Ellen DeGeneres Stands Up For Oprah, Who Stands Up For Prakash Raj?
It’s okay. In America, you can criticize the President’s policies. When lately the awesome Oprah Winfrey spoke up on freedom and women’s empowerment and other related issues she was tweet-attacked by President Trump himself.
(We all know he likes to tweet).
This is where Oprah’s colleague and friend from television Ellen DeGeneres jumped into the fray. She went on air to defend Oprah and condemn the President (at the risk of a presidential backlash) arguing, “When you mess with Oprah you miss with me because she’s my friend. If George Washington is the father of America, Oprah is the mother.”
Strong words of defense. But urgently required for a female entertainer who is expected to be the next president of America.
If we want to see the entertainment business in India being taken seriously we might as well start taking the business of entertainment a little more seriously. Yeah yeah, I know the power-lobby likes to call its supposedly more intelligent members for ceberal summits. But really, why has there never been a really strong candidate for Prime Ministership or Presidency from within the Indian film industry?
In three words? LACK OF SOLIDARITY. An Amitabh Bachchan, Dilip Kumar or Shabana Azmi could easily lead the nation. But their colleagues are afraid to open their mouths. This is true of the entertainment business across the board. More and more space in the entertainment media is for sale. Stars and producers want to control every bit of the news and information that goes into print.
That explains why no one ever wrote about this Superstar’s roaring extra-marital affair with a female superstar (who is now a global name) while it lasted for a good 3-4 years.
The Superstar had personally called up the heads of all the entertainment-media organizations asking that the stories about his stormy liaison be killed. Those scattered Bravehearts who still dared to whisper about the marriage-threatening liaison were sacked by the management.
Now we have another married superstar liaising with a starlet young enough to be his daughter at the risk of destroying his marriage. No one is talking about it.
The superstars have the media by its balls. You read only what they want you to. You get the information that they want to feed to the public.
Show-world is a dog-eat-dog world. It always was. It is more so now than ever before. Each on his own. If Shatrughan Sinha decides to be an outspoken member of the ruling party he is getting no support from his colleagues from the film industry. If Prakash Raj decides to be a vocal anti-establishment celebrity he is on his own.And all the best to him.
In America Oprah can dream of becoming the President because she has a strongly credible support-base from within her fraternity. Here in India if Shatrughan Sinha or Amitabh Bachchan decides to lead the nation they will have to go it alone.We as a nation like to mind our own business the minute our own business is perceived to be in the danger zone.
I really don’t think Ellen DeGeneres through of her talk show being in the danger zone when she declared Oprah the Mother of her nation.
