Big-Screen Smoke Screen

National Review Online, April 8, 2001

Medical science used to be about test tubes, dissection, and ugly moments in the mortuary. Not any more, it seems. At New Hampshire's Dartmouth Medical College, researchers had a very different project. They sat through 178 movies, and it wasn't fun. For, doubtless to their disgust, these selfless men and women of science were forced to witness something that they would probably prefer never to be shown on the silver screen. It was a spectacle more repulsive than Hannibal Lecter's skillet, a freak show more sinister than Freddy Krueger's grin. Yes, they had to watch cigarette smokers at play. Lots of them. Worse still, many of these puffing perverts seemed to be enjoying their nasty vice. This would be bad behavior at the best of times, but coming from movie stars, the consequences could be devastating. Cinema's sinning celebrities, worried the Dartmouth team, could lead "The Children" astray.

So they interviewed "The Children," 632 in total, all based in schools within two hours drive of Lebanon, New Hampshire. What the Lebanese had to say was shocking. A disturbing number of their favorite film actors scored far too many points on the Dartmouth survey's roll of dishonor, "the star tobacco use index," a system devised by the researchers for recording how often a particular individual can be seen smoking on-screen.

Now, as surveys go, an interrogation of a handful of New Hampshire high-school students is not the most comprehensive, but an analysis of the youngsters' replies led the research team to a horrifying conclusion. Students whose favorite actors came near the top of the index (in other words, the stars who were most often shown smoking) were, allegedly, more likely to smoke themselves. There "was a clear relation between on-screen tobacco use by movie stars and higher levels of smoking uptake in the adolescents who admire them." We can assume that these findings are meant to have implications beyond the Granite-State Bek'aa. Across the nation, mesmerized schoolchildren are, it is suggested, being lured by images of smokin' Brad Pitt into a short, stupid life of wheezing, nicotine-driven hell.

Of course, it is possible to argue with the methodology, the conclusions, and the researchers' choice of professional priorities, but I would not recommend trying this with Jennifer J. Tickle, the lady in charge of the study. Ms. Tickle, a Ph.D. candidate with a double major in psychology and, impressively, interdisciplinary women's studies, sounds like a stern sort. In a recent interview with the New York Post she warned that, "Movie stars should seriously think whether smoking is central to the character they are portraying." And they should also behave themselves off the set. Maybe they could "try not to be seen so much in public with a cigarette in their hand."

Leonardo DiCaprio, that means you.

Ms. Tickle, however, faces an uphill struggle. "The movie industry knows there is a relationship between teen smoking and what they put on the screen, but they seem to turn a blind eye to it," she scolds. She should not be surprised. Showbiz is filled with self-centered individuals, incapable of doing anything for the public good. Who among us, after all, can forget the Petaluma petition? This was drafted in 1997 by the scholars of Casa Grande (a Californian high school that clearly attracts students of a more refined type than the Skoal-chewing, chain-smoking, movie-crazed barbarians of Lebanon, N.H.). The petitioners called on local girl Winona Ryder to renounce smoking on the silver screen. Callously, she chose to ignore them.

But Ms. Tickle, it is you who should ignore Winona. For every Winona you wean off the weed there will be another Christian, Keanu, or Drew who lights up. In our straitlaced times tobacco use has become a symbol of rebellion, an easy symbol of cool for any new actor trying to win an audience. So, rather than trying to retrain these hopeless stars, find a role model of your own, an individual who smokes and yet who is so repellent, so horrible, and so utterly lacking in any good qualities, that no one will want to have a bad habit in common with him. Ms. Tickle, I know just the man.

Adolf Hitler, smoker.

There is, of course, one teeny problem with this idea. Hitler did not, in reality, smoke. Although the future Fuhrer was disciplined for smoking as a child, by the time the little tyke had his Reich, he had turned against cigarettes. On at least one occasion, he claimed that had it not been for the decision to give up smoking in his youth, Germany would not have been lucky enough to have him as savior. Well, thanks for that, anti-smokers.

In Adolf's view, tobacco was "one of man's most dangerous poisons." Even poor Eva Braun, the future Mrs. Hitler, was not allowed to smoke in the presence of her husband-to-be. Other acolytes had to wrestle with a similar prohibition. In a precursor of current rows over portrayals of FDR, Hermann Goering came under the Fuhrer's fire for permitting the erection of a statue that showed the Luftwaffe boss with a cigar in his mouth. But it was not all doom and gloom in the Chancellery. Hitler believed in the carrot as well as the stick. Friends who quit were rewarded with a gold watch.

This anti-smoking fervor was not just confined to the party's inner circle. Hitler's government imposed wide-ranging restrictions on smoking in the workplace and on public transport. It was made difficult for women to buy cigarettes, and SS officers in uniform were forbidden to smoke in public, as were youngsters under the age of 18. Tobacco advertisements were subject to the sort of strict control of which the FDA can only dream. There would have been no room for Josef Kamel in the clean-living Third Reich. Certain media, such as billboards, were often off-limits for the tobacco companies, and (take note, Ms. Tickle!) cigarettes could not be advertised in films.

This historical truth is, of course, a problem for those who would promote the idea of a nicotine Nazi, but it is not insurmountable. Anti-tobacco activists, who gave us the junk science of "passive smoking" (itself a term, "Passivrauchen," first coined in Hitler's Germany) will have no ethical qualms about reinventing the Fuhrer as a smoker. As a reverse role model he would last a thousand years. The National Socialist leader would be a perfect spokesman for the evils of the coffin nail. A Marlboro cowboy in reverse, Swastika Man was an unwholesome, unhealthy, mass-murdering, war-losing hysteric. No one sane would want to emulate him in any way.

The creation of a smoking Hitler would be easy. The technology that today is used by the Postal Service to remove cigarettes from the images of icons such as Thornton Wilder, James Dean, Humphrey Bogart, and blues man Robert Johnson could, at last, be put more to more constructive use. Let us take the cigarettes out of the mouths of American heroes and jam them between the teeth of German villains. The sight of a frenzied Fuhrer furiously chewing on a stogie as he rants and raves at a hate-filled Nuremberg mob would horrify all but the most recalcitrant teen. Images of defeat would underline the message that smoking is for losers. We could enjoy newsreel of a pallid chain-smoking Hitler contemplating the annihilation of the Sixth Army at Stalingrad, or maybe gloat over those few last photographs of a disheveled dictator grubbing around for butts on the squalid bunker floor. Add in a Soviet-autopsy report doctored to reveal that the dead man showed signs of emphysema as well as a bullet, and the off-putting picture would be complete.

Mention of an autopsy is, however, a reminder that Adolf Hitler is, like so many other smokers, no longer with us. While he will be the best long-term reverse role model, it would be better if his efforts could be supplemented by those of a contemporary villain. Saddam Hussein (a Virginia Slims man, I like to think) is one candidate, but it might be better to have a home-grown bogeyman this time round. Mercifully, there are no American Fuhrers, (outside Idaho, anyway) but there is one domestic political figure who, with a little work and a lot of cigarettes, might manage to achieve both the unpopularity and the association with Big Tobacco that is essential if this country's youth is to be scared away from Marlboro Country.

This prim, grim, grating grandee is a ruthless political operator who has forced a way to the top over the broken careers of friend and foe. We are talking about someone who is no respecter of laws or borders, someone whose latest triumph was to take power in another state far from home, someone who it is easy to dislike. Currently, this person does not smoke, but if it was in the interests of "The Children," she might be persuaded to take it up.

Sen. Clinton, may I offer you a light?

Pretty Useless

National Review Online, March 25, 2001

Julia Roberts wants you to know that, so far as she is concerned, George W. Bush is not the President of the United States. Prematurely showing the modesty and grasp of reality that we have come to expect from an Oscar winner, she has, according to the Drudge Report, been telling friends that George W. Bush is "not my president. He will never be my president." In her view, apparently, he is "embarrassing." Well, as the star of Mary Reilly, Hook, and Dying Young, Julia Roberts probably knows a thing or two about embarrassment, and it is clear that she wants to give the rest of us the benefit of her expertise. Julia Roberts, you see, is a celebrity, one of this country's new nobility, an individual who rose to prominence on the back of long legs, wide eyes, and a way with other people's words. She is the Heartland's darling, and now, it seems, she wants to be its philosopher too. And why not? Whether it is Rosie O'Donnell on guns, Alicia Silverstone on animals, or Susan Sarandon on everything, the actress-activist has become a Hollywood cliché, and like most Hollywood clichés, it's an idea that sells well. Not only that, in the absence of any real talent, a spot of activism — left-wing, of course — is a lovely way to build up the sort of "serious" reputation that is essential for an actress if her career is to endure beyond the miniskirt years. There can be no doubt that Julia Roberts feels she's up to the challenge. As the actress once explained, she is "tall and really very smart." She has "lots of ideas" and, most generously, is "willing to share them" with us peasants.

But where do these "ideas" of hers come from? Not from college — she never went. In a recent biography she is quoted as having explained that higher education was not for her. "I couldn't see bolting out of bed at 8 a.m. to be ten minutes late for some f***ing class with some f***ing guy who's just gonna stick it to me again."

Nor, disappointingly, is her old friend Susan Sarandon to blame. "I can be inspired by what [Sarandon] does and I can believe in what she does, and I can support what she does, [but] that's not going to make me do or not do something."

Oh, whatever, Julia, whatever.

No, it appears that her ideas come from reference books. And we are not talking Cliff Notes. When she turns to the tomes, Julia Roberts chooses the chunkiest. She's a dictionary diva, a Webster's woman, a Britannica babe. Speaking at a Gore/Lieberman fundraiser last September the glossy autodidact revealed, "Republican comes in the dictionary just after reptile and just above repugnant." Strictly speaking, that is not true (they are about as close to "Republican" as the words "demobilize" and "démodé" are to "Democrat"), but we get the point. The Pretty Woman's next discovery in the much-thumbed wordbook occurred, allegedly, when she looked up "Democrat." Apparently, the definition is "of the people, by the people, for the people."

After comments like that, our heroine was clearly going to find it difficult to accept that Gore ("Dung, feces, dirt of any kind, slime, mucus, blood in the thickened state that follows effusion" — O.E.D.) had lost the election. Nevertheless the reason that she gave for rejecting Bush was interesting. Remember that she was, she said, "embarrassed." But, when it comes to White House politics, by what exactly? As a supporter of the last administration we can only assume that she is not embarrassed by semen-spotted dresses, crack pipes on Christmas trees, the Rodham family, accusations of rape, dodgy commodities deals, perjury, Janet Reno, fundraising monks, fraudulent claims to inventing the Internet, pardoned billionaires, bombed-out aspirin factories, and expositions on the meaning of the word "is." Besides, George W. has not had the time to get himself into that sort of trouble even if he wanted to.

No, to be embarrassed so early on in the Bush administration must imply embarrassment not so much with what W. has done, but with what he is. It is the sneer of the snob, shuddering at the thought of that cowboy-booted boob who is now claiming to run her country, her domain. It is also, of course, a good career move, a carefully timed nod to Oscar's electorate, a reminder that she is one of them — socially, culturally, and politically. For years Hollywood has been a town where the conventional pieties are liberal. It does no harm for Julia Roberts to pay her respects to them, especially when they could be seen as adding supposedly intellectual heft to what is already a carefully crafted, oh-so-serious, humanitarian image.

It's an image that has needed some work over the years. Perhaps this was inevitable. There has always been a contradiction at the core of the very notion of "Julia Roberts," the ingénue who became America's sweetheart by playing a prostitute, and it is a contradiction that carries over into real life. She is this country's impossibly idealized girl next door — yet we revel in her own "embarrassing" romantic history. On the screen, meanwhile, she woos her audience with softness, vulnerability, and a great goofy laugh. On the set, however, she can be difficult, temperamental, and a nightmare for her crew.

Fortunately, Julia Roberts's charitable causes have presented her fans with a sunnier picture. There has been the help for worthwhile medical causes. More than that, she has been a campaigner for deserving unfortunates across the globe, missions that have, strangely, proved most effective when the objects of her attention were of a different species. Orangutans in Asia went over well, as did the wild horses of Mongolia. Even the endangered redwoods of California seemed grateful in a stolid sort of way.

Humans have proved trickier. A 1995 expedition to see slum children in Haiti ended in some rancor. There were suggestions that the trip was more about the star than the starving. A more recent crusade, in support of asylum for a Ms. Adelaide Abankwah, has also backfired. Supposedly the "queen mother" of a village in Ghana, Ms. Abankwah claimed that she faced the prospect of genital mutilation if she were returned home. With the help of Ms. Roberts and others, Adelaide was granted refuge in the U.S. Social-Register types will be dismayed, however, to hear that the INS now says that Ms. Abankwah is not of royal blood. In fact she is not of Abankwah blood either. She is, apparently, a Ghanaian hotel worker named Regina Norman Danson, whose only connection with Adelaide Abankwah is a stolen passport. She had never been in any danger of any genital mutilation.

Oh well.

With this track record, it is clear that Julia Roberts and Erin Brockovich were made for each other. The story may, as Michael Fumento has shown, be a pack of Abankwahs, but in Hollywood, the home of Oliver Stone, no one will worry too much about that. To film folk, Erin Brockovich was a profitable venture with just the sort of PC message that America wants to hear. Corporations are bad, trial lawyers are good. So, who cares about the truth? Besides, this was a movie that had another agenda far more important than mere accuracy. It was going to be the latest stage in the transformation of Julia Roberts into the sort of serious actress that she would so like to be. In a way it succeeds. For once, Ms. Roberts was given the opportunity to play a character that was rather more of a stretch than her usual role (which is, in essence, to play herself). As an added bonus, it was a role that somehow managed to bring yet more luster to the humanitarian image of Julia Roberts, star, stateswoman, and generally serious individual. It may only have been a paid performance, but in an age when our notions of reality are blurred, it did the trick. The actress emerged from Erin Brockovich $20 million richer and a few steps closer to sainthood.

And for that, at least, she really does deserve an Oscar.

Covered Girls

National Review Online, February 26 2001

Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue is a ritual of the American mid-winter, more predictable than Punxsutawney Phil, more tacky than the Grammys. It is a sell-out on the newsstands, it is an MTV special, it is a swaggering, high-fiving conversation round the office water cooler. The whole spectacle is also a national embarrassment, a shaming carnival that degrades its participants and humiliates the rest of their gender. I refer, of course, to men. Guys, can we all calm down? The swimsuit issue is terminally tame, grotesquely genteel, incorrigibly coy. Amy, Heidi, Molly, and the rest of them are just Gibson Girls with fewer clothes, wholesomely sexy, obscenely unobtainable. Noting the proliferation of far more overtly sexual imagery all over today's America, NRO's Dave Shiflett commented that the publication of the swimsuit issue should generate about as much excitement "as the arrival of a can of Miller Lite at the Jack Daniels Distillery."

It is a logical conclusion, and yet it is not the case. Miller time, it seems, is still a big deal. The swimsuit issue sells 4.5 million copies. This makes it the largest-selling edition of any magazine in the country.

So is this, as it seems, yet another example of the transformation of the American man into the sort of feeble creature traditionally seen when Alan Alda is on television? Has the old wolf been house-trained, changed into a lapdog able only to respond to the call of the mild? Perhaps. The fact that this year's issue features an ad warning that "one in five victims of osteoporosis is male" is not encouraging. Say what you want, but that is an old-lady disease, at least until the time that I am in a plaster cast.

Fortunately, there is another explanation for the success of the swimsuit issue, one that may allow the male sex to salvage at least some self-respect. Could it be that in the Flynt era the peekaboo unavailability of the SI model carries its own, genuine, erotic punch? If you live in the distillery, maybe Miller Lite is an exciting and refreshing sensation after all.

Certainly it seems that SI's publishers understand this. Yes, it is true that of the roughly 75 swimsuit photographs, about a fifth are topless (it was a tough job researching this article), but the nation's nipple mavens will be disappointed. Decency is defended by a series of strategically placed arms, couches, towels, beads, seaweed, and NFL players. Clinging wet shirts prove a little less effective despite a number of brave attempts.

On the whole, however, what SI is marketing, and, clearly, very successfully, is an image of "don't touch" perfection, something that would be damaged by the removal of that last, tantalizing scrap of gauze. These are not the girls next door of the centerfold mags. Even the photo locations are far away, Tunisia, Italy, Macedonia, Siegfried and Roy's house. For anyone who actually reads it, the text of the magazine reinforces this message of distance between the model and the, er, watcher.

In one article, "The Babe Goddesses," the writer compares these women to the deities of antiquity (there is a vaguely Mediterranean theme throughout the issue). He is no Homer, but the warning is clear, "Every red-blooded Greek and Roman stud...knew that goddesses, however desirable, were off-limits."

So we are left with two interpretations. The men of America either no longer know what good pornography is, or they have rediscovered the appeal of elusiveness. Either way, the women of America should be thrilled. They are not.

Reacting to the swimsuit issue with their customary good humor, feminists call each year for boycotts and protests. When it comes to ocean-shore beauty, they are on a mission — to bring an end to it. To the folks at Americans for Fair Sports Journalism "the message of the swimsuit issue is that no matter what women may accomplish in their lives, they ultimately exist to sexually entertain men." Ah yes, that message. To Laurel Davis, authoress of The Swimsuit Issue and Sport; Hegemonic Masculinity in Sports Illustrated, the magazine is able to attract buyers "by creating a climate of hegemonic masculinity." This is not, we are led to believe, a good thing.

Mind you, Ms. Davis, an associate professor at Springfield College, Massachusetts, who cites her professional interests as "sports, media, race, gender, class, and sexual orientation," understands that blanket condemnation is not always the correct response. There was, for example, the Tyra Banks crisis. Ms. Banks, who is African-American, graced the cover of the issue a few years back. Was this a good thing or bad? Should SI be an equal-opportunity exploiter? Speaking to the Boston Globe at the time, the associate professor seemed to sit on the fence, "It was both somewhat positive and somewhat critiquable."

The problem with this sort of talk, however, is that is not confined to academia. The idiocy of ivory-tower feminism has long since escaped into the suburbs, where its poisonous sense of entitlement, sexual paranoia, and deep, deep puritanism has found a natural, and receptive, audience. The viewers of TV's Lifetime now believe that they know that "objectification" is another male crime to be condemned alongside the rapes, infidelity, murders, and child abuse that are the staple of their channel's entertainment.

In such an environment, it can be no surprise that the soccer matriarchy now takes a very dim view of the SI girls. To see this, you only had to look at the disgusted expression on the face of a very different goddess, Katie Couric, during a recent edition of NBC's Today Show. What was wrong? Had someone lit a cigarette? Was Bob Dole in the room? No, it was something even worse. Prim Katie was having to introduce a segment on the swimsuit issue. A cringing Matt Lauer looked apologetic: he felt the Couric pain. So who was left to defend the spot, and, with a benign chuckle, hint that, why yes, he was looking forward to seeing the models? Step forward Al Roker, weatherman and sage, a suitably safe figure to handle this toxic topic.

What a sad state of affairs. Checking out a pretty girl, across a room, or on a page, is one of the oldest, and more harmless, of masculine pleasures. Let's face it, men do have an interest in the visual (although the idea that women do not is, I suspect, a myth passed around to reassure the beer belly and Rogaine set). The usual argument that such an interest is evidence of emotional retardation or a desire to turn women into objects is, to borrow the language of the sociology faculty, nothing more than an intolerant assault on the nature of male sexuality. The attack on SI's lissome lovelies is part of this process. It is yet another reminder that live and let live is not an acceptable option to the feminist militants who are setting far too much of this country's agenda.

And that looks a lot like hegemony to me.

Scientology Chic

National Review Online, February 24, 2001

So, was the kooky cult to blame? We will likely never know what went wrong between Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, but a recent article in the New York Post suggests that Tom Cruise's Scientology was a big part of the problem. Apparently, Ms. Kidman is disenchanted with the controversial religion, and does not want her children to be reared in it. All this has subsequently been denied, but if it is true, who would blame her? Even if one ignores the number of fairly sinister stories told about Scientology, some of its precepts reflect the sort of ideas that put it squarely in the lunatic fringe. Founded half a century ago by pulp writer L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology's roots lie in a mixture of junkyard sci-fi and bargain-basement psychoanalysis. Not too bargain basement, mind you. Unlike most faiths, Scientology charges admission. To progress ever closer to enlightenment, devotees pay to go through a series of sessions that are part confessional, part therapy. These encounters are designed to reveal (and remove) past traumas called "engrams" (don't ask) and are helped along by the use of an electro-psychometer ("E-Meter" to the cognoscenti), a specially designed instrument which can supposedly locate areas of spiritual distress or travail. This is part of a process known as "auditing," the real reason, perhaps, that the IRS chose in 1993 to recognize Scientology as a religion.

It is difficult not to laugh. Scientology, after all, is an easy target — with its oddball technology, goofy jargon, and, reportedly, a secret creation myth that revolves around the activities of the wicked intergalactic ruler, Xenu. Now, many religions include a bizarre legend or two, and we probably should not worry too much about the Xenu saga. After all, it has, apparently, been 75 million years since the old boy was last seen, and he does not seem to figure prominently in the lives of most Scientologists. Nevertheless, if there really is such a tale, it is yet another reminder that the intellectual origins of this creed appear to be, well, a little flaky.

Scientologists, of course, should be free to believe whatever they want, but it does not say a lot for the state of this nation's critical faculties that their philosophy has won as much acceptance as it has. Given some of Hubbard's teachings, you would expect his followers to be a little embarrassed, a little low key, content, perhaps, to twiddle their E-meters in some tumble-down Appalachian shack.

But the reverse is true. Scientology is rich, increasingly prominent, and unashamedly proselytizing. Check out its websites and you will see all the good things that Scientologyclaims it can do both for society, and for you. It is a message of enlightened self-interest, typical of our age, and it uses the jazzy marketing techniques of the PowerPoint era, statistics, graphs, and charts. Scientologists, they reveal, are prone to marriage, but not to auto accidents. Half do not drink, more than two-thirds read more than five books a year, and 39 percent work out every day. Scientology can even boast celebrity support. Travolta! Cruise! Kirstie Alley! The voice of Bart Simpson!

In part, this success reflects the group's indubitable organizational skills, and its willingness to defend itself through aggressive litigation. It is also the case, however, that the growth of Scientology, and many other such philosophies, is an almost inevitable byproduct of a society that, over the years, has lost the art of religious argument, reasoning, and debate — and the ability or the inclination to resist the blandishments of our zanier sects.

Ask most Americans, and they will tell you about their respect for the spiritual, but it is a sloppy and uninformed devotion, a pastiche piety with no intellectual force behind it, more Hallmark than holy, the perfect background for a new cult recruit. Ironically, Nicole Kidman herself provided an example of this mindset in a 1998 interview with Newsweek. Asked about her religious beliefs, the actress replied, "there is a little Buddhism, a little Scientology. I was raised Catholic, and a big part of me is still a Catholic girl."

Hand in hand with such an attitude is an unwillingness to debate the religious beliefs of others. Such debate is now believed to be insensitive at best, bigoted and hateful at worst. These days everyone is meant to be a little bit Buddhist, Catholic, Scientologist, whatever. A sappy ecumenicism is now America's civic religion, and it appears to include just about everyone (other, interestingly, than atheists and agnostics). We are taught that such supposedly inclusive tolerance is the hallmark of a tolerant society, when, in fact, it is precisely the opposite. True religious tolerance is the acceptance of the right of others to follow a different creed. In our ersatz, contemporary version, however, it is denied that there are any different creeds. Instead, we are encouraged to think that all religions are basically the same, just different routes to the same transcendental Truth.

In the name of "diversity," we try to erase difference. When it comes to religious belief, this is a country chary of controversy and anxious about argument. In the interest of fraudulent civility and soi-disant "respect" we have removed the right of the religious to disagree with each other. On the face of it, traditional religious distinctions remain, but all too often they have been trivialized and shrunk down to the superficial, reduced to a matter of folklore or ethnic heritage, nothing more consequential, say, than a choice of headgear: Yarmulke, or turban?

This is a mistake. Old-style rigorous religious debate was bruising, tough, and frequently impolite, but it served a function. Homo Sapiens is a credulous creature, ready to believe just about anything, but, fortunately, he has an innate love of argument. Controversy sharpened our great faiths and pushed them, however painfully, towards some form of intellectual coherence. More than that, it acted as a filter for the worst of the nonsense that people would otherwise be tempted to accept. Now that filter has disappeared. The more established religions are gutted, sunk into PC blandness, or, ironically, introspective fundamentalism. In their intellectual retreat they have left behind a spiritual landscape in which anything goes.

The Scientologists are not the only ones to have seized this opportunity. We are becoming a nation of nitwit necromancers, idiot Astrologers, and suburban shamans. Others prefer to fool around with crystals, commune with UFOs, or worship the Earth.

And that is their right, but we should not be afraid to say that it is also their mistake. Somehow I suspect that, these days, Nicole Kidman might just agree.

Let Them Eat Cake

National Review Online, February 20, 2001

Egalitarianism is a dimwit's doctrine at the best of times, but when we hear it from the very rich, it becomes simply grotesque. With Marie Antoinette it took the form of sheep. She liked to dress up in supposedly rustic clothes and, surrounded by groveling courtiers and gamboling lambs, would pretend that she was a shepherdess. Outside the palace grounds real farm workers lived in real poverty, but their fate was, naturally, of no concern to the queen of France. Now, Warren Buffett is no Marie Antoinette. There are no lambs in his life. Instead, the Sage of Omaha prefers to demonstrate his egalitarianism by supporting grave robbing.

Surrounded by groveling accountants and gamboling leftists, the "aw shucks" billionaire has become a leader of a new campaign to preserve the estate tax. Meanwhile, beyond the Buffett zone of IRS-exempt foundations and well-paid tax lawyers, the levy on dying continues to march onward.

The technical arguments against the estate tax are examined elsewhere in NRO, but it is may be worth taking a closer look at those wealthy folks who are spearheading the latest effort to defend it. The centerpiece of their campaign is a petition drive being organized by Bill Gates's father and the Boston-based lobby group, United for a Fair Economy.

UFE is, according to the New York Times, a "non-partisan" organization. But a quick glance at the UFE website reveals a fairly standard left-wing agenda enlivened by ancillary touches of the absurd that are only to be expected from a body funded by the likes of Resist, the Agape Foundation, and the "Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock."

To get an idea of what UFE really stands for, check out its list of recent "accomplishments." These have included the production of "Applying Tzedek to the Economy" (a modification, in case you were wondering, of UFE's "core workshop"), collaborating with the education department of the AFL-CIO, and, unsurprisingly, campaigning against free trade.

Seattle-based Gates Sr. must have been thrilled to see his UFE chums when they came to his hometown for the WTO summit. They "ran teach-ins, coordinated protests and brought smiles to people's faces with [their] street theater antics." Did Gates the Elder invite his son along to share in the fun? One UFE correspondent notes that the Seattle protests — regarded by the rest of the world as a form of vicious mob rule — were, in fact, a "smashing" success — "[M]uch more hopelessness and isolation was broken in Seattle than glass." Oh yes, did I mention that gifts to UFE are, ahem, tax-deductible?

In 2000, UFE campaigned to support Bill Clinton's veto of estate-tax repeal, a precursor to this year's effort. Much of last year's campaign was organized through one of UFE's affiliates, the pompously named "Responsible Wealth." RW targets as potential members those people with an annual household income of more than $145,000 or assets in excess of $650,000. There is no truth in the rumor that they also recruit turkeys for Thanksgiving.

Not the most modest of organizations, RW likes to proclaim that its 450 members are "leaders in business, community, government, philanthropy, academia and finance." Who are we to argue? Members available for media interviews on the estate tax include a stockholder in a paper mill, an assistant professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology, and the proprietor of the White Dog Café in Philadelphia.

RW's rhetoric shares the basic UFE approach, but adds the cringe of the self-hating, yet self-important, wealthy: "As beneficiaries of economic policies that are tilted in our favor, we feel a responsibility to speak out and change the system to benefit the common good." That explains why RW is also opposed to the 1997 capital-gains tax cut, which might come as a surprise to Mr. Buffett's shareholders/disciples in Berkshire Hathaway.

As for RW's latest campaign, the text of the new pro-estate tax petition ran on the op-ed page of last Sunday's New York Times. As is to be expected of a document carrying the RW logo, it is a poor, sad piece of collectivist boilerplate. The only thing more annoying than the petition's text was its list of signatories. There were the usual suspects, prominent members of the bossy families that have been hectoring America for a century or so, foundation-protected Rockefellers, and a Roosevelt or two. Bill Gates, Sr. was there of course, right at the top, still busily promoting himself on the back of his son's success. Other grandees on the list included Paul Newman and Clinton donor Agnes Gund, the Sanka heiress, who is also the president of MoMA. New York was also ably represented by Democrats Henry and Edith Everett, a pair of "ardent anti-smoking activists" whose most entertaining philanthropic moment was the withdrawal of a gift to the Central Park Children's Zoo, reportedly on the grounds that the proposed commemorative plaque was too small. (Some legacies, it seems, do matter.) Finally, of course, there is the name of the genius billionaire investor with all the wacky political ideas. Yes, George Soros has signed.

Warren Buffett has not, however. As far as he is concerned, the petition does not go far enough. Mr. Buffett, the son of a four-term congressman, is worried, you see, terribly, terribly worried, about the dangers of a society where success depends on family rather than on merit, and he wants us all to know it. It is quite unfair to suggest that there is any contradiction between this view and his fundraising for Mrs. Clinton's Senate campaign. Some unkind people have suggested that the only reason that the former First Lady was in a position to run was because her husband was in the White House — in other words, because of her family. Mr. Buffett must have known better. Indeed, he was so enthusiastic a supporter that he told one gathering that he would have liked to have hired her himself. She had everything it took, he said, including, he stressed, "integrity".

And that tells you all you need to know about the political judgment of Warren Buffett and the campaign to preserve the estate tax.

The Gulag Glitterati

National Review  Online, November 1, 2000

Poor, poor Elizabeth Hurley. As a fembot in The Spy who Shagged Me, she tried to get the best of Austin Powers. Her fate? Blown to pieces by Doctor Evil. Brutal, yes, but quick. Ms. Hurley's latest opponents, Gulag glitterati Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, may not be so gentle. The English actress, they say, has done them wrong, and she must be punished. Severely. Her offense dates back to July when she shot a commercial for Estee Lauder. Hurley claims that she was unaware that such filming would be treated as crossing a picket line by her union, SAG, the Screen Actors Guild. Indeed, being based in the U.K., she just "did not know" that the union was on strike. Whatever the explanation, SAGtivist Susan Sarandon was outraged. As for Tim Robbins, her long-time partner, well, he seems to have been channeling Stalin's prosecutor, the late, and much-missed, Andrei Vyshinsky. "We are bringing Hurley to trial," he foamed, "She will not get away with it." Note that "we." As Mr. Robbins, a prominent supporter of the strike, well knows, his comments are likely to resonate with those union officials responsible for deciding the former fembot's fate. The consequences of a "guilty" verdict could be serious. The equally influential Ms. Sarandon has supported calls for a lifetime ban on "scab" actors. If the case goes against Ms. Hurley she may never work in Hollywood again.

This is not a problem that is likely to face her tormentors. The spectacle of two successful stars threatening to destroy the career of a fellow actor, would, you might think, at least raise a flicker of concern or a murmur of protest, but it has not. No one is even asking what it is about Ms Hurley that has so enraged Mr. Robbins. After all, she is not the highest profile performer to have crossed the picket lines. Tiger Woods, for example, broke union rules to shill for Buick (he has since been fined for this offense), while Shaquille O'Neal did the same for Disney. On these cases, however, the exquisitely PC Sarandon and Robbins are not reported as having had much to say. Criticizing Elizabeth Hurley, a foreigner, was one thing. Telling the popular athletes, People of Color after all, where they could or could not work, might have been altogether more awkward.

Awkward questions are not something that Robbins and Sarandon have often had to face. This is despite a history of political activism that has lasted decades and in Robbins's case, even stretches as far back as a "progressive" childhood during which a tiny Tim would occasionally perform on stage with his father, a Greenwich Village folk singer. Susan Sarandon began more conventionally (arrested in Vietnam War protests, worked in a Nicaraguan hospital during the Sandinista dictatorship and so on), but she has now developed a red repertoire equal to that of the great left-wing divas of Hollywood's past. Lillian Hellman may have scribbled for Stalin, and Hanoi Jane was pleased to peer down a gun sight for Uncle Ho, but that was easy. In those days of ideological struggle and clashing armies it was not too difficult to find something dramatic to do. By contrast, until the recent election, the greatest political excitement of our age had revolved around a semen-stained dress, hardly the most glamorous backdrop for an actress who seems to see herself as the most substantial world-historical figure since, oh, I don't know, Vanessa Redgrave.

But that has not stopped our heroine, supported more often than not by Tim Robbins. The couple's causes are many, misguided, and multiplying. It is not difficult to find some recent examples. If Sarandon and Robbins prevail, Hurley is not going to "get away with it," but cop-killer Mumia just might. They are hard on Giuliani, and soft on Saddam (they opposed the Gulf War in 1990, and they oppose the Iraq trade embargo now). However, the Iraqi chamber of commerce should not expect too much business from an America run by these silver-screen dunces: both actors are, of course, anti-free trade and pro-Nader.

There's more. Ms. Sarandon is against sugar, white flour, and dairy products for her kids and against you having a gun to defend yours. Private Ryan, she feels, was a bad thing ("basically tells you if you want to be a guy you now have to kill at point-blank range"), and Dr. Laura is worse. On immigration policy, however, matters are a little confused. Robbins and Sarandon campaigned for the admission to the U.S. of refugees (HIV positive Haitians) from one Caribbean hellhole, while supporting the return of Elian Gonzalez to another.

Nonsense, of course, but unfortunately it matters. Idiots, too, have consequences. Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins may be more extreme than most, but they certainly contribute to the liberal mood music that the media is giving us as the soundtrack of our times. We know the tune, and we have been taught the words. What is depressing is that so many people should choose to sing along on the basis of a celebrity say-so.

Doing what famous folk tell you to do should not be the American way, and yet, increasingly, it is — just ask the presidential candidates who appeared on Oprah. Susan Sarandon too recognizes the power of her celebrity, and, reasonably enough, sees nothing wrong in using it to promote her own agenda. What is unreasonable is that anyone pays any attention. But, dazzled by her glamour, fame, and, yes, money, they do.

The result is an Old Country deference, a courtiers' crawling like that which used to be seen at the feet of princelings and duchesses, a groveling of a type that people once fled to America to avoid.

A quick glance at some recent media comment is revealing. In the course of a tough discussion on the Lifetime cable channel, interviewer Dana Reeve noted that Ms. Sarandon had been "an advocate for human rights ever since..[Sarandon] could speak." The writer of a rigorous profile in the Los Angeles Times, meanwhile, reported that the actress "does not intimidate; she comforts and inspires…she offers hope." To the clear-thinkers at Variety she is a 'model of civic selflessness'.

It is only fair to point out Susan Sarandon supports some good causes as well as the bad, AIDS research, for example, but this only adds to her resemblance to some Lady Bountiful from feudal times, visiting the grateful, but ignorant, peasants to dispense largesse and give out advice.

Sometimes that advice was sensible, sometimes not, and it always had a sub-text: The nobility were superior, enlightened folk, caring sorts who knew what was best for you. And as the peons always understood, it was best not to get on the wrong side of them.

This is a lesson that the unfortunate Elizabeth Hurley is learning. She was quick to write a Bukharin-in-the-Lubianka-style letter to the union, " If I could undo the situation I would, but I cannot. I did not try to hide the situation: I apologized immediately…but I cannot rewrite history. I was then, and am now deeply sorry about what happened and the pain and disappointment that it has caused the membership…. It will not happen again." She also "gave" $25,000 to SAG's strike fund. Maybe that will do the trick, and the Englishwoman will "get away" with a fine and/or a suspension, but, for the moment, she is still facing an end to her career in Tinseltown. However, she has been humbled in a way that should appeal to the most demanding of Lady Bountifuls. Surely then Susan Sarandon will, in the end, offer Miss Hurley some of that famous "comfort," and call for clemency.

After all, isn't she meant to be an opponent of Hollywood blacklists?

Reefer Madness

National Review Online, October 10, 2000

For the Right Honorable William Hague M.P., leader of Her Majesty's Opposition and heir to Margaret Thatcher, the substance abuse never seems to stop. First there was the beer. In an interview with GQ magazine earlier this year, Mr. Hague revealed that as a young man he would occasionally drink as much as an impressive 14 pints a day. It was an announcement that split the nation. Some Britons chose to believe the Conservative leader, others thought that he was making it up. Either way Mr. Hague was in trouble. To prudes he seemed to be endorsing binge drinking. To the UK's tipplers, however, he was a bar-room Al Gore, boasting about imaginary achievements in a vain attempt to impress the crowd. The controversy lasted for weeks, and allowed Tony Blair's increasingly accident-prone Labour government to regain some political momentum.

And now there is the difficulty over cannabis, a problem that arose, rather surprisingly, in the middle of last week's Conservative party conference. These conferences are an annual British political ritual, a gathering of the faithful for each of the main parties. They bear some resemblance to U.S. political conventions. Labour's event, presided over by a Tony Blair literally sweating with tension had not gone that well. Arguments over too high gas taxes, too low pensions and London's ill-fated, expensive and empty Millennium Dome were capped by the publication of a book detailing the poisonous relationship between Mr. Blair and his finance minister. Incredibly, the Socialists had even fallen behind the Tories in the opinion polls, the first time that this had happened since 1992.

The Conservative conference was designed to build on this Labour weakness and, indeed, to demonstrate the very real progress that the Tories have made since their disastrous 1997 defeat. With an election expected next year, the conference was to be a showcase for William Hague's claim that his party was ready for government. Initially, all went well. Then, fatefully, Ann Widdecombe began to talk about reefer. As she spoke, the chances of a Tory government began to recede, dispersing, it seemed, in a puff of smoke. The showcase had turned into a chamber of horrors.

And Miss Widdecombe was the principal exhibit. For what she has to say is important. She is in charge of the Conservatives' domestic policy, one of the two or three most powerful people in a party that has had a weakness for a strong woman since the days of you know who. The spinsterish Ann Widdecombe is also a truly English eccentric. A diminutive figure with a dress sense borrowed from the Janet Reno House of Style, she has a resemblance to Margaret Rutherford and a pudding-bowl haircut straight out of Laurence Olivier's Henry V. A century ago Miss Widdecombe would have been a missionary in some remote corner of the Empire, and she would have been a good one. Hospitals would have been founded, schools would have been built, ancient cultures would have been destroyed. Clever, determined, and decidedly odd, "Doris Karloff" has turned her unconventional appearance into a political weapon, a useful symbol of her plain-speaking image.

It is an image that she uses to push a fairly standard law and order populism, an agenda which, as she explained to the conference, is going to include zero tolerance for cannabis users. Anyone, even a first-time user, caught in possession of marijuana would be given a mandatory $150 fine and, with it, a criminal record. And that is what caused the trouble. For current practice in the UK is rather more laid-back. Of the 100,000 people charged with cannabis possession last year around half (typically first time users) were "cautioned" (a "caution" is an official "don't do it again" police warning, and does not carry a criminal record).

As she spoke the conference applauded, but they were cheering the way to electoral disaster. In an age of largely consensus politics, relatively trivial issues can assume an iconic importance far greater than they deserve. Within a few hours Miss Widdecombe's hard line on pot had come to be seen as a rejection of recent attempts to build a more inclusive party, a party that would also have more appeal to the young (or even the middle-aged — the average paid-up Tory is over 60 years old). Symbolically too, the speech was seen as a clumsy blow to Mr. Hague's efforts to triangulate between the two distinct traditions, libertarian and paternalist, that co-exist rather uneasily within the modern Conservative party.

Worse, various senior policemen weighed in to criticize the mandatory fines as unworkable, not the most encouraging sign for a law and order initiative. No one appeared to have discussed the new policy with the people who would have had to implement it. It also quickly became obvious that the proposed scheme would criminalize too many people, and too many of those people, realized some of the shrewder Tories, would be the children of electorally critical "Middle England."

Within a few more hours the back-pedaling had begun, hastened along by the sudden confessions of eight members of Mr. Hague's cabinet. All eight, it seems, had inhaled at some time in their distant pasts. The Conservatives' culture spokesman had, excitingly, also once had amyl nitrate thrust up his nose. In a refreshing change from politicians' usual 'I tried it once/it made me feel ill/I couldn't see what the fuss was about' one or two of the eight actually admitted to having enjoyed the weed. Their youthful 'experiments' had, it seemed, been a success.

The Labour party, meanwhile, is saying little and its cabinet is admitting to nothing, not even the viewing of a Cheech and Chong movie. This cannot last, but, for the time being, Prime Minister Blair is, I suspect, just enjoying the fun. For, politics being politics, Tory back-pedaling is being accompanied by Tory back-stabbing. Some are now suggesting that Ann Widdecombe was set up for a fall by a rival faction within the party. Others are using the whole fiasco to question William Hague's leadership abilities. Mr. Hague, meanwhile, is backing Miss Widdecombe "150 percent", which is a number that should make her very uneasy. 100 percent would do, William, if you meant it.

All this, of course, will be punished at the polls by a British electorate that has repeatedly shown that it has zero tolerance for dazed, confused, and divided parties. As for the mandatory fines themselves, well, they are now being compared to speeding tickets, and William Hague is praising his team for "starting the debate about drugs." If those words herald the beginning of a re-examination of this issue within the Conservative party so much the better. The current laws, let alone these recent proposals, give too much power to big government. They also do not work. Those are two good, Conservative, reasons to oppose them, and they are reasons that would fit neatly into a wider critique of a Labour government that is as overbearing as it is incompetent.

Realistically, however, the chances that the Tories would be prepared to take the risk of supporting such an approach are remote. Probably not much more, in fact, than 150 percent.

Red Affront

National Review Online, October 3, 2000

In some senses, Prague got off lightly. In London, after all, "anti-capitalist" demonstrators had recently spray-painted the Cenotaph with the suggestion that Britain's principal war memorial would make a good place to urinate. The mainly foreign protesters in Prague last week were far more refined. They merely chose to march into town under red flags and the hammer and sickle, symbols of a regime that not so long ago was murdering and imprisoning tens of thousands of Czechs.

The occasion, of course, was the joint annual meeting of the World Bank and the IMF. Such events now attract the protests of another set of anti-capitalists, the vicious travelling circus of the anti-globalization movement, and the intimidation and violence that it brings with it. This was the case in Seattle and Melbourne. Now it was Prague's turn.

Anti-globalization is the latest manifestation of the Left's seemingly indefatigable attempts to mess things up for the rest of us. Undaunted by the economic, environmental, and human disaster of socialism's last hundred years, they have now turned their angry attention onto free trade, and the supposedly sinister forces behind it, the World Bank and the IMF. There are, of course, differences from the past. This new Left is not as monolithic as its predecessors. The iron discipline of the Comintern has been replaced by a plethora of tiny cells, connected, strengthened, and somehow amplified by the power of an Internet able to create an impression of size even where none exists. So, the Prague action was meant to be supported by demonstrations across the globe, each of which was excitedly previewed on the web. In Melbourne, C.A.C.T.U.S. (Campaign Against Corporate Tyranny United in Struggle) was planning a carnival, while in Bangladesh the Garment Workers Unity Forum and the Revolutionary Unity Front intended "to make a demonstration waving black flags." In these United States, steelworkers in Chicago were apparently preparing to confront Harris Bank with a puppet show.

Harris Bank was left intact. Prague was not so lucky. Six or seven thousand protesters arrived from abroad, determined to shut down the city in the name of their version of global justice. Naturally, they were quick to move on Wenceslas Square, a sacred place for many Czechs, the heart of their Velvet Revolution, but a site of tragedy too: the spot where, in 1969, Jan Palach, a young student who really understood what idealism was, burned himself to death in protest against an earlier generation of invaders that had come to this city. Then, of course, it was the Soviet Army, but, as we have seen, the symbols of the anti-globalizers, those red flags, that hammer and sickle, they are just the same. And so was the message: "Do it our way, or there will be violence."

Of course, no one was ever that explicit. Most of the protesters were quick to come out with statements rejecting any violence, but their websites gave them away. One of the most prominent contained a list of suggested activities that included "occupations of offices, blockades and shutdowns, appropriating and disposing of luxury consumer goods, sabotaging, wrecking or interfering with capitalist infrastructure, appropriating capitalist wealth and returning it to the working people." That does not sound entirely peaceful to me.

The producers of www.destroyimf.org were more straightforward, running with the slogan "Turn Prague into Seattle." Many protesters tried to do just that. In the process they cost the people of what is still a poor country a great deal of money. Demonstrators fought with police, ripped up sidewalks, threw Molotov cocktails, and, in what is rapidly becoming an irritating cliché, stormed McDonalds, the franchised Winter Palace of their gimcrack revolution. The comrades at www.destroyimf.org could barely conceal their excitement at the drama of it all, a re-run, it seemed, of the glorious days of the Bolshevik rising. To one John Reed wannabe, September 26 had been "the day the IMF died." Judging by the breathless commentary on their website, it had been eleven hours that shook the world: "1215: Fighting begins; anarchist column takes the railway below the bridge. 1400: Protest columns fan out to the south and east. 1900: Column surrounds opera house. 2300: Minor running battles and windows smashed."

It seems that the revolutionaries were, at least in part, successful. The IMF and World Bank proceedings wound up a day early, the organizers unconvincingly claiming that they had completed all the work that they had come to Prague to do. Even if that were true, they should have stayed put, sipping champagne to pass the time and to make their point, occasionally, perhaps, hurling a few stale canapés into the baying mob below. The early retreat was a sign of weakness, and it was not the first from the supranational financial institutions. Since the whole anti-globalization movement started gathering pace, official reaction has been a blend of appeasement and apology. We caught a glimpse of this approach at Seattle in Bill Clinton's shifty "defense" of free trade, and we have seen plenty of it since then.

This is strange. It is not as if the foes of globalization have much intellectual force behind them. Their arguments are a blend of Al Gore greenery and Maoist economics, all wrapped up in a sort of sickly sentimentalism about the Third World that would, in fact, further impoverish that luckless part of the world. Bogus, economically illiterate, and potentially catastrophic, it is not a case that should be difficult to rebut, but none of our leaders seems to be trying hard to do so. Instead we see shame-faced equivocations or worse, the Uriah Heep-like pandering of those such as World Bank President Wolfensohn, a man pleased to pronounce that we live in a world "scarred by inequality." In between their bouts of savagery, the protesters in Prague were, he noted, "asking legitimate questions."

What nonsense. Here and there, you may find a true believer. There was the British schoolteacher who confided to Reuters that she was in Prague because her clearly rather odd child "often woke up in the middle of the night, frightened about global warming." For the most part, however, the game being played in the Czech capital was of a different, much nastier kind. It was partly about violence, the sheer Clockwork Orange fun that a punch-up can bring, and it was all about power, the right to boss everybody else around.

For all the talk about the working classes, the dispossessed seamstresses of Latin America, and the impoverished women farmers of Africa, the demonstrators tended to be Western European and university-educated. For such people, protests of this nature reinforce their bourgeois sense of moral and social superiority over the lower orders, the class they feel born to rule. As one of the organizers, Martin Shaw, a "Nottingham University graduate and anarchist" explained to the London Daily Telegraph, "Working people do not have the benefits of an educational system and they are afraid of losing their jobs." Not only that, but these blue-collar saps are couch potatoes, sitting back "in front of their televisions," grumbled another activist, rather than joining the battle against world capitalism. The corollary of this is that the "working people" need the Martin Shaws of this world to put things right for them. If you think that this sounds like the early 20th-century revolutionaries, you would be right. There is the same apocalyptic language, the same overweening sense of self-importance, the same absence of a paying job.

Unfortunately, too, there are the same prospects of some very real success. For, at bottom, these protesters are speaking the language of those very organizations that they claim to oppose. To take one, closely related, example: Environmental activists used to perform the same outsider role as the anti-globalizers do today, but much of their belief in regulation and control proved appealing to the soft-left consensus that prevails in our international institutions. And so, to their barely concealed delight, environmentalists found themselves co-opted into the global bureaucratic process. Their unelected, unaccountable pressure groups were magically transformed into "Non-Governmental Organizations." Better funded, but still unelected and still unaccountable, these NGOs were given consultative seats at the supranational legislative table. The result, at least in part, was the ludicrous Kyoto treaty.

A similar future beckons for some appropriately house-trained anti-globalizers. The cluttered WTO agenda in Seattle was evidence that officialdom is open to some of their ideas, an impression that Mr. Wolfensohn's platitudes will have done nothing to contradict. In Prague, indeed, certain pressure groups were invited to meet and debate with the IMF/World Bank delegates. This will only be the beginning of a prolonged courtship and, as for those other Non-Governmental Organizations, you and me, well, you can be sure that we will not be invited along.

Candida's Camera

National Review, Sept 11 2000

WHEN actress Candida Royalle (Legends of Porn, Classic Swedish Erotica 2, Teenage Pony Girls) announces that she is "going to be hard on you," you sit up and pay attention. Not that we needed the warning. We had all paid good money ($49) to see her perform, and we were sure she would not let us down. Nor does she. True to her name, Candida is open, frank, and often very revealing. Miss Royalle knows how to give a good lecture. Yes, lecture. To the crowd gathered in an upstairs room in Manhattan's "School for the Physical City," Candida Royalle is much more than a sex star. She is an entrepreneur, sharing her hard-won practical insights with an eager and ambitious audience. The event has been arranged by The Learning Annex, an "alternative adult-education organization" that offers evening classes at a number of cities across the country. The demand for its "powerful, inspirational, nurturing, and insightful" seminars is in the American tradition, a reminder of the relentless drive for self-improvement that took this nation from log cabin to Martha Stewart. Recent courses have included Spanish, calligraphy, running your own laundromat, the power of persuasion, becoming a medical transcriptionist, and "Breaking into Adult Movies—in front of or behind the camera!"

Candida's pupils are ushered into a large, brightly lit classroom painted in the Pokemon palette that only an educational bureaucrat would choose. It's all very normal—Educating Rita rather than Deep Throat. There's no buzz, no guilty anticipation, just a naughty pile of coarse, er, course materials heaped on a side table: flyers for FOXE ("Fans of X-Rated Entertainment"), an order form for Breaking into XXX—the Porn Stud Handbook. And our teacher? Miss Royalle is a trim fortyish blonde in a short skirt, more Mary Kay than Miss Jean Brodie.

This is not enough to hold two members of the class, who slink off within minutes, disappointed perhaps to discover that the evening will not feature "adult situations." Maybe they will be back for the Tantra lessons ("Reach higher levels of sexual ecstasy than ever!"). The only other source of awkwardness is the presence of a film crew shooting the lecture for National Enquirer’s TV show. Strangely, not everyone wants to appear in front of these particular cameras.

These are shy folks, mostly. One woman, an exotic dancer, is interested in making "bubble-bath-type videos" for her fans, but she is an exception. This mainly male crowd doesn't want to get naked. They want to be "suits," Sam Goldwyns of smut. That's wise, for as our lecturer explains, the life of a wannabe porn stud is far from easy. Performing under conditions that would make even Priapus pause (Viagra helps, apparently), men are props, not star attractions. As such they are not likely to make much money. Most people aren't renting adult movies to gape at the guys. So the women are paid more. As even the EEOC might agree, this is not discrimination, it's the marketplace.

Which is really the theme of the evening. Naughty pictures are now a significant American industry. The Nude Economy is for real: By some estimates, annual sales of pornography in the U.S. alone already exceed $10 billion. That's a Fortune 500, Wall Street Journal kind of number, one that tells us, among other things, that proper management has finally come to this improper trade. And that's where the Learning Annex fits in. As Candida's students earnestly take notes, she briskly runs through the economics of adult video, who gets paid how much to do what to whom, the complexities of copyright, the perils of distribution, and the market in foreign licensing.

It's surprisingly dry stuff, and the ensuing discussion is matter-of-fact. In the United States, business is a serious matter, and while we have come a long way from the Comstock laws, our cheery, upbeat lecturer is subject to an equally demanding set of rules, those of American enterprise. To Candida's obvious delight, it's a tough code and a little austere. And in the way she describes it, with relish and without irony, there's a touch of Cotton Mather, a hint of the old Puritan idea that self-denial is the key to success. The boogie nights are clearly over. The film set should be free of drugs and alcohol and carefully budgeted. The artistic impulse must also be kept firmly under control (only "one-third of the film can be story, with 60 minutes for sex"). There's respect for hard work, suspicion of ripoffs ("Watch everything, watch everyone . . . if it's yours, watch it like a hawk"), and a shrewd appreciation for what counts—the bottom line in every sense.

Unfortunately, these days the bottom line is not enough. Sanctimony has evolved, not died. We live in a time when many businesses, particularly those with a potential image problem, feel they have to go beyond the buck. They like to demonstrate, at least in their advertising, that they have some higher—usually vaguely politically correct—redeeming social purpose. Forestry companies become model environmentalists, brewers natter on about "responsible" drinking, and "the people of Philip Morris" are so busy sheltering abused women and feeding the hungry it's amazing they have any time for making cigarettes.

Candida Royalle is no exception. A few years ago the former "teenage pony girl" founded Femme Productions to make films that, she says, that men too will want to watch. Now she takes herself, well, a little seriously. As her website notes, Candida has "addressed many conferences . . . including the World Congress of Sexology, the Smithsonian Institution, [and] the American Psychiatric Association." Sadly, it's not enough for her films to be dirty, fun, and profitable. In our relentlessly didactic era they must also promote "positive sexual role modeling."

What's that? Well for one thing, something that, as we are clearly expected to know, Republicans oppose. Like most corporate piety, Candida's spiel has a liberal tinge. As some readers may remember ("House of Porn," October 27, 1997), Ms. Royalle is a founding member of Feminists for Free Expression, and presumably someone well able to understand that the principal threat to her business comes from a much larger group, the feminists against free expression and their fellow-travelers in the "progressive" camp. Despite that, her talk is punctuated by moments of leftish political commentary. There's an almost nostalgic swipe at "Reagan/Meese" and a dark warning that if George W. is elected, "we're really in for it."

But her audience doesn't seem worried. This is a Coolidge crowd. Their business is business. They have no more interest in discussing threats to free expression than a moonshiner would have in debating Prohibition. To these aspiring pornographers, the First Amendment is a commercial device, not a human right. They want to concentrate on record-keeping, employee relations, soundtracks, budgets, legal obligations, and the uses of DVD ("save your bloopers"). It's all about the economics of sex. Though far from romantic, it is still a pursuit of another American fantasy, the dream of success. Is it true, asks the exotic dancer, that one porn star makes "as much as $150,000 a year"?

At that, two stockbrokers in the class exchange faintly superior smiles. Still, they understand where she is coming from.

Hollywood Ten

National Review Online, August 8, 2000

Is there no end to the empathy? It's a long, hard GOP convention for the hard-hearted among us, a grim procession of blind mountaineers, teachers, "the children," breast-cancer advocates, diabetic beauty queens, and deaf ones too. Tonight, though, twenty minutes or so after the showing of a "compassion video," the podium will brighten up. As the Republican's convention website boasts, a "film icon" is coming to town. Hepburn? Bacall? Well, no. It's Bo Derek, actually, more of a poster than an icon, perhaps, but a welcome visitor nonetheless. And who'd have thought it? Bo Derek, a cheerleader for George W. Yes, that's right, THE Bo Derek. You know, cornrows, the 10 girl, sex goddess of the later disco era, the seductress clad in a wet swimsuit, and, often, gloriously, much much less.

It turns out that she's on the right, an unlikely star for an all too strait-laced party. She's a Republican and has been for years. Back in 1996, she was quoted as saying that her heroes included General Schwarzkopf and Presidents Reagan and Bush. As for Bob Dole, well, "the man was an absolute superman. His energy wiped me out." And that was before the Viagra.

Bo's no Barbra Streisand, though. Sure, she'll speak at the convention for a minute or two, but for the most part she's happy to play the supporting role. She isn't a Hollywood wonk, with a program for every problem, hectoring and haranguing the peons as to how they should live their lives. As she has explained to Fox News's Bill O'Reilly, "movie stars…live in a bubble…and for me to give my opinions and maybe influence anybody is absurd."

Her Republicanism seems practical, unideological. As a younger woman she saw herself as a Democrat. She thought the Democrats were "nicer people" who cared about people more. Then filming abroad opened her eyes: "You can't help but compare America to other countries the more you travel, and that's when I just realized in looking [at] different issues that I was a Republican." The free market, she realized, works. Welfare is fine "when people really need help, but as a lifestyle, I don't think it's good for the people receiving it…It discourages dignity and incentives."

She is no social conservative. It would be better to see her as a R-rated Christine Todd Whitman. A (generously illustrated) profile in the current issue of Cigar Aficionado describes her as pro-gay rights, pro-choice and, on occasion, anti-clothes. "We're born nude and it just seems like the most natural thing." There's a brief nod in the direction of some feminist piety (something about women voting the same way), but I suspect that Bo is never going to be one of the sisters. She had an unforgivably happy marriage to a much older guy, she took off her clothes in a lot of movies and, let's face it, she just looks too good.

However, her opinions don't make her look good in notoriously liberal Hollywood. It is even hinted that Bo's politics may have held back her career. Well, maybe, but when that career includes Bolero, Tarzan the Ape Man, and Ghosts Can't Do It, there may be another explanation. Nevertheless, when she describes the reaction to her views, her story rings very true. "It's really tough to have a nice, open conversation," she told O'Reilly. Apparently, her entertainment-industry pals "get really angry…and they treat me as though I'm some hateful monster."

Yes, I bet they do. They are liberals, supporters of that other cigar aficionado, the one in the White House. And, as we all know, the Left doesn't have much time, or respect, for anyone who dares to disagree with them. As Bo's clearly discovered, Democrats are not "nicer people." She's brave to speak her mind, but she's going to be lonely. Conservatives in the movie business are few and far between, and they are likely to stay that way. There's Moses, of course, our own Charlton Heston, and some of the more secular action heroes, Willis, Norris, Schwarzenegger, but these guys do have a touch of the last stand about them. TV isn't much better, although it was good to see Rick Schroder, NYPD Blue's Lieutenant Sorenson, at the convention on Tuesday night. He was smart, compelling, and — unlike most of Republican showbiz — under 40. Otherwise, the Right is only left with a presence in country music (and I'm not so sure about that k. d. lang) and wrestling, of course: the Rock, the thinking man's Jesse Ventura, is in the GOP line-up.

Sadly, this isn't going to be enough, and even more sadly, this matters. In our tranquil, ill-educated times, showbiz sets not only the cultural, but the political agenda. The drip, drip, drip of a predominantly liberal message in the movies, TV, and the other entertainment media is bound to wear through to the ballot box. We saw this in Britain, where a hostile cultural scene proved to be the harbinger of the crushing Conservative defeat in the 1997 election. Writing in the London Sunday Times the following year, the newspaper's then-resident leftist, the writer Robert Harris, noted — with, probably, some satisfaction — that he couldn't think of one single "important" British writer or, for that matter, a film director, theater director, composer ("apart from Lord Lloyd Webber"), actor, or painter who was a Conservative.

As Mr. Harris went on to point out, "the entertainment and fashion industries are now two of the biggest economic sectors in the world. Never have we lived in a time more conscious of style, and never in democratic history has it been less stylish to be on the right."

Now, he was writing in a British context, but, like it or not, it's not too difficult to see the same process gathering pace over here. It's not going to be easy to reverse. On this battlefield, the Right are simply too few. Sure, Republicans have got the Rock, but the Democrats have the (Sharon) Stone. Bo Derek may turn some heads, but she's not enough to turn the tide. Suggesting a solution to this problem is beyond the scope of this article, but to those who say that this all doesn't matter, that substance will prevail over style, I have only three words to offer: William Jefferson Clinton.