The question popping up in e-mails is, "Where is the note to the readers?"
We've been in a holding pattern. Call it a wait & see in order to determine how genuine someone was or wasn't being.
Jess and I both got the answer today when Eddie e-mailed a short while ago.
Dona wants input on the note to the readers as does Ty.
We're assuming, though we could be wrong, that Ava and C.I. will step aside for the note to the readers. But look for a note to show up later tonight.
It'll address issues such as why we were still posting by Sunday afternoon.
See if you're going to yell "Stop the presses!" to us via e-mail, you better be sincere.
Now we'll address the reasons why the print edition and the online edition are so different.
We'll address, as Ava's aunt had requested we do if it came to this, issues of "silence."
It should make for an interesting note.
Look for it.
-- Jim
The Third Estate Sunday Review focuses on politics and culture. We're an online magazine. We don't play nice and we don't kiss butt. In the words of Tuesday Weld: "I do not ever want to be a huge star. Do you think I want a success? I refused "Bonnie and Clyde" because I was nursing at the time but also because deep down I knew that it was going to be a huge success. The same was true of "Bob and Carol and Fred and Sue" or whatever it was called. It reeked of success."
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Sunday, December 11, 2005
Editorial: What Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma tells us
If you listened to The Laura Flanders Show yesterday, you know that the Bully Boy's words re: Hurricane Katrina were once again revealed as just empty words. (And if you didn't listen, why didn't you? A new broadcast of the live radio program airs tonight. The Laura Flanders Show for more information.) The mainstream media seems silent.
So let's ask it:
So what about Hurricane Katrina?
Anderson Cooper made quite a name for himself. In earlier times, his crying on air might have been questioned. Didn't happen. He cried, he became a star. (He has so much heart!) He wasn't the only proving they could do "tough" journalism.
Now the media circus has moved on. Familes are still split apart, not knowing where there members are. Democracy Now! noted Friday that children placed in foster homes in the aftermath are not easy to locate.
There's a story here. There's still a story here.
But the mainstream media's moved on. Apparently no one can squeeze out any more tears?
Laura Flanders rightly noted that the government's lack of response initially and inadequate response currently stands as a testimony to the Bully Boy and his administration's real priorities, real concerns and, in fact, the real record as opposed to the press spun one.
We'd go further, though. We'd note Hurricane Wilma. (Wally lives in his Florida. His grandfather lives in an effected area.)
"Oh, but Hurricane Wilma wasn't as bad as Hurricane Katrina," you might insist. No, it wasn't.
And that makes the failures of FEMA and the government to respond all the more glaring. Hurricane Katrina revealed that we're not prepared for any sort of national crisis -- be it a hurricane or a terrorist attack (a point echoed last week by the former 9/11 commission). That's a point that needs to be made and made loudly.
But Hurricane Wilma proves something too. This was the third hurricane. Katrina and Rita preceeded it. By the time Wilma struck, there should have been no reason for a scramble on the part of the government. We should have seen a swift and efficient response.
That didn't happen. People waited and waited and waited some more for their power to be restored. They were promised by Thanksgiving it would be (almost a month after Wilma hit) and Thanksgiving rolled around and some were told to wait a little bit longer. Despite the attention paid in initial media reports on Katrina to the ways those dependent upon public transportation were adversely effected, the Wilma response was one that appears to have never heard of public transportation.
There was no effort, big or small, to grasp that many people depend upon public transportation. You saw that when there was no move immediately to do away with fares for those in the area and you saw it in the fact that those in charge never seemed to know from one moment to the next where they'd set up relief supplies for the day.
Now that's a pain in the butt in you're driving around looking. It's a crisis if you're dependent upon public transportation. You don't merely hop back in the car and head off in another direction. You have to wait for the bus, you have to get on the right bus which might mean transferring. If you're dependent upon public transportation and you arrive at an area that's supposed to be providing relief supplies only to be told, "Oops, we changed it," you have to go through a lot more than the person driving their own automobile.
The lesson on public transportation should have been learned before Hurricane Katrina. After all the lip service to it after Katrina, it should have been an issue immediately addressed when planning the response to Wilma. That didn't happen.
Another issue raised in Katrina was the need by some agencies to see identification before providing any sort of relief or shelter. Once again, lesson not absorbed. Wilma victims were still being expected to cough up identification when dealing with governmental agencies.
Katrina revealed how underprepared we were. Wilma revealed that in a lesser crisis, we're still not prepared. More than that, we have an administration that learned nothing from the crisis. Not only did they go from 9/11 to Hurricane Katrina without ever learning a thing about how to assist those in need, weeks after Katrina, they still hadn't learned a thing.
That's the lesson of Wilma.
"No one could have guessed . . ." is the catch phrase of Bully Boy's administration. The reality is that the administration refuses to learn lessons that events drive home.
An eagerness to refuse to acquire knowledge speaks to the intellectual incuriousity on the part of the Bully Boy. On the ground, however, it just speaks to people in need waiting in vain repeatedly. Over and over. In Katrina, in Rita and in Wilma.
The administration is very lucky that Wilma didn't cause the destruction that Katrina did. If it had, everyone would have forgotten Katrina because we'd all be pointing out that weeks after Katrina, nothing had changed. We think that's a lesson that still needs to be noted. After Katrina, the administration still didn't grasp how to respond (or didn't care) to those in need.
The response to Wilma proves that.
[This editorial was written by The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava and Jim; Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude; Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man; C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review; Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills); Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix; Mike of Mikey Likes It!; Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz; and Wally of The Daily Jot.
So let's ask it:
So what about Hurricane Katrina?
Anderson Cooper made quite a name for himself. In earlier times, his crying on air might have been questioned. Didn't happen. He cried, he became a star. (He has so much heart!) He wasn't the only proving they could do "tough" journalism.
Now the media circus has moved on. Familes are still split apart, not knowing where there members are. Democracy Now! noted Friday that children placed in foster homes in the aftermath are not easy to locate.
There's a story here. There's still a story here.
But the mainstream media's moved on. Apparently no one can squeeze out any more tears?
Laura Flanders rightly noted that the government's lack of response initially and inadequate response currently stands as a testimony to the Bully Boy and his administration's real priorities, real concerns and, in fact, the real record as opposed to the press spun one.
We'd go further, though. We'd note Hurricane Wilma. (Wally lives in his Florida. His grandfather lives in an effected area.)
"Oh, but Hurricane Wilma wasn't as bad as Hurricane Katrina," you might insist. No, it wasn't.
And that makes the failures of FEMA and the government to respond all the more glaring. Hurricane Katrina revealed that we're not prepared for any sort of national crisis -- be it a hurricane or a terrorist attack (a point echoed last week by the former 9/11 commission). That's a point that needs to be made and made loudly.
But Hurricane Wilma proves something too. This was the third hurricane. Katrina and Rita preceeded it. By the time Wilma struck, there should have been no reason for a scramble on the part of the government. We should have seen a swift and efficient response.
That didn't happen. People waited and waited and waited some more for their power to be restored. They were promised by Thanksgiving it would be (almost a month after Wilma hit) and Thanksgiving rolled around and some were told to wait a little bit longer. Despite the attention paid in initial media reports on Katrina to the ways those dependent upon public transportation were adversely effected, the Wilma response was one that appears to have never heard of public transportation.
There was no effort, big or small, to grasp that many people depend upon public transportation. You saw that when there was no move immediately to do away with fares for those in the area and you saw it in the fact that those in charge never seemed to know from one moment to the next where they'd set up relief supplies for the day.
Now that's a pain in the butt in you're driving around looking. It's a crisis if you're dependent upon public transportation. You don't merely hop back in the car and head off in another direction. You have to wait for the bus, you have to get on the right bus which might mean transferring. If you're dependent upon public transportation and you arrive at an area that's supposed to be providing relief supplies only to be told, "Oops, we changed it," you have to go through a lot more than the person driving their own automobile.
The lesson on public transportation should have been learned before Hurricane Katrina. After all the lip service to it after Katrina, it should have been an issue immediately addressed when planning the response to Wilma. That didn't happen.
Another issue raised in Katrina was the need by some agencies to see identification before providing any sort of relief or shelter. Once again, lesson not absorbed. Wilma victims were still being expected to cough up identification when dealing with governmental agencies.
Katrina revealed how underprepared we were. Wilma revealed that in a lesser crisis, we're still not prepared. More than that, we have an administration that learned nothing from the crisis. Not only did they go from 9/11 to Hurricane Katrina without ever learning a thing about how to assist those in need, weeks after Katrina, they still hadn't learned a thing.
That's the lesson of Wilma.
"No one could have guessed . . ." is the catch phrase of Bully Boy's administration. The reality is that the administration refuses to learn lessons that events drive home.
An eagerness to refuse to acquire knowledge speaks to the intellectual incuriousity on the part of the Bully Boy. On the ground, however, it just speaks to people in need waiting in vain repeatedly. Over and over. In Katrina, in Rita and in Wilma.
The administration is very lucky that Wilma didn't cause the destruction that Katrina did. If it had, everyone would have forgotten Katrina because we'd all be pointing out that weeks after Katrina, nothing had changed. We think that's a lesson that still needs to be noted. After Katrina, the administration still didn't grasp how to respond (or didn't care) to those in need.
The response to Wilma proves that.
[This editorial was written by The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava and Jim; Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude; Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man; C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review; Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills); Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix; Mike of Mikey Likes It!; Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz; and Wally of The Daily Jot.
1 Book, 10 Minutes
[Note: This all runs together currently, we know. It won't post from various computers and we've lost it four times. This is from the typed version in Microsoft Word and we'll smooth it up after it goes up but we don't want to risk losing the entire post so we're posting it now. Note II: Entry should now be fixed.]
Jim: We're tempted to call this "1 Book, No Minutes." We had a few pieces that are in the print edition. The only one online that made the print edition is Ava & C.I.'s TV commentary. We thank they're strong pieces. But we've scrapped them for personal reasons, don't ask. As we scramble to polish what we can use for this edition, we sit down for a book discussion. Our focus is one book. Matthew Greenwald's Go Where You Wanna Go: The Oral History of The Mamas & The Papas. Participating in this discussion are The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava and me, Jim; Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude; Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man; C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review; Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills); Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix; Mike of Mikey Likes It!; Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz; and Wally of The Daily Jot. Mike suggested this last weekend and we were all able to get a hold of this book. Kat, set us up.
Kat: The Mamas and the Papas were a vocal group. John Phillips sometimes played guitar, but they were known for their vocals. Ironically, Michelle Phillips was the only one in the band who could read music. John Phillips and Michelle Phillips were married and two of the four members. Mama Cass, later just Cass Elliot, and Denny Doherty were the other two members. Famous for "California Dreamin," a song written by John & Michelle, ironically only Michelle was born in California. They shot to fame on "California Dreamin'" in the midst of the British invasion that only Motown was able to successfully and repeatedly challenge. With their first hit, they introduced a new look to pop music that went beyond the hippie look Sonny & Cher would popularize. They also provided intricate vocals that stand the test of time to this day. Along with other groups, they popularized the folk rock genre which attempted to inject some thought, and frequently protest thought, into the music scene.
Wally: Give it up for Kat. Great intro.
Mike: I agree. I picked this book because we love the Mamas & the Papas so it seemed a natural for us.
Dona: And we have readers who love them as well. There's never a time when we don't mention them or one of the members in passing and e-mails come in saying they're so glad someone is talking about the group. That can be older readers who lived through those times and that can be younger readers who picked up on the group after the fact. But the Mamas & the Papas live on in their music and continue to reach people.
Ty: Which is why I was a little leery about Mike's suggestion. You never know what you're going to get from a book and this is a group that means a lot to readers and to us. Reading Greenwald's book I was pleased from the start to see that this wasn't going to be a disaster.
Rebecca: The way I feel that John Phillips' co-written autobiography Papa John was.
Betty: If there was one area I would have liked to have seen more on, addressing an issue, it was authorship. It's touched on. But to read the book, you're not aware that the authorship of songs went beyond John Phillips claiming credit in interviews. There's a disc set I have of my brother's that credits "California Dreamin'" solely to John Phillips.
C.I.: Creeque Alley: The History of The Mamas And The Papas, a two-disc set. John Phillips went through a period where he was grabbing credit for everything. Which is ironic since he was more than happy to be billed for years as the co-writer of "500 Miles" when he had nothing to do with writing that song. I'm referring to folk classic and not the Proclaimers song that was in Benny & Joon.
Kat: And I'll agree with Betty's point. For most Americans, that's the choice you'll end up going with. You can get a two disc set with all the studio albums on it but most will go for Creeque Alley. You're more likely to find it in the stores. A recent import, The Mamas & The Papas Complete Anthology is actually a better purchase but it's four discs, more costly and available only as an import.
Jess: I have that and C.I. does. I believe Betty does as well.
Betty: Right. If you're going to buy a collection, that's the one to get.
Jess: Because you get all five studio albums, the live album of the Monterey performances as well as sample of solo performances by all four members. On the issue of authorship, when you ask someone to sit with you and help you write a song, if they do nothing but sit with you, they've earned their credit. Michelle did more than sit with John. She earned her credit on that song and Betty's right that she was briefly stripped of it.
Elaine: I noticed some trashing Michelle in the oral history. Usually for her sex life. At a time when sexual boundaries were breaking down and the male members, including her husband, were hardly in monogamous relationships. I found that an interesting insight into their own judgements. At the same time, she also benefits from being the sexual object of so many in the remarks of some people. I felt Michelle came off best of the people still alive quoted. She didn't get into a back and forth over whether Jill Gibson might be on a song on the second album. She said she recorded the tracks and then, when she was fired, Jill recorded them and if Jill thought she was on some of the tracks, she might be right. I couldn't get a handle on Denny.
Jess: Both John Phillips and Cass Elliot are dead. Cass died in 1974 and John Phillips in 2001. They are quoted in the book but they were not interviewed for the book. Greenwald's using other resources.
Rebecca: And Elaine brings up an interesting point. A lot of males quoted have their favorite, either Cass or Michelle. They don't do that when speaking of John and Denny. But there does seem to be a "choose sides" approach to the women. Which isn't surprising.
Jim: C.I.?
C.I.: If we're going to discuss the book, I think the thing that needs to be noted, and the book notes this, is that Cass Elliot did not die choking on food, not on a ham sandwich, not on anything. That myth was popularized by Playboy, in this country, I believe and it's simply not true although it's repeated over and over.
Dona: Right. That's an issue to Cass' daughter Owen Elliot-Kugell and it's an issue to Michelle Phillips so let's make sure we do our part to set the record straight. The coroner's report said she died of a massive heart attack. There appears to be some need to promote another myth. There are also those who believe she died under more mysterious circumstances. Regardless of which camp you fall into, she didn't die of a choking on a ham sandwich.
Jim: Wally, that was news to you, right?
Wally: I didn't know how she died before I read this book.
Jim: Because Michelle Phillips covered it in her own book, California Dreamin', which we've all read except for Wally. What did anyone read in this book and feel that hadn't read somewhere before?
Elaine: I'll go back to Michelle Phillips. I thought she was very forthcoming. I think she was too ready to take the blame for things that others earned the blame on and too quick to take the sole blame for things that involved shared blame, but I also thought she was an amazing resource for the book because she was ready to go on the record and she wasn't trying to present herself in the most flattering light or play the saint.
Dona: We should note that the book, as billed, is an oral history. People are quoted throughout and it must have been an editing nightmare for Greenwald but he selects strong quotes and the transitions work.
Rebecca: I'll agree with Elaine. Michelle was putting it out there. I saw that as well from some of the musicians who toured with them, but I didn't see that a lot elsewhere. I saw some superficial quotes, from living persons, and I felt, "Why bother to speak if you're not going to move beyond generalities?"
Wally: I was new to a lot of the people speaking, people in bands and that I'm guessing I should know, so I'll add that I had no trouble following the book despite this.
Cedric: And I think that's a good point. Getting back to Cass' death, I'm glad Michelle was so willing to share for the book because I really don't think there's anything on Cass' passing other than what Michelle offers. I didn't understand that. I don't mean that Michelle's comments should have been whittled down. They should appear exactly as they are. But a number of people speak in this book, highly of Cass. I'll assume some attended the funeral. But whether they did or not, I would assume they might have something to say regarding her passing and there's nothing there. I mean one minute Michelle's sharing at length, then Denny gives what I saw as a superficial, standard, "It's a loss" statement and we're suddenly off on David Crosby talking about heroin use.
Ty: Another area where Michelle's the only one to really speak beyond superficial, and I wasn't thinking about this while I was reading it so good point Elaine because Michelle really does make the book, was when John Phillips died. Again, it's Michelle bearing witness. I'm not trying to rag on anyone. It can be hard to speak of death and we just posted a notice about Richard Pryor and Eugene McCarthy that I don't think can be called much more than a notice. But the people in this book were friends with and knew Cass and John. And they have so little to say about the passing of either, except for Michelle.
Rebecca: She's got an interesting role, I think Kat would agree with me here, in that she's really the one who the torch has gone to.
Kat: Absolutely. Michelle is the one who has the role of group historian. For whatever reasons, Denny's not up to. When John was alive, an attempted read of his overstuffed book demonstrated that John was only interested in John by that point. He wasn't interested in the Mamas and the Papas, they're probably less than a third of the book. Michelle's been the one who the task of setting the record straight has fallen to. So it's good that, unlike John, she's not interested in sainthood. She's going to let it be as messy as it is and not clean it up or tidy it up. There's really not a book without her. Not just because she has actual memories where Denny offers vague generalities, not only because she's a marvelous speaker, but also because she's so forthcoming.
Betty: And she's not afraid to use her power. She speaks of the shaming she had to do to get the Mamas and the Papas inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The Mamas & the Papas were four years of her life basically if you count when they start rehearsing on the island up until their decision to take a break which is the end until they're forced to record one last album to avoid lawsuits. She's had a life and then some since then. She's just finished filming the Knots Landing special. She has a life and it would be really easy to say, "I'm busy." But there she was on my PBS station talking about the group, not plugging the special and saying, "The next section has . . ." but honestly discussing the group and sitting down to share. A lot of people aren't like that. They're attitude isn't like that. I think she realizes the importance of the group, yes, but I also think she realizes the magnitude of the role that someone has to fill and she's filled it quite well.
Ava: I think that's a good point. Too many people, and having read John Phillips' bio, I'd say he's one, are interested in promoting just themselves. To carry the legacy torch and to make the group's meaning clear does require an honesty that most people don't have. Michelle Phillips has it and that deserves noting both because it is so rare and because it's part of what makes this book come so alive. There was another woman who's name I'm blanking on Ann something.
C.I.: Ann Marshall.
Ava: Thank you. I found her moments interesting. I'm sorry but C.I. and are taking notes and I'm not sure who made the point about people that played in the tour band, but I would agree that they had something worth sharing. I'm not sure that many other people did. And in my mind, you could leave out Denny's remarks, all of them, and the book would lose nothing. I don't know if he did too many drugs to remember, if it's too many years, if he doesn't want to talk about it, but his quotes were pretty much useless historically and they weren't interesting to read.
Mike: Agreed. If it's something that happened in the studio, Denny doesn't seem to have a clue. The producer --
C.I.: Lou Adler.
Mike: And the other guy --
C.I.: Bones Howe?
Mike: Yeah, they have some memories. The guys playing the instruments have some memories. Michelle can tell you Paul Simon dropped in during the recording of "12:30 (Young Girls Are Coming to the Canyon)" but Denny's just so vague. I was really disappointed with him and read through him quickly about half-way through the book because I'd grasped that Denny had nothing of interest to share.
Jess: Your parents are fans of the group. Did they see you reading the book?
Mike: Yeah and Dad's reading it right now with Ma waiting semi-patiently. It's really a great book.
Jim: And we should note that there are tons of voices, tons of people weighing in. This was really a huge undertaking for Matthew Greenwald and, like Dona, I think he did an amazing job with this book.
Cedric: I think we all enjoyed reading it and would all recommend it.
Kat: The group is connected to that time period in the sixties, where politics and statements became a part of music. You knew they were against the war, the Mamas and the Papas, even before you heard them speak. They stood out from the beginning visually and they had the chops to back up a career worth honoring. They're also one of the few groups that was gender integrated without someone being a sibling. The Mamas weren't backup singers, they were just as important to the sound as the Papas. It's easy to pick out Cass' amazing vocals and think, "Oh it's Cass and backup singers" but each member contributed to the whole and that's what made it so amazing vocally. You're looking at a very brief time that they're recording together, basically three years and not a full three years. That they left their mark testifies to the power of their talents. The book's neither attempting to smear the group nor to treat them as saints. It's an even handed look and a highly interesting book.
Jim: And that sums up the book and the group so we'll go out on that. I'll add, per Dona, that we'll do our "a note to readers" later today. We've been so focused on the book discussion, we haven't been posting the completed entries and are now rushing to catch up. Everyone's tired and then some.
Dona: Stop, Jim. Wally wants to say something and he hasn't spoken that much in this discussion.
Wally: I just wanted to add that the book reproduces the eulogy that Lou Adler read, for John Phillips, and that I enjoyed the discography which didn't just list the songs but actually provided information.
Jim: Good point. It's a great read, Go Where You Wanna Go, and it's a strong resource.
Jim: We're tempted to call this "1 Book, No Minutes." We had a few pieces that are in the print edition. The only one online that made the print edition is Ava & C.I.'s TV commentary. We thank they're strong pieces. But we've scrapped them for personal reasons, don't ask. As we scramble to polish what we can use for this edition, we sit down for a book discussion. Our focus is one book. Matthew Greenwald's Go Where You Wanna Go: The Oral History of The Mamas & The Papas. Participating in this discussion are The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava and me, Jim; Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude; Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man; C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review; Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills); Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix; Mike of Mikey Likes It!; Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz; and Wally of The Daily Jot. Mike suggested this last weekend and we were all able to get a hold of this book. Kat, set us up.
Kat: The Mamas and the Papas were a vocal group. John Phillips sometimes played guitar, but they were known for their vocals. Ironically, Michelle Phillips was the only one in the band who could read music. John Phillips and Michelle Phillips were married and two of the four members. Mama Cass, later just Cass Elliot, and Denny Doherty were the other two members. Famous for "California Dreamin," a song written by John & Michelle, ironically only Michelle was born in California. They shot to fame on "California Dreamin'" in the midst of the British invasion that only Motown was able to successfully and repeatedly challenge. With their first hit, they introduced a new look to pop music that went beyond the hippie look Sonny & Cher would popularize. They also provided intricate vocals that stand the test of time to this day. Along with other groups, they popularized the folk rock genre which attempted to inject some thought, and frequently protest thought, into the music scene.
Wally: Give it up for Kat. Great intro.
Mike: I agree. I picked this book because we love the Mamas & the Papas so it seemed a natural for us.
Dona: And we have readers who love them as well. There's never a time when we don't mention them or one of the members in passing and e-mails come in saying they're so glad someone is talking about the group. That can be older readers who lived through those times and that can be younger readers who picked up on the group after the fact. But the Mamas & the Papas live on in their music and continue to reach people.
Ty: Which is why I was a little leery about Mike's suggestion. You never know what you're going to get from a book and this is a group that means a lot to readers and to us. Reading Greenwald's book I was pleased from the start to see that this wasn't going to be a disaster.
Rebecca: The way I feel that John Phillips' co-written autobiography Papa John was.
Betty: If there was one area I would have liked to have seen more on, addressing an issue, it was authorship. It's touched on. But to read the book, you're not aware that the authorship of songs went beyond John Phillips claiming credit in interviews. There's a disc set I have of my brother's that credits "California Dreamin'" solely to John Phillips.
C.I.: Creeque Alley: The History of The Mamas And The Papas, a two-disc set. John Phillips went through a period where he was grabbing credit for everything. Which is ironic since he was more than happy to be billed for years as the co-writer of "500 Miles" when he had nothing to do with writing that song. I'm referring to folk classic and not the Proclaimers song that was in Benny & Joon.
Kat: And I'll agree with Betty's point. For most Americans, that's the choice you'll end up going with. You can get a two disc set with all the studio albums on it but most will go for Creeque Alley. You're more likely to find it in the stores. A recent import, The Mamas & The Papas Complete Anthology is actually a better purchase but it's four discs, more costly and available only as an import.
Jess: I have that and C.I. does. I believe Betty does as well.
Betty: Right. If you're going to buy a collection, that's the one to get.
Jess: Because you get all five studio albums, the live album of the Monterey performances as well as sample of solo performances by all four members. On the issue of authorship, when you ask someone to sit with you and help you write a song, if they do nothing but sit with you, they've earned their credit. Michelle did more than sit with John. She earned her credit on that song and Betty's right that she was briefly stripped of it.
Elaine: I noticed some trashing Michelle in the oral history. Usually for her sex life. At a time when sexual boundaries were breaking down and the male members, including her husband, were hardly in monogamous relationships. I found that an interesting insight into their own judgements. At the same time, she also benefits from being the sexual object of so many in the remarks of some people. I felt Michelle came off best of the people still alive quoted. She didn't get into a back and forth over whether Jill Gibson might be on a song on the second album. She said she recorded the tracks and then, when she was fired, Jill recorded them and if Jill thought she was on some of the tracks, she might be right. I couldn't get a handle on Denny.
Jess: Both John Phillips and Cass Elliot are dead. Cass died in 1974 and John Phillips in 2001. They are quoted in the book but they were not interviewed for the book. Greenwald's using other resources.
Rebecca: And Elaine brings up an interesting point. A lot of males quoted have their favorite, either Cass or Michelle. They don't do that when speaking of John and Denny. But there does seem to be a "choose sides" approach to the women. Which isn't surprising.
Jim: C.I.?
C.I.: If we're going to discuss the book, I think the thing that needs to be noted, and the book notes this, is that Cass Elliot did not die choking on food, not on a ham sandwich, not on anything. That myth was popularized by Playboy, in this country, I believe and it's simply not true although it's repeated over and over.
Dona: Right. That's an issue to Cass' daughter Owen Elliot-Kugell and it's an issue to Michelle Phillips so let's make sure we do our part to set the record straight. The coroner's report said she died of a massive heart attack. There appears to be some need to promote another myth. There are also those who believe she died under more mysterious circumstances. Regardless of which camp you fall into, she didn't die of a choking on a ham sandwich.
Jim: Wally, that was news to you, right?
Wally: I didn't know how she died before I read this book.
Jim: Because Michelle Phillips covered it in her own book, California Dreamin', which we've all read except for Wally. What did anyone read in this book and feel that hadn't read somewhere before?
Elaine: I'll go back to Michelle Phillips. I thought she was very forthcoming. I think she was too ready to take the blame for things that others earned the blame on and too quick to take the sole blame for things that involved shared blame, but I also thought she was an amazing resource for the book because she was ready to go on the record and she wasn't trying to present herself in the most flattering light or play the saint.
Dona: We should note that the book, as billed, is an oral history. People are quoted throughout and it must have been an editing nightmare for Greenwald but he selects strong quotes and the transitions work.
Rebecca: I'll agree with Elaine. Michelle was putting it out there. I saw that as well from some of the musicians who toured with them, but I didn't see that a lot elsewhere. I saw some superficial quotes, from living persons, and I felt, "Why bother to speak if you're not going to move beyond generalities?"
Wally: I was new to a lot of the people speaking, people in bands and that I'm guessing I should know, so I'll add that I had no trouble following the book despite this.
Cedric: And I think that's a good point. Getting back to Cass' death, I'm glad Michelle was so willing to share for the book because I really don't think there's anything on Cass' passing other than what Michelle offers. I didn't understand that. I don't mean that Michelle's comments should have been whittled down. They should appear exactly as they are. But a number of people speak in this book, highly of Cass. I'll assume some attended the funeral. But whether they did or not, I would assume they might have something to say regarding her passing and there's nothing there. I mean one minute Michelle's sharing at length, then Denny gives what I saw as a superficial, standard, "It's a loss" statement and we're suddenly off on David Crosby talking about heroin use.
Ty: Another area where Michelle's the only one to really speak beyond superficial, and I wasn't thinking about this while I was reading it so good point Elaine because Michelle really does make the book, was when John Phillips died. Again, it's Michelle bearing witness. I'm not trying to rag on anyone. It can be hard to speak of death and we just posted a notice about Richard Pryor and Eugene McCarthy that I don't think can be called much more than a notice. But the people in this book were friends with and knew Cass and John. And they have so little to say about the passing of either, except for Michelle.
Rebecca: She's got an interesting role, I think Kat would agree with me here, in that she's really the one who the torch has gone to.
Kat: Absolutely. Michelle is the one who has the role of group historian. For whatever reasons, Denny's not up to. When John was alive, an attempted read of his overstuffed book demonstrated that John was only interested in John by that point. He wasn't interested in the Mamas and the Papas, they're probably less than a third of the book. Michelle's been the one who the task of setting the record straight has fallen to. So it's good that, unlike John, she's not interested in sainthood. She's going to let it be as messy as it is and not clean it up or tidy it up. There's really not a book without her. Not just because she has actual memories where Denny offers vague generalities, not only because she's a marvelous speaker, but also because she's so forthcoming.
Betty: And she's not afraid to use her power. She speaks of the shaming she had to do to get the Mamas and the Papas inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The Mamas & the Papas were four years of her life basically if you count when they start rehearsing on the island up until their decision to take a break which is the end until they're forced to record one last album to avoid lawsuits. She's had a life and then some since then. She's just finished filming the Knots Landing special. She has a life and it would be really easy to say, "I'm busy." But there she was on my PBS station talking about the group, not plugging the special and saying, "The next section has . . ." but honestly discussing the group and sitting down to share. A lot of people aren't like that. They're attitude isn't like that. I think she realizes the importance of the group, yes, but I also think she realizes the magnitude of the role that someone has to fill and she's filled it quite well.
Ava: I think that's a good point. Too many people, and having read John Phillips' bio, I'd say he's one, are interested in promoting just themselves. To carry the legacy torch and to make the group's meaning clear does require an honesty that most people don't have. Michelle Phillips has it and that deserves noting both because it is so rare and because it's part of what makes this book come so alive. There was another woman who's name I'm blanking on Ann something.
C.I.: Ann Marshall.
Ava: Thank you. I found her moments interesting. I'm sorry but C.I. and are taking notes and I'm not sure who made the point about people that played in the tour band, but I would agree that they had something worth sharing. I'm not sure that many other people did. And in my mind, you could leave out Denny's remarks, all of them, and the book would lose nothing. I don't know if he did too many drugs to remember, if it's too many years, if he doesn't want to talk about it, but his quotes were pretty much useless historically and they weren't interesting to read.
Mike: Agreed. If it's something that happened in the studio, Denny doesn't seem to have a clue. The producer --
C.I.: Lou Adler.
Mike: And the other guy --
C.I.: Bones Howe?
Mike: Yeah, they have some memories. The guys playing the instruments have some memories. Michelle can tell you Paul Simon dropped in during the recording of "12:30 (Young Girls Are Coming to the Canyon)" but Denny's just so vague. I was really disappointed with him and read through him quickly about half-way through the book because I'd grasped that Denny had nothing of interest to share.
Jess: Your parents are fans of the group. Did they see you reading the book?
Mike: Yeah and Dad's reading it right now with Ma waiting semi-patiently. It's really a great book.
Jim: And we should note that there are tons of voices, tons of people weighing in. This was really a huge undertaking for Matthew Greenwald and, like Dona, I think he did an amazing job with this book.
Cedric: I think we all enjoyed reading it and would all recommend it.
Kat: The group is connected to that time period in the sixties, where politics and statements became a part of music. You knew they were against the war, the Mamas and the Papas, even before you heard them speak. They stood out from the beginning visually and they had the chops to back up a career worth honoring. They're also one of the few groups that was gender integrated without someone being a sibling. The Mamas weren't backup singers, they were just as important to the sound as the Papas. It's easy to pick out Cass' amazing vocals and think, "Oh it's Cass and backup singers" but each member contributed to the whole and that's what made it so amazing vocally. You're looking at a very brief time that they're recording together, basically three years and not a full three years. That they left their mark testifies to the power of their talents. The book's neither attempting to smear the group nor to treat them as saints. It's an even handed look and a highly interesting book.
Jim: And that sums up the book and the group so we'll go out on that. I'll add, per Dona, that we'll do our "a note to readers" later today. We've been so focused on the book discussion, we haven't been posting the completed entries and are now rushing to catch up. Everyone's tired and then some.
Dona: Stop, Jim. Wally wants to say something and he hasn't spoken that much in this discussion.
Wally: I just wanted to add that the book reproduces the eulogy that Lou Adler read, for John Phillips, and that I enjoyed the discography which didn't just list the songs but actually provided information.
Jim: Good point. It's a great read, Go Where You Wanna Go, and it's a strong resource.
The Times and their book coverage
Rebecca flipped through The Times book review this morning and got us to thinking of a few observations.
Just as they endorse (via silence) the views on torture by torture cheerleader Charles Krauthammer, they provide space to a torture cheerleader to review Mary Mapes books and that review resulted in three printed letters.
William Youmans and Alan Austin rightly take Atler's review to task for the uninformed opinion that it doesn't matter whether the documents of Bully Boy's National Guard foray were authentic or not. We agree with those two letters.
The third letter picking apart Alter's "logic" is from "Dick Thornburgh." (Usually billed as Richard but we'll go with Dick since he did.) Dick writes, "In his review of 'Truth and Duty,' Jonathan Alter characterizes me as 'clueless about the realities of how the privileged escaped serving in Vietnam." Dick then cites his record which, Dick feels, proves he is fully aware that the privileged escaped serving. Dick notes that from 1969 to 1975 "as a federal prosecutor" he handled cases against what would be termed draft dodgers. Dick expects us to assume that this means he went after the privilaged. Possibly Dick's going for a more class system critique than Alter?
From Dick's record, we find it hard to believe. Dick's speaking of a lower middle class grouping that he targeted. Rest assured that Dick didn't go after the children of the powerful (such as Bully Boy or Lloyd Bentsen). Alter's point stands.
Dick also attempts to argue Alter's point by noting that in 1966, in an unsuccessful bid for Congress, he "expressed my own serious misgivings about the war in Vietnam." Again, Dick that has to do with the children of the rich and power who escaped serving in Vietnam how?
We'd love to be able to say Dick demolished Alter. He didn't. Neither example he cites alters Alter's argument.
Michael Caracappa is bothered by Joe Queenan's review which played fast and loose with the facts. Considering that playing fast and loose is a hallmark of Queenan's writing (that and pretending to be Mickey Roarke for a day), we're bothered that the paper continues to print anything by Queenan. (It helps to be anti-woman, note to wanna be reviewers for the Times.)
Then there's the issue of the paper's picks for best books. CJR Daily roused themselves out of their slumber (did someone forget to fill their water dish?) to bark about the lengthier list. They barked about the fact that a number of books on that list featured writers for the paper (such as Maureen Dowd). The paper runs a list of ten books. (They wouldn't have room for those much needed drawings of tossing books into the air if they ran more!)
Five are fiction, five are nonfiction. Of course they pimp George Packer. They have to. To not do so would hasten the re-examination of their own Dexter Filkins' "award winning" reporting.
Packer's nonsense is the first of the five listed non-fiction books. But while the watchdog was sniffing and snarling at the lengthier list, we're wondering whether they bothered to look for inclusion because we're not honestly seeing much in the ten.
Not only do we see a lack of diversity in the demography of the authors, we fail to see diversity in the author's focus on the nonfiction list. Joan Didion is addressing a serious subject from an alternate angle. (That's not an insult, we mean she's gone beyond the obvious.) The other four books, including Packer's, they're hardly brave works, they hardly shake up the publishing industry.
The same magazine that felt the need to pass a smear of Seymour Hersh off as "balance" in the arts section this year, presents the false claim that Packer's produced "[a] comprehensive look at the largest foreign policy gamble" to which we reply, in both of your dreams, the paper's and Packers. May you share the same pillow and sleep in one another's drool.
And may CJR Daily learn to offer their own criticism and stop attempting to borrow it from others.
Turning to the best seller list, we scan quickly to see how high up Packer's book is. It's not in the paper (which prints the top fifteen best sellers in hardcover for nonfiction). Packer's hardly burning up anyone's charts but the paper won't stop, can't stop, pushing him.
We get e-mails on our book discussions from readers who really wish we'd focus more on ficition. (Some readers would say "focus any!" or even "focus a little!") We've been upfront that most of us don't read fiction (well other than The New York Times, it provides us with enough fiction for each week). Dona will read anything and does. Betty likes fiction especially comic novels. (We don't mean illustrated novels, we mean the writings of writers such as Paul Rudnick -- Betty's a huge fan of Social Disease.) But we're upfront about it. We've made the point repeatedly that fiction really isn't our interest.
We think The Times needs to be similarly upfront. Not in memos or statement to trade papers, but to their readers. The Times doesn't really care about fiction these days. The new editor of the book review has been upfront about that and his disdain for fiction.
So if you're a fiction writer, you might be feeling shortchanged.
So for Fiction Writers Ignored By The Times, we offer these tips to ensure that your next book will be reviewed in the paper.
1) Praise the paper in interviews. It may seem silly but Grey Lady loves her props. Praising her gets you on her radar.
2) Write something very generic with just a trace, just a tad, a dollop, if you will, of adventure.
In fact, you should follow the previous sentence's structure when writing it. A reporter for the international scene does and those pieces always get published as news. Despite recalling the "writing" of Candice Bergen's character in Rich & Famous. In fact, let's provide that as the template (since the international reporter's already practiced it to much succes):
In Paris, in France, they had a guy who was, for the record, both homosexual and a Jew, who wrote a seven-volume book they continue to refer to as a masterpiece, who was such a nitroglycerine in the head he had to hide out in a cork lined room or he'da gone up in shrapnel.
Those commas, those clauses, those starts and stops, are very important to the paper. Write your novel utilizing them often enough and The Times might ask you to a be a foreign correspondent and put you on a plane to India because there's no rule that the paper can only have one in house poet. Regardless, they will note your novel because what others see as "flowery," the paper mistakes for strong writing.
3) Promote anothe profession when promoting your book. This week an anthropologist gets praised for an attempt at fiction. The Times really doesn't like fiction at this point. So find an angle. Maybe you were standing in line for 20 minutes at Wal-Greens? Sounds like you're practically a chemist! Promote that.
4) Write for the paper. It doesn't pay much but it does expose you to their clubby mentality. As the watchdog yapped, it can even get you included on their best of list.
5) Get a trophy wife. This applies to female authors especially! Get a trophy wife. The institution loves trophy wives. They especially love trophy wives that put forward the opinion that all women are seeking to leave the work force. So you might want to consider a joint-novel
(or has co-authorship of novels fallen by the wayside -- it's been so long since Patti Davis penned one -- or rather, co-penned one). If you can skewer working women, you're sure to get a mention.
6) Sign with a publisher who advertises heavily in the paper. Or insist that the publisher you're with advertise heavily in the paper. "Tit for tat and this for that" is the paper's unofficial mantra.
That's why exploring the releases of smaller presses is left to others. Don't buck the system, exploit it! The New York Times can always get behind that!
7) When the review trashing your work appears (probably midweek, probably penned by what some term "a former groupie" whose past is supposed to be shrouded in mystery and now cloaked in respectability but the tales are still told by those who observed them -- and they're so much wilder than anything that appears in book reviews) you need to realize that there are only two responses.
a) You write a letter thanking them for the "wonderful" review and note, in passing that a minor mistake occurred. Now maybe you wrote about life on the frontier in the 1800s and the paper dismissed your book as "yet another attempt at a look at cosmopolitan life." No, that's not a minor error. But the paper wants to act as though they only make minor errors and that their reviewers actually read the books they review. So word it so carefully that no one will be offended that you point out that, point of fact, no metrosexual appears in the text of your book.
b) Write with fire in your letter. The Timid is not known for it's spine. If you merely point out flaws in a vocal letter (as opposed to a kind one kissing their asses), you've just destroyed your chances of being noted in the paper. The blacklist does exist. Ask Gore Vidal. The way you ensure that you're not on it is with a firey letter. (Threatening legal action is always good and there's someone in the entertainment industry that the paper currently bends over backwards not to offend after slanted coverage led to a strong reproach.) Scare the hell out of them. They'll think you're crazy. That's not a bad thing because they think crazy and creativity go hand-in-hand.
If none of the above works, e-mail us and we'll advise you of which philanthropic committees in NYC you need to sit in.
Just as they endorse (via silence) the views on torture by torture cheerleader Charles Krauthammer, they provide space to a torture cheerleader to review Mary Mapes books and that review resulted in three printed letters.
William Youmans and Alan Austin rightly take Atler's review to task for the uninformed opinion that it doesn't matter whether the documents of Bully Boy's National Guard foray were authentic or not. We agree with those two letters.
The third letter picking apart Alter's "logic" is from "Dick Thornburgh." (Usually billed as Richard but we'll go with Dick since he did.) Dick writes, "In his review of 'Truth and Duty,' Jonathan Alter characterizes me as 'clueless about the realities of how the privileged escaped serving in Vietnam." Dick then cites his record which, Dick feels, proves he is fully aware that the privileged escaped serving. Dick notes that from 1969 to 1975 "as a federal prosecutor" he handled cases against what would be termed draft dodgers. Dick expects us to assume that this means he went after the privilaged. Possibly Dick's going for a more class system critique than Alter?
From Dick's record, we find it hard to believe. Dick's speaking of a lower middle class grouping that he targeted. Rest assured that Dick didn't go after the children of the powerful (such as Bully Boy or Lloyd Bentsen). Alter's point stands.
Dick also attempts to argue Alter's point by noting that in 1966, in an unsuccessful bid for Congress, he "expressed my own serious misgivings about the war in Vietnam." Again, Dick that has to do with the children of the rich and power who escaped serving in Vietnam how?
We'd love to be able to say Dick demolished Alter. He didn't. Neither example he cites alters Alter's argument.
Michael Caracappa is bothered by Joe Queenan's review which played fast and loose with the facts. Considering that playing fast and loose is a hallmark of Queenan's writing (that and pretending to be Mickey Roarke for a day), we're bothered that the paper continues to print anything by Queenan. (It helps to be anti-woman, note to wanna be reviewers for the Times.)
Then there's the issue of the paper's picks for best books. CJR Daily roused themselves out of their slumber (did someone forget to fill their water dish?) to bark about the lengthier list. They barked about the fact that a number of books on that list featured writers for the paper (such as Maureen Dowd). The paper runs a list of ten books. (They wouldn't have room for those much needed drawings of tossing books into the air if they ran more!)
Five are fiction, five are nonfiction. Of course they pimp George Packer. They have to. To not do so would hasten the re-examination of their own Dexter Filkins' "award winning" reporting.
Packer's nonsense is the first of the five listed non-fiction books. But while the watchdog was sniffing and snarling at the lengthier list, we're wondering whether they bothered to look for inclusion because we're not honestly seeing much in the ten.
Not only do we see a lack of diversity in the demography of the authors, we fail to see diversity in the author's focus on the nonfiction list. Joan Didion is addressing a serious subject from an alternate angle. (That's not an insult, we mean she's gone beyond the obvious.) The other four books, including Packer's, they're hardly brave works, they hardly shake up the publishing industry.
The same magazine that felt the need to pass a smear of Seymour Hersh off as "balance" in the arts section this year, presents the false claim that Packer's produced "[a] comprehensive look at the largest foreign policy gamble" to which we reply, in both of your dreams, the paper's and Packers. May you share the same pillow and sleep in one another's drool.
And may CJR Daily learn to offer their own criticism and stop attempting to borrow it from others.
Turning to the best seller list, we scan quickly to see how high up Packer's book is. It's not in the paper (which prints the top fifteen best sellers in hardcover for nonfiction). Packer's hardly burning up anyone's charts but the paper won't stop, can't stop, pushing him.
We get e-mails on our book discussions from readers who really wish we'd focus more on ficition. (Some readers would say "focus any!" or even "focus a little!") We've been upfront that most of us don't read fiction (well other than The New York Times, it provides us with enough fiction for each week). Dona will read anything and does. Betty likes fiction especially comic novels. (We don't mean illustrated novels, we mean the writings of writers such as Paul Rudnick -- Betty's a huge fan of Social Disease.) But we're upfront about it. We've made the point repeatedly that fiction really isn't our interest.
We think The Times needs to be similarly upfront. Not in memos or statement to trade papers, but to their readers. The Times doesn't really care about fiction these days. The new editor of the book review has been upfront about that and his disdain for fiction.
So if you're a fiction writer, you might be feeling shortchanged.
So for Fiction Writers Ignored By The Times, we offer these tips to ensure that your next book will be reviewed in the paper.
1) Praise the paper in interviews. It may seem silly but Grey Lady loves her props. Praising her gets you on her radar.
2) Write something very generic with just a trace, just a tad, a dollop, if you will, of adventure.
In fact, you should follow the previous sentence's structure when writing it. A reporter for the international scene does and those pieces always get published as news. Despite recalling the "writing" of Candice Bergen's character in Rich & Famous. In fact, let's provide that as the template (since the international reporter's already practiced it to much succes):
In Paris, in France, they had a guy who was, for the record, both homosexual and a Jew, who wrote a seven-volume book they continue to refer to as a masterpiece, who was such a nitroglycerine in the head he had to hide out in a cork lined room or he'da gone up in shrapnel.
Those commas, those clauses, those starts and stops, are very important to the paper. Write your novel utilizing them often enough and The Times might ask you to a be a foreign correspondent and put you on a plane to India because there's no rule that the paper can only have one in house poet. Regardless, they will note your novel because what others see as "flowery," the paper mistakes for strong writing.
3) Promote anothe profession when promoting your book. This week an anthropologist gets praised for an attempt at fiction. The Times really doesn't like fiction at this point. So find an angle. Maybe you were standing in line for 20 minutes at Wal-Greens? Sounds like you're practically a chemist! Promote that.
4) Write for the paper. It doesn't pay much but it does expose you to their clubby mentality. As the watchdog yapped, it can even get you included on their best of list.
5) Get a trophy wife. This applies to female authors especially! Get a trophy wife. The institution loves trophy wives. They especially love trophy wives that put forward the opinion that all women are seeking to leave the work force. So you might want to consider a joint-novel
(or has co-authorship of novels fallen by the wayside -- it's been so long since Patti Davis penned one -- or rather, co-penned one). If you can skewer working women, you're sure to get a mention.
6) Sign with a publisher who advertises heavily in the paper. Or insist that the publisher you're with advertise heavily in the paper. "Tit for tat and this for that" is the paper's unofficial mantra.
That's why exploring the releases of smaller presses is left to others. Don't buck the system, exploit it! The New York Times can always get behind that!
7) When the review trashing your work appears (probably midweek, probably penned by what some term "a former groupie" whose past is supposed to be shrouded in mystery and now cloaked in respectability but the tales are still told by those who observed them -- and they're so much wilder than anything that appears in book reviews) you need to realize that there are only two responses.
a) You write a letter thanking them for the "wonderful" review and note, in passing that a minor mistake occurred. Now maybe you wrote about life on the frontier in the 1800s and the paper dismissed your book as "yet another attempt at a look at cosmopolitan life." No, that's not a minor error. But the paper wants to act as though they only make minor errors and that their reviewers actually read the books they review. So word it so carefully that no one will be offended that you point out that, point of fact, no metrosexual appears in the text of your book.
b) Write with fire in your letter. The Timid is not known for it's spine. If you merely point out flaws in a vocal letter (as opposed to a kind one kissing their asses), you've just destroyed your chances of being noted in the paper. The blacklist does exist. Ask Gore Vidal. The way you ensure that you're not on it is with a firey letter. (Threatening legal action is always good and there's someone in the entertainment industry that the paper currently bends over backwards not to offend after slanted coverage led to a strong reproach.) Scare the hell out of them. They'll think you're crazy. That's not a bad thing because they think crazy and creativity go hand-in-hand.
If none of the above works, e-mail us and we'll advise you of which philanthropic committees in NYC you need to sit in.
Eugene McCarthy & Richard Pryor
Richard Pryor and Eugene McCarthy died Saturday.
The passage we felt best identified Pryor was from Jeremiah Marquez's's Associated Press article entitled "Pioneering Comedian Richard Pryor Dies:"
While Pryor's material sounds modest when compared with some of today's comedians, it was startling when first introduced. He never apologized for it.
We also enjoyed this article because the photo with it online shows Pryor with Chris Rock and Lily Tomlin, two comedians who work comedy similar to Pryor's. Other reports have bent over backwards to include numerous males (mainly white) as influences or inheritors of Pryor's mantle. Tomlin and Pryor's style meshed (and they worked well together) but the press has failed to note that in any coverage we've seen. (We haven't seen coverage from Rolling Stone yet.)
For the passage that we felt best summered up McCarthy, we'll go with his son's comment:
"He was thoughtful and he was principled and he was compassionate and he had a good sense of humor. ... I think he probably would consider his work in civil rights legislation in the 1960s ... his greatest contribution." -- Michael McCarthy, Eugene's son.
If there's a thread between the two men besides dying on the same day, it's that both attempted to tell their truth. (And both didn't bother to hide their opposition to the Vietnam conflict.)
Richard Pryor 1940-2005
Eugene McCarthy 1916-2005
The passage we felt best identified Pryor was from Jeremiah Marquez's's Associated Press article entitled "Pioneering Comedian Richard Pryor Dies:"
While Pryor's material sounds modest when compared with some of today's comedians, it was startling when first introduced. He never apologized for it.
We also enjoyed this article because the photo with it online shows Pryor with Chris Rock and Lily Tomlin, two comedians who work comedy similar to Pryor's. Other reports have bent over backwards to include numerous males (mainly white) as influences or inheritors of Pryor's mantle. Tomlin and Pryor's style meshed (and they worked well together) but the press has failed to note that in any coverage we've seen. (We haven't seen coverage from Rolling Stone yet.)
For the passage that we felt best summered up McCarthy, we'll go with his son's comment:
"He was thoughtful and he was principled and he was compassionate and he had a good sense of humor. ... I think he probably would consider his work in civil rights legislation in the 1960s ... his greatest contribution." -- Michael McCarthy, Eugene's son.
If there's a thread between the two men besides dying on the same day, it's that both attempted to tell their truth. (And both didn't bother to hide their opposition to the Vietnam conflict.)
Richard Pryor 1940-2005
Eugene McCarthy 1916-2005
TV: We're losing ground and now is not the time for silence
COMMENTARY CORRECTED FROM OUR LUNA MOMENT (BUTTERFLIES DON'T TURN INTO CATEPILLARS) AND THANKS TO ___ WHO'S WITH THE SHOW FOR CALLING AND POINTING OUT THAT THOUGH WE MADE A MISTAKE (WHICH WE COP TO) IT'S ACTUALLY WORSE FOR THE SHOW THEN WHAT WE WERE TOLD.
It's the holidays and things are a little lighter. Which strikes your two TV critics as the perfect time to focus on the tough issues. When candy corn is abundance, we'll serve up the vegetables (steamed) to those wanting something a little more than sugar in their diet.
We take a feminist look at TV shows in our reviews. If we're commenting on a man's weight, read on and you'll find the point made that a woman's not given the same wide berth on TV. She has to fit into the same cookie cutter mode. Actually, it's a smaller mode these days. What you see on the big three networks? It's a smaller mode than what you would have seen in the seventies. You see less color in the choice of leads, you see less empowerment in the women in leading roles, you see . . . Let's be honest, you see boobs. Lots and lots of boobs.
You see them peaking, you see them sporting, but you see them.
Now T&A TV didn't begin with Alias or any other recent show. In the seventies, Charlie's Angels was dubbed T&A TV. (Though it didn't begin there either.) While it's true that the original three actresses, Farrah Fawcett, Kate Jackson and Jaclyn Smith, were beautiful women, it's also true that, like the superstar models of that period Cheryl Tiegs and Christie Brinkley, they didn't look starved. Farrah Fawcett looked athletic. And no one was threatened by that.
So to take the example of a hit show then, one dubbed T&A TV, and then look at some of the hits today is to be pretty disappointed.
What's far more disappointing is that feminist criticism, or what we're assuming passes for it these days, seems to think that a woman in the lead, surrounded by men, is somehow the cause for cheers. It doesn't matter, for instance, that they're willing to risk a war (Commander-in-Chief) that could lead to many dying on both sides, the fact that a woman's threatening war is considered a break through! Breathlessly documented as such.
Or let's take another TV show passed off as must-see for women viewers: Veronica Mars. As they breathlessly report each and every plot twist, do our feminist critics ever absorb what they're seeing? The show gets points, from some, for the fact that two African-Americans are billed in the credits. Now you hardly ever see those characters most episodes other than in the credits. But just the fact that they're in the credits is supposed to mean that the show is inclusive, according to some.
Just like Veronica Mars herself is supposed to be a feminist statement even though she's always hanging with the boys. Her mother's out of the picture (we won't bother you with that messy story, but you can check out our earlier review of the show if you're interested in it), the only woman she apparently wanted to hang with died long ago, she stands for the boys and with the boys, episode afte episode.
That's feminism?
How about this. Her boyfriend? He raped her. But he didn't. For a full season she claimed she raped her. But she wasn't.
Let's be clear here, this wasn't just her old boyfriend that turned out to be the "rapist", this is her current boyfriend. He's also got an ex-girlfriend who's pregnant. That issue doesn't bother Veronica too much.
But when you can tie a pretty bow around a character thinking she was raped, why should it?
"Oh, she was drugged!"
Waking up alone, after the boy freaks because he thinks he's slept with her sister, because of that, it's revealed to viewers finally, she goes a full season thinking she's raped.
That raises a number of issues. When was Veronica sure of what happened? (For all we know she's not sure now.) Since Veronica spent a full season last year until the cliffhanger, convinced she was raped -- what message does that send?
Not just the fact that while she thought she was raped, she was hanging around with the crowd of men that included one man suspected of raping her. (The show's confusing so let's explain that one of the plot points last year was "Who raped me!")
They build a sub-plot the whole year around the fact that she was raped and then sweep the whole thing under the covers with "Oh she was just drugged. Duncan freaked and split and like she totally woke up alone after and so it was just so freaky and all so like she thinks she was raped but, weird, man, she wasn't."
Was she raped or not? There are larger issues here about the drugging (beyond the show's tidy answer).
But more importantly, what message is that sending?
Let's table that for a moment to note Joss Whedon's remarks in October of this year (when the first season was released on DVD) because not everyone at the show is thrilled with Whedon's endorsement. The friend who called one of us (C.I.) to point out the Luna moment (Diane Keaton, Sleeper) stated we should note the great "feminist" Joss Whedon's review:
Last year, Veronica Mars' best friend was murdered. Some months later, she was drugged at a party and raped in her sleep. Welcome to the funniest and most romantic show on TV, collected on DVD in Veronica Mars: The Complete First Season.
Why note Joss other than to pick a part his review? (The friend was being sarcastic when he referred to Joss as a "feminist" by the way). Because that's actually how the claim of rape and then the claim of nonrape was justified by people doing the show: we're a funny show.
Being a funny show, it's apparently important that they provide those humorous storylines and, apparently, nothing's funnier than a woman crying rape when she wasn't raped.
Now Joss' adds "romantic" to the list which right away should mean every feminist that's been holding onto their poster with Joss on it as the face of feminism should tear it down immediately.
That's pretty much it for Joss and his so-called feminism. Those interested in deconstructing his "feminist" take can read the review.
Let's be clear here that we don't think this "I wasn't raped!" ends the rape issue. That's not just because someone at the show's pushing for another "funny twist." (The friend that called thought we were breaking news about a decision that had been made when our earlier commentary addressed Veronica being involved with her "rapist." We weren't. We were going by a report from a friend who filmed a guest shot on the series this season.) So if they decide to go for another "funny" or "romantic" twist and it turns out Veronica once again thinks she's raped, that may be an issue for some then. We're surprised that a drugged out teenage female is supposed to be seen as comptent to consent to sex at the time it happened.
That's certainly a "message" worth exploring. And certainly people could debate what impact the rapist/not rapists's popularity in her own crowd helped impact her decision as she 'rethought' her claim?
But we're not going to delve into that.
What we're going to focus on is that she was marketed as a rape victim.
Rob Owen, writing in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette last February was helping to market that strategy. (He's not the only one and this isn't laugh at Rob Owen or anyone else. The show marketed this. The people behind the show.) Owen noted Veronica's "ability to adapt to the hand life's dealt her" and that "[d]espite her sad state in the premiere episode -- friendless, date raped, abandoned by mom, dumped by her boyfriend -- Veronica bounced back."
Again we're not attempting to embarrass Owen. Owen reported what the show was pushing and what they were pushing was Veronica Mars was a strong woman who'd overcome so much including rape! That at last a rape victim wasn't the third or fourth supporting female lead in an ensemble show or that it wasn't a guest star dropping by for a very special episode of 90210, it was the lead character and she was strong! and she would overcome! and she was overcoming!
(Owen might want to check whether or not he transcribed Rob Thomas' quote correctly. One of them is wrong. Owen quoting him or Thomas' own recollection. In Soap Dish, Sally Field doesn't go to a "ball" to be admired, she goes to a "mall.")
Heather Havrilesky, writing in Salon last March, made a long list of what she loved about the show and the character. That included mentioing, not surprisingly, the rape: "I love that she's been through hell -- her friend's death, her mother's disappearance, her mysterious rape -- and she's pissed off about it, but she doesn't have time to wallow." Let's repeat Havrilesky's not lying about a rape. Nor is she bringing up a minor plot point. The "rape" probably shows up in all the coverage of the show because the people behind the show marketed that.
C.I.: We had an all nighter and then some due to my stopping the writing process to do a long reply to an e-mail on feminism. I was supposed to have called my friend at one in the morning my time (and his) because I'd mentioned Ava and I were going to be commenting (again) on this show he's involved with. I didn't do the fact check, with that call, that I should have and will cop to it. I focused on something I thought was more important (for several hours -- and I'd have to think it was important to put everyone involved in putting out these editions on hold while I did the e-mail I did). It was eleven in the morning my time when we finished this edition. I crawled into bed and slept through the ringing phone. When I finally answered it hours later it was my friend explaining we had a mistake in our review. He quickly explained that Duncan didn't rape Veronica. I wasn't bothered by that and made the Luna joke on myself. I was hurrying to get off the phone to call Ava and tell her we needed to do a correction and, I felt, an apology when he asks who I heard from that Duncan raped Veronica? I give him the name of the guest star and he replies he was afraid I'd heard that from ___ and that a decision had been made to "milk" the rape yet again by having it turn out that Veronica was raped. At which point, I asked, "What do you mean she wasn't raped?" and settled in for a long phone conversation.
Ava: C.I. calls me and tells me, "There's news and news. Which do you want first?" I pick what turns out to be that Duncan didn't, by the story's current plot and non-complex view, rape Veronica. I didn't laugh it off as easily as C.I. did in the inital reaction but I didn't see it as the end of the world and said, "Okay, let's work on the correction." Then C.I. says, "It's a little more complicated than that."
To accept today that Veronica Mars wasn't raped, you have to be willing to toss out questions of consent. We're not ruling that issue out. We've raised it and may explore it at a future date. We're also not going to rule out the possibility that at the end of the second season, Veronica may well "realize" that she was raped. We've noted it. Sick minds at work on that show will do with that show whatever they want.
As it stands at the moment, Veronica wasn't raped by Duncan (if you dismiss issues of consent).
Go through message boards for the first season (we went through two but we're told this is true in most places) and what do you read from young women? You read that Veronica's strong and powerful and they usually work in the example of her rape (some type "rape" and some type "date rape").
These young women aren't "wrong." (Qualifier, these young women -- or men of any age or older women. The voices we're referring to present as young woman -- but it's also true, shhhh don't tell, that Veronica Mars' staff also works those message boards; while accusing scorned Joan of Arcadia fans of working the message boards to slam The Ghost Whisperer, friends at CBS say that there were also people paid to post postive notes about the then unyet aired Ghost Whisperer.) The critics and reporters pushing that line were sold it. We don't mean by what they saw on their TV, we mean by the show. In press conferences and interviews, this was seen by those with the show as a marketing point, as a way to raise interest in a program and as a way to demonstrate their "empowerment" cred. (And sold via the staff that posted as young girls on the message board.)
So the public was fooled and critics were fooled. (Count us fooled for accepting that she was raped when we did our review of the show and wrong for, this morning, believing that Duncan was still the rapist.) (But note, we didn't push the show as view worthy either time.) And some will chalk it up to another moment similar to Victoria Principal's Pam stepping out of the shower on Dallas to realize that episodes of Bobby's death and more were "all a dream."
That may be true for some, but it shouldn't be true for feminists. Especially not ones who promoted this show and noted the "rape."
Young women (see qualifier) identified with that plot. They saw Veronica overcoming. She gave them hope last season. Now rape is nothing but a marketing tool. And a fictional victim (ficitional works on several levels) of rape isn't one.
What is the message now because we're confused. Apparently it's "You been a naughty girl, you let your knickers down." ("I Am the Walrus" -- credited to John Lennon & Paul McCartney.) Apparently it's that when TV gives you a leading actress who's supposedly competent and strong and can overcome rape and get on with her life, she's actually not a woman who's been raped. Apparently, since this is one of the few leads to be raped and a first for a show marketed to young woman, we're back to no leads get raped in shows for young women.
Reading one post, via a cache -- use that for the real time posts, and it goes beyond the normal reasons you'd use a cache version, shhh, we can't reveal all the show's staff secrets -- of a young woman (see qualifier) writing of her own rape and how she identified with Veronica and found "strength" from Veronica, we had to wonder what she's supposed to think now? Especially when she wrote about how some people didn't believe her. Let's hope she didn't use Veronica Mars as an example anywhere but online.
Let's hope too that her school isn't populated with any of the 'ironic' commentators that populated Buffy or else she may be spoken of in terms similar to this: "She says she was raped. She's so first season Veronica Mars."
When the only female lead of a show aimed at young women and marketed as a rape victim for it's debut season turns out not to be raped, we're not just back to not having a lead in such a genre who's been raped. We now have a young woman who cried rape where there was none.
That's a message. The show felt the guys were performing better with the audience then they hat expected them to. (The same "logic" that led to the "softening" of Tony Geary's rapist Luke on General Hospital.) So it was decided, while the rape was still being marketed, that Veronica would in fact not be raped.
It's as though the final episode of Joan of Arcadia had a Crying Game twist wherein we found out that Joan was in fact John.
Because the show broke the trust it sought to build with young women.
In doing so the show didn't just fall back into the "logic" of only supporting actresses and guest actresses get raped, it offered a new "message" -- that a rape victim lead isn't raped.
We've gone from an attitude of "I can find strength in Veronica because she proves that you can be strong and still the victim of rape" to apparently "I was raped but Veronica wasn't after saying she was. How do I find strength in that?"
In the original version of this commentary, we took feminist viewers to task for promoting a show where Veronica Mars ended up with her rapist. We were wrong. We were insulted based on faulty information and have no problem copping to that.
We think the facts (or "facts" since the show may change them again) as they stand today are even more damning. Feminists who pushed this show as empowering last season need to be screaming their heads off. Not just because they and the viewers were lied to. (And let's repeat one more time, the show marketed Veronica as a rape victim in publicity and promotion for the show.) Though they should be angry about that. But more importantly, rape's not an issue to "play" with.
And enough victims to this day still find their accusations denied (and themselves attacked). Would this have happened if a woman was running the show? Possibly. Because, as we often point out, a first can be a worst, a woman can be as a bad as any pigheaded man. But if a feminist, a real feminist male or female, was writing this show, rape wouldn't have been "funny."
Presenting Veronica as a "rape victim" and then as "not a rape victim" wouldn't have been done by a feminist.
A feminist would have known the charged environment that still surrounds rape. She, or he, would have realized that if the character had been marketed as a rape victim, that detail was "locked in" because there are way too many doubts that still greet women who are raped.
That's why this is so damaging, the reversal. It's far worse than Veronica dating her rapist. That's offensive. But it's a "plot point" that males never tire of airing.
What's been done here is something news. A supposed strong and competent woman cries rape where there was none. A feminist wouldn't do that in today's climate, in a show marketed to young woman. She, or he, might do it in a play or a film for adults (we don't mean X-rated, we mean geared for an adult audience). She, or he, wouldn't do it in a show geared towards young women.
At a time when rape shield laws aren't just under attack but are publicly ignored, a feminist wouldn't enter into the areana with a show about a high school student, one geared to young viewers, and present a storyline where for a full season the young woman claims rape only to learn that it never happened.
When someone objects to a portrayal of race on TV (these days it's just as likely to be a non-portrayal since we've lost so much ground and the big three aren't interested in people of color being cast as leads), you'll hear someone say, "It's just TV." We don't buy that argument. These are the folk tales and fairy tales of our culture. These are the narratives we're sold.
But for those who want to question or quibble that point, let's point out (again) that this show was marketed as "empowering" for young women. (By the people with the show.) And this marketing was picked up by critics, female and male, feminist and non-feminist.
It's time for feminist critics to call the show out. It would be great if all critics did, but for feminists this should be a no-brainer. We saw photos of woman charging rape posted online (and a name and a phone number) in a recent high profile rape case. We saw some in the mainstream media use the excuse that it was online to spread that information.
When rape shield laws are under attack, when "thinkers" such as Camille Paglia dismiss the very concept of date rape, the last thing young women need on this issue is a "plot twist" that tells us the rape victim wasn't raped.
We joke and laugh but we take our responsibility here seriously. (Even if one of us did fail to make a needed phone call. Copped to and owned.) We know that we're providing a feminist critique at a time when most have "moved on." We know that "the age of irony" supposedly made such critiques "unneeded." (We don't buy that argument and we also don't buy that irony died post 9/11.) We also take seriously the audience for The Third Estate Sunday Review which includes a number of young families who are struggling and can't afford cable. That's why we spent our reviews that we penned (as opposed to the intial group efforts) focusing on the big three. We reviewed (and slammed) Veronica Mars only when CBS started airing it in the summer. We avoided Fox and UPN and the WB until the summer when we could confirm that long term readers did have those choices. (News flash for some, if you don't have cable you may live an area where you only get the big three.) We've hit hard on covering Friday nights because the young families who read The Third Estate Sunday Review wrote often and early about being in a situation where going to the movies was impossible. They couldn't afford it. Not just a baby sitter, but trying to raise a family in a Bully Boy economy was a difficult task. So they spend many Friday nights at home. (Many other nights as well.)
That's not any failure on their part, it's the economy which continues to do "well" if you're sitting near the top. If you're in the middle or below, there's no good economic news for you despite the headlines in The New York Times. (Nor was The Times' editorial noting the death of free TV good news. Give the paper credit for being one of the few to cover this impending development.)
We also take seriously that they do have young children. So we take on the messages that are being sent. If a show's nothing but sex, we'll note it. We won't condemn it for that. (As our reviews requesting more male flesh will attest.) But we will work it in so that people with children will be warned if it's an issue to them. (Sex was never an issue for us growing up. You can read that as a message to let your children watch anything on broadcast TV or you can see it as a cautionary tale.)
Neither of us now read the e-mails on the reviews. There are too many that are threatening and we don't need the headache or have the time. We will read something that Dona or Jess or Ty insist we read for a reason other than the person is praising a review we wrote or bothered by it. But we do get a summary of the e-mails and we pay close attention to it. What shows haven't we covered that readers want? (Disclosure, we won't say anything bad about David E. Kelley so there's no point in asking for a review of one of his shows. We wouldn't be impartial and the most extreme criticism we'd ever be comfortable leveling would be that Lara Flynn Boyle should have been kept in the cast of what's emerged from The Practice.) We pay attention to the statements of what issues aren't being raised or addressed (by us or others)?
We're not interested in making the TV world "child safe." We are interested in making sure that our readers who are parents have the information to determine whether or not the show we're reviewing is something they'd want their children to watch.
So we are actually more offended by the new "twist" than that Veronica Mars isn't having a relationship with her rapist. That theme is offensive and it's popped up numerous times. But marketing a high school student as a rape victim and then offering "It never happened -- she was wrong" is even more offensive in the current climate.
If a show promotes the notion of rape as some sort of event on the road to courtship or an exteme social mixer, we can demand that it be stopped. What do we demand with Veronica Mars? If we all were on the same page and all expressed our outrage and the show and the network had to respond, it's not as simple as "breaking up" Veronica and her rapist.
We've now got a season where she's raped and a season where she's not.
We could speak out about the "romance" of Luke and Laura. (Something, the rape, the show eventually had to deal with many, many years later.)
When we reviewed Veronica Mars, we pointed out that the rape, the death of her friend and her mother's then presumed death didn't appear to have any impact on her as she went from one group of males to another with extreme pluck.
We didn't buy the marketing of "empowerment." (We did buy the marketing that she was raped when reviewed the show this summer.)
She was never "empowerment." She was daddy's little girl. That's what Veronica Mars still is.
Only now you can add in that she's a woman who falsely cried rape. And in the current context, that's not a message feminist should support.
To that, we're supposed to scream, "Hurray for feminism!"
That bothers us. Especially when we hear crap about how this show is so wonderful for "young females." Maybe if your message to "young females" is "Date your rapist because it turns out he didn't rape you!"
The issue of the rape wasn't addressed in the gushing from some women, old enough to know better, and men over Veronica Mars. Joss Whedon and others felt the fact that it hadn't effected her was somehow powerful. Whedon writes:
At the center of it all is Veronica herself. Bell is most remarkable not for what she brings (warmth, intelligence, and big funny) but for what she leaves out. For all the pathos of her arc, she never begs for our affection. There is a distance to her, a hole in the center of Veronica's persona.
We're biting our tongues to put this as nicely as possible, but unless we're ready to reconfigure the acting attempts of Ali MacGraw as some sort of female counterpoint to the acting attempts of Clint Eastwood, we don't see anything praise worthy in Bell's "hole." As we noted in our review this summer, nothing effects her. She seems completely unaware of what the character she's playing is supposed to have gone through. That's superficial line reading mistaking itself for acting.
As some of you push that show as a strong choice, a recommended one, for young women in their formative years, ask yourself how you justify the rape ("rape") storyline in the current climate that women are living in.
We see that as neither empowering nor healthy.
We see it conveying that "the woman really wanted it" and only cried "rape" afterward because the male she had sex with vanished/split. (A rather extreme reaction to no post-coital cuddling.) That is the point of that storyline and we're not going to kid (whether tomorrow the "great brain" behind it decides Veronica was once again raped or not).
When we offer our opinions here, we're usually going against the grain. That's because we don't buy into the hype. We're not evaluating what's "hot" at the mythical water cooler, or what "conventional wisdom" screams you should notice in a "Don't look behind the curtain!" kind of way.
So when we look at a "family sitcom," we do notice that yet another emanciated (not emancipated!) young actress has been cast in a role while the "sons" are allowed to be as stocky or overweight as they want to be. Maybe that's because wardrobe's not handing the guys plunging necklines?
We've got nothing against plunging necklines in and of themselves. We just don't see them as a mandatory wardrobe. We've praised Charmed for its message of women's empowerment and for the fact that three female leads control their own lives (and impact the world around them). The women of Charmed aren't wearing habits or burkas. We're under no illusion that they aren't seen as eye candy by some viewers. But Charmed hasn't been afraid to parade male flesh either. (Julian McMahon to cite but one example.)
If anyone slobbering over Desperate Housewives can't grasp the point, Charmed's featured healthy does of Antonio Sabato Jr., McMahon, Kerr Smith and more. (We're hoping Ivan Sergei will sport some skin.) Those aren't boxy men, waists spilling over their Dockers, standing next to twigs possessing unbelievable breasts that spill out of their blouses.
Nor do the women of Charmed fulfill the fantasies of uptight, Republican men. They're not hidden away from the world in their little enclave where they backbite and wait for something to happen. They're not laughable characters. In fact, in real life, they're the targets of the 'vangicals. That's due to the fact that the women do have a sex life, that they're witches and that no man can destroy the bond between the women in the long run.
Charmed is now the longest running prime time drama starring women, revolving around women. So forgive us if all the mindless chatter over Desperate Housewives, with it's archaic view of women, struck us as less than feminist critiques.
We understand that settling has to occur with TV. That's largely because we've stop demanding, but that's a topic we'll address shortly. What's on the air is less than perfect and Charmed's not Shakespeare (or Crimes of the Heart). But it's also not degrading women.
When trouble strikes, it's send in the Charmed ones, not send in Sydney Bristow with a bunch of men or plucky little Veronica Mars who is basically Shirley Temple with a magnifying glass and a dash of Kathy Webb tossed in.
Feminsim shouldn't run after trends that the mainstream's pushing, feminism should be critiquing those trends, questioning them. And when feminists push Veronica Mars and ignore the rape issue, we've got a problem with that.
The reason that a wider range of women could find success on TV in the seventies wasn't because the networks suddenly wanted a wider range, it's because feminists demanded it. When networks put together their schedules, they knew they'd be criticized strongly and loudly. And we all benefitted from that. TV didn't become perfect in it's casting, but a wider range of performers was seen. You had Maude, you had The Jeffersons, you had Rhoda, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Good Times, Family, One Day At A Time, Alice, What's Happening?, and much more. It still wasn't a full range of women, but it was a wider range.
What we've seen since then is a much more narrow view. And, to focus on one network, we've seen an outright pattern of hostility to women. That would be CBS which isn't happy to have a hit show, it's determined to have a hit show with men in the lead and women providing "support." It's not just that Everybody Thinks Everybody Loves Raymond couldn't get behind the concept of a married woman working after she had children, it goes beyond that.
Cagney & Lacey? How did that show stay on the air? Not from the support of CBS, but from the support of viewers who screamed bloody murder when the show CBS never really wanted was under attack despite being a hit. Now in the so-called "free market," you'd assume a hit show would be seen as a hit show and something for CBS to be happy about. That wasn't the case with Cagney & Lacey. CBS actively undermined that show. They insisted that an actress be fired because the brass didn't find her "feminine" enough. They fretted that Christine might be seen as "loose." No such problem with Magnum P.I. On that show, women could be as "loose" as Thomas Magnum wanted. When it's a show from a male point of view, issues like "Is the character having too much sex?" are rarely raised.
Cagney & Lacey isn't the only female led show that CBS actively undermined. Go down the list, it includes Cybil (whose show was outperforming Ally McBeal until CBS decided to put it on hiatus -- a good way to lose viewers and they knew that), it includes Touched By An Angel, Murder She Wrote, The Nanny, Murphy Brown, Kate & Allie, Judging Amy, Joan of
Arcadia . . .
This isn't something that just happened, this is a pattern. CBS gets away with it because we don't pressure them. We don't talk about their history of playing the shuffle game with female led shows. In the past, feminism wasn't afraid to demand that magazines, TV shows, radio programs provide representation. We never got full representation but we had a better view provided than what we have today.
During that period, had Desperate Housewives aired, it would have been rightly ridiculed for what it is, an attempt to put women where some small minded male thinks they belong. And you certainly wouldn't have seen writers desperate to credit Marc Cherry (Marc Cherry!) with The Golden Girls. That was Susan Harris' brainchild. She steered that show to success. Cherry comes along in the final seasons as one of a multitude of writers and producers -- yet to read the coverage today, The Golden Girls is Marc Cherry's credit. Not Golden Palace, the hideous spin off that Cherry did have a hand in creating. (Harris wisely avoided that show.)
It is awful when male writers strip a woman of her proper credit, it's worse when women who portray themselves as feminist do the same. When you take a show that Susan Harris created and gave her time and energy into bringing to the air and you turn around and give credit for it to a man who shows up late in the show's long, long run, you're spitting on women.
You're doing that by denying women's accomplishments. Now every generation, women have to reinvent the wheel because their accomplishments are erased but let's not kid that some of the erasing going on currently is not being done by women, including women who call themselves feminists. Let's not pretend that it's okay to strip Susan Harris of the credit she deserves and has earned just to prop up the man (isn't it always a man, as Rebecca would say) behind a trend show.
Studies still come out on the lack of representation of people of color and ethnicity in TV portrayals each year. They don't get a lot of attention. When we were all working together to actively and vocally demand wider representation, we made strides, we had accomplishments.
So it's not just women or women of color or ethnicity that are harmed when feminists line up to applaud some white male pushing some retro program, it's everyone that's hurt.
And Geena Davis starring as window dressing, fish out of water, isn't helping feminism and it's not helping women. Don't kid yourself and don't blather on kidding other people. As we noted in our review, this "independent" voter, ran on a ticket with a man whose programs, as noted on the first show, if carried out, would turn back the rights of so many. If you missed it, that's the reason Davis decides not to step down, because the dying man wants Donald Sutherland to carry on his agenda. But what's the reason she agreed to share a ticket with a man like that begin with?
That's not feminism. Her character allowed herself to be used to make horrible programs palitable.
Add in the macho nonsense that puts two nations at risk, she's willing to risk war. That's not feminism. (Even if the single person being saved is a woman.) A woman whose cabinet is apparently made up solely of men, that's not feminism. Giving the role of communicator to a woman (who needs a Saved By The Bell reject to teach her how to 'look' like a woman, a male Saved By The Bell reject of course), that's not feminism.
You can blather on about the red sweater Davis wore or her crimson lipstick or how her lips closed indicate power or some such nonsense, but don't hail it as a feminist statement, because it's not.
Maybe you got lost when GRRRL Power was watered down and transformed into Girl Power or maybe you thought Do-Me-Feminism truly was a breakthrough? "It's feminism! Feminism even Playboy can get behind!" But your priorites are out of whack and you need to return to core principles. If you've never studied them, you should now.
We've offered our opinions week after week. We haven't made a point to say, "This is the only opinion!" We should be part of a larger feminist critique offering many other voices and providing many other perspectives. But we think some of the threatening e-mails stem from the fact that we're part of a very small group that's offering any kind of feminist criticism. While a lot of other women are rushing in to celebrate that a Buffy alumni is guesting!
Instead of true feminist criticism, we get, "It stars a woman!" Instead of questioning the cowing of Buffy or the producer's desire to undermine women (which didn't end with Buffy), we get "Buffy was great!"
We get, "Willow's on this show! It's a feminist statement!"
Was the killing of a lesbian a feminist statement or was it the same crap we've seen in The Fox and countless other shows and movies? Was the cowing of Buffy feminism? Were the efforts to pair Buffy with Spike feminism? What was the message behind any of that because we don't detect a feminist one? Nor did we see the addition of the show's own Cheryl Ladd (the character of Dawn) as a feminist statement. We saw it for what it was, another busty, young female tossed into the mix playing a bumbling, giggling, sheltered fool making sure women didn't appear too strong or too threatening to men who get the willies when a woman actually has a mind and uses it for something other than selecting a shade of lipstick.
Early on, Buffy provided some strong television. We're not disputing that. But we're not pushing the notion that the show, from start to end, provided a good message for young females. Nor have we fallen into the trap of praising Serendipity or any other nonsense that Joss tries to churn out with token female characters. If he had his way, they'd be serving the role Sally McMillan served on McMillan & Wife. (That would be the role Joss cast Cordelia in on Angel.) But, though he doesn't appreciate it, he's known as the man who can create "strong" women characters. So when he tries to sell a new show, the first question is, "Are their strong women characters?" So we get tokens. And Joss Whedon is turned into a poster boy for feminism.
We just know that we're tired of women's accomplishments being ignored and we're tired of women being stripped of their credit or having their talent dismissed.
We're tired of seeing Threshold, a really bad show by any standard, promoted as a show women should be watching. Why is that? Bad TV is something women are supposed to be interested in? Or are we to rejoice in the fact that the lead character lies regularly because she doesn't trust the public and doesn't believe in the public's right to know?
Threshold's not feminism and you need to quit kidding yourself and stop promoting it. Feminism has often argued that if every woman told the truth about her life, the world as we know it, would cease to exist. So forgive us for not applauding a show where the woman, the sole female lead, actively promotes disinforming, misinforming, the public.
Feminism never dies. It goes through periods where it's not noted by the mainstream media. But go to any area, talk to any group of women and you'll find that feminism never dies. But let's step away from the mainstream media and wonder why women (and men) self-portraying as feminist think it's okay to praise shows that are damaging to women?
Or to turn one man after another into a poster boy for feminism? Marc Cherry, Joss Whedon, go down the list. Men who cashed in off women's interest but didn't do anything to promote women aren't the poster boys for feminism. Instead of applauding these sorry excuses, you should be holding them accountable if you're a feminist. You should be demanding to know why Tara had to die on Buffy, why the role of Dawn appeared to be cast on breast size, why Buffy's growing strength needed to balanced with silly female characters and why, in the final seasons, Buffy had to be cowed?
Those are questions feminists should be asking. Wasting time portraying a show pushing the notion that wome falsely cry rape won't address those issues. Celebrating a Peyton Place reduxe as feminism won't address those issues. They may get you read more since you're endorsing false beliefs that are passing for truths. No one will sneer "bra burner" or "women's libber" at you. Maybe you think you're making feminism "palitable." You're not.
You're playing it safe at a time when we can't afford to play it safe. Women are under attack all over the world. If your focus is pop culture or that's a terrain you often comment on, then you need to do so in a feminist way or you need to quit calling yourself a feminist.
We don't believe feminism encourages impressionable young girls to watch a show that promotes the lead in a show geared towards young woman, a character in high school, as the first rape victim (in a lead role) who turns out to be the first rape victim in that genre to cry rape falsely.
We find that outrageous. Usually, we try to make our points with humor. We realize that many will miss them (we're surprised, happily so, that so many do get the points). But we like to laugh and we figure if we can make you laugh, maybe one of the points that you don't grasp immediately (or that you initially disagree with) is something that will stay with you.
We know some read just to laugh and we're figuring that some readers will be disappointed with this piece. They'll feel that we've hopped on the soap box and abandoned our usual humorous treatment. We have. We'll cop to that.
But it's time someone said "Enough." It's time someone said that feminism isn't about one woman, whether she's president or whether she's the lead in a show. It's actually about women and men, straights, gays, bis, transgender persons, all races, go down the list. That's because feminism is focused on humanity. It's not supposed to revolve around whether or not Geena Davis is cast as the lead in a group of males. It's not supposed to revolve around setting up fan clubs for men who promote stereotypes about women.
But somewhere, something's stopped connecting. And we find it outrageous.
There are plenty of shows that are open to various feminist interpretations. Is Twins, for instance, a feminist show? That topic would result in a variety of answers, a wealth of opinion. But while some programs might be debatable, when you're dealing with a show like Veronica Mars, we don't think it's open to various feminist interpretations -- we think they've sent a message loudly and clearly of where they stand. We only wonder why their message is being ignored?
For all TV critics, online and in print, male and female, we hope you think seriously about what you're promoting. You can't dismiss it with "it's just TV." You've chosen to write about it. Criticism isn't recapping the plot. Criticism entails addresing what's being done and what being said. We don't feel that most criticism has reflected anything other than a desire to play follow the herd blindly. We think that does everyone a disservice. As feminists, we think there's no excuse for actively promoting a show that presents rape as some sort of more active social mixer or that presents rape as a charge that women make on a whim.
A reader wrote in this week and Dona passed the e-mail on saying, "Please read this." We did.
She wondered, the reader, why it is that we are part of a small group of feminists that have praised Medium? Considering all that crap that's being pushed as empowerment, we're surprised that she was able to list as many online feminists that have praised the show. (And we're glad to be included in that grouping.) But she wondered why a show that demonstrates a woman can work and have children (revolutionary in the wake of Raymond), a show that "stars a woman playing a woman, not another big boobs and no brains fantasy of a woman, ain't promoted" by the other online feminists. (She named names.)
We can't give you a simple answer. We wish we could. We could offer best guesses. But we seriously think you need to ask the names on your list why they're ignoring Medium but showering Veronica Mars with praise.
We realize feminism is diverse. We also realize that some core beliefs exist. Minimizing rape has never been one of them. Now maybe they find the actor playing the rapist "sexy" or maybe they're suffering from rape fantasies themselves? Or maybe they think it's "powerful" that a woman who cries rape can figure out, after a full season, that she wasn't raped? Who knows?
They can think whatever they want for themselves. They can't, however, promote to impressionable young girls that Veronica Mars is a show that will empower them.
You can't dismiss the message as an "interesting plot twist." You can't close your eyes and shut your mouth to what the show's promoting. Not if you are truly are a feminist.
In the seventies, our statements wouldn't have been controversial. That this commentary may shock some shows how much under attack women are and how much ground we've already lost.
It won't be reclaimed by rallying around the token. It's time to start making the sort of demands that women did in years prior. And the thing is, despite the marketing of rape, there was never anything empowering about Veronica Mars. Nancy Drew has Bess and George (both women), Mars is for the boys and with the boys. Getting behind the power of her rape in the first season when she was claiming she was raped, required noting that maybe her interactions with males weren't in keeping with the actions of most rape victims? Or were we supposed to find this "hole," as Joss did, in the character worthy of praise?
If serious questions were raised about Veronica Mars from the start (and if Joss' opinion wasn't wrongly given so much weight), we can't imagine that the show would have been promoted as much as it was by critics. That can't be changed now. The criticism is "out there." But we can ask serious questions because we're not the Bully Boy. Feminists wouldn't claim on Iraq, "Well we're over there so we have to stay there." They wouldn't make that claim because they wouldn't offer the same "logic" to a woman in an abusive relationship. They'd tell her, things aren't going to get better, get the hell out.
But what can be done now and in the future is for serious questions, feminist issues, to be raised before the next token female in a male dominated show gets praised as "empowering" and the be-all, end-all, must-watch program.
It's the holidays and things are a little lighter. Which strikes your two TV critics as the perfect time to focus on the tough issues. When candy corn is abundance, we'll serve up the vegetables (steamed) to those wanting something a little more than sugar in their diet.
We take a feminist look at TV shows in our reviews. If we're commenting on a man's weight, read on and you'll find the point made that a woman's not given the same wide berth on TV. She has to fit into the same cookie cutter mode. Actually, it's a smaller mode these days. What you see on the big three networks? It's a smaller mode than what you would have seen in the seventies. You see less color in the choice of leads, you see less empowerment in the women in leading roles, you see . . . Let's be honest, you see boobs. Lots and lots of boobs.
You see them peaking, you see them sporting, but you see them.
Now T&A TV didn't begin with Alias or any other recent show. In the seventies, Charlie's Angels was dubbed T&A TV. (Though it didn't begin there either.) While it's true that the original three actresses, Farrah Fawcett, Kate Jackson and Jaclyn Smith, were beautiful women, it's also true that, like the superstar models of that period Cheryl Tiegs and Christie Brinkley, they didn't look starved. Farrah Fawcett looked athletic. And no one was threatened by that.
So to take the example of a hit show then, one dubbed T&A TV, and then look at some of the hits today is to be pretty disappointed.
What's far more disappointing is that feminist criticism, or what we're assuming passes for it these days, seems to think that a woman in the lead, surrounded by men, is somehow the cause for cheers. It doesn't matter, for instance, that they're willing to risk a war (Commander-in-Chief) that could lead to many dying on both sides, the fact that a woman's threatening war is considered a break through! Breathlessly documented as such.
Or let's take another TV show passed off as must-see for women viewers: Veronica Mars. As they breathlessly report each and every plot twist, do our feminist critics ever absorb what they're seeing? The show gets points, from some, for the fact that two African-Americans are billed in the credits. Now you hardly ever see those characters most episodes other than in the credits. But just the fact that they're in the credits is supposed to mean that the show is inclusive, according to some.
Just like Veronica Mars herself is supposed to be a feminist statement even though she's always hanging with the boys. Her mother's out of the picture (we won't bother you with that messy story, but you can check out our earlier review of the show if you're interested in it), the only woman she apparently wanted to hang with died long ago, she stands for the boys and with the boys, episode afte episode.
That's feminism?
How about this. Her boyfriend? He raped her. But he didn't. For a full season she claimed she raped her. But she wasn't.
Let's be clear here, this wasn't just her old boyfriend that turned out to be the "rapist", this is her current boyfriend. He's also got an ex-girlfriend who's pregnant. That issue doesn't bother Veronica too much.
But when you can tie a pretty bow around a character thinking she was raped, why should it?
"Oh, she was drugged!"
Waking up alone, after the boy freaks because he thinks he's slept with her sister, because of that, it's revealed to viewers finally, she goes a full season thinking she's raped.
That raises a number of issues. When was Veronica sure of what happened? (For all we know she's not sure now.) Since Veronica spent a full season last year until the cliffhanger, convinced she was raped -- what message does that send?
Not just the fact that while she thought she was raped, she was hanging around with the crowd of men that included one man suspected of raping her. (The show's confusing so let's explain that one of the plot points last year was "Who raped me!")
They build a sub-plot the whole year around the fact that she was raped and then sweep the whole thing under the covers with "Oh she was just drugged. Duncan freaked and split and like she totally woke up alone after and so it was just so freaky and all so like she thinks she was raped but, weird, man, she wasn't."
Was she raped or not? There are larger issues here about the drugging (beyond the show's tidy answer).
But more importantly, what message is that sending?
Let's table that for a moment to note Joss Whedon's remarks in October of this year (when the first season was released on DVD) because not everyone at the show is thrilled with Whedon's endorsement. The friend who called one of us (C.I.) to point out the Luna moment (Diane Keaton, Sleeper) stated we should note the great "feminist" Joss Whedon's review:
Last year, Veronica Mars' best friend was murdered. Some months later, she was drugged at a party and raped in her sleep. Welcome to the funniest and most romantic show on TV, collected on DVD in Veronica Mars: The Complete First Season.
Why note Joss other than to pick a part his review? (The friend was being sarcastic when he referred to Joss as a "feminist" by the way). Because that's actually how the claim of rape and then the claim of nonrape was justified by people doing the show: we're a funny show.
Being a funny show, it's apparently important that they provide those humorous storylines and, apparently, nothing's funnier than a woman crying rape when she wasn't raped.
Now Joss' adds "romantic" to the list which right away should mean every feminist that's been holding onto their poster with Joss on it as the face of feminism should tear it down immediately.
That's pretty much it for Joss and his so-called feminism. Those interested in deconstructing his "feminist" take can read the review.
Let's be clear here that we don't think this "I wasn't raped!" ends the rape issue. That's not just because someone at the show's pushing for another "funny twist." (The friend that called thought we were breaking news about a decision that had been made when our earlier commentary addressed Veronica being involved with her "rapist." We weren't. We were going by a report from a friend who filmed a guest shot on the series this season.) So if they decide to go for another "funny" or "romantic" twist and it turns out Veronica once again thinks she's raped, that may be an issue for some then. We're surprised that a drugged out teenage female is supposed to be seen as comptent to consent to sex at the time it happened.
That's certainly a "message" worth exploring. And certainly people could debate what impact the rapist/not rapists's popularity in her own crowd helped impact her decision as she 'rethought' her claim?
But we're not going to delve into that.
What we're going to focus on is that she was marketed as a rape victim.
Rob Owen, writing in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette last February was helping to market that strategy. (He's not the only one and this isn't laugh at Rob Owen or anyone else. The show marketed this. The people behind the show.) Owen noted Veronica's "ability to adapt to the hand life's dealt her" and that "[d]espite her sad state in the premiere episode -- friendless, date raped, abandoned by mom, dumped by her boyfriend -- Veronica bounced back."
Again we're not attempting to embarrass Owen. Owen reported what the show was pushing and what they were pushing was Veronica Mars was a strong woman who'd overcome so much including rape! That at last a rape victim wasn't the third or fourth supporting female lead in an ensemble show or that it wasn't a guest star dropping by for a very special episode of 90210, it was the lead character and she was strong! and she would overcome! and she was overcoming!
(Owen might want to check whether or not he transcribed Rob Thomas' quote correctly. One of them is wrong. Owen quoting him or Thomas' own recollection. In Soap Dish, Sally Field doesn't go to a "ball" to be admired, she goes to a "mall.")
Heather Havrilesky, writing in Salon last March, made a long list of what she loved about the show and the character. That included mentioing, not surprisingly, the rape: "I love that she's been through hell -- her friend's death, her mother's disappearance, her mysterious rape -- and she's pissed off about it, but she doesn't have time to wallow." Let's repeat Havrilesky's not lying about a rape. Nor is she bringing up a minor plot point. The "rape" probably shows up in all the coverage of the show because the people behind the show marketed that.
C.I.: We had an all nighter and then some due to my stopping the writing process to do a long reply to an e-mail on feminism. I was supposed to have called my friend at one in the morning my time (and his) because I'd mentioned Ava and I were going to be commenting (again) on this show he's involved with. I didn't do the fact check, with that call, that I should have and will cop to it. I focused on something I thought was more important (for several hours -- and I'd have to think it was important to put everyone involved in putting out these editions on hold while I did the e-mail I did). It was eleven in the morning my time when we finished this edition. I crawled into bed and slept through the ringing phone. When I finally answered it hours later it was my friend explaining we had a mistake in our review. He quickly explained that Duncan didn't rape Veronica. I wasn't bothered by that and made the Luna joke on myself. I was hurrying to get off the phone to call Ava and tell her we needed to do a correction and, I felt, an apology when he asks who I heard from that Duncan raped Veronica? I give him the name of the guest star and he replies he was afraid I'd heard that from ___ and that a decision had been made to "milk" the rape yet again by having it turn out that Veronica was raped. At which point, I asked, "What do you mean she wasn't raped?" and settled in for a long phone conversation.
Ava: C.I. calls me and tells me, "There's news and news. Which do you want first?" I pick what turns out to be that Duncan didn't, by the story's current plot and non-complex view, rape Veronica. I didn't laugh it off as easily as C.I. did in the inital reaction but I didn't see it as the end of the world and said, "Okay, let's work on the correction." Then C.I. says, "It's a little more complicated than that."
To accept today that Veronica Mars wasn't raped, you have to be willing to toss out questions of consent. We're not ruling that issue out. We've raised it and may explore it at a future date. We're also not going to rule out the possibility that at the end of the second season, Veronica may well "realize" that she was raped. We've noted it. Sick minds at work on that show will do with that show whatever they want.
As it stands at the moment, Veronica wasn't raped by Duncan (if you dismiss issues of consent).
Go through message boards for the first season (we went through two but we're told this is true in most places) and what do you read from young women? You read that Veronica's strong and powerful and they usually work in the example of her rape (some type "rape" and some type "date rape").
These young women aren't "wrong." (Qualifier, these young women -- or men of any age or older women. The voices we're referring to present as young woman -- but it's also true, shhhh don't tell, that Veronica Mars' staff also works those message boards; while accusing scorned Joan of Arcadia fans of working the message boards to slam The Ghost Whisperer, friends at CBS say that there were also people paid to post postive notes about the then unyet aired Ghost Whisperer.) The critics and reporters pushing that line were sold it. We don't mean by what they saw on their TV, we mean by the show. In press conferences and interviews, this was seen by those with the show as a marketing point, as a way to raise interest in a program and as a way to demonstrate their "empowerment" cred. (And sold via the staff that posted as young girls on the message board.)
So the public was fooled and critics were fooled. (Count us fooled for accepting that she was raped when we did our review of the show and wrong for, this morning, believing that Duncan was still the rapist.) (But note, we didn't push the show as view worthy either time.) And some will chalk it up to another moment similar to Victoria Principal's Pam stepping out of the shower on Dallas to realize that episodes of Bobby's death and more were "all a dream."
That may be true for some, but it shouldn't be true for feminists. Especially not ones who promoted this show and noted the "rape."
Young women (see qualifier) identified with that plot. They saw Veronica overcoming. She gave them hope last season. Now rape is nothing but a marketing tool. And a fictional victim (ficitional works on several levels) of rape isn't one.
What is the message now because we're confused. Apparently it's "You been a naughty girl, you let your knickers down." ("I Am the Walrus" -- credited to John Lennon & Paul McCartney.) Apparently it's that when TV gives you a leading actress who's supposedly competent and strong and can overcome rape and get on with her life, she's actually not a woman who's been raped. Apparently, since this is one of the few leads to be raped and a first for a show marketed to young woman, we're back to no leads get raped in shows for young women.
Reading one post, via a cache -- use that for the real time posts, and it goes beyond the normal reasons you'd use a cache version, shhh, we can't reveal all the show's staff secrets -- of a young woman (see qualifier) writing of her own rape and how she identified with Veronica and found "strength" from Veronica, we had to wonder what she's supposed to think now? Especially when she wrote about how some people didn't believe her. Let's hope she didn't use Veronica Mars as an example anywhere but online.
Let's hope too that her school isn't populated with any of the 'ironic' commentators that populated Buffy or else she may be spoken of in terms similar to this: "She says she was raped. She's so first season Veronica Mars."
When the only female lead of a show aimed at young women and marketed as a rape victim for it's debut season turns out not to be raped, we're not just back to not having a lead in such a genre who's been raped. We now have a young woman who cried rape where there was none.
That's a message. The show felt the guys were performing better with the audience then they hat expected them to. (The same "logic" that led to the "softening" of Tony Geary's rapist Luke on General Hospital.) So it was decided, while the rape was still being marketed, that Veronica would in fact not be raped.
It's as though the final episode of Joan of Arcadia had a Crying Game twist wherein we found out that Joan was in fact John.
Because the show broke the trust it sought to build with young women.
In doing so the show didn't just fall back into the "logic" of only supporting actresses and guest actresses get raped, it offered a new "message" -- that a rape victim lead isn't raped.
We've gone from an attitude of "I can find strength in Veronica because she proves that you can be strong and still the victim of rape" to apparently "I was raped but Veronica wasn't after saying she was. How do I find strength in that?"
In the original version of this commentary, we took feminist viewers to task for promoting a show where Veronica Mars ended up with her rapist. We were wrong. We were insulted based on faulty information and have no problem copping to that.
We think the facts (or "facts" since the show may change them again) as they stand today are even more damning. Feminists who pushed this show as empowering last season need to be screaming their heads off. Not just because they and the viewers were lied to. (And let's repeat one more time, the show marketed Veronica as a rape victim in publicity and promotion for the show.) Though they should be angry about that. But more importantly, rape's not an issue to "play" with.
And enough victims to this day still find their accusations denied (and themselves attacked). Would this have happened if a woman was running the show? Possibly. Because, as we often point out, a first can be a worst, a woman can be as a bad as any pigheaded man. But if a feminist, a real feminist male or female, was writing this show, rape wouldn't have been "funny."
Presenting Veronica as a "rape victim" and then as "not a rape victim" wouldn't have been done by a feminist.
A feminist would have known the charged environment that still surrounds rape. She, or he, would have realized that if the character had been marketed as a rape victim, that detail was "locked in" because there are way too many doubts that still greet women who are raped.
That's why this is so damaging, the reversal. It's far worse than Veronica dating her rapist. That's offensive. But it's a "plot point" that males never tire of airing.
What's been done here is something news. A supposed strong and competent woman cries rape where there was none. A feminist wouldn't do that in today's climate, in a show marketed to young woman. She, or he, might do it in a play or a film for adults (we don't mean X-rated, we mean geared for an adult audience). She, or he, wouldn't do it in a show geared towards young women.
At a time when rape shield laws aren't just under attack but are publicly ignored, a feminist wouldn't enter into the areana with a show about a high school student, one geared to young viewers, and present a storyline where for a full season the young woman claims rape only to learn that it never happened.
When someone objects to a portrayal of race on TV (these days it's just as likely to be a non-portrayal since we've lost so much ground and the big three aren't interested in people of color being cast as leads), you'll hear someone say, "It's just TV." We don't buy that argument. These are the folk tales and fairy tales of our culture. These are the narratives we're sold.
But for those who want to question or quibble that point, let's point out (again) that this show was marketed as "empowering" for young women. (By the people with the show.) And this marketing was picked up by critics, female and male, feminist and non-feminist.
It's time for feminist critics to call the show out. It would be great if all critics did, but for feminists this should be a no-brainer. We saw photos of woman charging rape posted online (and a name and a phone number) in a recent high profile rape case. We saw some in the mainstream media use the excuse that it was online to spread that information.
When rape shield laws are under attack, when "thinkers" such as Camille Paglia dismiss the very concept of date rape, the last thing young women need on this issue is a "plot twist" that tells us the rape victim wasn't raped.
We joke and laugh but we take our responsibility here seriously. (Even if one of us did fail to make a needed phone call. Copped to and owned.) We know that we're providing a feminist critique at a time when most have "moved on." We know that "the age of irony" supposedly made such critiques "unneeded." (We don't buy that argument and we also don't buy that irony died post 9/11.) We also take seriously the audience for The Third Estate Sunday Review which includes a number of young families who are struggling and can't afford cable. That's why we spent our reviews that we penned (as opposed to the intial group efforts) focusing on the big three. We reviewed (and slammed) Veronica Mars only when CBS started airing it in the summer. We avoided Fox and UPN and the WB until the summer when we could confirm that long term readers did have those choices. (News flash for some, if you don't have cable you may live an area where you only get the big three.) We've hit hard on covering Friday nights because the young families who read The Third Estate Sunday Review wrote often and early about being in a situation where going to the movies was impossible. They couldn't afford it. Not just a baby sitter, but trying to raise a family in a Bully Boy economy was a difficult task. So they spend many Friday nights at home. (Many other nights as well.)
That's not any failure on their part, it's the economy which continues to do "well" if you're sitting near the top. If you're in the middle or below, there's no good economic news for you despite the headlines in The New York Times. (Nor was The Times' editorial noting the death of free TV good news. Give the paper credit for being one of the few to cover this impending development.)
We also take seriously that they do have young children. So we take on the messages that are being sent. If a show's nothing but sex, we'll note it. We won't condemn it for that. (As our reviews requesting more male flesh will attest.) But we will work it in so that people with children will be warned if it's an issue to them. (Sex was never an issue for us growing up. You can read that as a message to let your children watch anything on broadcast TV or you can see it as a cautionary tale.)
Neither of us now read the e-mails on the reviews. There are too many that are threatening and we don't need the headache or have the time. We will read something that Dona or Jess or Ty insist we read for a reason other than the person is praising a review we wrote or bothered by it. But we do get a summary of the e-mails and we pay close attention to it. What shows haven't we covered that readers want? (Disclosure, we won't say anything bad about David E. Kelley so there's no point in asking for a review of one of his shows. We wouldn't be impartial and the most extreme criticism we'd ever be comfortable leveling would be that Lara Flynn Boyle should have been kept in the cast of what's emerged from The Practice.) We pay attention to the statements of what issues aren't being raised or addressed (by us or others)?
We're not interested in making the TV world "child safe." We are interested in making sure that our readers who are parents have the information to determine whether or not the show we're reviewing is something they'd want their children to watch.
So we are actually more offended by the new "twist" than that Veronica Mars isn't having a relationship with her rapist. That theme is offensive and it's popped up numerous times. But marketing a high school student as a rape victim and then offering "It never happened -- she was wrong" is even more offensive in the current climate.
If a show promotes the notion of rape as some sort of event on the road to courtship or an exteme social mixer, we can demand that it be stopped. What do we demand with Veronica Mars? If we all were on the same page and all expressed our outrage and the show and the network had to respond, it's not as simple as "breaking up" Veronica and her rapist.
We've now got a season where she's raped and a season where she's not.
We could speak out about the "romance" of Luke and Laura. (Something, the rape, the show eventually had to deal with many, many years later.)
When we reviewed Veronica Mars, we pointed out that the rape, the death of her friend and her mother's then presumed death didn't appear to have any impact on her as she went from one group of males to another with extreme pluck.
We didn't buy the marketing of "empowerment." (We did buy the marketing that she was raped when reviewed the show this summer.)
She was never "empowerment." She was daddy's little girl. That's what Veronica Mars still is.
Only now you can add in that she's a woman who falsely cried rape. And in the current context, that's not a message feminist should support.
To that, we're supposed to scream, "Hurray for feminism!"
That bothers us. Especially when we hear crap about how this show is so wonderful for "young females." Maybe if your message to "young females" is "Date your rapist because it turns out he didn't rape you!"
The issue of the rape wasn't addressed in the gushing from some women, old enough to know better, and men over Veronica Mars. Joss Whedon and others felt the fact that it hadn't effected her was somehow powerful. Whedon writes:
At the center of it all is Veronica herself. Bell is most remarkable not for what she brings (warmth, intelligence, and big funny) but for what she leaves out. For all the pathos of her arc, she never begs for our affection. There is a distance to her, a hole in the center of Veronica's persona.
We're biting our tongues to put this as nicely as possible, but unless we're ready to reconfigure the acting attempts of Ali MacGraw as some sort of female counterpoint to the acting attempts of Clint Eastwood, we don't see anything praise worthy in Bell's "hole." As we noted in our review this summer, nothing effects her. She seems completely unaware of what the character she's playing is supposed to have gone through. That's superficial line reading mistaking itself for acting.
As some of you push that show as a strong choice, a recommended one, for young women in their formative years, ask yourself how you justify the rape ("rape") storyline in the current climate that women are living in.
We see that as neither empowering nor healthy.
We see it conveying that "the woman really wanted it" and only cried "rape" afterward because the male she had sex with vanished/split. (A rather extreme reaction to no post-coital cuddling.) That is the point of that storyline and we're not going to kid (whether tomorrow the "great brain" behind it decides Veronica was once again raped or not).
When we offer our opinions here, we're usually going against the grain. That's because we don't buy into the hype. We're not evaluating what's "hot" at the mythical water cooler, or what "conventional wisdom" screams you should notice in a "Don't look behind the curtain!" kind of way.
So when we look at a "family sitcom," we do notice that yet another emanciated (not emancipated!) young actress has been cast in a role while the "sons" are allowed to be as stocky or overweight as they want to be. Maybe that's because wardrobe's not handing the guys plunging necklines?
We've got nothing against plunging necklines in and of themselves. We just don't see them as a mandatory wardrobe. We've praised Charmed for its message of women's empowerment and for the fact that three female leads control their own lives (and impact the world around them). The women of Charmed aren't wearing habits or burkas. We're under no illusion that they aren't seen as eye candy by some viewers. But Charmed hasn't been afraid to parade male flesh either. (Julian McMahon to cite but one example.)
If anyone slobbering over Desperate Housewives can't grasp the point, Charmed's featured healthy does of Antonio Sabato Jr., McMahon, Kerr Smith and more. (We're hoping Ivan Sergei will sport some skin.) Those aren't boxy men, waists spilling over their Dockers, standing next to twigs possessing unbelievable breasts that spill out of their blouses.
Nor do the women of Charmed fulfill the fantasies of uptight, Republican men. They're not hidden away from the world in their little enclave where they backbite and wait for something to happen. They're not laughable characters. In fact, in real life, they're the targets of the 'vangicals. That's due to the fact that the women do have a sex life, that they're witches and that no man can destroy the bond between the women in the long run.
Charmed is now the longest running prime time drama starring women, revolving around women. So forgive us if all the mindless chatter over Desperate Housewives, with it's archaic view of women, struck us as less than feminist critiques.
We understand that settling has to occur with TV. That's largely because we've stop demanding, but that's a topic we'll address shortly. What's on the air is less than perfect and Charmed's not Shakespeare (or Crimes of the Heart). But it's also not degrading women.
When trouble strikes, it's send in the Charmed ones, not send in Sydney Bristow with a bunch of men or plucky little Veronica Mars who is basically Shirley Temple with a magnifying glass and a dash of Kathy Webb tossed in.
Feminsim shouldn't run after trends that the mainstream's pushing, feminism should be critiquing those trends, questioning them. And when feminists push Veronica Mars and ignore the rape issue, we've got a problem with that.
The reason that a wider range of women could find success on TV in the seventies wasn't because the networks suddenly wanted a wider range, it's because feminists demanded it. When networks put together their schedules, they knew they'd be criticized strongly and loudly. And we all benefitted from that. TV didn't become perfect in it's casting, but a wider range of performers was seen. You had Maude, you had The Jeffersons, you had Rhoda, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Good Times, Family, One Day At A Time, Alice, What's Happening?, and much more. It still wasn't a full range of women, but it was a wider range.
What we've seen since then is a much more narrow view. And, to focus on one network, we've seen an outright pattern of hostility to women. That would be CBS which isn't happy to have a hit show, it's determined to have a hit show with men in the lead and women providing "support." It's not just that Everybody Thinks Everybody Loves Raymond couldn't get behind the concept of a married woman working after she had children, it goes beyond that.
Cagney & Lacey? How did that show stay on the air? Not from the support of CBS, but from the support of viewers who screamed bloody murder when the show CBS never really wanted was under attack despite being a hit. Now in the so-called "free market," you'd assume a hit show would be seen as a hit show and something for CBS to be happy about. That wasn't the case with Cagney & Lacey. CBS actively undermined that show. They insisted that an actress be fired because the brass didn't find her "feminine" enough. They fretted that Christine might be seen as "loose." No such problem with Magnum P.I. On that show, women could be as "loose" as Thomas Magnum wanted. When it's a show from a male point of view, issues like "Is the character having too much sex?" are rarely raised.
Cagney & Lacey isn't the only female led show that CBS actively undermined. Go down the list, it includes Cybil (whose show was outperforming Ally McBeal until CBS decided to put it on hiatus -- a good way to lose viewers and they knew that), it includes Touched By An Angel, Murder She Wrote, The Nanny, Murphy Brown, Kate & Allie, Judging Amy, Joan of
Arcadia . . .
This isn't something that just happened, this is a pattern. CBS gets away with it because we don't pressure them. We don't talk about their history of playing the shuffle game with female led shows. In the past, feminism wasn't afraid to demand that magazines, TV shows, radio programs provide representation. We never got full representation but we had a better view provided than what we have today.
During that period, had Desperate Housewives aired, it would have been rightly ridiculed for what it is, an attempt to put women where some small minded male thinks they belong. And you certainly wouldn't have seen writers desperate to credit Marc Cherry (Marc Cherry!) with The Golden Girls. That was Susan Harris' brainchild. She steered that show to success. Cherry comes along in the final seasons as one of a multitude of writers and producers -- yet to read the coverage today, The Golden Girls is Marc Cherry's credit. Not Golden Palace, the hideous spin off that Cherry did have a hand in creating. (Harris wisely avoided that show.)
It is awful when male writers strip a woman of her proper credit, it's worse when women who portray themselves as feminist do the same. When you take a show that Susan Harris created and gave her time and energy into bringing to the air and you turn around and give credit for it to a man who shows up late in the show's long, long run, you're spitting on women.
You're doing that by denying women's accomplishments. Now every generation, women have to reinvent the wheel because their accomplishments are erased but let's not kid that some of the erasing going on currently is not being done by women, including women who call themselves feminists. Let's not pretend that it's okay to strip Susan Harris of the credit she deserves and has earned just to prop up the man (isn't it always a man, as Rebecca would say) behind a trend show.
Studies still come out on the lack of representation of people of color and ethnicity in TV portrayals each year. They don't get a lot of attention. When we were all working together to actively and vocally demand wider representation, we made strides, we had accomplishments.
So it's not just women or women of color or ethnicity that are harmed when feminists line up to applaud some white male pushing some retro program, it's everyone that's hurt.
And Geena Davis starring as window dressing, fish out of water, isn't helping feminism and it's not helping women. Don't kid yourself and don't blather on kidding other people. As we noted in our review, this "independent" voter, ran on a ticket with a man whose programs, as noted on the first show, if carried out, would turn back the rights of so many. If you missed it, that's the reason Davis decides not to step down, because the dying man wants Donald Sutherland to carry on his agenda. But what's the reason she agreed to share a ticket with a man like that begin with?
That's not feminism. Her character allowed herself to be used to make horrible programs palitable.
Add in the macho nonsense that puts two nations at risk, she's willing to risk war. That's not feminism. (Even if the single person being saved is a woman.) A woman whose cabinet is apparently made up solely of men, that's not feminism. Giving the role of communicator to a woman (who needs a Saved By The Bell reject to teach her how to 'look' like a woman, a male Saved By The Bell reject of course), that's not feminism.
You can blather on about the red sweater Davis wore or her crimson lipstick or how her lips closed indicate power or some such nonsense, but don't hail it as a feminist statement, because it's not.
Maybe you got lost when GRRRL Power was watered down and transformed into Girl Power or maybe you thought Do-Me-Feminism truly was a breakthrough? "It's feminism! Feminism even Playboy can get behind!" But your priorites are out of whack and you need to return to core principles. If you've never studied them, you should now.
We've offered our opinions week after week. We haven't made a point to say, "This is the only opinion!" We should be part of a larger feminist critique offering many other voices and providing many other perspectives. But we think some of the threatening e-mails stem from the fact that we're part of a very small group that's offering any kind of feminist criticism. While a lot of other women are rushing in to celebrate that a Buffy alumni is guesting!
Instead of true feminist criticism, we get, "It stars a woman!" Instead of questioning the cowing of Buffy or the producer's desire to undermine women (which didn't end with Buffy), we get "Buffy was great!"
We get, "Willow's on this show! It's a feminist statement!"
Was the killing of a lesbian a feminist statement or was it the same crap we've seen in The Fox and countless other shows and movies? Was the cowing of Buffy feminism? Were the efforts to pair Buffy with Spike feminism? What was the message behind any of that because we don't detect a feminist one? Nor did we see the addition of the show's own Cheryl Ladd (the character of Dawn) as a feminist statement. We saw it for what it was, another busty, young female tossed into the mix playing a bumbling, giggling, sheltered fool making sure women didn't appear too strong or too threatening to men who get the willies when a woman actually has a mind and uses it for something other than selecting a shade of lipstick.
Early on, Buffy provided some strong television. We're not disputing that. But we're not pushing the notion that the show, from start to end, provided a good message for young females. Nor have we fallen into the trap of praising Serendipity or any other nonsense that Joss tries to churn out with token female characters. If he had his way, they'd be serving the role Sally McMillan served on McMillan & Wife. (That would be the role Joss cast Cordelia in on Angel.) But, though he doesn't appreciate it, he's known as the man who can create "strong" women characters. So when he tries to sell a new show, the first question is, "Are their strong women characters?" So we get tokens. And Joss Whedon is turned into a poster boy for feminism.
We just know that we're tired of women's accomplishments being ignored and we're tired of women being stripped of their credit or having their talent dismissed.
We're tired of seeing Threshold, a really bad show by any standard, promoted as a show women should be watching. Why is that? Bad TV is something women are supposed to be interested in? Or are we to rejoice in the fact that the lead character lies regularly because she doesn't trust the public and doesn't believe in the public's right to know?
Threshold's not feminism and you need to quit kidding yourself and stop promoting it. Feminism has often argued that if every woman told the truth about her life, the world as we know it, would cease to exist. So forgive us for not applauding a show where the woman, the sole female lead, actively promotes disinforming, misinforming, the public.
Feminism never dies. It goes through periods where it's not noted by the mainstream media. But go to any area, talk to any group of women and you'll find that feminism never dies. But let's step away from the mainstream media and wonder why women (and men) self-portraying as feminist think it's okay to praise shows that are damaging to women?
Or to turn one man after another into a poster boy for feminism? Marc Cherry, Joss Whedon, go down the list. Men who cashed in off women's interest but didn't do anything to promote women aren't the poster boys for feminism. Instead of applauding these sorry excuses, you should be holding them accountable if you're a feminist. You should be demanding to know why Tara had to die on Buffy, why the role of Dawn appeared to be cast on breast size, why Buffy's growing strength needed to balanced with silly female characters and why, in the final seasons, Buffy had to be cowed?
Those are questions feminists should be asking. Wasting time portraying a show pushing the notion that wome falsely cry rape won't address those issues. Celebrating a Peyton Place reduxe as feminism won't address those issues. They may get you read more since you're endorsing false beliefs that are passing for truths. No one will sneer "bra burner" or "women's libber" at you. Maybe you think you're making feminism "palitable." You're not.
You're playing it safe at a time when we can't afford to play it safe. Women are under attack all over the world. If your focus is pop culture or that's a terrain you often comment on, then you need to do so in a feminist way or you need to quit calling yourself a feminist.
We don't believe feminism encourages impressionable young girls to watch a show that promotes the lead in a show geared towards young woman, a character in high school, as the first rape victim (in a lead role) who turns out to be the first rape victim in that genre to cry rape falsely.
We find that outrageous. Usually, we try to make our points with humor. We realize that many will miss them (we're surprised, happily so, that so many do get the points). But we like to laugh and we figure if we can make you laugh, maybe one of the points that you don't grasp immediately (or that you initially disagree with) is something that will stay with you.
We know some read just to laugh and we're figuring that some readers will be disappointed with this piece. They'll feel that we've hopped on the soap box and abandoned our usual humorous treatment. We have. We'll cop to that.
But it's time someone said "Enough." It's time someone said that feminism isn't about one woman, whether she's president or whether she's the lead in a show. It's actually about women and men, straights, gays, bis, transgender persons, all races, go down the list. That's because feminism is focused on humanity. It's not supposed to revolve around whether or not Geena Davis is cast as the lead in a group of males. It's not supposed to revolve around setting up fan clubs for men who promote stereotypes about women.
But somewhere, something's stopped connecting. And we find it outrageous.
There are plenty of shows that are open to various feminist interpretations. Is Twins, for instance, a feminist show? That topic would result in a variety of answers, a wealth of opinion. But while some programs might be debatable, when you're dealing with a show like Veronica Mars, we don't think it's open to various feminist interpretations -- we think they've sent a message loudly and clearly of where they stand. We only wonder why their message is being ignored?
For all TV critics, online and in print, male and female, we hope you think seriously about what you're promoting. You can't dismiss it with "it's just TV." You've chosen to write about it. Criticism isn't recapping the plot. Criticism entails addresing what's being done and what being said. We don't feel that most criticism has reflected anything other than a desire to play follow the herd blindly. We think that does everyone a disservice. As feminists, we think there's no excuse for actively promoting a show that presents rape as some sort of more active social mixer or that presents rape as a charge that women make on a whim.
A reader wrote in this week and Dona passed the e-mail on saying, "Please read this." We did.
She wondered, the reader, why it is that we are part of a small group of feminists that have praised Medium? Considering all that crap that's being pushed as empowerment, we're surprised that she was able to list as many online feminists that have praised the show. (And we're glad to be included in that grouping.) But she wondered why a show that demonstrates a woman can work and have children (revolutionary in the wake of Raymond), a show that "stars a woman playing a woman, not another big boobs and no brains fantasy of a woman, ain't promoted" by the other online feminists. (She named names.)
We can't give you a simple answer. We wish we could. We could offer best guesses. But we seriously think you need to ask the names on your list why they're ignoring Medium but showering Veronica Mars with praise.
We realize feminism is diverse. We also realize that some core beliefs exist. Minimizing rape has never been one of them. Now maybe they find the actor playing the rapist "sexy" or maybe they're suffering from rape fantasies themselves? Or maybe they think it's "powerful" that a woman who cries rape can figure out, after a full season, that she wasn't raped? Who knows?
They can think whatever they want for themselves. They can't, however, promote to impressionable young girls that Veronica Mars is a show that will empower them.
You can't dismiss the message as an "interesting plot twist." You can't close your eyes and shut your mouth to what the show's promoting. Not if you are truly are a feminist.
In the seventies, our statements wouldn't have been controversial. That this commentary may shock some shows how much under attack women are and how much ground we've already lost.
It won't be reclaimed by rallying around the token. It's time to start making the sort of demands that women did in years prior. And the thing is, despite the marketing of rape, there was never anything empowering about Veronica Mars. Nancy Drew has Bess and George (both women), Mars is for the boys and with the boys. Getting behind the power of her rape in the first season when she was claiming she was raped, required noting that maybe her interactions with males weren't in keeping with the actions of most rape victims? Or were we supposed to find this "hole," as Joss did, in the character worthy of praise?
If serious questions were raised about Veronica Mars from the start (and if Joss' opinion wasn't wrongly given so much weight), we can't imagine that the show would have been promoted as much as it was by critics. That can't be changed now. The criticism is "out there." But we can ask serious questions because we're not the Bully Boy. Feminists wouldn't claim on Iraq, "Well we're over there so we have to stay there." They wouldn't make that claim because they wouldn't offer the same "logic" to a woman in an abusive relationship. They'd tell her, things aren't going to get better, get the hell out.
But what can be done now and in the future is for serious questions, feminist issues, to be raised before the next token female in a male dominated show gets praised as "empowering" and the be-all, end-all, must-watch program.
Where are the entries?
It's almost eight and there's nothing up!
No, there isn't.
C.I. had to call a lengthy break (over three hours) to address an issue at The Common Ills. We all napped during that. We'll finish pieces and begin writing now and C.I. says to note dealing with the issue means that posts will be behind and probably less than they usually are on Sundays at The Common Ills.
And if you missed special programming Thursday, please note that two entries have been posted since last Sunday. Read those.
No, there isn't.
C.I. had to call a lengthy break (over three hours) to address an issue at The Common Ills. We all napped during that. We'll finish pieces and begin writing now and C.I. says to note dealing with the issue means that posts will be behind and probably less than they usually are on Sundays at The Common Ills.
And if you missed special programming Thursday, please note that two entries have been posted since last Sunday. Read those.