Posted on 10/05/2009 10:07:12 PM PDT by Chet 99
Once you begin to notice that special set of ethics known as Hollywood exceptionalism, you may find yourself seeing it everywhere. In a recent book titled We'll Be Here for the Rest of Our Lives (and enticingly subtitled A Swingin' Showbiz Saga), late-night music maestro Paul Shaffer feels that he perhaps ought to say something about Phil Spector's conviction for the murder of another human being whose name most people can't remember. So he does say something. "I regret all the tragedy that has surrounded Phil in recent years," is what he chooses to say. Not really even a try, let alone a nice try.
The word tragedy has also been employed recently in the same sentence as the name Roman Polanski. In his case, it seems to me fractionally more justified. Polanski directed various tragedies on-screen and was also the victim of some hellish misfortunes in his own life. The media now say tragedy when they mean that bad things have happened to good or—even worse—famous people. But the types of tragedy that really deserve the name are of two main kinds, the Hegelian and the Greek. Hegel thought it was tragic when two rights came into conflict. The Greeks thought it tragic when a great man was undone by a fatal flaw.
The word we get from the second type of tragedy—hubris—applies in multiple ways to Polanski. (If you ask me, it's hubris to release a movie version of a rather well-known tragedy and call it Roman Polanski's Film of Macbeth.) He may also have thought that he was so cool and so entitled that he could give booze to a 13-year-old and then a Quaalude, a drug that has muscle-relaxant properties that you may suddenly find yourself not wanting to think about.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
Good article.
parsy, who can’t figure out how people defend him
I don’t agree with everything Hitchens writes, but you can’t complain about how he writes it. He cuts through the BS here, and skewers Hollywood and their shenanigans.
It slips a bit when talking about the child bride issue. Biblical era standards are mixed up with just plain old abuse.
Redneck, who hardly ever talks about himself in the third person
Good article, surprised to see it in slate. Here’s a good excerpt:
It’s affecting in some ways that the original girl in the case has forgiven him and doesn’t want to see the matter reopened, but strictly speaking it’s of no more relevance than if she had said the same thing at the time. The law prosecutes those who violate children, and it does so partly on behalf of children who haven’t been violated yet. We take an individual instance, whoever the individuals happen to be, and we use it for precedent. And we do not know how lucky we are to be able to do so.
Then he goes into a very questionably related part of his screed; I was disappointed to see that. I was left with the question “now we are lucky with respect to what, and why, and how did you show that?” I mean it’s not as if the difference between the regimes described was of methods of law, but rather of the particular moral standards upheld.
Agreed. That’s why I cut that part out. I didn’t understand where he was going with that and was disappointed with the loss of lucidity at that point.
Funny 2nd line there, HiTech RedNeck.
I know he is a big skeptic/atheist, but I do adore Christopher Hitchens so. And his sloshy british accent doesn’t help. Yes, I think I am in love with Christopher Hitchens. He’s a charmer in person too.
I think he was comparing the types of liberals who are yelling for the release of Roman Polanski and who sit back and allow the same thing to occur in the Muslim nations. He has always been anti-Islam (or anti-religion in a lot of ways, but especially when people use the church to abuse others. Islam being a large part of that) and it drives him nuts to see the same people yelling about Catholic priests being pedophiles and yet howling at the treatment of poor poor Polanski. And then to top it off, leaving the same thing off to ‘culture differences’ regarding Islam and the treatment of young girls.
I took the article to be a lecture on Hollywood hypocrisy.
Good encapsulation - well written - thank you. Perhaps if you have time you could give me your opinion on a certain point. What do you make of the end of the paragraph immediately following the sentences that I excerpted? In particular, I am wondering what he meant by: “And we do not know how lucky we are to be able to do so.”
Was it that he is alluding to many others who never came forward and here we are lucky to have someone come forward? This is around the area where I lost part of the thread of his argument. I feel the overall article was good and of interest because it was not a rehash but a separate take, in my opinion, on the issue.
When Sid the Squid Blumenthal tried to use Hitchens and his wife (over lunch) to spread the "Mad Monica" theory during the Lewinsky scandal, mere hours before the blue dress showed up proving that what Lewinsky had said was bulletproof-true, Hitchens went up a wall and has been absolute death on Sid and the Klintonx ever since. So good for him, but his militant atheism is still quizzical in the face of his powerful adhesion to basic standards of decency.
Love that. While we can doubt that Whoopi or 'Babs' or any of the Liberal elite will feel even a sting of conscience despite Hitchens' reasoned rebuke of their choice for moral relativism; we can still imagine that they might. Who knows? If only in that quiet 'awakening' moment; right before they fall asleep. . .maybe just one enlightenment.
His next paragraph explains. . .where he tells of eleven year old Yemen girl dying during childbirth thanks to this religious culture's refusal to adapt to the morally reasoned 'upgrades' of Western Civilization. And hence; a gratitude for our laws that prohibit and punish what are degraded violations of female children and women.
(And yes, as an athiest who sees religion as an ignorance of it's own; he gets a knock here on Roman church as well and by association; anyone who claims religious inspiration; but refuses to acknowledge the 'harm done' by this religious excuse for depravity.)
Grizzled Bear pensively observed their exchange as he reached for the cheeseburger.
LOL, nice 2nd line.
However, he was absolutely right about the subject of the article: that special set of ethics known as Hollywood exceptionalism...
Good phrase!
I missed that. What is parsy charged with?
If making a movie lets a person rape a child, does making a commercial allow a person to torture animals?
The first category of people are those that have done worse, and can't afford to throw stones in the gigantic glass house which is Hollywood.
The second category is composed of people who realize that their careers are at the mercy of the people in the first category.
Hollywood, DC, and the financial industry have a lot of similarities, in that a lot of people claw their way to the top in order to be able to do evil with nobody daring to arrest them.
From the article: “the plain fact is that the Prophet Mohammed was betrothed to his favorite wife Aisha when she was 6 and took her as his wife when she was 9, and this gives an “empowering” effect to those who like things to be this way and to keep it legal.”
Only to Muslims living in Turd World “nations” where Sharia Law is accepted.
Woody Allen tells us that if a famous director (or a Democrat) violates a child, it is not exactly a crime, it is an "opportunity for personal growth," although for whom is not really clear.
Many highly placed clerics seem to hold the same opinion. However, and let's make this crystal clear, if a Republican is thinking about this ... just thinking ... or makes an inappropriate remark ... it is quite possibly the most heinous human act ever recorded.
Personally, and in the interests of fairness, I believe Polanski should be released.
I would give him a 10-pace head start in a parking lot, not wear my glasses, and restrict myself to one full magazine.
If you will load for me, I propose to give molesting clerics, up to and including Cardinals, the very same fair deal.
I had said I would NEVER read anything by CH again. But, on this subject, my curiosity was just too great. I am surprised by your moral standing in this matter. I had previously only considered you an AH. Now I see there is some humanity in you.
Hitchens is that rarest of socialists — he has a brain and morals.
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