Sleepless in The Newsroom

American classic.

I’m more upset about Nora Ephron’s death than I thought I’d be. Though several friends of mine had worked with her and still another knew her well, we had only one brief phone conversation 8 years ago about box office grosses. Since I had started the weekly column on the subject at Variety in the eighties, a mutual friend told her I’d be the perfect person to speak to when she wondered what the opening weekend would be on another friend’s new film. She was funny, smart and extremely quick, so much so that when I threw out an outrageously high number of what I thought the film would do opening day, she assumed I meant the number was for the entire weekend and still pooh-poohed it as being too high. Never mind that MY number turned out to be right. Through the sheer verve of her smarts, personality and perhaps reputation, I suddenly found myself going along with her. I mean, she was right about so many things. I didn’t want to look as dumb as she implied my prediction was. I sense this happened a lot.

I regret not speaking my mind and proving her wrong because I also suspect, from what I know from others, that she would have called me up with a new found respect and we might have become friends, acquaintances or perhaps just shared a few recipes. Which is a cool fantasy for me since as a young writer Ephron was one of the top 10 people I actually read and admired.

Required Reading

Yeah, not Shakespeare or Proust, I’m sorry to say. It was her pieces in Esquire and The New York Post and The New Yorker, many of which were in Crazy Salad and Scribble, Scribble, her collections of new journalism that I devoured. Ephron wrote in a funny, sarcastic way that influenced me and that I find I often reference (borrow from?) as I write my blog. No – she wasn’t JD Salinger or William Styron or even Edward Albee or Tennessee Williams – some of my other favorites. In fact, not even close.

But nor should she have been. What she learned early on was the secret to being a good writer – being yourself. Or well, at least a cleaned up, more articulate and fun version of yourself. The idealized version that you wouldn’t be in phone conversations where you find yourself easily intimidated by people more famous or successful than you. Truth is, if my Nora encounter were in one of my screenplays or blogs, or even in one of Nora’s, the story wouldn’t end there. There would be a follow up conversation where I could correct the past and be, if not right, then at least righted. In someone’s eyes. Which is what makes a satisfying story in many circles.

There is certainly a case to be made for lost opportunities too. Though that is not the world Nora trafficked in. Not by a long shot. Her best movies as writer-director — like “Sleepless in Seattle” and “Julie & Julia”– both have happy endings, believable in the worlds she creates for them onscreen despite whether you choose to believe them or not. They’re fantasy – or to put it another way – “pushed reality.” And if you want to dismiss it as pap and claptrap you can. But, uh, take a few months or a year or two and try to do it well – or as well as she did when she was at her best – and then get back to me. I suspect when and if you do, it might be with some newfound respect.

An affair to remember…

It’s not so easy to render the convincingly happy ending, especially in only slightly exaggerated looks at contemporary life. Costume dramas let you hide behind lots of pomp and grandeur. Fantasy and action stories allow you to use cool weapons and mythical heroes. In romantic comedy life – or The Village of RomCom – it’s just words, actions and the occasional musical montage – the latter being something that is almost an automatic negative for any movie since the cynical turn of the new century. Especially when it’s being played out to a sort of heavy-handed musical soundtrack of our lives, it’s not hip, cool or even commercially pleasing anymore to be too emotional, cheerful or nasty. Or worse, too sentimental about your world or anything you do or try to achieve in it.

Which brings us to Aaron Sorkin and his new HBO show “The Newsroom.” This excellent new series gives us a behind-the-scenes look at an imaginary cable news station and has received a plethora of mixed to negative reviews for, in essence, being imaginary. As if the fictional dramatization of anything does not exist in some pushed version of the reality of what it is. Aaron Sorkin, like Nora Ephron before him, particularly specializes in this.

Sit back and relax already!

And Aaron Sorkin, not unlike Nora Ephron, is being skewered for it. His characters are a little too idealistic or exist slightly out of the parameters of a real life newsroom, say some critics (Did they watch “The West Wing?”). Others find them too verbose, preachy or sanctimonious (You mean like some of the actual media critics whose task it is to now review ~~themselves~~ the characters they complain about?). And a third group doesn’t like the show’s mix of comedy and drama, as if THAT isn’t the tone of real life in almost every household/newsroom across the country.

The NY Times review is as good as any to speak for the entire Fourth estate. In her critique, TV critic Alessandra Stanley was particularly annoyed at the lead female character’s pronouncement when speaking in defense of good journalism rather than the bad kind we’re used to. “Wrong information can lead to calamitous decisions that clobber any attempts at rigorous debate,” said “Newsroom”’s fictional female executive producer, a statement Stanley noted was something akin to a “high school commencement address.” Well, her critique might be true if one ignored the last decade of life in the United States, the entire history of the war in Iraq and the current world and political climate we all live in right now.

‘Nuff said.

I realize this might seem a bit partisan and the NY Times is free to take me to task on it. But unfortunately, we do live in a partisan world where much of the public is misinformed on many issues. Depending on your views, this might have something to do with the corporate ownership of television stations; the passivity of the electorate; or the fact that most Americans are struggling a bit too much and spend more time living out the events of the news than indulging in the luxury of sitting back and arguing/analyzing the nuances of such. Still, no matter what sides of the many sided fence any of us fall on, certainly these are issues worthy of something other than the rating of a valedictory speech at an American high school. Which, by the way, is not always as simplistic as the NY Times would have one believe. Check out this high school graduation speech by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow when she spoke as the smartest kid in her high school graduation class:

So — for enabling me to embed the Maddow video – but mostly for using its wit, intelligence and courage to wear its heart on its sleeve, the Charimeter gives “The Newsroom” it’s highest rating:

Oh – and lest you think I’m one of those crazed Sorkinites who think A.S. can do no wrong – know that although I am a bit of a cable news addict, I was not a rabid “West Wing” fan. It was well written but I enjoyed Sorkin’s “American President” much more. Just as I am certainly not a proponent of all things Nora. I could take or leave “When Harry Met Sally” (and I haven’t even mentioned “Mixed Nuts” and “Michael!”) yet found “Sleepless in Seattle” to be a thoroughly charming film and “Julie and Julia” to be exactly who I wanted Julia Child to really be.

But the fact is, these are no more a depiction of real life than that of the vampires on “True Blood.” All are more what you would want real life to be in idealized worlds where the right lovers who seemed destined to be together inevitably get together; celebrities are as funny and warm in the flesh as their onscreen personas; and vampires live openly (and sometimes even lovingly) among humans in small town America.

Or, in the case of “The Newsroom,” where the people who work in news speak with awe, gravitas, and even a bit of pretentious nobility – really believing they can make a difference with the mere task of telling the rest of their fellow humans the truth about what’s going on inside the world we all travel in.

On a random day, where the big news stories are the breakup of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ marriage and who will replace Ann Curry on NBC’s “Today” (that’s the same Ann Curry who’s been criticized for being an overly sincere reporter rather than enough of a plucky, cynical TV personality), striving for something closer to our ideals doesn’t seem so wrong-headed to me. It simply seems necessary.

06.24.12

by notesfromachair

Straight Talk

Rule of thumb: If something that’s said publicly bothers you for more than a day, and worse, is inaccurate, you have an obligation to do something about it.

If you disagree at the very least you have to write a letter, tell someone else, or run for office. If it’s untrue and the person telling it to you is mistaken or, as my Mom used to say – a liar – you have to do even more. And not be afraid to do it because in the long run you always win when you express what’s true.

So – here’s what director Adam Shankman said last weekend publicly in a Q&A session at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences when discussing his new film “Rock of Ages” – a musical set in 1987 Los Angeles.

Oh god.

“The year the movie takes place – 1987 – was a great time, a different time – so free, really. I didn’t have a care in the world. Really.”

Really?

Here’s what you have to know because facts and statistics don’t lie:

1987

41,027 persons are dead from AIDS.
71,176 persons are diagnosed with AIDS in the US.
Randy Shilts’ investigative journalism book, And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic, is published chronicling the 1980–1985 discovery and spread of HIV/AIDS, government indifference, and political infighting in the United States to what was initially perceived as a gay disease.
AZT (zidovudine), the first antiretroviral drug, became available to treat HIV.
Williamson, West Virginia closed its public swimming pool following an incident involving a local resident with HIV/AIDS. The Oprah Winfrey Show broadcasts a town hall meeting during which local residents express their fears about AIDS and homosexuality.
In August, 1987 the Rae family, including HIV+ hemophiliacs (Ricky Rae and his two brothers) living in Florida, are barred from their church and school. After they successfully sue to enroll the kids back in school, their house is burned to the ground.
The first known AIDS death at the time was in 1981 but actually occurred in the mid-seventies.
An Early Frost, TV’s first prime time AIDS film, was broadcast November 11, 1985 (two years earlier) on NBC.
In April and October of 1987 President Reagan finally uses the word “AIDS” in public. He sided with his Education Secretary William Bennett and other conservatives who said the Government should not provide sex education information.

Artwork from 87.

Good times? Oh yeah. Especially for someone like Mr. Shankman who is openly gay and in 1987, was turning 23, and already a professional dancer/choreographer having attended New York’s prestigious Julliard School of the Arts. If I take Mr. Shankman at his word, this last statement (“good times”) is not at all sarcastic. If I report to you what I think is the real truth – that he is either forgetful, exaggerating to sell his movie, or was indeed somehow personally and callously unaffected by a tragic, international pandemic affecting a lot of people who looked a lot like him (which I can’t imagine is the case but, then again no one can be the best judge of character 100% of time), then his statements are even more egregious. Because he should know better.

The ignorant and the callous piss me off. Am I being too personally sensitive? I don’t think so. Because pick a tragedy, any tragedy, any tragedy at all, and substitute an appropriately analogous amount of facts (if you could indeed come up with them) and the result would be the same. Worse yet – no matter how you try to slice, dice, parse or analyze what was said in defense of that dangling quote, it just gets worse and worse. But let’s try anyway…

Argument #1 — This was an unintentional public misstatement made for no other reason than to sell a movie set 25 years ago. All our memories fade at some point and years tend to jumble.

Uh, well – he also said a similar thing in the L.A. Times about that time period and broadened it to include the entire decade of the eighties. To quote: “It was endless sex with endless partners with no threat of AIDS, seemingly.”

What was it that former Bush president once said? Ah yes, here it is:

“Fool me once — shame on you. Fool me (twice?) – you can’t get fooled again.”

What am I looking at here?

Argument #2 – This is just a film director who wants audiences to remember 1987 that way because he’s trying to sell a movie set in an imagined 1987. So rather than mistake or misstatement here is a huckster making a callous calculation no one can call him on because he can always answer back: “Come on, we’re talking about a movie that is pure entertainment, a fantasy — and anyone who takes what’s said literally is too PC and has no sense of irony or humor.”

Problem is in 2012 we’re all too hype weary and too savvy as a society. Annoying people with nothing better to do than call you on inaccuracies (those people used to be called journalists) then come forward and confront you publicly with what your literal words were. Hype can, in essence, quickly become backlash (ask The Octomom). To put it more plainly — We might expect to be lied to but when it’s found out and it’s credible we really, really, really don’t like it (or your product) or even you for trying to pull one over one us. (To put it still more plainly: BUSTED!!).

ARGUMENT #3 – He really doesn’t know he’s “talkin’ smack” and believes what he’s saying is true. People in show business tend to live in bubbles. He concentrated on his art – dancer; choreographer; and budding director – and perhaps was not affected the way you were.

Right. You mean like the story that used to make the rounds for years about show business legend Ann Miller. Reacting many years later to news of the death of John F. Kennedy she was purported to have said: “He died? What do I know, I was touring in “Sugar Babies.”

Oh, Ann.

Yes, of course that story is a fake. As is argument #3. People who are super successful in show business are especially aware of what’s going on culturally. The ability to take your talents and apply it in a timely fashion to the world around you, whatever that happens to be at the moment, can often be the very talent that pushes you into major success. Think of it as learned serendipity.

But — as counterintuitive as it might be to a successful career in show business and even though our present reality might be a quite bitter pill to swallow — it seems to me there is still a human obligation to tell the truth, especially as any kind of artist. To twist facts in your work for the sake of a good story is one thing — but to take that story and pass it off as some kind of reality when the cameras are off and you’re in the presence of real life with history and facts and people who can actually breathe – that’s another. It just means that some things that fly in the face of logic can’t be debated. For instance, you can no longer claim the president wasn’t born in the U.S. when a state (yes, Hawaii is one of the 50) produces a birth certificate in hard ink that says he was. In the same way two plus two equals four no matter how much you want us to believe under the rules in your own personal idealized new world it is, indeed, five. Yes, I suppose it could even be seven if you redefine terms and definitions and laws. But by those standards, I can also proclaim a rhinoceros is a cat and a dog is a yellow-bellied sapsucker, or perhaps one-legged owl. I mean, anything is possible in a society where only 1% of us make the rules and the other 99% are required to play by them.

Of course, some lies are bigger and more offensive than others, especially when they deal with sensitive issues of the past. For example, if I were a Jewish man of a certain age from eastern Europe and not a Jewish man of the age I am now living in Los Angeles with grandparents who lived and died in eastern Europe, I could never recall the carefree, lovely casual days in Germany and Poland in 1942 – where things were so much simpler and different than they are in the complicated times we must endure in Germany now.

(Note: For those of another religion, ethnicity, or even, um, sexual persuasion, substitute another time and place in history and you might get the idea.)

Bottom line:

You don’t get to just throw untruths out there and rewrite history, even in the smallest way, and call it perception, opinion or even hype. It’s misconception at best, and a blatant total calculated lie, at worst. And it should not go on the public record unchallenged. Young people especially should not be afraid to speak or shout out when something bothers them in the public discourse, or is, frankly, untrue or something they vehemently disagree with. Yes, a few people might go running or you might bruise a couple of egos right now, perhaps some of them belonging to peers or elders who could possibly be of help in the short term. But in the long run the majority of many others will offer you respect and probably many more unforeseen opportunities than you could ever imagine because you had the courage to speak and stick up for what you know in your heart of hearts is true. Most importantly, you’ll respect yourself for setting the record straight on something that matters to you. This, in itself, is never a bad thing.