Arts & Entertainment

Spain Demonstrates Why We Have The First Amendment, And Why The US Must Protect It

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Spain’s Parliament, in its wisdom, has declared dwarf bullfighting illegal. Not because the bulls are treated cruelly, mind you: oh no, that part is fine. It’s the small bullfighters the legislators find intolerable. (That’s a group of them rehearsing above.)

Comic bullfighting shows in which individuals with achondroplasia, a form of dwarfism, fight with juvenile bulls are now illegal. A new law bans “shows or leisure activities” employing a disability “to provoke public mockery, ridicule or derision.” As a result, the performers who earned their living putting on such shows are now forbidden from plying their craft, and citizens willing to pay to watch them can no longer do so. This is also embarrassing: the same law directs that “people with disabilities will participate in public shows and recreational activities, including bullfighting, without discrimination.”

Spain’s law arises from a failure to distinguish “Ick” from ethics, the same problem that has led some states to try to ban drag shows. There is no question that the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights would absolutely prohibit a law such as the Spanish dwarf bullfighting ban, and we should be grateful for that. The ethical principles embodied in freedom of expression include autonomy as well as intrinsic fairness and the Golden Rule validity of allowing others to have the same right to make their living as they choose without others deciding that because they wouldn’t make the same choices, those choices shouldn’t be available to anyone.

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Pro Sports’ Stunning Hypocrisy On Gambling

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

From ESPN:

“Isaiah Rodgers and Rashod Berry of the Indianapolis Colts and free agent Demetrius Taylor were suspended indefinitely — through at least the 2023 season — for betting on NFL games last season. In addition, Tennessee Titans offensive tackle Nicholas Petit-Frere was suspended six games for betting on other sports at the workplace. The four suspensions were announced Thursday by the NFL. The Colts subsequently announced that both Rodgers and Berry have been waived as a consequence of their suspensions. “The integrity of the game is of the utmost importance,” general manager Chris Ballard said in a statement. “As an organization we will continue to educate our players, coaches, and staff on the policies in place and the significant consequences that may occur with violations.”

Meanwhile, while watching the Boston Red Sox play the Toronto Blue Jays yesterday, I noticed that about 75% of the commercials were promoting on-line betting on baseball games, including that baseball game. At one point the Red Sox play-by-play announcer read the over-under odds on the game’s total runs and other odds. Several of the gambling ads featured David Ortiz, the Red Sox icon who is about to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

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Dispatches From The Trans Ethics Train Wreck

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

[ Rose’s breast-baring at the White House will serve as the regular graphic accompanying this topic in the future, because it perfectly symbolizes the attitide of these activists toward the public,

The Tran Ethics Train Wreck was made official back in February, and in retrospect Ethics Alarms should have designated it much earlier. An ethics train wreck is a continuing and evolving situation involving ethics issues and dilemmas that entice anyone becoming involved in them to end up looking foolish at best, misguided at worst, and in between, subject to anger and abuse. Latest developments:

  • The University of Wyoming’s Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority is being sued for allegedly changing the definition of ‘woman’ to accept a trans member, a biological male with equipment intact who is 6’2″ and 260lb. She has been accused of ogling her “sisters” with a full erection, among other issues. The suit alleges that the sorority’s leadership  bullied and intimidated member to accept Artemis Langford. The current and altered sorority rules only require  that a member “identify” as female. KKGs lawyers argue that the definition of “woman” has evolved since the sorority’s founding 150 years ago”The term (woman) is unquestionably open to many interpretations,” the sorority’s filing claimed. I question whether a law suit can prevail here, as clear as it seems that the complaining members were subjected to a bait-and switch. If they cannot get the sorority to agree to a policy they find tolerable, and if they really have been subjected to bullying, I suggest that they quit.

  • AMC Theaters  canceled screenings of a documentary film showcasing the experiences of de-transitioning transsexuals following an aggressive campaign by a group called the Queer Trans Project which sends “Build-a-Queer kits” to “transitioning” LGBTQ+ individuals. The kits include chest binders and tucking tape The online activist group encouraged protesters to send letters to AMC executives to block the screening of the documentary titled “No Way Back: The Reality of Gender-Affirming Care.”  The film shares the stories of five young transsexuals regretting their decision to cross gender lines as well as critical commentary from medical experts. Once AMC announced that it would not show the film, the group posted: “We did it! Our community’s swift action is a testament to the power of advocacy and the importance of raising our voices against harmful content. Your collective efforts have made a significant impact, and the decision to pull No Way Back from AMC theaters is a step towards fostering a more inclusive and respectful environment. Thank you for your dedication and commitment to creating positive change.” AMC claims that the decision was based entirely on poor advance ticket sales.
    And absent leaked documents or emails, there is no way to determine which story is true, or if reality is some mixture of both. The activist group would try to take credit regardless the actual impact of its lobbying, and AMC would never admit to suppressing speech and art because of political pressure.

  • This doesn’t help: New Hampshire’s first transgender state representative, Stacie-Marie Laughton has been arrested and charged with multiple counts of distributing child sexual abuse images. Laughton’s girlfriend was also arrested on the same day on one count of sexual exploitation of children, and one count of distribution of child pornography. She was working at a daycare called Creative Minds and is accused of taking pictures of the children in her care. 

That’s quite a role-model you have there, Trans World! Continue reading →

Introducing “Curmie’s Conjectures,” A Recurring Ethics Alarms Column

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

[ Curmie should be familiar to comment readers here as one of EA’s erudite and witty participants in our daily debates. He has a real name, of course, which he is at liberty to reveal when the mood strikes him. Curmie is an experienced blogger; his own site, Curmudgeon Central, has been referenced and linked-to frequently here over the years. The consistent quality and ethical analysis that he always brings to his commentary, as well as the fact that Curmie has a more liberal orientation than many feel your host displays, made his addition to the Ethics Alarms team (see, two is a team!) both logical and wise.  The fact the we share a deep involvement with theater and the performing arts had nothing to do with it. Well, maybe a little.

Curmie has no set schedule for his contributions, and has complete editorial discretion unless he begins babbling incoherently and shows signs of a stroke. And now I’ll get out of the way and leave you in Curmie’s capable hands.-JM ]

Strange Bedfellows: Socialism and Free Expression

by Curmie

Reading Jack’s piece on the Gallup poll that suggested an increase the percentage of Americans who self-identify as conservative, my first thought was, “so where do I fit in this model?” 

There are so many variables: I’m quite liberal on some issues, staunchly conservative on others.  I took a couple of those online quizzes: according to Pew, I’m “Ambivalent Right” (whatever that means); according to politicalpesonality.org, I’m a “Justice Warrior” (erm… no); ISideWith has me as a Green (not really, although I’ve been accused of worse).

Moreover, such things are always relative: there’s no doubt that I’m well to the left of most people in my Congressional district and of most readers of Jack’s blog, but I’m a fair distance to the right of many of my colleagues in academic theatre.  Moreover, times change.  My once-radical position on gay rights, for example, is now rather mainstream: my belief system had remained virtually unchanged, but it’s now no longer “very liberal,” and may even be “moderate.”

Most importantly, distinguishing between left and right isn’t always the appropriate axis.  Sometimes it’s the continuum from authoritarian to libertarian that really matters.  Political Compass places me solidly to the left of center, but even further into libertarianism.  And it is on these issues—of non-interference by powerful forces, be they governmental, corporate, or otherwise—where Jack’s readership is most likely to agree with me (vice versa). 

In other words, my longtime assertion that, to quote the title of a piece I wrote a few months ago, ““The Left and Right Both Hate Free Expression—They Just Do It Differently” ought not to surprise us overmuch.  What might is a casual observation I made while doing a little research for my second of my two posts on the Roger Waters controversy.

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When Ethics Alarms Don’t Ring: How Could A Company Not Realize This Was Sexual Harassment?

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

The mind boggles; my mind, anyway. S&S Activewear, according to a lawsuit, proposed as a class action in 2020 by a group of former employees, pumped loud, “sexually graphic, violently misogynistic music” through at least five speakers across a large warehouse. Artists like Eminem and Lil Wayne were heard performing rap and hip-hop employing vulgar language, often with lyrics that described violence towards women.

One song cited was Eminem’s 2000 hit “Stan,” about an obsessed fan taking the rap star’s music so literally that he kills his pregnant girlfriend and himself by driving off a bridge. Well all righty then! Management shrugged off complaints about this junk being played in the Nevada warehouse according to the suit, in defiance of the company’s own sexual harassment policy. This fostered a hostile work environment environment where employees shared porn videos and made inappropriate remarks and gestures towards female employees. The suit claimed that the company’s HR manager told at least one woman to just ignore the music.

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As Disney Supporters Complain About Censorship, Disney Engages In Artistic Censorship And WrongThink Control

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Doyle: You dumb guinea.
Cloudy: How the hell did I know he had a knife?
Doyle: Never trust a nigger.
Cloudy: He coulda been white!
Doyle: Never trust anyone.

That exchange has been excised from the versions of the film used on Turner Classic Movies, iTunes and Criterion. The film’s distributor, 20th Century Fox, was acquired by Disney before the scene disappeared. It is artistic censorship, straight up; no more acceptable than painting over the breasts Reubens paintings, or bleeping out “damn” is Rhett Butler’s famous kiss-off to Scarlet (as was done regularly when the movie began being shown on network television.)

Again, we are faced with deciding whether the motives here were stupid or sinister. I probably vote for both. The accelerating effort to declare the word “nigger” as taboo regardless of intent, use or context is pure attempted mind-control and Orwellian WrongThink totalitarianism—now embraced, as in other totalitarian tactics, by most of the Left and the Democratic Party. It is also unprincipled pandering to Critical Race Theory extremism. The rational mind boggles at what canonical works of art and literature face permanent scarring if the practice is allowed to take hold. Just off the top of my recently repaired head, I can think of several superb films that include “nigger” in the dialogue, like “The Shining,” “In the Heat of the Night,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “Mississippi Burning,” “Pulp Fiction,” and of course, “Blazing Saddles.”

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Early in William Friedkin’s classic film “The French Connection,” Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle (Gene Hackman) argues with his partner, Buddy “Cloudy” Russo (Roy Scheider) regarding Russo recently sustaining a knife wound in a confrontation with a black drug-dealer:

Doyle: You dumb guinea.
Cloudy: How the hell did I know he had a knife?
Doyle: Never trust a nigger.
Cloudy: He coulda been white!
Doyle: Never trust anyone.

That exchange has been excised from the versions of the film used on Turner Classic Movies, iTunes and Criterion. The film’s distributor, 20th Century Fox, was acquired by Disney before the scene disappeared. It is artistic censorship, straight up; no more acceptable than painting over the breasts Reubens paintings, or bleeping out “damn” is Rhett Butler’s famous kiss-off to Scarlet (as was done regularly when the movie began being shown on network television.)

Again, we are faced with deciding whether the motives here were stupid or sinister. I probably vote for both. The accelerating effort to declare the word “nigger” as taboo regardless of intent, use or context is pure attempted mind-control and Orwellian WrongThink totalitarianism—now embraced, as in other totalitarian tactics, by most of the Left and the Democratic Party. It is also unprincipled pandering to Critical Race Theory extremism. The rational mind boggles at what canonical works of art and literature face permanent scarring if the practice is allowed to take hold. Just off the top of my recently repaired head, I can think of several superb films that include “nigger” in the dialogue, like “The Shining,” “In the Heat of the Night,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “Mississippi Burning,” “Pulp Fiction,” and of course, “Blazing Saddles.”

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The Philosophy Prof’s “Animal House” Ethics Quiz, Part 2

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

After posting about the ethics professor who trapped the cheaters in his class by planting the wrong answers in a version of his test uploaded to a exam-cheating site, I realized that I never discussed the ethics of the Omega Theta Pi fraternity in “Animal House” who tricked our heroes (Bluto, Otter, et al.) with a similar scheme. In Part I, I described Kevin Bacon’s frat brothers as “evil,” as indeed they were, and their motive for planting a fake psych exam answer sheet where they knew Bluto and D-Day would find it was hate and vengeance. Does that make their scheme unethical, even though the professor’s similar stratagem was ethical?

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‘Live From Ethics Alarms, It’s FRIDAY OPEN FORUM!’

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

On a rainy June 1st in1975, President Gerald Ford slipped while walking down the Air Force One boarding stairs after landing in Salzburg. The caught-on-camera incident became a PR problem for an already controversial and unelected President seeking a full term the old fashioned way. The writers for newly-minted late night satirical skit comedy show on NBC, Saturday Night Live, know comedy gold when they saw it, turned Ford’s alleged clumsiness into a signature gag, with break-out show star Chevy Chase playing Ford and including elaborate pratfalls in many of the SNL “cold opens.”

Exactly 43 years after Ford’s fall, Joe Biden, who makes Ford look like one of the Flying Wallendas by comparison, took a Chevy Chase-like face plant on stage at the U.S. Air Force Academy graduation ceremony in Colorado yesterday. This poses an immediate integrity test for SNL, or would, if the show had not completely abandoned integrity when it decided to leave Barack Obama essentially unscathed for eight years. If I were producing SNL, I’d bring back Chevy and have him introduced as Biden in the cold open…and that would be enough (and it would be all that would be realistically possible, as Chase ruined his back by all those falls as Ford.

What are the odds? I’m not curious enough to watch the show, as I have not since it became a full-time Democratic Party attack machine, but Joe’s tumble had me thinking about it.

But I digress. There is plenty in the ethics jungle to talk about, so get to it.

More Disney Ethics: The NYT Movie Critic’s Review Of “The Little Mermaid” Highlighted What’s Wrong With Disney’s Wokism, But Conservatives Didn’t Notice

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Ah, the curse of confirmation bias! So determined are conservative pundits and bloggers to condemn the New York Times as being a full conspirator in the effort to wokify U.S. society and culture that it missed the paper’s movie critic admitting that the movement wasn’t working. Wesley Morris, who is clearly Democrat, progressive, and an African American, began his review of the already controversial live action version of “The Little Mermaid” thusly:

The new, live-action “The Little Mermaid” is everything nobody should want in a movie: dutiful and defensive, yet desperate for approval. It reeks of obligation and noble intentions. Joy, fun, mystery, risk, flavor, kink — they’re missing. The movie is saying, “We tried!” Tried not to offend, appall, challenge, imagine.

“Dutiful and defensive, yet desperate for approval. It reeks of obligation and noble intentions.” That’s a perfect, if incomplete, description of what political correctness and the cultural fascists of the Left have wrought. But because the critic appended  “kink” at the end of “joy, fun, mystery, risk, flavor,” the qualities he felt the movie was missing, that word was all the critics of the critic could see. “NY Times ripped for piece lamenting lack of ‘kink’ in new ‘Little Mermaid’: ‘The left sexualizes kids'” Fox News announced, and it was typical.

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I Have To Ask: What Is Disney Doing And Why?

/ Jack Marshall / 57 Comments

For a couple of weeks now, I’ve been planning a long post examining what Disney’s mission and methodology need to be in 21st Century America. Walt’s creation faces an important challenge and a difficult one, and I would hope that the people responsible for guiding a company whose role in shaping U.S. culture has been both successful and beneficent as well as profitable are up to the task. They had better be, for the sake of the culture, not merely stockholders.

I was well on the way to devising a post I felt would be perceptive and provocative when I saw the video above. That stopped me cold. I wasn’t exactly optimistic about Disney, which has been a major positive influence in my own life, being able to safely navigate around the cultural icebergs in the roiling societal seas ahead before I watched the thing, but now I am as confused as I am depressed.

The classic starting point for ethical analysis is “What’s going on here?” In this case, it is more appropriate to ask, “What THE HELL is going on here?”

I’m open to suggestions.