Hollywood Babble On & On #1263: Some Shilling Then It Gets Offensive...

FIRST SOME SHILLING!

Okay, if you're a regular reader of my blog, or my Twitter feed, you will know that I sold a novel to Fahrenheit Press of Los Angeles. Soon A MINT CONDITION CORPSE will be available. It's what I call a "nerd noir" a satirical whodunnit set at a comic book convention starring a brilliant geek detective named KIRBY BAXTER, and his Scooby gang of friends.

So I'm putting out a call to any and all people who are taste-makers in the geek community, or they know taste makers, for some help. We can arrange preview copies of the book, for perusal, and if you, or they, like it, please get the word out. 

I need all the help I can get to get people to read this book. Those who do seem to enjoy it, so the more the merrier.

If you have any leads, let me know, either by my e-mail or via Twitter, and I'll make arrangements with my publisher.

Thanks in advance.

Now onto…

SOMETHING OFFENSIVE PART ONE

For a brief period SNL alumni Will Ferrell considered and then dropped out of a gig playing the late actor/governor/president Ronald Reagan with a twist.

That twist was that it was going to be a comedy inspired by the conspiracy theory that the Alzheimer's disease that destroyed the last ten years of Reagan's life secretly happened at the beginning of his second term. The theory goes on to say that he only made it through because his staff, in the movie; a young intern, convinced Reagan that he was playing the president in a movie.

Already Republicans, Reagan relatives, and many others are saying this is an offensive idea spawned by deep seeded political malice. The outrage probably was what scared Ferrell off the project in the end.

I also have something to add.

It will be an enormous waste of money and time.

The financiers would be better off putting the budget in a pile and setting it on fire. At least that way they can maybe have a wiener roast.

An even better idea is that they could give the budget to me, and let me make something worth watching, or just to live a lush lifestyle.

That's because this film falls into the far edge of what I call the Offend/Bore Matrix. That's where a film dealing with a controversial subject, like politics and/or religion is so aggressively partisan that it can only offend the opposite side of the issue and bore those who agree with the filmmaker.

But when you get out to the far edge, like this idea, you slip into the realm of the Offend/Creep region. That means that its militant partisanship has gone too far, and has become toxic, making anyone who likes it look like a creep.

Why?

Let's say you are a partisan Democrat. You despised Ronald Reagan and think he was the spawn of hell.

That's fine, you have a right to have your opinion of a politician. But there's that little something extra to this script, and that's Alzheimer's Disease.

Do you want to be known as the person who laughs at someone with Alzheimer's Disease?

Bring in Alzheimer's disease and political affiliations tend to fall by the wayside, and it slips into the realm of intense personal suffering.

Very few would find that kind of soul-destroying suffering funny, even if it happened to a Republican, and even fewer would publicly admit to finding it funny solely because it happens to a Republican.

Imagine this conversation:

A: Did you see the new movie about Reagan. It's the funniest thing ever made. 

B: Isn't that about him having Alzheimer's? 

A: Yeah, and it's hilarious. I laughed so much at his inability to remember things like friends and family. 

B: We didn't find it funny when that happened to my Grandpa. 

A: But this a Republican we're talking about. 

B: So?

A: That makes laughing at Alzheimer's okay! 

B: I can't even look at the trailers or commercials without remembering how bad things got for my Grandfather before he died. 

A: You have no sense of humour.

That might put a damper on the word of mouth.

SOMETHING OFFENSIVE PART TWO

Actress Scarlett Johansson has been cast in the lead role of an American movie version of the Japanese anime Ghost In The Shell.

This led to cries of outrage that the originally Japanese role hadn't gone to a Japanese actor. Most of the cries of "whitewashing" came from Asian-American organizations, and a lot of angry white people.

But do you know who wasn't offended by the casting?

The Japanese.

Most Japanese pundits and media outlets don't really care about Johansson's casting, and many are even enthusiastic about it.

The Japanese aren't freaking out over Johansson because they assume that an American version of a Japanese story would have an "American" actor (translation "White"). Part of this is because the Japanese have no qualms doing a Japanese version of a Euro-American story with Japanese versions of those once white characters. Kurosawa adapted several works of Shakespeare and the tropes of the American Western movie into many of his samurai films.

Then there's the other part: Even when it's not a Japanese version of a Euro-American story, but a Japanese story featuring caucasian European or American characters they will still use Japanese actors.

Case in point...

However, cast a Chinese, or Korean actor to play a Japanese character, or vice-versa, and then they get offended.

To explain that would involve explaining centuries of Asia's ethnic politics and prejudices, and I ain't going there.

Does this mean that "whitewashing" is not a problem?

No.

Whitewashing especially of Asian characters is a real problem, and it's part of the short shrift that Asian actors have been getting in Hollywood since the dawn of the medium.

White actors in bad make-up speaking pidgin English have been used to play Asian characters for over a century.  The most infamous being the popular Charlie Chan movies of the 1930s-1940s which managed to make the character of a brilliant detective shorthand for an insulting and offensive stereotype. 

But even when Asian-American actors break through in Hollywood they still got shafted. The first Asian-American movie star,  California born Anna May Wong* was beautiful, talented, and denied most of the plum roles she probably deserved.

Why?

There were actual laws on the books against the portrayal of interracial romance or "miscegenation."  That meant that she couldn't even kiss a white co-star on screen, even if he was playing an Asian character.

That meant that she was trapped playing stock or stereotyped characters for most of her career.

Those laws are gone, but the narrow casting of Asian actors in Hollywood continues. Also the recent demands for greater diversity in Hollywood also seem to leave them out.

That isn't right.

Hollywood does need to reflect the wider audience, and to ditch a lot of the stereotypes that hold back not only actors, but the art of storytelling.

But that will take effort, and Hollywood isn't known for spending effort, they just prefer to throw money at empty gestures and hope the problem goes away.

______________________________

*Anna May Wong was also the inspiration for this classic love song…

Hollywood Babble On & On #1253: Guys, Gals And Greenbacks! (UPDATED)

Gwyneth Paltrow is a victim of sexism.

The Oscar winning actress is telling the world that the gender pay gap is not only real it's ruining her life because she is paid way less than her Marvel co-star Robert Downey Jr. for what she considers the "same work."

Thanks to Downey's role as Tony Stark/Iron Man in the solo films and The Avengers he's raked in over $110 million. Gwyneth Paltrow meanwhile has earned a paltrow paltry $9 million in the same period, and the highest paid female star Jennifer Lawrence earned around $72 million. Both are making way less than what Downey Jr. made.

Is it sexism?

Short answer: In Gwyneth's case, no. The long answer is much more complicated than that, but complication requires explanation. It's much easier to just blame it on some unidentifiable villain or delusion and leave it at that.

However, I do explanations here, and explanations I will dispense.

First, let's look at Gwyneth Paltrow's case.

I find it ironic that she would use her co-star Downey as her example, since there was a very long time, called the 90s, where she was the reigning queen of young Hollywood and he figuratively couldn't get arrested in Hollywood, because he was almost constantly being literally arrested.

Take look at Gwyneth's box office record and you will start to wonder why she was considered so important, because it is shockingly lacklustre. She hasn't carried a film in well over a decade, and in most of the film's she does appear in the ones that do better feature the least Gwyneth they could get away with and still feature her in the credits. Her last starring role, opposite Johnny Depp in Mortdecai, was more than just a bomb, it set the standard for failure in every regard and category. In fact, without her role as Pepper Potts, Tony Stark's love interest she'd be almost entirely off the radar as a major actress. In fact, she could be replaced as Potts, and it's unlikely the audience would notice or care.

Paltrow's many public pronouncements, often via her blog GOOP, haven't helped her appeal at the box office. They make her appear to be a woman who has spent their entire life in a bubble of elite privilege who cannot grasp basic mortal concepts like break-ups and household economics. Every time she opens her mouth, I can't help but feel embarrassed for her and her inability to feel embarrassed for herself.

Gwyneth's mindset might make her fit in real well within Hollywood, but it's not going to win over middle Americans who buy movie tickets. 

Robert Downey Jr. managed probably the biggest transformation in movie history, going from being literally unemployable to one of the biggest box office stars in Hollywood thanks mostly to his work as Tony Stark/Iron Man*. Now he hasn't done much between his big franchise roles of Stark and Sherlock Holmes, doing only a couple of starring roles, and some smaller guest appearances, which means he hasn't tainted his brand with too many turkeys.

He also has his face on a good chunk of the top selling Marvel merchandise which is pure gravy when it comes to the cash flow. When the Pepper Potts lunchbox outsells the Iron Man one, then Gwyneth might have a case for equal pay on that front.

Which brings us to Jennifer Lawrence, who is the female equivalent of Robert Downey Jr., but without the multiple drug arrests and jail time. She has two popular franchises under her belt; as the central star of The Hunger Games, and as part of the X-Men ensemble, so why doesn't she make as much as RDJ?

The answer, lies in choices.

Downey chooses to not take the pay cuts necessary to get a starring role in an smaller budget or independent movie. He's not getting any younger, and it looks like he's trying to bank as much as he can so he doesn't have to face the near total financial collapse he endured in his youth. Downey's contract, according to legend, is structured so that if his Marvel movies hit certain box office targets, he gets fat bonuses, and they've always exceeded the targets which make his bonuses bigger.

J-Law and money is a very different story. She's young, her career is literally just starting, but starting like a rocket, going from zero to supersonic with astonishing rapidity. However, Lawrence is following a careful strategy that is designed to prevent her from being a flash in the pan who disappears as fast as she appears.

That strategy involves forging partnerships with filmmakers, specifically indie darling and the John Ford to her John Wayne: David O. Russell, to forge a career outside of the franchises that shows off her skill as an actress and her charisma as a star. 

It's a smart strategy, because The Hunger Games is coming to an end, and playing the shapeshifter and villainous second-banana Mystique under a coat of blue makeup and prosthetics keeps her from completely making the part hers and hers alone. She could leave that franchise and I doubt it would cause any more than a cluster of incoherence on Twitter.

Working with Russell and his ilk means she can shine on her own without special effects, and it's working. Lawrence can make an indie film commercially viable with domestic box office in the $130-150+ million range, and earn critical plaudits, Academy award nominations and at least one win so far. These films give her both respectability and a commercial track record outside of franchise pictures, which will open doors for her in the future.

Now if she was demanding the same salary as Downey Jr. gets for an Avengers or Iron Man movie, then a lot of them wouldn't be getting made. She's sacrificing some up-front money, and is literally investing what she's not being paid into her career's longevity.

However, that doesn't mean that J-Law has nothing to complain about.

She apparently has plenty to complain about. In fact, she wrote an essay about how she was paid less than her male co-stars for their roles in American Hustle. She blames her lower salary on her own unwillingness to fight for a more equitable piece of the action out of fear of being branded "difficult" or be labelled a "spoiled brat" as producer Scott Rudin did in an e-mail about salary negotiations with Angelina Jolie.

I don't want to disagree with J-Law, because I do have a bit of a crush on her, but I have to explain that Hollywood's sexism problem, especially when it comes to salaries is not so much a conspiracy of one gender against another, but individuals, creating an outcome that can be interpreted as sexist, by the choices they make and why they make them.

Salary negotiations are essentially a game of poker. Everyone is placing their bets, not knowing what the other players have, and hoping that they have the winning hand.  The cards in this game are box office record, past salaries, the film's budget, the film's expected box office, how much of that box-office can be attributed to the stars, and the amount of clout the players have within the Hollywood community. Actors and producers are competitors with each other at this stage. The stars want to get the most they can get when it comes to salaries and profit shares, and the producers want to pay out the least.

That means that when an opportunity comes to save a dime, the producers will take it. They're not thinking about the gender politics of it all, they're just seeing numbers and dollar signs going from one column to another.

Now an actor are not supposed to be alone in this fight. They're supposed to have representation; agents, managers, and lawyers. Their job is to basically act the bastard and fight for every penny they can get for their clients. They are supposed to have a good estimate of what cards the other players have, and strategize accordingly.

All of these factors go into who gets paid what, and can complicate things to where it might look like the dudes are getting a cash-for-genitalia-bonus, but it might really be that someone's reps are the one's lacking in testicular fortitude.

Jennifer Lawrence might kick herself for not fighting hard enough, when she should be asking why her "people" weren't picking up the fight for her. 

Does this mean that Hollywood isn't really sexist after all?

Oh hell no.

Hollywood does have a gender problem, but it's deeper and more complicated than anything that can be condensed into a little article like this one.

______________

*In an odd side note when Iron Man first went into development I said on an online film forum that Downey Jr. was the only man who could play Stark, and was promptly corrected that it was an impossibility. Well, guess who turned out to right after all. 

Hollywood Babble On & On #1252: An Open Letter To Quentin Tarantino

Dear Quentin Tarantino.

I respect, and even understand, your love of the look and feel of classic film stock. The hyper-vivid spectrum seen when watching early technicolor epics in high definition is a look and style I really love.

But I don't get this whole "I hate Netflix and still tape everything on VHS" thing you're going on about. VHS was a mixed bag with many pros and cons.

One big pro for VHS was that it made renting and owning a movie that a movie lover can watch whenever they want a possibility. I have a reminder of the golden age of VHS because right next to my desk is a set of shelves where I still keep my old VHS tapes. (Among them Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction)

However, there are many cons to VHS.

#1. The initial picture quality ain't that great. It's like watching a washed out print, and most movies released on VHS were "pan & scanned" and badly at that, damaging even further the viewing experience when compared to a theatre, or even a decent television broadcast.

#2. VHS tape decays over time. I'll bet a diddle-eyed-joe to a damned-if-I-know* that most of my old VHS collection, the youngest being 20 years old, are just plastic bricks with overwrought cover-art.

#3. Recording something onto VHS from a modern hi-def cable-box is just a real pain in the ass when most have the option of a DVR included.

I'm not saying that online streaming services are perfect. They have their pros and cons, and being someone who loves collecting movies, I like being able to physically own a copy that I can keep on a shelf to watch whenever I want and not be dependent on the whims and algorithms of a streaming service. That's why, when I can, I get the DVDs and Blu-Rays of the movies I really love.

Now most are writing this off as "Oh there goes eccentric Quentin again" but I'm not.

I suspect that this is not out of a deep seeded eccentricity, but a very shallow affectation.

Look deep and ask yourself: "Am I doing this because I really feel that I need to, or am I doing this because I think this is the sort of thing I'm expected to do?"

That is the difference between a real eccentricity, and an affectation.

If you're honest with yourself, you might be surprised by the answer.

-Furious D.

*Reservoir Dogs Reference Alert.

Hollywood Babble On & On #1248: A Matter of Sex?

Director Colin Trevorrow is the latest target of the Twitter outrage mob, but it's not for stealing jokes, instead his sin appears to being successful while in possession of a penis.

Trevorrow's career is being touted as an overnight success story, ignoring the fact that he spent well over a decade struggling to get things made before he finally was deemed employable on a major gig with the offbeat and critically acclaimed sci-fi film Safety Not Guaranteed. That film got him the gig on Jurassic World, and Jurassic World went on to make over $1.6 Billion at the box office, and that led to him getting signed to direct an upcoming Star Wars movie for Disney.

Naturally when someone explodes into success like that there are critics who imply that Trevorrow's success isn't due to his hard work, that he had some sort of privileged "in" with the industry. In the old days that alleged "in" was a rumoured relationship with someone high up, be it familial or sexual, but these are modern times, and the critics now say it's all about gender, which one you have, and which one you would like to have sex with.

Overnight Trevorrow went from indie darling to twitter's favourite cisgendered boogeyman who only gets the big jobs because he has the correct genitalia.

When asked directly on twitter Trevorrow made a horrible mistake, he tried to defend himself:

Now some say that Trevorrow chose the wrong words, but let me explain something about crises like these:

THERE ARE NO RIGHT WORDS.

Nothing he can say or do, short of announcing that he's quitting Hollywood to join a monastery in Tibet, and can somehow magically force all the jobs he's signed for, and will ever would be signed for will now go to women directors, whether they want to do those jobs or not.

If he explains how he got the job then he's "mansplaining," and is thus officially worse than Hitler, and if he says nothing, then he's acting disdainful towards women, and is officially worse than Hitler.

It's the ultimate Catch-22 of the Internet. Be damned for existing, be damned for defending yourself, or be damned for not defending yourself.

Now I'm not saying that Hollywood doesn't have a gender problem.

It does have a bad gender problem. 

When Sandra Bullock, who is a pretty reliable box-office player, capable of carrying a dead weight like George Clooney into blockbuster land, has a hard time finding a decent role, Hollywood has a gender problem.

The problem's roots are not a bunch of men sitting around a conference table saying "How many qualified women can we deny employment this month?" If it was, then it would just be a matter of getting around or rid of those guys.

Only the problem is more complex, and the solutions aren't coming because of these major problems:

1. THOSE IN POWER DON'T SEE THAT THEY'RE THE PROBLEM.

Imagine that you're a studio mogul and you hear that not enough women are working in Hollywood your first thought will be: "Those other guys must be horribly sexist." That's because you can't conceive that you might contribute to the problem in any way. There are lots of women working in your office, you might be a woman yourself, you also hold fundraisers for the correct candidates and the correct causes, and you vote for the correct candidates. There's no way in your mind that you can see that you're causing this inequity, and you won't hear it from the critics because...

2. THE CRITICS PICK ON THE WRONG TARGETS.

Now Colin Trevorrow did not hire himself to direct Jurassic World. He was hired by Stephen Spielberg's production company and Universal Pictures to direct the movie.

So why is Trevorrow the target of so much anger and blame?

Because Trevorrow is essentially powerless when it comes to people's careers. Amblin and Universal are not. If they're doing a Google search on a female director they're considering hiring and find her bad-tweeting them as sexist pigs, they're not going to hire that person.

However, if they see her picking on some other hired gun, then it won't matter to them, because unless they're mentioned by name, they can't imagine that they're involved in any way.

3. NO ONE TAKES INDIVIDUAL CHOICE INTO THE EQUATION.

Trevorrow's defence mentioned cases of female directors turn down the big monster and superhero heavy blockbusters the studios are dependent on, and he might be right.

I don't know, and you don't know, because neither of us can read the minds and souls of other people, and fully understand why they take or turn down jobs.

It's the same problem with the whole women are paid 75¢ for every $1 a man is paid. People are led to believe that a female teller is paid less than a male bank teller with the same seniority because he gets a magic 25% penis bonus. 

That's not true.

The inequity in incomes comes from the simple fact that it encompasses all occupations. That means that the women who choose to take a lower paying retail or office jobs over the high paying, but dangerous male-dominant job of Alaskan oil rig roughneck because they don't want to give up a few fingers for cash, are skewing the results. 

4. ALL THIS ILLOGIC MAKES HOLLYWOOD A TERRIBLE OFFENDER.

Ironically, Hollywood who is a big proponent for the 75¢ myth is the one workplace where actresses actually are paid less and have a smaller choice of roles than actors of equal box-office appeal. 

So what can be done?

Well, many moons ago I worked out a formula to determine star power, and thus the appropriate salary, and it'll solve this problem, because it doesn't include genitalia in the calculations.

Here it is:

(A+B)-C= B.O.S.S.

B.O.S.S. stands for "Bums On Seats Status" or if you want to be more scientific sounding "Box-Office Sales Status" and is a fair and accurate assessment of what a movie star's real box-office appeal is.

So here is how you do it.

A: This is a percentage of how many profitable films the star has been the lead in for the past 5 years. 

Don't go by the studios profit/loss statements, they contain more fiction than a Barnes & Noble superstore. 

For the purpose of this formula you take the production costs of the film, double it, and add $30 million. This will give you a rough estimate of the total costs of the film, including prints, marketing, distribution as well as the theatre's piece of the action. If the box-office take is more than this amount, it's profitable, if it's less, it's a money loser.

B: Now this is the only part of the formula where market surveys are used. You do a poll of average moviegoers about the star in question and take the percentage of people who say that they would pay to see that star in a movie, and deduct 90% of that value. 

I call for the chopping of the 90% because the majority of people who answer the poll are just being polite, or so lonely they will talk to anyone and say anything to keep the talk going.

Trust me, I know how wildly inaccurate they can be having been involved with a clever sketch comedy pilot that was bastardized into a sitcom about mischievous angels based on a cream cheese commercial because of market research.

C: This is a percentage of movies that have been negatively affected by the star. Now this can be interpreted in several ways. The most concrete involve profitability lost due to the over-sized salary or unprofessional behaviour of the star in question. A star who drives up the budget isn't really worth it.

Now you add all that up together and you should get a score between 1 and 100, you then compare that score to this easy to read chart.

SCORE 0-10: This actor's next role should feature the line: "Do you want fries with that?"

SCORE 11-30: This actor might be okay cast as a wacky neighbour on a sitcom on the CW network.

SCORE 31-50: This star could be either on the way up, or on the way down. Stick to supporting roles in big-budget projects, leads in small budgets.

SCORE 51-70: You can call this person a "star" but unless you have a good script and a good director making a good film, it will still be a bit of a crap-shoot. They should get good money, but not so much that it cripples the budget, and points only if they are willing to take a cut in the up front money.

SCORE 71-90: The word 'bankable' might be used now. They have the charisma to sell a picture, and may even be forgiven the odd stinker or two, but you shouldn't push it too far. They should get good money, and a modest points deal.

SCORE 91-100+: These actors can sell out a theatre with dramatic readings of the Peoria Illinois phone book. They are worth every penny they can get, and a heap of points too because you're going to be swimming in money like Scrooge McDuck on a meth binge.

My solution is rational, logical, can be adapted to handle hiring behind the camera as well, and it leaves gender out.

Which means it will never be used.

On Comedy: Stop Thief!-- Joke Stealing Is No Laughing Matter!

Hardly a week goes by without Twitter exploding in righteous indignation about one offence or another. Be it a dead lion, or an insensitive quip, livelihoods and lives can be ruined by a wave of righteous torch-bearing mob-indignation. Normally I steer clear of such outrage, but this time I just had to comment.

It all started when someone on my timeline retweeted this:

Before this post, I had never heard of Josh Ostrovsky who tweets and instagrams under the nom-de-douche "The Fat Jew," but I felt compelled to investigate.

Why?

Because while jokes are inherently silly, joke theft is not. 

My research, thin as it was, revealed that Ostrovsky fancies himself a "performance artist" and the "curator or aggregator of the internet." Those titles require a little translation. "Performance Artist" really means unimaginative hack who seeks to get paid for acting like a pretentious hipster dickhead, and "Curator or Aggregator" is pretentious hipster douchebag-speak for "guy who steals other people's jokes and passes them off as his own." Not only has he been stealing jokes from hundreds, maybe thousands of people, he's been, according to professional Canuck shit-disturber Gavin McInnes, doing it for years.

Now if he just stuck to just tweeting stolen jokes, he'd be nothing more than a nuisance. However, Ostrovsky landed TV and radio gigs with E!, Comedy Central, Apple's Beats Radio, and representation with CAA, one of Hollywood's most elite agencies on the basis of his douchebag image, and his alleged wit on social media. 

Now he's making serious money off of the work and sweat of others, which makes his thievery more of a crime against comedy than a nuisance. He's literally taking money out of the pockets of real joke-makers.

Sadly, crimes against comedy aren't punishable under the law, but we can name, shame, not only the thief, but the media companies and agencies who are literally rewarding him for being a thief.

Joke theft is not a new phenomenon borne from the internet. It goes back to the stone age when Ag stole Ug's one about the hunter and the gatherer's daughter.

Ug responded by clocking Ag on the head with a rock.

And thus the concept of intellectual property was born.

A more civilized response was one done by Bob Hope against fellow vaudeville star Milton Berle back in the 1920s. Showbiz insiders considered Berle most famous for two things; he had the biggest schlong on the circuit, and he was terrible for stealing jokes.

Hope and a young writer, who both just made successful leap to Broadway, wanted to teach Berle a lesson. So Hope and the young writer made a careful and exact plan of attack, and waited for the right moment to strike.

That moment came on a fateful Monday night.

On Monday's the musicals traditionally go "dark" or don't perform, because they're doing an extra matinee on Sunday and the cast needs a break. Back in the 1920s they used to use the theatres on Mondays for charity variety shows called Benefits.

Benefit Night, as it was known then, was a big deal. All the top show-biz people and New York power players were in the audience, and it was the perfect spot for an aspiring vaudeville comic like Berle to get off the circuit and into a major Broadway show.

Now every theatre would be having a benefit show, and it was common practice for comics to perform in one theatre, run up the street, perform there, and so on, literally until the wee hours of the morning.

Hope and his partner arranged to perform right before Berle, which was literally the time Berle was closing his act in the last theatre and he was literally running to the next one. Berle would arrive just as Hope was leaving the stage and heading for the next theatre.

Berle would then go on stage, start his act and....cue the cricket sound.

You see, Hope would go out and do Berle's mostly stolen act, verbatim, which meant that it looked like Berle was just repeating Hope's act.

Berle learned his lesson and didn't steal another joke...for a while.

Now there isn't one kind of joke theft, and some is not really theft at all, and I'll attempt to explain most of this probably incomplete list.

• COINCIDENTAL: Now this doesn't really count as joke theft, but is often mistaken for it. The world is big, there are literally billions of people and if it's something topical, then more than one person is going to make the same joke. I know, it happens to me all the time, probably because my sense of humour is so obvious and banal, and I'm probably even a victim of it as well. When that guy threw a shoe at President Bush I sold a joke to a comedian for $50 about how the Shoe Thrower was hired as MSNBC's new pundit. The comedian used it in a web video, and two days later it was in Jay Leno's opening monologue. I'm sure that was purely coincidental, he said while rearranging the pins in his Jay Leno voodoo doll.
• SUBCONSCIOUS: Now this does count as joke theft, but it lacks one key ingredient that separates it from what I consider criminal joke theft: INTENT. It happens when you hear a joke, forget where you heard it, and then blurt it out fully convinced that you just came up with it out of the blue. Robin Williams used to be bad for this, but I don't recall anyone resenting him for it, because it was mostly because his memory and rapid fire style was better at remembering the joke itself rather than the source. 
• AMBITIOUS, YET INSECURE: Now we're delving into the realm of deliberate joke theft. Theft, and intent are arm in arm in this one, but motive can be a contributing factor. You see intent means that you mean to deliberately commit a crime, but MOTIVE is your reasoning behind your intent. Many comedians, Berle being a classic example, can often let their ambition outrun not their talent, but their faith in their own talent. They want to reach the top, but aren't sure if all their material is "A Grade" so they poach material that they're sure works because they've seen it work with someone else. Often these kinds of joke thieves present a cocky and brash exterior to hide the mouldering bucket of anxiety worms that makes up their psyche.
• MALICIOUS: These kinds of joke thieves are the lowest and worst kind. They know they are deliberately stealing material from people who burnt the calories needed to create original material, they just don't care. They also aren't acting out of insecurity, but entitlement. They assume that they are entitled to fame and success but don't want to actually work for it beyond making sales pitches to surprisingly gullible media insiders who all yearn to be one of the "cool kids." If getting that fame and success requires stealing, then that's just fine, because this joke thief's victims aren't viewed as cool enough to be worthy of consideration. When caught, they usually try to brush it off with lame excuses/double-talk, and/or jump straight into attacking their accusers.

That Josh "The Fat Jew" Ostrovsky committed joke theft is pretty much beyond doubt. What's being discussed here is what kind of joke theft did he commit, and that, ladies and gentlemen of the jury of public opinion, I leave to you to decide.

Hollywood Babble On & On #1240: There Is A Good Reason No One Likes Gawker

If you've been living in a cave I will give you a little update.

Gawker is a website that specializes in three things. One is gossip, they love anything that might embarrass someone famous, no matter what. 

The second thing is nastiness, if they can couch their gossip in the most petty, childish, and insulting terms, they will do it.

The third thing Gawker specializes in is outrage. They love to find something said by someone that might be construed as offensive or politically incorrect, and then marshaling the forces of social media to destroy the alleged "offender's" employment or life. Now usually Gawker prefers if the outrage is aimed at the people they choose to be outraged at, and preferably over subjects they deem fitting for outrage. (They are reportedly masters of double standards)

However, lately that outrage has been aimed at Gawker itself, and Gawker ain't happy about it.

Here's a quick summary: An executive at Condé Nast was being blackmailed by a gay porn-star/escort. The executive is in the closet, is married and has a family, and the blackmailer told him that if he didn't pay up, the story will go public.

Now any other publication, print or web, would look at the story being given to then by the blackmailer and ask: "Hmmm...by publishing this story, which isn't exactly newsworthy, wouldn't we become part of the extortion and hence be open to all sorts of moral and legal ramifications?" Then they would pass on the story, and possibly call the police.

Not so at Gawker.

Gawker ran with it.

They claimed it was newsworthy because it involved a man, a senior executive at a major publisher, being unfaithful to his wife in a particularly salacious manner since it involved the man being a closeted homosexual.

Now, when someone is "outed" against their will, those who do the outing usually follow a certain criteria.

1. Usually that person must be, if not famous, at least so prominent in their field that they are considered a 'public figure.'

2. That public figure must be involved in political or social activities that is seen as being anti-LGBT, and thus their status as both "closeted" and unfaithful being a sign of great moral-sexual hypocrisy.

The executive was not a public figure. He's essentially a chief number cruncher, he didn't go around condemning homosexuality, infidelity, or any other moral, sexual, or social issue, and his attitudes had no apparent effect on Condé Nast's editorial stances or content.

That means that his life, especially his sex life, wasn't remotely newsworthy, and was henceforth HIS OWN DAMN BUSINESS.

As for infidelity, then that would be between him, his wife, their lawyers, and their children, not Gawker, and definitely not the general public.

Gawker Media, the site's parent company is already embroiled in a pretty pricey lawsuit from wrestler Hulk Hogan over them releasing a sex tape of him fooling around with a friend's wife. Though I am surprised that it's only Hulk Hogan suing them and not a class action from Gawker readers who were traumatized by finding out a Hulk Hogan sex tape exists.

Artist depiction of Gawker founder Nick Denton

Anyway... back on topic. Gawker Media now has another lawsuit looming over them like the grim specter of death, and are on damage control. So they folded faster than Superman on laundry day and pulled the story from the website.

It's too little, too late, the damage has been done, but if all you have is a gesture, then you make that gesture.

But wait, as the late Billy Mays would say, there's more.

The editorial staff at Gawker responded to the story be posting this statement:

Our union drive has expressed at every stage of the process that one of our core goals is to protect the editorial independence of Gawker Media sites from the influence of business-side concerns. Today’s unprecedented breach of the firewall, in which business executives deleted an editorial post over the objections of the entire executive editorial staff, demonstrated exactly why we seek greater protection. Our opinions on the post are not unanimous but we are united in objecting to editorial decisions being made by a majority of non-editorial managers. Disagreements about editorial judgment are matters to be resolved by editorial employees. We condemn the takedown in the strongest possible terms.

Yep, the Gawker editorial staff is unionizing to protect the journalistic integrity of a publication that  ran a story that was devoid of all journalistic interest, let alone integrity. It was pointless scandal mongering.

Also, it's like the crew of the Titanic going to the Captain as the ship slips into the icy depths of the North Atlantic and saying: "We've decided to unionize because you opposed us driving into that iceberg. Oh, why are my shoes suddenly wet?"

Now I'm not a prude, and I don't think that there isn't a place for gossip. People love their tittle-tattle, however, Gawker's brand of toxicity may have finally reached its saturation point.

Of course, within days of Gawker's destruction or neutering, something else will pop it to take its place. It's the internet's circle of life.

Hollywood Babble On & On #1237: NBC To Trump - "YOU'RE FIRED!!"

I'm not posting a picture of Trump so here's Ivanka instead

Donald Trump, real estate heir and TV personality, is running for President, and decided to open his campaign with a rant about illegal immigration using all kinds of inflammatory language setting back the cause of immigration reform back about a decade. 

In response, Univision, the Spanish language TV network, ended their relationship with Trump's TV endeavours. In response Trump was loud and boorish, and then NBC cut all ties to the man known as The Donald.

This makes Trump's campaign just one of the most expensive publicity stunts he's ever pulled.

And that's what I think his campaign is, it's just another publicity stunt from a man whose entire life is built on publicity and spin.

Trump's greatest successes, outside of his daughter, who beyond her aesthetic qualities, seems to have a capable head on her shoulders, is his ability to sell myths about himself.

Trump sold the myth that he was a self-made, up from nothing, entrepreneur, when he actually just walked into an already successful real estate business built by his father.

He named a casino after what was supposed to be a tomb

Trump sold the myth that he's been an unqualified success saw a business genius, even though companies in his casino empire have gone bankrupt 4 times.

Think about that, his companies have gone under 4 times in a business where people just walk in to give you money, on land he bought for pennies on the dollar from the Atlantic City government.

Which brings me to my next point, he's currently selling the myth that he's a Republican. I've been doing a little digging, and the more serious conservative outlets do more than consider him a joke, they consider him an opportunist Democrat. I even heard on pundit describe his campaign as how a liberal Democrat imagines a Republican candidate to talk and act.

Despite occasionally registering as a Republican, and endorsing GOP candidate Mitt Romney in 2012, most of Trump's political donations, endorsements, and stances are firmly in the orbit of the Democratic Party.

In the past, Trump has financially supported, endorsed, or actively campaigned very un-Republican causes like strict gun control, government run health care, and the expansion of eminent domain.

"What is eminent domain and why does Trump support its expansion?"

Eminent domain is when the government forces a property owner to sell their property to the government at a discount, sometimes at an even deeper discount if the government decides the property is considered "blighted." 

Normally, eminent domain is supposed to be only used to build projects for the public good. Things like roads, bridges, hospitals, airports, etc…

Still won't post any pictures of Donald.

However, many local and state governments have broadened the definitions of public good, and blighted. Those definitions means that they can effectively take property from taxpaying citizens and give them to private companies for their private aims. They've also expanded the definition of "blighted" to basically allow governments to use taxpayer money to take to private property and sell them to their buddies for pennies on the dollar.

The Supreme Court declared the practice legal in the Kelo V. City of New London decision, a decision that Donald Trump has publicly declared he loves. The abuse of eminent domain is how he built those Atlantic City casinos who went through four bankruptcies.

A little known fact that I gleaned from my research is that while Trump loves the Kelo decision a lot of Republicans despise it. They consider it a combo of big government abuse on behalf of their cronies. It's unlikely that they will let someone who "loves" it get the GOP nomination without a brutal fight.

It's only a matter of time before Trump's many ideological differences with the party become a campaign issue, and the 50+ other Republican candidates jump on him like a pack of ravenous dogs.

Now let's get back to Trump being dumped by NBC.

First, Trump is not being "censored" by NBC. They are a private company, they are not the government. They are also not stopping him from speaking his mind, they are simply saying that they are not going to pay him to do it.

NBC is perfectly within their rights to do that.

Donald Trump is boasting that he will sue NBC for breach of contract and win.

I doubt that.

All showbiz contracts, especially television contracts, have what is called a "moral turpitude" clause. It basically means that if The Donald does anything that might reflect badly on NBC or anything associated with NBC, they are well within their rights to can his ass.

He did, and they did.

End of story.

Now, can we please stop talking about Donald Trump?