly 11.7 million cosmetic surgical and nonsurgical procedures were performed in the United States in 2007, according to statistics released by the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. That is up 8% from 2000. Americans spent just over $13 billion on those cosmetic procedures. The most frequently performed procedure was Botox injections and the most popular surgical procedure was liposuction. We see this phenomena reflected in Hollywood as it is hard to name an actor/actress that hasn’t had a cosmetic surgical procedure. The American dream has gone from having a house, 2 kids and a white picket fence to having the perfect nose, a thin stomach and a perfect complexion.

Hollywood Politics

Popular culture in this day and age usually means movies, music, celebrities, cell phones and other technological devices. But every four years, politics takes center stage in pop culture. All you have to do is go to a magazine stand and look at all the different tabloid magazines like US Weekly and People magazine, showcasing each political candidate and their families with photo-albums inside. Hollywood is also getting back into the political conversation with America’s favorite celebrities and musicians either coming out publically supporting a candidate or lead political causes like P. Diddy who just 4 years ago led the “Vote or Die” phenomenon. But Hollywood over the past few decades has been increasingly leaning towards the left and in the Democrats’ camp. Being conservative in tinsel town is considered a sin. It’s like wearing a Duke shirt around UNC’s campus.

Dozens of actors are known for their outspoken beliefs off screen as much as for their on-screen performances. Take for example Charlie Sheen, who believes that the Bush Administration masterminded the whole September 11^th terrorist attacks. Or Sean Penn, who goes to cuddle with foreign rogue dictators like Hugo Chavez and says “Chavez is much more positive for Venezuela then negative” while Chavez is on his way to creating a Cuba-style dictatorship where there is no private property, free speech or civil rights. But in recent years, it is no secret about the liberal Hollywood agenda. They have been hosting Democratic Party fundraisers, sponsoring anti-war rallies, organizing abortion rights events, backing environmental legislation or producing message movies that promote peace, love and understanding since the sixties. Most regular Americans though see right through the propaganda and that is why movies like Stop-loss fail in the box offices. We see these celebrities exposed as the hypocrites they are. Like Madonna who travels the world in her million dollar private jet spewing massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the air while at the same time making people aware about Global Warming telling us what cars we should drive and that we need to ride our bikes to work. Hollywood seems like they want to dictate, to average Americans, how their government should conduct their business. They undermine the war efforts of this country by propping up and cuddling with rogue dictators and publicly slandering the United States by denigrating our President while visiting other countries. While many of the top actors, and actresses, don’t even have a high school diploma, they know they are smarter than you and I because they can act like they are. It is time to shut up and act.

The Progression of Pop Culture

American culture has evolved a lot over the past half century. When you go back and listen to the music and watch the movies that our grandparents listened to and watched, you see it is completely different then what we see today. American culture has morphed a lot over the past years separating us from our grandparents. It seemed much more innocent back then. For example, if girls wore a skirt over their knees a certain length they were considered a whore. If a guy had an ear pierced they were labeled gay. You didn’t expect to see blood, gore, sex and drugs in the movies back then but today, it’s a common part of every movie above G rated. However, back then it was also much more intolerant. Today, the level of tolerance in America has dramatically improved. Whether it is Race Relations, gender gap, gay rights, and immigration, people are a lot more accepting in my generation then the generations of the past. We are the new great generation.

But with this era of new found tolerance and equality, comes negative parts of our culture that is reflected in what we see as pop culture. For example drug use, children born out of wedlock, and STD’s are way up from the 1950’s. We can see these problems mirrored in Hollywood and on MTV as we learn about celebrities being rushed into rehab and their kids being taken away from them like Britney Spears or in the movies where it seems like drug use and unprotected sex is celebrated in some ways. But would I trade these times for the past? No. We have come too far as a society that the gains we have made far overshadow the negative things that have resulted. From the Civil Rights acts of the 60’s, to the leveling out of economic differences between men and women, our society has advanced very far in 50 years. It is up to us to keep that going.