- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
Dear Ms. Wilson:
Judging by the response letters that have been posted, it seems you've not only touched on the nerves of some Salon readers but worse, have rubbed raw an open secret about the Salon-reading set et al. Most of us would agree that differing opinions are not only important but also favored; we advance as intellectuals with tension in our dialogue and speaking with an air of empiricism is mostly and frequently unwanted. However, your appropriately vitriolic assessment of the Oscars is spot on (bordering on undeniably factual). I'm shocked and dismayed to read of people writing in to defend Stewart (who failed failed failed in so many ways last night with his miserable faux-tenderness on world topics ) simply because he is the public twin of our private dialogue or because he is the embodiment of an antidote for everything that many of us can agree is wrong with most news media outlets.
I'm just as equally surprised to see how readers are so put off by your snide and snarky tone - I cannot believe the majority of Salon's readers didn't feel it too when watching these historically left-speaking yet untouchable folks – during a time that is so politically bewildering - take to the stage and the limelight as if they were being served their First Communion. Maybe my perception of those who read Salon is way off. (I've been off before, I mean, I remember thinking back in November 2000 - and again in ‘04 - There's no way George Bush could be elected.") I just thought that here at Salon, we have solidarity on some really obvious issues and this seems like a horrifically obvious one to me.
This morning I had a conversation with a friend about the Oscars and Jon Stewart, which led quite naturally to talk about testis-less democrat politicians and lefty/liberals' inability to capitalize on anything that might actually have us wielding a heavy stick in the public sphere. I was thinking about Arianna Huffington's open letter to Stewart, pleading with him to make the best use of his time in front of so many viewers [see Arianna Huffington's blog post on 3/2/06] by not using the stage as a "bully pulpit." WHY?! Why does such a venue have to be full of niceties, outrage diminished and/or forgotten for the sake of preserving Hollywood's special night? This morning my friend was fuming about the tenor of the evening last night. I played devil's advocate explaining that many people wanted Jon Stewart and the politics toned down so that viewers wouldn't be put off by typical liberal Hollywood and that many public liberals were concerned that viewers would be more inclined to write-off any political views emanating from Hollywood in the future. My friend became incensed, why, she asked, are we forced to standby and swallow every time Limbaugh or Cheney or Scalia or any other right-wing wing-nut uses any public moment, regardless of the audience, forum, or expected decorum, to lambaste the dems/liberals/lefties? The point she ultimately made was that for as long as anyone can really remember, celebrity and royalty have always had a captivated audience - nothing is going to change that including political rhetoric. When she said this I stopped arguing with her. She’s right. What are we afraid of? Why must "Return to Glamour", the theme of last night's event, be mutually exclusive of any intelligent thought, of any emotion other than the requisite thank-you tears and mock surprise?
Outrage is not something we wear like an accessory when the proper attire calls for it. The right-wing and the republicans get this. They don't try to be decent. They don't try to be nice. They don't try to be appropriate. Everytime is the right time to share their views and this is exactly why they are winning and we dems/liberals/lefties are losing. Our country and our culture are slowly being right-washed and everyone is falling in lockstep behind this neo-con empowered discourse. When are we going to stop polling our consciences and stop applying that fucked up acceptability-barometer to our rhetoric? When are we going to snap out of this trance a la Pied Piper's rats, pull off our kid gloves and put our boxing gloves on?
Cintra, dear, I'll be in your corner any day of the week.
