“King Of Ratings” Trump Ponders Turning Kennedy Center Into Reality TV, Break With Actor’s Union

Trump is going full circle now. He entered the public limelight as a game show host in a scripted *reality* TV show. He had that job for 14 years and although he was a failed businessman, he used a third rate game show to create the persona of the self made billionaire, titan of industry, that brought him to the White House.

Now he intends to go to the Kennedy Center, according to a leaked tape (which you can listen to excerpts from in the New York Times) and remake it in a non-woke image. Part of that will be disposing of professional actors and God alone knows who or what he will put on that stage. He might have his daughter-in-law Lara up there screeching. And his daughter Tiffany cut a record many years ago. Maybe she’ll be up there, too.

After a board member asked if there were any new musicals that were not “totally woke,” somebody replied that, in a break with the past, the center would be doing some shows not affiliated with Actors’ Equity, the union representing actors. The person said that the change “opens us up for a whole bunch of more options as well as a lot more money.”

I don’t know what “options” working with non-union actors will open up and I’m afraid to ask. As to what will make “a lot more money” what do they have in mind? Burlesque? Live porn? The mind reels even contemplating it. And then it gets worse.

Mr. Trump has been preoccupied with the Kennedy Center Honors, the annual awards ceremony, since his first term, after several artists being honored criticized him. In response, the president boycotted the ceremony, breaking with tradition.

At the meeting on Monday, Mr. Trump complained that the center had been celebrating “radical left lunatics” and proposed giving posthumous awards to Pavarotti, Presley and Ruth. (Artists being honored posthumously, of course, cannot weigh in on current politics. Pavarotti, who died in 2007, had already been honored by the Kennedy Center in 2001; in 2016 his heirs asked Mr. Trump to stop playing his recordings at campaign rallies.)

Kennedy Center Honors have traditionally been bestowed on artists. But Mr. Trump suggested they might also look to the world of sports, politics and business, naming the casino mogul Steve Wynn, a major Republican donor, as a potential recipient. (Mr. Trump appointed Mr. Wynn’s wife, Andrea, to the Kennedy Center’s board.)

Hoe kay. So suppose we have a Kennedy Center Honors show and along with some venerable actor, say Robert DeNiro (although DeNiro would be dead last on any list of honorees with Trump in charge) you would find the likes of Miriam Adelson, just to pull a name out of a hat. This bastardizes and demeans the Kennedy Center Honors. The purpose of the honor is to commend those who have elevated the arts, not put Trump into office — although to him, there is no finer art form, let’s be explicit about that.

And who would host the show? Puhleeze. You already know the awful answer. None other than the King Of Ratings. Maybe Martin Scorcese can do a parody of his wondrous King Of Comedy movie and do the King Of Ratings.

Mr. Trump, drawing on his experience in television, took aim at the Honors show, a star-studded event that is broadcast each year on CBS. “I didn’t like it,” he said. “I couldn’t watch it. And the host was always terrible.” (Queen Latifah was the host last year.)

Then he offered an idea for who might host the show: himself.

“Believe me, I don’t want to do it, I don’t want to do it,” he said.

“I have enough publicity,” he said. “They’ll say, ‘Trump wants to be the host.’ I don’t want to. But I want this thing to be successful.” He said he would like to see the Kennedy Center go “slightly more conservative” with the stars it honors.

See? Lara and Tiffany will be up there, mark my words. And Lee Greenwood and Kid Rock, the whole crowd.

And Mr. Trump said he would be “the king of ratings, right? Whether we like it or not, the king of ratings.”

And there’s one other issue: Trump’s *appreciation* of the arts is 40 years out of date. The Kennedy Center is, if anything, avant garde. It has certainly never been known for being behind the times, let alone by four decades. But Trump is famous for that. Anthony Hopkins didn’t know that Trump was obsessed with Hannibal Lector. Hopkins said, “Why? That picture is over thirty years old.” We wish we knew, too, Sir Anthony.

Mr. Trump has long had an affinity for the 1980s, the “Bonfire of the Vanities” era in which he made his name in New York. His remarks on Monday showed that his cultural tastes are still grounded in that decade.

He singled out Betty Buckley, the actress and singer, whom he had heard sing the role of Grizabella in the original production of “Cats” on Broadway.

“So we’re sitting there and then all of a sudden the lights go on and you see these people moving so incredibly, like nobody can move except a professional dancer,” he said. “And anyway, then Betty Buckley gets up and sings ‘Cats.’ And the place went crazy.”

When someone else at the meeting suggested that Ms. Buckley could help the Kennedy Center, Mr. Trump responded: “Is Betty Buckley still alive?” (She is.) “She had the best voice,” he said. “Of all the great voices and stars, bigger stars than her, she had the best voice.”

Buckley sang the showstopper, “Memory” not “Cats” but Donald is not known for his accuracy with anything, let alone the arts.

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So you see the direction that the Kennedy Center is going. In the best possible world it’s going back to Cats! but Trump’s made it clear that under his guidance  that no matter what it’s headed straight for the dogs.