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More than anything, I hope that this episode sparks a return of a seemingly long-lost role in society: the apolitical entertainer who just wants to make people feel good, and who is loath to alienate any significant portion of their potential audience. A return to the old “Republicans buy sneakers too” approach coined by Michael Jordan.
There has been much speculation about why such a role has disappeared - why even formerly apolitical entertainers have seemingly felt compelled to start making extremely divisive political statements.
One explanation is that such individuals have always actually been very politically opinionated individuals, and that being permitted to be open about that has been a sort of liberation. An embrace of authenticity which allows them to cultivate a more intimate, real relationship with their fans. “Now you see who I really am and what I really believe. Can you still support me, even knowing that? If you can, you’re a real fan. If not, then you were only a fan of the character I was playing.” With the rise of social media and the subsequent shift to a more parasocial model of celebrity, this makes sense. And as someone who once thought about pursuing a career as a public entertainer, one of the big things that dissuaded me was thinking about how careful I would have to commit to being with my public statements and behavior for the rest of my life, for fear of alienating people or damaging my PR. I can see why for someone like Kyle Gass, just being able to let loose and say what’s on his mind, and to expect to be in a cocoon of people who would embrace it and not take it super seriously, must be a very psychologically-important thing.
The other explanation for why there are so few apolitical celebrities is that entertainers are being compelled, either by explicit top-down coercion or by simply overwhelming social pressure, to assume vocal stances about issues. One could argue that this is the case for Taylor Swift, who received relentless criticism from certain circles during the earlier stages of her career for “not using her platform to advocate for important issues.” The most egregious example of this, to me, is the example of novelty pop-rock/ska band The Aquabats. They’re about as squeaky-clean, apolitical, and family-friendly as can be; they dress in silly superhero costumes, sing songs about things like pizza day at the school cafeteria and how worms make dirt, and in fact the frontman created a popular children’s TV show. Nobody is going to these guys for serious commentary about anything! Yet, after having crowd-funded an album set to be released in 2020, they scrapped the release of the album and started sharing various links to BLM- and CRT-related “resources” and encouraging their fans to direct their money and attention to those causes instead. Did they do so because they’ve been undercover progressives the whole time and felt morally obligated to speak up? Or did they do so because they were afraid of the optics and potential backlash of raising money for a goofy ska album when black people are literally being murdered and they need your money to save their lives? (Or is it some combination of both?)
The way in which public figures whom I once cherished have beclowned themselves and alienated me and other fans with right-wing sensibilities over the last decade has been so incredibly demoralizing to me, and I’m just praying that this Tenacious D thing might finally slow the momentum at least a tiny bit. I’ve started insulating myself from the risk of being exposed to awful political takes from my favorite celebrities by just assuming they’re all libtards and assiduously avoiding reading any of their public statements, looking at their social media, etc. If this situation at least encourages entertainers to keep their political commentary sequestered in places where someone like me can avoid seeing it if we want to, maybe that will be enough of a stable Schelling point to help the culture heal a bit.
As to your two explanations, I expect it's a combination of both, but would say the latter is probably the much larger component.
I find myself once again referring to the "Mrs. Britten's English Zone" page on Characteristics of Puritan Writing
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Replace the letters and diaries with emails, chat, and social media, and the Protestant moralizing with woke DEI moralizing, and you've got a rather familiar type, no? And note the skepticism of fiction: works done for entertainment's sake are inherently suspect, and moral messaging is the priority in any communication.
Hence the criticism of much current "woke" media, and of many attempts at right-wing "anti-woke" media, both paralleling the classic criticism of much "Christian media" of the Veggie Tales sort: that they put The Message above storytelling, above quality, above being entertaining. If your show or your music or your writing isn't ad maiorem DEI gloriam (if I may be forgiven this horrible wordplay), then what does that say about its morals — and thus your morals? If you're not constantly displaying Christian virtue in your words, and exhorting everyone else to do the same, then you're not really a proper Puritan, are you? If you're not signaling how "woke" and pro-diversity you are, and reminding everyone to check their privilege and practice tolerance, then how do we know you're not secretly some sort of reactionary bigot?
Didn't Scott have a post where he made a point along these lines, about how this is what we get when people with "hectoring Church Lady" personalities grow up in secular Progressive spaces?
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I know nothing about these folks beyond what you wrote in this comment, but isn't there a 3rd, IMHO more parsimonious, option, that they are recent converts and display the fervor present only in such people? Certainly in the past 20 years, I've seen no shortage of people who have recently converted to this particular faith with the result being going from fairly neutral apolitical/milquetoast generic liberal to single-minded fanatics cheering on violence against dissenters and denigrating peers for not clapping loudly enough at the latest stunning and brave person/organization to stand up against the Oppressors. This kind of blowing up an existing project and replacing it with calls to funnel all the resources towards supporting the organizations that run this faith would fit right into that same pattern.
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