NEW YORK – Hollywood, as everyone knows, loves the Next Big Thing. And four years ago, Barack Obama was certainly that: a political supernova, the equivalent of a breakout movie star.
“He is `The One,’” declared Oprah Winfrey, his biggest and most influential celebrity champion. “The best candidate I’ve ever seen,” pronounced George Clooney. Halle Berry said she’d “collect paper cups off the ground to make his pathway clear.” Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am chimed in with the famous “Yes We Can” video. And so on.
But you can’t be the Next Big Thing twice. And so, with the 2012 vote less than a year away, there’s clearly a different mood in heavily Democratic Hollywood: less gushing, not to mention snippets of criticism, most prominently from actor Matt Damon, who campaigned for Obama last time but now makes no secret of his disillusionment.
“I think he misinterpreted his mandate,” Damon said earlier this year, and then recently told Elle magazine the country would have been better off with a one-term president with guts (he used a much saltier word).
But while the adulation of the 2008 election may be significantly muted among Hollywood liberals, as with liberals elsewhere, Obama supporters say that’s only natural,
Read More from the Article Source: Full Article
