I’ve been wanting to comment on Kyle Smith’s excellent New York Post column since Sunday, a column that reminds us of a truism too easy to forget. It’s just a fact that since the creation of celebrity there’s always been a dark, trashy, immoral side to it all – always been Hollywood debauchery, scandal and bad behavior. What we’re seeing today from Lindsay Lohan, Charlie Sheen, and Britney Spears, unfortunately, isn’t anything new. Which begs a question I’ll ask below.

The New York Post:

A common gripe about Lindsay Lohan, Chris Brown, Kanye West, Charlie Sheen and the rest of our celebrity monster posse is that they’re immature brats whom genetic fortuity gave riches but not brains, morals or character. They are.

But so were the stars of the ’50s. If their serene glamour persists, it’s in part because the movies are still on TV but the scandal sheets that chronicled their misadventures have crumbled to atoms. …

Taylor’s adulterous, drink-fueled hookup with Richard Burton on the set of “Cleopatra” inspired a letter published in a Vatican newspaper that condemned her for “erotic vagrancy.” When the lovers were out of the country, Rep. Iris Faircloth Blitch of Georgia called for them to be denied re-entry into the US “on the grounds of undesirability.”

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Linda Stasi raves in the New York Post:

“The Kennedys” is the best miniseries you almost weren’t allowed to see.

And considering the size of the cable network ReelzChannel’s usual audience, chances are you may still not see it.

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But the miniseries — starring Greg Kinnear as JFK, Barry Pepper as Bobby, Katie Holmes as Jacqueline and Tom Wilkinson as Joseph Sr. — is without a doubt one of the best, most riveting, historically accurate dramas about a time and place in American history that has ever been done for TV.

The eight-hour, $25 million project — produced by Joel Surnow, the guy who brought you “24″ — was originally commissioned by the History Channel and then killed off by ABC, which owns much of the cable channel, after it was completed.

ReelzChannel picked it up at a fire-sale price. Why? There are more conspiracy theories floating around about that than the Kennedy assassination itself.

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So the big news this week? Charlie Sheen entering “prehab,” which I guess is like rehab, except for preteens. I don’t know…. if you ask me, it’s not Sheen who needs therapy for an addiction, it’s Eric Holder.

Fact is, he’s hooked on something far worse than coke or speed. It’s lawyers who defend terrorists.

This addiction – rooted in his bedrock belief that America is to blame for everything, including his mustache – would be fairly harmless if it were held by a nobody – like say, a Daily Kos blogger. I mean, that’s just a harmless sap stuck in the attic taking turns trying on grandma’s underwear. Nope, this junkie is in the White House, and by the looks of it, someone better call Dr. Drew because Holder’s using on the job. (more…)

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Bruno and “Gayby”

Oh, big city critics loved them some “Borat,” which spent 95% if its screen time manipulating, editing and boiling down average, working class, not-bothering-anyone Americans (and Romanian peasants) into the worst possible caricature imaginable. How they laughed and found genius and insight into the machinated savaging of everyday folks just minding their own business. But listen to some of them squeal and squawk now that the satire is turned on someone other than us. Here’s a sampling:

San Francisco Chronicle: 

Imagine if a white comedian went into the Deep South, disguised in a very convincing blackface and started acting like Stepin Fetchit.

Hollywood Reporter:   (more…)

The New York Post ran a story this weekend with a very encouraging headline: RIGHT TURN ON B’WAY? Michael Riedel’s article revolves around two new plays that are being shopped around for a home.  One is a one-man play about Ronald Reagan.

“Reagan” is a one-man play that doesn’t portray the 40th president as a fascist. It’s by Lionel Chetwynd, whose scripts for television and film include “The Hanoi Hilton,” “Color of Justice,” “Kissinger and Nixon” and “DC 9/11: Time of Crisis.” ….  Chetwynd declined to comment on “Reagan,” except to say with a laugh, “It will change lives and the course of history.” A copy of an early script portrays Reagan as thoughtful, determined, sly (when necessary) and winning. Talking to the audience from the main room of his California ranch, Reagan explains his journey from FDR Democrat to conservative Republican. Along the way, he offers a spirited defense of conservative principles. At least three top directors have passed on the play because, says a source, “They can’t stand Ronald Reagan.”

The other play cited is “Girls in Trouble (Formerly Three Abortions)” by Jonathan Reynolds.

In “Girls in Trouble,” Reynolds presents a balanced view of pro-lifers while taking some swipes at the NPR crowd. The play ends with a harrowing confrontation between two women — one pro-life, the other pro-choice — that’s not for the squeamish. “Thus far, its claim to fame is that it’s been turned down by all the theaters in New York,” Reynolds says of his play. “It was commissioned by the Long Wharf, but they wouldn’t put it on. There was a theater in the suburbs of Washington, DC, that said they wanted to present the ‘other side’ of the abortion debate. But when they read it, they said it would “infuriate our audience.” Oskar Eustis, the head of the Public Theater, told Reynolds that his staff “didn’t go for it,” but that he would take a look at it himself.

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Credit Liz Sidoti with one of the more anemic arguments to date, that this nation still has a long way to go to bridge the centuries old racial divide–even in this post Obama age. Writing for the Associated Press, Sidoti argues that in spite of the election of Barack Obama to the nation’s highest office, “old racial stereo-types and internet-fueled falsehoods flourish.” As evidence Sidoti offers the editorial cartoon which appeared in the New York Post showing two Police Officers standing over a dead Chimpanzee, an email forwarded by Los Alamitos Mayor Dean Grose of watermelons on the white house lawn and the internet chat surrounding Obama’s citizenship.

A little historical perspective is perhaps in order. This nation was born in a world of chattel slavery. On the heels of a bloody civil war that ended the institution of slavery came lynchings, Jim Crow Laws, separate but equal education and literacy tests at the polls. The fact that the best Sidoti could come up with to bolster her argument were a few off-color emails speaks volumes.

Ignorance, petty politics and downright human ugliness will always be with us. What is more telling is how a society responds to it. There was a time when jokes such as that passed along by Grose would be told in public and greeted with huge guffaws. Thankfully those times are long gone. Today such jokes are relegated to the anonymous and not-as-private-as-the -mayor-thought world of the internet. If and when such attitudes come to light they are met with outrage, ridicule and the indulger is bathed in public humiliation and suffers political ruin. Grose was not celebrated; he resigned in disgrace. (more…)