Critics of 'Durham' duo off base (EBERT ALERT)

Chicago Sun-Times ^ | April 20, 2003 | ROGER EBERT

[Chi-townChief]

It's truly amazing how these fat-ass liberals believe that only they have the right to freedom of speech.

[mewzilla]

Not just freedom of speech. Freedom of speech without responsibility. And freedom of assembly without invitation. In other words, they can shove their company down your throat, whether you want it or not. I'd love to see whatever copy of the Constitution they've got. Sure doesn't bear any resemblance to mine...

[gitmo]

Celebrities who speak out politically are made into targets as a way of discouraging dissent.

Only if they say really evil stuff. Of course, the left has tried to crush conservative actors for decades.

[mewzilla]

Now that I think about it, their interpretation of freedom of assembly could have some interesting consequences...Anyone want to crash some parties?

[FlJoePa]

Ahhh...another Hollyweirdo pretending to be something he's not - an informed political commentator.

Hey fatass film critic: Why don't you watch some frenchie films and then do us all a favor and then go sh** in your hat.

[the gillman@blacklagoon.com]

...Haven't actors learned from the McCarthy era that actors, writers (i.e., people who have the public's attention) don't have the same rights as citizens and are still subject to blacklisting, or don't they care? ...

They have the same rights, but since their CUSTOMERS, the American people, don't agree with them, they are shooting themselves in the foot.
Repeatedly.

See, If my customers were anti-war, it would be quite bad for business to run around yelling at them about how stupid they were.

Since I don't work and have no customers, I can say what I want.

[the gillman@blacklagoon.com]

Hey Hollywierd! The customer is always right!

[hellinahandcart]

Have I read this right? He's calling people who disagree with Sarandon and Robbins "Anti-American"? Gee, it sure sounds like Ebert is trying to discourage dissent in this country. My dissent, that is...

[punster]

Robbins and Sarandon are a couple of prize idiots.

[Pharlap]

Question for the movie critic Ebert (not the free speech advocate, etc, that he now aspires to be). The movie "Bull Durham" is "R" rated because of language and sexual content. The Hall of Fame is visited by many children, albeit with parents. But, how many of those parents would want their children exposed to the content of "Bull Durham" once they knew the content. Or, are you, as a movie critic unconcerned about the rating system as long as there is an agenda at play that you just happen to agree with. Somehow, your gratuitous comment that you have not heard a single thing that Sarandon and Robbins have said about the war is just not believable. Do you not read? Do you not watch TV? Do you not keep informed about the events of our times? Oh, excuse me, you do admit to hearing the countless attacks against them. So, I guess you hear and see only what you want to hear and see. Ah, such an ostrich-like attitude.

[altura]

I had an e-mail war with Roger after he wrote a nasty little column about one of the Bush daughters not being properly dressed for a visit with the Queen of England.

(he must have missed some of Chelsea's errors)

Anyway, his facts were wrong on that one too. She was not wearing jeans as he reported.

It was amazing to me how he kept on answering me back, arguing and arguing. Guess he doesn't have much else to do.

I understand he has some serious illness so I guess I should be charitable.

Naaaah.

The sad thing is he is a really good movie reviewer if you take his prejudices into account, but he doesn't have a clue about real life.

[F.J. Mitchell]

Mc Carthy was right-Ebert is wrong. Hate to be critical Roger, but you are full of --it!

This isn't about free speech, it's about the air headed entertainers wanting to force the rest of us to listen to their diatribes and give them a stage to spout it from.

[Mike Darancette]

Hollywood type that make ad hominum attacks against the President are taking it in the shorts. I know several actors that are against the war, who discuss the issue intelligently, though I disagree with most of what they say I do not have a visceral reaction to just seeing their faces.

I do not consider mental lightweights such as Robbins and Serandon mentally capable of forming their own opinions so they must be dupes spouting the vitriol of their Hate-Bush Masters.

[tuna_battle_slight_return]

Bump.

[Coyote]

Just wrote them this:

Dear Chicago Sun Time Editors:

Referring to Tim Robbins' "Bull Durham" troubles, a reader wrote to Roger Ebert: "Haven't actors learned from the McCarthy era that actors, writers (i.e., people who have the public's attention) don't have the same rights as citizens and are still subject to blacklisting...."

Mr. Eberts wrote back, "Celebrities who speak out politically are made into targets as a way of discouraging dissent....This is profoundly anti-American."

Please inform Mr. Ebert that the Constitution guarantees everyone the right to freely say what they please, but not an immunity from the consequences.

Furthermore, I worked 35 years in the Hollywood film industry as a union technician, with multiple feature film screen credits. One of them was even in Chicago, "About Last Night" (Sexual Perversity in Chicago), with Rob Lowe, Jim Belushi, and Demi Moore. What "ivory tower Ebert" doesn't know about the industry from the safety of his personal screening room is that Hollywood has practiced blacklisting for decades.

All production film jobs originate with an invitation by phone from a production manager, an informal hire. The first time you might meet the person who hired you could be the first day you arrive on the set. Your reputation precedes you. And it's clearly understood that if you're politically conservative and want to work, you don't talk about your politics, especially in the presence of untitled royalty like Robbins and Sarandon. If you do, you will definitely not be invited back to work again in the future. Is that not blacklisting? Of course it is.

There's only one word for whiners like Robbins and Sarandon: hypocrites. I've been there.

Sincerely,

[Wolverine]

 

Mr. Ebert

 

You liberals have the right to dissent against the war.

 

I have the right to hold you and them accountable...thru my nonpurchase of their products/services or entertainment access to my personal media receptors; AND THIS IS PROFOUNDLY THE AMERICAN WAY!  Celebrities are ONLY ACTORS, no longer are they opinion-makers! For that matter, they NEVER DID INFLUENCE ME.

 

These liberals don't have a right to my dollars unless I willingly decide to permit them access through my purchase of their work. I will continue to pass on those who denigrate our Country and our President. 

 

I have only one recourse since I don't have the public media to speak out to...afterall they don't want to hear it. My recourse is NOT TO BUY THEIR WORK PRODUCT OR TO SUPPORT ADVERTISERS WHO INSIST ON BACKING THEM ALL THE WAY.

 

If you are talking about a blacklist...look to your own brothers and sisters! How many Hollywood conservatives are now and previously denied work because of their political views?

 

I would lay odds that this is a factor in more than 80% of such cases...AND YOU KNOW IT!!! Why don't you fess up to this dirty little secret?

 

-----------

XXX KS

You wrote: http://www.suntimes.com/output/answ-man/sho-sunday-ebert20.html

Celebrities who speak out politically are made into targets as a way of discouraging dissent. I have not heard a single thing Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, the stars of "Bull Durham," have said about the war, but I have heard countless attacks on them for saying it. When you attack the messenger instead of the message, you are essentially saying, "Since you disagree with me, shut up." This is profoundly anti-American.

e-mail Roger Ebert at answerman@suntimes.com

[alloysteel]

They are still raising the spectre of McCarthyism? What was this McCarthyism, exactly? Senator Joe McCarthy, then a good friend of John and Bobby Kennedy, did a little snooping around in the corridors of power that had been occupied by New Deal Democrats for some twenty years or so, and was astonished to learn that many of them had ties to Stalinist USSR. Not merely to Communism, in itself bad enough, but the genocidal, bloodthirsty, meglomanical Joe Stalin variety, with gulags, firing squads, and secret police, hauling people away for real or imagined "crimes against the state", in a most capricious way, and with no recourse. And of these many, there were those in high enough position to cripple and limit the ability of the US to confront the only real enemy it had in the world in 1950. Joe McCarthy may have made some excessive statements, but he had some very good intelligence on the range and depth of penetration that had occurred in the State Department, the Department of Defense, and at many other government and non-government organizations. When he wheeled around and took a shot at Hollywood for being the propaganda machine, not of the America in which they lived, but of the Soviet Union, he helped develop the list of the persons of questionable allegiance, and enough good valid information on their ties to spy organizations was made available so many of those people lost influence, and in fact some of them went to trial. Not for spying, but for ducking behind the Fifth Amendment, and showing contempt of Congress. But there was little heart for prosecution of spies, after the Rosenbergs, and the course of investigation was smothered, along with the full-fledged persecution of Joe McCarthy. Years later, when the files of the KGB became available in the West, Joe McCarthy's thesis was vindicated, that the US government and many enterprises had been deeply compromised by Communist "sleepers" who had been put in place in the early 1930's.

[Welsh Rabbit]

It isn't even that they're liberal and anti-war that irks me so much as the snooty, arrogant tone of moral superiority in which they speak. I now choose not to financially support their work not for their views in of themselves, but because they chose to seek me out and call me a moronic idiot for my views.

[Zebra]

Roger Ebert was separated at birth from Michael Moore. He is a vain, condescending pseudo-intellectual who only rose to prominence because of the good nature of the late Gene Siskel. Since Siskel's death, Ebert has morphed into a Hollywood shill, and I find very little about his "reviews" either insightful or enjoyable.

Pick up an old New Yorker and read Pauline Kael's reviews if you want to appreciate talent in this area. You won't find it in evidence with Ebert.

[Memphis Patriot]

I agree, these hollywood libs want to voice their opinions on us, but if we diagree and voice our opinions they call us names. When the baseball hall of fame used their right to cancel the invitation to tim, he got right on tv and said he didn't know the bb hall of fame was republican. I think he should have accepted the cancelation and went on with life. But now he has a lot people talking about him in this way. some say any publicity is good publicity. I don't agree.......Memphis patriot