Stodden was married when she did the skit with Jason Alexander. She tied the knot when she was just a 16-year-old model, and her husband, actor Doug Hutchison, was 51, just bit younger than Alexander. He took over managing her career. Stodden, who now styles herself as an activist for minors, should know that minors do have the legal power to reject a commitment they have been contractually obligated to fulfill by an adult.
In 2012, her star was really taking off, based entirely on her tender age as well as how well she filled out a bikini. Stodden and Hutchison were interviewed about their relationship on the Fox talk show “Father Albert,” then appeared on ABC’s “Good Morning America”and “E! News.” “In August of 2013, Stodden became a housemate on the twelfth season of the British version of “Celebrity Big Brother.” She qualified as a celebrity in part because of her appearance with Jason Alexander.
That October, Stodden appeared in a lettuce bikini to promote vegetarianism in a PETA ad. In August of the next year, Stodden appeared in an episode of the Reelz reality television series “Hollywood Hillbillies.” After that, it was one sleazy reality show after another taking advantage of her curves, a divorce from her aspiring pedophile husband, a sex tape, breast implants to boost her bust to a DD, and, of course, an Only Fans account. As Courtney’s career deflated like her breasts (she got rid of the implants in 2022) Courtney became an anti-child bride activist. After The Great Stupid spread its dark winks over the land in 2020, Courtney announced she was non-binary and that her pronouns were them/they. Then she got another bit of publicity by announcing she had changed their pronouns to she/they.
Perhaps you sense a bit of cynicism and skepticism on my part regarding Courtney Stodden’s sudden decision to publicly shame Jason Alexander for a comedy skit she rehearsed and performed on TV with him because it constituted the sexual abuse of a “child.”
You are right. I deeply doubt that her complaint is sincere. I think it is a transparent grab at 15 minutes more of fame as her celebrity status craters from its all-time high of “C Level,” and I’m giving Courtney the benefit of the doubt with that generous rating. Seventeen is a year from majority in most states, one or more away in a few, but if there is such an individual as a de facto adult, a precocious 17-year old female model who has been married for a year, agrees to appear in a comedy sketch, and knows exactly what it involves before performing it, is it.
I don’t think Alexander should have apologized. I think he is a groveling weenie, capitulating to a transparent grab at sympathy, victim status, and social media traffic by a fading professional bimbo. (Yeah, I know, “George’s” career is not exactly soaring these days either.)
Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day:
Ethics Alarms 
I want to write much more about this, but it is Friday evening and I have much to do tomorrow.
I would like to write about a personal experience, but that must wait.
this incident reminds me of a much more extreme example involving The Adventures of Baron Von Munchausen, a film I adore.
here is the analogy: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jun/12/sarah-polley-terry-gilliam-run-towards-danger-baron-munchausen-interview
For me, this story is a sort of touchstone for the Rashomon effect. Polley and Gilliam have such different perspectives on what happened. But both try to acknowledge the perspective of the other. But Polley, a child at the time, is still the more sympathetic person, as she was more vulnerable.
Gilliam’s film is more significant than a silly sketch. Sarah Polley was much younger than Stoddard; Gilliam was more thoughtful than Jason.
but, I think there are legitimate analogies to be made. Stoddard, for all her supposed maturity (getting married at 16 suggest precocious immaturity), has become wiser about her vulnerabilities. While appearing to be a weenie (hard to shake the George Costanza type-cast), Jason may have also become wiser, not realizing how his role may affect a much younger person. After all, he is an actor; he is not paid to be bright or wise. I leave open the possibility that his apology reflects a genuine realization that his actions may have harmed someone unintentionally.
To answer you question: Are you wrong?
probably not entirely. But I think you give too much credit to an underage bimbo who mistakenly thought she was mature beyond her years, only to realize, once her years caught up with her supposed maturity, that she was actually clueless.
same could be said for Jason, except that he could never be mistaken for a bimbo, he was dumb enough to do this at a much more mature age, and any evidence of his becoming wiser is sparse, at best. Having said that, even as an idiot, he could feel genuine sorrow to learn his antics caused someone harm.
-JutGory
I forgot to state: whether you are wrong or not, this incident raises a number of ethical issues that could be examined.
I had thought about pointing this story to you as an apology scale question, but that seemed to simple for the issue (maybe because it made me think of Gilliam and Polley).
-Jut
1. “Baron Munchausen” was brilliant, one of my favorite movies ever. That it was a box office bomb impugns the taste an intelligence of the movie-going public.
2. Sarah Polley was, as a child actress, even better than Dakota Fanning. Maybe the best I’ve ever seen.
3. I wrote a post about her letter to Gilliam, here.
4. I don’t see a valid comparison. Polley was 8-9 as the movie was filmed. She was really a child, not a 17-year old married woman. Also, when she said as an adult she realized how she had been mistreated, it was clearly true. She had no selfish motive in writing the letter…she had a flourishing career as a writer, an actress and in politics. She was seeking publicity. Stodden, in sharp contrast to Polley, who is brilliant, is an idiot. Polley really was a victim of unequal power. SAtodden could have walked off the set and demanded changes to the staging and script.
5. Note also that in the letter, Polley doesn’t place all of the blame on the director, mentioning first and foremost, her parents. Stodden’s mother pimped her out to a 31 year old man, and she, with Stodden’s husband, are the main villains in her complaint, but she chose to target Alexander, because he’s a “name.”
Yikes. Sarah is 47 now.
NO! You are not wrong. Jason should be made to make a donation to the Human Fund.
I am kind of surprised this post did not get a Costanza.
-Jut
Hah!
Too easy.
Don’t you know that all PR firms advise that one immediately apologize, whether they mean it or not? Because after that the public forgets the incident, and moves on. Nice pics to tsk tsk over
That’s a great example of a phenomenon that I need to write a long essay on. I’ve experienced it myself. When an “expert” or a consultant on a particular topic is asked to advise regarding a matter, they are incapable of balancing considerations, and their advice has to be taken with that bias in mind. The best example was the CDC and other health “experts” during the pandemic freak-out. Naturally their advice was to shut down the country. Consequences to business? Schools? Kids’ social development? Political considerations? Culture? Not their problem, and so they recommended the most risk-averse measures regarding allowing the least spread of the virus. From their narrow perspective that was the best course. But a course of action that doesn’t consider consequence and goals from other perspectives is worthless by itself, indeed dangerous.
Similarly, a PR consultant doesn’t care about fairness, ethics, logic, courage, integrity—its’ why Dick Morris, when he was Bill Clinton’s consultant, advised that they poll on whether Clinton should tell the truth about Monica Lewinsky. The same phenomenon applies to lawyers—its why the three university Presidents delivered identical answers to to Rep. Stefanik when grilled about speech on campus. That makes sense from a lawyer’s perspective. But they should have known that other considerations had to be involved.
Do law firms advise the same thing? An apology is an admission of guilt, and an apology may come with legal consequences attached. If this would ever result in a legal case or a trial, opposing council will have Jason Alexander read that apology again in front of a judge or a jury.
In a social environment dominated by cancel culture an apology is also an admission of guilt, creating a “blood in the water” effect in a sea full of sharks. As cancel culture does not offer redemption, an apology effectuates the cancellation.
Jason Alexander would have been smart not to apologize.
As a young, beginning associate, I was sternly told by me senior associate advisor, “Never apologize to a client.”
Yup, you’re wrong.
Your characterization of Stodden’s reason for bringing up what happened with Alexander is the worst possible reason, since you claim she’s doing it specifically for fame due to her not being a particularly well regarded celebrity, and seeking to enhance her career prospects. You are assuming she seeks personal gratification, and that this was a personal attack on Alexander because he might be vulnerable to it.
In reality, Stodden is currently actively campaigning for an amendment to California law to prevent child marriages even with parental consent, and directly related this experience as an example of how the much older spouse her parents allowed to marry her took advantage of her while she was a teen. If you look at her actual Instagram post which started this, it doesn’t consist of a direct attack at Alexander, or even tag him by name – it is not an attack on an individual, but a personal anecdote about a situation she is actively seeking to change.
And I think this is where you go wrong in your analysis – You got so caught up in denigrating Stodden for her career and professional choices, that you’ve failed to look sufficiently at the situation that put her on that stage with Alexander, and aren’t considering the long term impacts of the sketch, nor the lack of a support structure and guiderails surrounding how young entertainers are treated. Which is perplexing, because I KNOW you’re familiar with exactly how often they are exploited and how completely insufficient the protections for them are within the show business industry.
Stodden was a child model and beauty pageant winner who reports that adults were treating her as a sex object as early as 12, due to her body type. She was, like far too many child entertainers, managed initially by one of her parents. You’ve covered in the past exactly how such arrangements are inherently unethical, since they inherently place a parent in a position where their self-interest (getting paid for the work their child is doing) is at odds with their responsibilities as a parent (protecting their child and providing for them).
Regarding her relationship with Hutchinson, it’s fairly obvious she had no parental protections. The initial courtship was conducted over the internet, with Hutchinson initiating the relationship while acting as a mentor/teacher to Stodden. Hutchinson had also been married twice before. The inherent differences in age, life experience, and power imbalance between the two parties means this was never a relationship between equals, and it’s worth noting that those around Hutchinson considered him a predator for the relationship, as he was dumped by his agents and disowned by his family for marrying Stodden. But her parents, who should have been protecting Stodden from a poor life choice in this situation (and who needed to consent to the marriage for it to happen) instead did nothing to protect their child.
After their marriage, Hutchinson became Stodden’s manager, and promptly began taking money for her appearances. He would arrange this sketch, but also appearances on a number of shows where Stodden’s marriage and sexuality were the major topics being presented, and the key factor to why she was enjoying success. He was also reportedly both physically and emotionally abusive throughout their marriage, and like many abusers, adept at hiding it when around others.
What I see, looking at all that, is a child who was groomed from a young age to believe that her worth lay not in her existence as a human being, and not in any or desires she might have had talents (reportedly she had wanted to be a singer/songwriter as a child), but rather in her being perceived as a sexual object by everyone around her.
Against that background, Alexander’s sketch is deeply troubling. It repeatedly denigrates her to nothing but a sexual object; it deliberately portrays her mind as being without value, while also denying her agency and reinforcing that the only value she has is in her ability to gratify a man. If she has no escape from the person who is getting paid for this because she lives with and is married to him, does she have any real ability to say no and refuse the script? Especially when that manager has taught her that being submissive to the desires of older established male actors/producers/screenwriters is her only path to success? Regardless of whether Alexander knew the full context of her situation, the sketch is exacerbating exactly the sort of messages she was likely receiving from her groomer, and in that, it almost certainly did cause real and lasting harm to Stodden.
As such, I suspect that Alexander’s apology is sincere and appropriate. This wasn’t an attack leveled at him directly – he could have completely ignored the Instagram post. He choose to apologize and do so publicly, despite the fact that this wasn’t an attack (and also, apparently, to make contributions to the cause Stodden was campaigning for). To me, that doesn’t say he’s a weenie afraid of cancellation – it says he’s the sort of person who realized from reading what Stodden wrote that he had, however inadvertently, contributed to ongoing harm that was done to her.
From your host: This guy self-banned years ago. He is, to put it mildly, an arrogant asshole. It wastes my time having to keep spamming this stuff. I am considering doxxing him the next time he does this. He has violated all conditions and mutual assurances of participating in the comments here, and I regard my obligations to continuing my part of that bargain fully met and complete.
This is a good an argument in favor of Stodden as I can imagine, and exactly what I was hoping someone would raise. I’m still not convinced.
1. She posted a photo featuring only Alexander, and clearly focused her criticism on him.
2. If her ex-husband and his enablers were at fault, she was obligated to make that clear, and she did not.
3. “Alexander’s sketch is deeply troubling. It repeatedly denigrates her to nothing but a sexual object; it deliberately portrays her mind as being without value, while also denying her agency and reinforcing that the only value she has is in her ability to gratify a man.” It’s only troubling in the context of making a political point. The skit is a burlesque standard, as old as the hills, and standard fare right up to the present day. The dumb blonde stereotype provided many thousands of women good careers and celebrity, including Stodden. If it was funnt to those included to find it funny, then the skit gets a pass. I, Bill Maher and Dave Chappelle agree on one point: humor shouldn’t be ruled by political correctness.
4. I view her as estopped from complaining now after exploiting that stereotype herself for her entire career.
5. Sure, celebrities always take up causes they sincerely believe in and not ones they think fits their PR purposes. The fact that I agree with her cause doesn’t mean I have to buy her attachment top it as anything but self-serving.
6. The main smoking gun: why make the complaint now, at 31, when it occurred 14 years ago?
7. The woman’s entire career has been based on her exploiting her sexual attractiveness. If she had ever stopped for a second or seriously pursued another career path, I would be more open to your interpretation. Look up her credits.
Whew! Great comment. A post in a comment.
I’ve written a story about this. It’s called “Advanced Placement” and it’s in my collection of stories called “Stories from Way Out West,” Bill Fearnow author. Available on Amazon. (There. I’ve gone full Jonathan Turley!)
The story is about an intelligent, accomplished but inexperienced and somewhat naive sixteen-year-old girl who becomes pregnant virtually inadvertently. The point of which is that in contemporary, western, civilized societies, girls are given bodies made for having sex and babies well before they are capable of determining whether or not they want to or are capable of dealing with the consequences. Hence the title.
[Side note: In third world countries and societies, this is not a problem. Once girls are capable of having children, they are fair game. There’s no problem for them to deal with because in those societies, they have no function or purpose in life beyond having children, nor do they have any say in the matter.]
So, guys look at a precociously well-endowed young girl and think because she has a mature, gloriously adult body she’s a mature adult. They think, man, how could a chick living in a body like that not know what she does to guys. She’s got to be fair game. And they are wrong. Emotionally, she’s simply not an adult. Intimacy at too early an age can be devastating.
In this case, I think there’s something else at work: I bet Stodden was abused as a child. (Again, See: “The Flyboy’s Daughter” also in “Stories from Way Out West,”) I think the vast majority of beautiful girls are molested and sexualized as children because they are beautiful girls. Many of whom go into acting. Once a child is molested and sexualized, their nervous system is damaged, and they will have serious problems for the rest of their life.
I have my doubts about Courtney Stodden’s allegations.
Women give consent to an activity with a sexual overtone (or to sex), and for a while they are perfectly OK with what happened. But then after a while they think it over and change their view on what happened, and regret their participation. Does this change of view render the activity wrong after the fact? Was it OK up to the moment her view changed?
Courtney Stodden is now an anti-child bride activist (probably because of her divorce), and her activism may have led to adopting different views leading to the accusation. What she does not do is accept any responsibility for the choices she made in earlier in her life.
As this “Funny or Die” episode was published 15 years ago, did nobody who saw this episode complain about the content then? Did nobody of the production team or the viewers see any ethical issue? Or has ethics evolved since then, and was it OK then and not OK today?
This phenomenon probably also explains a lot of rape and sexual assault allegations in the domestic sphere. A man and a women have (apparently consensual) sex, but after a while she expresses regret of having had sex or a relationship with him, and the consensus is revoked after the fact. The regret can be due to pressure from peers and family, or because he declined in stature in her eyes since the fact.
Jason Alexander should have stood his ground instead of apologizing.