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What’s he smokin’?

8 comments on What’s he smokin’?

What’s he smokin’?
: There’s quite a collection of nonsensical quotes from Tim Robbins appearing at the Venice Film Festival and talking about how wise and virtuous he was regarding war in Iraq.

Says the Guardian: “The American actor Tim Robbins broke his silence yesterday after being attacked for putting US troops ‘in danger’ by speaking out against the invasion of Iraq.”

What silence? He never shut up!

Agence France Presse had a different take: “Tim Robbins took a thinly-veiled sideswipe at fellow Hollywood stars who failed to follow his example and speak out against the US-led war on Iraq.”

What, trouble in paradise? Who didn’t speak out? Why?

Now back to the Guardian, where Robbins says they did speak out. I’m so confused.

Robbins, whose partner and fellow actor, Susan Sarandon, has also been criticised for her anti-war stance, said the cold shouldering they received had been “a gift” which had rallied liberals to the cause of free speech.

“It’s sparked a lot of people in Hollywood who would have spoken out and felt intimidated to say something,” Robbins said at the Venice Film Festival.

“Too often people abdicate their freedom in their minds and choose not to speak. But once you abdicate that freedom you may as well not have it.”

What the hell does that mean? Can someone translate and put subtitles under the guy?

And he keeps blathering. And blather, this is:

Robbins was persuaded to hire a bodyguard during filming for the first time in his career. But he said his anxiety had “no basis in reality”.

“People in the Middle East make a distinction between governments and individuals. They say they disagree with my government but not with me. I live now in a lot less fear, now I have turned off my TV,” he said.

Quick, call Bonnie Fuller and tell her to rip up The Star and shout, “Stop the presses!” We have a new wood for her: ‘HOLLYWOOD STAR SCARED OF TELEVISION. ‘I have turned of my TV,’ says a quivering Tim Robbins, who admits that he has ‘no basis in reality.’

8 responses to “What’s he smokin’?”

  1. Jeremy Brown Avatar
    Jeremy Brown

    Tim Robbins is surely a courageous soul, that is if he believes for a nanosecond that he really is living in an evil empire in which dissent is not tolerated. He, along with Arundhati Roy, a “slave” of the “American Empire” must surely be in greater mortal danger than Salman Rushdie ever was (since, as Robbins sagely points out, violent people from the Middle East never target U.S. citizens).
    These two would pee themselves silently, rather than speak out (in those weird, quasi Victorian, bratty teen cadences) if they actually lived under the kind of repression they brag about.

  2. Mitch H. Avatar
    Mitch H.

    Oh for the old days of the studio system, when actors had contracts to rebel against, and we were spared their cretinous views on politics and the like.

  3. RD Avatar
    RD

    I’m sure the families of the 9/11 victims are relieved to hear that people in the Middle East distinguish between individuals and governments.

  4. Charlie Avatar
    Charlie

    I’ve met Robbins (I was an extra in Bull Durham) and he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I suspect that the reason he’s both incomprehensible and self-contradictory is, simply, that Robbins is repeating lines he heard from some of his Hollywood-lefty friends. He doesn’t understand what he’s saying any more than the Pets.com sock puppet did.

  5. Tom Coates Avatar
    Tom Coates

    I should think what she means there should be fairly self-explanatory – that people choose not to say what they feel because they’re afraid of the reaction or the responsibility and that operating like that is pretty much the same as not having the right to say what they feel at all… I have to say – when it comes to issues of conscience and politics, we should feel free to ridicule people for their opinions but not for having them or expressing them.

  6. Randal Robinson Avatar
    Randal Robinson

    So Tim finally broke his silence, huh? Has he been holing up in a cave in the barren no-man’s-land on the California/Nevada border? He must have had an audio tape smuggled out to the Guardian.

  7. LadyD2k Avatar
    LadyD2k

    Mate, isn’t there a slight case of ‘missing the bigger picture’ going on here? Let us distinguish arguments, before getting lost in the attempt to make a point:
    1) Celebrities have a great deal of power and influence amongst the general public – because people don’t ignore what they say (unlike the average Joe Blow who well, is a nobody, even when he gathers thousands of other Joe Blows and Jane Dows, and marches down the streets of our civilized nations).
    2) Few of them said a word about the war in Iraq (with the exception of Britney Spears of course).
    3) Tim Robbins did – however uneloquently he may have put what he said, the fact remains he said it. So appreciate, recognise and give props.
    4) If Robbins states, “People in the Middle East make a distinction between governments and individuals. They say they disagree with my government but not with me. I live now in a lot less fear, now I have turned off my TV,” (which by the way is a very coherent sentence to me), what he is doing, is trying to alleviate the rampant fear amongst Americans (encouraged by Bush) that Iraqi’s take issue with THEM. Not with foreign policy, but with THEM as a people. And YES, the TV was a most important medium in spreading that fear. So excuuuse the poor guy for opening his mouth to state what should already be obvious.
    5) I am loathe to actually express this, but some westerners DO act as though 1 American life, equals about 5 (6? 9? 10?) Iraqi (shit let’s be straight – 3rd world country) lives. RD comments above, “I’m sure the families of the 9/11 victims are relieved to hear that people in the Middle East distinguish between individuals and governments.” I do not in anyway mean to suggest that 9/11 was not a tragedy (I must state this before some twat follows up with a comment pointing out that it is), however, what do we say to the generations of Middle Easterns that have died in the hands of American governments? Was that personal? Or just business? What do we say to the innocent Palestinians and Israeli’s that have died and are dying? The truth is that governments – not people – fight wars. Governments attack other governments, and innocent people die as collateral damage. The “Middle East” did not blow up the twin towers. A Middle Eastern political faction blew up the twin towers. The difference being that fine line between between justice and resolution, and bigotry and Abu Ghraib.
    Finally, (talk about quoting out of context), your grand finish to this entry:
    “Tim Robbins, who admits that he has ‘no basis in reality.’”
    Was concluded from this:
    “he said his ANXIETY had “no basis in reality””.
    And you accuse him of talking bullocks?

  8. LadyD2k Avatar
    LadyD2k

    Mate, isn’t there a slight case of ‘missing the bigger picture’ going on here? Let us distinguish arguments, before getting lost in the attempt to make a point:
    1) Celebrities have a great deal of power and influence amongst the general public – because people don’t ignore what they say (unlike the average Joe Blow who well, is a nobody, even when he gathers thousands of other Joe Blows and Jane Dows, and marches down the streets of our civilized nations).
    2) Few of them said a word about the war in Iraq (with the exception of Britney Spears of course).
    3) Tim Robbins did – however uneloquently he may have put what he said, the fact remains he said it. So appreciate, recognise and give props.
    4) If Robbins states, “People in the Middle East make a distinction between governments and individuals. They say they disagree with my government but not with me. I live now in a lot less fear, now I have turned off my TV,” (which by the way is a very coherent sentence to me), what he is doing, is trying to alleviate the rampant fear amongst Americans (encouraged by Bush) that Iraqi’s take issue with THEM. Not with foreign policy, but with THEM as a people. And YES, the TV was a most important medium in spreading that fear. So excuuuse the poor guy for opening his mouth to state what should already be obvious.
    5) I am loathe to actually express this, but some westerners DO act as though 1 American life, equals about 5 (6? 9? 10?) Iraqi (shit let’s be straight – 3rd world country) lives. RD comments above, “I’m sure the families of the 9/11 victims are relieved to hear that people in the Middle East distinguish between individuals and governments.” I do not in anyway mean to suggest that 9/11 was not a tragedy (I must state this before some twat follows up with a comment pointing out that it is), however, what do we say to the generations of Middle Easterns that have died in the hands of American governments? Was that personal? Or just business? What do we say to the innocent Palestinians and Israeli’s that have died and are dying? The truth is that governments – not people – fight wars. Governments attack other governments, and innocent people die as collateral damage. The “Middle East” did not blow up the twin towers. A Middle Eastern political faction blew up the twin towers. The difference being that fine line between between justice and resolution, and bigotry and Abu Ghraib.
    Finally, (talk about quoting out of context), your grand finish to this entry:
    “Tim Robbins, who admits that he has ‘no basis in reality.’”
    Was concluded from this:
    “he said his ANXIETY had “no basis in reality””.
    And you accuse him of talking bullocks?