Salon | Letters to the editor

_______________ MAILROOM DISPATCH ...

Mary Daly's decision to exclude men from some of her classes did not sit well with Salon's equal-opportunity readers, one of whom referred to Daly's arguments as "a steaming load of horseshit." And Christopher Hitchens continues to stir passions on both sides of the political fence. On Tuesday, readers took issue with indignant left-wing responses to Salon's unapologetic, continued publication of Hitchens' controversial writing.
The jury's still out on whether Andrew Leonard is correct in his assertion that conservative-funded law and economics programs are influencing court rulings in antitrust cases. Undisputed, however, are Leonard's keen reporting skills, of which letter writer Tom Langston wrote: "I have become unaccustomed to the quality of research and manifest understanding of the subject exhibited by his article."
Now and then, a critic is more interesting to readers than his subject, as seems to be the case with Salon's new Washington correspondent, Jake Tapper. Reacting to his review of George Stephanopoulos' "All Too Human," letters poured in that accused Tapper of possessing the same attribute for which he lambastes Stephanopoulos -- namely, a gift for self-promotion.
Salon also received an overwhelming number of responses to Jennifer Kahn's essay on her lack of breeder sensibility, "The nurture assumption." Most praised Kahn's honest portrayal of the challenges facing a woman who simply doesn't want to have children.
Should an artist's politics have any bearing on how his art is critically and publicly received? Today Salon readers weigh in on the touchy subject of whether Elia Kazan deserved the special award he received this year at the Oscar's.

_______________ UNSPUN: WHY ELIA KAZAN SHOULD NOT RECEIVE AN OSCAR BY STEVE ERICKSON (03/17/99)

Congratulations to Steve Erickson. His dialectic on the Elia Kazan controversy shows the truth of the matter. Many of Kazan's supporters are quick to point out the undeniable facts of his talent. But since that talent has already been rewarded twice, what good purpose can come by honoring him with a special award? Has there been some oversight of which the rest of us have no knowledge? What apologies does this award bring to Kazan, who -- unlike those on whom he informed -- achieved more after his appearance before the HUAC than before?
Of the impeccable list of directors who have fewer Oscars than Kazan, the most notable may be Orson Welles, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock and Charlie Chaplin. All of whom were awarded some type of honorary award for the gross neglect they received at the hands of the academy.
Kazan's supporters state that the political should not inform upon the artistic, but why shouldn't it -- especially since Kazan attempted to rationalize his politics with the artistic? Special awards are for those who have contributed something undeniable to the canon of filmmaking, not for those who have poisoned the village's water supply to seek out a few misguided "infiltrators." After all, if we are to reward those who have achieved something while excluding the incalculable damage they caused, shouldn't we applaud Mussolini for making the trains run on time?
-- Charles Beckert
Cleveland
Steve Erickson argues that Elia Kazan does not deserve his lifetime achievement award. He asserts that Kazan's films have been overpraised and reminds us that his snitching before HUAC had enormous and odious consequences. To this extent I agree with him fully -- I especially appreciate his candor on the first point, as even those who object to Kazan's politics have deferred to his admirers when it comes to his contributions to the cinema.
In almost the same breath as he condemns Kazan, however, Erickson patronizes and belittles both the artistic achievements and the ideology of those Kazan helped to blacklist. Of the Hollywood Ten, he writes, they behaved with a "shrill indignation that was sanctimonious at best and hypocritical at worst, shrouding themselves in freedoms for which the ideology they believed had nothing but contempt." Later he refers to these folks as "hapless Hollywood nitwits who got their heads lodged squarely up their asses searching for Stalinist paradise."
Here Erickson both reflects and contributes to the marginalization of Marxist thought in American political discourse, a process that continues unabated since the fall of the Soviet Union. He has domesticated Hollywood's Marxists as a pack of misguided but ultimately harmless children. Surely many blinded themselves to the horrors of Stalinism. But many of those blacklisted had abandoned a hard-line, pro-Soviet outlook some years before; they were simply former members of the CP-USA who refused to be cooperatively contrite about their participation in that organization.
Also, "the ideology they believed" was the official ideology of Bolshevism, not the cynical anti-ideology of Stalin (the former is indeed compatible with ideals of freedom and democracy). And to call the Hollywood Communists "nitwits" is to deny the power of the contributions of Abraham Polonsky, Dalton Trumbo, Cy Endfield and many others. The brilliant and corrosive "Force of Evil" alone can refute this line of reasoning. I hasten to add that McCarthyism destroyed the careers and/or the dignity of less doctrinaire Hollywood figures -- John Garfield among them.
In any case, it's repugnant to me that even educated liberals and leftists, who sensibly condemn both Kazan and the academy, still feel the need to distance themselves from anything resembling a coherent Marxist ideology -- or worse, feel the need to deny that people with such an ideology can make a contribution. Maybe one day the American left (such as it is) will arrive at a more comfortable position vis-à-vis the Old Left, somewhere between the blind adoration of martyrs and the patronizing dismissal of "nitwits." Until then we'll get articles like that of Erickson.
-- [Name withheld]

N E X T+P A G E+| Camille Paglia on the Elia Kazan controversy

_______________ MAILROOM DISPATCH ...
	Mary Daly's decision to exclude men from some of her classes did not sit well with Salon's equal-opportunity readers, one of whom referred to Daly's arguments as "a steaming load of horseshit." And Christopher Hitchens continues to stir passions on both sides of the political fence. On Tuesday, readers took issue with indignant left-wing responses to Salon's unapologetic, continued publication of Hitchens' controversial writing. The jury's still out on whether Andrew Leonard is correct in his assertion that conservative-funded law and economics programs are influencing court rulings in antitrust cases. Undisputed, however, are Leonard's keen reporting skills, of which letter writer Tom Langston wrote: "I have become unaccustomed to the quality of research and manifest understanding of the subject exhibited by his article." Now and then, a critic is more interesting to readers than his subject, as seems to be the case with Salon's new Washington correspondent, Jake Tapper. Reacting to his review of George Stephanopoulos' "All Too Human," letters poured in that accused Tapper of possessing the same attribute for which he lambastes Stephanopoulos -- namely, a gift for self-promotion. Salon also received an overwhelming number of responses to Jennifer Kahn's essay on her lack of breeder sensibility, "The nurture assumption." Most praised Kahn's honest portrayal of the challenges facing a woman who simply doesn't want to have children. Should an artist's politics have any bearing on how his art is critically and publicly received? Today Salon readers weigh in on the touchy subject of whether Elia Kazan deserved the special award he received this year at the Oscar's.
_______________ UNSPUN: WHY ELIA KAZAN SHOULD NOT RECEIVE AN OSCAR BY STEVE ERICKSON (03/17/99)
	Congratulations to Steve Erickson. His dialectic on the Elia Kazan controversy shows the truth of the matter. Many of Kazan's supporters are quick to point out the undeniable facts of his talent. But since that talent has already been rewarded twice, what good purpose can come by honoring him with a special award? Has there been some oversight of which the rest of us have no knowledge? What apologies does this award bring to Kazan, who -- unlike those on whom he informed -- achieved more after his appearance before the HUAC than before? Of the impeccable list of directors who have fewer Oscars than Kazan, the most notable may be Orson Welles, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock and Charlie Chaplin. All of whom were awarded some type of honorary award for the gross neglect they received at the hands of the academy. Kazan's supporters state that the political should not inform upon the artistic, but why shouldn't it -- especially since Kazan attempted to rationalize his politics with the artistic? Special awards are for those who have contributed something undeniable to the canon of filmmaking, not for those who have poisoned the village's water supply to seek out a few misguided "infiltrators." After all, if we are to reward those who have achieved something while excluding the incalculable damage they caused, shouldn't we applaud Mussolini for making the trains run on time? -- Charles Beckert Cleveland Steve Erickson argues that Elia Kazan does not deserve his lifetime achievement award. He asserts that Kazan's films have been overpraised and reminds us that his snitching before HUAC had enormous and odious consequences. To this extent I agree with him fully -- I especially appreciate his candor on the first point, as even those who object to Kazan's politics have deferred to his admirers when it comes to his contributions to the cinema. In almost the same breath as he condemns Kazan, however, Erickson patronizes and belittles both the artistic achievements and the ideology of those Kazan helped to blacklist. Of the Hollywood Ten, he writes, they behaved with a "shrill indignation that was sanctimonious at best and hypocritical at worst, shrouding themselves in freedoms for which the ideology they believed had nothing but contempt." Later he refers to these folks as "hapless Hollywood nitwits who got their heads lodged squarely up their asses searching for Stalinist paradise." Here Erickson both reflects and contributes to the marginalization of Marxist thought in American political discourse, a process that continues unabated since the fall of the Soviet Union. He has domesticated Hollywood's Marxists as a pack of misguided but ultimately harmless children. Surely many blinded themselves to the horrors of Stalinism. But many of those blacklisted had abandoned a hard-line, pro-Soviet outlook some years before; they were simply former members of the CP-USA who refused to be cooperatively contrite about their participation in that organization. Also, "the ideology they believed" was the official ideology of Bolshevism, not the cynical anti-ideology of Stalin (the former is indeed compatible with ideals of freedom and democracy). And to call the Hollywood Communists "nitwits" is to deny the power of the contributions of Abraham Polonsky, Dalton Trumbo, Cy Endfield and many others. The brilliant and corrosive "Force of Evil" alone can refute this line of reasoning. I hasten to add that McCarthyism destroyed the careers and/or the dignity of less doctrinaire Hollywood figures -- John Garfield among them. In any case, it's repugnant to me that even educated liberals and leftists, who sensibly condemn both Kazan and the academy, still feel the need to distance themselves from anything resembling a coherent Marxist ideology -- or worse, feel the need to deny that people with such an ideology can make a contribution. Maybe one day the American left (such as it is) will arrive at a more comfortable position vis-à-vis the Old Left, somewhere between the blind adoration of martyrs and the patronizing dismissal of "nitwits." Until then we'll get articles like that of Erickson. -- [Name withheld]
	N E X T+P A G E+\| Camille Paglia on the Elia Kazan controversy