big business

Pictured below is the Lightsaber of Democracy: my satellite TV remote. Subtly highlighted is the “skip forward” button, which allows the viewer to jump ahead in 30-second increments while watching recorded programming. The practice of skipping over commercial breaks, normally a mere convenience, in pre-election months becomes absolutely vital for the prevention of Autumnal Voter Disgust Syndrome.

A VoterShield
1000, and its
mighty "Skip
Fwd" button.

Campaign advertisers are a crafty predator. They’ll often position their ad as the last one to play before resumption of the TV show, meaning that even skillful ad-skippers will see their final slogan as it fades to black. This year’s slogan I most often saw in this manner was the phrase “No on 87.” Noticing this trend, each future occurrence prompted me to think “Wow, somebody is spending a ton of money to defeat Proposition 87. Eh, I’ll probably end up voting ‘Yes.’ ” Flippant? Sure, a bit - but allow me to explain my rationale.

I’ve noticed that like nearly every aspect of American politics, ballot initiatives are by and large about money. Initiative campaigns that churn out a lot of TV advertising are about A LOT of money - specifically, either a promotion of or an impediment to someone making a lot of money. To discern what a given ballot measure proposes to put into effect, a voter needs only to find out what interests are pouring money into the respective “No” and “Yes” campaigns, and then connect the dots through critical thinking. Read the rest of this entry »

Convicted former Chairman of Enron Kenneth Lay has died of an apparent heart attack.

Damn. Damn, damn, damn. I really wanted to see him go to jail.

OK, I’m a callous bastard, and I should think of his family - they’ve lost a loved one. And I feel bad for them. I do. They have my honest sympathy for their loss. The thing is, they’ll eventually get through their grieving process, recover, and move on, like any other family does when it loses someone. Unlike any other family, Lay’s heirs will move on in a level of comfort that is owed in part to the suffering of ex-Enron shareholders and employees whom the late Mr. Lay is responsible for fucking over.

All the former Enron foot soldiers who did nothing wrong have to move on, too: without their jobs, without the retirement safety nets they had earned, without vacation homes in Snowmass. Now, they may very well also have to do without the comfort of Kenny Boy paying for what he did:

…Lay’s death likely means his conviction will be vacated and it will be as if he were never charged… Lay had not been sentenced and the appeal process had barely started. [According to legal specialists,] that means a final judgment has not been issued and the conviction will be set aside… what is not clear, however, is if the government’s efforts to seize money and assets from Lay can continue… since it is seen as a measure meant to punish the defendant… the government could file a motion for forfeiture as a civil proceeding, however, meaning it would be an attempt to seize assets from Lay’s estate.

Bad enough that the victims are denied the comfort of seeing Lay go to prison, but their civil claim may end with their being stiffed by a stiff. It’s the kind of circumstance that one suspects will cause an uptick in atheism.

Jeff Skilling better stay healthy. I hope they have him on an exercise regimen, with a square diet and weekly physicals. Long live Jeff Skilling.

I get a kick out of listening to people who are on the top of the heap complain about how persecuted they are. That such individuals and organizations assume they will be flooded with sympathy when they advertise their complete lack of perspective, I find inherently hilarious. I don’t mean to imply that privileged people cannot be genuinely victimized (celebrity stalkers and the tabloid press are just two obvious examples of how they can be, and often are), but I’m referring to something else: I’m talking about luminaries of one kind or another who decry imaginary oppressors, or who (figuratively speaking) refer to the ants at their picnic as if they were bears.

In dishonor of these bellyaching fat cats, I have decided to institute the Boo-Fucking-Hoo Award, which I will bestow every so often upon those who distinguish themselves in the field of meritless complaint. Without further ado, I give you our inaugural recipient, Mr. Charles Simpson, representing the Business & Media Institute.

Some dedicated researchers from this organization spent last year’s sweeps months in front of the TV checking their reflections, so to speak. Their overall conclusion, stated in a widely-circulated position piece by Mr. Simpson, was that the television industry is putting out too many negative images of… businessmen. Yes, that’s right: the captains of industry want the world to know that Hollywood is giving them a bad rap. Mr. Simpson’s leadoff:

Long after executives from Enron, WorldCom, and HealthSouth first graced the 24-hour news cycle, the four major networks have outdone the evening news with anti-business themes.

Apparently the TV networks missed the memo that it was their patriotic duty to rehabilitate the image of big business through their dramatic series programming. Executive America can see that it’s not having a good run lately in the non-fiction market, so it wants to know why fiction hasn’t stepped up for them? Mr. Simpson points to some of the numbers:

During the two sweeps months, you were five times more likely to be kidnapped or murdered at the hands of a businessman than terrorists, gangs, or even the mob. It’s enough to convince the risk averse to join the Peace Corps. After all, they’d be safer in Darfur than in an office space.

Ooh - funny funny! Stop, stop, you’re killing m-… oops, I know you’re sensitive about that. Nice line, though. Sorry I could only give sarcastic laughter on that one, I guess mass rape and genocide just don’t crack me up like they used to. Anyway, about the statistic: five times more likely to be killed by a businessman than “terrorists, gangs, or even the mob?” That can’t possibly be right. Hel-lo! Mobsters and gang members are businessmen! But wait, our guy Charles Simpson is warming up for his big finish, his coup de arrogance:

It’s mind-boggling that show business could be so anti-business. How can a multibillion-dollar industry be antagonistic to a cornerstone of American society?… it’s hypocritical to use a successful business model to undermine the free enterprise system that helped create it… are TV execs hypocrites, or just plain out of touch with reality?

At this point, I almost feel sorry for the guy because he comes within a hair’s breadth of getting it. The answers to Simpson’s questions, if he would ask them honestly rather than rhetorically, are hiding from him in plain sight. Instead, he becomes the ironic cherry on the top of his own folly by exposing himself as… a hypocrite who is just plain out of touch with reality.

Fairly or unfairly, Hollywood studios are being good businessmen by depicting evil businessmen. They know what their customers want, and that’s what they are providing. The Business & Media Institute may not see it, but for most others it’s easy to see why audiences draw cathartic satisfaction from the idea of corporate fat cats getting their comeuppance. To start with, the gap between the rich and the not rich in our society has been widening significantly due to factors including tax policy and the lack of lobbying reform. Second, the nature of employment has fundamentally changed in the last 20-25 years, with layoffs (or their euphemistic variants like “downsizing,” “outsourcing,” and “moving offshore”) becoming so commonplace as to seem inevitable, and the notion of job security regarded more and more as a relic of the good old days. Then, of course, there are the well-known and startlingly numerous recent examples of disastrous corporate malfeasance and fraud. While it’s true that such shameful episodes are the exception rather than the rule in terms of the whole business community, it’s also true that holy shit, there have been a hell of a lot of exceptional assholes popping up lately.

Either way, the blistering network portrayals of businessmen who lie, cheat and kill make one miss the old days of simple class envy.

Oh, what a shame… those mean TV networks are making people forget to be jealous of you. Well, I recommend you head on home and have your personal chef whip you up a nice Pity Puree. Maybe pop in your DVD of the first season of The Apprentice. Maybe it’ll be enough to make you forget that unflattering portrayals of you are profitable.

On April Fools Day, Sweetie and I finally got our asses to the movies again. Just now I actually had to do research to figure out that the last time we’d been to a movie theater was to see Brokeback Mountain, a couple days after Christmas. My God, what have I become? I don’t think I’ve ever experienced such a cinemagoing drought since before I had a driver’s license. So yay for us - we saw and quite enjoyed Inside Man. The only unpleasant part of the evening was when I got run over by a trailer.

Before you start wondering how I could have been involved in yet another auto accident, let me assure you that I meant that last statement was only a metaphor (and a cheap little pun). To be more straightforward, among the previews before Inside Man was one for Universal’s United 93. If you haven’t seen it you can do so here.

As the trailer ended, I did something I don’t think I’d ever done (at least, not in public) in response to a theatrical preview: I booed. It was a sharp, disapproving boo, and fairly loud. I was a little disheartened that no others joined in, but I took some solace in the sprinkling of snickers my booing induced. I wouldn’t normally think of being snickered at as a desirable thing, but these were not snickers in the “can you believe that idiot?” vein - rather, they were ironic. They were snickers of recognition. (Mmmm… Snickers of recognition… [drool])

What I found boo-worthy was the idea of an action movie about the events of September 11. Before I go further into the issue, I feel that I should emphasize that I have no intention of passing judgment on United 93 as a movie, for the (hopefully) obvious reason that I have not seen it. What I have seen is the trailer, the content of which gave me every indication the movie will be, in my view, exploitative. Much of the media brouhaha over the past couple of weeks has centered around the question, “is America ready for movies about 9/11?” I suspect that many others essentially share the answer I would give, which is, “Movies about 9/11? Sure. An action movie about 9/11? Ugh… that’s not funny.”
The manner in which Universal and the film’s creators have been handling the imbroglio has only reinforced my distaste. First, the manager of the AMC Loews Lincoln Square multiplex in New York City stopped running the United 93 preview in response to the complaints of offended patrons. Notice, if you will, Universal Marketing honcho Alan Fogelson’s hedging assertion that the trailer is inoffensive because it accurately reflects the movie as a whole. The quote is formed a little strangely, making me wonder if what he said was taken out of context and pieced together. In any case his reasoning doesn’t wash, for a few reasons:

1. Since when have the studios given a rat’s ass whether or not a trailer accurately represents the movie it is promoting? Any somewhat attentive movie patron has caught on to the increasing number of previews that completely misrepresent a film’s actual content or emphasis in order to appeal to the broadest possible demographic. So what’s he even saying here?
2. OK, fine - let’s say the preview is true to the movie. If the movie itself is offensive, then the preview is offensive too. I found the preview offensive, so you’ll understand if I have a strong suspicion that the whole movie would make me feel more of the same.

More egregious is Fogelson’s equating the occurrence at Lincoln Square to one where a theatre removed one-sheets for The 40 Year-Old Virgin because of a customer’s complaint. As we say here on the internet, wtf? Let’s consider this. On the one hand, you’ve got perhaps a few sanctimonious prigs who are all bent out of shape over the assumption that Hollywood is mocking the notion of virginity. On the other hand, you’ve got a group of New Yorkers watching a preview that contains TV footage of one of the planes hitting the World Trade Center, and hurtles through a series of quick, action-packed cuts, underscored by ominous music and declaring touting itself as being from the director of The Bourne Supremacy. Pretty much every American who was old enough to comprehend the events of that day is still powerfully moved by them; most also have deeply-held feelings about 9/11’s continuing aftermath. It’s just… kind of not the same as a few people’s belief that middle-aged virginity is comedically off-limits.

Subsequent press stories on the subject - like this one, for example - make a lot out of the fact that the families of those who were killed on flight 93 gave permission for the film to be made, and for its release. In fact, the studio and the filmmakers are taking moral cover behind the families. United 93 director Paul Greengrass describes how the very very very first step they took to make the movie was to seek the families’ approval, declaring that after all, the families are the only ones with the right to make a moral judgment about such a film being made. All of which is, of course, total bullshit.

OF COURSE they needed the blessing of the families to make the movie. DUH! What were they going to do - make the movie over the families’ objections, and get sued into bankruptcy? The approval and editorial oversight of the families is a peripheral detail. Make no mistake: a major Hollywood studio does not make a movie in order to cozy up to a single group of maybe a couple hundred people (the one exception being if group in question is the membership of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences). The only endorsement they care about is that of the conceptual Joe Moviegoer, expressed by his showing up and buying a ticket. Preferably during the movie’s opening weekend.

Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center has thus far provided less concrete fodder for speculation. In theory, it doesn’t sound like an exploitative premise, per se - two Port Authority cops fight to survive, trapped in the rubble of Twin Towers. To be honest, my first thought was, “Hmm… doesn’t sound particularly cinematic. Two guys trapped in one spot for days on end? Might work better as a play.” The movie’s long cast list on IMDB suggests that they went another way with it. The presence of Oliver Stone’s name on any movie is enough for many people to start prepping their ire hoses; presumably their ranks will grow when it’s a movie related to 9/11. I don’t share such apprehension: yes, Stone is a provocateur, but he doesn’t indulge in provocation for its own sake. Even films of his that I haven’t liked overall (Natural Born Killers, The Doors) demonstrate that he’s a filmmaker who can be counted on to have a distinct point of view. On the other hand, the release date of August 11th seems a little more than coincidental. I’m crossing my fingers that he and Paramount don’t trot out a cheesily manipulative preview, complete with some of that news footage of the buildings coming down. Just what we all need.