feeling listless

Film Intelligent interview with Anna Paquin which doesn't just touch on her film work but also her political leanings:

"I can't speak for everyone. And obviously, it's not all actors that are liberal. But a lot of creative people are very liberal. It's a lot of people who have been raised to think that it's even conceivable to pursue a career in a ridiculously unattainable industry like entertainment. [Laughs.] We're often raised by pretty open-minded people. Obviously, that's a generalization, and I can really only speak for my own family, but no one in my family ever told me what I did or didn't have to believe, or what I did or didn't have to do with my life. I was kind of just left to do what I wanted, and this came my way. I was raised in a very open-minded household. I don't know. I can't speak for everyone, but maybe there's some connection between creativity and liberal open-mindedness.

It does seem to be the case that when the BBC (for want of an example) is at its most creative it gets accused of liberal bias. I'm a liberal, and I'm proud of that. The word seems to have less a negative connotation over here than in the US and there's nowt more liberal than my party leader Nick Clegg. I don't know where it came from -- my liberalism -- certainly partly my upbringing but also the entertainment and arts I've consumed across these years probably.

I find some of the comments in this Jezebel post truly horrifying and I can't believe that if you were to interview six attractive liberals with the same questions (the full interviews are here) that the outcome would be the same (any volunteers?). We're more liberal, more open I would hope. Perhaps its just that the quotes need to be translated into uk liberal language to make them understandable. At the risk of alienating another reader (the Bloglines subscribers are in freefall already) If you tweak the opening quote from Cassy Fiano, just a bit (I'll italicize the changes) it suddenly makes far better sense, at least to me:

"I tend not to date conservatives, for a reason. Politics is so important to what I do and I follow it so much. I can't respect a guy who's conservative all that much because it makes me question his intelligence. So, that's a big minus because I'm thinking how smart can this guy be if he thinks Boris Johnson is a great politician? If he thinks David Cameron would be a great Prime Minister, I think, gee, how bright could this guy be?"

Not that we're that polarised about these things in the UK, you understand.