Jennifer Lawrence is a young break-out movie star. She’s talented and charismatic. Now she need to learn that people pay attention to what celebrities think and say, too much so, in most cases, and she either needs to improve her knowledge base to say, 7th Grade level, exercise judgment by not spouting irresponsible and ignorant opinions as if the national media was a typical blog comment thread, or shut up about anything weightier than what it is like to work with her co-stars and what she eats on location.
I point this out because, in a regrettable instance of the aged fool interviewing a newly-minted one, Barbara Walters—who just told Piers Morgan, on the topic of Barack Obama, that “We thought that he was going to be – I shouldn’t say this at Christmastime, but – the next Messiah“—-interviewed Lawrence for Barbara’s upcoming “Most Fascinating People of 2013” TV special, and Jennifer opined,
“I just think it should be illegal to call somebody fat on TV. If we’re regulating cigarettes and sex and cuss words because of the effect it has on our younger generation, why aren’t we regulating things like calling people fat?”
All together now: “IT’S CALLED THE FIRST AMENDMENT, YOU POOR EXCUSE FOR AN AMERICAN!” Why is someone in the arts calling for government censorship of free speech? Meanwhile, does Walters have the integrity to correct Lawrence for recklessly feeding misinformation into the mushy brains of the actress’s celebrity-addled fan base, or does she, true to form, just let this mind-poison issue without an antidote?
Ah, you’ll have to tune in in the ABC News special “Barbara Walters Presents: The 10 Most Fascinating People of 2013,” Wednesday at 9:30 p.m. ET to find out! Does a major media figure who believed that a green, unqualified junior Senator and community organizer was going to be the new Messiah have the sense, guts and responsibility to correct a starlet when she makes it screamingly obvious that she understands nothing about the nation in which she lives and the principles it stands for on national television?
We shall see! Well, maybe you will.
I have a sock drawer to tend to.
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Facts: ABC News, Huffington Post
Graphic: ABC News
Ethics Alarms 
Look, I don’t love her for her mind…
ACK! Jack bad. Jack leave Jennifer alone! Fatty love Jennifer! Fatty big fat fan Jennifer. Jennifer do no wrong. Ack!
Barbara Walters—who just told Piers Morgan, on the topic of Barack Obama, that “We thought that he was going to be – I shouldn’t say this at Christmastime, but – the next Messiah“—
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Oh, Good Lord…
Well, no, it actually means “Annointed One,” which in a way is true… although annointed by the media doesn’t have the same ring as annointed by God. “Good Lord” is the Messiah’s dad.
I just can’t believe the dribble that comes out of BaaBaa WaaWaa’s mouth.
Why doesn’t she retire already?
Ah, the well-meaning idiot. It’s so much harder to argue against this- a despot siezing power is evil, but this has automatic moral high ground. “I said we should do it for the children! Children are bullied and kill themselves because of it, and besides, is it really productive speech to call someone fat? I mean I guess free speech is good but that’s for IMPORTANT speech, not MEAN speech, and besides, don’t you care that kids are killing themselves?”
Well… she’s just a product of her environment, I guess. Think of all those senior Hollywood types who have similar or worse attitudes and have retained them since long before little Jenny was a gleam in the milkman’s eye. Maybe she’ll get over it in time. One can only hope!
voice of a generation?
I stopped listening to anything that came out of Walters’ mouth when she interviewed Monica Lewinsky. The two of them sat there, giggling like school girls, discussing what brand of lip gloss Lewinsky wore. Walters was so ridiculous in that interview that I thought at any moment she might lean forward and whisper to Lewinsky “so, how was he?”
The two of them sat there, giggling like school girls, discussing what brand of lip gloss Lewinsky wore.
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Wow.
Thank God I missed that.
Hanlon’s Razor…but there comes a point that stupidity, especially in mass, is dangerous.
I think this is a situation where Ockham’s Razor and Hanlon’s Razor converge.
I think incompetence IS unethical.
Exactly. If you are going to speak about anything on national television, you have an ethical obligation to at least not make Americans dumber than they already are.
I have to disagree, Jack. Okay, I don’t HAVE to, but where’s the fun in that?
I admit her expression was poorly phrased, but I think you missed her point.
The feds regulate speech and content on the airwaves all the time (she mentions sex, cussing, and cigarettes) but we are not screaming about the First Amendment because the feds have banned them from broadcast TV.
Where she is a dunce is that 3 violations of my rights are used to justify a 4th.
-Jut
1) She didn’t specify broadcast TV. One more aspect of the issue she doesn’t comprehend.
2) It’s not illegal for a citizen to curse or say fuck on TV. The station that broadcasts it may be in breach of a regulation, but the speaker cannot be punished. Similarly, if a station broadcast a cigarette ad, it would be the broadcaster, for providing the air time, not the advertiser, for the content, that would be penalized.
The words and content are not banned. The government cannot do that. Janet Jackson did not face penalties for flashing her boob during the Super Bowl. The broadcast standards and practices are regulated. Again—she doesn’t understand what she’s talking about, and thus has an obligation to either educate herself, or stop misinforming others.
Jack,
Nothing you have said exactly contradicts what she said. Her statements are consistent with your analysis.
I will grant you that she was unclear (and her use of the word “illegal” conjures up criminal liability, as opposed to simple civil liability-so I could quibble with her choice of words), but some of that may be the result of the format. A Barbara Walters interview is probably not the ideal format for discussing anything of any complexity. Having said that, you have made a lot of uncharitable inferences.
You are correct; she did not specify broadcast TV. But her lack of specification allows you to complain about her failure to make that distinction, but not to reach the conclusion that she is unaware of it. She may be fully aware of that distinction, yet you jump to the conclusion that she does not know what she is talking about. You, frankly, do not know that and nothing in the quote you provided proves her lack of knowledge.
And, you may be right: the regulations do not prevent someone from swearing on TV, but may subject the broadcaster to liability for broadcasting it. That is not inconsistent with what she said. She said it should be illegal to call someone fat on TV. She may have failed to specify whom should face that liability, but she could have easily meant the broadcaster, and not the actual speaker. Again, what she said is consistent with your analysis, but you chose to infer what she meant, and you did so in a way that could lead you to the conclusion that she is a dunce.
You may be completely right about her lack of knowledge. But, you cannot get that out of the quote you provided.
You are being a little bit unfair in my view.
-Jut
I think you are playing word parsing games, and not particularly well. For example, “it should be illegal to call someone fat on TV,” by common and accepted construction, means that it is the calling of the individual fat that is a legal violation by the caller, not the broadcaster of said caller. If she meant “it should be illegal to allow someone on TV who calls people fat,” it was up to her to say that, not up to me to re-translate what she said into what she (allegedly) meant. What she said was ignorant and counter to free speech. If a celebrity needs a translator and a mind-reader to be understood, that’s as good an argument for her to be quiet as ignorance.
If she meant “it should be illegal to allow someone on TV who calls people fat,” it was up to her to say that, not up to me to re-translate what she said into what she (allegedly) meant. What she said was ignorant and counter to free speech. If a celebrity needs a translator and a mind-reader to be understood, that’s as good an argument for her to be quiet as ignorance.
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She’s young and lacks experience, and sophistication, esp. media sophistication.
Whoever is in charge of her career and possibly that of other young starlets can use this interview as an example of why they need prepping and some education before they make public statements.
I think her heart was in the right place, which is more than I can say for most of Hollywood.
Imagine the amount of prep your Idol Obama gets before he gives an interview.
Even then he likely still needs his teleprompter.
The good news, though, is if he changes his mind later on, he can just say that he never said it in the first place!
Or…if he doesn’t like the truthful answer, he can just make one up!!!
Maybe Jennifer needs to take a lesson from him…
She’s young and lacks experience, and sophistication, esp. media sophistication.
Then it’s irresponsible to hold forth on law and policy in the media. ?
Whoever is in charge of her career and possibly that of other young starlets can use this interview as an example of why they need prepping and some education before they make public statements.
I’ll buy that.
I think her heart was in the right place, which is more than I can say for most of Hollywood.
“Its not the worst thing…”
Imagine the amount of prep your Idol Obama gets before he gives an interview.
Based on his interviews, I doubt that he get enough, either.
Maybe Jennifer needs to take a lesson from him…
Sadly, he also talks authoritatively about that which he doesn’t understand. There has to be a better role model
Jack, if we are exchanging barbs, I think you are being deliberately obtuse (and doing so quite convincingly).
Let’s agree that her idea is a dumb idea. Without fat jokes on TV, we probably would not have had the Honeymooners, All in the Family would have been impacted, Roseanne and Mike and Molly would have never been possible (okay, so there may be an upside to her proposal), but we would never have had this exchange from The Simpsons (amongst many others):
Rex Banner: Are you the Baron?
Comic Book Guy: Yes, but only by night. By day, I’m a mild-mannered reporter for a major metropolitan newspaper.
Rex Banner: Don’t crack wise with me, tubby!
Comic Book Guy: “Tubby?” (looking at his ample gut) Oh, yes. “Tubby.”
So, yes, a stupid idea (and a bunch of PC claptrap to boot).
But, face it Jack, you missed her point. Reading her statement, once she mentioned cigarettes, I knew (I believe) EXACTLY what she was talking about. You, being a lawyer and presumably well-educated AND having probably been alive when there WAS cigarette advertising on TV, of all people, should have known what she was talking about. The fact that you took her so literally, all the while knowing that there are many, many MANY cases involving the FCC (the Janet Jackson case you mentioned being one of the most prominent ones in recent memory), does not reflect the values your blog seeks to highlight.
You condemned her before you even understood her, and, thus, missed an opportunity to educate your audience by providing the context missing from her quote, all in order to take a cheap shot.
-Jut
I am being obtuse? You are hilarious.
I knew what she was doing too: mistaking Congress’s ban on cigarette advertising, based on the Commerce Clause and its power to regulate what is sold and how, for regulation of speech, just as she mistook Congress’s right to restrict and regulate who uses the airwaves for content-based speech regulation, when she was wrong about that, too. So based on pure ignorance, she uses her celebrity to give credibility to a censorious policy that restricts opinion, satire, humor and free expression to a large group of ignorant, malleable, political correctness junkies who would gladly make it a crime to criticize Barack Obama, quote the Bible or vote for Rand Paul. I took her literally because she spoke literally about banning fat jokes, when fat isn’t being sold, and because the people she’s misleading take her literally.. She needs to take proper responbsibi8lity for the size of her megaphone, and think before she speaks confounding and badly reasoned and researched idea, and that’s exactly what I wrote. “She didn’t really mean that” and “this is what confused her” and “she’s unsophisticated and didn’t know how to say what she wanted to say” are excuses, maybe even decent excuses, but they don’t dictate a different conclusion.
You assume that she’s a dunce. There are many well meaning people on the left who honestly and genuinely desire exactly this kind of state. Who want America to be this kind of state. Several of them currently run the state.
Unless you posit that desiring statism, totalitarianism, socialism, or communism is automatically enough to prove idiocy. Which, of course, I do, but I’m kind of surprised to hear it from you, Jack 🙂
I posit that endorsing such without realizing it, which is the situation here, is proof of at least ignorance, and possibly idiocy. Desiring it knowingly is proof of being spectacularly wrong.
Very much like people adhering to a belief that flies in the face of proven fact.
Look, you can think what you want about the facts, but I have my Own Opinion, so we just have to Agree To Disagree…
I think people should watch the interview before you judge her too harshly to see the larger context. I agree with Jack re the interpretation of the First Amendment — as would most reasonable lawyers, but please remember that she is not a lawyer and is not used to picking precise words. I saw a larger clip and what I think she meant was that newspapers and magazines are doing a lot of harm to young girls. She’d like to see society in general move away from an obsession with thinness or at least acknowledge that what Hollywood actresses do is not the norm and should not be the goal. (She’s right on that btw — but it needs to become a social change, not a gutting of the First Amendment.) At a minimum, she most likely is an expert on what is expected of Hollywood actresses re weight and image. She’s spoken out on this issue several times — as has a number of the younger generation in Hollywood.
Now, if I do watch the larger interview (which is doubtful — I only stumbled across the clip by accident) and it turns out that she is advocating jail sentences for journalists, I’ll happily throw her to the wolves.
But this means that I have to watch the special, and sit through interviews by the woman who has declared Hillary Clinton—“What difference does it make!”, cat-and mouse coy about running, accountability-ducking, lying, Bill Clinton-enabling, fake feminist who has never done a thing to justify the stature some fools accord her Hillary Clinton, as the “Most Fascinating Person of 2013”—not that she’s biased or anything, she just needs a new Messishess.
Barbara Walters has certainly lost her edge and should retire — she’s 84! A couple of years ago, she actually said (and she was serious!) that her dog can speak certain words. Even her not-so-intelligent colleagues on The View had to tear her apart on the air for making such an absurd claim.
But, it is cruel and wrong to say that she is a fake feminist. Even if she has signs of senility (just my opinion, but I think I’m right) doesn’t mean that she shouldn’t be acknowledged as a great feminist. She rose to the top of her profession at a time when all of her female colleagues were weather girls, and she did so with grace, professionalism, and savvy — and she did it quietly. She paved the way for other female journalists, and at a minimum she should be honored for that achievement.
Final point — you can be fascinating AND at the same time unethical or a liar. See, e.g., just about every U.S. politician and world leader she ever interviewed.
On your final point—true. But Hillary hasn’t changed since Whitewater days. What’s fascinating about her? That?
Barbara was a pioneer–that doesn’t make her a feminist. A woman, senile or no, who doesn’t recognize Hillary as an insecure woman who rode the coattails of her husband and submitted to degradation in exchange for access to power is no feminist.
Hillary hasn’t changed since the Nixon impeachment.
And who can tell me why that is bad?
I lost respect for Hillary about that as well –but that’s my opinion. But I’m unwilling to take the position that any woman who doesn’t leave a marriage after infidelity is not a feminist. Are you? Each marriage is unique and has its challenges – it’s not for us to judge or even to understand.
And Hillary was a Secretary of State and is considered a front-runner for the Democratic nomination for President. If she gets it, she could very well be our first female President. Even if you hate her, that’s pretty damn fascinating.
I don’t hate Hillary. I just don’t respect her much. And people are fascinating based on what they have done, not based on what some peopel hope or expect them to do. The only thing fascinating about her is that she has fooled so many people.The position that any woman who doesn’t leave a marriage after infidelity that humiliates her in front of the whole nation is a false feminist, I think, is a reasonable one.
That’s an interesting view Jack. I know a lot of feminists who also are religious, and their views would tell them to forgive their husband, because that is what God would want (assuming that he is a good father and non-violent). Or, even if not religious, women in love often will forgive their husbands. It’s not for us to judge. I try not to — I admit that I would have respected her more if she had left Bill, but that’s my own judgment and views coming into play. And, it doesn’t mean I’m right.
Jennifer Lawr…TWO lower legs…THIGH…deep-cut v-neck…lollipop-lips…perfect little bunny nose…bedroom eyes…
Umm…WHAT did she say?? (Sorry, got distracted by bottom-up analysis…)
Oh. That. Now wait a minute: SHE gets to stay on the air, after saying there should be SPEECH CRIMINALS, while some old white guy with a Taliban beard, who always wears camouflage clothes and who stars on some other show, gets booted off the air after giving some opinion OFF THE AIR, in SOME OTHER medium, that’s assumed offensive to someone, about SEX?!
Okay, now I can envision the next smash-hit, “ground-breaking” alternate-reality TV show… Dyke Funnasty. An urban commune of, say, 5-cohabiting atheist “militant feminist” women, all of who are under 5 feet 10 inches in height and weigh various weights over 300 pounds; who have diverse thicknesses of beards and wear overalls 24/7 (sometimes for weeks at a time without changing); whose idea of fun is to barge into churches during heterosexual weddings, strip naked, and occupy the altar while alternately singing “We Shall Overcome” and cursing loud blue streaks about the TEA Party. Perfect targets for recruiting into the Republican Party.
But don’t anyone dare say anything about sex. Just keep your opinions to yourself. Unless you are…you know…doing it right.