In a surprising turn of events, pop sensation Taylor Swift and Hollywood icon Tom Hanks have announced a joint venture to organize a music festival aimed at celebrating artistic freedom and pushing back against the constraints of woke culture.
The decision comes amidst a growing backlash in the entertainment industry, with many artists and creators feeling stifled by the pressure to conform to politically correct narratives.
Swift, known for her chart-topping hits and outspoken views on social issues, expressed her excitement about the festival’s theme of ‘Unwoke’ music. “We want this festival to be a platform where artists can express themselves freely without fear of censorship or cancel culture,” she stated in a recent interview.
Hanks, renowned for his versatile acting career, echoed Swift’s sentiments, emphasizing the importance of embracing diversity of thought and expression.
A new study has revealed the names of US celebrities that have proven to be influential in encouraging fans to go out and vote.
Amongst the top scorers are American singer Taylor Swift and actor Tom Hanks. Also in the list are Cardi B, Beyoncé, LeBron James and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.
The study was conducted by Whitman Insight strategies and MRC where over 1000 likely voters were asked about their opinion of the influence of celebrity endorsements in the forthcoming elections.
Many of them replied positively and confirmed that indeed the celebrities have been very influential in shaping their opinions.
12 per cent of voters claimed their choice of vote has been influenced by a celebrity, out of these, 28 percent were black voters and 17 per cent were millennials.
49 per cent of voters said they believe Tom Hanks is the most trusted when it comes to politics. He is followed by Dwayne Johnson who stands at 45 per cent. Out of 36 per cent who have already voted, 13 per cent claim to be influenced by Taylor Swift.
Tom Hanks has become the latest actor to speak up about the issues of diversity and representation in Hollywood. He has told the New York Times that he wouldn’t play the role of Andrew Beckett, a gay man with AIDS, if his landmark 1993 film, Philadelphia, was made today. When asked whether a straight man could play the role now, Hanks said ‘no, and rightly so’, adding that the only reason he played Beckett back then was because people wouldn’t be so ‘afraid’ of a movie about a gay man with AIDS if a straight man played the starring role.
If this really was why Hanks took the role back in the 1990s, he’s kept quiet about it until now. In his Oscars speech in 1994, after winning Best Actor for Philadelphia, Hanks said nothing about what he now describes as the ‘inauthenticity of a straight guy playing a gay guy’. Instead, he tearfully mentioned his gay drama teacher, who taught him the adage ‘act well the part, there all the glory lies’. Hanks also dedicated his speech to the thousands of gay men who had died during the AIDS pandemic.
In this identitarian era, actors seem to feel increasingly compelled to denounce their previous work. Hanks also told the New York Times that he wouldn’t play Forrest Gump today, presumably because Gump was ‘mentally challenged’. Perhaps Hanks’ team watched Maddie Ziegler get monstered for playing an autistic character in Sia’s recent film, Music, and told him to get his apologies in order.
The argument that only those with the right ‘lived experience’ can authentically portray certain characters is philistine nonsense. Some of the best cinematic performances have been a result of great actors challenging themselves to go beyond their comfort zones. Brokeback Mountain, about a love affair between two cowboys, won universal acclaim and several awards in 2005. Neither of the leads, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, was gay. In 2014, Matthew McConaughey won an Oscar, a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award for his role as an AIDS patient in Dallas Buyers Club, while Jared Leto won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as a HIV-positive transgender woman in the same film.
Doing justice to a particular character and his or her background is important – Minnie Driver’s awful Irish accent in the 1995 film Circle of Friends makes suspending your disbelief impossible. But the skill of acting is being able to convince the audience that you are no longer Tom Hanks or Jake Gyllenhaal or Matthew McConaughey, but someone else. Hanks surely has no ‘lived experience’ of snogging mermaids either, but he is yet to apologise for his role in Splash. Frances McDormand does not have a daughter, let alone one who was raped and murdered, but that didn’t stop her wowing international audiences in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
