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Weinstein, Messing, and McCormack: A Study on Power and Control
“Will and Grace” was a TV show that aired about a decade and a half ago. It was based around the lives of four friends, two of whom were gay, living in New York. The show was funny; it was good, it made me laugh. NBC decided to bring it back, but this time their goal was to do as many seasons as they could bashing President Trump and his supporters. And bash they did, for three entire seasons. And it was as boring as can be.
Eric McCormack and Debra Messing play the title characters, Will and Grace. Now McCormack and Messing have both taken their roles as Trump bashers off the set and into the streets of Twitter.
There is a fundraiser in Beverly Hills for Donald Trump, and McCormack and Messing would have nothing of the sort in their backyard.
McCormack tweeted out to The Hollywood Reporter:
Hey, @THR, kindly report on everyone attending this event, so the rest of us can be clear about who we don’t wanna work with. Thx. https://t.co/7W3xPG3bI2
— Eric McCormack (@EricMcCormack) August 30, 2019
Messing followed his lead with a tweet to The Hollywood Reporter:
I couldn’t have said it better.@EricMcCormack pic.twitter.com/YPnsFJIrOx
— Debra Messing (@DebraMessing) September 3, 2019
As I wrote in my piece about Dave Chappelle and his new Netflix Special, ‘Sticks & Stones,’ “Anything you say can and will be held against you in the court of public opinion.” They will find something they don’t like, and attempt to destroy you with it. In this case, it’s thoughtcrime: You can’t be a Republican. You can’t be a conservative. You can’t like Trump.
In Hollywood, you are not allowed diversity of thought (which, really, is the only diversity that matters.) Hollywood talks about diversity, but diversity of thought is never included; it is simply not allowed. “How dare you consider yourself an entertainer and support conservative causes!” they proclaim. “We must know who you are so we can banish you from all the land, or, at the very least, craft services!”
This is what they want. This is who they are. John O’Hurley, of Seinfeld fame, joined Leland Vittert on Fox News to discuss this modern-day blacklisting in Hollywood. Conservatives in Hollywood don’t often get a chance to speak out because many of them are afraid of the backlash. They are afraid to speak their mind. The fear is very real. And he spoke directly about the “obscene” actions of Messing and McCormack:
“Let me just say I’m embarrassed for both of them because I know them both, I’ve worked with Debra before. They’re both smart people… they do wonderful work,” he explained. “But, they’re pushing a case that falls apart from the sheer weight of its lunacy, as though the Hollywood community needs to be purged of this social and intellectual hygiene problem called conservative thinking. It underscores the fact that we aren’t receptive to a diversity of thought which is the exact opposite of what you feel the liberal way would be, and I find that obscene.”
There are people who suffered through the #MeToo movement. They had to deal with Harvey Weinstein (and many, many, far too many others) who said, “You have sex with me or you don’t get this job.” There are many women out there who were forced to consider whether they go forth with the sexual act or give up the part, or possibly even their chance at a career. Men, too, faced this situation.
You will not get me to defend utilizing power to get people to use their body a certain way. Nor will I defend anyone utilizing power to get people to use their mind in a certain way. The Harvey Weinstein crowd used their power to control the body. Eric McCormack and Debra Messing want to use their power to control the mind. Is one worse than the other?
If you tell someone they are not allowed to think for themselves, if you stifle them from being able to express themselves, if you work aggressively to try and “out” them so you can keep them from getting employment – you are forcing them into the closet. Isn’t that what McCormack and Messing – of Will and Grace, the show with TWO gay lead characters – are doing? They are trying to closet those people on the political right or those who think differently from them. They are attempting to keep them silent. It is an outward, direct threat of economic destruction if they should dare to make themselves known.
Why is this acceptable? Why haven’t Eric McCormack and Debra Messing been thrown out of decent society? What makes them any better than Harvey Weinstein?
(NOTE: I am not attempting to equate this to Weinstein allegedly forcing himself on anyone. Rape is evil. If guilty, let him spend his life in jail.)
There has been backlash, and it has been fierce. McCormack responded to it with a lot of social media backtrack. Messing added on by saying, basically, “ditto”:
I couldn’t have said it better.@EricMcCormack pic.twitter.com/YPnsFJIrOx
— Debra Messing (@DebraMessing) September 3, 2019
It’s an apology that isn’t. He doesn’t even pretend to understand what he’s done, nor has he made the connection:
McCormack and Messing’s desire for a list is no different than when Rep. Joaquin Castro published his “list” of San Antonio business people that support President Donald Trump. He was unapologetic about it. It’s clear that a member of Congress believes you should be ‘outed’ so that people know to not use your business or engage you in commerce if you support the wrong candidate. Never mind whatever shaming or physical harm might befall you.
Whoopi Goldberg on “The View” called it out as a blacklist, and warned of its history and its evils:
In this country, people can vote for who they want to. That is one of the great rights of this country. You don’t have to like it, but we don’t go after people because we don’t like who they voted for. We don’t go after them that way. We can talk about issues and stuff, but we don’t print out lists…
Remember what the blacklist actually meant to people and don’t encourage anyone, anyone, to do it.
For too many in Hollywood, diversity of thought is not allowed. And for too many in Hollywood and Washington DC, they use their power to diminish and demean others; Body, mind, and soul.
Published in Entertainment, Politics
Hollywood’s been doing blacklist movies for over 40 years, drumming those lessons into people’s heads, including people in the entertainment business, and that’s where McCornack and Messing may have messed up here.
Whoopi and even Joy Behar took the message about blacklisting to heart, while McCormack and Messing either never paid close enough attention to those movies, or though everyone in Hollywood and New York knew that the message was only supposed to be situational. It was never supposed to prevent progressives from blacklisting conservatives. But they found out that at least for now, too many people who have a soapbox still think all blacklisting is bad, so they were forced to beat a hasty and strategic retreat.
This has me wondering about the limits of association. Are there limits to whom you would work with? Or would you work alongside any advocate of evil or evil doer so long as the work at hand does not include such advocacy? For example, would you help build a house alongside a neoNazi, an abortionist, a thieving scammer, or your friend’s cheating husband?
Refusing to work or associate with a person responsible for especially loathsome behavior seems reasonable, if not always advisable.
Furthermore, there is a difference between reporting the attendance of people at a public rally and reporting participants in private meeting or private conversations. The difference isn’t absolute. A typical campaign attendee doesn’t expect one’s name to be in s newspaper the next day, so merely being in public is not consent to be known and investigated by all. But there would understandably be more common interest in who attends a Nazi Party rally than who attends a church bake sale. Free expression is not protection against infamy.
The notable aspect of McCormack’s remarks is that he perceives support of Trump to be as plainly diabolical and intolerable as we would consider support of Nazis. The Left holds fully half of Americans and most people around the world in contempt for traditional views on sexual identity and behavior.
I would be willing to build a house with someone like McCormack or Messing because their hate mongering is irrelevant to such work. If the work we shared offered their hateful views publicity, then refusing to work together might be responsible.
Their “backtrack” is no such thing.
“Blacklists” are real and spreading. As always they are a tool of the narrow minded who are unable or unwilling to think.
Narrow-minded actors unfortunately have the visibility to make such narrow-mindedness seem acceptable, so that other people then decide that blacklists driven by narrow-mindedness are acceptable and even desirable social goals.
And there it is — the heart of the matter.
If you get blacklisted by Eric McCormack that means you won’t be able to work in any potential third Will and Grace reboot and . . . .pretty much that’s it.