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."
No, it's WILL TRENT -- like PERRY MASON -- that's the name of ABC's latest crime show. Before you lose interest, give us a chance.
Now we'd understand if you already bailed. ABC crime show. What is this another ROOKIE? As if one starring the aged dream 'boy' of aged men and women Nathan Fillion. At 51, he's THE ROOKIE. And it's played for something other than comedy -- at least THE ROOKIE: FEDS has Niecy Nash-Betts to provide some life to the tired concept.
WILL TRENT could be a tired concept but the cast carries it into something more than you've been able to expect from ABC for years now. Take Sonja Sohn who plays Will Trent's boss Amanda. Tired, beleaguered and just not in the mood for it -- for anything. Will's upset that set him up to be loathed by other members of the police force? Well, she points out that same case (where he busted bad cops) got him a promotion. Faith (Iantha Richardson) not glad that she teamed her with Will (who got her mom kicked off the force after 30 years)? Well, Amanda points out to Faith, this is a great learning experience if she'll see it as such.
Then you've got Michael played by Jake McLaughlin who was so great in BELIEVE and QUANTICO. He doesn't play guys like Michael, though. Michael is not trust worthy -- not when he's questioning a student who, let's be honest, he's beating up outside the kid's dorm room and not when he's happy a former female partner is being paired with him again -- the previous problems are alluded to when she brings up his wife. Jake manages to stretch into the role and fill it out -- our only fear is that the writers might try to clean Michael up to make him more like the type of character Jake usually plays.
Mark-Paul Gosselaar is in the cast and we did a cheer over that followed by a sad note. He usually plays the good guy characters like Jake McLaughlin does. In this one, he's a man cheating on his wife who also loathes Will (they were in the same orphanage as children). Maybe the fact that he's playing a different will change the outcome of this series? Mark-Paul has evolved into a very strong actor and we've enjoyed him in several TV shows over the last years -- TRUTH BE TOLD, PITCH and THE PASSAGE -- but not one of them has lasted more than one season.
Erika Christensen has been in hundreds of films and TV shows in the last two or so decades. She was in THE BANGER SISTERS with Goldie Hawn and Susan Sarandon, FLIGHT PLAN with Jodie Foster, KIMI with Zoe Kravitz, LIE TO ME, THAT 70S SHOW, TEN DAYS IN THE VALLEY , , , Now she's playing Angie on Will Trent. Angie used to partner with Michael but it went bad. She moved on over to vice and she's undercover trying to take down a drug ring when we see her for the first time. After possibly destroying that case (or maybe not), she gets re-assigned and is back partnering with Michael.
Out of the office? She's with Will. They knew each other as kids. Now they have an on-again-off-again relationship that's always in a state of flux.
As great as everyone above is -- and they are great -- the series belongs to Ramon Rodriguez who plays Will Trent. Whether he's interacting with Betty (his new dog) or with humans, he seems right in every response and move he makes -- even when they take you by surprise. He's delivering the kind of performance that should bring some Emmy attention back to broadcast TV.
It's a star making role and he delivers and then some.
But will the audience show up?
It's airing on Tuesdays and had so little attention that, until Saturday night, it didn't even have a WIKIPEDIA entry. Debuting last week, it did better than THE ROOKIE: FEDS had done in that same time slot. Still, it's probably going to require strong word of mouth for it to get a second season.
Ava: We are starting back up with book reviews at
community sites. After the review is posted, we will again interview
the person who wrote the review. The reviews for 2023 kicked off with
C.I. who posted "Mafia Wives (Susan Williams' WHITE MALICE)" on Saturday. Obviously, she can't interview herself
-- maybe she could? -- so I'll ask questions. Your book was Susan
Williams' WHITE MALICE: THE CIA AND THE COVERT RECOLONIZATION OF AFRICA
Why did you pick that one?
C.I.:
It was in a pile on my desk of books I wanted to read but hadn't gotten
around to yet. I grabbed ten and checked them on KINDLE. This book
was on sale for $4.99 so I thought it was something a lot of people
might want to follow up on -- as opposed to one that's 18 dollars or
more.
Ava: Susan Williams is a historian. You noted she has a wide range of sources -- including government documents.
C.I.:
Right. Patrice Lumumba is one of the leaders that the US, the UK,
Belgium and the United Nations worked to destroy in Africa. He was the
Prime Minister of the Congo. Then President Dwight Eisenhower decided
Lumumba needed to be killed and the CIA began working on that -- with
help from MI6. The US government may have spent as much as $150 million
on their operation to take out Lumumba and other leaders including
Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah who was overthrown in 1966.
Ava:
At one point, we were talking about the book when you finished reading
it, at one point, Lumumba is ahead of the killers and then he's not.
Talk about that.
C.I.: So
they want to kill him. He and his crew are attempting to escape. They
go to the British embassy and are refused. And they're also refused
military help. But either the British military there didn't know that
or decided to ignore the order so they help stop the people pursuing
Lumumba. Coll Mobutu Sese Seko is trying to overthrow -- capture and
kill -- Patrice. And no one is helping. When people in Africa distrust
the United Nations, it's not by mistake and it's not because they don't
know what the UN does. It's precisely because of what the UN did that
they are distrustful. And Maya Angelou was over there during this time
period. She talked about how it went from people telling her they
didn't understand how she could leave the US and big cars to come to
Africa to becoming very wary of the so-called American dream because
that dream was targeting them.
Ava: You strongly recommend this book, correct?
C.I.: Absolutely. It's an important moment in US history and it goes to why we are seen so poorly around the world.
Ava: You talk about us being "mafia wives."
C.I.:
Absolutely. Lumumba was killed because the US government could profit
from his death, could profit from uranium and diamonds. We want to wear
the furs our mafia husbands bring to us but we don't want to know about
the blood spilled to get those perks.
Ava: One last thing, Jim just texted me. Can we reprint the review here?
C.I.: Only if we agree that we're going to do that with everyone's review throughout the year.
"This ain't no United Nations. This is just United White folks." An
opinion offered immediately after the January 17, 1961 assassination of
Patrice Lumumba -- prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the
Congo. Historian Susan Williams quotes the opinion in WHITE MALICE: THE CIA AND THE COVERT RECOLONIZATION OF AFRICA.
The
2021 book covers many topics as it traces the role of the US government
in Africa. Will there ever be reparations for the slavery trade and
the wealth generated by the use of slaves? If there is, the next step
would be for the US to make reparations to the countries of Africa that
they worked so hard to destabilize.
Why?
That's
the one weak area in Susan Williams' book. She documents many things --
and has an exhaustive and endless supply of sources -- contemporary
press accounts, government documents (redacted and unredacted -- one, in
fact, she has two copies of and is able to tell what was in the
original because one copy released by the US government redacts one
section, while the other copy released by the US government, redacts the
other part -- putting them together, she has an unredacted copy), a COUNTERPUNCH article (a 2005 article, noted by me to give the publication a shout out), letters from various participants, and interviews.
You can't claim that the author hasn't covered all the basis.
It's
a fascinating book and one I highly recommend (in 2023, we are
returning to the goal of one book review a week at community sites).
It's also available on AMAZON KINDLE for $4.99 right now which is the
reason I'm noting it. That's a very good bargain.
President
Dwight Eisenhower, a hero to some deluded people, wanted Lumumba
murdered. He was, three days before John F. Kennedy was sworn in as
president. Did JFK know about the plan to take Lumumba out?
Susan's
not sure, the record's not clear. There's a chance he did, there's a
chance he didn't. If he did know, there's a chance that he thought,
having been elected, he would be able to call it off (that's me, not
Susan Williams).
We do know Eisenhower wanted him dead.
Why?
The
Congo was rich in diamonds and uranium. And if you're a freak for
Adlai Ewing Stevenson II (twice failed presidential candidate, among
other things), the book's not going to make you happy here because Adlai
helped a friend (a rich thug, who partied with Jaqueline Kennedy later
on in the 80s) who wanted the diamonds in the Congo.
That's the thing, a lot of hearts will be broken by WHITE MALICE.
Life's not the picture book you were taught it was as a child.
As
shocking as the British government's refusal to help Lumumba when he is
being pursued by armed 'rebels' and as shocking as the beating he will
endure once he is captured, the ear that will be cut off and 'gifted' to
one of his political rivals, the way TIME magazine will mock his widow,
etc -- as shocking as all that is -- and as brutal as it is -- the
bigger shock is that it was carried out by the US and UK government
(with help from Belgium) as well as the United Nations -- and it was
done in the names of the people of those countries.
It was The
Cold War. And there were excuses offered like the Congo -- and other
countries in Africa -- might go over to the side of the USSR.
That's not the reason though.
And it wasn't the diamonds and uranium or, today, the cobalt.
Yes, those were wanted and desired.
But the reason for that?
To
maintain a standard of life. We are mafia wives in the US. We expect
certain things and most of us aren't about to question how they get
provided to us.
And this is how it happens. The US and
the UK trample over the rights of people in poorer countries. They
create enemies -- via the CIA-assets in the western press (and Susan
goes into that). This is all about justifying theft and maintaining a
standard of life.
Is that why former CIA agent Gloria
Steinem can justify her own crimes? It's getting harder and harder for
Gloria. Susan Faludi offers an excuse and a white wash for Gloria in
BACKLASH. In the book, Betty Friedan is portrayed as demented and
desperate to hang on to power. The latter was probably true. And I
believed the former for years* because I considered Gloria a friend and
she insisted it wasn't true -- she just went to an international
conference as a college student and wasn't really aware that it was
CIA-linked. And Katha Sarachild and The Redstockings were portrayed as lunatics. (Here for Katha Sarachild's 1975 PACIFICA RADIO interview discussing Gloria and the CIA.)
Lies.
Damn lies.
And I was a fool to believe Gloria.
She
worked for the CIA for years. It took Ava and I about ten minutes to
find proof online demonstrating how long after college she continued to
work for CIA front companies before suddenly becoming a feminist.
For
those who need to hear it from her mouth, you can find her on YOUTUBE
in videos where she's bragging about her work for the CIA. Such as the
one below.
And bragging about the CIA. Now what she did at the conference
-- the only CIA event she wants to own up to -- was to report on
dissidents who went home suffered because of her reports. That's
outrageous enough. But now that we know she worked CIA fronts after
college -- and she did -- now that THE NEW YORK TIMES no longer cares
to cover up for her. They will, however, laugh at her letters griping
about that report and even print one:
In a titillating lead into an otherwise accurate article about why I love New York,
John Leland writes that I started my career as “a C.I.A. operative,”
got my “break as a Playboy Bunny” and married the father of a movie
star.
She really needs to get honest.
And
let's be clear, THE NEW YORK TIMES turned on her. She's no longer
judged as some one worth protecting. For years, she was. For years,
she could count CIA assets in the press and publishing to protect her
and to prevent the larger world from knowing what she did. Now? Patrick Iber tells the truth at THE NEW REPUBLIC, Louis Menand at THE NEW YORKER . . .
I
bring up Gloria because she is a liar and she was CIA and her defense
of it -- after being outed by RAMPARTS -- was to say that she agreed
with them and they were the good guys.
This is when they're murdering Lumumba.
They're good guys?
Well, I guess that explains why she spread her legs for Henry Kissinger long after the world knew what a War Criminal he was. Gloria raved to WOMEN'S WEAR DAILY in September of 1971,
"Henry's the only interesting person in the whole Nixon Administration
and he's not afraid of hostile reporters. I enjoy talking with him.
He's the only person on the Nixon team who can talk."
Of the CIA? "They were enlightened, liberal, non-partisan," Gloria insists in the video above.
She
chose to climb into bed with the CIA at the time that they were trying
to overthrow many leaders (such as Fidel Castro) and when they were
plotting to murder others (such a Lumumba).
Gloria Steinem: “I’ve been thinking about the uses
of a long life. And one of them is that you remember when things were
worse. We remember the death of the future with Martin Luther King, with
Jack Kennedy, with Bobby Kennedy, with Malcolm X. Without those deaths,
for instance, Nixon would not have been elected and there would not
have been many of the wars that we have had.” Huh? These assassinations of the 1960s brought on the wars that
destroyed Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya and very nearly Syria? The ongoing
15-year Afghanistan War?
Gloria needs to answer for what she's done.
Will she? Hasn't she got one foot in the grave already and she still can't get honest?
That's the CIA for you. They traffic in lies.
They don't believe in fairness and equality or even democracy. They believe in control.
They should be shattered to the winds.
Yet, some on the left were praising them during the Trump years, hailing them as saviors.
From WHITE MALICE:
Covert
action of any sorts, said Franck Church, the Idaho Democrat who chaired
the 1975 Senate select committee investigations into the abuses of the
CIA, was nothing more than 'a semantic disguise for murder, coercion,
blackmail, bribery, the spreading of lies, whatever is deemed useful to
bending other countries to our will.'
We drown in a
river of denial because we don't want to see the truth. We don't want
to grasp that Gloria worked for the CIA for over ten years. We don't
want to address what our politicians have done or what the CIA has done.
We
want to be mafia wives -- we want to model the fur but we don't think
about the blood that it took to put that fur on our backs.
Patrice
Lumumba inspired many and could have delivered and inspired democracy
across the African continent. But the US government wanted the profits
the diamonds and the uranium could bring. So the Lumumba had to be
targeted, his country destabilized. It was all about the red ink and
the black ink in the ledger. On such economics is US foreign policy
really dictated. In the end, Dwight Eisenhower and Salvatore (Sammy the
Bull) Gravano aren't all that different.
That's how
the US can target foreign leaders and foreign populations. It's how it
can target its own people. As WHITE MALICE notes, millions were spent
by the CIA to determine how to break people -- the National Health
Institute cooperated with those experiments as part of MKUltra in the
1950s and 1960s -- experimenting on American citizens without their
knowledge. They also experimented on animals when humans weren't
available -- using radar on the brains of monkeys to knock them out,
knocking animals out with concussions to see if they could create
amnesia that way.
There are no ethics. These people
will resort to anything -- it's like the mob -- and they will insist
that they are doing it for a better world, a better country. But they
do it in secrecy because some part of them knows it is wrong -- it's
unethical, it's illegal and it's inhumane.
Susan
Williams notes that when asked who killed Patrice Lumumba, Daphne Park
declared, "The CIA, of course." She also stated that, as head of the
United Kingdom's MI6 in the Congo, she orchestrated the killing.
There's no guilt there. Park, now dead, thought she did something
amazing and wonderful. And, if you want to be a mafia wife and think
that as well, avoid reading Susan Williams' WHITE MALICE.
The speech of Hakeem Jeffries - whenever an "American" official, any official talks about defending "American" values, the colonized should make sure they are in reach of their weapons of resistance because they are hearing the words of a fool or a fascist, probably both.
You should be. The focus of the 'documentary' was the alleged friendship between Groucho Marx and Dick Cavett. Groucho is a legend, part of the Marx brothers who made many classic films (including our favorite DUCK SOUP, but we love them all including LOVE HAPPY) and who was popular as the host of the TV program YOU BET YOUR LIFE. Dick Cavett was the host of numerous TV talk shows.
They weren't wonderful friends and it's not a good 'documentary.' Now a good one could easily be made about Groucho himself. And, truth be told, if you wanted to focus on all of Dick Cavett's inappropriate behavior (which is not limited to sneaking on stage in the middle of a concert to pinch Diana Ross' ass), you could have a riveting documentary about a man who was endlessly praised while repeatedly preying on women.
Instead, you get this garbage.
And so much that poses as documentaries these days is garbage. Is that to be the legacy of AMERICAN MASTERS?
Or maybe it will be the never-addressed sexism of the long running series. The first 200 'documentaries'? Only 30 focused or co-focused on women. Only 30.
Public Broadcasting thought that was appropriate. Tax payer money funded that sexism -- and it's on going sexism. Diana Ross can't get an episode nor can Patti Smith, the late Etta James, Carly Simon, or . . . But Doc Severinsen can and, in fact, did?
In 2022, we saw a few outlets up their coverage of women. But it really wasn't women that mattered.
We took on one 'documentary' here about a woman whose art was overrated in real time and who should be forgotten. That's part of the reason we loathed the broadcast. Part. Another? Well when you're over fifty and you can't come out of the closet, that's sad. But it's sad and dishonest for filmmakers telling your story to play along with your lie. Everyone knows she's a lesbian and most thought she would come out in the 90s. She never has. How very sad.
Another bad 'documentary'? SHOWTIME's NOTHING COMPARES.
The world needed that?
No.
It offered nothing new.
The world wanted it?
No.
She's a one hit wonder. She had a hit with Prince's "Nothing Compares To You" -- a song that The Family did better before she recorded it and that Prince and Rosie Gaines did better after Sinead recorded it.
But then, when you can't sing, you can't sing. When, to have a 'range,' you have to let your voice sound like you're stripping the gears on a standard-shift car, you don't have a range.
She also couldn't write songs which is why her only hit is "Nothing Compares To You." In the US, she got a moderate success with that first album (it went gold). That was only because she was being lumped into a group of women coming up who were doing actual amazing work. For example? Tracey Chapman. Why is that we get these mediocrities like Sinead and others from SHOWTIME but no documentary on Tracey?
Her second album went platinum. And it was her last hit album. Seven years later, the label was desperate to grab some money after O'Connor flopped with two albums in a row, SO FAR . . . THE BEST OF which only became her third flop in a row -- and we weren't even done with the 90s by that point.
Some might see her as a political figure and, if that had been what the documentary wanted to focus on, we would have just rolled out eyes. But to present her as a musical artist when she's really nothing but a spectacle? At a time when there are no SHOWTIME documentaries about Tracey Chapman, Natalie Merchant, Liz Phair, Tori Amos, Michelle Ngo, PJ Harvey . . .
The point is truthful documentaries. And when you're scraping the barrel with Sinead or Doc, no one's being served. As various 'documentarians' look back on 2022, let's hope that they grasp that and will learn from it.
Hugh Jackman is only the latest in a series of performers
who want the Academy Awards to gender neutral when it comes to acting
awards. THE LOS ANGLES TIMES also joined the cry recently. Ourselves?
We live in the real world.
"Maybe
if we think, and wish, and hope, and pray it might come true," sang The
Beach Boys in "Wouldn't It Be Nice." And maybe if we deluded ourselves
we could go along with this nonsense. Yes, nonsense is what it is.
Marcia
and Rebecca have already weighed in and we agree with them. Marcia has noted that when the category for rock vocal at The Grammys went from
Best Male Rock Vocal and Best Female Rock Vocal to just Best Rock Vocal
was last combined (2005 through 2011), there were seven winners. All of
them were male. During those 7 years, there were 35 nominees -- 33
were male (only two were female, for those who struggle with math). Rebecca has noted that the Best
Actress category sparks genuine interest each year (something that's
harder and harder for the Academy to do) and it the most followed race.
Those two reasons are reason enough for say "no."
And, please note, we're fine with nominees designating which category they will appear in -- Best Actor or Best Actress.
We're not okay with women being overlooked.
And
that is what will happen. Marcia used the Grammys to make that point.
But we're making it for a different reason: actors and actresses are
judged differently.
A
woman has to really act, show a real range of emotions, in order to win
the award. Gwyneth Paltrow being the exception but she was "Harvey's
girl" and we all know that's why she won her Best Actress award for that
flimsy performance.
The norm?
Look
at 1951. The nominees for Best Actress were Katharine Hepburn (THE
AFRICAN QUEEN), Vivien Leigh (A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE), Eleanor Parker
(DETECTIVE STORY), Shelley Winters (A PLACE IN THE SUN) and Jane Wyman
(THE BLUE VEIL). Each an amazing performance. The winner was Vivien
Leigh who delivered a multi-faceted performance with a wide range of
emotions. That same year, the Best Actor nominees were Humphrey Bogart
(THE AFRICAN QUEEN), Marlon Brando (A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE),
Montgomery Clift (A PLACE IN THE SUN), Arthur Kennedy (BRIGHT VICTORY)
and Fredric March (DEATH OF A SALESMAN). Brando gave the best
performance, showed the greatest range in a nominated role that year.
The award went to . . . Humphrey Bogart.
Now we like Humphrey and think he was good in the role. Good. Not great.
But a woman has to express a range of emotions to win and a man has to suppress emotions to win.
It goes to what we value in men and women, to the gender stereotypes our society imposes.
Merging the two categories into one without addressing this reality would be insane.
A
man can be stiff and wooden and walk off with the prize -- Gary Cooper
for HIGH NOON, Charlton Heston (BEN HUR), Rex Harrison (MY FAIR LADY),
Cliff Robertson (CHARLY), John Wayne (TRUE GRIT), etc. A man can
flatten his personality completely for a role but win a Best Actor
Academy Award while a woman, take Jane Fonda in KLUTE, has to deliver an
amazing and deeply felt performance in order to win.
Fonda?
Henry Fonda makes the point for us. Take him or any other actor that
shades their characterization and digs deep (Paul Newman, Marlon Brando being two others)
and they have to be nominated multiple times before finally winning --
if they're lucky enough to ever win. Spencer Tracey was considered the
finest actor in the industry for decades. Was the for pretending he
was romantically in love with Katharine Hepburn? Or for all the men and
rent boys he slept with (including John Derek)? It wasn't for what he
delivered onscreen -- competency. Henry Fonda delivered a career of
riveting performances and it wasn't until he was dying, and forty-one
years after his first Academy Award nomination, that Henry finally
won.
Gary Cooper is the
text book example of wooden. But he was a big star so he got
nominations and, in fact, won five years after his first nomination.
Pauline Kael famously observed, "Moviegoers like to believe that those
thy have made stars are great actors. People used to say that Gary
Cooper was a fine actor -- probably because when they looked in his face
they were ready to give him their power of attorney."
Cooper
was a nothing in terms of acting when contrasted with Henry Fonda. He
was wooden and cumbersome. But he made off with two Academy Awards for
Best Actor when he didn't deserve even one.
Luise
Rainer won two as well and some feel she was overrated. She may have
been. But look at the other women who won at least two Best Actress
Academy Awards and grasp how deep they had to dig and how much emotion
they had to expose to get those two awards. Jane Fonda, Bette Davis,
Sally Field, Olivia de Havilland, Vivian Leigh, Ingrid Bergman,
Elizabeth Taylor, Glenda Jackson, Jodie Foster, Hillary Swank, Meryl
Streep, Frances McDormand and Katharine Hepburn.
Elizabeth
delivered a tour de force performance in WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOLF?
and won her second Academy Award. Her co-star Richard Burton was
nominated but didn't win. In fact, he was nominated six times and never
won once. He wasn't a stone faced, wooden actor. If he had been, he most likely would have taken home a statue.
Best
Actor and Best Actress merged into one category? What's next, merging
the 100 meter, the 200 meter and the 400 meter races into one track
event at the Olympics?
Because
that's the same as ignoring that what's required for a man to win Best Actor
is so much less than has ever been required for a woman to be Best
Actress.
We
don't live in a gender neutral world so it seems very puzzling to us
that people want to take two different categories and merge them into
one. Not only to merge them, but also to pretend that men and women are
judged by the same criteria for their acting awards.
Jim, Dona, Jess, Ty, "Ava" started out this site as five students enrolled in journalism in NY. Now? We're still students. We're in CA. Journalism? The majority scoffs at the notion.
From the start, at the very start, C.I. of The Common Ills has helped with the writing here. C.I.'s part of our core six/gang. (C.I. and Ava write the TV commentaries by themselves.) So that's the six of us. We also credit Dallas as our link locator, soundboard and much more. We try to remember to thank him each week (don't always remember to note it here) but we'll note him in this. So this is a site by the gang/core six: Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I. (of The Common Ills).
