"Why do actors think we care about their political views?" " Who do these football players think they are?" "Just shut up and sing!"

If these are things you can hear yourself saying (or posting) you owe it to yourself to hear what one columnist in the Hollywood Reporter has to say. The following was written by Frank Pope, longtime managing editor of the Hollywood Reporter.

"The Hollywood stars who are so earnest--and so public---in their sympathies for anti-fascism and other antis, are do more harm to themselves than good to the causes they sponsor...How long will it be before the unpopularity which they certainly will gather, will begin to affect their screen standing and, later perhaps, their salaries?"

The rest of Mr. Pope's column continues along the lines of reasoning that these pampered stars should just be grateful for what they have lest they risk alienating audiences.

Now, as Paul Harvey would have said...THE REST OF THE STORY!

That column by Frank Pope? It was written in 1937. Those stars he was telling to pipe down weren't your Clooneys and Kaepernicks. They were your Chaplins and Dietrichs. The fascists these celebrities were speaking out against were THE fascists. You know...not these tiki-torch wielding, polo-shirted nancy-boys like we saw in Charlottesville. The Nazis with a capital "N". Some celebrities spoke out against them years before America fought against the Wehrmacht.

And, of course they were told to shut up and keep their opinions to themselves. Because things really don't change as much as we'd like to think they do.

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