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The Thing About Celebrities

I've always felt that I have a New Yorker's approach to celebrities - certainly as long as I've ben a New Yorker, possibly since I was a child of 8 or 9 - which is that celebrities, per se, are not all that important, but trends have to come from somehwere. Which is to say, it's always good to know who the latest important celebrities are... and then try not to care all that much about them or what they do.

Lately, it's become next to impossible to keep up with all the variations and dimensions of "celebrity" out there - I blame reality television - but generally, the rules still hold; it's best not to care too much about who's famous or why, but occasionally, one may want to stay up to speed on what's happening with some of the big names of the day.

Which brings me to a few stories that seem to be comsuming a lot of oxygen just now.

First, Paula Deen has Type 2 Diabetes. I spent a lot of time not knowing who Paula Deen was - this is especially easy if one tries very hard not to watch the Food Network - but then I kept seeing pictures of this odd looking (i mean, the expression of perpetual surprise/fear on her face) woman on the covers of magazines at my local drugstore, including her own, and kept wondering, "who is this Paula Deen?" only to find out that Deen, apparently, is southern, and cooks, and became famous talking about southern cooking on television. Also, apparently, "southern" is another way of saying "use a lot of butter and cream and sugar" and the results are often fried or gooey or both.

A lot of the discussion of Deen's diagnosis - which is actually about three years old - has something to do with "just desserts" or the clucking of food moralists, which mostly is a reminder that food moralists may be right but are also annoying and unlikely to win people over. I admit, I find it curious that Deen is suddenly all too willing to discuss her health and ideas for healthier cooking (via her son's new cooking program), just at the convenient moment when she's signed a lucrative endorsement deal with Novo Nordisk. But mostly, I wonder why Deen matters at all, making food most of us wouldn't eat, let alone make on a regular basis.

Then there's Tim Tebow. Tebow is a quarterback for the Denver Broncos, and apparently grew up home schooled by his Baptist missionary parents. So he's very religious. So religious, apparently, that when he scores a touchdown, he drops to one knee and prays, thanking God for his scoring success. I think this is silly, but you know, there are worse things one could do. 

But my goodness, how this whole thing has gotten people up in arms! There are the people who seem to find it crucial to compalin about Tebow and his prayers - and his mediocre playing, or so I'm told - and then there's the copnservatives who seem determined to turn Tebow into a rightwing icon, and "Tebowing" into the next big trend. 

It would be easy to do the "I'm gay and who cares about sports"... but I'm gay and like sports, not football that much, but I try to keep up. I tend to think the conservative embrace of Tebow is, in its way, deeply cynical; it's one thing for other evangelical types to admire Tebow and his openness, another when cynical DC types embrace Tebow because it plays well to the conservative base. Both, though, are in some ways a good example of not being especially godly; using Tebow as a cudgel to judge the religiosity of others misses the point that the wonder of America is that we can all pray any old way we want to... or not pray at all. At the same time, the Tebow haters tend to give their game away by making Tebow into some sort of reliigious zealot, a reminder that there is, among the less religious, a discomfort with religious expression because it is, in fact, so reverent, and thus so hard to assail. Tebow's praying should, really, just be a colorful side note to a moderately successful career. Over time, it may well be just that.

In these uncertain, politically enervating times, the escapism of celebrity gossip is easy and inviting. I picked up the Star Magazine to find out more about the Kardashians, spent and hour or more discussing who wore what at the Golden Globes; I don't claim to be above the celebrity news. the thing about celebrity culture is that it isn't, and shouldn't be our only definition of culture. It's sad to see how much of what passes for "news" these days is warmed up, or leftover, or day old celebrity gossip stretched into filler. Paula Deen is now a "health" segment. Tebow leads the sports pages and political discussions, when he is less than crucial in either space. Kardashians, the saga of Donald Trump, Stephen Colbert and some comedic comment on the cmapaigns... it all goes on and on, and it's amusing, at first, how much we have a thing about celebrities. But not for long.

The Defiant One

Last week - on my storm break - I had planned to write about Herman Cain and his various harassment allegations... but I got busy and the story kept moving. And still, what I want to write now is essentially what I wanted to write then.

Cain's response to the allegations is about Textbook 101 in How Not To Run A Campaign, but that's not of deep interest to me - to take Cain's missteps seriously is to take Cain seriously, and long before we evaluate sexual harassment charges... Herman Cain is never going to be President.

Still, the unfolding "scandal" and Cain's fumbling response says more - and more good, I think - about the state of workplace harassment allegations than many want to admit. It's easy to look at the various negative aspects - the rabid defenders of Cain, mainly on talk radio, the ugliness from his campaign operatives - and see a lot of bad news on taking harassment seriously. But from the opposite angle - where these charges are being examined and reexamined and discussed - it's worth noting some of the good that's coming out of this.

First, sexual harassment is being taken seriously, and seriously, on the right. Conservatives, male and female have noted that if these allegations have merit (I think that's a more productive description than "true" which isn't nearly as concrete as it would seem), Cain is unfit for the Presidency. That's some remarkable progress, even in recent memory. Moreover, the women making these allegations - whether Karen Kraushaar's reluctant move into the public eye, or Sharon Bialek's deliberate steps - are being given room to make their cases and be heard.

Second, there's more agreement on what constitutes "harassment" than I would ever have expected: Bialek's story of a hand up her skirt and leering "you want a job, right?" proposition didn't get a lot of people trying to explain it away with discussions of her looks, or her outfit, or "she must have misunderstood." Yes, people have noted that her charges are "he said, she said" and hard to confirm... but even then, there's two choices: either he's right that it never happened... or she's right and it did... and that means it was harassment. Similarly, Kraushaar's been clear that "you come up to my chin" is both neither harassment, nor what happened. This too, is some fairly significant progress.

It's in this context of harassment being taken fully and seriously that Cain's missteps have been so pronounced. Even Cain - reflecting his "DC outsider" status as a business world leader - has had to admit that sexual harassment is real and serious and disqualifying. His "I haven't never touched nobody" defense is too absolute and too quick to make this story go away. At the same time, Cain's been surprisingly muddled about offering the kind of simple evidence that would ostensibly prove his point - why not go back and at least review records from the National Restaurant Association before making pronouncements that can easily be disproved (like who've you met, or what setllements were paid). That's not the sign of business competence which Cain's been selling as his main positive attribute.

Cain's press conference was a similar nonstarter, full of abstract denials, a lack of specifically discussing his dealings with specific women, and a lot of third person references to "Herman Cain's decency." Cain's assessments of his own decency is neither the issue nor the point. Nor was trotting out a power lawyer like Lin Wood, who neither came off as objective nor reasonable, to simultaneously intone that sexual harassment is serious while positioning all of Cain's accusers as liars and deabeats. But then, Cain's campaign seems, even for them, remarkably ill-equipped to handle these events profesisonally or competently.

Admittedly, trying to make all of this seem to rosy would be a mistake - both Kraushaar and Bialek face some pretty ugly moments, there's a clear collection of unreconstructed men on the right who will never entirely get the issues around sexual harassment (not to mention Cain's "sexual harassment doesn't just happen to women" going on to insist that women harassmen too. Apparently man-on-man harassment is just too much to discuss). The news about our culture, as this story unfolds, isn't especially better than its ever been. There's been some change... but we still need much more.

I don't know what Cain did or did not do, and mostly, as I said, I don't especially care in the context of Cain's misbegotten run for the Presidency. It wouldn't surprise me to eventually confirm that much of what the women allege is true; it wouldn't necessarily surprise me to find out Bialek's story can't entirely be trusted, either.  At best it's worth noting what progress that has been made, I think, while noting that Cain's defiant denials do him no favors. That, and keep waiting for Cain to give in, and give up.

Finally, one other point in passing: I suspect that Cain's case got harder, not easier, with the revelations out of Penn State. The revulsion we're experiencing around Jerry Sandusky's conduct will make it much harder, I suspect, for anyone to simply wave away sexually inappropriate behavior, and in Cain's case, not help him when he tries to denigrate or marginalize his accusers. It would be different, perhaps, if the Penn State story didn't revolve around sports and hadn't captivated a lot more straight men than might otherwise take notice. But for now, I don't think anyone wants to be part of a news story where "sexual acting out" is part of the storyline. And Cain's defiant stance only makes chasing him and the story that much more likely.

I Can't Play Tennis, My Golf's A Menace...

Okay, just one more... This is Jane Russell and "Anyone Here For Love" from Gentlemen, erasing any doubt that "homoerotic" and the movies of the fifties had nothing to do with each other. Jack Cole was known for his very athletic choreography showcasing male dancers; this was probably his zenith.

One fun story: at the end of the number, you can see Russell get clipped by one of the divers, throwing her into the pool; that was not in the script, but Howard Hawks decided to use it anyway, having Jane lifted out of the pool to finish the song. Unfortunately, the mascara that Jane was using sealed her eyelids together when it got wet, so Jane finishes the number with her eyes closed. If you look carefully, you can spot it.

 

Don't Ask, Don't Tell... And I Don't Mean The Military.

Like clockwork, Elena Kagan received her nomination to the Supreme Court... and the topic I brought up a few weeks back resurfaced: is she, or isn't she?

I have no idea whether Kagan is a lesbian or not (and, like many, don't really care)... but already it's clear that bringing this up, or suggesting it's in play is being drawn as off limits. That may be because it's untrue - though it's  been a striking array of non-denial denials, and "I know her when she dated men" type appraisals that don't, in any direct way, answer the question - but I'm more struck by the attempt to silence a discussion before it even starts.

That's why, as frustrating as he can be, I'm impressed with Andrew Sullivan for bringing up the question and not being cowed into shutting up. If "there's nothing wrong with being a lesbian"... then why does everyone seem so skittish that, say, presenting a photo of Kagan playing softball (and, hilariously, I listened to a clueless Rush Limbaugh ask "is there something gay about softball that I'm missing?" Oh, Goddess...) might, you know, give anyone the "wrong" impression... or indeed, any impression at all. Other than that, you know, she likes to play a recreational sport.

In the rush to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" as military policy, we forget, I think, why we wound up with it, and why it has, even now, stuck: what the compromise buys, really, is silence. And silence, really, is the story here. It's not that there's something wrong with being gay... it's that we'd rather not know.

Friday Evening Flying College Dudes

jinb

Who's Sorry Now?

Just to be clear, I don't think Tiger Woods owes me an apology.

I'm not sure he actually apologized to me - there was a lot of talk about "the children" and his fans and his wife, but I wasn't clear if one of those "sorry" sentences lacked a clear predicate - but if he did, he needn't have bothered. Whatever gets you through the night... that's my motto.

(Okay, it's not my motto... but I always wish it was.)

But seriously... what was the point of that rambling, digressive, often counterproductive statement? Was the world - the golf world, the gossip world, our world, take your pick - breathlessly waiting for Tiger's apology? Seriously?

Professional PR people seemed nearly unanimous in calling the statement a mistake (in the post coverage I saw), and I tend to agree: as I said when the revelations first showed up, I don't think coming across as warm or sensitive is Tiger's long suit. He's a coldly efficient, methodical golf player; he seems to have been a methodical, coldly efficient skirt chaser. And now he seems a methodical, coldly efficient apologist. That's no fix for what ails ya.

More curious to me were the flashes of tetchy defensiveness and anger: don't take pictures of my kids (I'm guessing that request fell on deaf ears). Elin wasn't trying to assault me with a golf club (okay, dude... just your car. Whatever). Buddhism helps me find my moral compass (um, yeah... that seems to have worked out well so far). For someone who says he's contrite, embarrassed and learning things... he seems quite bound up in old approaches and rehashing past slights.

I tend to despair when celebrities newly involved in 12 step recovery feel the need to go public. Never mind that it tends to undermine the "anonymity" that drives twelve step work; it's premature, usually, and often quite naive. "I've realized the error of my ways" in the space of six weeks... doesn't amount to much learning. There's a lifetime to come. And a lot that can change. To say nothing of the likelihood that to recover, so publicly, is to invite the increased likelihood of relapse.

None of this is meant to suggest I don't believe he's sorry (though it's telling, I suspect, that he's apologized to everyone... except his various mistresses). I do. But "sorry" wasn't the issue, as far as I can tell, and won't salvage the stuff that's harmed his career as a corporate role model. And today's appearance strikes me as more dutiful work by the dutiful boy who seems to determined to do what others want of him, as I said before:

Indeed, his story strikes me as a reminder to ask, harder, about whether drilling kids into becoming child prodigies is a healthy activity; I've never been entirely convinced that Tiger's golf career wasn't more about pleasing others - his dad for starters - than about knowing what he wanted for himself. The tidal wave of affairs, pursuit of strangers... what's striking in the revelations, to me, is how they too reflect no clear sense of what he wants, but a somewhat juvenile interest in getting whatever one can, behavior of someone who's never entirely had to grow up. In the end, that's not a question of morals... that's just a question of maturing.

I concluded, then, by saying "who am I to judge" and the question lingers. And, quite honestly, I'm in no position to judge, nor would I want to be. I just think all this... well, sorry business is just so unnecessary, if not simply too soon. Save the sorry for later... in private, to the people who really deserve to hear it. Leaving me out of it is really just fine. I swear.

Please Stop Your Crying Now

Well, thank goodness. The New Orleans Saints have won the Super Bowl... so clearly we don't have to worry about them anymore. It's almost like Katrina never happened... right?

In the worst way.

I thought Melissa McEwan's takedown on Friday was a little much (I still do... but that can wait), but in the wake of the Saints actually winning, it does bear extending her basic point: winning the Super Bowl does not solve a host of remaining, lingering issues that stem from a failure to deal fully, fairly, or well with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Civic pride is wonderful, and rooting for the home team is admirable (even in Boston), but what's happening here, really, is yet another attempt to salve the national conscience by excusing our woeful national failure to ever do the things needed to restore and rebuild New Orleans in a sensible, thoughtful way. New Orleans is not safer, stronger, or in particularly better economic shape, and to pretend that a football victory fixes some sort of "mood problem" is both reductive and insulting to the people working hard, even now, to put things back together.

The mistake, I think, is laying blame for this narrative on football fans; it's unfair to blame the audience, really, for not knowing what they have not been shown, or told. Even if we have, as Americans, a short attention span and a rlentless interest in the new next big thing, the failure to keep the recovery efforts in the national spotlight rests with the worst instincts of the media to keep bad news and inconvenient information out of sight as long as possible.

The lesson learned from Katrina, ironically, seems to be helping Haiti: news organizations, so far, are keeping up with a story rather than dropping it, asking how rescue translates into recovery, and how recovery is complicated by a history of corruption and ineffectual leadership. Gee... I wonder if those questions applied in some form to New Orleans... oh, never mind.

I'm happy to admit, even though I didn't watch, I wasn't entirely uninterested; I was rooting for New Orleans too, and it's partly because of the affection I have for the place. But "what does a Super Bowl win mean for New Orleans" is not a way to answer questions about Katrina recovery and all that we have failed to accomplish. When the party's over - although, come to think of it, now we've got Mardi Gras, too - okay, in a month or so, when the parties end and reality intrudes once more, New Orleans will still be a story about many unmet needs, many unfinished projects, and a lot of residual issues. But I'm guessing, on a national level, we'll be well onto the next exciting story from somehwere else. But at least we'll know New Orleans is resting comfortably, now that they've won the Super Bowl... right?

Rush And The Capitalist's Tools

Let's be clear on what happened, at least: Al Sharpton did not make the NFL reject Rush Limbaugh from becoming a part owner of the St. Louis Rams. Indeed, Al Sharpton didn't make the rest of the people in the conglomeration of purchasers reject Rush either.

No, they did that on their own.

I don't know if Rush Limbaugh should be part owner of a football team. I can't say it radically changes my opinion of football, or team owners all that much (can anyone be shocked after Marge Schott?), and frankly, I kind of liked the ironic messaging to Limbaugh's fans that while Rush talks about the problems of the common man, when you have the millions needed to invest in a sports team... you are not part of the ordinary masses.

But we kind of knew that, anyway.

Limbaugh's been on a tear since the bid was made public, and the rather quick turn from interesting side note to full on controversy to flat out rejection actually added a touch of humanity to it all. Even people barely familiar with Limbaugh's messy path to stardom could be vaguely aware of his passion for sports and his real dream of being a sports announcer. As I always try to remember... don't fuck with people's childhood aspirations. It's really very mean.

Still, Limbaugh's tetchy, angry screeds about rejection and his defensiveness over things he was said to have said (more on that in a moment) seemed oddly misplaced. And for someone who so passionately defends the American system of capitalism and personal responsibility for one's failures and successes, he seems strangely or perhaps not so strangely - blind to what that means in his own story. If businesses should be allowed to make business decisions based on whatever whim suits their business thinking... then the problem isn't them. It's you.

Girls Rule

I think it's time to admit that Drew Barrymore has grown up.

I don't say this with any joy - Barrymore is the Piscean actress I admire most, who seems to float through her career with lots of interesting detours, never quite with a sense of direction... but always somehow terrific - like not winning an Emmy for Grey Gardens, and yet, somehow, clearly being in charge of its every success.

Still, when you direct a major motion picture - and the results are as charming and winning as the new Whip It - perhaps it is time to admit that someone has put away childish things.

Whip It doesn't give up on kid-like enthusiams - there's lots of swearing, riot grrls with tattoos, and even a food fight - but it succeeds admirably for two reasons: one is by keeping its eye on a smal, sweet story and the other is by making female centered film about sport.

Roller derby may not seem an obvious choice for turning into a tale of sport heroics, but in Barrymore's hands it all makes sense. Whip It is the story of Bliss, a sweet, shy girl who tries to live up to her mother's dream of competing in Texas beauty pageants, but finds herself drawn to the wild girls of a local roller derby, winds up pulling out her old skates and trying out for the team. In short order, she learns to be a tough, kickass derby girl, and helps lead her team of lovable misfits to a chance at greatness.

Oh yeah... and she gets the lead singer in a rock band and she totally wins her parents over to her side.

Whip It breathes knowing coolness by remembering why coolness matters: it's how misfits and geeks work to redefine themselves in a way that both says "fuck off" to the world and rises above the stupidity of petty humiliations. If the gals in Whip It throw more elbows and take more hits than the rest of us, they also get to remind us that they do it all with heart and a shared camaraderie. This is girl power of the best sort, a film that believes in women, in their strength, and their power... and believes we can all get there, if we tap into our natural resources.

In a field of great, winning performances, two really stand out: Marcia Gay Harden reiterates her capabilities as an actress as Bliss' mother, a mail carrier of modest means who dreams of big things for her daughters. It's a performance so layered and so full of possibilities, that it lingers long after the film is over. The other is Kristen Wiig, displaying the kind of mix of toughness and good heartedness that I think Jennifer Aniston yearns to produce naturally, as team captain and mentor to Bliss.

Of course, the whole affair wouldn't work if the lead performance sucked, and Ellen Page reminds us, yet again, that Juno was not a fluke (or a mannered, indie exception). Page is the real thing, a winning mix of grit, determination and winsomeness, perfect for teen rebels and exploring the less obvious, less seen contours of life as a teenage girl. Though Bliss becomes a roller derby standout, we can see that this development amazes herself as much as the audience, and that she will not sacrifice her other strengths - a goodhearted nature and sense of decency - for success. I'm not sure many sports films have had a hero, or heroine, this good.

Barrymore pulls all of this together with a sureness and a sense of off kilter grace that, again, show a real grown-up flair; it's absurd that she has had to work so long for an opportunity handed to 20 year old boys out of USC... but I suspect Barrymore needed a life's journey to get to the point of telling stories this well and with this much assurance. I can't wait to see more... even if the film is not perfect, and the biggest misstep is Barrymore herself, in a somewhat misconceived supporting role as the klutzy, fight prone team member. She's better, and bigger than the part... and it shows.

But that's a minor quibble. Barrymore gets so much good work out of so many people (rapper/actress Eve, Juliette Lewis, Jimmy Fallon, and a slew of lovely teen unknowns), and shows such a winning touch with the material, it's almost absurd how she can take some of the hoariest elements of storytelling, and give them a fresh, edgy spin. And mostly it's because, to its (broken) bones, Whip It believes that women can do anything. So do I. And someday, I think, the rest of the world will grow up to that.

The Place You Come From

My own sense of things is that if liberals want to complain about the conservative rejoicing about the Olympics... it would help if you actually a) like the Olympics and b) are the sort of "America first" person who thinks we deserve everything just because we're us.

In the short term, I think the decision by President Obama to go and try and cajole the IOC to choose Chicago will do deserved political damage - it was an overconfident, mistaken choice, and the failure to close the deal reflects on him personally - but in the long run, there won't be a story come 2016 about Chicago... but there will be plenty of discussion of the wasteful expense of the Olympics in Rio, and the devastating poverty which remains in Brazil.

The Olympic story used to be a remarkable, one world vision of how we could all get along; that started to fall apart in the eighties, partly due to the Cold War gamesmanship of the US skipping Moscow in 1980 and Russia skipping LA in 1984... but it's also a tale of the rise of corporate interests, the killing of "amateur" sport, and excessive media hype. The idea of an Olympics in Chicago - and we should remember, Bloomberg tried to sell the idea of proposing New York for similar reasons - was not, necessarily, about the idea of universal brotherhood through sport; it was a crass collection of dubious notions that a large scale event of that sort could jump start an economy, create jobs, and make Chicago a world class city (moreso than now). The most compelling alternative all along - Rio di Janeiro - always had the more emotional, reasonable story: the Olympics have never been held in South America, Rio is alrady the kind of city that has broad international appeal, and their economy might, actually, get some long term benefits.

That the Chicago folks - and the White House - willfully ignored those realities, speaks volumes.