Gender and Sex

Ethics Dunce: Huma Abedin, a.k.a Mrs. Anthony Weiner

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments
"Carlos Danger," running for an office that won't have anything to do with him if he wins it. Where is Monty Python when we need them?

“Carlos Danger,” running for an office that won’t have anything to do with him if he wins it, he tells us. Where is Monty Python when we need them?

There are periodic moments when I feel I am wasting my life. A recent one occurred when I heard Huma Abedin, the humiliated wife of New York mayoral candidate and serial penis-texter Anthony Weiner, or, as his friend call him when he’s showing his junk, “Carlos Danger,” say that his pathological and gross conduct, bolstered by public lies, deceit and posturing, isn’t a legitimate concern for voters, and that it is just “between us, and our marriage.”

As Stephen King would put it, a muffled scream builds to inevitability deep in my chest. Continue reading →

An Inclusive “I Do! I Do!” for A Post-DOMA U.S.

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Cup

I wasn’t going to mention my current theater (at Arlington, Virginia’s American Century Theater) project here, until I dropped Ethics Alarms’ conservative warrior Steven Mark Pilling a note on Facebook that I had just posted on the topic he is most passionate about, preventing the abuse of child actors in Hollywood. Steven is not, to say the least, a fan of gay marriage (this might be the topic he is next most passionate about) , and I realized that my Facebook thumbnail, showing two same-sex couples in an intimate moment from my show, might put him off.

The show I just finished directing ( with the assistance of Quinn Anderson and my musical director Tom Fuller)  the old Harvey Schmidt-Tom Jones chestnut, “I Do! I Do!”, ( Remember “My Cup Runneth Over,“ Ed Ames fans? Hello? ) the tw0-actor Broadway musical based on the 1950 play “The Fourposter.” Back in 1966, when Robert Preston and Mary Martin starred in the musical, it was considered an affectionate and  perceptive look at the institution of marriage, and the show has attracted nostalgic, usually elderly married couples to regional and dinner theaters ever since. Productions of  “I Do! I Do!” are becoming rarer, however, because the societal developments have rendered the tale of the epic marriage of Agnes and Michael Snow increasingly alien to the current American scene. In particular, what was once a musical intended to speak to all married couples and candidates for future nuptials now appears to exclude the very group that comprises musical theater’s hardiest supporters: gays.

In marked abandonment of my theater’s usual principles (we don’t update shows, believing that it is more interesting and fair to the authors to let audiences reflect on what has changed since an original production, and what has not), I decided that for the benefit of audiences, the culture and the show itself, it was time to re-conceive “I Do! I Do!” so it would gain renewed relevance and vitality in a post DOMA age. My approach, courageously and generously approved by the authors, was to show the marriage of the show’s couple through a constantly rotating prism that alternately revealed them as a same-sex female couple, a same-sex male couple, and the traditional heterosexual couple of the 1966 version. This required four very versatile and gutsy actors who could pull off the illusion of showing one marriage three different ways without giving the audience whiplash or confusing them hopelessly. In Steve Lebens, Esther Covington, Chad Fournwalt and Mary Beth Luckenbaugh, I found the dream cast. Continue reading →

Should Child Actors Be Banned?

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments
Amanda Bynes: A child star's evolution

Amanda Bynes: A child star’s career path

I posed this question years ago to Paul Petersen, a noted child performer himself (on the classic “The Donna Reed Show”) and for decades the courageous advocate for past and present child stars. He has fought for legislation to protect their assets and their welfare, often attracting hatred and attacks from stage parents in the process, but draws a hard line at banning kids in stage, screen and TV. “Gotta have those cute kids, Jack” he replied, essentially admitting that as brutal as pre-adult careers in show business often were, the public would never give up their lovable moppets. I don’t dispute Paul’s clear-eyed acceptance of reality, but I also think his answer ducks the question. As he knows better than anyone (you should check out the website of his non-profit organization here, and consider sending a contribution his way), the carnage on young lives a too-early introduction into one of the most callous and mind-warping of professions brings is well-documented and undeniable. Enablers and apologists, not to mention greedy parents willing to cash in their kids’ chances at a healthy childhood for fees and residuals, point to the prominent child stars (Shirley Temple, Brooke Shields) who did not grow up miserable, dysfunctional, and lost, but that is like arguing that child abuse is tolerable because some victims recover from its wounds.

The evidence of child stardom’s destructive effects is ever-present, so much so that the public has become inured to it, and hardly notices. Incidents and quotes exposing Justin Bieber’s gradual evolution into a narcissistic jerk have been regular features of the tabloid news, as have weekly hints that former Disney star Miley Cyrus is heading off the rails. Her infamous fellow alumna from the Mouse Factory, Lindsay Lohan, continues to cement her credentials as the poster girl for child stars gone bad, and just yesterday, former Nickelodeon comic Amanda Bynes was ordered to undergo psychiatric examination following the latest in a year’s worth of weird conduct.

Over at Cracked, a former child star who managed to escape the Biz with her sanity, values and reputation intact weighed in with an unusually sensitive (for Cracked) essay entitled, “7 Reasons Child Stars Go Crazy.” The author is Mara Wilson, now virtually forgotten despite the fact that she is barely in her thirties and the Broadway musical adapted from her most popular film, “Matilda,” was a 2013 Tony winner.  Wilson identifies the key factors dooming her less fortunate colleagues as… Continue reading →

Ethically Depressing Quote Of The Week: NBC News

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

“It’s unclear if his latest admission will hurt his standing with voters.”

—-NBC News, after revealing on its website that New York City mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner, who resigned from Congress in 2011 amid a sexting scandal, admitted today that there were more episodes like the one that forced his resignation.  He issued the statement after a gossip website published an interview with an anonymous woman who claimed she had a six-month online relationship with him that continued after his earlier online activities were, uh, exposed.

The once and future studmuffin...

The once and future studmuffin…”Mayor Studmuffin?” Really, New York?

Weiner’s  statement was Clintonian with heavy dash of weasel, saying,

“I said that other texts and photos were likely to come out, and today they have. As I have said in the past, these things that I did were wrong and hurtful to my wife and caused us to go through challenges in our marriage that extended past my resignation from Congress. While some things that have been posted today are true and some are not, there is no question that what I did was wrong. This behavior is behind me.”

Note: Weiner also said the behavior was behind him when he resigned. (Actually, based on the photos, the behavior is clearly in front of him.) Given his talent for Clintonesque  deceit, perhaps he means that all past behavior is behind him, since he’s talking in the present, and only future internet flashing is ahead of him.

Whatever. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Daily Caller Education Editor Eric Owens

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Yechhh.

Debra LaFave, poster girl for the "Being Raped By Your Teacher Is OK If She's Hot" contingent

Debra LaFave, poster girl for the “Being Raped By Your Teacher Is OK If She’s Hot” contingent

I’ve flagged this kind of post before, and I’ll continue to do so until sophomoric bloggers and commentators stop snickering and winking about child sexual abuse and outrageous breach of trust.

Why it is hard to grasp the concept that a school teacher seducing and having sex with an underage student is a despicable and harmful crime, and not some sort of male fantasy come true, I cannot conceive. Our education system consistently fails at conveying values and knowledge, but the fact that public schools are too often hunting grounds for sexual predators seeking to use their positions and power to turn kids into living, breathing sex toys is, you know, kind of cute and titillating to people like Eric Owens, laughably called the “Education Editor” at the Daily Caller. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunces: Organizing For Action

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments
Guess whose Twitter account followed Samantha and her friends...

Guess whose Twitter account followed Samantha and her friends…

The Hollywood Gossip web page thinks its hilarious that the twitter feed supposedly assigned to the President of the United States was found to have, among the 650,000 odd twitter accounts it was following, at least one hard porn site listed. It’s not hilarious. It’s symptomatic.

This isn’t even the first time this has happened. Last year, the same site that purports to put out tweets from Potus (and occasionally does, which are marked with the notation “bo”) was outed as following the descriptively-named “Celebrity Side-Boob.” This year’s funky fave (it has since been removed) of  @BarackObama is Wicked Pictures, and it sells a lot more than “side-boobs.”

barack-obama-porn-company-twitter_2

The President’s tweets are managed by Organizing for Action, the supposedly private, non-profit, non-governmental, non-political organization morphed out of Obama’s campaign apparatus (and if you think I have major ethics problems with a sitting President fronting a non-profit political advocacy group, you’re correct). Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Month: Washington Post Book Reviewer Patrick Anderson

/ Jack Marshall / 40 Comments

The_Best_Little_Whorehouse_in_Texas?????????????????????????

“The moral I draw from this richly detailed, terribly sad book is that, since prostitution will never be eliminated, it should be legalized.”

—-Washington Post book reviewer (and former Jimmy Carter speechwriter) Patrick Anderson, in the conclusion of his positive review of “Lost Girls,” a non-fiction about a series of prostitute killings.

Read that quote over and over again, as I have, and if you can tell me how an intelligent human being reaches the point where he (or she) considers such a statement logical, rational, responsible or ethical, please enlighten me.

I know there are people who think like this and applaud such sentiments, though on its face the position is utter nonsense. Substitute murder, or child porn, or incest, or wife-beating…official corruption, bribery, kick-backs…drunk driving, water pollution, cruelty to animals…any persistent blight on society and human interaction, and Anderson’s idiotic formula applies as well to it as it does to prostitution. Continue reading →

Jackie Mitchell, The Girl Who Struck Out Ruth And Gehrig: A Legend And Ethics Conundrum

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

jackie-mitchell

The Jackie Mitchell saga is a great, feel-good story ruined by ethics rot. On one level, it is exactly the kind of tale that compels the treatment recommended by the old newspaper editor in John Ford’s “the Man Who Shot Liberty Valence”: “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” On another, it is an ethics mess, which might explain why I had never heard of Jackie Mitchell, once a proto-feminist icon, until I cracked open my new issue of Smithsonian Magazine.

Mitchell was a Depression era Chattanooga teenager who had been taught how to pitch by her friend and neighbor, Major League ace Dazzy Vance. A star on local women’s baseball teams, the tomboy southpaw was signed to a pro contract by the promotion-minded owner of a local AA level minor league team, the Lookouts, in 1931. Her big moment came when the New York Yankees came through Chattanooga from Spring Training on the way to opening the season up North. Lookouts owner Joe Engel arranged for two exhibition games against the Bronx Bombers, who, you baseball fans should know, included Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Engel promoted the game as a David and Goliath showdown with Jackie playing David, and he was rewarded with a full stadium. Then this happened: Continue reading →

“Alleged” News Bias: ABC’s David Muir Joins The The Hilaria Baldwin Ethics Lionel Wreck

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Gomez-s-Train-Wreck-addams-family

All aboard!

Caught by Newbusters:  ABC’s David Muir referred to Alec Baldwin’s tweet calling Daily News reporter George Stark a “toxic little queen” as an “alleged slur,” while omitting any mention of Baldwin’s follow-up tweet announcing that the actor would “put my foot up your f–king ass, George Stark, but I’m sure you’d dig it too much.”

Alleged slur?

Baldwin’s slur isn’t alleged, it’s preserved in screen shots all over the internet. Muir’s claim that the obvious slur is only alleged can only mean “toxic little queen” in the context of an exchange alluding to the male target enjoying violent anal penetration can be reasonably interpreted as anything else. It cannot.

I didn’t notice—did ABC also refer to Paula Deen’s admitted use of the term “nigger” as an “alleged slur”? If it did, I apologize: Muir isn’t biased…he’s just an idiot, following ABC’s idiotic policy. But if it did not—-and it didn’t-–then Muir’s  effort to go easy on a fellow liberal’s bigotry is just one more of the little bits of proof of how left-biased the news media is that slips out periodically if one is objective and paying attention.

Of course, the Democrats and liberals among us who benefit from having the news slanted to support their candidates and issues only see alleged media bias when these smoking guns appear—just as Muir sees “toxic little queen” as an alleged slur.

_____________________________

Pointer and Sources: Newsbusters

Graphic: Largescalecentral

 

GLAAD Joins The Hilaria Baldwin Ethics Lionel Wreck

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

model_trainwreck2

Ethics train wrecks can develop at any time, though sometimes the participants and the incidents involved limit the results to small-scale ethics damage. Let’s call these “Ethics Lionel Wrecks,” in honor of the model train sitting in a cardboard box in my basement. This week’s tale of Hilaria Baldwin’s mistimed tweets defines the genre.

The progression:

1. George Stark Starts the Train

This one began when the pregnant wife of actor/ pitchman/liberal blowhard/ bully Alec Baldwin was called out by the Daily Mail for tweeting trivial, giddy messages during the funeral of recently departed actor James Gandolfini. That would have been certifiably disrespectful conduct in the rare sub-category of Funeral Ethics; indeed Ethics Alarms certified it. The problem is that Mail reporter George Stark was wrong.

Salon explained that the error was caused by “a technical glitch on Twitter that reflected GMT instead of ET…an analysis of the source code of Hilaria Baldwin’s tweets reveals that she tweeted between 11 am and 2 pm, as opposed to 8 am to 11 am. The Daily Mail has stated that “the tweets did appear accurately timed on mobile devices such as smartphones and iPads,” but “the only way MailOnline was able to establish the REAL time the tweets were sent was by viewing the twitter web page source code, something almost no normal member of the public would ever do.”

I have no idea what the hell that means, but I was one of the people who relied on Stark’s report, which seemed convincing, with screen shots of the tweets themselves and their timestamps. Was he unethically sloppy, as Baldwin and others have claimed, or was this just an excusable mistake? Twitter is new enough that there may be some justification for not checking the source code before using the time stamp to conclude something from a tweet: I can’t determine whether there is a journalistic protocol for this at the Daily Mail or elsewhere. Before a reporter attacks the conduct of a pregnant woman at a friend’s funeral, he would presumably be obligated to be certain of his facts, since readers, like me, will assume that he was. If this really was, as Salon says, a freak Twitter glitch, then Stark was unlucky rather than unethical.

2. Ethics Alarms rides the rails Continue reading →