Mark Steyn: The Love That Doesn't Like You Speaking Its Name

The Atlantic Monthly ^ | December 2003 | Mark Steyn

[quidnunc]

Hollywood Communism and Elia Kazan

You usually hear the tune on Oscar night, but not often the lyric, which is more to the point:

Hooray For Hollywood
Where you’re terrific if you’re even good.

When someone’s really terrific, it’s a different story. In a town where everyone from Johnny Depp to Janeane Garofalo is an “artist”, Hollywood doesn’t always know how to deal with the real thing. In 1996, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, mulling over their Career Achievement Award, decided to reject Elia Kazan and honour instead Roger Corman, the director of Swamp Women, Attack Of The Crab Monsters and Teenage Caveman. Swamp Women and Attack Of The Crab Monsters are good, and Teenage Caveman is not only good, it’s also an eloquent plea for world disarmament, at least according to its youthful star Robert Vaughan. But On The Waterfront is terrific. This should not be a difficult call.

But apparently it is. Kazan can make a claim to be the father of modern American acting, the man who brought Stanislavskian techniques to Broadway and then to the silver screen. Insofar as the young lions of our present-tense culture aspire to emulate any of the old guys, it’s not David Niven or even Jimmy Cagney who resonate, but Marlon Brando, James Dean, Rod Steiger — on all of whom Kazan was the greatest single influence. He was a great theatre director, and later a fine novelist, and, when he walked on stage in 1999 to receive a belated Lifetime Achievement Oscar, he might reasonably have expected the orchestra to be vamping Leonard Bernstein’s theme to On The Waterfront for a good ten minutes while Hollywood roared its appreciation. Instead, outside the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, elderly hack screenwriters led protests and, inside, the likes of Sean Penn sat on their hands. For both Hollywood’s ancient D-list Communists and its A-list anti-anti-Communists, there’s only one thing about Kazan that matters: he “named names”. 

-snip-

[AmishDude]

So Jews shouldn't listen to Wagner.
Nazis shouldn't appreciate modern painters.
Shakespeare should be bowdlerized for prigs.
Beds and tables should wear skirts to hide their legs.
Amish shouldn't dance because it's sinful.
Etc, etc, etc...

For the record, your argument would be more effective if you used Carl Orff in place of Richard Wagner.

Dancing is simply a pointless waste of time and energy, since you were obviously seeking out my expertise.

[7thson]

Mussolini (sp) made the trains run on time. You think God appreciates that talent?

[AmishDude]

Let me try to expand: The artists' professed politics are part of the art. Art exists in the real world and so the performance art that the performer performs in the media is part of the art itself.

You cannot listen to Madonna's "music" without including the baggage of her various media stunts. It's all part of the performance.

Further, there is very little high art anymore. Anything resembling high art is thoroughly corrupted by the most banal political view these days, not even high-level intellectual ideology.

[Lurking in Kansas]

Wow. Another fantastic Steyn piece.

A great point, one never hears from “Hollywood”:
… the fact that Hollywood’s belief in its own heroism derives from a moment of colossal Hollywood cowardice any obstacle. The blacklist “victims” weren’t blacklisted by the government but by the studios – Warner Brothers, Paramount, Disney – the same folks who run Hollywood today.

This is the point that the liberals in Hollywood conveniently fail to ever mention. The United States government NEVER “blacklisted” ANYONE.

[liberallarry]

He was a great singer. So what? Every generation produces at least a half-dozen Paul Robesons.

Gee what an enormous number...I can hardly imagine it.

So we should ignore him because of that. How many evil men does each generation produce? Maybe we should ignore them also?

He's only on your list because of his defense of the Gulag.

So you claim to be a mind-reader? There a talent I can safely ignore.

[liberallarry]

For the record, your argument would be more effective if you used Carl Orff in place of Richard Wagner

I chose Wagner because his music was banned in Israel...until musicians realized how foolish that was.

Dancing is simply a pointless waste of time and energy, since you were obviously seeking out my expertise

On this I yield to superior wisdom. :)

[liberallarry]

Mussolini (sp) made the trains run on time. You think God appreciates that talent?

I don't know about God but I do. You mean you don't?

[liberallarry]

The artists' professed politics are part of the art

Sssstttreetchhhhh...........

[liberallarry]

Further, there is very little high art anymore

Idiotic beyond belief. You can find exression of such in every art form.

[Cinnamon Girl]

I DON'T listen to Wagner. Wagner can shove it.

[AmishDude]

> He was a great singer. So what? Every generation produces at least a half-dozen Paul Robesons.
Gee what an enormous number...I can hardly imagine it.

I should have added "...in New Jersey alone." Do search on the Rutgers website for "Paul Robeson".

So we should ignore him because of that. How many evil men does each generation produce? Maybe we should ignore them also?

As a mathematician, I have high standards for who makes it into the history books. The fact is, P.R. does not "rise to the level" of getting any attention paid to him by history -- except for his politics.

So you claim to be a mind-reader? There a talent I can safely ignore.

Oh, to the contrary, the point I was making was not that you listed him because you liked his politics but that you had only heard of him because of his politics.

[AmishDude]

> The artists' professed politics are part of the art
Sssstttreetchhhhh...........

Exhibit #1: Jonathan Swift
Exhibit #2: Miguel de Cervantes

[johnb838]

I imagine the arts were operated under about the same conditions in Iraq under poor misunderstood Saddam whom they love so well. We know Uday would have the athletes flogged for losing, why not an execution if the dictator is disappointed in your show. I'm quite confident it happened.

[AmishDude]

> Further, there is very little high art anymore
Idiotic beyond belief.

Come on, elephant dung has become a standard part of the palette.

[johnb838]

"And yes, there were Communists in Hollywood the State Department,"

"Were?" How about "are?".....even more now than in the 40s/50s.

[liberallarry]

They can be but they don't have to be...and even where they are one can sometimes appreciate the expression without condoning the message. I loved "Triumph of the Will".

[liberallarry]

Come on, elephant dung has become a standard part of the palette

Only for dung lovers. Try this

AN INTERNATIONAL COALITION OF DIGITAL ARTISTS

[liberallarry]

Paul Robeson lived before my time - that's why I came to him in a round-about way. He was the Luciano Pavarotti of his generation - or close. Your "New Jersey" crack is utterly ridiculous...and ignorant.

[AmishDude]

Your "New Jersey" crack is utterly ridiculous...and ignorant.

So Robeson was before your time. Guess what, so was Enrico Caruso. Caruso was far more important in a historical sense because he came at the time recorded music first emerged.

If you think anyone will discuss Pavarotti in 50 years, you're mistaken. Except, of course, to explain to future generations that he was like whomever is the popular singer of that day.

[liberallarry]

Your point is that Caruso's and Pavarotti's talents shouldn't be appreciated either? Well then, why bother about current politics or ideas? Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.