Popular Culture

Ethics Hero: General Mills; Ethics Dunces: The News Media

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Bravo to General Mills for its new Cheerios commercial:

It’s not grandstanding, it’s not in your face, but it’s brave: bi-racial families are so common today that the absence of them in TV commercials could only be the result of a conscious choice by Madison Avenue and Corporate America to avoid offending even those few who should be offended. And TV ads have great cultural force in molding norms, expectations and standards. Some company with a major product needed to take the plunge, and General Mills did it.

I wonder how long it will take them to have a same-sex couple in a Cheerios ad. Continue reading →

Now THIS Is Incivility!

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments
"Thank you, counselors. We will proceed to fucking closing statements."

“Thank you, counselors. We will proceed to fucking closing statements.”

I just saw a  local Boston TV ad for Ace Tickets. The slogan at the end was “Sit your Ace down!” So clever! Just throw gratuitous vulgarity into a commercial during a baseball game, doubtlessly viewed by many children, because it’s inherently amusing. The message is that vulgarity is cool, clever and acceptable. Other messages in the media, both in advertising and in pop culture, convey the same permissive standards regarding obscenity. Over on the Drudge Report, a much-admired news aggregator for  political junkies, especially on the right, no mention of Anthony Weiner’s annoying candidacy for Mayor of New York is made without a cheap “weiner” joke. Today, Drudge noted that Weiner was “inching up” in the polls. Get it? HAR!  Just under that “gag,” the news that men favored Weiner in polling was headlined “Male Enhancement.” Soooo witty!  The U.S. is being transformed into one huge junior high school. After growing up in such a vulgar, undignified, sleazy environment, the next generation won’t be prone to inadvertently use words like “fuck” and “shit” in public forums such as live award shows and TV interviews, like our current politicians, newscasters and celebrities. They’ll just use them intentionally, all the time. Won’t that be cool? I’m sure David Letterman thinks so. Cool Dave had A.J. Clemente, he of uttering “fucking shit” on the airways in his debut as a news anchor, as a guest on his show. Dave suggested to A.J. that his ex-bosses were jerks to fire him. Good point Dave! A.J. was just ahead of his time. In a decade or so, “fucking shit” may be the sign-off of the next generation’s Walter Cronkite.

Maybe less than  a decade. Note this account, in a court opinion, of a lawyer’s conduct before a magistrate: Continue reading →

James Lipton: Proud To Be A Pimp

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments
James Lipton, circa. 1951

James Lipton, circa. 1951

James Lipton, he of the most pompous interview show in the universe, Inside the Actor’s Studio, has decided to celebrate that franchise’s 250th episode by cheerily revealing that he worked as a pimp in Paris in the 1950’s. This was apparently legal there and then, and Lipton, he tells us, was out of a job, so why not earn your money by recruiting desperate women into accepting cash to have sex with strangers, and take a cut of their proceeds for your trouble?

Lipton tells Parade:

“I had to be okayed by the underworld; otherwise they would’ve found me floating in the Seine.The great bordellos were still flourishing in those days before the sheriff of Paris, a woman, closed them down. It was a different time.”

Oh…you mean there was a time when dealing with organized crime was good? There was a time when it was admirable to trap innocent young waifs into the sex trade because of their poverty? To facilitate adultery and infidelity? To tell women who they had to have sex with, and accept a percentage of their fees for doing so? There was a time when doing all of this didn’t mean you were an exploitive, venal, amoral, low life?

I don’t think so. I don’t think there has ever been such a time, no matter what France may think. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Pop Star Katy Perry

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

When is a sincere apology unethical? Here’s a good example.

Abused and Abuser. Someone please tell Katy Perry which is which.

Abused and Abuser. Someone please tell Katy Perry which is which.

Pop singing star Katy Perry registered an ethically responsible objection via Twitter regarding the Chief Keef song “Hate Being Sober.” She wrote,

“Just heard a new song on the radio called ‘I hate being sober’ I now have serious doubt for the world.”

Me too, Katy.  The artist responsible for this paean to intoxication, however, took offense, and decided to rebut Katy’s tweet with an obscene, abusive, misogynist attack:

“Dat bitch Katy Perry Can Suck Skin Off Of my Dick Ill Smack The Shit out her”

Thus chastened (or intimidated?), Perry apologized to him, writing that she really liked the song, and wasn’t “a hater”: Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: The “Breastaurants”

/ Jack Marshall / 45 Comments

Playboy bunnies

All right, class…put away your books.

This quiz will count toward your final grade in Ethics 101.

Please watch the following video…about the growing culinary trend of so-called “breastaurants,” Hooters wannabe establishments that sell food service and ogling rights.

Now here is your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz for today, a multiple choice. Choose as many of the following to describe the trend as you feel is appropriate:

a. This is entertainment, that’s all. Nothing ethically or culturally objectionable at all.

 

b. If you thought Playboy Clubs and their “Bunnies” were sexist and demeaning to women, you can’t regard these places as harmless. Same thing, different packages, and more unethical now than then, because we supposed  have learned since then.

 

c. It’s legal and nobody is making the women do anything they don’t want to do. There’s no offense here. If you don’t like it, don’t eat there.

 

d. Women desperate for a job in a bad market are being forced to debase themselves. They are victims of exploitation and sexism, that is wrong, and anyone who patronizes such a place is encouraging and endorsing unethical conduct.

 

e.  The very existence of these establishments encourages sexual harassment and discrimination. There is way to legally prevent them, but no ethical person would own or operate such a place.

 

f. The “Breastaurants” encourage attitudes and conduct that society is trying to discourage, disapprove, and eliminate. They are ethics corrupters.

 

g. Allowing children in these places is irresponsible.

 

h. Voluntarily patronizing any of these places is unethical, as it encourages damaging attitudes toward women.

 

i. All those cheap breast double-entendres in the ABC story were unprofessional and sleazy.

 

j. Oh, lighten up! Look at movies. Look at TV. Look at cheerleaders. Look at how high school children dress. It’s just sex, that’s all. Weenie!

 

k. ARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Good luck.

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Facts:ABC

Graphic: Betseyj

Ethics Quote of the Week: Chelsea Bacon

/ Jack Marshall / 63 Comments

“Comedy is not assuming zero responsibility over your actions. It is not telling others how to respond. It is not demonstrating the utmost hypocritical behavior in making callous, lazy, ignorant statements and then lashing out aggressively against critics. Comedy is not free from criticism. This is not an echo chamber containing only yourself and a couple other people exactly like you. You won’t need to do any of these things if you want to be a good comedian, or a decent human being for that matter.”

—-Chelsea Bacon, concluding her account of the reaction she received from male comedians and commenters when she criticized what she regarded as gratuitous sexist jokes.

You might want to read Chelsea's piece, Seth...

You might want to read Chelsea’s piece, Seth…

Bacon takes a brave and ethical stand on unpopular topics among comics, such as whether all jokes are defensible regardless of content as long as they make someone laugh, whether rape is ever legitimate joke fodder, whether exploiting minority stereotypes is fair game in pursuit of comedy, and whether it is inappropriate to criticize comedy material at all. Along the way, the dirty little not-so-secret of the gender imbalance in the comedy world also comes to light.

It is a bold and thought-provoking piece, which you can read in its entirely here.

___________________________________

Pointer: Fark

Source: Little Village Mag

Ethics Quiz: Too Stupid To Be Unethical?

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments
Little Tommy flunked Ethics 101. Should we blame him?

Little Tommy flunked Ethics 101. Should we blame him?

An incident in Jefferson City Missouri nicely raises an issue I think about often.

Capital 8 Theaters in Jefferson City, Missouri sent actors dressed as gunmen, wearing assault gear and carrying what appeared to be semi-automatic weapons, into a screening of the film “Iron Man 3”  last weekend. Really. Apparently the similarity between this scenario and the deadly shooting last year in an Aurora, Colorado movie theater premiering another big budget movie about a superhero never occurred to the theater manager, because he is, you see, a moron. It sure occurred to the patrons, though, and one of them called in the police, saying that gunmen had entered the theater. SWAT teams were called. Luckily nobody was shot or had cardiac arrest, no thanks to the theater.

Interviewed by a local TV station, manager Bob Wilkins was asked if he had any regrets. “No, my job is to entertain people,” he said. Asked if he considered  how  his stunt might affect patrons who remembered the mass shooting in the theater in Aurora, Wilkins responded, “Absolutely. That’s my number-one priority every day. It’s the safety and security of our guests.”

Okay, this pretty much tells us what we need to know about old Bob, so here is your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz question:

May abject stupidity be a complete defense to the accusation that one is unethical? Continue reading →

Education Ethics Dunces: The Duncanville (Tx) School District And All Supporters And Enablers Of Jeff Bliss, Who Is Part Of The Problem With U.S. Education, Not The Solution

/ Jack Marshall / 33 Comments

There are days when I despair of the nation and its society, when all the evidence points to a culture that has lost its way and is wandering deeper and deeper into the fog and mire. Today is such a day, and the Jeff Bliss saga is the perfect horrible exclamation point on my silent scream, which may go vocal any minute now.

To read the praise being heaped on Bliss, an 18-year-old Duncanville (Texas) High School sophomore, one would think he was a precocious education philosopher who spontaneously emitted the solution to the nation’s public school woes. In fact, what he did was strenuously object when he felt his teacher didn’t give the class long enough for an assignment, kept complaining when she ordered him to be quiet, and was quite properly ordered out of the classroom. This caused him to launch into a diatribe about her teaching methods, which was captured on a fellow student’s cell phone and put on YouTube. And here it is:

Continue reading →

Of Hero Ethics, Credit, Fame, And Angel Cordero

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments
Angel Cordero, unsung hero. And in good company.

Angel Cordero, unsung hero. And in good company.

Apparently a Cleveland man named Angel Cordero is every bit as deserving of accolades in the rescue of the three kidnapping victims of Ariel Castro [of alleged kidnapper and rapist Ariel Castro, that is. Reflect on this case the next time someone puffs themselves up to reprimand you for a missing “alleged” and lectures you about how the accused are “innocent until proven guilty.” Yes, we know—and that means we can’t lock them up and throw away the key until they have had a fair trial and been officially proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in the judgment of a jury. It does not mean,  in a situation where there is literally no possible interpretation of the facts that would not end with the conclusion that the man who owns the house where three women have been kept prisoner for ten years and who have told interviewers that he beat them, starved them and raped them, that to state the obvious is some kind of human rights violation. By the way, O.J. is guilty too.] as the more colorful, more publicized–and more ridiculed—Charles Ramsey.

I want Cordero to receive the credit and admiration he deserves. I don’t want him to feel bitter and unappreciated. If the media, public and popular culture is inclined to bestow its goodies on the heroes of this horrible story, I hope he gets his fair share. Still, I also hope that he would be sufficiently large of soul and solid of values to adopt the attitude that what is important is that the women were rescued, and not who gets credit for it, now or in the future. Continue reading →

Charles Ramsey Is A Hero. Show Some Damn Respect.

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments
Nice---he saves the women, and you mock him. Who's the real jerk here?

Nice—he saves the women, and they mock him. Who’s the real jerk here?

Charles Ramsey is a hero without qualification. He saw someone in peril and acted, kicking in his neighbor’s door to help a woman and a child who were strangers to him. This assertive and proactive conduct led to the rescue of three young women missing for a decade. Yet because Ramsey is unrepentantly expressive in the manner of his community and peer group, and is not the typical white, middle class American who tends to dominate the internet, videos of his account of the event, replete with colorful slang and vernacular and his own expressive flourishes, have become objects of mockery and ridicule on the web, with a nasty racist edge. He is now a viral meme, especially his signature quote about knowing something is wrong when “a little pretty white girl” runs into “a black man’s arms.”

Wrong. I love Ramsey, and love his open, clear, emotional, story-teller’s manner. He is articulate in the true spirit of the word—interesting, vivid, clear and genuine. John Kerry should communicate so well. Mitch McConnell should hire him as a coach. If Al Sharpton could convey such sincerity, we’d all be in trouble. Continue reading →