So apparently GLAAD is now into industry blackmail.
OK, so it's not blackmail, precisely. I'm just not sure what to call it. Their basic position seems to devolve to: "We think you have grievously transgresed against gays, so you should make a large donation to a cause of our choosing as a means of apology." What amazes me is that they made this demand (pardon me: "suggestion") with absolutely no sense of how this would appear when the issue broke.
I don't say that GLAAD shouldn't protest whenever they feel that defamation occurs. I do say that they can be hypersensitive about what constitutes "defamation" -- that mess with Chris Potter and Showtime's Queer as Folk last year should never have happened -- and they have absolutely no sense of proportion.
Frankly, had I been in Kevin Smith's position and been sent a letter like this, I would have responded, "Thank you for expressing your concerns," and they'd never have heard another word. The first paragraph alone gives the strong impression that unless Kevin Smith does pretty much what they say, they aren't really interested in what he has to say about anything. Nonetheless, he did meet with Scott Seomin, GLAAD's Entertainment Media Director, and things seem to have gone relatively well (including that donation).
Then, apparently, all hell broke loose. Entertainment Weekly called up Smith to ask about a quote they'd gotten from Seomin in which he said of the film, "I've never seen something so horrific." (Link is to a 133K JPG scan of the EW article at News Askew) Kevin Smith finally responded in public, at quite great length, presenting his side of the issue.
GLAAD then compound their problems by getting defensive in public and responding point-by-point to his message. (They should neve have issued that statement, certainly not as a point by point rebuttal. They should only have said that they raised their issues of concern with Kevin Smith, and they had a frank, forthright and mostly productive discussion of all their issues -- all of which seems to be quite true. Then they should have said that independently of that discussion, Kevin Smith asked to donate some money to the Foundation. And that's ALL. Their media director seems curiously ignorant of how to present GLAAD to the media.)
I don't deny that the issues GLAAD raises might not be of concern. I do note that in an R rated film, the audience they're concerned about -- especially in this Year of Our "Save The Children From The Media" Pogram -- for the most part will not be able to see the film in the first place. And I note that GLAAD is becoming positively expert at presenting themselves in a perfectly horrible light.
They're tracking the whole mess over at News Askew.
If nothing else, the whole situation is likely to convince more people to go see the film. I don't intend to, myself -- I saw the cartoon "Clerks", along with its accompanying intro and outro bits from Jay and Silent Bob, and I have no wish to subject myself to a full length film of that dreck.
Copyright © 2001, Iain Jackson, after-words.org
[Archives: 2001 and after]
Archives before February 5, 2001
Search entries:
12/19/2001: vive la france
12/19/2001: princess, redux
12/19/2001: yemen and rumsfeld
12/18/2001: you're NOT in the army now
12/18/2001: interesting donation
12/18/2001: shame on winn dixie, indeed
12/18/2001: saudi princess
12/17/2001: new resolve
12/17/2001: a victim of the attack ... yeah, right
12/17/2001: polluters ho!
