Posted on 12/21/2013 5:41:13 AM PST by rlbedfor
Since the press can choose to vilify anybody for anything, your doctrine would leave no conservative's job safe.
Is it their right because they own the business?
I doubt it.
Smoking is still legal as far as I know but it appears that right has been usurped by the political class.
The press didn’t vilify him, he stepped into known controversial territory with an answer that anybody that’s paid any attention to the world for the last decade knew was going to make people angry and cause of boycott. He could have easily opted not to answer (his handler should have stopped him), he could have just said he’s a Bible believing Christian and left it at that, but no he decided to get into anus vs vaginas, he ran straight into the hot button issue with a blow torch. And for that he’s been suspended.
Anybody whose job includes making public statements is one bad comment away from ending their job. It’s the nature of that kind of job. If you’re a celebrity, with a few rare exceptions, your job is to be likable and non-controversial. And it’s just as easy for liberals to screw that up as conservatives.
You do have a point.
“Bad Press,” is as about as subjective as one can get. In fact Robertson is NOT a professional actor as Sheen is. In any case. a Church is a special case of a corporation, which fact is reflected in magna carta, and in a negative way in the First Amendment. A&E is just one company contracting for a service from another company, of which Robertson is the senior partner.
Bad press isn’t subjective at all, it’s actually very objective, if a sizable group of people start organizing a boycott that’s bad press and the person that brought it on is now in trouble.
He’s paid to be a character (a dramatized version of himself but still a character) in front of cameras for the entertainment of others. He’s an actor. In fact his contract with Gurney Productions (the guys that make the show) probably came off the same boiler plate as Charlie’s contract with Mohawk (makers of his current show), though there’s contractually obligated drug testing that’s been added to Charlie’s.
You got part of it right, A&E is just a company contracting services. And part of that contract includes don’t bring bad press onto the network or the show. He did, he’s suspended, it’s just that simple.
yes, his opinion is controversial. So is the assertion that homosexuality is moral behavior. Except that many people want to keep him from saying what he did. In the context of a “gentleman’s” magazine like GQ, the use of vagina and anus are not out of line. What had them controversial was not the words themselves by the fact that 1) the editor pulled them out of the text and show-cased them. and 2) because he dared to say that homosexuality is immoral, out loud and in public.
GQ isn’t a “gentleman’s” magazine, it’s the guys ‘version of cosmo, and it’s not that the words are out of line, or even what he said. It’s that he said things that made somebody mad, quite a few somebodies, enough somebodies to get a boycott going. It’s a controversial topic, no matter what direction the speaker goes in, how many people and shows do various FReepers boycott because of pro-homosexual statements? One way or the other it’s a dangerous topic for a celebrity to be blabbing about, the only thing about the quote that made it controversial is that he said it, context doesn’t make it less so. It’s a topic he should have known to dodge, he didn’t, now he’s suspended. That’s life as a celebrity.
Of course another part of life as a celebrity is knowing that it’s all temporary, assuming he doesn’t go full Sheen and turn this into a pissing contest between him and the network by Valentine’s Day this whole thing will have blown over and he’ll be off suspension. In the end he should consider it a favor, by being suspended now it means he doesn’t have to participate in the publicity tour for the show coming back in January (which this interview was part of). The number of annoying shallow people he’ll have to talk to for the next 6 weeks just got reduced dramatically, same with his 4AM calls for morning talk shows. And he’ll still get the money from the show and the merch. I’d love that kind of suspension.
In any case, the real question is why A&E thought that what he said cast a shadow on their reputation. The reason is that so many businesses are running scared of the homosexual movement in this country, which seems able to go into any court in this country and win a case against anyone who refuses to do what they want.
The reductio ad absurdum is the case of the little folks like cakemakers and photography are being compelled by the courts to take clients they don’t want to take and are upfront about their reasons for not taking such customers.
You are all bent out of shape about the liberties of a big company like A&E. I am worried about the arrogance of a vicious lobby that gets after anyone who disagrees with them, and of course supports A&E because they want to send the message that no one is big enough to stand against them.
Charlie Sheen has been playing himself on TV for a decade
What will not have blown over by Valentine’s Day is the full court press by the homosexual lobby. Robertson is now one of the targets of these haters. I am sure he is big enough to enjoy this and able to defend himself, and he has many more fans.
Well, in the sense that Marion Morrison did for most of his career. There is an art in playing “Charlie Sheen” playing another character. But Morrison was much more artful in his creation of John Wayne.
No, he’s paid to be an entertaining VERSION of himself. There’s been plenty of discussion around the show (and others like it) about scenes being constructed. Charlie Sheen’s longest running character was a womanizing drunk.
A&E didn’t suspend him until the stink started. If they’d had a problem with what he said they’d have suspended him after the interviews (the Robertson’s say they had a person on site), or when GQ gave them the “courtesy” copy they could use to promote the interview. They didn’t suspend him at either of those windows. They suspended him when public reaction went south, when it turned out to be bad PR, had the interview not raised a stink he wouldn’t have gotten in trouble.
That’s not reducto ad absurdum, that’s people being stupid. If you don’t like the group somebody belongs to so much you don’t want to do business with them you NEVER tell the truth. Because identifiable demographic group are protected from discrimination, so if you say that’s why you don’t want their business you just committed discrimination and you’ll lose that lawsuit. You fudge around it, say you’re booked, say you don’t have the technical capabilities for what they want, quote them an insane price. They used to call it “quiet discrimination”, and it’s quite effective in protecting you from lawsuits.
I’m not bent out of shape at all, I’m pointing out basic reality. And basic reality is that YOU’RE bent out of shape, and you’re wrong. I’m just having fun watching Support Your Local Gunfighter and explaining simple concepts, nothing bent at all.
I will respectfully disagree with your lawyer friend. Why?
We have employment laws and contract laws, which in Georgia just happen to include anti-discrimination clauses. Which under Georgia Law, an ‘at will state,’ actually makes the contract an even stronger base against preventing discrimination.
Phil may very well have standing to bring suit against A&E as well as GLAAD.
You really don’t pay attention to how celebrity culture, and more importantly celebrity controversy, works. It’ll actually have mostly blown over by this time next week if the Robertsons are smart enough to keep their mouths shut. Celebrity culture needs constant fuel, any story that doesn’t regularly give something new to talk about burns out. If they stop talking there won’t be anything new to talk about, it’s already mostly played out. Now it’ll spew back up a bit when the new season of the show starts in January (something new to talk about), but again it’ll fade in a week or so. And if something “exciting” (like a juicy divorce) is happening to some other celebrity this one won’t even bubble up when the new season starts.
The best defense when in the middle of a celebrity controversy is to shut up and stay out of the lime light. Talking keeps it going because it provides something for the press to talk about. Keep quiet, stay home, and wait for Beiber or the Kardashians to do something stupid.
You speak of “public” reaction. which is the root of my concern, which is that elite opinionmakers in this country have now taken the side of the homosexual lobby in this country and are compelling everyone to conform to their opinion. Since this has been accomplished largely through the courts, which as in the case of California has nullified the results of popular vote in the state, they have made this incident relevant to the First Amendment Rights.
But why should they have to keep their mouths shut?
It is a public reaction, no quotes. It’s a real, actual, took over Facebook for 3 days, John Q Public reaction. Opinion makers aren’t as important as people want them to be, they can put stories out there but whether or not people care is still up to the people. People aren’t compelled to share crap on FB, or join boycotts, they chose to. And none of this situation was through the courts, this was actual people actually getting mad.
Because that makes the problem go away. In the end what do they really want from this? By and large they probably want the drama to end so they can get back to their quieter closer to normal hit cable TV show celebrity life. And the path to getting that back is to stop talking. PR controversies are kind of like divorces, you can’t win them, you can only survive them, and the people that have the hardest time surviving them are the ones that try to win them.
None yet. But A&E is exposed to suit. A&E is not worried about what people say on Facebook. That is gossip. But what happens if you get the ACLU coming after you? And what about the advertisers, who are also running scared?
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