Easterblogg off to a Bad Start (UPDATED with Easterbrook's apology)

Welcome Google (and other search engine) searchers! I'm lucky enough to be the top hit for "Easterblogg" at this point. I've been following the Easterbrook affair very closely, so if you haven't been, (i.e. if you're a normal person) this would be a good place to get an overview of the story and to see most of the relevant links. (If you want to see a truly exhaustive collection of links, go to Instapundit of course). Once you're done with this post, please check out the next one, Roger and Gregg, for the developments and commentary through Sunday, October 19th. After that, please check back later today,October 20th, as I plan to put a lot more stuff on the controversy up this afternoon. If you like my take on this, you can go and check out my comments in the threads on this at Roger L. Simon's place, to see a lot of posts that I didn't have time to develop into full blog entries.

(Via Instapundit via Meryl Yourish).

This is utterly beyond the pale. Greg Easterbrook, after a rant about how overrated Quentin Tarantino is, concludes with this bizarre non-sequitur:

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.

As Meryl Yourish says, "WTF? WTF? WTeffingF?

To the extent that I can understand the meaning of this nonsensical, unprovoked screed it's that Jews are greedy, (sure he says Christian and "other" executives can be greedy too, but he's singling out the greed of the Jewish executives alone) that Jewish movie executives should be held to a higher standard than any other executives regarding their depiction of violence and killing in films because their people were the victims of the Holocaust, and, implicity, but given the logic of the rest of it I don't think it's paranoid to infer, that the violence in Jewish financed films is partly responsible for inciting terrorism against Jews.

It reveals a deeply paranoid, anti-Semitic mind that in the context of writing about the corrosive effects of movie violence in general he would start singling out Jewish executives, and their worship of money. (Nothing classically anti-Semitic about that old trope now is there?) Leaving that aside, the remarks in and of themselves are inarguably and indefensibly anti-Semitic, saying that Jews have an especial obligation above anyone else to be moral and to not appear greedy because of the Holocaust. This implies very strongly that it's the behavior of the Jews that brought about the Holocaust to begin with and they need to behave better, and especially be less greedy, to avoid another Holocaust. The last sentence is the real kicker though. It's a bit vague, but my interpretation is that Jewish movies are to blame for terrorism. I may be wrong, but we'll wait and see, I'm sure Mr. Easterbrook will be explaining these words quite a few times in the coming days.

Roger L. Simon, an academy award nominated screenwriter, has also weighed in on this, and highlighted the fact that, on top of everything else, Mr. Easterbrook's statements are utterly asinine considering how films are actually made.

UPDATE: I wrote Mr. Easterbrook an e-mail in which I linked to all the widespread internet reaction to his remarks. I made sure to include "Allah"'s hilarious bit:

Easterbrook Akbar! Kufr, the potential for this double standard is limitless! Recent European history alone ought to cause Israel to experience second thoughts about having a strong military. Recent European history alone ought to cause Zionists to experience second thoughts about their own territorial integrity. Recent European history alone ought to cause Jewish barbers to experience some pretty fucking serious second thoughts about their career choice. Try it, infidels! There must be a million and one hysterical analogies that can be drawn from Nazi crimes against Jews in order to handicap the modern Jew! In fact, now that Allah thinks about it, criticizing the Jew on the basis of atrocities committed against his own people is another kind of double bonus, is it not? EASTERBROOK AKBAR!

I also tried to sum up my main objections to his statements. Evidently, a lot of other people did something like this as well. This got big, New York Times big. Easterbrook posted his apology finally, late last night. Key grafs:

Looking back I did a terrible job through poor wording. It was terrible that I implied that the Jewishness of studio executives has anything whatsoever to do with awful movies like Kill Bill. Nothing about Eisner or Weinstein causes any movie to be bad or awful; they're just supervisors. For all I know neither of them even focused on the adoration-of-violence aspect until the reviews came out. My attempt to connect my perfectly justified horror at an ugly and corrupting movie to the religious faith and ethnic identity of certain executives was hopelessly clumsy.

Where I failed most is in the two sentences about adoration of money. I noted that many Christian executives adore money above all else, and in the 20-minute reality of blog composition, that seemed to me, writing it, fairness and fair spreading of blame. But accusing a Christian of adoring money above all else does not engage any history of ugly stereotypes. Accuse a Jewish person of this and you invoke a thousand years of stereotypes about that which Jews have specific historical reasons to fear. What I wrote here was simply wrong, and for being wrong, I apologize.

The strong points of this apology are as follows:

1) It is, truly, an apology. He doesn't claim to be the victim of PC hypersensitivity. He doesn't say he was misinterpreted. He doesn't offer a million qualifiers. He says "I'm sorry". And, he correclty identifies a major part, but not all, of what he has to be sorry about.

2) In the second paragraph that I pasted here, he correctly surmises how his qualifier regarding non-Jewish executives also worshipping money fell woefully short in negating the poisonous anti-Semitism of accusing Jews of worshipping money. He apologizes for this unequivocally, fully understanding what the implications of his statement as written and posted are. It seems to me now that in this part at least he is guilty of no more than woefully sloppy writing and thinking. Bad enough for a professional writer, but not as bad as bigotry. This is the strongest part of the apology.

3) He brings up the important exculpatory point that he has also excoriated Mel Gibson for glorifying violence on film while professing to be a Christian.

The apology, however, has several severe flaws:

1) He does not at all elaborate on his most contentious point: that Jews, because of having suffered the Holocaust, now have a special duty to not participate in glorifying violence. Why is this true? Do those of other faiths and ethnicities also have this special duty?

2) He does not explain why, of all the people involved in the production and distribution of this film, he found it most relevant to note two Jewish executives.

3) He does not answer the charge that seeming to hold members of a certain group to a higher moral standard than members of other groups constitutes bigotry against that group.

4) Most importantly, in the manner of all anti-Semites throughout history, he utterly conflates Jewish ethnicity and religion. This weakens his point that he has made analogous statements regarding Mel Gibson. Gibson is a professed, active Catholic. Does he know whether or not Weinstein and Eisner are Observant Jews? Or, is he making these statements simply because they have Jewish sounding family names? For all he knows Weinstein and Eisner are totally secular Jews who have never been to Temple in their life, don't give a damn about Israel etc. etc. If this is the case, it completely negates his argument that they have a certain faith which should preclude them from financing or distributing Kill Bill Conflating Jewish culture, religion, and ethnicity is a classic anti-Semitic trope. In essence, he is singling out Weinstein and Eisner simply for being born Jewish, i. e. he is simply being anti-Semitic.

Apology not accepted.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Meryl Yourish, who first brought this to everyone's attention, accepts the apology. I just want to say that, despite the fact that I find Easterbrook's statement of apology unsatisfactory, I do acknowledge that it is a sincere attempt to apologize, which means that even Easterbook acknowledges that he has something to apologize for, which means his defenders, many of whom did not allow that there was anything whatsoever that even appeared anti-Semitic in his original statement, now appear particularly cretinous. Steven I Weiss, on Protocols, seems to be defending Easterbrook as an exercise in smug elitist, contrarianism for the sake of contrarianism. Though he calls all who dare disagree with him "bigots", he responds to them only with more name calling, and with condescension, and barely attempts any rational engagement with the critique of Easterbrook's remarks being advanced by myself and by other bloggers. His sole point of argument seems to be that because Easterbrook is rebuking two Jews in particular, and not Jews in general, his statements can't possibly be anti-Semitic. This ignores the fact that Easterbrook quickly moves from the particular "Weinstein and Eisner" to the broader sounding construction "Jewish executives", whom he describes as "worshipping money above all else". How someone could not realize that the invocation of greedy Jewish Hollywood executives corrupting the nation's morals raises the specter of anti-Semitism I'm not sure. Anyway, Easterbrook is making statements that he clearly means to apply to all Jews. Weiss also asserts that anyone who criticizes Easterbrook is simply saying that non-Jews do not have the right to morally rebuke Jews. I have said from the beginning that Easterbrook's religion and/or ethnicity are irrelevant. And, of course, nowhere does Weiss even attempt to address the question of holding Jews to a higher moral standard because of the Holocaust being anti-Semitic, or of singling out only Jews for rebuke as opposed to anyone else involved in creating the film being anti-Semitic. Furthermore, Weiss contends that Easterbrook's critique of the Jewish executives is based on the history of violence against Jews and not anything having to do with the Jewish religion. Easterbrook's attempt at apology makes it clear that he was basing his argument on Eisner and Weinstein having Jewish faith. Now that apology has been posted, it's clear that even Easterbrook realizes that accusing Jewish executives of worshipping money above all else invokes "a thousand years of stereotypes about that which Jews have specific historical reasons to fear". Weiss has never even addressed that point. If he does ever address any of these points, from what I've seen of his writing it seems to me unlikely that he will respond with anything other than name-calling. Hopefully, he will prove me wrong.

Steven I. Weiss seems like a moral and intellectual titan, however, compared to Easterbrook's more committed apologists. Ryan Booth even goes so far as to say that "those who viciously attacked him (Easterbrook)" should take it back. Well Ryan, if even Easterbrook is now acknowledging that 20 minutes after writing the post he realized his words did indeed sound anti-Semitic, that means that for the last few days you've been all over the internet defending an anti-Semitic statement. Are you going to apologize?

The champion of all the committed defenders of this statement as it was first written, which even the Author has since apologized for, has to be Tom Perry.

But it seems to me what's really going on here, is you can't use the word "Jew" in a sentence anymore without being ridden out of town on a rail by a bunch of outraged pantywaists.

Is Easterbrook spouting Christian/Muslim/whatever propaganda here? No. Is he saying Jews are more greed-addled than anybody else? No, explicitly. Is he suggesting a double-standard? Yes, but he wants to hold Jews to a higher moral standard, which any rational person would take as a compliment.

Again, even Easterbrook is acknowledging that his words as originally written seemed to suggest that Jewish executives were unusually greedy, as the old ethnic slur goes. Even Easterbrook has acknowledged that the adverse reaction is more than just PC-hysteria. As for Perry's last statement. I'm not sure what I'd call a person who enjoyed being singled out for his ethnicity and being held to a higher standard because of it. Rational probably wouldn't be my first choice though.

Comments

[Jason Verschage]

Now THAT's funny. DO a search on Easterbrook on the ESPN website, and all it does it return you to the main page. Type in belch or bitch and it shows responses. Type in a****le (replace the stars with you know what) and it returns nothing. Tee-hee.

[Justin Neill]

"Leaving that aside, the remarks in and of themselves are inarguably and indefensibly anti-Semitic, saying that Jews have an especial obligation above anyone else to be moral and to not appear greedy because of the Holocaust. This implies very strongly that it's the behavior of the Jews that brought about the Holocaust to begin with and they need to behave better, and especially be less greedy, to avoid another Holocaust."

I believe there is definitely argument over whether the comments were anti-Semitic in the first place. What he was trying to say, and I thought his implied meaning wasn't far off from this, was that NO ONE, Jew or otherwise, has the moral justification to playfully depict violence in film. He said that. He was the victim of poor reading and a few overly sensitive readers, including yourself.

And I can do nothing but laugh at your assertion that he is THREATENING the Jewish with this. I can do nothing but shake my head at your assertion that he is blaming the Jews for the Holocaust, because it should be completely obvious that you are just pulling this out of thin air. Perhaps you should re-read what he said, re-evaluate, and realize that you are making this all up.

I regret having wasted my time on this crap. You should be ashamed to call yourself a writer.