2008 Woodie Awards
Parting Words
Evan LeBon
Issue date: 11/12/04 Section: Arts & Features
- Page 1 of 2 next >
Political discourse has even seeped its slinky way into the pages of our nation's high art culture commentary. New York Times Arts contributor Frank Rich made the cultural divide between red states and blue states the center-point of his post-election piece "On 'Moral Values,' It's Blue in a Landslide." In the article, fussy old Frank notices the nature of 2 November 2004, hammering out the perceived cultural differences between the evangelical Christian right and the liberal media. His ironic conclusion: those "religioso-righities" really aren't too far away from the orgiastic blue of big media.
Among other instances of confused or flip-flopped morality, Rich cites that red-as-a-rail media mogul Rupert Murdoch's Fox News machine on the one hand preaches to the moral values crowd while his other tentacles of enterprise - issue titles like Jenna Jameson's new book, "How to Make Love Like a Porn Star" and the Vivid Girls' raunchy reference manual, "How to Have a XXX Sex Life," - scream bloody blue murder. Just savvy business practice? Perhaps, but Rich spies the arrival of everyone's (Democrats included, mind you) happy friend, hypocrisy, when these selfsame books are shamelessly promoted during Fox News' broadcasts. So much for cleansing the news in the name of God's pious children.
At any rate, Rich employs an interestingly archaic word in this quest to paint red voters a cool cultural blue: "None of this has prompted an uprising from the red-state Fox News loyalists supposedly so preoccupied with "moral values." They all gladly contribute fungible dollars to Fox culture by boosting their fair-and-balanced channel's rise in the ratings. Some of these red staters may want to make love like porn stars besides. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)" Fungible? C'mon Rich, what are we talking about here? Moldy bread? LeBron James' Nikes? That old gunky shower curtain?
Fungible
I said fungible was somewhat archaic, and indeed it is an old and foppish word when thrown down in our modern colloquial speech. But, if you happen to practice, teach, or set and shape precedent in the laws, you may be more familiar with its meaning than the rest of us "lay folk."
Among other instances of confused or flip-flopped morality, Rich cites that red-as-a-rail media mogul Rupert Murdoch's Fox News machine on the one hand preaches to the moral values crowd while his other tentacles of enterprise - issue titles like Jenna Jameson's new book, "How to Make Love Like a Porn Star" and the Vivid Girls' raunchy reference manual, "How to Have a XXX Sex Life," - scream bloody blue murder. Just savvy business practice? Perhaps, but Rich spies the arrival of everyone's (Democrats included, mind you) happy friend, hypocrisy, when these selfsame books are shamelessly promoted during Fox News' broadcasts. So much for cleansing the news in the name of God's pious children.
At any rate, Rich employs an interestingly archaic word in this quest to paint red voters a cool cultural blue: "None of this has prompted an uprising from the red-state Fox News loyalists supposedly so preoccupied with "moral values." They all gladly contribute fungible dollars to Fox culture by boosting their fair-and-balanced channel's rise in the ratings. Some of these red staters may want to make love like porn stars besides. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)" Fungible? C'mon Rich, what are we talking about here? Moldy bread? LeBron James' Nikes? That old gunky shower curtain?
Fungible
I said fungible was somewhat archaic, and indeed it is an old and foppish word when thrown down in our modern colloquial speech. But, if you happen to practice, teach, or set and shape precedent in the laws, you may be more familiar with its meaning than the rest of us "lay folk."