Posted on 03/07/2005 1:00:10 PM PST by beaversmom
It’s a recent weeknight at Pacific Lutheran University’s Scandinavian Cultural Center, and the room is packed. With every chair filled, students in jeans and PLU “Lutes” sweat shirts sit cross-legged on the floor awaiting the man of the hour.
Is he a musician? Poet? Politician?
No, they’re eager to hear from a 56-year-old suburbanite who has made his mark straddling the intersection of politics and popular culture: conservative talk radio host, author and movie critic Michael Medved.
Medved steps to the podium and jokes: “With the warmth of this turnout, this greeting – I almost feel Scandinavian.”
Fans laugh easily. They know that Medved is, in fact, proudly Jewish – Orthodox, although he dislikes that term – with grandfathers who immigrated to the United States from Ukraine and Germany.
Medved prefers to describe his religion as observant or traditional, rather than Orthodox.
But in matters of faith, as in many other aspects of his colorful, iconoclastic life, Medved is a study in contrasts. He is:
• A Jew who defended Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” against charges of anti-Semitism.
• A movie critic and radio personality who doesn’t own a television.
• A conservative who chooses to broadcast from liberal Seattle to an estimated 2 million listeners in 124 markets nationwide.
• A Vietnam War protester who occasionally palled around with Hillary Rodham at Yale, then campaigned for Robert Kennedy in 1968 – but who today champions fellow Yalie George W. Bush.
Call him a flip-flopper if you must, but the quick-thinking Medved is ready with an alliterative answer to the big question: What made him do a political about-face?
“Paychecks, parenthood and prayer,” he explains.
Million-dollar debate
Medved’s daily weekday radio show originates from Seattle station KTTH-AM (770), a conservative talk station that bills itself under the nickname “The Truth.”
On a recent Friday, Medved pursued the truth with one of his critics, Patrick Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times. Goldstein is one of several columnists who had excoriated Medved for letting his political views dominate his movie critique of “Million Dollar Baby,” this year’s winner of the Oscar for best picture and three other top awards.
Medved publicly attacked the film, which stars Hilary Swank as a talented boxer coached by father figure Clint Eastwood, as favoring assisted suicide or euthanasia. Medved noted that the film’s narrator describes it as “a heroic act.” He complained that marketing the film as a boxing movie was deceptive. And finally, he said that it was badly acted by everyone except Swank.
But Medved’s critics said his decision to out “Million Dollar Baby’s” pivotal plot point regarding assisted suicide ruined the moviegoing experience for many.
“Tell me,” Medved asked Goldstein on the air, “what I need to be taken to task for? What’s my crime?”
“What I took issue with,” Goldstein answered, “was that you judged the movie on its politics, not on its art.”
Goldstein also criticized Medved for revealing a key plot point.
“I have never done that,” retorted Medved. “I said it was a right-to-die movie, that assisted suicide plays a major role in the film.
“I’m going to tell people the truth.”
“It is a narrative film; it happens to play out in one direction,” Goldstein continued. “It is not taking a position. You are taking one of the best movies of the year and reducing it to a right-to-die movie.”
Later in the discussion, Medved remained calm, but waved his hands as he spoke into the microphone. Didn’t Goldstein think calling assisted suicide heroic meant that the movie took a position?
No, Goldstein explained. It didn’t.
Their exchange was intense, but civilized. There was no name-calling or ranting. And after the segment was over, Medved talked to Goldstein off the air. He promised him a CD of the show, and suggested the two of them have dinner the next time they’re both in the same city.
Goldstein later commented that debating Hollywood with Medved “was like ‘Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus.’ He has a different viewpoint about Hollywood than I have.
“But I have to say, I thought he was very polite. I have been treated much worse.”
Roger Ebert, the nationally syndicated film critic from the Chicago Sun-Times, is another who thinks Medved was driven primarily by his political agenda in reviewing “Million Dollar Baby.”
“There is nothing wrong with that,” Ebert said. “My politics also sometimes come into play in reviews.
“But a critic must be able to deal with a movie’s artistry even if he disagrees with its politics.”
For the record, Ebert says he doesn’t personally agree with what goes down in “Million Dollar Baby.” But he does believe that these characters in this movie would act that way.
“Then it is up to us to decide if we approve,” he adds. “What kinds of movies would there be if characters could only do things we approve of?”
Medved might argue that they would probably be movies more in line with mainstream American thinking. His 1992 book, “Hollywood Vs. America,” blasted the movie industry’s obsessions with violence, sex and profanity as not only out of touch with America, but bad for business. If Hollywood would turn out more family-oriented films and less trash, Medved believes, the movie industry would see even greater commercial success than it now enjoys.
But Medved believes Hollywood’s left-wing, anti-religion bent leaves it blind to the popularity of films such as Gibson’s “Passion.” He points to the snubbing that Gibson’s film – which Medved believes should have made the list of best picture nominees – received at this year’s Oscars.
Detours left and right
The quick-talking style that serves Medved so well on the air is rooted in his early childhood in Philadelphia. He lived there until age 6; then his family moved to California – first San Diego and then Los Angeles.
“I talk like a Philadelphian,” he said, noting that even after the family move to the West, he spent summers with his grandmothers in Philly.
His father was a scientist who at one time was selected by NASA to train as an astronaut. But he washed out due to unhealthy gums. Medved’s parents took him to the newly established nation of Israel when he was just a baby, but they didn’t stay.
Medved tells the story of his childhood, as well as his conversion from left to right and from casual to observant Jew, in his newest book, “Right Turns: Unconventional Lessons from a Controversial Life.” ($26.95, Crown Forum). He calls the book an explanation of how he moved from “callow liberal punk to the lovable, curmudgeonly conservative I am today.”
The book is arranged as 35 “lessons,” each a chapter with titles like “Liberals Love Losing Because It Makes Them Feel Virtuous,” “Judaism Is a Better Religion for Jews than Liberalism,” and “Don’t Turn Out Like John Kerry!”
Medved’s autobiography reads like a “Forrest Gump” of American politics. At Yale in the ’60s, he seems to have rubbed elbows with a long list of future leaders. They included Rodham, whom he liked, and Kerry, whom he didn’t. Medved says he and his friends considered the Massachusetts liberal something of a stuffed shirt, even as a college senior. Medved was also on campus during the same era as President Bush and New York Gov. George Pataki.
One of the most evocative chapters in “Right Turns” details Medved’s experiences with the Robert Kennedy presidential campaign. Young and hopeful that RFK could bring a bitterly divided America together in 1968, Medved signed on as a Kennedy volunteer. His description of the fateful night in LA’s Ambassador Hotel, waiting for returns in the California primary, is emotional. He recalls the way Kennedy looked pink and sunburned from spending the day at the beach with his children. He remembers shouting “We love you, Bobby!”
Then as Medved prepared to leave the hotel ballroom, he heard what he thought were balloons popping. But the sound was the firing of a gun. Kennedy had been assassinated.
n one of his first paid political campaign jobs, as a speechwriter for a 1970 Democratic Senate race in Connecticut, Medved met a political operative named Bill Clinton – a figure he and his friends compared to Eddie Haskell from the old “Leave It to Beaver” TV show.
He was disappointed when Clinton and Rodham became a couple. He thought “Hillary – with her unpretentious kindness, innate class, and decency – deserved better than the slippery manipulations of the Arkansas Traveler.”
Radio days
“Right Turns” is Medved’s 10th book. His first big hit, co-authored with David Wallechinsky in 1976, was titled “What Really Happened to the Class of ’65?” It traced the changing lives of Medved’s and Wallechinsky’s high school classmates from LA’s Palisades High School as the flower powered ’60s faded into the self-absorption of the ’70s.
The book was made into an NBC television show in 1978. Medved says the TV show was terrible. But the experience led him to work as a screenwriter. That work, along with a series of books about bad movies that he co-authored with his brother, gave Medved an entree into the world of Hollywood.
He reviewed movies for CNN and The New York Post, but is probably best known to moviegoers for his 12 years as co-host of the PBS movie review show “Sneak Previews.”
Guest appearances with Rush Limbaugh generated by “Hollywood Vs. America” and his Post columns soon had Medved headed into yet another communications medium: radio.
Nearly nine years ago, tired of the California rat race, Medved jumped at the chance to move to the Northwest and start his own radio show. He and his family make their home in a wealthy suburb east of Seattle – territory that’s considerably more attuned to his political views than the Emerald City itself.
“I always liked it here,” he said of the Northwest. “I came up here as a kid for the World’s Fair. We saw the Space Needle. I went in the Bubbleator.”
He became a frequent visitor, dropping in on friends who live here, camping and hiking in Olympic and Mount Rainier national parks.
Today, while he wears the conservative’s suit and tie for speaking engagements and book cover photos, during his three-hour radio show he’s comfortable in a Northwest uniform of jeans, checked shirt and hiking shoes.
Mixing it up
Even though his three-hour show doesn’t begin until noon, Medved is usually in the office early to prepare. Armed with yellow highlighters, he scours newspapers and Web printouts for the issues of the day.
“Michael puts a lot of thought into what he’s saying,” says David Boze, who’s on the air at KTTH in the early morning from 5 to 6 a.m.
Boze said he sometimes sees Medved around the studio while he’s on the air.
Boze said he finds Medved adds a lot of personal warmth to the KTTH lineup that also includes Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and Michael Savage.
“The thing that distinguishes Michael Medved is that he really relishes debate,” Boze said. “He spends a lot of time making sure his voice is challenged on his own show.”
Medved does love to mix it up on the air. “My radio show is not the ‘Amen’ chorus,” he said. “We feature both guests and callers who disagree.”
Although he has welcomed conservatives such as George and Laura Bush, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, John Ashcroft and Arnold Schwarzenegger to his show, he has also hosted Michael Moore, Ralph Nader, Molly Ivins and Al Gore.
He’s sparred on the air with Al Franken, the “Saturday Night Live” writer and comedian who hosts a talk show on the progressive Air America network (KPTK-AM (1090) in the Seattle market).
Franken recalls a contentious discussion with Medved on Radio Row at the Republican National Convention. More recently, after hearing that Medved called his show boring, Franken turned on the sarcasm.
“Boring?” said Franken, laughing. “Nothing matches the excitement of a Michael Medved show. That’s for sure. It’s not really fair to compare me to him. Who could be that exciting?”
Franken said he doesn’t really consider Medved an archrival.
“He’s a conservative,” Franken said. “There’s a lot of that going on.”
Medved loves debating his celebrity critics. But more important to him is the wide range of ordinary people – both political friend and foe – he gets to converse with each day.
“After doing this for eight and a half years – the romance of talking to people in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Dallas – I love that,” Medved said. “I want to continue talking about issues that matter politically and culturally to a couple million of my friends for the remainder of my days. I enjoy this.”
Debbie Cafazzo: 253-597-8635
One more MM ping. Anyone want on or off the Medved ping list, please send me an e-mail.
Golly, gee. Thanks for the post, Mrs. Cleaver. :)
Medved is one of the smartest hosts out there, and he manages to mix in a little pop culture as well.
Very entertaining/ educational radio.
You're welcome Eddie.
I agree. It just amazes me how he can remember so much.
Yes, I definitely agree....Michael is a joy to listen to and very reassuring in the intellectual department....
I listen to Michael Medved's show on my commute home from work each day. He is an exceptionally bright guy who seems to love nothing more than a good debate...which he usually wins on the facts. Read his book "What Really Happened to the Class of ’65?” many years ago, and still have it in my collection. A good read that provides a snapshot of the 60's cultural and political events.
“What kinds of movies would there be if characters could only do things we approve of?”
A clean movies that had plots and didn't need dirty language or sex to sell them, we would also have more family movies that we could watch together. Movies that left politics out of the movies etc. I think it is a great start!
Very smart man!
--erik
That was a very good article
thanks for posting and the MM ping
:) Perfect!
Your welcome. Thanks to you for looking out for MM articles.
Patrick miss the point, characters who do things we disapprove of are villains, not the hero and this movie portrayed her as one.
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