OCT 6 — So late-night TV host David Letterman has confessed to having had affairs with women on his staff. And he has, by all accounts, been lauded for “manning up” and coming clean, though he did so only because he was being threatened with blackmail.
Veteran Hollywood publicist Michael Levine was quoted as saying: “It was very important for him to get on offence, because nothing in this world is private any longer. We’re just living in a very different kind of world today than 10 or 20 years ago. And so I think the best defence is an offence, and the only offence is relentless.”
The public, in general, seems to agree. Nielsen ratings for Letterman’s show were up by 38 per cent last week. And Letterman, 62, who married his long-time girlfriend Regina Lasko in March, seems ready to close the door on the whole incident.
Never mind that his confession raises issues of sexual harassment or conflicts of interest in the workplace. Never mind that his philandering ways would have remained under wraps if the extortion bid had not occurred. Everyone seems more than happy to slap him on the back and send him on his way.
After all, it is not as if he drugged and raped a minor, like Roman Polanski. The acclaimed Polish-French director was arrested in Zurich last week and faces extradition to the United States on a 1977 charge of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor — a 13-year-old; a charge to which he had in fact pleaded guilty.
But even a child rapist has his supporters. The film fraternities in Europe and Hollywood have rallied behind him, saying that the case is decades old, his victim has long forgiven him, and Polanski has already suffered enough.
After all, it is not as if he had a 10-year sexual relationship with his daughter, like the late John Phillips of 1960s pop band The Mamas & The Papas. Actress Mackenzie Phillips, now 49, has revealed that at age 18, on the night before her first marriage, she was drugged by her father and woke up to find herself having sex with him. She said she forgave him on his deathbed — John died in 2001, aged 65 — and believes that he did not mean to cause her hurt.
After all, it is not as if her family played the sordid drama out on TV for gain, like Jon Gosselin and his estranged wife Kate, who parlayed their unexpected baby bonanza into a successful reality TV show about raising eight children.
Post break-up, Jon has had his lawyers halt all filming on Jon & Kate Plus 8. It is all for the sake of the children, he says, imploring his ex to consider their welfare. He never complained about parading his children on the world’s TV sets when he was ringing up a cool US$1 million (RM3.45 million) last year.
The banality of evil is a cliche; face up instead to the evil of banality.
While celebrities have always been indulged in their questionable behaviour — definitely more so than errant politicians — events in the last few weeks show that we are heading down a Yellow Brick Road to perdition, where absolution is a mere TV appearance away and forgiveness is as easily dispensed as fliers on an Orchard Road weekend.
I blame it on the one-minute news story tailored to a generation with the attention span of a gnat. Reporting a scandal is one thing. But not supplementing it with genuine, insightful analyses is just plain irresponsible and lazy.
I blame the idol-worshipping inclinations of those who decide that celebrities should be above the law and that every public apology is a genuine one.
I blame the bottom-feeding urges of editors and newsmen who delight in schadenfreude and spectacle.
Somewhere between class-act TV offerings and great journalism, a horrible mutation has also been brought into the world, and it is threatening to take over. It is the deformed offspring of reality TV and celebrity culture — swaddled in the inky wrap of supermarket tabloids, coddled in the faux-redemptive mock-investigative interviews of Oprah and Larry King, and fattened on book deals and blood money earned from the blind adulation of the slobbering masses.
The apologists have gone too far, if the last few weeks are anything to go by. Child abuse, sexual harassment, incest and bad workplace ethics should not be tolerated, no matter what the circumstances.
Matthew Belloni of The Hollywood Reporter said of the Polanski incident: “It is a criminal conviction of a terrible crime, but it is something that the industry is willing to look the other way on. If Hollywood really gets to look at itself and judge the personal character of a lot of the artists in the community, there would be a lot of empty seats at the Oscars...”
I think there are worse things that can happen than to have the Oscars ceremony cancelled. — The Straits Times
Show/Hide comments
Show/Hide comment form
