Artists for Bush.

Is that phrase an oxymoron, or does it only seem that way?

Arts & Politics Part One

Stacy Innerst, Post-Gazette Click illustration to view larger version. Related coverage Artists become more partisan with the rise of mass media Musicians find something to sing about in Kerry vs. Bush The rest of the series Part Two: TV, radio reflect left, right, 'West' wings Part Three: Election-year influence nothing new for Hollywood Part Four: Visual artists mix paints and prints with politics Part Five: Theater an unavoidably political act

While the Bush-Cheney campaign cites backing from all sorts of creative types -- from Hollywood stars Mel Gibson and Tom Selleck to musicians ZZ Top, the Gatlin Brothers and Kid Rock -- a recent Google search of "Artists for Bush" on the Internet turned up six entries, most of them mocking the concept.

There may be a significant number of artists actively supporting the president's re-election effort, but they aren't drawing the same media buzz as the rock stars, movie actors, musicians, documentary filmmakers, visual artists and other purveyors of pop and "high" culture who are actively working to defeat the 43rd president of the United States in his bid for re-election, whether by fund-raising, voter registration or in the exercise of their artistic chops.

Artists have a long history in politics. Before Bruce Springsteen, there was Frank Sinatra, who campaigned for John Kennedy and, later, for Ronald Reagan. Adlai Stevenson had Lauren Bacall. Richard Nixon had Sammy Davis Jr. In 1968, there were liberal protest songs and poetry readings and concerts for Eugene "Clean Gene" McCarthy.

But to many, this year seems different.

Fueled by anger over the war in Iraq, the Patriot Act, even the FCC's censorship of Howard Stern, many artists are mobilizing on behalf of Democrat John Kerry's campaign, a dump-Bush movement that began well before anyone knew who would be the Democratic nominee.

"The America we believe in can't survive another four years of George Bush," Moby told Rolling Stone Magazine last year. "We must all unite and work for whoever opposes Bush, regardless of whatever differences we may have."

Even composers of a more classical stripe are getting into the act. Paul Moravec, who won a Pulitzer Prize last year for his musical compositions, said he spent last week in Ohio helping the Kerry campaign register voters, citing Bush's "catastrophic mismanagement" of the Iraq war.

There are more examples:

Springsteen is leading perhaps the first rock concert tour ever devoted solely to the unseating of a politician.

Voter registration drives aimed at the traditionally apathetic 18-to-30-year-old demographic are proliferating, from Punkvoter.com to Sean Combs' "Citizen Change" to Russell Simmons' Hip-Hop Summit Action Network.

At an artist-sponsored fund-raiser/auction in Manhattan in June -- "Buy art, bye bye Bush" -- architect Frank Gehry and dealer Larry Gagosian donated a sculpture worth $1 million.

Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," which has grossed more than any film documentary in history ($120 million and counting), was just the first of a flood of independent films bashing Bush that found distribution outside the major studios.

Punk rock band Green Day has issued what is billed as the first-ever "George Bush Rock Opera," titled "American Idiot."

And locally, 15 Pittsburgh graphic artists have banded together to create the Partisan Project (their Web site is www.partisanproject.org), designing and distributing posters urging people to vote against the current administration.

So, is this an unprecedented convergence of art and popular culture in the 2004 election, or does it just seem that way?

And more important, will it make a difference to voters?

"This is the great unknown" about the intersection of Hollywood and politics, said Kevan Yenerall, a political science professor at Clarion University of Pennsylvania and co-author of the book "Seeing the Bigger Picture: Understanding Politics Through Film and Television" (Peter Lang Press). Yenerall also is a Democratic candidate for the state Senate from the 21st District.

Efforts like singer Ani DiFranco's "Vote Dammit" tour is probably "preaching to the converted," he said. "The same may be true for 'Fahrenheit 9/11.' "Can a film get people -- undecided, unlikely voters -- to register and vote? We just don't know."

But Kevin Madden, a spokesman for the Bush-Cheney campaign, is doubtful.

"I don't think voters are looking for national security advice from entertainers. A 10-set musical concert is not going to have as much of an effect as 50 volunteers at campaign headquarters calling their friends and neighbors and urging them to get out and vote," Madden said, noting that the Bush campaign is built around the concept of "echo" politics -- a grass-roots notion of individuals talking one-on-one about issues they care about.

"People are going to be more inclined to listen to a small-business owner talk about the economy or an educator talking about the president's No Child Left Behind plan. People want to listen to artists talking about art."

But many people do trust artists to tell the truth, counters Leonard Steinhorn, a political science professor at American University. "People like Springsteen have always been considered a voice for the average citizen, of the hardworking, roll-up-your-sleeves American who plays by the rules but still gets beaten down. There's an element of trust with Springsteen. Is he going to bring people to the polls? We don't know. I suspect that the impact of this activity may still be under the radar of the media and the pundits."

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, many artists -- at least in Hollywood and in the music business -- expressed good will toward the Bush administration. Jack Valenti, former head of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, pledged that Hollywood would do its part to support efforts to combat terrorism. There also was significant flag waving at the determinedly nonpartisan Concert for New York, featuring many major musical artists and movie stars.

Much of that good will vanished in the wake of the Iraq war, which many artists opposed. And now, when it comes to President Bush and his policies both at home and abroad, it's personal.

In contrast to past events designed to call attention to broader political issues -- the No Nukes and Farm Aid concerts, for example -- artists are aiming, for the first time, at an individual, said Yenerall.

"Live Aid wasn't going after Reagan. It was more general, more movement or cause-oriented. This is about getting Bush out, about clearly changing leadership in the White House."

The whole world is watching

For many, the 2004 election calls to mind 1968, a year of unprecedented violence, creativity and political dissension, which found artistic catharsis primarily in rock music. In August 1968, Simon & Garfunkel, Janis Joplin, Creedence Clearwater Revival and John Sebastian headlined a concert for Democratic candidate Eugene McCarthy at Shea Stadium. That November, a half-million people gathered for an antiwar rally on the Washington Mall and listened to Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Peter, Paul and Mary, Mitch Miller, John Denver and the cast of "Hair."

Only in Hollywood did films seem to be unreflective of the country's turmoil over the Vietnam War and cultural issues, although the events of 1968 would soon trigger a flood of creative new filmmaking, from "Easy Rider" in 1969 to "The Deer Hunter" and other political films in the 1970s. Independent films, too, would thrive: In 1971, documentary filmmaker Emile De Antonio's "Millhouse: A White Comedy," which hounded Richard Nixon, was that election cycle's "Fahrenheit 9/11."

But don't read too much into comparisons with 1968, cautions John O'Brien, publisher of PulpLit.com, a Web site devoted to arts commentary.

"In 1968, there were riots in the streets, the Chicago Democratic convention became a nightmarish bloodbath, and the Weathermen were bombing buildings," O'Brien noted. Only half-joking, he added that "the use of psychedelic drugs was more accepted, which I tend to think explained a lot, just like the Boston Tea Party is best explained by theorizing that those rowdy patriots were drunk.

"Still, I think what you're seeing is artists of all stripes, from those with power in Hollywood to those wielding humble blogs, are actively getting mad and -- here's the strange thing -- working within the system. Maybe that's because the Iraq conflict hasn't been going on for four years, as the Vietnam War had been by 1968. You have to remember, some 6,000 U.S. troops lost their lives in the first four months of 1968. That's hard for anyone to stomach."

Frank Mankiewicz, a veteran of the 1968 and 1972 elections (he served as Robert Kennedy's press secretary and was a McGovern adviser), thinks talk about political involvement by artists in this year's election "is hyped a little bit."

Warren Beatty, he claimed, organized a series of concerts for George McGovern in 1972 -- even reuniting feuding musicians Simon & Garfunkel, however temporarily -- that were as ambitious as anything as the big-name Vote for Change concerts.

"Democrats have always had artists and celebrities as part of their campaigns, dating back at least to FDR," said Mankiewicz, who grew up in California as the son of legendary "Citizen Kane" screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz.

"That's because artists sensed correctly that Republicans were enemies of free expression. They don't believe in it, and they repress it where they can. Sure, there were some Republican movie stars, but they were staid and awful, like Irene Dunne and Robert Taylor."

That's all a matter of opinion, of course, and certainly Bush supporters in Hollywood would take exception to the characterization of Republican actors as "enemies" of free speech.

The medium and the message

This election year is different because of the way campaigns are run: There's the official candidate's effort, mainly on the stump and on television, with a Web site thrown in for good measure, and then there's everyone else trying to get his message across, directly or indirectly, in movies, graphic arts or television -- although mostly cable -- and the Internet.

"Technology is democratizing political speech. Independent voices have an opportunity that they might not have otherwise had," said Clarion's Yenerall, who noted that some documentaries, such as Robert Greenwald's anti-Iraq War film "Uncovered," were distributed on the Web after failing to get studio backing.

"There's been an explosion of progressive media because of a belief that the traditional media aren't doing a good enough job telling the whole story about the last four years," added Katherine Montgomery, a professor of public communications at American University.

Indeed, mainstream network television programming, with the exception of "The West Wing," contains relatively little overt political content, notes Yenerall. "There's not a whole lot of politicking going on, for obvious reasons. It's a business and it's there to make money, and you take chances when you become controversial or political."

Viewers -- and voters -- have to go to niche programmers or cable, like the Fox Network for 'The Simpsons,' which pokes fun at the laziness of the American electorate and modern elections as sloganeering and shallow," he said.

And whether it's television, radio, film or visual art, most artistic political expression is mostly left-leaning in content. There's an obvious reason for this, says Steinhorn. "The foundation of art is free expression. You cannot have art without creativity and free expression."

The FCC's penalizing of radio shock job Howard Stern for profanity and FCC chairman Michael Powell's outrage over Janet Jackson's bare breast at the Super Bowl halftime show struck a chord among many artists, he noted. "To them, George Bush represents a culture of hubris and religious suppression. Artists want freedom and are fearful of hubris."

To be sure, there are some artists involved in the Bush campaign -- mostly of the country music variety, such as Lee Ann Womack and the Gatlin Brothers. But Bush campaign spokesman Madden shrugged off a question about whether any visual artists -- sculptors, painters or the like -- had signed up.

"Maybe there's not the same star power, but voters are more motivated to vote for the president on economic issues by listening to the small businessman or -woman talk about how the president's policies have helped expand businesses and hire more workers," he reiterated.

"I'm sure there are some artists out there who are conservative, but I don't know any," added Vicki Clark, former curator at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts.

Is it art or is it agitprop?

While much of what's going on in this election cycle is simply about artists using their clout to make changes in the political process, some wonder if the art produced during an election cycle is "good" art, or just agitprop.

Tom Sokolowski, director of The Andy Warhol Museum, is not particularly hopeful, noting that some of the best political art is produced in response to broader political issues.

"Although I've seen more people become more politically engaged, I have not seen the artistic community come up to the plate with the kind of art that was produced in the 1990s during the AIDS crisis," he said. Ironic in nature, it used a sophisticated vernacular, borrowing from advertising's short, succinct language. For example: "Women don't get AIDS; they just die from it." That era was marked by some truly great art, such as Tony Kushner's magisterial "Angels in America."

Still, there's a catchy, sometimes brutally upfront style present in the pop-up ads on the MoveOn.com Web site and the posters of PartisanProject.org, which uses everything from sarcasm and brutal wit to gentle persuasion -- "Let's Start Over" -- to urge Bush's defeat, or the "guerrilla" postering campaign of Los Angeles-based artist Robbie Conal, who seeks to plaster America with his posters mocking Bush -- "Read My Apocolips" -- in an effort he describes as civil disobedience.

Ana Kelly, a local artist based on the North Side, doesn't believe that art's primary mission is political, "but I suspect, based on my own experience, that art will be politically motivated if the artist feels deeply emotional about politics."

And that's exactly what's going on this year in the art world. Bush has become, fairly or not, the catalyst for a wave of furious artistic expression in film, graphic art, literature and music. And if Bush-bashing at your local museum or movie house represents a departure from art for art's sake, it is still, in the end, legitimate artistic expression.

"No art is not political, no powerful things that touch you are not political," says Sokolowski. "Great art is about the human experience. When you stand in front of it, you are forever changed."

Whether that theory will apply to voters in November's election, however, is still a mystery.