Popular Culture

Ethics Dunce: Actor Morgan Freeman

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

Ah, God...you disappoint me.

As long as shameless, irresponsible race-baiters keep attributing opposition to President Obama’s presidency to bigotry, I’ll keep naming them Ethics Dunces.

The latest in this disgraceful parade is distinguished African-American actor Morgan Freeman, who told CNN’s Piers Morgan in an interview that the Tea Party and the Republican Party antipathy to the President is motivated by racism, saying…

“Their stated policy, publicly stated, is to do whatever it takes to see to it that Obama only serves one term. What’s, what does that, what underlines that? ‘Screw the country. We’re going to whatever we do to get this black man, we can, we’re going to do whatever we can to get this black man outta here’…It is a racist thing…it just shows the weak, dark, underside of America. We’re supposed to be better than that. We really are. That’s, that’s why all those people were in tears when Obama was elected president. “Ah, look at what we are. Look at how, this is America.’ You know? And then it just sort of started turning because these people surfaced like stirring up muddy water.” Continue reading →

Uncivil Exchange of the Week: Bristol Palin and a Heckler

/ Jack Marshall / 30 Comments

Bristol Palin's celebrity in the absence of talent, wit or achievements is one good reason to resent Sara Palin

In a spontaneous encounter posted on YouTube, Bristol Palin was confronted by an insult-spewing patron the at Saddle Ranch Bar and Restaurant in West Hollywood last night.

Palin, 20-year-old daughter of  Sarah Palin had just been thrown from a mechanical bull while filming her reality show for the BIO Network, when  a 47-year-old man began shouting at her.

“Did you ride Levi like that?” he yelled, referring to  the father of Bristol’s child, who has just published his memoirs of their relationship for the brain-damaged market. “Your mother is a whore! Your mother is a fucking devil!” he continued.

Bristol approached the man and asked, “Is it because you’re a homosexual and that’s why you hate her?”

“Pretty much … and why’d you say I’m a homosexual?” he responded.

“Because I can tell you are,” Bristol said, setting off the heckler again. “You’re fucking white trash from Wasila!” he screamed as she left the bar with her production crew. “Fuck you, you fucking bitch!”

Internet commenters are praising Palin for standing up to the clod. She deserves no praise. His sexual orientation had nothing to do with episode, and for her to raise that as her initial response to his unprovoked and hateful rant demonstrates that

1. She’s a bigot

2. She’s not ready for prime time, even as a reality star, and

3. She’s not even smart enough to realize that the episode reflects poorly on her, since the incident was taped and posted by her own film crew.

But we already knew that, didn’t we?

Ethics Quiz: Which Musical Comedy Censor is More Unethical?

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

How could anyone predict that this show would be risque?

Rick Jones brought these sorry tales to my attention, and they are perfectly suited to an Ethics Quiz.

Your challenge: Explain which of the censors in these two incidents was more unethical.

Censor A: The mayor of Carrollton, Georgia, Wayne Garner, who ruled last week that a city-funded professional production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show was not suited for a community production. The city council had contracted with a theater group of actors, singers, dancers, musicians and crew, and had committed $2,500 of taxpayer funds in up-front production costs to prepare for four performances in October. The mayor’s spokesperson said that the production was going to contain racy choreography,despite the fact that it was supposed to be a “PG show.”

How a counter-culture musical specifically about gender bending, kinky sex and transvestites was supposed to be “PG” is anybody’s guess.

Censor B: Thomas Fleming, Superintendent of Schools in the Richland School District in western Pennsylvania.   He prompted District officials to veto the high school’s choice of the classic 1950s Broadway musical Kismet as a 2012 production, because it suddenly occurred to him that the characters in the play, which takes place in old Baghdad, are Muslims. Continue reading →

The History Channel’s Unethical Science Fiction

/ Jack Marshall / 44 Comments

Apparently cable TV needs some basic ethics rules, particularly focusing on integrity. SyFy, the science fiction channel, includes professional wrestling prominently in its programming, as well as movies that qualify as horror or fantasy but have no science, fictional or otherwise, in evidence. Chiller, the horror channel, includes movies that are pure suspense or science fiction, as well as re-runs of the reality show “Fear Factor,” which would belong on the Stupid Channel if there was one (other than E!, of course.) This week, a religious program was on Chiller; I have no idea what that was about. Meanwhile, The Learning Channel has become the Child Exploitation Channel, led by the “Jon  & Kate plus 8” franchise, spin-offs and imitators. What are we learning? Not much, except that the names of cable channels mean little or nothing.

Nevertheless, while it is sloppy and false branding to show “Apollo 13” on the SyFy channel, it is considerably worse to show fiction and fantasy on The History Channel, which is what The History Channel has been featuring recently with “Ancient Aliens,” a series that presents the wacko theory that aliens visited Earth centuries ago as fact. Continue reading →

Dear Laura Ingraham: Shut Up and Read Your Own Book

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Laura Ingraham misses the Jetsons. I don't care.

In her 2003 conservative book/rant, “Shut Up and Sing!” radio talk show host Laura Ingraham condemned know-nothing entertainers (among others) who use their popularity to push political views on their audiences and others. I certainly agree with her primary point, which is the expertise and notoriety in the entertainment field does not confer any special perceptiveness in matters of government and social policy, and many, if not most, of the opinions being vocally expressed by these singers, actors and comics are ignorant at best and infantile at worst.

Thus it is puzzling that Ingraham has increasingly been using her radio show, which is supposed to be about politics and current events, to hold forth on the relative value of children’s movies and TV fare in 2011 compared to the films and television programming of the past. To say that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about is being kind. She also is displaying such wretched aesthetic taste and factually mistaken analysis that her comments amount to pundit malpractice. Continue reading →

The Ten Commandments for Ethical Reviewers

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Film critic Roger Ebert’s autobiography is out, and I’m sure it’s terrific: Ebert is a lively writer, and he has many good stories to tell. One tale from the book that has been recounted in several  reviews, however, caused me to slap my forehead. Ebert says that he adopted longtime New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael’s approach to film reviewing, which she wrote was, “I go into the movie, I watch it, and I ask myself what happened to me.”

Ah HA! That’s why Pauline Kael was such a destructive film reviewer, and the predominance of her attitude is why reviewers of stage and film do far more damage than good. Once upon a time, when critics had professional standards and cared about fairness, the accepted approach of someone who reviewed films or plays for public consumption wasn’t how a work made the critic feel, but rather how it was likely to make a typical audience member feel. It doesn’t take much insight to decide whether one likes a play or a movie; anyone can do that. Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: Truck Nutz vs. Schweddy Balls

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Remember Truck Nutz? That may the name of Ben and Jerry's next flavor, if Schweddy Balls catches on...

I’ve been driving or lecturing all day and may be a little punchy.  Yet having last posted on Ethics Alarms about Ben and Jerry’s crude homage to Alec Baldwin (FULL DISCLOSURE: I would be likely to find any homage to Alec Baldwin offensive, since I find Alec Baldwin offensive) and juvenile word-play, I found myself wondering: which is more uncivil and disrespectful, Ben and Jerry’s new Schweddy Balls ice cream, or the large, red, swinging plastic scrotum decorations that some truckers hand at the tail end of their rigs, Truck Nutz?

So that’s your Ethics Quiz, dear readers, as we head into the weekend: Which is more arrogantly disdainful of public decorum, decency, and respect for one’s fellow community members? Continue reading →

Ethics Dunces, and Crude Ones at That: Ben and Jerry

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Stop, you're killing me...

Sorry. I’m ready to be jeered as a humorless prude.  Ice cream flavors should not be named after gross double entendre Saturday Night Live skits. Ben and Jerry’s new Schweddy Balls ice cream (‘sweaty BALLS,” get it?? HAR!)  is just one more step in coarsening the culture, and an unnecessary one.

The skit was a one-joke parody of earnest NPR cooking shows in which a character named Mr. Schweddy talked about his signature holiday confection, rum balls, or “Schweddy balls.” It was funny (hardly hilarious, though; anyone who thinks that is hilarious is 12); it also aired after midnight. Ben and Jerry’s ice cream is sold during the day, the joke is old, and the only point to naming the ice cream after the joke is to sneak something crude into plain view. Wow. What an accomplishment.

The ice cream name is no more or less tasteless, rude and juvenile than naming a New York bar “Buck Foston,” or a TV show called “$#*! My Father Says.” The slobs and foul-mouthed jerks among us won’t rest until everyone talks like sailors and ugliness is everywhere, and they will do it while being applauded by self-styled “liberals” who are really just old-fashioned boors.

It’s not a big deal, any more; the boors are getting their way, because not enough people are willing to endure the guaranteed “Oh, lighten up!” and “Get off your high horse!” sneers that will follow any objections. I hope those big belly laughs from  “Sweaty Balls” ice cream are worth it, I really do. As long as it makes you guys happy.

“Sweaty Balls” ice cream. You slay me.

Unethical Quote of the Week: Nutrition Advocate Marion Nestle

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

"First the came for the Frankenberry, and I said nothing..."

“The intent of the First Amendment was to protect political and religious speech. I cannot believe that the intent of the First Amendment was to protect the right of food companies to market junk foods to kids.”

—- Nutrition advocate, NYU professor and blogger Marion Nestle, arguing that the government should censor advertising “aimed directly at children,” in the interests of public health.

I should not need to lay out the slippery slope perils of accepting a definition of the First Amendment’s free speech guaranty that limits its protection only to “political and religious speech.” For a professor at a prestigious university to advocate this because it would make her own pet crusade easier should send chills up the spines of every citizen. Let’s see…what kind of speech isn’t political or religious? Commercial speech…artistic speech…workplace speech…academic speech… To zealots like Prof. Nestle, all of this, as well as the liberty it bolsters, should be put at risk in the pursuit of skinnier children, by designating the government to assume the parental function of teaching good eating habits. Continue reading →

How Can Anyone Justify Attacking Chaz Bono on “Dancing With the Stars”?

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Apparently ABC’s message boards, e-mail inbox and phone messages have been over-flowing with “Dancing With the Stars” fans and others protesting the addition of Cher’s transgendered son to the slate of competitors. Why are they so upset, you ask?

That’s what I’d like to know. I have watched Chaz Bono in several interviews, and he impressed me as a smart, down-to-earth, articulate and thoroughly likable young man in every way. He is straightforward in answering the most delicate questions, and appears to have no other objective than to be happy and, if possible, to provide comfort, inspiration and hope for others who have gender confusion issues.

Now Chaz has been added to the cast of the upcoming installment of America’s favorite competition/reality show, which has always included an odd stew of American cultural figures, from tabloid targets to star athletes to nostalgia cases to reality show comets to novelty choices from the worlds of politics and media. He fits right in (tabloid target/nostalgia division) , and in many ways is an upgrade from the usual B and C-List denizens who usually do the dancing. What in the world is so objectionable about Chaz Bono? Continue reading →