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Erasing the Banned
Lori Loughlin and Jack Wagner in “When Calls the Heart.” (Hallmark Channel/Photo Illustration EJHill)
Hallmark Channel has announced that its signature series, When Calls the Heart, returns on May 5th, without Lori Loughlin and with one fewer episode than ordered. Back on March 14th when the news of the college admissions scandal first broke, Crown Media, the studio arm of the Kansas City-based greeting card company, fired Loughlin and announced that all future projects with her had been canceled. The producers of the beloved frontier soaper assured viewers that the series would return and that they would explore all options during a “creative hiatus.”
Through editing and reshoots, Loughlin has now been “erased” from the remaining episodes. Like the old Soviet Union we are now airbrushing those who have fallen from grace from society, allowing them to remain on the fringes where their only function is to serve as a warning to others. We are no longer satisfied with the judgments of the courts since due process is too slow and can ultimately be so unsatisfying. From now on we will mete out our own punishments – quickly and decisively – and the rest be damned.
The creators of The Simpsons recently pulled the episode featuring Michael Jackson and all of Bill Cosby’s television offerings have been removed from syndication, as have reruns of Roseanne and 7th Heaven. When the digital sub-network Bounce returned Cosby’s show to their rotation they were inundated with criticism. “Good to know where your corporation stands on rapists I guess,” wrote one viewer. So it’s no longer enough to ignore the offerings of those you deem unacceptable, you must deny their creative talents to others. And you must deny those residual checks to innocent colleagues who had the unfortunate luck to be associated with them.
Someday soon the FBI will probably be conducting pre-dawn no-knock raids on those known to have old copies of the Huxtables on DVD. Little old ladies will be frogmarched in handcuffs for trading thumb drives with episodes of Garage Sale Mysteries and the Twitter accounts of the “Hearties” will be archived for future shaming sessions. And despite what those spearheading these erasures may believe, we are not creating a better society. All we’re doing is softening ourselves up for censorship, historical revisionism and embracing the sweet siren song of totalitarianism.
Published in General
1984 was not meant as an instruction manual.
Loughlin’s “crime” pales when compared to charging millions $6.99 for a piece of paper with doggerel and pictures of flowers.
@hoyacon obviously doesn’t care enough to send the very best. Sigh.
After John Hinckley, Jr. shot Ronald Reagan, the main character of “The Greatest American Hero” underwent a name change from “Hinckley” to “Hanley” lest someone other than the producers and the writers become confused. That lasted less than the second half of the first season, though from that point onwards the character was referred to as either “Ralph” or “Mr. H.”
Edwin Booth, on the other hand, just toughed it out.
And yet Roman Polanski . . .
This does have alarming totalitarian overtones…
And…Jussie Smollett
I can understand how a network might choose not to run the Cosby show because he was convicted of a horrible crime, one that was totally at odds with the character he played. As much as I loved Bill Cosby’s comedy routines, I can’t seem to listen to them anymore. But they should all be available to those who want them. They should not be erased.
Firing Loughlin when she had not been charged and had yet to go to trial was very disturbing. But say they had waited and she had been convicted or even if she got off but the public decides she’s guilty, does Hallmark have the right to make a business decision regarding one of their stars? Because unlike Woody Allen and Roman Polanski, Hallmark is peddling wholesomeness. And this tawdry little scandal is not in any way wholesome. So even if convicted in the court of public opinion only, her marketability on Hallmark might be severely diminished.
I mentioned Jussie Smollett in jest above, but what about him? Because that idiot DA short circuited due process. So he didn’t get his trial and neither has he confessed. Should he have a career? The market will decide.
Re: Smollett and Polanski
Smollett is woke. He merely erred in how he presented his very real “truth.”
Polanski is a weird case. There is admiration for his achievements and sympathy for his tragedies (losing his mother in the Holocaust, the murder of his wife and unborn child to the Manson Family).
But come on. He drugged and sodomized a 13 year old when he was disgusted to find out she wasn’t on birth control.
What do you mean “we”? What right do I have to tell Hallmark what actors it should and should not employ?
It’s the royal we. (Followed by a royal flush.)
I appreciate how you didn’t just erase to a blank white, you went to the trouble to make sure there’s a background there too.
I’ve got nothing to say on the topic, just noting a job well done.
Ridiculous. Her work as an actress is not connected to her using money and influence to get her kid in college. The same goes for pro athletes denied entry into, or removed from, their respective Halls of Fame. Reward them for what they did right in their fields, but let the justice system take care of indiscretions or crimes in their personal lives . . .
I understand what these parents did was wrong, a crime even. But this is way overblown.
If I’m trying to get my kid in to a college, and my hired ‘expert’ tells me that to get in that school you gotta pay this guy off, or buy his house at an inflated price, or photo shop some pic of your kid rowing crew, sure, you should say ‘Oh no, that wouldn’t be ethical’.
But really, who is the criminal, the person demanding kickbacks and payoffs or the person paying?
It sure seems to me that the parents are victims here. Rich, famous, entitled, but still victims. Why isn’t it the college administrators and the middle man who is enabling the connections who’s facing the prosecution?
What is gained by prosecuting the people who were essentially extorted?
It looks like because they have famous names and familiar faces they are the targets, not because what they did was so heinous. Disgusting, yes. But criminal, so much as to demand they lose their jobs and go to jail?
Chappelle has openly talked about how he considered Cosby to be the grandfather of black comedy. He commented that younger black comics are not that aware of Cosby. So as he first gained his own spotlight, he undertook to educating younger comics on how inspiring it once was to see a black comic commenting on his childhood and then be given top spot placement on TV shows.
After all, Cosby was the Jackie Robinson of comedy. He was not only talent – he was talent who was given many and maybe even all of the perks of being a comedy genius. What Cosby achieved rivaled what any white man could achieve. Chappelle also spoke of his heartbreak in coming to terms over the criminal activities that Cosby engaged in.
Noticing how currently our fallen stars are then erased makes me ask another question: are Chappelle’s statements perhaps too sympathetic to Cosby? Will some arbiter in the near future decide that for anyone to mention any fallen idol, we must first indicate our hatred in who they are, and our desire to see them suffer forever? Will we be required to stifle any impulse of any mention of anything good such a fallen idol might have done? If the hatred meter doesn’t rise sufficiently, will we or some future star then be erased too?
I totally agree. The parents were clearly extorted.
As “the banned” include also anyone who had at any time an opinion later deemed incorrect, the number of “banned” is going to keep growing, and as they get erased, the future will have a very distorted view of their history (today).
This makes me sick as I love this woman’s character on When Calls the Heart. This is one of the nicest, feel-good shows on television, and she is a very important member of the cast. How they can “erase” her is beyond me.
I wonder if Roseanne has figured out the answer to your question by now? As I am sure she has asked herself the same thing again and again.
The parents are not in any way, shape or form victims of anything. When you pay a criminal to cheat on your behalf, how does that make you a victim? This wasn’t just good old fashioned bribery in the form of a large donation to the college-that is legalized extortion. No, they paid someone to cheat on their behalf. They cheated on their SATs and lied about being athletes. It is clear that one who ran the scheme is a criminal as were those who took the kickbacks. Were the parents who paid criminals? Is cheating on a test criminal? Is lying on a college application criminal? Perhaps not. But it is really, really scummy.
In Soviet America, media bans you.
Maybe. Right up until they configure the payment scheme so that they can deduct the bribes and purchases on their taxes. I got nothing for the parents; I’m intimately familiar with the IRS–we send each other Christmas cards, and I pay full freight. So the parents can spend some time in stir, as far as I’m concerned. And Loughlin’s kids seem like mental-midget narcissists, so maybe community college while they had to pay their own bills would have been a more efficacious parenting technique.
I recently had to have “the talk” with my youngest daughter (call sign: DEMONSEED).
“Look, Boo, last semester’s grades were unsat. You pull these grades again, then you better learn to either work a fry-o-later or swing from a brass pole for tips. Makes no difference to me.”
It does make a difference to me, but I’d cut her off without batting an eye. She knows that. She quit her sorority, re-configured her class schedule, and is–thus far in the semester–doing well.
I am, at some level of financial discomfort, paying cash for (at this point in time, all three girls’) college. So if they meet their end of the bargain, they graduate with a decent degree (no “the effects of lesbian culture on Elizabethan literature” degrees allowed) and no debt.
If they can’t keep up their end, they can learn the deep mysteries of the fry-o-later. I’ll not throw good money after bad.
Boo seems to have gotten the message and seems to be on the right path to becoming a truly authentic human being.
We’ll see.
Maybe it’s a con.
Here’s the thing I find most disturbing of the whole “payolla for Loyola” scam: The mean grade for all students at Harvard is an A-.
Think about that. At one of our supposedly “best” universities, that are selling slots to the dummy spawn of celebrities and millionaires, the average grade is an A-. And I do not think it is too bold to say that if that is happening at Harvard, it is endemic to the entire Ivy League.
Were I an Ivy League grad from back in the day, I would be livid.
Meghan McCain is a Columbia alumna. That tells me all I need to know.
Do we know that for sure? There has been no trial, only accusations in the press. Before we convict the parents, can we hear their side of the story?
♫ Where have you gone, TKC?
A website turns its lonely eyes to you.
Woo, woo, woo. 🎶
Coo coo ca choo.
I’m not sure how to take this post – in the case of celebrities, there are sponsors and it’s all about money. Loughlin is an actress (cough) and she did pretty well for herself. Once she has paid her debt to society, she can rebuild her career, like Martha Stewart after she went to the slammer. She’s not going to Siberia.
Yes, ma’am. You are correct. I may be making unfair assumptions based on reports by what I know is an unreliable media.
But, right now, I’m willing make this assertion because:
-The main stream media put the tax piece as part of the charge for both Loughlin and the college entrance guru.
-I am more than sure that they are both progressives, so I’m more than sure that if they were not guilty, or even within the “reasonable doubt” spectrum, the MSM would be throwing a full-throated “due process before decisions” defence, as opposed to throwing her to the wolves.
We’ll see. If I’m wrong, I will be the first to apologize. To the parent college entrance cheaters. Who figured that money would make up for their craptastic parenting.
Following this thread confirms to me yet again the truth of Proverbs 18:17 – “The first to plead his case seems right, Until another comes and examines him.”
Totally agree. Not only because it was a horrible crime – but it was being committed on the set of the show.
The sad thing about banning a show over the actions of one of the stars, is that the lesser actors playing recurring roles, lose out on residual payments. Money they may need to make ends meet. I think we all assume that someone who’s been on a TV show is set for life, its just not true.