Because a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian was presenting herself as an authority on the house, I assumed that the season had been based on fact. It wasn’t. Doris, playing herself as a historian, was lying. I congratulate the show’s producers for talking Doris into the appearance, but it is unethical for a trusted scholar to use her reputation this way. I had to research the topic to make sure the whole season was fiction.
I’m sure Doris would protest that it was all just good fun. No, someone playing a historian and giving that spiel would be fun. A real historian, even a semi-retired one like Goodwin, still has her trust and integrity to maintain. If she’ll tell tall-tales for entertainment value using her credentials as a historian to advance a fake legend, what would she do to sell a book?
Would it be ethical for a well-known lawyer to play himself on a TV show and misstate the law? What if a real doctor agreed to play herself in a pandemic movie and advise people to protect themselves from killer viruses by, oh, say, eating rabbit droppings? Would that be fun? I hold the similar ethics verdict about TV journalists playing themselves in movies and TV shows. It’s unprofessional. Of course, the last time I saw that done was with MSNOW’s Lawrence O’Donnell, who already had the credibility of Katie Zacharia.
As long as I’m here, I will recommend “American Horror Story,” now starting its 13th and final season, for Halloween season viewing. It is, I believe, one of the best TV series ever: cleverly written, flamboyantly acted, and well-researched. If you know your horror movies, it distributes homages to the classics throughout its long run. The series is one of the most Emmy-honored shows of all time, and deserves special praise for its repertory company format, giving many superb actors and actresses opportunities to show off their “chops” in a dazzling variety of roles. Standouts include Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates, Sarah Paulson, Denis O’Hare, Lily Rabe, Angela Bassett, Frances Conroy and Evan Peters; Paulson, so memorable as Marcia Clark in the O.J. mini-series. even plays a two-headed woman in one season.
Now, if Doris had appeared as a two-headed woman, then her bit as a wary historian would be more ethically tolerable.
“a pert redhead who arrived at Harvard with a whispered reputation of being one of LBJ’s conquests when she worked as a White House Fellow.”
I KNEW IT! Her LBJ works always seemed to be a notch beyond mere groupie.
“I hold the similar ethics verdict about TV journalists playing themselves in movies and TV shows.”
Like Donna Brazile?
https://ethicsalarms.com/2011/10/24/donna-brazile-opens-an-ethics-can-of-worms-on-%e2%80%9cthe-good-wife%e2%80%9d/
BTW, we finally got Mr. Golden through all of the episodes of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” that he missed and will be moving on to “The Good Wife” which neither of us has seen.
I did a quick search, and the image is not as misleading as I expected. Wikipedia has a 2024 photo, and it is a most a few years older than her headshot above: https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1c/NBF2024-doris-kearns-goodwin.jpg/1280px-NBF2024-doris-kearns-goodwin.jpg
The fact that she played herself is the problem. If she was in the movie playing ‘Professor Alexandra Crowley’, I think it would have been fine.
Exactly.
This is funny because I thought the same exact think about your photo. I saw a recent Youtube video of you and you don’t look anything like the photos you use yourself. The photo on your site is what…17 years old?
Check. I took it down, and for exactly that reason.
The image is still on your pro ethics page.
Yeah, I also remembered that it’s on my completely out of date ProEthics Website—I’ll take it down today. The old photo is all over the web too, but I no longer send it out with any CVs or promotional material, and until I have the spare cash lying around to pay for a professional portrait, its not high enough on the priority list for me to do that and have to eat dog food for three weeks.
On the other hand, Doris has no excuses. She has an assistant and other staff to look after such details, and has a reported net worth of 10 million dollars.
Sincerely, thanks for the nudges on this.
I’d argue that wealth might affect how easy it is for someone to fix a problem but doesnt change if the conduct was unethical in the first place.
Also, I don’t think her photo is a misrepresentation at all. It’s a reasonable representation of what she currently looks like. Far as I can tell it’s about 8 years old vs your 17.
I don’t know why you’re so obsessed with this “gotcha.” It wasn’t until I wrote the post that I thought about my photo being out of date, and I have been addressing it, though it’s low priority. Nobody hires me because of my face. If that Doris photo is 8 years old, it was touched up: she looked a lot older than that on the AHS segment which was from 7 years ago. I haven’t actively sent out that photo in over a decade, so it’s a matter of neglect, not misrepresentation. As for the moment, where’s the harm, other than to me? The conduct wasn’t “unethical in the first place”: promotional photos become outdated incrementally, and I have always been camera phobic—long story, but I have never taken a selfie in my life, and never, never post photos on social media.
In short, bite me.
The original point and what I’m trying to address is that, her photo isn’t mildly unethical, since her photo reasonably represents what she currently looks like. And even if her phot doesn’t represent her current appearance (it does), your own photo certainly doesn’t represent yours. So I think a little charity towards her is warranted