Merry Christmas, Stewie

Major props to Rik Sansone for the photo.

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More Spike Lee Stuff

Mark Armstrong is questioning -- in a civil way -- my earlier post on the announcement of Spike Lee to direct the Broadway revival of Stalag 17. In fact, in the comments, Stewie writes,

"Broadway is a big place, relatively speaking, a commercial place, a place for tourists and trash and, yes, quality stuff. I think it can accomodate a film director who wants to try his hand at stage work. To react like prissy horrified purists about Lee directing on Broadway is just silly. There are plenty of directors on Broadway and Off who get by on mediocre work. I do agree that Lee's fame could be put to better use in an Off Broadway house. OB needs the publicity more than Broadway."

Beyond the fact that anyone who necessarily disagrees with Stewie is termed a "prissy horrified purist" -- always attractive to haul out the homophobia when the rhetorical advantage is not on your side -- what I was saying in the first place is that the lack of blogosphere discussion about Lee coming to Broadway was a little weird: If Spielberg or Scorcese were to announce a Broadway directorial project, I imagine there would have been more discussion. In addition, Aaron Riccio, in the same comments section, is quite right that the concern, even before Lee gets into the rehearsal hall, even before he gets his name on the marquee is that he appears positioned to be

OVERWRITING the existing play, aided in part by the surviving writer of the original Stalag 17. It's a slap in the face to the original work, and though playwrights have certainly revised their work before, the Gray Lady made it seem like this was due to pressure from the money-hungry producer and Lee's imagery ("More cursing!") instead.

It would appear -- and here I yield the floor once more to Aaron, who points out that there are real differences between the Times' account of what is going on and what Riedel and Playbill have written -- that Lee had to be lured on some level into working on the piece, and this was the price he extracted. When I posted originally, it seemed to me that a discussion about that was blogospherically missing, too, and I wanted to start it up.

Now, as far as my comment about P. Diddy and Howdy Doody, would you people please get a life? For me, wordplay is the sine qua non of discourse, provided there's an opportunity to ensure that the discourse is professional, which is what I am trying to do with this post. Nor do I intend to apologize for injecting levity into the discussion or debate; doing so would homage the Lord of the Flies groupthink that sometimes comes over all of us bloggers. Which brings me to Isaac Butler's comment on his blog:

I'll just come out and say [it]: Regardless of whether he means to or not, I think Leonard Jacobs is being racist. He is using specific racial signifiers to criticize the Lee decision and using his blackness (will he cast a rapper? What up, yo?) for the express purpose of mocking him. I think it's important to note that I don't mean that Jacos is a racist, which is to say someone dedicated to oppressing black people. I just mean that he's cracking racially charged jokes on his site, which is a racist thing to do. He should apologize for the posts.

Yes, I suppose that was a racially charged joke, but that would also mean that white people cannot, and do not, use the phrase "What up?" or "Yo" in everyday speech, and I hardly think that's true. Further, by posing the question of whether Lee would cast a rapper is not "being racist"; it's a legitimate question necessitated by the growing trend toward stunt casting. (Read Larry Getlen's terrific news story on this here.)

I got an email yesterday from a friend (who is a friend of Stewie's), and while I won't quote him directly (seeing as how Stewie got all homicidal when I quoted him), his email jokingly accused me of being a racist and then he said that he thinks this politically correct upset with my choice of words is just stupid. Racists are racists; they don't need wordplay to make their views known. I'm not a racist and that's that. If you believe otherwise, that's on you.

Jon Stancato just arrived for breakfast. Will post more on this later.

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Like a Child Craving Attention, II

It seems the author of the infamous review in Time Out is unhappy that I didn't actually use his name in my blog post. Now, I don't recall a check coming in the door to compensate me for being his publicist, and it seems to me he's already pretty expert at getting publicity without any help from such an utterly unimportant no one like yours very truly.

In his email to me today, said critic reiterated his point "that religion, from an artist or critic's point of view, is a debased form of theater. The review starts that way and wraps up with the kicker that has launched a thousand blogposts. (Well not so much). Now, if you want to act like my editor and say the kicker should have been the lede, that's a valid point."

Of course, I'm tempted to go into the history of theatre as an outgrowth of medieval religious practices, but given that my Jewish forefathers were no doubt hiding when that was going on, I'll just skip it.

Anyway, the email ended with a scold: "...if I'm going to get bad publicity from the likes of you, I'd like to have my name on it."

Gosh, you know, I am positively charmed. I never knew he cared!

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Like a Child Craving Attention

My esteemed friend and colleague Rob Kendt has something interesting, slightly chastising and admirably concise to say about the end of this review in Time Out New York. Now, I am loathe to criticize my fellow critics, especially those that are very intelligent, often thoughtful, well-educated, and not given to fits or fusillades of unnecessary vituperation. But in this particular case, not only is the phrase "religion is bad theater for stupid people" blisteringly...well, stupid, but it is also incalculably reductive and dismissive and selfishly agenda-driven and pissily caustic and megalomaniacal. And it is also -- all right, here I'm probably going to get into trouble -- a kind of super-supercilious demand for attention; it's a baby-at-the-hi-chair statement that screams and caterwauls like a needy 2-year-old: "Look at me! Look at me! Pay attention to me!" Now, you just go ahead and shoot me if you don't like my characterization -- especially in light of some of the things I've said about the religious right in some of the posts down below -- but to diss religion is, I feel, as egregious and inherently immoral and ultimately pompous as to believe that religion should be used to malign and hijack our cherished American freedoms. If Stewie Griffin was a theatre critic, "religion is bad theater for stupid people" is the kind of statement he would make, except that it probably wouldn't be funny (heheheheheh, Lois). I also do not believe Stewie would have placed that statement at the end of the review, where it might not necessarily be read or fully digested, but would have had the temerity to put it up top where it could defended -- if you assume it really could be.

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