You’re now the Man you rallied against: When did rock stars start telling artists to stay out of politics?
In the latest culture war battlefield, the tedious demand for art to be shoved in some neutral box rears its weary head once again.
In a recent TMZ exclusive, Kiss bassist and co-founder Gene Simmons made clear his thoughts on the artists and public figures who express any kind of political opinion in the creative world.
Quizzed on his thoughts on recent statements from parts of Hollywood condemning President Donald Trump’s administration, Simmons quipped back with cynical sarcasm, “Yeah, because everyone in the world should listen to what actors and comedians say because they are so qualified.”
He then doubled down, “Basically, shut the fuck up. Do your art and shut up. Nobody is interested in your opinions, that includes me, who I vote for, and who I like. Who do you think you are?”
“People in America work hard for a living, and they don’t want to be lectured to by people who live in mansions and drive Rolls-Royces,” Simmons concluded. “It’s time for everyone in the entertainment industry to shut their pie-hole and just do your art, nobody cares what you think – I don’t.”
Naturally, such a ramble went down like a storm on ‘based’ social media, intoxicated with grievances toward the dreaded ‘elites’. A quick scroll across X (Twitter) or comments on Facebook reveals a breathless admiration for Simmons’ attacking quip at the liberal establishment among dedicated culture warriors and bots, plus Fox News gleefully reporting his “torching Hollywood elites for lecturing Americans about their political views,” and New York Post eagerly spreading the Kiss demon “tears apart celebrities banging on about politics.”
Let’s remind ourselves of the ivory tower-dwelling insufferables’ unforgivable sin. Simmons’ reactionary guff was in response to comedian Ben Stiller objecting to his starring in Tropic Thunder among the many movie clips featured in the White House’s crass propaganda video while engaging in an act of reckless aggression in Iran. Then, later, Simmons takes a potshot at actor Mark Ruffalo, his egregious self-indulgence being the dismay at the mother of three, Renée Good, murdered by an ICE thug in Minneapolis.
Even in liberal cultural circles, supposed champions of progressive causes have succumbed to similarly trite sentiments. After an acclaimed musical career lambasting New Labour’s corporate lurch, the Iraq War, environmental degradation, and supporting the Free Tibet movement, Radiohead guitarist Johnny Greenwood implored that art should stand “above and beyond” politics when facing heat for his Tel Aviv show with Israel Defence Forces entertaining Dudu Tassa as Gaza was being flattened in 2024 and ‘25.
Where’s the line exactly when a public figure expressing a political opinion becomes not shutting your “pie hole”? Simmons has been more than happy to wade into all manner of political topics, from urging bands to avoid playing live shows in Russia in the wake of the Ukraine War, calling out anti-Vaxxers during the Pandemic, and committing unwavering support of Israel while the apartheid state wages a bloody genocide in Gaza and broader regional instability in the Middle East. Beyond the ‘Lick It Up’ singer, there’s a broader MAGA adjacent right-wing embrace of the likes of Kid Rock, Ted Nugent, and Nicki Minaj harping on about the latest culture war gripe.
What’s the deal? Well, in the conservative imagination – and Simmons is overwhelmingly conservative, despite his apolitical pretences and infrequent social liberalism – any left-leaning expression from anyone in music or the wider entertainment industry can only be born from a position of privilege. There’s a grain of truth to this down on the ground, a contempt for a liberal establishment that indeed has aligned itself with the corporate end of Democrat circles, with an unbearable history of progressive cosplaying without material uplift for working-class communities, eager to paint LGBTQ+ rainbow roads while doing nothing to fix the potholes.
However, such legitimate seething toward the establishment has been exploited by said establishment and articulated into culture war grievances rather than structural analysis. Despite openly bestowing the virtues of fiscal responsibility, bemoaning the welfare state, and toadying up to the President last year for Trump’s Kennedy Center Honor in full enmesh with the elite, Simmons can join some of the richest financiers, Silicon Valley tech bros, politicians, and other washed-up rock stars in posturing as kickers against the Man by virtue of sticking to the same contrived script of defining the elite as some nebulous, cultural gatekeepers that wield all the supposed power.
With this politically motivated framing, you get to dress up your lazy rightward drift and lapping up of reactionary, divisive thinking as somehow rebellious or brave. Far better to cushion that guilty pang and cling to the notion that today’s struggles are ‘woke’ and illegitimate than to acknowledge you’re now the Man you rallied against in your youth.
“Do your art and shut up,” Simmons demands. Should Jimi Hendrix have avoided playing his scorching excoriation of US foreign policy in his blistering Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock? Perhaps The Beatles should have skipped their subversive “rattle your jewellery” dig at the British class system in front of the Royal Family. And let’s just bypass the entire punk movement’s insurrectionary soundtrack to the 1970s’ economic malaise and put up with more prog rock records about wizards.
No vintage music fan sporting their Sex Pistols T-shirt would ever agree with the above, but how many former rock and punk fans of a certain age were ready with the guffaw laugh reaction on Facebook or derisory X comments when Geese drummer Max Bessin let loose a “free Palestine and fuck ICE” statement at the Brit Awards. Or frothed at the mouth with apoplectic rage when Bob Vylan wished death to the IDF in the midst of their bloody war crimes in true, punk rock fashion.
What’s the difference? None.
The pleas for artists of any stripe to avoid politics is a demand from a contemporary conservative where empathy, imagination, and dissidence go to shrivel and die, where you gobble up whatever narratives and justifications you need to legitimate your material benefit of the status quo, or the comforting retreat of a culture war coddle that tells you your tired complacency is marvellously noble. Simmons doesn’t truly think art should be an arena separate from politics, nor does anyone else who yaps such ahistorical nonsense; he just thinks no one should ever criticise the system that serves him, like all rich, powerful members of the elite.
