Popular Culture

Ethics Hero: Meat Loaf

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Bravo.

I’m sure many of you will react to this with a hardy, “What an idiot!” That’s all right. You don’t understand.

In the grandest tradition of “The show must go on!”, 70’s rock legend Meat Loaf, now 63, finished a concert in Pittsburgh after he fainted on stage and lay unconscious for a full ten minutes. He got up, apologized, explained (obscenely) that it was his asthma, and continued to sing his old hits for a cheering crowd. “Kept suckin’ on his inhaler & singing his ass off,” one fan tweeted from the scene.

Grand. I love it.

In these times when rock acts are often hours late or severely shortened by the artist’s physical or pharmaceutical maladies, and when performers in general often consider it too much of a sacrifice to give their best efforts when healthy, not to mention when they have the sniffles, Meat Loaf’s dedication to his craft and particularly his audience is impressive, although not surprising. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Larry Flynt

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

BLECHHHH!

I know, I know. “In other news, the Earth spins, and the Atlantic ocean is wet!” Nevertheless, it is occasionally worth the trouble to remind ourselves what an unprincipled sleaze Larry Flynt is, especially with people still around who argue that he’s a hero.

Flynt announced on Nancy Grace’s show last night that talks are ongoing with Casey Anthony to have her nude and tattooed bod featured in Hustler magazine for $500,000 up front plus 10% of all profits. Flynt said he decided to make the offer after concluding there was a big market for seeing the acquitted child murder suspect in the buff. Continue reading →

MSNBC Hires Al Sharpton, As “Network” Becomes Reality

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Satire no more.

Noting that MSNBC has given Rev. Al Sharpton his own show, I am compelled to ask: What is broadcast journalism’s accepted criteria now that justifies an individual’s enshrinement as a cable news commentator?

Is it name recognition? The “right” political orientation, in this case, knee-jerk liberal? A ready-made fan base?  Theatrical presence? If these are the criteria, by all means, hire Al Sharpton. Hire Alec Baldwin, Donald Trump, Rod Blagojevich and Jane Fonda, too. Gary Busey. Manny Ramirez. Hulk Hogan. Bozo the Clown.

Or is the proper and responsible criteria credibility, integrity, honesty, fairness, and journalistic credentials? If those archaic standards are still in place, or if MSNBC wants to pretend that they are, then the hiring of Sharpton marks a new low in broadcast news coverage cynicism and recklessness. Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “The Provocative T-Shirt Problem”

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Rick Jones, whose excellent blog posts on ethics, academia, politics and life can be read here, at Curmudgeon Central, again delivers the Comment of the Day, on my post about the gay couple asked to hide an innocuous T-shirt message while visiting Dollywood.

“It strikes me that attempting to draw clear lines of demarcation in terms of either content or location is inherently fraught with peril. The best determinant may indeed be the Golden Rule. But that inevitably touches on intent. The purpose of a “marriage is so gay” t-shirt isn’t to “get in the face of” opponents of gay marriage; it’s to make a mildly humorous point about an issue without being strident.

“The guy who wore the “I’m a Muslim. Don’t Panic” t-shirt to the Ground Zero celebration after the killing of Osama bin Laden—not terribly clever, but not at all offensive, either.

I wouldn’t be offended by a t-shirt backing a political candidate I’d never support (I might have an indication of whether to engage in conversation with this person as we wait in the queue, but that’s another matter); I would be by a t-shirt defaming that same candidate: comparing him to Hitler, for example. Yes, intent matters. Continue reading →

Did Amy Winehouse Cheat the World?

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

 

A mark of failure, or betrayal?

I appreciated Amy Winehouse’s talent rather than enjoyed it. Nevertheless, her death-–many have said her completely predictable death—of a drug overdose at 27 once again causes me to ponder the recklessness with which gifted artists who can give so much to the world throw their lives away.

As an ethicist who never hesitates to hold individuals ethically responsible for conduct that harms others, I have not completely worked out in my own mind how to characterize the many artists and performers whose self-engineered destruction have robbed the world of laughter, enlightenment, and joy. Every time I watch John Belushi in “Animal House” or an old Saturday Night Live clip, I get angry at him—I admit it. I know Belushi didn’t want to die young any more than I wanted him to die young, but he treated his life as if it was disposable and without value, when it really was of extraordinary value. When Belushi sacrificed it in a stupid drug binge, it was more than a tragedy for his friends, lovers, colleagues and family; it was a tragedy for the art and history of comedy. Much the same can be said of Amy Winehouse—and James Dean, Jimi Hendrix, Billy Holiday, Heath Ledger, Michael Jackson, River Phoenix, Marilyn Monroe, and Elvis. Continue reading →

Haboob By Any Other Name

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

"The haboobs are coming! The haboobs are coming!"

The line between national pride and patriotism on one side and small-mindedness and bigotry on the other can be perilously thin. Some Arizonans, however, have stumbled over the line where it is thicker than the annotated Federal tax regs,

The Arizona natives are objecting to local weathermen adopting the Middle Eastern term haboob to describe the small dust storms that have bedeviled Arizona this summer.  Haboob is a wonderful word, considerably more colorful than its Arizona equivalent, which is—-wait for it—“dust storm.” Nonetheless, the newspapers and local talk shows have been been awash recently with complaints like this letter to the editors of the Arizona Republic: Continue reading →

Tardy and Biased Ethics Half-Hero: National Organization for Women (NOW)

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Well, better late, confused, ineffective, biased and hypocritica than never, I guess.

Well, what do you know! The National Organization for Women, after sitting back and tolerating (or perhaps enjoying) comedian Bill Maher’s repeated use of misogynistic language to denigrate women as long as the women—Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin—were anti-abortion and conservatives, finally spoke up and followed their mission when Maher’s show, as it was bound to do, went too far even for NOW.

NOW issued a release condemning Maher and his guests on HBO’s “Real Time” for endorsing rape and sexual abuse, or “angry fucking,” as proper punishment for Bachmann for the crime of not seeing the world as Maher and guests Dan Savage and Marc Maron do. While discussing Michele Bachmann’s husband Marcus’s controversial gay Christian therapy clinic, the panel and Maher discussed “Mr. Bachmann’s” sexuality and marriage with Michele.  Marc Maron declared that he hoped Marcus “takes all that rage that comes from repression and denial and brings it into the bedroom. . . I hope he fucks her angrily, because that’s how I would, and I’ve thought about it.” Continue reading →

Conservatives, Rotting Children’s Brains On Principle

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Why can't today's TV pass on good taste like this to our children?

Perhaps I am over-reacting, but I was recently horrified. Sometimes conservatives allow their ideology to lead them into places that make it impossible to take them seriously, or  to view them as rational and responsible. This is especially true when it comes to the arts.

Yesterday, radio talk show host Laura Ingraham was bemoaning the coarsening of the culture, and the way she feels that television is poisoning the minds of children. She spoke nostalgically about how entertainment in the golden past was family-friendly, and reliably conveyed the values of humor and wit that enriched children’s minds, their taste, and their understanding of “good entertainment.” Those days are no more, Ingraham said. Television is vast slime-pool, and concerned parents can only look to past gems of the comic arts to teach their children “humor and wit.”

So what show did Laura Ingraham, accomplished writer, former Supreme Court law clerk, and author of political satire extol as epitomizing these lost values? What classic TV show’s complete set of DVDs did she reveal that she had given to a colleague so he could save the minds and souls of his children?

“Gilligan’s Island.”

“GILLIGAN’S ISLAND!” Continue reading →

Ethics, Stereotypes, and Holly Golightly

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

"Andy Hardy, the Asian Years"

A Bronx woman, Ursula Liang, has started a petition against Brooklyn Bridge Park’s “Movies With A View” series showing “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” the 1961 Audrey Hepburn classic that gave us “Moon River” and one of actress Hepburn’s most endearing performances. Why? Well, the movie, which has long been popular for summer screenings in New York City and elsewhere, also contains a pre-political correctness performance by Mickey Rooney as Holly Golightly’s comic Japanese neighbor, “Mr. Yunioshi.”

Rooney’s performance, in my opinion, was cringe-worthy even in 1961, one of director Blake Edwards’ not uncommon excesses in vaudeville humor, placed in a context where it didn’t belong. It is a scar on an otherwise marvelous film, but there is nothing inherently wrong with comic stereotypes. Stereotypes are a staple of comedy, and have been forever; the question is whether a particular stereotype is cruel, gratuitous, harmful, or funny. Some stereotypes are cruel and funny. Continue reading →

Wanted, Desperately Needed, and Lacking: Professionals, Adults and Values in the Media

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

What? Is there something wrong?

There is not a lot to say about the graphic above, other than:

  1. It is crude.
  2. It is funny.
  3. It is intentional.
  4. It is inappropriate for a general audience newspaper
  5. A competent editor should have caught it, and
  6. The graphic artist needs a warning and a reprimand.

The media, its staff, celebrities and assorted vulgarians and boors seem to be determined to make public square America as uncivil as a locker room, as crude as a peep show, and as juvenile as a junior high school farting contest. Professionals, including USA Today editors and publishers, can either do their duty and discourage this intentional rudeness in their products and services, or shrug it away. Similarly, our culture needs to decide if we are going to just define our deviancy down some more, and accept gratuitous sexual innuendo that will gradually make the whole population into a bunch of snickering Beavises. Continue reading →