BY DAN
KENNEDY
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Tuesday, October 21, 2003
Gregg Easterbrook's
Jewish problem. I've been watching Gregg Easterbrook's ongoing
implosion with some distress over the past few days. This is one of
those weird, inexplicable stories that is difficult to comment on
intelligently.
Easterbrook, if you don't know, is
a journalist -- a very good one -- who recently began writing a
blog
on the New Republic website, and who almost immediately used
it to blast Jewish film executives such as Harvey Weinstein and
Michael Eisner for producing violent films such as Quentin
Tarantino's Kill Bill. Here's the offending
paragraph:
Set aside what it says
about Hollywood that today even Disney thinks what the
public needs is ever-more-graphic depictions of killing the
innocent as cool amusement. Disney's CEO, Michael Eisner, is
Jewish; the chief of Miramax, Harvey Weinstein, is Jewish. Yes,
there are plenty of Christian and other Hollywood executives who
worship money above all else, promoting for profit the adulation
of violence. Does that make it right for Jewish executives to
worship money above all else, by promoting for profit the
adulation of violence? Recent European history alone ought to
cause Jewish executives to experience second thoughts about
glorifying the killing of the helpless as a fun lifestyle choice.
But history is hardly the only concern. Films made in Hollywood
are now shown all over the world, to audiences that may not
understand the dialogue or even look at the subtitles, but can't
possibly miss the message -- now Disney's message -- that hearing
the screams of the innocent is a really fun way to express
yourself.
It's hard to figure out exactly
what point Easterbrook is trying to make, but his item reeks with the
language of those who loathe money-grubbing
Jews. There's nothing in Easterbrook's background to suggest that
he's an anti-Semite, but he clearly has some unhealthy thoughts
rattling around his head that find expression when he's not being
edited.
Here
is Easterbrook's original item; here
is his apology, which to my mind makes it worse by wallowing in
self-pity; and here
is an apology from TNR's editors, who observe, "The spectacle
of this magazine defending itself against the charge of anti-Semitism
would be funny if it were not so sad."
Because of his outburst,
Easterbrook has lost a gig writing about sports for ESPN.com.
Josh
Marshall thinks it's
because ESPN is owned by Michael Eisner's Disney, but I doubt it. Rather,
ESPN, having just dumped Rush Limbaugh for making remarks more
defensible than Easterbrook's, couldn't afford to be seen coddling a
liberal -- or, at least, someone we had all thought was a
liberal.
Jack
Shafer has a smart take on
all this in Slate, although he seems not to know that Easterbrook
is so obsessed with movie violence that, a few years ago, TNR
film critic Stanley Kauffmann felt obliged to devote an entire column
to an earlier Easterbrook screed against Natural Born
Killers.
So this is not a new subject for
Easterbrook. The only new twist is his dark mutterings about Jewish
businessmen. This is ugly and unexpected, and I suspect he's not done
having to explain himself.
posted at 7:30 AM |
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Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
