INSTALLMENT 46: 1 OCTOBER 82

 

The Road to Hell, Part II

Last week in this space you began the adventures of Joanne Gutreimen, a reader of this column who found in an advertisement nationally run by the CasaBlanca Fan Company, parodying the classic film Casablanca, what she took to be flagrant sexism and racism. We ran the ad last week. Ms. Gutreimen’s letter to the company, one of a group protesting the ads, and the company’s response advising they were pulling the ads, were also here last week. We pick up the adventure with my letter to Ms. Gutreimen dated September 9th, in response to her sending me all the foregoing material. Gee, I hope you saved last week’s installment.

“Dear Joanne:

“You’re not going to like this.

“Since you sent me the ad with a copy of their response, and your letter crowing about this grass roots defeat of Utter Evil, with the clear implication that I’ll applaud your action, I’m sure my opposite reaction will startle you. But the simple truth of it is that what you did is no better than what the Moral Majority does. You intimidated without genuine cause, based solely on a tunnel-visioned view of something you chose to misinterpret.

“The advertisement is in no way racist. It is only the barest, most vaguely sexist, if one lacks any sense of humor whatever, and if one has somehow escaped the mythic grip the film Casablanca holds over several generations of filmgoers, both here and abroad. It isn’t even, as you claim, a stupid ad. It is a clever conceit, elegantly and tastefully put together.

“Look, Joanne: I know college women who want Gone With the Wind banned from their university film group because it portrays both blacks and women in ‘subservient roles.’ They are as muddled as you. History cannot be changed. As a portrait of women and blacks during the Civil War it is accurate, and no amount of overcompensatory revisionism will change that. As a portrait of a period, it is correct, and should be seen; as Art it should be seen. The same for Casablanca and the same for the character of Rick, as regards his feeling about women—in this case the one who left him standing in Paris as the Nazis marched in. Doing a parody advertisement of that deeply affecting scene from the film was sensible and innovative on the part of CasaBlanca Fan Company and its ad agency. No harm, no insult, no sexism, no racism, no stupidity.

“All of those, in great measure, are what you have evinced. And you should not for a moment think you have done a good thing.

“You have overreacted in a destructive way. You have made the company feel it did something insensitive and incorrect. But in a world where we cannot chuckle at the serioso kneejerking of those dedicated to even the most worthy causes, those who choose to hold on to their wit and their sense of the ludicrous become targets for True Believers.

“That’s the stock in trade of the Moral Majority, those bluenosed, straitlaced and anal-retentives whose own souls are more than likely cesspools of sexual repression and lasciviousness. They rail against that which they perceive in themselves.

“You are too bright a woman, and too sensible, to carry on like this. If, in fact, as you say in your letter, you went into conniption fits, with hot lava (which is a redundancy) coursing through your veins…then you’ve got a problem. You know my credentials as regards racism and sexism: I was working with King in the South long before it became fashionable; I’ve just spent six years touring the country lobbying and lecturing for the ERA; my columns frequently take racists and sexists to task. While I may not be as sensitive to sexism as you, a female, may be, I like to think I’m considerably more aware than most folks, male or female. If this advertisement were offensive, I’d have written you congratulating you on mobilizing your anger for a worthy end.

“But you’re wrong. Dead wrong. And you’ve contributed to the unnecessary shaming of a company that has committed no offense. I don’t give a damn if they received thirty letters or three hundred. It is pure and simple reverse-logic and overreaction.

“In the past you’ve written to the column, and to me, with solid and sensible comment. I’ve grown to admire you and the social conscience you demonstrate. But this time you’re way off base.

“I’ll be sending a copy of this letter to CasaBlanca so they can take some small solace. I may do a column on it…it seems to me a subject that needs discussion. I’m sorry it had to be you, one of the stalwarts, who comes in for reprimand. But if I were to ignore your chortle of glee, if I were to permit CasaBlanca to think their ad agency and their own Board of Directors were insensitive assholes, I would not be serving the commonweal.

“I told you this wouldn’t be to your liking. Sorry about that, Joanne, but we’re definitely on opposite sides in this one.

“All best otherwise, Harlan Ellison.”

With Jesse Helms and Orrin Hatch out there, with Phyllis Shitfly still trumpeting her victory over the ERA, with insurance companies lobbying their rates against women, with the feminist-backlash rise in rape, with the endless and constantly mutating anti-feminist virus that infects America, it seems to me incumbent upon all of us who perceive these inequities to know who the enemy is. Please notice Mr. Hart addressed Joanne as Ms. Gutreimen. Also please take under advisement the highly responsible and sensitive tone of Mr. Hart’s letter to Joanne, fancy-Delancey letterhead not withstanding. And know that Hart was not blowing smoke up Ms. Gutreimen’s skirt when he said women hold many and responsible positions in the company, such as the recent appointment of Elaine Pondant as Director of Sales, responsible for all national sales of their fans.

Also understand that 30 letters (the actual total was 55) is enough to scare the bejeezus out of a company that has to remain responsive to its potential market, but that in conversations with the writers of these letters, Hart discovered that at least half of them had never seen the film. (Several of them went fully into looney tune behavior by saying they never would see the motion picture Casablanca because Bogart was in it!)

In its way, the ad agency’s use of Bogart and Sam (and in other ads Ingrid Bergman and Sidney Greenstreet lookalikes) was inspired Art. It used mythic stereotypes we know or should know and manipulated them with good humor and a fine satirical sense.

For Artists of any persuasion these days, the curse of not offending anyone becomes a crippling problem. David Denby, in New York magazine (18 June 79) pointed out, “An artist trying to create a powerful atmosphere can’t be expected to embrace the banal method of tv documentaries, which always illustrate both sides of a situation and leave you nowhere.”

If you doubt the truth of that observation, consider the tv docudrama about Kent State.

For an Artist working in these days of heightened consciousness—and we’re talking about a very small demographic slice with that sense of epiphany—writing with power and impact becomes difficult to the point of impossible. (I had one guy, who said he was from Malta, rail against the general equating of his homeland with the Maltese Falcon.)

It gets to a point of unnatural hypersensitivity where an Artist can write about no one for fear of offending; and then we wind up with television.

Let me put it this way: a year or so ago, I received a letter after the publication of one of my books, from a man who said, “You are always using midgets in your stories as heavies. They are always evil and terrible people. Well, I am three feet tall, and I want you to know we don’t like being called midgets! We want to be called little people!”

That letter unmanned me. I was taken aback and gave it long and serious consideration. Finally, I wrote him a response, as follows:

“Dear Sir: I am five foot five. I am a little person. You, sir, are a midget.”

 

An outstanding event is scheduled this Saturday, October 16th, at Bovard Auditorium of USC. It is called THE DAY OF THE IMPRISONED WRITER, it is dedicated to freedom to write, freedom to read, and is sponsored by the P.E.N. LA Center. An afternoon (3:00 to 5:00 approximately) of drama, readings, poetry and music keynoting the hundreds of writers condemned to darkness around the world. Among the passionate artists who will be in attendance are journalist A.J. Langguth, whose book on terrorism in South America may be familiar to you; members of the Latino Writers Group presenting work of the famous Cuban poet Angel Cuadra who, through P.E.N.’s efforts, has been freed from prison; the “jazz priest” Malcolm Boyd, one the remarkable men of our time; Lester Cole, one of the blacklisted “Hollywood Ten”; and your humble columnist, who has written and will read a special essay on writers in chains. All under the direction of Jan Dorin, the Bulgarian director and filmmaker who was in prison and escaped to this country. The donation is $8.00 (students: $2.00), all monies to be used by the P.E.N. Freedom to Write Fund to aid imprisoned writers around the world. I urge you to come and say hello.