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November 21, 2005
An open letter to Julie Hilden
I read Julie Hilden's article arguing that we shouldn't punish celebrities for speech with which we disagree, viz Tom Cruise's increasingly obvious, highly questionable hold on reality (the "veneer" ain't the only thing that's cracked, Julie!)
Subject: Deeply Unpersuasive
Dear Ms. Hilden,
Just some quick things on your Tom Cruise piece... celebrities unusually independent speakers? Apparently not, or you wouldn't be writing your article. Rather than being beholden to bosses, etc, they are beholden to the people who really pay their bloated salaries: us, the public. I see nothing wrong with that.
Even if they were, unusually independent does not mean unusually qualified (no matter how you define it), or unusually requested, or unusually interesting, or unusually intelligent. I would say that Cruise's comments were none of these things... dependent (on that drivel he overpays the Church of Scientology for), unwanted, boring, and just plain stupid.
"Celebrities' unusually free position, in other words, is the reason they should heavily use their right to free speech."? Or not... isn't it obvious enough from Cruise's decidedly rude and barely coherent outburst that whatever freedom you're positing isn't resulting in speech any different than some guy at the corner bar?
People of all stripes and income levels try to say stupid things in public, and I see nothing special about celebrities that would be a reason to let them, over anyone else, blather on about their pet opinions. In any other setting, we call that "boorish". But when a celebrity does it, you call it "brave".
With normal folks in our daily lives, we get to enact social consequences for boorishness... leave the room, stop inviting them to our functions, etc. We can't do that with insular Hollywood types, so our only option is economic.
As far as personal speech goes, I would venture closer to "accounts of personal experience are the only valid kind of speech for ANYBODY" (c.f. Korzybski's General Semantics) and farther from "attempting to generalize beyond one's personal experience should be ok for celebrities". Why would you argue the latter? Simply because we may be holding celebrities more accountable than others for this? Sounds like the problem isn't that we let them run rampant acting as if groundless generalizations mean anything, but that we let anybody do so.
I think Lauer was right to "refuse to engage Cruise on the general level on which Cruise want[ed] to pitch the discussion"... if he had done so, they would have had a meaningless conversation, spoken in generalities, about a topic on which neither of them is qualified (not from lack of training but from the obviousness of their positions) to give an interesting, unique, or insightful opinion. Great, way to waste their time and mine.
Now, start talking about your own experiences... and that means something. That's interesting. That's something I can't go on the web and find 500 forum users ranting already.
Failing to prepare? My understanding was that Cruise was there to promote his new movie, not deliver an irrelevant rant. I don't expect Lauer or anyone to try to prepare for their guest being a freakout... you say they could have guessed given Cruise's recent freakouts—however, I'm sure almost everyone was hoping to any higher power who happened to be paying attention that Cruise would stick to the agenda. I hear Spielberg isn't even speaking to him currently.
Now when 20/20 wants to have Cruise on as a guest to talk about psychiatric drugs, you can fairly expect someone to prepare for that conversation. In the meantime: not Lauer's job.
And drop the first amendment schtick. You know very well that the right to speak isn't the same as the right to be heard. We have every right to say, "We don't value hearing this. We don't want to hear it. And we don't want to be around you (see your movies) if you don't get that." If Cruise wants to let loose with "bracingly corrective candor" as you put it, he should get a blog like everybody else.
Best,
Josh
Posted by Josh A. at November 21, 2005 05:57 PM
Comments
Bravo! I'm all for celebrity public speech, personally -- they have a lot of clout and they could do a lot more of it. George Clooney, Diddy and other celebrities pushing civic engagement and media responsibility, queer celebrities coming out and making it okay for young kids to be gay, it's all great. Even when a celebrity says something I disagree with, I'm happy they did because then I'll know they're an asshole and will know to boycott their work (hello Lil' Kim, hope you enjoy bad karma with your furs).
For me, the reason Cruise deserves mockery is because he's trying to push a profit-driven, pseudo-scientific, manipulative cult and doing it in the most ineffective way I can imagine. The poor guy needs a deprogrammer, and fast. Not that my laughing at animated GIFs of him jumping on Oprah's couch is exactly an intervention that will make him do that. But perhaps through the world's collective derision he'll figure out that he's throwing a good thing away.
Anyway, great letter. My guess: Julie Hilden is a scientologist.
Posted by: Ari Moore at November 22, 2005 06:09 AM
I agree. Celebrities have a right to speak, but we have a right to change the station. I've heard their rants and raves for years, and realize that they have clout with non-thinking people. But when you look at their education level, such as Barbra Streisand, they are truly lacking. They are one-sided, non-thinking and generally out there to promote something such as themselves. Ever hear of Barbra, Tom, Jane Fonda or Sonny Bono getting honorary degrees from a college? Hardly.
Posted by: Craig at November 22, 2005 07:43 AM
I would be really, really happy if interviewers would only ask questions about the thing the guest is promoting (his latest book, her new movie, whatever). I would also be happy if the guests would agree in advance to only talk about that one thing. Then we could see if Tom Cruise would be invited anywhere to present his opinion on silent birth, and in the meantime we could get some insider fun scoops on filming whatever the movie was he was supposedly promoting.
Unfortunately, we're at the point where any interviewees who say they're only going to discuss the item they are promoting- well, then the fact that they won't talk about personal issues becomes the headline.
And we're at that point because we put ourselves there.
Posted by: anne at November 28, 2005 07:48 AM