Just to prove that I am fair and balanced I'm going to weigh in on the latest GEICO firestorm.
In April, 2010 GEICO fired Lance Baxter aka D.C. Douglas for calling Tea Party members "retarded". He stupidly left that message on the answering service of FreedomWorks, along with his name and phone number. There was enough outrage that he was fired. I explained in a post back then the reasons why this might happen:
When you represent a product, even if it's just your voice, you're the face (or voice, in this case) of that company, and anything you do reflects on said company. You certainly don't want to make them look bad, and you definitely do not go around acting badly without suffering the consequences. Not necessarily because the company disagrees with your actions, but there are enough people in this country who might, and they'll have your ass.
Yes, it's censorship, but it's their product, and ultimately their right to censure those who 'represent' their product, even if that means firing.
Jump ahead 2 years, and we discover GEICO fired someone else for being political, but this time it was a conservative. According to drill sergeant Lee Ermey- of "Full Metal Jacket" fame- he told TMZ that he was fired for criticizing Obama (see video below). He claims he apologized but that wasn't enough. He then went on to say that:
"If you're a conservative in this town, you better watch out."
Yeah, that's very true, but in this case I think it was simply the bottom line.
If you want to be a spokesperson or represent a particular 'product', you need to keep your mouth shut about politics.
First of all, I want to say that not all of us actors are stupid, although admittedly plenty are. And very few are indispensable. Actors are a dime a dozen and when talent rarely factors into the casting process, it's incumbent upon us to mind our Ps & Qs. That's why it's always best to keep your politics to yourself, because you never know which side of the fence those in the position to hire (or fire) you are sitting.
One of the voices of Geico (not the Gecko), Lance Baxter (aka D.C. Douglas) learned the hard way that it's not best to mix politics and work, especially when you are the voice of a well-known, nationwide insurance company. When you represent a product, even if it's just your voice, you're the face (or voice, in this case) of that company, and anything you do reflects on said company. You certainly don't want to make them look bad, and you definitely do not go around acting badly without suffering the consequences. Not necessarily because the company disagrees with your actions, but there are enough people in this country who might and they'll have your ass. Baxter obviously is unaware of that fact or didn't care when he left a nasty message on Freedomworks' voicemail. FreedomWorks, one of the voices of the Tea Party Movement, has had its fair share of hate from bomb threats to racist diatribe including the message from Baxter. In his voicemail, Baxter matter-of-factly tells the FreedomWorks people he's doing a paper and wanted to know "the percentage of people that are mentally retarded who are working for FreedomWorks and who are following it." He then goes on to ask they will "spin it when one of your members does actually kill somebody, wondering if you've got a PR spinning routine planned for that or are you just gonna take it when it happens."
Now this is where Baxter really falls into the 'stupid actor' category: the man actually leaves his name and phone number on the message. If you want to be politically active, or voice your grievances in our business (if you're that pissed) you don't leave a name and number on a voice mail for the whole world to have access to. Anyone could pick up the phone, and leave an equally nasty message for him, though I wouldn't recommend it.
Anyway, as a result of his impetuous actions (or the outrage by Tea Partiers who more than likely flooded the corporate offices with complaints) Geico fired Baxter, and are already re-casting.
"I called as a private citizen to make a complaint," explains Mr. Douglas. "Racism and homophobia are my Achilles heal, but unfortunately my message included inappropriate words and I am sorry for that. However, telling their members to harass my employer to get me fired is an egregiously disproportionate response to my actions."
Mr. Douglas believes his connection to GEICO, a company already on FreedomWorks' boycott list for pulling their ads from Glenn Beck's show, is the main reason he was targeted so forcefully. "Even though I left the message during the week of March 23, the harassing calls didn't hit until April 14, the morning after I posted about my GEICO campaign on my Facebook page."
Interesting comment. Maybe this whole thing was payback for Geico pulling their ads for Glenn Beck, but that's the beauty of this country, it goes both ways. Sad he doesn't see that. And to have lost a job based on some racial and homophobic comments no-one has been able to prove. Very stupid. I think from now on he might just keep his gripes out of a public forum, as all smart actors should
