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Sharon Waxman of the NY Times, linked from AOL News
LOS ANGELES - It was very early Monday morning by the time Tim Robbins lurched out of the Vanity Fair Oscar party at Mortons restaurant and toward the valet line, with his wife, Susan Sarandon, two children and his golden statue for best supporting actor, in "Mystic River."
The driver pulled up, not in a limousine, but in the diminutive Prius, the hybrid gas-electric car that Hollywood — part of it, anyway — so adores.
Meanwhile, down the street a stretch Hummer limousine was parked at the corner of Melrose and San Vicente, having deposited a group of younger, less famous, "après nous le déluge" type partygoers to the very same Vanity Fair bacchanal.
As Mr. Robbins folded his six-foot-five frame into the front passenger seat, and the rest of his family curled themselves into the back seat, Ms. Sarandon was heard to remark that the fans behind the barriers were screaming in their direction "because they're trying to figure out why we're in this crazy little car," a loaner.
Why, indeed? The culture wars roll on in Hollywood, this time on wheels, and nothing divides people like that nine-mile-a-gallon former military truck or the tiny Japanese-made sedan with dual engines under the hood. It's Hummer versus hybrid, Hollywood hedonism versus holier-than-thou Hollywood political correctness.
Both cars have been on the streets for some time, in the Hummer's case more than a decade. But with the Hummer's most ardent celebrity fan, Arnold Schwarzenegger (he owns seven), elected governor last year, just in time for a large-scale H2 promotional campaign, the car-culture wars have been reignited with a vengeance.
The environmental campaigner Laurie David, the wife of Larry David of the HBO series "Curb Your Enthusiasm, worked herself into a lather not long ago over a Hummer-driving mother in the parking lot of the Crossroads School in Los Angeles. She rolled down her Prius window to share her displeasure. "I said," Mrs. David recalled, " `Are you crazy to bring this car into this parking lot? Do you understand how dangerous it is to the kids you can't see?' She stared at me blankly."
Nowadays the divide is more than cultural. It is also political. It is class- and age-oriented, too. Really.
New money is very Hummer.
Old money (dating, say, from the 1980's), very Prius.
Entertainment industry executives like Jim Wiatt, the president of the William Morris Agency, who used to be seen in a big fancy Mercedes-Benz, drove to the Vanity Fair party in a hybrid. Tom Hanks just bought the redesigned 2004 Prius, the second generation of the car Toyota first introduced in 2000. It is the movie people who can afford mansions who are driving the $20,000 hybrids. And it is the rappers who just made their first couple of million dollars who are buying the $50,000 Hummer. It is the kids of entertainment industry executives who rent Hummer limos for their proms and big nights out.
In the rap world, Tupac Shakur helped popularize the Hummer. His H1, unused since his death in 1996, was offered on eBay for a starting bid of $500,000, but did not sell.
Celebrity Hummer owners include the actor Adrien Brody and the director James Cameron, who made the macho "Titanic." Hugh Hefner has been seen in a Hummer. And Steven Soderbergh's agent, Pat Dollard, says he loves the "sheer excess" of the truck, which he owns.
Remainder of Article Here:
That Crazy Remainder of Article
LOS ANGELES - It was very early Monday morning by the time Tim Robbins lurched out of the Vanity Fair Oscar party at Mortons restaurant and toward the valet line, with his wife, Susan Sarandon, two children and his golden statue for best supporting actor, in "Mystic River."
The driver pulled up, not in a limousine, but in the diminutive Prius, the hybrid gas-electric car that Hollywood — part of it, anyway — so adores.
Meanwhile, down the street a stretch Hummer limousine was parked at the corner of Melrose and San Vicente, having deposited a group of younger, less famous, "après nous le déluge" type partygoers to the very same Vanity Fair bacchanal.
As Mr. Robbins folded his six-foot-five frame into the front passenger seat, and the rest of his family curled themselves into the back seat, Ms. Sarandon was heard to remark that the fans behind the barriers were screaming in their direction "because they're trying to figure out why we're in this crazy little car," a loaner.
Why, indeed? The culture wars roll on in Hollywood, this time on wheels, and nothing divides people like that nine-mile-a-gallon former military truck or the tiny Japanese-made sedan with dual engines under the hood. It's Hummer versus hybrid, Hollywood hedonism versus holier-than-thou Hollywood political correctness.
Both cars have been on the streets for some time, in the Hummer's case more than a decade. But with the Hummer's most ardent celebrity fan, Arnold Schwarzenegger (he owns seven), elected governor last year, just in time for a large-scale H2 promotional campaign, the car-culture wars have been reignited with a vengeance.
The environmental campaigner Laurie David, the wife of Larry David of the HBO series "Curb Your Enthusiasm, worked herself into a lather not long ago over a Hummer-driving mother in the parking lot of the Crossroads School in Los Angeles. She rolled down her Prius window to share her displeasure. "I said," Mrs. David recalled, " `Are you crazy to bring this car into this parking lot? Do you understand how dangerous it is to the kids you can't see?' She stared at me blankly."
Nowadays the divide is more than cultural. It is also political. It is class- and age-oriented, too. Really.
New money is very Hummer.
Old money (dating, say, from the 1980's), very Prius.
Entertainment industry executives like Jim Wiatt, the president of the William Morris Agency, who used to be seen in a big fancy Mercedes-Benz, drove to the Vanity Fair party in a hybrid. Tom Hanks just bought the redesigned 2004 Prius, the second generation of the car Toyota first introduced in 2000. It is the movie people who can afford mansions who are driving the $20,000 hybrids. And it is the rappers who just made their first couple of million dollars who are buying the $50,000 Hummer. It is the kids of entertainment industry executives who rent Hummer limos for their proms and big nights out.
In the rap world, Tupac Shakur helped popularize the Hummer. His H1, unused since his death in 1996, was offered on eBay for a starting bid of $500,000, but did not sell.
Celebrity Hummer owners include the actor Adrien Brody and the director James Cameron, who made the macho "Titanic." Hugh Hefner has been seen in a Hummer. And Steven Soderbergh's agent, Pat Dollard, says he loves the "sheer excess" of the truck, which he owns.
Remainder of Article Here:
That Crazy Remainder of Article
