Posted on 11/05/2003 6:51:46 AM PST by dead
An American TV network has bowed to political pressure and pulled a mini-series about the Reagans. Gerard Wright writes on the unprecedented move.
His authorised biographer once heard Ronald Reagan say of the viral scourge known as AIDS, which was then sweeping the United States: "Maybe the Lord brought down this plague" because "illicit sex is against the Ten Commandments".
In the process of filtration and osmosis by which literary fact becomes docudrama script, the observation that President Ronald Reagan made to his biographer Edmund Morris became this on-screen rebuttal to his wife Nancy's plea to help AIDS sufferers: "Those that live in sin will die in sin."
This stark and unlovely side of a beloved president was to have been shown as a telemovie on the CBS network on November 16 and 18, the height of the ultra-competitive autumn ratings period. "Was" is the operative word. CBS yesterday bowed to mounting political pressure from the Republican Party and said it had pulled the mini-series, and would instead broadcast it to a vastly reduced audience on its cable TV sibling, Showtime.
This is believed to be the first time in the 60-year history of American broadcasting that a network has changed its programming in this way in response to concerted political opposition. CBS claimed its actions were in the interests of quality control, rather than as a reaction to any political heat.
"This decision is based solely on our reaction to seeing the final film, not the controversy that erupted around a draft of the script," the network said.
"I don't know of any other time that this has happened," said Dr Tony Silvio, a journalism professor at the University of Rhode Island. "It's interesting that just the threat of a boycott of advertisers was enough to do it."
The four-hour mini-series, starring James Brolin as Ronald Reagan and Judy Davis as his wife Nancy, purports to be a dramatised biography of the Reagans' 45-year relationship. For American conservatives, who, through the Reagan Legacy Project, want to either install or re-label monuments and public landmarks in Reagan's name in each of the more than 3000 US counties, aspects of the biography have amounted to slander of an icon.
Compounding the felony was the fact that the 92-year-old Reagan, who announced nine years ago that he was afflicted with Alzheimer's disease and is now rarely seen in public, is unable to defend himself.
One conservative group wrote to 100 leading TV advertisers asking them not to support the movie. A lawyer who started an anti-CBS website claimed to have received 50,000 emails supporting his cause.
It is clear that CBS did not see the storm coming. When it leaked a copy of the script and a seven-minute film excerpt of the movie last month, the network said it was trying to tell a historically accurate story that would draw its source material favourable to the Reagans or otherwise from respected biographies and other source material, including a profile of Nancy Reagan by her former speechwriter.
The script has Reagan co-operating with the FBI in the investigation of Hollywood identities who would later be blacklisted for supposed communist affiliation of the early 1950s. Thirty years later, it allows him to claim most of the credit for ending the Cold War.
Davis's Nancy Reagan is presented as a control freak who set the president's schedule based on the advice of an astrologer.
"It's not painted in black and white," said producer Craig Zadan of the Reagans' life, "but in blacks, whites and greys, many variations of grey."
It was those variations that troubled the truest believers. That and the fact that the variations were painted by their ideological arch-enemies, the so-called "Hollywood liberals".
In that respect, the non-conservative credentials of the cast and crew of The Reagans were impeccable. Brolin is the husband of Barbra Streisand, a liberal activist and Democratic Party supporter. Davis, in a public appearance in Sydney last month, spoke out for the Sydney Peace Prize winner, the Palestinian activist Hanan Ashrawi.
Craig Zadan and co-producer Neil Meron were the producers of the Oscar-sweeping Chicago, as well as several made-for-TV movies. The website 365gay.com describes Zadan and Meron as "openly gay".
In the cultural war that dominates US public life, this particular battle was a resounding win for the conservative forces that rallied behind the Reagans.
"It shows that the concerns that the Reagan family and supporters have raised since the news of this mini-series broke were warranted," said Mike Wintemute, a California Republican Party spokesman. "All of the indications that I have seen of the script of the Reagans' life is that it had been fictionalised."
To Silvio, CBS was guilty of only misreading its core audience: white, middle-aged middle America: "Those are people that you don't want to alienate." Beyond the strategic issue, however, Silvio said there was a matter of larger concern.
"The question is not that this is economic censorship, although that is a genuine concern. I find the actions of Viacom (the parent company of CBS and Showtime) a little cowering, maybe a lot cowering, but that's the reality of the TV business today."
Does anyone even know that this is an actual quote or something Morris made up with his fictous third-person story-teller.
In the process of filtration and osmosis by which literary fact becomes docudrama script, the observation that President Ronald Reagan made to his biographer Edmund Morris became this on-screen rebuttal to his wife Nancy's plea to help AIDS sufferers: "Those that live in sin will die in sin."
Even assuming the first quote was accurate, Reagan was just pondering the possibility that maybe it was something God did to discourage homosexuality, it was not a basis for Reagan's actions as the fictious quote implies. The evidence clearly shows Reagan was compassionate towards those with AIDS and was very progressive in trying to calm people's fears about the spread of AIDS.
Right. And Dr. Laura was canceled because of her poor radio ratings.
Nice spin. The Republican Party did nothing to pressure CBS. Instead, a massive grassroots uprising from conservative Americans who were outraged at the smear campaign scared the sponsors who were probably backing out left and right.
Birth Name: James Bruderlin
Birthdate: July 18, 1941
Birthplace: Los Angeles, CA
Occupations: Actor, Director
Significant Other(s):
Wife: Barbra Streisand, actress, director, singer; married July 1, 1998, in Malibu, California
Reagan didn't say 'living in sin' or 'dying in sin'. The alledged quote in the non-biography just says illecit sex is against the Ten Commandments. Are you gonna argue that illecit sex isn't against the Ten Commandments? The context is completely different than saying Reagan thought people 'should die in sin'. Reagan was not that hateful or arrogant.
BTW, my point about Morris's biography is that since Morris is using a fictious character's point of view, is Morris putting words into Reagan's mouth or is this something that was actually said. We really don't know.
Interesting. What is your agenda..I mean point.. gcruse?
Well, if Reagan said the 'living in sin' bit to a biographer, then putting the words in his mouth in a miniseries isn't as far off the wall as I thought.
Are you trying to miss the point? That is the only explaination for something this circularly ridiculous. Reagan did not say the 'living in sin' quote, which was one of the many reasons this hit piece was innaccurate. What I find "odd" about you gcruse is that you would say that Reagan did say this, then claim that the docudrama was correct in also quoting it. What exactly are you trying to pull here?
The Reagan record is open to criticism, but using slander to bolster one's case smacks of cheap leftwing propaganda. And the fact that defenders of the series cite Edmund Morris's biography "Dutch" without noting that this book was roundly castigated for mixing fact with totally fictitious dialog and characters (and phony footnotes) certainly doesn't inspire trust is what the series presents as "truth."
Zadan and Meron didn't realize that their time as Ministers of Propoganda has passed. No one lost more in this than they did, and no one deserved to lose more than them. You are right, the reality that they are part of the Radical Left of the gay community narrowing in on AIDS and other conjecture as part of his important and complex 8 years was nothing more than an infantile attempt to marginalize him to advance their status. Sucks to be them today.
If Reagan said what? The two statements are mutual exclusive.
Whatever. There was no intellectual integrity in the quote of the script. Both the words and the sentiment were completely made up. If you wish to defend such lies, go ahead. It doesn't say much about your character though.
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