Survey Says? BZZZZZZZ!
On Friday, Zazzy and I were at the mall dress shopping for an upcoming wedding. While she tried on a bevy of brightly colored gowns, I retreated to a corner to feed Mayo. There, they had a television, tuned to Fox News Channel’s “The Five”. The segment I caught was discussing a recent poll asking parents who they thought the worst celebrity role models for kids were. The results of that poll found that parents identified Miley Cyrus, Kim Kardashian, and Lindsay Lohan as the worst role models for girls and Chris Brown, Kanye West, and Justin Beiber as the worst for boys. The Five then set out to discuss the question themselves. And, god, how wrong they were…
Personally, I struggle with the idea of celebrity role models. But I get that kids are going to look up to and attempt to emulate the people they see on TV, in movies, and hear on the radio. More specifically, I’d be pretty uncomfortable with my kids looking up to any of the six folks listed in the poll (though Beiber seems like an alright dude, I think?). Yes, some of them are talented… I would
n’t mind my child haven’t Kanye’s musical abilities or Kardashian’s apparent entrepreneurial sense… but as an entire package, I don’t find any of them particularly admirable. But to me, one of these people stands out head and shoulders above the other as a deplorable human being: Chris Brown. Lest we forget, Chris Brown beat his then-girlfriend Rihanna to the point of requiring hospitalization. The picture above shows just what this young man is capable of. Surely, The Five would identify his transgressions as the worst, right? All of them would unanimously agree that his physical violence against women put him far beyond the others and their foolish behavior.
Nope. After naming him in the poll results, Chris Brown is not mentioned again during the segment. I couldn’t believe my ears. I had to go back and re-read a transcript of the segment and do a text search because I was sure I missed it. Nope. Somehow, Kardashian’s sex tape and Amanda Bynes’s weed use and Lil’ Wayne’s inadvertent walk across an American flag all make them scourges far worse than a man who put his girlfriend in the hospital over an argument. The segment is so absurd it demands viewing.
What. The. Fuck.
I get that Brown’s violent act occurred over 4 years ago. It is not particularly fresh in the pop culture sphere. Well, it’s fresh enough that a number of poll respondents felt moved to name him as a terrible role model. But I guess discussing it doesn’t make for great TV. Not when you have monsters like Bynes ranting on Twitter and Kanye giving his child an absurd name.
However, this is about more than just answering the question wrong. This isn’t akin to selecting Beiber over Adele as your preferred singer and exposing yourself as either tone deaf or a hack. This isn’t a matter of preference. This is trivializing the horror of domestic abuse because… well, I don’t know why. Because talking points about drugs or patriotism or the downfall of society are all more important? Because everyone has gotten over criticizing Brown about his actions that night? Because domestic abuse just ain’t that big a deal? I don’t know why The Five gave the answers they did. But I do know they are wrong. All of them. Dead wrong.
Domestic abuse is far too often ignored, trivialized, or excused away in our society. Segments like this, where a person like Brown goes unmentioned while harmless fools like Bynes get plenty of play, are both a symptom and cause of such a wrong-headed mentality when it comes to violence against women. Shame on The Five for having their heads so far up their asses they Tim Duncan-ed a layup of a question.
It is Fox News. Do you really need any more of an explanation?
They exist in a different universe than you and I. The problem is that their universe exists in the same physical space.
Other than that, good essay. I imagine for the most part parents are looking at the complete package. Sheryl Sandberg is probably a better (and more realistic) measure of success for girls than Kardashian. The Kardashians are famous for being famous and not exactly praise worthy in their adventures like getting married for an exceedingly short time and making a ton of cash out of it.Report
Do you really think it would have been different on another channel? I think saying “It’s Fox,” is overly sanguine, if not just cheap ideological signaling.Report
I think it might have been different on another channel, but I don’t think the blind spot was uniquely Fox or, more broadly, conservative, which is why I didn’t harp on it. It might be influenced by the broader lack of professionalism Fox seems to inhabit, the gossip-as-news they seem to favor, but I don’t think this was as ideological as the usual Fox stuff. The Lil’ Wayne comment might have been uniquely Fox, but The Five does include two woman and a token liberal… and none of them even saw fit to mention Brown’s name.
I think this is indicative of a broader misplacement of priorities and, simply, not caring enough about domestic abuse.Report
The Five are concerned about the culture wars. People being beaten does not rise to the level of concern they have with, say, rappers talking about disrespecting the police, or someone making a sex tape.Report
Hypotheses (since I don’t know the answer):
1. For a daily news show (or a show on a channel that revolves around a daily news cycle), four years ago is 1,500 news cycles ago. It’s news that has already been processed by viewers, so there is no need to go over it again.
2. Chris Brown’s actions are so obviously over the top that they were really arguing over who should take second place.
3. The point of the segment was to have a competition long enough to fill up the allotted time. If someone started off with “Well, Chris Brown beat the shit out of a young woman he was supposed to care about and for”, the segment would be over.
4. The segment is a puff segment. They perhaps did the world a service by not bringing up domestic violence in such a context and comparing it to walking on the flag. By leaving Chris Brown out of it, they actually avoided making that equivalency.
I’m less optimistic about the “conservatives don’t think domestic violence by a black man is bad” hypothesis.Report
Re: 4
When they did the teaser before the preceding commercial break, and showed the six photos, I thought, “Oh fuck no, they’re not going to compare domestic abuse to Twitter silliness and bong hits, are they???” Which I guess they sort of didn’t. They probably shouldn’t have used the poll as their jumping off point because it put them in a spot where either they had to all concede Brown was far and away the worst and lose any chance to argue or simply ignore him and focus on the puff piece nonsense. Regardless, it is a pretty poor segment, beginning to end.Report
Come on, let’s be fair. They talked about bad celebrity role models for about 20 seconds. Then it was, where do you find good role models, is there something wrong with society’s role models, what child stars have been successful. And Chris Brown was already mentioned on the list. This wasn’t any attempt to mitigate Chris Brown’s actions.
For a take of Chris Brown from Fox’s Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld (who is also a host of The Five), watch this. Brown is a frequent subject on the show.Report
That was a good piece.Report
More than two million hits.
Here’s the thing. Singling out Fox News for a segment that lists Chris Brown as a bad role model – singling them out for not talking about it enough, without any mention of other networks’ coverage of the same survey, when the most-viewed anti-Chris Brown thing I can find on YouTube is from Fox News…it’s selection bias at best. Where are the CNN anti-Chris Brown stories? GMA? Maybe they’re out there, maybe not, I don’t know, but then again I didn’t write an article about it.
Kazzy, please watch that clip and tell me if you’d want anything better than that.Report
Pinky,
Just watched it. Very well done by that guy.
Let me make clear, I deliberately didn’t make this essay about FNC because I think what we saw here was indicative of some broader things. I mentioned FNC only as far as to give the proper context for the piece… it did appear on an FNC show, which I was only watched because I was a bit of a captive audience.
I would have been equally bothered by the same conversation from any corner of the media. I don’t see this as a DvR or LvR issue, but a, “Are we ready to take seriously the issue of domestic abuse?” issue.
In comments, I discussed that certain parts of it were uniquely Fox, but every broadcast is going to have a certain signature. For instance, I’m not sure MSNBC would have mentioned the Lil’ Wayne nontroversy, but that was really secondary to my point.
I don’t think every news station needs to do a nightly Chris Brown bash session. First off, I do think we should give the man room to mature, grown, amend, and move on. There is no need to harp on him nonstop. But if you ARE going to talk about celebrity role models and you ARE going to mention Chris Brown amongst them, but stop short of discussing him and then harp on other, far more trivial issues… it’s just a weird juxtoposition that might simply be about puff-rating, but is also likely to be a symptom of or cause of the non-seriousness with which we take domestic abuse.Report
How is this for a nutshell of my piece: Don’t have a conversation about the worst celebrity role models, during which you mention Chris Brown, and at no point talk about how horrible a role model he is because of his history of domestic abuse.
Is that fair?Report
That segment was the first thing that came to mind- very cutting and well-done.Report
A newer survey has Tim Duncan as the worst role model.Report
???
Who in their right mind would list Duncan as a bad role model? I’m not sure all of sports has a better one.Report
People are fickle. Do you really want people’s kids emulating a guy who misses gimme layups under pressure?Report
Duncan sucks, big time. LeBron is the best of all time.
In the alternate universe where the Heat don’t quite come back in game 6, reverse those.Report
You know what’s the best part of this story? That “recent poll” cable news was covering? It was conducted by “couponcodes4u.com.”
No, really.Report
I wonder if that’s their business model. Make people fill out surveys to get the coupons, and charge per respondent?Report
Ugh… this makes me think it didn’t even deserve a blog post.
If they wanted to talk about celebrity role models, or otherwise just bash on celebrity silliness, they really didn’t need to grasp at straws such at this poll for the in road.Report
You might get better traction with talking about the coverage of Paula Deen. It’s indicative of something all right and from what little i’ve heard Fox is covering it differently from the rest of the crappy press.
I also don’t think i’d want aaron hernandez to do any babysitting.Report
From what I’ve seen, Fox doesn’t seem to be covering the Deen story at all.Report
And it’s an amazing story. The woman planned a plantation wedding with black people playing the role of slaves, pleads in public to keep her job, admits to using the “N” word, offered a non-apology apology!
If she was a young blonde girl missing in Aruba, Fox would be all over this.Report
And she also wanted to make something called a Sambo burger a few years ago and didn’t get how it might irk people. wtfReport
Sambo was an Indian from India. We know this because the story was written by an Englishwoman who lived in India and, as far as I know, never went to Africa. Also because there are no tigers in Africa, especially of the kind that turn into butter. Othello was a Moor, a North African of mixed Arab-Berber descent. The ideal person to play him would be, say, Tony Shalhoub.
But the whole world thinks both of them are black.Report
Regarding Othello, there appears to be some legitimate controversy over this point. The Wikipedia article has a discussion of the arguments for both sides.Report
How about Tonto? Can we agree that the ideal person to play him is NOT Johnny Depp?Report
When I saw that Depp was playing Tonto, my first thought was, “Wait, it’s 2013 right?”Report
Aren’t there Italian-Americans who need work?
We could get the guy who played Paulie Walnuts to play Tonto.Report
The wings in that dude’s hair will never cease to freak me out.Report
I clicked on this comment from Gifts of Gab because I knew this had to be about Paulie. Greatest hair wings since Steve Perry and Farrah Fawcett.Report
The Lone Ranger mythos is a big mess. The Comanche people and quite a few of the tribes of the Southwest are fascinated and cheered by a fresh take on Tonto. The story is told by Tonto, as you may know.
The Comanche were brought in to advise on this film, they liked Johnny Depp and they made him an honorary member of the tribe. In this version, the Lone Ranger is the greenhorn and it’s Tonto who has to get him up to speed. By all accounts, Johnny Depp and the Comanche knew this was all a big charade and they had a great time doing it.
I spent some time around the Osage people in Oklahoma. They’re real people. They’re not museum pieces. The Comanche, they’re real people. Tonto is not real. John Wayne wasn’t real, either. It wouldn’t matter if Russell Brand was playing Tonto, as long as he wasn’t blatantly offensive to the native peoples, let Johnny Depp have some over-the-top PoMo fun with this worn out old Injun stereotype.Report
I’ve read that the visual aesthetic Depp and the movie makers employed for Tonto’s look is based on a wholly inaccurate painting of a Native American done by a white artist. There is a whole lot of mixed up stuff going on with this newest movie.Report
And the bird on his head? That was actually a bird flying in the background of the painting, that just sorta looked like it was perched upon his head. But Depp thought it should be Tonto’s “spirit animal” or something.Report
The Comanche advisor said it was perfectly acceptable. You might find this interestingReport
Sambo is a term for people of sub-Saharan African descent that precedes Bannerman by more than a century.Report
Sambo is a Hausa word, more precisely a name. Anyone with the name Muhammadu is also called Sambo. Sorta one of those transmogrified names, how Charles becomes Chuck.Report
Othello was a Moor, a North African of mixed Arab-Berber descent. The ideal person to play him would be, say, Tony Shalhoub.
Is it wrong that Shalhoub was cast as a Russian in Paulie?Report
It’s not wrong for anybody to play anything. One of the things I liked about Hill Street Blues is that anybody did: Michael Olin as Harry Garibaldi, Joe Spano as Henry Goldblum, and Hector Elizando as an Irish cop. What makes no sense is to reserve Othello for black actors.Report
I pretty much agree with this.
First, it’s the dramatic story that matters — can you suspend belief, do you believe the character? If you do, the drama/story/whatever works.
But the layers go deeper. If you don’t, is it intended that you don’t, that the disbelief is a tool to help you question your assumptions about something?
There are two different things here; equal opportunity in employment in the movie industry, and the art of telling a story. There’s often some tension. But IF I were producing a movie, and I could get Johnny Depp’s impact on the box office, and do so with the approval of the people who his character supposedly belongs?
I don’t really buy into the whole white-dudes-can’t-play-jazz thing.Report
The issue is when it only goes one way. Depp can play Tonto, but would they hire Idris Elba or Will Smith or Jamie Foxx or Denzel Washington to play the Lone Ranger? I’d venture to guess all those guys are bigger box office draws than Armie Hammer. And I’m sure you can find a bunch of white people who’d endorse it.
But that wouldn’t stop people from going apocalyptic over it.Report
Well, I wish they’d hired Sigourney Weaver to play the Lone Ranger.Report
Sigourney Weaver would have been awesome.Report
In fairness, we don’t tend to see a lot of actual blackface anymore, either, and you might have a harder time citing big-name Native American actors. On the other hand, how much of the fact that there aren’t any big-name Native American actors is owed to this very practice in the first place?Report
Fnord,
As I see it, if a character’s race, ethnicity, gender, etc. are relevant to the character, I think it fair to expect the actor selected to represent those aspects. As an example, “Django Unchained” doesn’t work if Fox and DiCaprio trade parts, because Django’s character needed to be a black man and Candy’s needed to be a white man. On the contrary, if they were doing an updated version of “Saved by the Bell”, I see no reason that the Zach Morris character couldn’t be a black guy or the AC Slater character couldn’t be a white guy. But Kelly Kapowski has to be a girl UNLESS you want to drastically rewrite the characters (which would be fine, but acknowledge you are doing such and aren’t doing a straight adaptation).
In addition to this, you have what you reference here with regards to actors of color being denied opportunities for stardom, even when those opportunities are manifest. They just end up getting whitewashed.
There was a quite but forceful rejection of Jennifer Lawrence being chosen at Katniss in “The Hunger Games” movie. The text apparently described Katniss as having olive skin and darker hair, attributes that many readers identified as making her a person of color. And even if her race wasn’t particularly central to the character, it was clear that the directors wanted to match her likeness somewhat, else they wouldn’t have had Lawrence die her hair. So, clearly, they thought it important to have her look somewhat like her description, but not enough to cast an actress who would look very much like the description without the need for artificial adjustment. And the outrage wasn’t so much about white washing as it was that a role which could have launched an actress-of-color to stardom instead was going to yet another established blonde white girl. It becomes self-perpetuating.
There is already a shortage of roles for actors of color, but that shortage becomes greater still when characters of color get whitewashed and the racebending almost always goes in one direction.Report
I don’t disagree with you, I just think there are a lot of gray areas in the standard you’re outlining. And, in practice, the response to those gray areas is usually to cast white people, and THAT’S the problem. It’s one of those “no one case is the problem, the pattern is the problem” issues.Report
I wouldn’t object nearly as strongly to cross-cultural casting if it was multi-directional. As it stands, even if you do get an actor of color in a traditionally white role, it is often done to deliberately turn it on its head. White actors playing characters of color? Meh.
Of course, audiences do play a part in this. Going back to HG, there were some fans who objected to one character being portrayed by an African-American actor, despite a ton of evidence in the book that she was indeed black; they just chose to ignore it. And as dumb as that might be, studios are typically more sensitive to these complaints than the reverse (though they were unmoved in this case). Casting Depp was likely a financially smart move by the studio, further complicating the situation from a “big picture” standpoint.Report
despite a ton of evidence in the book that she was indeed black
That may be a bit of an overstatement. A majority of people with olive skin and dark hair are not black. Katniss could have been Thai, Arabic, Persian, Greek, Italian, Spanish, Native American (including Inuit) or Mexican/Guatemalan/Honduran/Argentinian/etc. Black? Maybe, and a bkack actress woukd have been fine in the role, but “olive” skin isn’t usually the description for black folks.
But, yes, not blonde, although Lawrence was excellent in the role.Report
What is “Saved by the Bell”?Report
James,
That was a different character, actually played by a black actress, that set a segment of white teenage girls aflame. I don’t know the character’s name, but apparently the girls were “shocked” she was played by a black actor, which people who read the book indicated was obvious.Report
Why can’t we live in a colorblind world? Limit your answers to the two sheets of paper provided. All papers must be turned in no later than 5 minutes after scheduled class-time ends. Good luck!Report
Oh, I get you. I thought you were still talking about Katniss. But You mean the younger girl that Katniss befriended in the games (or perhaps more correctly, that befriended Katniss). The actress was great for the part, and, yeah, I read her character as black when I read the book. A pox on anyone who disliked that casting decision on any grounds. Cute kid, too, which made watching her die that much harder, as is right for the story. Hell, I’m tearing up just remembering it. You bastard.Report
What if they’d cast Sigourney Weaver to play Haymitch?Report
Stillwater, why did you give us white paper? Bet you didn’t even think about the cultural imperialism inherent in that, did you?Report
D’oh!Report
I can’t see Idris as the Lone Ranger. He’s a Bad guy or a Bad Good guy, not a Good Good guy. The others, sure.
I’m sure you recall people getting apocalyptic over Idris in Thor, because he didn’t look like any of the real Norse gods.Report
James,
That must have been her. I didn’t read the book or see the film, but did read the various reactions. The objection to Lawrence was swift, almost immediate upon announcement, but held no sway with the filmmakers. The other reaction was only after the film was made and while it was loudly criticized, I can’t help but think that the filmmakers might have been sensitive to it had it been voiced during production. But I might just be being cynical.
Schill,
Fair point re: Elba. I still want to see him as Bond. I think that would be awesome. I listed him mainly because he is a phenomenal actor, probably better than all the others on that list. As Zazzy said during a recent promo, “Isn’t Armie Hammer a bad actor? Why is he getting big roles?” I don’t know much about his acting ability, but he’s handsome and white, which is usually enough in Hollywood.Report
Kaz,
Rue, played by the very talented Amandla Stenberg. Here’s hoping she can survive being a child star.Report
Kaz,
Two further thoughts on the Lone Ranger.
1. I’m not particularly comfortable with the idea of Hollywood producers saying, “Here’s an Indian part. Go call that Indian actor.” Perhaps Bette that Indian actors avoid that typecasting, which could work against their career prospects.
2. I think a (not “the”) reason there are few major Native American actors is culture. I don’t know if you’ve had much opportunity to interact with Native Americans as I have, but for the most part substantial display of emotion is not usual, in striking contrast to most of the actors I’ve known, who sometimes have no off-button. That’s not conducive to adeptly playing a wide range of characters. Successful Native American actors often succeed by playing relatively non-expressive characters (like Elaine Miles, who was so delightful as Marilym Whirlwind in Northern Exposure, and has been in a few movies, but mostly playing a fairly stereotypical Indian–even in Smoke Signals, which was written by Sherman Alexie, a Native American author).Report
Kazzy, it was worse than just shock and dismay. There were people saying that they felt less angry/sad when she died due to her race. Preceded, if I recall, by “I’m not racist but…”
I’d heard of the kerfluffle before I read the book, so I was on the lookout for black characters and did pick up on Rue’s race. It was mentioned, though not dwelled upon (no reason it should be, really). So I’m not surprised that people missed it. Still, I’m not easily shocked when it comes to racist comments people make online, but I was kind of shocked by some of the things people said in that case.
That said, there was just a touch of irony in that before that, there were complaints about the Anglo-ness of Katniss (who was described as, if not non-white, something less Anglo than Lawrence). Of course, they had passages from the book to back them up and the Rue complainers (talking about the complainers and not those making abhorrent comments like above) didn’t, but the conversation would have gone similarly even if the book hadn’t mentioned Rue’s race, or mentioned her as light-skinned.
Of course, I do think a double standard is warranted here. I was rather peeved when Bane, who should have been Latino, was instead English. When so many established characters are white, there is a reason to shift some of them. There is less reason to make a non-white character white. Because, well, it’s not like there’s a shortage.Report
In the original graphic novel of Saved by the Bell, Zach was a 70 year old Chinese woman. The Screetch (Sp?) character was named “Stinky” and he was an abused Romania orphan. Oddly, the Tiffany Amber-Thiessen character was exactly the same.Report
And because it was a graphic novel, it had a lot of rape scenes which apparently made it “literary.”Report
James:
1.) I agree that there appears to be something unsavory about saying, “Hey, go get an Indian guy to play the Indian role,” but do you think producers balked at looking for blonde actors for the lead role in “Legally Blonde”?
2.) Approximately 1% of the American population identifies as Native American. That is 3 million people. If 1/10th of 1% of those are even remotely capable actors, that is 3,000 people. There are far less than 3,000 Native American characters on TV and in film. Or just do what Hollywood is already doing and hire Adam Beach for every role.
More seriously, I get what you’re saying. There are going to be practical issues. But if they really wanted to find a Native American actor to fill the role, I’m sure they could have. It might have taken more work, it might mean taking a risk on a less well known actor, it might mean sacrificing the box office appeal of a Johnny Depp… but they could have done it if they wanted to. Frankly, I just don’t think it mattered that much to them. Which is their right as a private business. But I still find it objectionable and it makes me want to look sideways at them when they talk about pursuing other actors, almost always white actors, because of the “authenticity” they can lend to a role.
Will,
I think you nailed it with your comment there. Well said. Much of the objection I see is often in the form of not anger, but dismay. Performers have simply resigned themselves to the fact that they won’t get leading roles and even supporting roles seemingly written for them are an uphill battle. And viewers have accepted that they’re just not going to see characters who look like them. Most of them aren’t even mad any more… which is really, really sad.Report
“And because it was a graphic novel, it had a lot of rape scenes which apparently made it “literary.””
Well, it had to be historically accurate. Hence the rape. And the dragons.Report
“1. I’m not particularly comfortable with the idea of Hollywood producers saying, “Here’s an Indian part. Go call that Indian actor.”
I get this, but we can be comfortable with it as long as it isn’t the only role for the native actor(s).
I mean, some director might say “Here’s a role for a giant muscle man, go get that Jason Momoa.” That isn’t a problem. It would be a problem for Momoa if he couldn’t get a different role. (And it would be a problem pf discrimination if “muscle man” was a historically discriminated-against group.)
It seems there are few roles that are characters particularly suited for natives, and for a non-native to take it sort of (I mean this weakly) suggests that there could be no native who could take it. And that signal pereptuates subtle racial biases.
There are two problems: the type casting of natives out of white (or where race doesn’t matter) roles and the failure to use natives for roles that call for natives. I suspect the former is the worse problem. but the latter could be a separate problem, too.Report
Depp didn’t do himself any favors when he said, “I guess I have some Native American [in me] somewhere down the line. My great-grandmother was quite a bit of Native American, she grew up Cherokee or maybe Creek Indian. Makes sense in terms of coming from Kentucky, which is rife with Cherokee and Creek.”
He has been unable to substantiate this claim, something Native American leaders say would be relatively easy to do if it were actually true.
But, hey, he guesses he might be one tribe or the other… so, good enough for Disney!Report
“It might have taken more work, it might mean taking a risk on a less well known actor”
This shows the big problem both with the racial message and the enjoyability/intestingness of this movie.
They should have had Depp as the Lone Ranger. Make him pathetical and weird, i.e. some reworking of the Captain Jack character. (Maybe he could have an opium problem that is hinted at.)
Then have a native actor (lesser known might make it cooler) be the competent hero and straight man whot tutors Depp into more respectability, but he remains foolish.
In the back of my mind, without evidence, I suspect that this was the way the movie was originally pitched, but Depp wanted to be Tonto, so they changed it.
The way the movie looks now, the lone Ranger character will be so, so, so boooooorrrrrring. And the quirkiness of the Tonto character will be funny for a minute, but then annoying. You can’t have the hero be that boring.Report
More broadly, you have a feedback loop where audiences aren’t used to seeing actors of color in certain roles, balk at seeing them in those roles, studios avoid putting them in those roles, and audiences don’t get used to seeing them there.
I’ve seen some fascinating presentations done on the way movies are marketed and the perception of “black movies”.Report
Cover it? Why? She’ll be appearing on the network come August…
http://www.freewoodpost.com/2013/06/21/fox-news-nabs-paula-deen/
EDIT: UGH. I got punked. This is a fake release. My apologies.Report
A Google News search finds six Paula Deen articles at cnn.com, and eight at foxnews.com. One of each is unrelated to the scandal.
I don’t know about the television coverage. If you’ve been watching, I’ll take your word for it.Report
“Surely, The Fix would identify his transgressions as the worst, right?”
May want to edit that to “The Five.” I don’t think WaPo’s Chris Cillizza has anything to do with this.Report
Fixed. Thank you.Report
I think you mean “Fived.”Report
High fixes all around.Report
I think the idea of celebrity role models is interesting in its own right. Do we expect all celebrities to be role models or just ones that kids are more likely to be exposed to than not like the ones who star in media aimed at kids or athletes? If its only the celebrities whose career is based on catering to children to a certain extent, are those celebrities on a twenty-four/seven sort of guard where they always have to be in role model roll. I suppose the equivalent for ordinary people would be to tell teachers that they can never go to a bar or be seen doing anything less than pristine because their students might see it. Is this right or is it asking too much?Report
I figured celebrity role models were like UCB… role models for aspiring celebrities.Report
So, um. What. The. Fuck????
You’ve seriously got an entire article here talking about one guy beating up his woman… and you missed out completely on the opportunity to talk about a woman beating up her husband???
(and I’m being nice, just to be clear, and not talking about people who aren’t celebs, but who have celebrity husbands. Because those make it even more flagrantly crazy.)
Just because you didn’t get pics…Report
What the hell are you talking about? What woman beating up her husband?Report
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_PoehlerReport
What about her? For the first time, you’ve offered a link to something, yet it says nothing.
If you’re not going to bring a reasoned, substantiated contribution to the conversation here, I’d really rather you just not participate. As of now, you’ve done nothing but waste time.Report
I can’t find anything with a google search. I know you’re treated as a special circumstance here, Kimmie, but even you have some responsibility for providing real evidence and not simply libeling someone.Report
yeah. you can either chalk this up to “jumped to unwarranted assumptions”… or you can file this with Picard’s yacht and Phil Hartman.
… either way, I guess this really didn’t get reported.Report
No, you can’t. Either provide evidence that Poehler physically abused her husband or walk back the comment.Report
… either way, I guess this really didn’t get reported.
A statement that relies on the assumption that it did in fact happen. And just what evidentiary basis do you have for assuming that? Kazz is right, Kimmie. If you can’t provide the evidence, just buck up and retract the claim.Report
No, I think you’re missing the contrast above — between “unwarranted assumptions” and… “potentially warranted ones.” After all, Phil Hartman was really killed by his wife.Report
… and, since I wasn’t the one making said assumptions, I’m not likely to walk them back.
…. here’s what I posted a while back (edited a trifle for conciseness):
*Pause frame on TV*
Not-me, “you know who that is, right?”
Me, “That’s her husband.”
Not-me, “Humph. I wonder if she really meant it?”
[short voyage out to wikipedia to look at her profile, to see if there were murder charges]
Not-me, “Okay, not dead. severely beaten, yes.”
Me, “Did he do something to deserve that?”
Not-me, “I know them both.”
/contemplative pause
Not-me, “No.”
Me, laughing.
Not-me, “I think she may need psychotherapy — or waffles.”Report
Again… what the fuck are you talking about?
Chris Brown is know to have abused Rihanna. Chris Brown was mentioned in the segment. As such, I discussed Chris Brown.
You jump in arguing that I missed an opportunity to talk about a woman beating up her man. But offer no evidence of that having happened with any of the people discussed in the original segment. You then insinuate Amy Poehler has abused her husband and when called on it, start talking about Phil Hartman and then pass the buck to an unnamed source who him/herself lacks any real information.
So, again, if you aren’t willing or able to contribute something meaningful to this conversation, please just don’t participate. I know you get treated with kid gloves around here for god knows what reason, but I don’t want my pieces poisoned with your nonsense, especially when it devolves to making baseless accusations about people abusing their spouses.Report
I think you are likely being trolled.Report
Clearly you haven’t met Kimmi.Report
I haven’t, but even if the intent is sincere, the net effect is the same as trolling.Report
Vik,
when I troll, I try harder. Also, I generally have better points to make. It’s far easier to be mistaken than to expose someone else’s stupidity.Report
Vik,
Kimmi has a reputation for spouting nonsense, referring to sources that she’ll link to next time and never does, and otherwise indulging in threadjacking that derails conversations with zero value. For whatever reason, she is tolerated, presumably because she is pretty harmless. I generally ignore her. But when she attacks me on my post by arguing I ignored female attacks on men and backs this up with unfounded accusations… It is really hard for me to ignore that.Report
By the way, is “Vik” cool? Or do you prefer Vikram? Should have asked you that before… My apologies.Report
>is “Vik” cool?
I find it a little hard to take umbrage at my fake name being shortened!
Regarding Kimmi’s posts, she presented a point, which granted was an unsubstantiated critique. Kazzy asked for evidence, and Kimmi presented what she had. I think it’d be pretty easy for a third party to look at the comments and evaluate the validity of what was presented.Report
If she did what she normally did and just offered some made up statistic, I wouldn’t really mind. But she accused Amy Poehler of spousal abuse… an incredibly heavy charge.
And while Kazzy is, like yours, a fake name, I’d still rather not have it associated with such libelous claims. I don’t want someone to Google Amy Poehler and learned that I penned a piece wherein someone accused her of spousal abuse.Report
It’s been made clear that there is no evidence presented that Poehler ever abused anyone though, right? Certainly posting the wikipedia link implied that evidence was there, but you pointed out there was no mention of any abuse there.
I empathize with your concerns about being associated with libel, but you have performed your duty here of dissociating yourself from that charge to whatever extent you can short of deleting the comment thread.Report
Thanks. I just wish that, given Kimmi’s history, we’d take better steps so that our authors and commenters didn’t have to go to such lengths, even minor ones, to distance themselves from her nonsense.
It isn’t fun to get an email that Kimmi commented on your post and say, “Let me go see what mess I might have to clean up.” If she ever contributed anything of much value, I’d be willing to take the bad with the good there; I just tend to see her as only doing bad.
But I do appreciate your perspective here. Gracias.Report
“potentially warranted ones.”
Absolutely. For all we know Amy beats her old man with tire irons every night. Has anyone seen that guy in public lately? And I’ll bet dollars to donuts she owns a tire iron.Report
Last I talked to him, he had two thoughts about having married her:
1. “I’ve made a huge mistake”, and
2. “I fished my wife.”Report
I thought he was gay.Report
1. Totally agree with Fnord and Kazzy above. The problem is the pattern of fairly using white actors for purpotedly non-white roles, but rarely using non-whites for white roles (or women for male roles, etc.) The reason for the pattern is the subtle racism and racial biases of the audiences.
2. The big problem here is racism and the perpetuation of racial (and gender) biases through popular culture,. But IMO, there is another victim here: the authenticity of the movie. I liked Depp in Pirates, but he will be something similar here and it will be boring. An unknown or lesser known native actor might’ve made the role a lot more fun and weird (as it is supposed to be) and exciting than a rehash of Captain Jack.
The same could be true for Hunger Games. To see an actor whose skin color would serve as more of a symbolic representation of an oppressed person in the real world would help the emotional resonance of a story about fictional oppressed and exploited people.Report
Can we talk about the other elephant in the room?
Why do _parents_ think Justin Beiber is a poor role model?
What _exactly_ has he done that is not role-modely? The worst I can ever google him doing is getting pissed off at paparazzi, swearing and giving them the finger, and speeding recklessly to get away from them.
That’s it. That’s apparently the worse things that Mr. Beiber has ever done. I say this as someone who literally couldn’t identify a single thing he’s ever sung, and suspect I wouldn’t like his music, but really don’t care enough to find out.
But for having done nothing, he’s right up there as a ‘bad role model’ with Chris Brown, professional wife beater, Lindsay Lohan, professional druggie, Kim Kardashian, professional person-who-is-famous-for-being-famous-and-in-a-sex-tape, and…hey, wait. WTF did Miley Cyrus do?
Hating on child pop stars might be what all the cool kids are doing, but this is supposedly a survey of _parents_.
Kanye West hasn’t actually done anything ‘bad’, either, but he’s managed to publicly make an ass of himself several times, so I _somewhat_ understand that he could be considered a ‘bad role model’.Report
I don’t know that I’d call it the “elephant in the room”, but the false equivalency is troubling in both directions. It serves to lessen the horribleness of Brown’s violence while simultaneously overestimating the seriousness of the others’.
Beiber? I’m not sure the guy is really guilty of anything more than being irritating, with much of the irritation coming from jealousy.
Cyrus isn’t squeaky clean, but isn’t on Brown’s level… not even closer. The strongest criticism I’ve seen of her has to do with cultural appropriation via her music videos… and somehow I doubt that’s what the folks here were responding to.
Kanye is a jackass but a harmless jackass. Personally, it wouldn’t shock me to learn if he has some sort of mild social disorder, the kind that often plagues genius, which would seem to make him more deserving of sympathy than ridicule (even if he seems oh-so-deserving of ridicule).
Would I want my kids looking up to any of these people? Probably not, for one reason or another. But none of them compare to Brown and the sweeping attacks and dismissal of all of them just points to lazy, shoddy journalism, if it can even be called that.Report
I think this is a false false equivalency. They’re not saying that any of the things those other people did are as bad as beating up your girlfriend; they just didn’t have enough wifebeating celebrities to fill up the list.
Also, who are the 29% of respondents who couldn’t commit to affirming the proposition that Chris Brown is a bad role model?Report
“They’re not saying that any of the things those other people did are as bad as beating up your girlfriend; they just didn’t have enough wifebeating celebrities to fill up the list.”
They didn’t have to say it. You put up 6 pictures of offending celebrities with Chris Brown amongst them and then name all but he as a potential “worst role model” and the message is sent.Report
Well, if we _really_ need more than one, Lindsay Lohan and Kim Kardashian are objectively _bad_ role models, although not up there with Chris Brown. Lindsay is cautionary tale of stardom crashing, and Kim is an almost perfect list of the wrong way to become rich and famous. I understand parents saying they don’t want their kids to grow up like either of them!
Presumably you could fill out the list with other famous men who have self-destructed or committed crimes, like Mel Gibson or OJ Simpson. (Although I’d really need a list of ‘current role models for kids’ to do that, as I suspect neither of those are on that list anyway.)
Or, heck, why are we limiting ourselves to media? There are a lot of _sports_ stars with really crappy behavior.Report
I think my definition of celebrity differs a bit from Fox’s.
Plenty of celebrities who are pedophiles (note: not alleging
acting on such fetishes), some who intentionally hurt people
who are under their care (Sandusky, anyone?).
I mean, weren’t we just talking about Mike Tyson on another thread?Report
The Biebs abandoned his monkey! What more do we need to know?Report
Is that a euphemism?Report
No, he took his pet monkey on tour, it was quarantined in Germany because, iiuc, he lacked the proper medical records, and he never retrieved it. It’s now in a zoo, which probably is a better situation for it, and this certainly isn’t Chris Brown territory, but it still makes him a scheisskopf in my book.Report