Leonardo DiCaprio premiered a new public service announcement on the Oct. 2 episode of Ellen DeGeneres’ talk show as an attempt to urge young U.S. voters to vote. Since then, it has been viewed on numerous Internet websites.
One of the Web sites the video was featured on was popeater.com. It expressed the statement, “A celebrity public service announcement encourages the public not to vote in this year’s election-unless they care about the issues.”
Some stars that made these bold declarations include Tobey Maguire, Adam Levine, Usher, Sarah Silverman, Eva Longoria, Courteney Cox, Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman.
“Please, just don’t vote. This is one of the biggest financial disasters in American history,” DiCaprio said when he began the announcement with an intelligently crafted use of reverse psychology. If that doesn’t spark the need to vote to change things, nothing will.
Hollywood wanted to make pronouncement that Americans should not vote unless they care about minimum wages, poverty, education, global warming, gun control, civil rights, the war, the economy and all of our amendments. Within the first hour of the public service announcement airing live, 10,000 more people registered to vote, according to DiCaprio.
In regards to problems concerning the environment, Jamie Foxx and DiCaprio asked, “Who cares about global warming and the fact that our polar ice caps are melting?”
“I hear polar bears can swim,” Jennifer Aniston said.
However, larger issues are at stake, such as the future of our country and its people, along with the education of our younger generations and the war on terror.
In reality, Aniston’s statement, “This is really only about your future,” says it all. The public was urged to vote if these issues truly matter to them and their future.
A Web site was even placed in the bottom portion of the video, www.declareyourself.com, so voters could easily view the deadlines for registration in various areas of the country and learn about the processes involved to get their voices heard. The stars of this PSA urged viewers to send the link to at least five of their friends so the informative news could spread and inform the public.
“God, I hope you have five friends,” Aniston stated in response to the plea of making people aware of the severity of this election.
Overall, it was a wise decision on the part of these celebrities to take action and have their voices heard, so ours can be heard too. The statements that these stars made have ignited serious contemplation as to the depth of this election and all that is currently occurring in our society.
