CBS Won't Air 'Reagans' Miniseries

[TitanTiger 20,510]

Some anecdotal evidence that the miniseries' portrayal of Reagan as indifferent or intolerant to those suffering with AIDS was more hatchet job than "creative license":

Marc Christian, the homosexual partner of the late actor Rock Hudson, also defended Reagan and refuted the CBS script, which reportedly included the former president saying that homosexuals who had developed AIDS deserved to die.

"The notion that Ronald Reagan was a homophobe strikes me as silly beyond belief," Christian wrote in a letter to CBS's Moonves. Hudson died from AIDS in 1985. The letter was released Tuesday by FrontPagemazine.com columnist Tammy Bruce.

"Not only did he have several gay men on his staff when he was governor of California, he called my lover, Rock Hudson, when he was on his deathbed just weeks before he died of AIDS and wished him well and voiced his and Nancy's concern and prayers," Christian wrote.

"...The Reagans had known Rock for years and knew he was gay (as did most of Hollywood)," Christian's letter continued. "The point is, Reagan could have ignored Rock's illness and didn't," he added.

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Pag...L20031105c.html

[rexbo 104]

A Sad Day for Artistic Freedom ...Barbra Streisand 

Posted on November 4, 2003

I am deeply disappointed that CBS, the network that in 1964 gave me complete artistic control in creating television specials, now caved in to right wing Republican pressure to cancel the network broadcast of the movie The Reagans. (And I say MOVIE - because this is NOT a documentary - it's a television drama.) The movie will now be aired on Showtime, where the difference in viewership is in the millions.

One can only imagine the kind of pressure that would compel CBS to take such an extraordinary action. This was an organized Republican spin machine at work. Remember the Dixie Chicks controversy? It wasn't the larger general public that called in to radio stations and burned CDs, it was a small group of right wing activists. In fact, now the band is more popular than ever, with a sold out summer tour.

I don't believe Democrats often, if ever, try to muscle the First Amendment like this. For example, in 1983, no one stopped NBC from airing Kennedy, a biopic that portrayed President Kennedy and other members of his family and administration as deeply flawed, even though the movie could have potentially been hurtful to Jackie Kennedy, who was still alive to see it, as well as to her children.

This is censorship, pure and simple. Well, maybe not all that pure. Censorship never is. Due to their experience with the restrictive English government, the framers of our constitution specifically included a ban on prior restraint in the First Amendment, which is an attempt to stop information from getting out there before the public has a chance to see it at all - exactly what is going on in this case. Of course, CBS as a company has the legal right to make decisions about what they do and do not air. However, these important decisions should be based on artistic integrity rather than an attempt to appease a small group of vocal dissidents. Indeed, today marks a sad day for artistic freedom - one of the most important elements of an open and democratic society.

This is where she misses the point entirely. The decision that CBS made was due to the lack of artistic integrity of the movie, not due to censorship from the Government or an attempt to appease a small group of vocal dissidents.

[Jenny AU-92 0]

Let's also remember that in the 80's, the conventional wisdom/public perception WAS that it was a gay man's disease - IF Reagan actually felt that way, he was certainly not alone.  Cases like the little Ryan White boy started swinging people's thoughts arounds, but it was still perceived by most folks - including the general public (aka VOTERS), politicians and many in the medical profession - as a GAY problem AT THAT TIME.

You have to keep a politician's comments into historical perspective - some of the things the Founders said seems VERY backwards when seen in the light of 2003.  Doesn't make them any less right for their time.

Yes, and at one time lynchings were a 'negro' problem, but apathy and indifference are poor excuses for not doing the right thing.

One of the main points of the story of the Good Samaritan was the fact that the Samaritans were loathed by the Jews and vice versa. Yet, when one crossed paths with the other who was suffering, instead of crossing the road (apathy/indifference) the Samaritan helped the Jew (action/right thing).

Most of the people condemning the homosexuals were/are doing it based on the book this very story came from. Same as with the lynched negroes.

Once again, my head hurts from all your SPIN!!! I never said that the conventional wisdom of the 80's was RIGHT!!! (Maybe you just have a problem with that word in general!) I am only saying that you have to look at people's thoughts and comments in a HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE. People's attitudes from the past on issues will certainly look hateful, misguided and downright narrowminded when taken with the benefit of hindsight. People in biblical times used to shun lepers because it was thought to be a contagious disease - now we know it is not.

Your analogy in re: lynchings is just WRONG. We are talking opinions, not actions. Killing someone was not then and has never been a generally accepted action by the majority of society in this country. Murder is wrong and has always been against the law, and the majority of people in this country did not accept lynchings as an appropriate action. And for your information, white people were lynched too.

The point I was making is that you must consider how people's opinions were influenced by the information and the knowledge they had at the time. In the 80's, it was widely believed by the general public that AIDS was strictly a homosexual disease. That influenced how people felt about it. But as the comments above showed, just because people, perhaps including Reagan, believed the disease to be a gay problem, did not mean that they did not feel sorry for those who got it. And even if Reagan had done what GWB has done and called for $30B for AIDS treatment in Africa, do you honestly think that based on what they believed at the time, the Congress and the general public would have supported him in that? Probably not.

[Tiger Al 0]

Titan, I'm not dodging, evading or copping-out when I say that I don't know what he said. From what I understand about the context of the line in question, there are only two people in the world who know exactly what was said. One denies it was said and the other one has Alzheimer's. No one else knows one way or the other.

However, it would be unreasonable to believe he did say those exact words if his record showed that it was totally unlike him. It would seem incredulous to attribute that line to, say, Mother Theresa. The fact that he never addressed this issue publicly for five years and thousands of deaths after the CDC announced it to be a major health concern doesn't lend itself to the argument that he was very proactive on the issue. If he wasn't proactive, then it's not unreasonable to believe that he held the opinion of the ultra-conservative (which he was) ultra-religious (which he was) people who believed (as many still do) that this was a plague visited on 'gays' by God himself for punishment of their sinful ways, regardless of his friendship with a fellow actor. They were getting their just rewards and the 'saved' in the world just needed to stay out of His way.

I.V. drug users, same thing. It wasn't until babies and recipients of blood transfusions and 'normal' heterosexuals became infected that we, wholly as a country and a world, began to put serious work into finding a cure. Was he a maniacal homophobe like the venomous "Reverend" Fred Phelps? I doubt it. Most weren't. But they still felt like AIDS was a Divine punishment of some kind. You, me and the other commoners can the have privilege of that opinion. The leader of our country can't. At least not to the point of indifference and inaction.

So, going to the next step, if that was Reagan's position then the use of the line in question isn't unreasonable. Inflammatory, insensitive and provacotive...yes. Should it be changed, if for no other reason, out of respect for an ex-president and his family? Probably. Creative license is used in movies all the time. It would be impossible to have any meaningful dialog in most historical movies if you had to prove that every line in it was indeed actually said the way it was in the script. I've read where Patton didn't actually ask a priest to pray for good weather so the allies could kill Germans. But it was contextually accurate regarding how he was and how he acted.

As far as the media (except for Fox and MSNBC) not providing the exculpatory evidence, this will sound like a cop-out but I don't know. My guesses, however, would be that maybe that information wasn't available at the time they (AP) released the story (in which case an amendment could be made), the information was deemed to be without merit, or, they simply chose not to put it in that disclaimer out of malice or otherwise. The reason may not be any of those choices. As I said, I don't know.

[Tiger Al 0]

Once again, my head hurts from all your SPIN!!! I never said that the conventional wisdom of the 80's was RIGHT!!! (Maybe you just have a problem with that word in general!) I am only saying that you have to look at people's thoughts and comments in a HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE. People's attitudes from the past on issues will certainly look hateful, misguided and downright narrowminded when taken with the benefit of hindsight. People in biblical times used to shun lepers because it was thought to be a contagious disease - now we know it is not.

Maybe your head hurts from all of the mental contortions you put it through coming up with the excuse that people are relieved of responsibility for the their actions because it goes against the grain of popular opinion. Take a Tylenol. The lepers were shunned because their disease was seen to be a punishment by God because they had sinned. They were sent outside the village or city until they were clean, otherwise God would punish the whole town because it had not rejected sinfulness. NOW we know that leperacy is a skin disease.

Your analogy in re: lynchings is just WRONG. We are talking opinions, not actions. Killing someone was not then and has never been a generally accepted action by the majority of society in this country. Murder is wrong and has always been against the law, and the majority of people in this country did not accept lynchings as an appropriate action. And for your information, white people were lynched too.

My analogy is right on. It shows the link between attitudes and actions. In the example I gave, people who were of the mind that blacks were of little worth would not have objected to their lynchings, at least not enough to intervene in one if given the chance. If people were of the mind that killing the innocent was wrong, no matter their race, they would be compelled to take action of some sort.

  The point I was making is that you must consider how people's opinions were influenced by the information and the knowledge they had at the time. In the 80's, it was widely believed by the general public that AIDS was strictly a homosexual disease. That influenced how people felt about it. But as the comments above showed, just because people, perhaps including Reagan, believed the disease to be a gay problem, did not mean that they did not feel sorry for those who got it. And even if Reagan had done what GWB has done and called for $30B for AIDS treatment in Africa, do you honestly think that based on what they believed at the time, the Congress and the general public would have supported him in that? Probably not.

I understand your point. I'm taking it one step further. Because one views a particular group of people as immoral or sub-human, they should still be valued and treated as human beings, even when popular opinion says otherwise. That is one form of 'character.'

[TitanTiger 20,510]

I understand your point. I'm taking it one step further. Because one views a particular group of people as immoral or sub-human, they should still be valued and treated as human beings, even when popular opinion says otherwise. That is one form of 'character.'

And according to this guy:

Marc Christian, the homosexual partner of the late actor Rock Hudson, also defended Reagan and refuted the CBS script, which reportedly included the former president saying that homosexuals who had developed AIDS deserved to die.

"The notion that Ronald Reagan was a homophobe strikes me as silly beyond belief," Christian wrote in a letter to CBS's Moonves. Hudson died from AIDS in 1985. The letter was released Tuesday by FrontPagemazine.com columnist Tammy Bruce.

"Not only did he have several gay men on his staff when he was governor of California, he called my lover, Rock Hudson, when he was on his deathbed just weeks before he died of AIDS and wished him well and voiced his and Nancy's concern and prayers," Christian wrote.

"...The Reagans had known Rock for years and knew he was gay (as did most of Hollywood)," Christian's letter continued. "The point is, Reagan could have ignored Rock's illness and didn't," he added.

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Pag...L20031105c.html

That is exactly what Reagan did.

[Tiger Al 0]

As POTUS he did nothing for years.

[TitanTiger 20,510]

Ok. Should you ever be famous TigerAl, I trust you'll be just as understanding of creative license and exaggeration when I have you saying lines like, "conservatives don't deserve to have any say in anything, much less live."

[Tiger Al 0]

Ok. Should you ever be famous TigerAl, I trust you'll be just as understanding of creative license and exaggeration when I have you saying lines like, "conservatives don't deserve to have any say in anything, much less live."

As long as you don't use the "conservatives should all be executed" line, that's fine. Remember, everyone here knows that I oppose capital punishment, even when it comes to neo-cons!

[Jenny AU-92 0]

Your analogy in re: lynchings is just WRONG. We are talking opinions, not actions. Killing someone was not then and has never been a generally accepted action by the majority of society in this country. Murder is wrong and has always been against the law, and the majority of people in this country did not accept lynchings as an appropriate action. And for your information, white people were lynched too.

My analogy is right on. It shows the link between attitudes and actions. In the example I gave, people who were of the mind that blacks were of little worth would not have objected to their lynchings, at least not enough to intervene in one if given the chance. If people were of the mind that killing the innocent was wrong, no matter their race, they would be compelled to take action of some sort.

I understand your point. I'm taking it one step further. Because one views a particular group of people as immoral or sub-human, they should still be valued and treated as human beings, even when popular opinion says otherwise. That is one form of 'character.'

No, your analogy is still WRONG. Lynchings were an action taken by a VERY small segment of the population and was neither condoned nor supported by the vast majority of Americans, regardless of how they felt about blacks. You are implying that just because Reagan did not step up and immediately declare AIDS a national health care crisis worthy of priority funding, he was "lynching" gays?

Again, just for the sake of argument, let's say he DID that - gave a speech supporting a few billion dollars for AIDS research - given the prevailing wisdom of the time, how far do you think he would have gotten with that position? NO ONE - on EITHER side of the aisle - would have supported him - mainly because AIDS was perceived as a problem LIMITED TO ONE SMALL SEGMENT OF SOCIETY - not just because they were gay, but because the numbers were so small when compared to the rest of the population!!! You can't pay for research for every disease out there. People were not worried about AIDS as long as they themselves were not gay. NOW we know that it is a disease that is transmitted in ways other than gay sexual activity - but at that time, we did not know this, or instances of transmittal in other ways were VERY rare.

Your argument could also be turned around to say that the ONLY reason AIDS funding should have been a priority was BECAUSE the victims were gay. That is no more a basis for a policy decision than saying we shouldn't fund it because it's God's punishment for immorality.