<p>So Barbra is doing her act and then decides to make a political statement by bringing out a GW Bush impersonator. Someone in the crowd takes offense, and starts heckling Barbra.</p>
<p>She reportedly flips out, on stage in the middle of the act, and starts using the ‘F’-bomb on the heckler.</p>
<p>Why doesn’t she just keep her mouth shut, politically, and sing her songs?</p>
<p>She’s never been reported to be a genius, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out this hurts her.</p>
<p>Look at the bright side…our yearbook would LAUD her! ;)</p>
<p>Seriously, though, just like our yearbook staff, Streisand considers herself a tad bit more important than actually is. JEEZE! ~berurah</p>
<p>berurah…you are too funny! lol!</p>
<p>I have to wonder at the total disconnect between our entertainment industry and the real world. Most normal people find what Barbra did as offensive and an overreaction. Yet, yesterday, Matt Lauer was talking about this and he just could not defend Barbra enough…the whole Today Show crew was cooing to the camera ‘Barbra, come on the Today Show and you can use the F word here’. (paraphrasing, but you get the idea). </p>
<p>Gag…had to change the channel. Matt ought to go tend to his divorce scandal coverup…be better use of his time.</p>
<p>Maybe if he spent time with his wife he would not be divorced? </p>
<p>Sorry, this was a cheap shot…but I had to ask.</p>
<p>
oh, <em>GAG</em> me!!! Glad I was watchin’ Jerry Springer instead… :D</p>
<p>Well…today was even better. Matt & gang just did a little piece on ‘stars’ and their politics. Actually said the Dixie Chicks benefited from their little political incident becoming HUGE stars touring places like Australia. Like they have a choice? lol! But I digress…</p>
<p>What struck me as ironic is Matt’s comments at the end of the piece. He said…if someone in the audience didn’t like what Barbra was saying, they should have taken a long bathroom break. Hmmm… wonder if he’d like to mention this coping strategy to the Columbia protestors…</p>
<p>Just to play devil’s advocate here, although I don’t agree with her reaction to an audience member (for which she later apologized), I think that anyone who is a Barbra fan and pays the exorbitant cost for a concert ticket knows very well that she always includes political commentary in her shows. This is nothing new, and her political views are certainly no secret. When one attends a performance, you’re paying for the entire show, you don’t get to pick and choose what parts you do or don’t want to hear/listen to/see. This applies to any type of performance. Paying for a ticket doesn’t give you the right to stand up and jeer what’s going on onstage, interrupting whatever the ‘act’ is at that time. This holds true whether it’s something you are enjoying or something you’re hating. </p>
<p>I haven’t seen the Today show commentary but the accounts I’ve read online and in the print media have all suggested that this individual voiced his opinion loudly, and then continued to do so repeatedly, until she finally had had enough and lost her temper. I’m not sure how this would ‘hurt’ her. She’s enormously successful and tickets to her shows sell out usually within an hour of them going on sale for these limited tours she does.</p>
<p>As far as the Dixie Chicks benefitting, I think they probably have! And ldmom, I’m not sure why you think that they have no choice but to tour in Australia? Their current North American tour is one of the most successful tours ever, of any band, in terms of ticket sales. I’m seeing them at the end of the month and can’t wait. They’re incredibly talented musicians who have been subjected to an incredible amount of hate, including death threats, simply for expressing a personal opinion.</p>
<p>It seems to me that the audience member was rude to heckle Streisand, and she was unprofessional to respond to it. If she had ignored it, other members of the audience or security would have spoken to the man, and she would have retained a little dignity. </p>
<p>I sometimes think that Hollywood types think that normal people go around using vulgar language on a daily basis. I’m offended when teenagers at the mall use this kind of language, and I think Streisand appears to be uneducated and declasse by using such language in public.</p>
<p>Laura Ingraham wrote a great book about self-styled celebrity intellectuals called “Shut up and Sing.” Perhaps borrowing from Frank Zappa’s “Shut up 'n play your guitar.” </p>
<p>No one should be threatened for their public statements, and I do like the Chicks’ version of “Landslide”–really masterful. It’s interesting, though, to contemplate the utter lack of education among so many of our brightest stars. Try a trip through Google some time, and see where all of these celebrity intellectuals cut their intellectual teeth. The answer is that most of them never have. They’re just famous.</p>
<p>I agree with you alwaysamom. Anyone who is a Streisand fan surely knows she is politically active and knows her views. She did apologize for swearing, not for her opinion. I understand that she said, “Come on, be polite!” and when that didn’t hush the heckler, she lost it and told him to “shut the f*$k up”. I would prefer that entertainers not share their personal beliefs and political inclinations during a performance, but I guess when they have the platform, and some feel very passionately, they just go for it. Of course, if the person doing the entertaining is a stand-up comic or something of that nature, anything is game. Although I’m neither a Streisand music fan nor a country music fan (practically a sin in my town), I’ll take the opportunity to say I agree with Barbra and the Dixie Chicks regarding their opinions on GWB. 
</p>
<p>Off topic: Regarding the Dixie Chicks - I recently heard a song of theirs, Lullaby, while watching “Medium”. It was really quite lovely.</p>
<p>A few things…</p>
<p>First, my issue with the Dixie Chicks is not with their criticism of George Bush; it is the fact that they chose to make those comments overseas. It smacked of cowardice and opportunism…a means to ingratiate themselves to their international audience who they KNEW would applaud those comments. In contrast, they kept their mouths shut in front of American audiences and what does that tell you? They had political conviction but it took a back seat to the PROFIT conviction. Since then, because they had no choice, they have been more outspoken and have developed a new audience. But make no mistake, this was the path of necessity.</p>
<p>Regarding the heckler… The guy didn’t rush the stage, silence Barbra’s pov, hold up banners, physically assault anyone, or do anything other than yell “Stick to Singing!”. First, her people claimed he was a ‘professional heckler’…then they backed off on that. Now they claim the exchange was a tiny, brief moment in an otherwise wonderful hours long event. So…apparently, even her own people don’t think he was as bad as you suggest alwaysamom.</p>
<p>And finally, yes maybe the heckler should have ‘taken the long bathroom break’. But my point is missed. Some prominent liberals, who would chastise the heckler, are strangely silent about the antics of the Columbia protestors.</p>
<p>Like non of us have ever sworn…she is an entertainer…and it is a WORD…the dreaded F word…OMG…my H is an Irishman…the F word is like an adjective…</p>
<p>Wow, are we that sensitive, that if we hear the F word, we will faint away with the vapors>>></p>
<p>I am not chastizing the heckler, I just think we need to grow up a bit if we get all freaked out of the F word or someone talking politics</p>
<p>Even Elvis was political in his own way, playing that “music:”</p>
<p>No…no fainting. It’s just vulgar. With all the words in the English language, surely we can train the mind to grab another quick adjective.</p>
<p>cgm - I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about Matt Lauer piously telling the nation, this a.m., that the heckler should have gotten up and taken a break. Excuses are made for the debacle at Columbia, but this guy gets the finger-wagging disapproval?</p>
<p>I really prefer not to hear the F word in public. Unfortunately, it is a word I use when frustrated, especially when I’m mumbling to other drivers around me on the road. I really don’t like to hear it in a public place, though. I hear it at the football game a lot (and with the way my boys are playing, it’s not surprising), but I really don’t like to hear it used loudly.</p>
<p>Lest I also come off as pious, I confess to under-the-breath cussing in German and Spanish in traffic. Houston will do that to ya.</p>
<p>Natalie Maines made her comment about Bush overseas because that is where they happened to be when the issue arose, performing in London. They were in the midst of several European performances and they were definitely feeling the animosity of the world against GWB. It was a comment made at a small venue, far from home, and she probably felt, perhaps naively, that the press wouldn’t latch onto it and create the ridiculous firestorm that they did over it. Whether their new ‘path’ was a path of necessity or not, it has certainly worked for them and, more power to them. I admire that they have not backed down but instead have chosen to address the issue in their songs.</p>
<p>ldmom, I was simply repeating what I’d read about the heckler incident at the concert. Each article I read indicated that he made his objections known in a loud, rude manner, he was asked to “be polite”, and yet he continued until she lost her temper. I don’t think that it’s unusual for “her people” to indicate that the incident was a tiny moment. I’m sure it WAS in the grand scheme of the entire evening of her music. I think that both the heckler at the concert and the students at the Columbia event were wrong in their behavior. I’m curious who the prominent liberals are, to whom you’re referring in your comment. What did Matt Lauer have to say about what happened at Columbia?</p>
<p>Freedom of speech is defined by some as only applying to certain speech, not a dissenting opinion. The great importance of the protection is tested when there is only a tiny voice.</p>
<p>Lucky for Barbra that she had a microphone so she could be the biggest voice in the house. </p>
<p>From Barbra’s website–commenting on Freedom of Speech:</p>
<p>"Thank God the constitution enables all citizens to exercise their freedom of speech to say what they believe. That’s what’s great about democracy and what’s great about this country. </p>
<p>In fact, Theodore Roosevelt said, “To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.” How dare the media call people who speak out against the war unpatriotic. Exercising freedom of speech is an extremely patriotic act. </p>
<p>I have been arguing that point for many years now, that artists have just as much of a right to speak out as every other citizen. In 1995, I gave a speech at Harvard called the artist as citizen. I made the point then and many times since that artists are citizens first and artists second. We have opinions and ideas, just like anybody else. The difference is that we are given more visibility from which to speak - so we have to be informed and we have to be responsible, but it doesn’t mean we have to be quiet."</p>
<p>Well, if we don’t agree with you, it certainly does!</p>
<p>Matt Lauer said NOTHING about Columbia that wasn’t straight news. That is my point, he’d rather spend two days on a soapbox lecturing a Barbra Streisand heckler. I’m amazed that the only commentary on the Columbia incident seems to becoming from the far right talking heads. What occurred at Columbia was far more significant than a silly Barbra Streisand concert. Voices were silenced at Columbia, Barbra made an oopsie at her concert.</p>
<p>And bbmom is exactly right. Why did Barbra have such a issue with this man exercising his right to express himself? Frankly, if I’d been in the audience, I would have told the heckler to shut up so Barbra can sing and then I would have told Barbra the same thing. 
But if a person chooses to flap their gums, they should be prepared for what comes next. Even ‘divas’.</p>