Yesterday, in a scene straight out of
Team America,
Daryl Hannah proved once again how useless celebrities are at doing anything other than shining the spotlight on themselves, by blowing any chance for the people at the "urban farm" here in L.A. to keep their plots.
Sitting up in a walnut tree, auditioning for the role of Jane Fonda, Hannah managed to get herself onto the news, but her antics pretty much destroyed any chance for the farm, which arose out of the ashes of the '92 riots, to continue. Ralph Horowitz, who legally owns the property and has been paying $25,000 a month to keep it up while the farmers squatted on his land, already hated the farmers. Now that Hannah's made them look like Hollywood lunatics who think that "political action" equals "I'll sit in a tree for three weeks", we can say goodbye to the farm.
The fact of the matter is, symbolic greenspace or not, the land is private property and Horowitz has a right to develop it. The city tried to buy it back, but after the farmers started hurling anti-Semitic slurs at him, he pretty much decided it was time for them to go. Such is life in L.A.
BUT- What does Daryl Hannah decide to do? Does she and her other Hollywood friends use some of their millions to say, buy property and donate it to the city as greenspace? No, she sits in a tree. Does she spend millions on a radio ad campaign to alert Angelinos to come out in force to make a massive statement a la' the immigration protests? No, because then the news wouldn't all be about Daryl Hannah sitting in a fucking tree.
This is what infuriates me about our celebrity culture. I don't mind a little hero worship, honest. But look at who we celebrate! How useless and lame are they?
There is nothing subversive or anti-establishment about sitting in a walnut tree. It's an act. Imagine if a Vanderbilt were to come and chain himself to the doors of Carnegie's steel mills, demanding better wages for the workers. Emma Goldman would have molotov cocktailed his ass in a heartbeat. When it's within her power to make real substantial change in the lives of the people she claims to support, but instead chooses to grandstand in a politically useless bit of street theatre, Daryl Hannah proves she's not an activist; she's a hypocrite.
