Contempt Prior To Investigation

Several years ago I read a commentary about the film The Aristocrats by Stephen Hunter of the Washington Post. Most actors and performers are aware that at the very least, people who don't do what we do have an unrealistic impression of our lifestyles, our outlooks and our goals.

This was put into sharp focus when I read Mr. Hunter's comments.

"This is actually a confession of their own failures to inhabit real life, and makes them all losers. What you see here isn't so much sexual neurosis as career neurosis. You see the entertainer's fear and loathing of that regular place most of us would call the world. He hates the square ideas that are the foundation of such a place: the family structure of parents nurturing kids in healthy, loving relationships: the economic underpinning known as a job, attended regularly, rain or shine, sickness or health, out of a sense of obligation." He also makes comments about The Aristocrats' tone being one of "smugness and hipper than thou."

He concludes by saying the comic, if he succeeds, is consigned to a purgatory of his own making where he has 'the right to fail with a better class of woman and of course, the emptiness of being unconnected to anything larger than the self".

I was reminded of this mentality when reading Jon Robin Baitz's wonderful essay about the writer's strike. "The studios probably have already noted the less than sympathetic reaction from viewers. The studio folk are enjoying the spectacle of watching the writers dance around to sell the idea of unfair wages to an unimpressed populace."

What all of this unmasks for me is the abject hatred of people in show business. To imply that actors or comics or writers aren't subjected to the same rules of ethical and responsible behavior when it comes to "a job, attended regularly, rain or shine, sickness or health" is simple minded and naive. That they don't take seriously the imperative of the family structure and parenting? Why? Because they're in a job, that from outward appearances looks fun?

This attitude epitomizes the mentality of tabloids. The desire to tear down the lives and character of the famous, or creative whose crime is that they love their work.

There is a joy and camaraderie among performers and writers that surely exists in any other profession where people love their work. The down side he describes of "bitter rivalries, endless feuds, treachery and betrayal" is obviously not solely the domain of show business. Mr. Hunter makes many slight of hand efforts to manipulate the reader into believing that performers hate their audiences by suggesting that they audience has the power to reject and destroy. No shit. So does every customer in every field.

The schism between the perceptions of what the journeyman actor, writer, director truly face on a daily basis is vast. The twelve-hour day, a minimum for actors. Countless rewrites for no pay. Directors....well, they never sleep. It's also sickening to imagine how little the writers are asking for in all of this and the cynical obstruction of the studios.

Mr. Hunter's review articulates a prejudice about our industry that is pervasive in our country. Look up the definition of prejudice.

Read more about the strike on the Huffington Post's writers' strike page.

Comments

[accountability]

YAY you,
So good to see you Laraine N.
As soon as I saw the byline I had to stop in.
As several people mentioned ... oh for the days when TV had smart shows.
Well, we do have a few. I wonder if we all get nostalgic.
Thanks for the passionate post.
Again, so good to see you.

[LiarLiarIraqsOnFire]

Ahhhhh, Laraine, it's so good to see you posting here. Your words ring true and you make me nostalgic for the days of my youth when SNL (and television in general) was not only revelant but actually funny! 'Dick In A Box' wouldn't have even been discussed back in the day! I miss you and the days when television was informative, intelligent, relavent and worth my time.

In Solidarity'
your Sister in Indiana

[dannyo152]

I half remember a story from my youth, it was about a can of "Ever More So" which when sprinkled on something made it, well you know. It turned out to amplify the good and the bad of an item.

The internet is our "Ever More So." Works of art and new voices are transmitted instantly and stored semi-permanently with networked links that manifest how connected we can be. The sordid sides of human nature, such as envy, greed, gossip, hypocrisy, are magnified to form a shrieking feedback loop. Something happens, people laugh, empathize, and condemn, then people laugh at, empathize with, and condemn the comments, and so on.

Yes the world out there has a love/hate fascination with show biz folks. This isn't new. Read Raymond Chandler's "The Little Sister" from the 1930s. Think about Fatty Arbuckle. Think about how James Cagney made Yankee Doodle Dandy, in part, because HUAC was nosing around his pro-labor union past. Cecil B. DeMille's Bible epics at their time were the best sources for semi-naked female flesh, but the half and full naked folks were the sinners who got punished at the end, meaning DeMille could sell sex and get endorsements from the Hays office and Hearst papers.

American society has a long tradition of repression (it was labelled Puritanism in my childhood) and it looks to the repressed as though Hollywood is about good looking ethically-­challenged young people getting loads of money for being half-dressed and living and play-acting a life of appetite and instant gratification. The vision entices and repels the bluenoses. (Not to say that Hollywood is a pure victim in this, how many films were sold with the phrase "Banned in Boston?") Some negative comments come from a place of true belief in ethics and morals, some arise from guilt over the attraction to the product and people. Regardless of the causes, there has been demand for stories of "karma" punishing show biz people for a long time.

The internet makes it ever more so.

[elayneriggs]

Wow, wonderful to see you show up here, Ms. Newman! Big fan of yours from way back.

I'm very heartened by how much SAG and AFTRA members are supporting the WGA (particularly knowing that SAG's contract is coming up for renewal pretty soon too), and completely agree with you about how we laypeople often view the creative professions. My husband's a comic book artist, and he's heard all of it -- "you work at home, how bad can it be?" "there should never be a reason to blow a deadline," etc. As comic book artists don't have a union, he gets no health benefits, he doesn't get paid at all unless he has work to do, he's gone for months with an empty drawing board...

It's exactly as you say. Loads of people resent the "fun" jobs that creative people are able to make a living doing, regardless of the specialized talent needed for many of those jobs and how erratic they tend to be. The fact that my husband has succeeded in a job he's wanted to do since he was a kid is, as far as I'm concerned, a reason for celebration. Would that we could all say the same.

[jhNY]

The problems of the striking writers has gotten in the way of those who wish to be entertained without regard as to how their entertainment comes about. Which is sort of like when people buy athletic shoes without considering the plight of the children who sew them together. In sum: 'Give me what I want now and I don't care one bit how you do it. Oh, and make it cost almost nothing, if not free. And no, I don't want to hear any whining.'

[Spikethedog]

Beautiful essay, Ms. Newman. Those not in the TMZ have no idea of the demands and challenges of being there, but they pretend to know because a certain percentage of the business involves working -- and living -- in plain view of the public.

That's a dangerous, egotistical assumption made by Stephan Hunter and I admire the plain-speaking manner in which you take him to task.

[Lon]

Mr Hunter is a critic who tends to think movie reviewing should be primarily about the critic. (I gather he is also a novelist). I expect there is more contempt in the country for critics than for comics, so I wouldn't take that review as representative of much.