June 4, 2018--Barr & Bee

Of course Samantha Bee has the First Amendment right on her TV show to call Ivanka Trump a "feckless cunt."

And of course Rosanne Barr has the same constitutional right on Twitter to refer to African-American Valerie Jarrett as an "ape."

The First Amendment also protects their right to be stupid, and worse. They both for me are on the "worse" end of the scale.

But freedom of speech and other freedoms can have consequences.

For example, many on the left applauded the ABC network when it moved swiftly to cancel Barr's top-rated show. While many on the right are calling on Bee's network, TBS, to do the same thing. Not firing her they see to be evidence of liberal bias in the media. Minimally, evidence of a double standard.

Clearly what Barr and Bee did was not equivalent. 

Bee made her stupid comments as part of stand-up schtick. In other words what she spewed was an example of a joke gone wrong. Terribly wrong. 

But comedians are given dispensation to push the limits in their acts (think Lenny Bruce and Joan Rivers). In fact, they are encouraged to do so. They are often seen as speaking truth to power under the cover of comedy. Like Shakespeare's fools (think Lear's Fool or Puck in Midsummer Night's Dream).

Barr exposed her racism on Twitter, as a private citizen (who has the same First Amendment rights as Rosanne the actor), expressing her views, not in character, while off the air. Also, she claimed, as an alibi, that what she tweeted was a clumsy joke that misfired.

So an initial issue involves the fact that Barr was fired while Bee wasn't. At least not yet. The double-standards business claimed by Republicans. Though let's see what TBS does when more of her sponsors dump her, as some already have.

TBS may be able to allow Bee to remain on the air until that inevitably happens because her show is broadcast on cable where standards about what is acceptable are more permissive than what traditional networks allow, especially, as in ABC's case, if the network is owned by PG-rated Disney.

Now, let's deal with the politics beyond the hypocrisy on both the right and left.

The right at the moment has the political upper hand--Barr was fired while Bee wasn't. As good as progressives are at explaining things away, rationalizing them (as they have been struggling to do for days now on MSNBC) it is hard to make the case that it's OK, after an apology, to say about Ivanka what Bee said even though it was uttered under the sanction of comedy, where anything goes, and was directed at an employee of the White House (fair game) who also happens to be our reprehensible president's daughter. A president who has contributed immeasurably to the coarsening of discourse that has led to this. A president who has said much worse things than Samantha Bee or, for that matter, Rosanne Barr.

Again politically, progressives occupied the moral high ground while Barr's tweets were the sole subject of outrage. Then Bee stepped in it and changed the focus of the political struggle. Now everyone is talking and agitating about Samantha Bee. Rosanne Barr is relegated to a sidebar.

Here's my take--

I hate what both of them said. But both of them are or should be protected to say almost anything. (Not "Fire!" in a crowded theater.) That's the easy part. It's my view that they are pretty much equally culpable. Many on the left disagree. Fine.

I wouldn't fire either of them. We don't want to intimidate our comedians, our fools. During these times we need them more than ever. We need to hear their versions of the truth. We need them to be funny while subversive. How so many of us can't wait for the latest episode of Saturday Night Live. There is already so much fear that chilling difficult discourse more than it already is is dangerous to our survival as a democracy.

As a partisan, as someone who wants to see Trump weakend, humbled, and thereby rendered less effective, I want those on the left, who are essential to helping to bring this about, to be smarter than they currently are. We can't retreat from the fray and focus on our lifestyles (I have written about this ad nauseam) but must fight back even harder. Though smarter. 

Samantha Bee's rights are constitutionally protected (at least for now), but wasting them by wounding oneself while being stupid, and the rationalizations I am hearing from those I otherwise admire, is helping boost Trump's approval ratings and will interfere with progressives' prospects in November.

I am sorry if this pragmatic focus does not elevate our dialogue but until after the midterms my mantra is going to continue to be obsessively practical. 

I want us to be smart, less self-righteous, and above all win. Then we can go back to being nuanced and subtle. 

September 7, 2016--The Fly (Part One)

I was all excited as my classmate English majors and I stumbled out of Professor Jim Zito's class on Shakespeare's Late Plays.

He had just finished his Lear lectures, this most desperate of tragedies, citing Gloucester in Act 4's most desperate of utterances--

As fles to wanton boys are we to th' gods. 

They kill us for their sport.

This gave me a reason to approach him. Something I had never done, intimidated by his brilliance.

Somehow finding my voice, I called to him, "Mr. Zito. Mr. Zito."

At Columbia, with Oxbridge-like unpretension, even the most esteemed professors were always addressed as Mister.

"What is it Zwerling?" he said, though born in the Bronx, with his academic version of a modified British accent.

We were all known by our last names, if known at all. I was struck that he recognized mine. I had never  felt secure enough to speak in class or even pose a question. Those student colleagues who did were already ready for graduate school--they were geniuses--or even professorships. I was still struggling to find something at which I could excel.

And so how did he know who I was? I supposed it was yet another example of his brilliance.

"Sir, I was wondering about the Gloucester quote.  Act 4, Scene 1."

"The one about the gods and wanton boys?"

"How did you know that . . . ?"

"Among the most vivid."

"I was wondering about William Blake. About the Song of Experience, his poem, 'The Fly,' and how . . ."

Looking up, over all of our clustered heads, he recited--

Little Fly

Thy summer's play, 

My thoughtless hand

Has brush'd away.

Am not I

A fly like thee?

Or art not thou

A man like me?

For I dance

And drink & sing

Til some blind hand

Shall brush my wing.

If thought is life

And strength & breath;

And the want 

Of thought is death;

Then am I

A happy fly,

If I live

Or if I die.

"How did you . . . ?"

"Not Blake's most nuanced. But, yes, I can see that it might refer to Gloucester."

"For Romantic Lit I'm writing a paper about . . ."

By then Mr. Zito had turned away surrounded by the chattering of his groupie geniuses.

This close encounter helped me realize that I too might have academic potential. If Mr. Zito hadn't seen the connection between Gloucester and Blake, then perhaps, maybe . . .

Though I was far from ready for graduate school, like Morris Dickstein or Sam Cherniak, both a year behind me, I began to imagine myself ten years hence on the faculty of an out-of-the-way state college or two-year community college.

These memories flooded back this past weekend when an actual fly flew into my life.

To be continued . . .