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Marjorie Garber and Erik Tarloff

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from: Marjorie Garber

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Posted Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2000, at 3:37 PM ET

Erik,

When I saw the violence-in-entertainment story it made me think, not only of Piety on Parade (although there's no policy I detest more than "don't ask, don't tell," it may actually make sense when it comes to public displays of religion) but also of my earlier ruminations on Bobby the K and contact sports, on and--especially--off the field. From discounts at local haberdasheries for members of what used to be called "the varsity" (from British-speak for "[uni]versity," but of course you already knew that) to violent confrontations with the law--auto accidents, rape and battery charges, even a since-withdrawn charge of murder--high ranking athletes, some of them, have found themselves on the front page and the court calendar as well as the sports section. I don't see this as any reason to shut down professional football, or even the big-time (there we go again) college game. But where are the politicians' squawks about this kind of violence as a byproduct of entertainment? Coaches have a hard time benching bad actors who are also sports heroes. No warning labels here, though, despite the fact that the NFL has started airing commercials about handshakes and sportsmanship. Here's another place for the acknowledged double standard.

About all of these things I err on the side of permissiveness rather than regulation, for the same reasons you gave in your last note; it's the slippery slope argument. Any censorship seems dangerous as a precedent. Freedom for the thought that you hate is harder to do in practice than in theory, though. I can't watch news clips of the Aryan Nation or any other hate group or militia without feeling the stirrings of hating-back. Sentiments are always reciprocated, as one of my favorite psychoanalyst-philosophers put it. Except for infatuation, this seems to me by and large true.

On popular music today, my own pet peeve is what I think may be called a "subwoofer" (can that be right?). Whatever makes the low-slung car with its windows open crawling down the street go "boom-boom-boom-boom," sotto voce, as if you were suddenly inside one of those beating-heart displays in natural history museums. Sets my teeth on edge. In fact noise pollution, altogether, is one of my chief complaints about modern civilization. Since I live near Boston, home of the bottomless pit known as the Big Dig, I am trying to face up to the fact that I'll be hearing jackhammers for the rest of my days.

When I saw the 2-hour Bob Dylan special on A&E a couple of weeks ago, closely followed by one on Janis Joplin, I realized that my own pop-musical tastes are firmly and apparently irrevocably welded to the late '60s and the '70s. (I also tried to order a CD containing the ancient music of my youth, something I think called "Doo-Wop Special" or "Street Corner Serenade," but backed off when I realized it was part of one of those endless TV music-clubs.) Now there's a confession for you.

Do you have any thoughts on the future of women's studies in colleges and universities? I'm just off to a meeting to discuss that.

Till tomorrow,
Marge

the breakfast table
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from: Marjorie Garber

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Posted Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2000, at 3:37 PM ET
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Marjorie Garber is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of English at Harvard. Her most recent book is Sex and Real Estate: Why We Love Houses (click here to buy it). Erik Tarloff is the author of Face-Time (click here to buy it) and the newly published The Man Who Wrote the Book (click here to buy it). Click here to read this discussion from the beginning.
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Reader Comments From the Fray:


As for why women like Gore and men Bush? Simple: Romance and Presents. A big kiss for the wife, free pre-school for the kids and free medicine for Gramps. Gore's the national dream husband. Meanwhile, the men of America put their hands on their wallets which have just become perceptibly lighter, and furrow their collective brow as they tot up the trillions in taxes for the aforementioned goodies. Pikers! Don't they love their wives? How can they begrudge them the important things in life, paramount among them the free time to sit on the couch and watch Gore on Oprah? Gore's next initiative: a national program of heart-shaped chocolate boxes.

--Josh May

(To reply, click here.)

[Note from the Fray Editor: Hmm. That should go down well in The Fray. So, we are sure, will Tek's view that gravitas, like penetration, is male. Other ideas:]


Thanks Marge. You didn't mention reparations [see last week's Breakfast Table] and you got in the obligatory digs at George W. Bush. You have gravitas. Big time.

--WillV

(To reply, click here.)


The last female politician to have "gravitas" was Margaret Thatcher. She didn't care whether or not she was part of the old boy network. She did not sit around and whine about the glass ceiling. She did not toe the liberal/socialist line or care whether or not people loved her. She ignored all the experts, and just went with what she believed in and to hell with the polls.

--Dean W.

(To reply, click here.)


The gender gap is due to gun control.

I can't tell you how many working/middle class white men I've heard that say something like "I'm pissed with the Democrats that they keep making me vote Republican, but I strongly believe in the second amendment." For women (and men) who support or don't mind gun control, it's not a voting issue, because no one believes gun control will substantially reduce violence. And what's most irritating to this yellow-dog Dem is that actual steps Dems take are not that threatening, even if you are strongly against gun control. It's merely the rhetoric about "taking on the NRA" etc etc which is driving away working class white men in droves.
What's annoying to me is how the media is ignoring the issue. Media people will talk about the kiss, empathy, social programs (men don't want health care and education?), the Mommy vs. Daddy party, blah blah, but are completely oblivious to this particular 900 pound gorilla. And the polls don't ask questions on gun control either, so no-one sees how big (or small) its effect is. I find the combination of media obtuseness on gun control combined with endless (uninsightful) analysis on the gender gap really pretty irritating.

And Ms Williams, if you believe Wen Ho Lee was being railroaded, how come you haven't written any columns on it? Or on the fraudulent Cox report?

--Roublen Vessau

(To reply, click here.)
[Note from the Fray Editor: probably because she's actually Marjorie Garber. Marjorie Williams is over at Slate's Book Club.]


Erik, your story about Washington's steely (not wooden) character is true in essence, except it was Mad Anthony Wayne boasting after a cavalry skirmish that he was afraid of nothing in this world. Hamilton then gestured to Washington, who had just entered the room and was warming himself at the fireplace. "Go, then, and clap our general on his back, and hail him as a good fellow," said Hamilton. "No, I think I will decline the honor," replied Wayne.

Many share your outrage about Wen Ho Lee. Can you see why we reprehensible unreconstructed conservatives are always in such an uproar about the left's perpetual ambition to increase the power and reach of the Federal government? And I agree that the ACLU is a useful organization, though they should be admonished to change their name to the American Civil Liberties- Except-for-a-Phrase-in-Amendment-One-a-Clause-in-Amendment-Two-and-All-of-Amendment-Ten Union. Truth in advertising, you know.

--Aristophanes

(To reply, click here.)
[This is the post mentioned by Erik Tarloff in Monday's entry.]

(9/11)

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