"People are saying, 'Should I go work for Planned Parenthood or write my feature film?'"
—Vanessa Taylor, co-creator and co-executive producer of the WB's "Jack & Bobby," on how the election has affected the Hollywood community
"TV fears GOP suppression and media consolidation," screams the headline to
Joanne Ostrow column in today's
Denver Post.
I love the use of "TV" as a general term, as though television were some amorphous being capable of having feelings of its own. It reminds me of the slogan for the pulp-film fanzine
Vex: "Movies Hate You."
After telling how the character of Grace, the "liberal feminist pot-smoking mom" on the WB's "Jack & Bobby," is depressed over
President Bush's re-election, Ostrow segues into real Hollywood life:
Grace's devastation reflects that of nearly half the nation, including the show's writers.
"The Hollywood community is incredibly distraught about the election results," said Vanessa Taylor, co-creator and co-executive producer of the WB's "Jack & Bobby."
"I'd say we're in a state of shocked disappointment."
I am reminded of another television production—"The Rutles," where the ersatz Beatle characters are
"shocked...and stunned" by the departure of their manager.
You get shocked from sticking a bobby pin into an electric socket. You do not get shocked from witnessing election results that reflect the prevailing tone of the country—unless, of course, you live in complete ideological seclusion, as is the case in the Hollywood that Ostrow describes:
Fearing fines or license challenges, networks may shy from controversial subjects; gay themes may be discouraged; writers may self-censor when pitching ideas.
"Writers may self-censor"? Horrors! Such a claim implies that writers, left to their own devices, would never suggest patently offensive ideas.
The "Friends" lawsuit earlier this year gave the lie to that. A young woman hired as a writer's assistant for the show sued its producers, claiming that the writers had created a "hostile environment" by their obscene and offensive words, drawings, and gestures.
The show's writers did not deny the woman's account of their behavior, but "argued that the conduct was justified by "creative necessity,"
as CNN reported:
The writers' job, defendants argued, was to come up with story lines, dialogue, and jokes for a sitcom with adult sexual themes. To do this, they needed to have "frank sexual discussions and tell colorful jokes and stories (and even make expressive gestures) as part of the creative process."
Here's a sanitized version of that creative process, also according to CNN's account of the lawsuit:
[The writers would] banter about the actresses on "Friends": discussion of which ones the writers would like to have sex with and, if they did, different sexual acts the writers would like to try; speculation about with which "Friends" actresses the writers had missed opportunities to have sex; speculation about the supposed infertility of one of the "Friends" actresses; its supposed cause...; and speculation about the sexual activities of the "Friends" actresses with their partners. [The plaintiff] also complains of derogatory words used to describe women.
Another theme of the alleged comments was the personal sexual preferences and experiences of the writers, emphasizing anal sex, oral sex, big breasts, young girls and cheerleaders.
And that's not even mentioning the dirty coloring books, obscene word games, gestures, and sexual noises. All in the name of "creative necessity."
That, my friends, is the mindset of the writers whom Hollywood fears may have to begin "self-censorship."
Those "shocked and stunned" people in Hollywood are so concerned over the election groups, producer Taylor says in Ostrow's
Denver Post piece, that "people are saying, 'Should I go work for Planned Parenthood or write my feature film?'"
Ostrow's account of television under the specter of a second Bush administration reads like a paranoid liberal fantasy:
Bush's win may be terrific for the small, noncommercial, fringe arts - experimental theater and underground music scenes may flourish if artists channel their angst into creativity. But commercial, over-the-air, federally regulated television could be in for a chilly season. Mainstream network fare could be dumbed down to the point of, well, "Fear Factor."
This is the kind of egotism
Jack Kelly nailed when he described the Democrats' attitude as, "Vote for us, you greedy warmongering bigots, because we're smarter than you are." Or
Michael Moore, who claimed that 51 percent of Americans "lacked information" in the election—because no informed person could possibly resist voting for
his candidate. And then they wonder why America isn't with them.
Despite Ostrow's paranoia, she assures readers not to panic—yet: "Any programming shifts will be gradual."
"For now," she adds, "the WB's 'Jack & Bobby' has controversial subject matter in the pipeline, including an episode about a gay teenager's suicide. Grace will only grow feistier. 'I don't hate them,' she says regarding the parents of her son's fundamentalist Christian girlfriend. 'I hate everything they stand for.'"
It's true. Movies
do hate you—and TV does too.
COMMENTS: Kevin Walsh, who recently lost his full-time job due to downsizing, writes about the "Jack and Bobby" producer's claim that "half the nation" is "devastated":
Jeez, I'm not devastated. My guy lost, and you know what? Life goes on. I'm writing and photographing my [Forgotten NY] book, I'm working at the paper, will celebrate the holiday with my family soon and look for full-time work. I'll vote for my selected candidate every year, who is often Democratic and sometimes Republican, and win or lose, I'll get on with life.
I suspect that most of the blue and red states feel that way. In New York and Hollywood, they're going nuts, but in most of the USA, nobody's walking around feeling either elated or devastated.
TRACKBACK This post inspired
Charles at
Dustbury to write
his fieriest broadside in recent memory. Among the highlights is this piece of advice to TV producers:
Complaints from the audience do not constitute censorship. Freedom of speech does not guarantee that everyone will just sit there, smiling, whispering "Oh, that's so true."
Ace of Spades likewise uses the "Jack and Bobby" producer's quotes as a jumping-off point for
a broadside against Hollywoodians' "solipsism":
They belive there is a special category of humanity called "Artiste," and that these Artistes are unlike any other sort of person, in that they need to exercise no self-restraint or simple common sense in their dealings with others or the public generally. They ought to be immune to any ill-will or simple indifference from the audience; such ill-will or indifference constitutes an "chill wind" of suppresson of the Rights of the Artiste.
Here is one of the contributions I made to the popular culture today, for a story on a countersuit by the ex-fiancée whom Burt Reynolds accused of blackmail. The other noteworthy one was for a story on how unanswered calls to a fax machine figure into the Ted Ammon murder case: "AMMON A DEAD RINGER."
