Trump to lie low on Kennedy gala night

Under threats of protest and boycott from some of the artists being honored, President Donald Trump announced last week he would not attend the Kennedy Center Honors this December.

“The president and first lady have decided not to participate in this year’s activities to allow the honorees to celebrate without any political distraction,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.

The annual event honors artists and performers for their lifetime contributions to American arts. This year’s honorees are dancer and choreographer Carmen de Lavallade, singer Gloria Estefan, hip-hop artist LL Cool J, television writer and producer Norman Lear, and musician Lionel Richie.

De Lavallade said Thursday she would skip a reception at the White House before the Kennedy Center Honors gala, and Richie said he was a “maybe.” Lear in the past criticized Trump, calling him indifferent to the arts and humanities.

Missing a Kennedy Center Honors gala isn’t unheard of: Presidents Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton all skipped one due to various scheduling conflicts. In a statement, Kennedy Center leaders sounded almost relieved to dodge more controversy.

“In choosing not to participate in this year’s Honors activities, the administration has graciously signaled its respect for the Kennedy Center and ensures the Honors gala remains a deservingly special moment for the honorees,” chairman David M. Rubenstein and president Deborah F. Rutter said. “We are grateful for this gesture.”

Trump and first lady Melania Trump’s decision to skip the gala and cancel the White House reception was announced one day after the 17 members of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities resigned. President Barack Obama appointed the committee members to serve until they were replaced. The committee had not yet met during Trump’s administration but was still working on some programming.

In a letter to the president, the committee excoriated him for his response to the Aug. 12 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va.

“The false equivalencies you push cannot stand,” the letter stated in reference to Trump’s remarks that both sides of the protest and counterprotest shared blame in the violence that broke out.

Actor Kal Penn told CNN’s New Day that most of the committee members stayed on under Trump because they saw their work as nonpartisan. Their resignation en masse illustrates the rapid disappearance of formerly apolitical cultural niches.

The politicization of the arts is not a new phenomenon of the Trump era—recall the Dixie Chicks vs. President George W. Bush)—but it has intensified since the 2016 campaign. Trump’s transition team struggled to find popular artists to perform at his inaugural events. Elton John, Celine Dion, KISS, Moby, and others reportedly turned down invitations. Bush had better luck even after the 2000 recount debacle, landing pop stars such as Destiny’s Child, Jessica Simpson, and Ricky Martin to help celebrate his inauguration.

That Trump wants to try to protect the Kennedy Center Honors from the slings and arrows of politics is to his credit, but the fact that it’s even an issue shows the new depth of the country’s partisan divide.

Fueling the frenzy

A decision by ESPN to pull a play-by-play announcer from an upcoming University of Virginia football game made lots of people on the internet mad for all the wrong reasons.

Executives decided to switch Robert Lee, an Asian-American, to a different game on Sept. 2 than the one in Charlottesville, Va., where violent protests took place Aug. 12 over the proposed removal of a statue of a Confederate general whose name was a little too close for comfort to the announcer’s. ESPN gave Lee the option of calling a different game, according to a memo, and he took it, in part because he wanted to avoid the obvious jokes that might arise from his appearance in Charlottesville.

Word got out, and internet outrage erupted with people accusing ESPN of being too politically correct and assuming the name “Robert Lee” would have negative connotations for viewers. Commenter Scott Dillon on Outkick the Coverage called the move a “reflection of ESPN’s unbearable descent into the left-wing PC abyss.” That reaction prompted counteroutrage from ESPN defenders who applauded the move as pragmatic while promising they would never have actually been offended by Lee’s name.

And so ESPN wound up mired in the exact controversy it reportedly tried to avoid. —L.L.

Say it ain’t so, Taylor

Taylor Swift appears to be in the middle of an image overhaul that fired up last week when she (or her publicist) erased all of the content on her social media accounts and launched Thursday night with the release of a new single.

“Look What You Made Me Do,” is a rage anthem that proclaims, “The old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now … because she’s dead.” The single will appear on the album Reputation, set for release Nov. 10. The cover art shows Swift has traded her signature red lipstick for black.

Before unleashing her dark side, Swift should’ve checked with Britney Spears and Miley Cyrus to see how it worked for them. Both artists peaked early in their careers and alienated young fans with their good-girl-gone-bad transformations. Part of Swift’s mammoth success came from her simple and relatable songs about the joys and sorrows of youth. Adoring tween fans felt like Swift could be their BFF.

With the new single and her album’s cover art, Swift seems to be complaining about the trials of fame and fortune and blaming others for how her life turned out. What ever happened to shaking it off? —L.L.

A laughing matter

Warner Bros. and DC Comics this week announced plans for a standalone movie that will tell the origin story of Batman villain the Joker. Martin Scorcese is producing it and The Hangover’s Todd Phillips is directing and co-writing the script. The news just begs for a listicle of the portrayals of Batman’s nemesis through the years, so here are the rankings from all the Jokers this Bat-fan can recall:

1. Cesar Romero, Batman, 1966-68. This Joker from the campy TV series set the standard for all those who followed with the makeup, the laugh, the twisted sense of humor, and the streak of criminal genius. The fact that he always seemed to be having fun made him that much more evil.

2. Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight, 2008. As a carefree criminal whose only mission was mayhem, Ledger kept the best of Romero’s Joker and updated him for modern audiences.

3. Mark Hamill in Batman: The Animated Series, 1992-95. Batman walks away from his fights with this Joker exhausted, depressed, and usually wounded. And the Joker just laughs the entire time.

4. Jack Nicholson in Batman, 1989. So far the only Joker with a backstory, this one was obsessed with revenge. Though Nicholson had the Joker look with those eyebrows, the character was almost too organized in his quest to destroy Batman.

5. Zack Galiafianakis in The Lego Batman Movie, 2017. This Joker had more interest in getting Batman’s attention than defeating him.

6. Jared Leto in Suicide Squad, 2016. When Joker lost his heart to Harley Quinn, he lost his sense of humor, too. This one had too much snarl and not enough grin. —L.L.