Arts & Entertainment

“Miracle On 34th Street,”An Ethics Companion, Continued…Chapter 3: Kris Joins The Macy’s Family! [REVISED and CORRECTED!]

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

(The Introduction is here.; Chapter I is here.;Chapter 2 is here.)

 Kris takes Santa’s throne

Kris’s rave reviews as Santa in the Thanksgiving Day Parade are so good,  Doris hires him play Santa at Macy’s flagship New York City store on 34th Street. He agrees, which is strange, when you think about how busy he should be at this time of year, supervising the elves and all. If he really is Santa, or even if he thinks he is, taking the job in New York is irresponsible.

His supervisor gives him a list of toys to “push”—toys that are overstocked. “Now, you’ll find that a great many children will be undecided as to what they want for Christmas. When that happens, you suggest one of these items,” Kris is told. “You understand?”

Kris says he understands, but later makes it clear in his comments to a co-worker, that he has no intention of “pushing” the merchandise.:

“Imagine…making a child take something it doesn’t want…just because he bought too many of the wrong toys.That’s what I’ve been fighting against for years!”

That being the case, there is exactly one thing Kris needs to do. He needs to quit. What he cannot do, and must not do, and has a clear ethical obligation not to do, is to accept a job when he has no intention of doing what the job requires. This is a sales job. If Kris doesn’t want to sell, then he will be accepting a pay check under false pretenses. This isn’t noble conduct, as the film would have you believe. It’s unethical conduct. It’s wrong.

Kris needs to put himself on his own naughty list. Continue reading →

The Life of James Dailey

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Another of the periodic death penalty controversies is unfolding in Florida. The stay of execution for James Dailey expired yesterday. Governor Ron DeSantis now has to decide whether to grant him a new clemency hearing, or uphold his death sentence. So far, the Governor has not been sympathetic.

New evidence provided by the co-defendant in the Dailey’s murder case has been offered by Jack Pearcy, Dailey’s co-defendant in the 1985 murder of 14-year-old Shelly Boggio. Pearcy was sentenced to life in prison, Dailey to death. Pearcy has written a letter declaring, “James Dailey had nothing to do with the murder of Shelly Boggio. I committed the crime alone.” A federal judge issued a stay until Dec. 30 to give attorneys an opportunity to file appeals.

As the New York Times argued in an editorial, Dailey’s conviction also depended heavily on the testimony of a repeat jailhouse snitch who had a cozy relationship with the prosecutors. The Times says, “The rank injustice of cases like James Dailey’s provides yet another reason, as if more were needed, that the death penalty must be abolished.”

No, it doesn’t. I haven’t studied the case, but based on what I’ve read, it certainly appears that Dailey might be innocent, and thus in his case, the death penalty is unjust. (I agree with the Times that jailhouse snitches are unreliable witnesses and should be regarded by juries with skepticism. On the other side, I don’t find a late claim of guilt exonerating a co-defendant especially persuasive. The guy is locked up for life; he has nothing to lose or gain. ) Continue reading →

“Side hustle?” SIDE HUSTLE? 

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Apparently Democrats think this is me…

 “The Side Hustle is Increasingly a Fact of American Life” says the New York Times,  and progressives want to restrict them.  Of course, being a versatile guy who can do a lot of things people will pay to have done, I resent the “hustle” term, which makes me sound like “Seinfeld'”s Kramer with a law degree….and that, making what people like me do sound cheesy and even a little bit shady, is the idea. Legislators and Presidential candidates—guess which party!– have expressed great concerns about the so-called “gig economy,’ arguing that it is proof of  unhealthy capitalism.  (Amusingly, this is exactly what Elizabeth Warren did when she was litigating appeals while serving as a Harvard law professor, but that’s different.) The data does not support the latest argument for controlling your life and mine, however.

A recent poll of those who have more than one way of making money shows that 33% of them take on more than one paying job because they have to, while 48% so it because they want to.

Naturally, those who want to must be stifled for the greater good, and need to get with the program. California’s recently passed Assembly Bill 5 (AB5), set to take effect on January 1, 2020,  will make it illegal for contractors who reside in California to create more than 35 pieces of content in a year for a single company, unless the business hires them as an employee. Continue reading →

(You Know When I Said I Had Posted The Last Christmas Music Post Of 2019? Oops!) Reconsidering “I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day”….

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

The post last week about “definitive” recordings of Christmas songs sparked some excellent comments. An epic was Jeffrey Valentine’s own list, which I recommend highly. One comment, however, churned around in my brain: it was from periodic commenter Patrice, a singer and musician herself as well as an expert in sacred music, who wrote in part,

A beautiful Christmas song you didn’t include is “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” (which I think was covered by Bing) with its lyrics by Longfellow after the loss of his son in the war.

As I said in my reply to Patrice, I had thought about the song, but didn’t include it on the list for three reasons: 1. It seems to have declined in popularity 2. There weren’t many recordings to choose from, and the two versions I was most familiar (by Bing and Johnny Cash)  with had different melodies. 3. If i was going to pick a “definitive” version, it would be Crosby’s, and I have a pro Crosby bias. This was one of those times when correcting for bias creates a bias.

So the song went around and around in my brain for days, and kept me awake at night. Finally, I researched it. Continue reading →

What The Heck Is Going On Here? Of “Little Women” And Authentic Frontier Feminist Gibberish

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

I wonder if what is going on here is that over-heated feminist fervor absent appropriate criticism for fear of being labeled sexist is causing a lot of women to lose touch with proportion and reality.

“Here” is this article in the Daily Beast: What the ‘Little Women’ Outrage Is Conveniently Missing.

I couldn’t resist clicking on it; what could that title possibly mean? There is outrage over “Little Women”? What? How? So I read the essay, authored by Cassie de Costa, a freelance writer who used to work at Medium as a writer-at-large and at The New Yorker as an assistant editor.  one would think she would understand the basic requirements of writing such things; you know, coherence, clarity, a reason. I think the last time I felt so confused reading anything was when I tried to complete “Godel, Escher, Bach.” Was I being gaslighted?  Here’s part of the first paragraph:

Recently, former New York Times film critic Janet Maslin shared her “disbelief” regarding attitudes toward filmmaker Greta Gerwig’s recent adaptation of Little Women (one of several, with the first  woman-helmed one coming in 1994 from Gillian Armstrong), which has been ignored and rebuffed by men in Maslin’s circle. She tweeted that “[t]he Little Women problem is very real. I don’t say that lightly and am very alarmed. In the past day I have been told by 3 male friends who usually trust me that they either refuse to see it or probably won’t have time. Despite my saying it’s tied for #1 of 2019.” She is also troubled by the relative lack of appreciation the film has received from awards committees, from the major ones to the critics’ associations, and even ones with exclusively female membership….

Oh, I see. This is a long, long article about what a self-absorbed ex-Times film critic—female critic; I’m sorry, that is very, very important—tweeted in anger because her male friends said that they weren’t all excited about seeing the latest version of “Little Women.” What is this, a practical joke? Who gets angry because someone doesn’t want to see a movie? If someone does, why is this irrational reaction worthy of an essay in the Daily Beast? Continue reading →

Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 12/27/2019: Two Bingos, Two Drag Shows, and Poop

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

Good morning!

1. Is it me, or is this TV commercial indefensibly gross, and signals the impending end of civilization?

2.  Reasons not to duck the New York Times op-ed pages…Yale student Kathryn Hu contributed a sane and thoughtful essay on the topic of classic operas with characters and plot elements that seem sexist or racist to today’s more enlightened audiences. As we know, today’s “woke” censors of the arts and arbiters of what we are allowed to watch and hear have their own solution: never do the piece again, despite its obvious virtues, or interpret and rewrite it out of existance or into nausea, like John Legend injecting “It’s your body and your choice” into the lyrics of “Baby It’s Cold Outside.” I had to suppress my gorge from rising while reading this article, for example, that described the current production of  J.M Barry’s 1904 classic “Peter Pan” in Washington D.C:

In [Playwright Lauren Gunderson’s] version now playing at Shakespeare Theatre Company (retitled Peter Pan and Wendy…), the character of Tiger Lily has been completely reconceived. No more the helpless princess in distress, Tiger Lily is now a spirited and fearless Native rights activist whose people thrived in Neverland long before Captain Hook’s pirate ship dropped anchor and Peter showed up with the Lost Boys.

Because as we know, there were so many Native American activists in 1904. To anyone with brain cells and cultural perspective that haven’t been woked to death, it is obvious that Barry’s Neverland is a child’s fanciful impression of Indians, pirates, and friendly wild animals. It has nothing to do with reality , so imposing current day adult political views on the and characters is neither fair nor necessary.

Hu’s solution to the supposed horrors of 19th Century biases and social mores in opera: Continue reading →

“Miracle On 34th Street,”An Ethics Companion, Continued….Chapter 2: The Story Unfolds…

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

The Introduction is here.

Chapter I is here.

Let’s get this out of the way up front: Kris is not really Santa Clause. The sooner you understand that, the more sense the movie will make.

Now onward:

2. The bad mother and the sneaky lawyer.

While Kris is enjoying his starring role in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, we meet Susan Walker, Doris’s young daughter, and Attorney Fred Gailey,  who lives in the apartment next door. Susan has been raised  to be a joyless little cynic, the victim of an arrogant and misguided single mother who needed to read more Bruno Bettelheim ( except that Bruno didn’t write The Uses of Enchantment  until 1976).  Doris, as we soon surmise, has allowed a bad marriage to make her suspicious of dreams, hope, and wonder, and she is passing her own disappointment in life off to her daughter at the tender age of nine. Nice.

Lots of parents do this, I suppose, but that doesn’t mitigate how cruel and damaging it is. I remember how horrified I was at Susan’s brainwashing when I first saw the film at about the same age as Natalie Wood was in the movie. My parents, particularly my mother, surrounded my sister and I with fantasy and whimsy. They went to elaborate measures to make Santa Claus seem real, and the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy. At one point my sister, having read a story about a lollypop tree, planted a lollypop stick in the back yard. My mother pooh-poohed the idea, telling my sister that this was just a fantastic story she was believing, and that she was  going to disappointed.  Then, three days later, my father exclaimed as he looked out the kitchen window,  “I don’t believe it! Look at that!” And there, about four feet height and covered with lolly pops of all  the colors of the rainbow, was the lollypop tree.

My sister and I weren’t idiots; we knew that our parents had made the tree. But we played along, and the lesson was taught.  Life is more fun and bearable if you believe in the unbelievable, and are open to a little magic in the world. Our parents gave my sister and me a gift that made us love music, literature, humor, mystery, and surprises. Doris Walker, out of ignorance, grief or anger, was an incompetent and selfish parent. ” We should be realistic  and completely truthful with our children  and not have them growing up believing in  a lot of legends and myths like Santa Claus, for example,” she says.

And your authority for this proposition is what, Doris? Generations of children have grown to healthy, happy maturity being raised on myths, legends and fairy tales, and you, with your invaluable perspective as a department store employee, are confident in your certitude that their parents were wrong, and you are right. Wow. Continue reading →

Film Cutting Ethics: Three Episodes

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

 1.  The Canadian Broadcast Company edited Donald Trump’s cameo out of “Home Alone II” when the Christmas-themed family film was aired this week. That sets some kind of record for pettiness, don’t you think? The CBC lamely denies that they meant anything by it, responding to an inquiry,  “As is often the case with features adapted for television, Home Alone 2 was edited to allow for commercial time within the format.” Sure. I believe that! Don’t you believe that? Continue reading →

The Ethics Of Wasting Money

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

 

The position here has always been that nobody has any business telling you how to spend your money. This  topic usually comes up in the context of charity, as in, “How dare that individual spend money on what they think is important when they should be spending money on what I think is important!” A couple of recent developments have raised the issue in a different context, however: incompetent and irresponsible expenditures of large amounts of money.

Take “Cats,” for example. The already immortal flop film cost a reported $100,000,000 to make, and marketing costs are on top of that. It is sure to lose many, many millions of dollars, and the question becomes, “How could movie professionals make a blunder like that?”

I always assumed that “Cats” could not be a successful movie because of its purely theatrical nature. Surely the lesson of the film version of “A Chorus Line,” another Broadway musical that never should have move to the screen, was guide enough. Yet it happened. The fiasco put me in mind of other infamous and avoidable screen disasters, like 1978’s “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” starring Peter Frampton and the Beegees. Before the film’s release, Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees announced: “There is no such thing as the Beatles now. They don’t exist as a band and never performed Sgt Pepper live in any case. When ours comes out, it will be, in effect, as if theirs never existed.”

Good prediction. The huge MGM film with dozens of celebrity cameos was instantly and universally reviled. Even worse, a few years later, was “The Pirate Movie,” another misbegotten big budget musical. The idea here was to do a new version of “The Pirates of Penzance” but without the dialogue, plot and music that has made the Gilbert and Sullivan show popular for more than a century….and to star Kristy MacNichol, the androgynous, non-singing teen star, as the heroine. How could such a brilliant concept fail? Continue reading →

The Last Christmas Music Post Of 2019: Regarding The “Definitive” List [UPDATED and CORRECTED]

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

Over at Glenn Beck’s “The Blaze” someone named Chris Field offered what was audaciously headlined “These are the definitive recordings of 35 favorite Christmas carols: Don’t argue, just listen: A perfect list.”

Is it still clickbait when a link virtually screams “CLICKBAIT!”? Maybe, but if someone is going to claim that they have made a “perfect list,” he had better do a better job than  this. My earlier comments today about Pauline Kael apply: some of this guy’s assessments of what is “definitive” disqualify him as a useful or credible authority. For example, Field, who reveals himself as an Ella Fitzgerald fan boy, chooses Ella’s rendition of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” as ‘the best, saying, “If you think Garland’s rendition is better than Ella’s, you’re probably also a Liza Minnelli fan.” Well, I’m not a Liza fan; she sounded nothing like her mother, and Garland’s rendition is better, indeed the “definitive” version. Old Blue Eyes’ rendition finishes second for sure, but Judy’s tumbling scales were never more affecting or emotionally eloquent, and this is her song. Similarly, Field picks Andy Williams’ version of “Do You Hear What I Hear?” as “the best.” That’s ridiculous. I know this song especially well: I watched “The Hollywood Palace” as a kid the night Bing Crosby introduced it. I’ve written about it on Ethics Alarms, researched it, put it into a Christmas revue and staged it. Crosby’s version is the only one that manages to give the song sufficient heft and gravity: he shifts deep into his chest baritone in the final verse, and decades after hearing the song for the first time, Bing still gives me chills. Lots of male singers, including Williams, have done respectable covers, but they are all chasing Bing.

Look, anyone can have a preference for any professional version of any of the Christmas standards and carols, and there is no point arguing about it. However, if one is going to use the descriptor “definitive,” it has to involve more than personal taste. What is the singer’s connection to the song? Why is it identified with him or her, or is it? Do other singers obviously evoke that singers’ performance? Generational familiarity aside, is the version generally recognized as being definitive? Has the singer’s version become iconic? If one were describing the singer, would the song immediately come to mind?

Here’s my definitive list of the definitive versions of Christmas standards: Continue reading →