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Back to Victorian values
Sep. 17th, 2005 07:15 amThe speech of Michael Paster, the California judge who condemned the photographer John Rutter to more time than most robbers get, for the crime of trying to blackmail Cameron Diaz (http://www.teentoday.co.uk/gossip/gossipstory783.shtml), has a strangely Victorian tone. "Mr. Rutter did take advantage of a position of confidence that Miss Diaz had in Mr. Rutter." He sounds exactly like a Victorian judge inflicting a transportation sentence on a butler caught stealing the family silver. In the old days, it was taken for granted that part of the rule of judges was to protect the status of the rich against depredations from lesser beings "in a position of confidence;" here, astoundingly, we find the language of country Justices of the Peace in Peel's Britain come naturally to the lips of an urban magistrate in the twenty-first century.
That is not the only comical feature of the phrase in question. "Miss Diaz" had "a position of confidence" in "Mr.Rutter"? Give me a break. Anyone who has herself shot nude and in sadistic poses by a professional porn photographer must be abnormally stupid to put any confidence in the man; and the fact that Diaz dodged, one way or another, the important step of signing a model release form, shows that she had as much confidence in Rutter as he deserved. The judge's Victorian sentimentality is not only trite (and ungrammatical), it is wildly out of place. Cameron Diaz is quite clearly a smart young woman. She has made consistently excellent career choices, with the only problem that they were consistently immoral and degrading. From the disgusting antics of her breakthrough hit "There's something about Mary," she has shown a preference for what are called "black comedies," foul-mouthed material, and material which in any possible way denied or mocked the ideas of decency and public and private order. Anyone who has the stomach to play some of the roles she played needs no protection from the bench.
Having said that, Rutter was probably a forger (someone forged her signature on the model release form, though he claimed it was not him) and certainly a blackmailer; and he deserved appropriate punishment for that. But that is not what he got. I am no lawyer, let alone cognizant with the laws of the state of California; but I find it strange that, rather than being indicted on a charge called blackmail, Rutter was accused of grand theft and forgery. I find the charge of grand theft is incomprehensible, given that Diaz posed for those photos of her own free will and that they were Rutter's property under copyright law; and that the forged signature, under those circumstances, was little more than a misdemeanour.
I have, in other words, to suspect that the prosecution presented, and the judge accepted, those charges, not on the facts, but on the (justified) hope that they could get more years of prison out of these charges than out of the obvious one, blackmail. And the judge's words suggest a reason why: the breach of "confidence" involved in trying to relieve Cameron Diaz of some of her wealth in exchange for not publishing her photos and video made this, in the judge's eyes, a crime that required particular punishment. Cameron Diaz had done those shots, presumably been paid for them, and moved on; and now she found herself faced with them again. This is the crime that needed three-plus years in jail to punish: to have incommodated Cameron Diaz. This case, in short, has all the appearances of a conspiracy between prosecution and judge to punish an attempt to blackmail a big-name Hollywood celeb. Rich and famous actresses, however close to whores they may be, are not to be exposed and above all not to be incommodated.
The matter of being incommodated, much more than that of being exposed, is central Otherwise we might wonder where the benefit in the trial lay, since it exposed the young Diaz as a slut just as effectively as any publication might have? It lies in a very simple fact: control. This is not about preserving Diaz's image; she does not have any. Her authorized photoshoots are every bit as much wank-material as any porno series - I have seen one made with her sister, which strongly hinted at homosexual incest - and her private life is that of a courtesan on the make. (Does anyone seriously think that she and Justin Timberlake are actually in love, rather than agreeing to feature as a Golden Couple in the eyes of photographers for a while?) It is about keeping control of it in her hands.
Indeed, I do not think Cameron Diaz, rich or not, star or not, is even the primary consideration in this at all. Does anyone seriously think that if she had been some transient American Idol celeb blackmailed for thousands rather than millions, the LA prosecutor's office would have mobilized the laws of grand theft and forgery, and the judge pontificated about breach of trust? Of course not. What Rutter did wrong was to interfere with corporate Hollywood's regular game of manipulation of their stars; images, a game to which "Miss" Diaz lends herself happily. This is about a city that still bears in its collective memory the scars inflicted by Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons, and their control of the flow of news and the image of its denizens, and that swore, once that generation of journalists was dead or gone, never to allow anyone to control their images again. This is about Hollywood, and Hollywood's right to control the public view of its members. Hollywood does not mind, any more than "Miss Diaz" does, that "Miss Diaz" is universally known as something that, if spades were called spades, would be called a tart; so long as it can control, manipulate and justify the view of her sluttishness, making it something glamorous and cool and elegant, something to admire rather than despise. A woman who appears half-naked in managed studio photos by high-ranking and highly paid artistic photographers is highly different from a woman who appears half-naked in the work of a mediocre pornographic hack and then allows him to do as he will with her pictures; and a woman who mimes homosexual incest with her equally glamorous sister in a beautifully lit and posed studio shot is very different from a woman who mimes sadomasochism with a hired male model and then gives away the rights. Of course she is.
However, whether or not you question the right of Hollywood actresses to make a career out of manipulative sluttishness, this trial is still very bad news for the average citizen. The reason is this: that it amounts to a blatant conspiracy between moneyed private power and the public justice system, to protect moneyed private power, its interests, its activities. This was not a matter of high morality: it was a clash between a small, independent crook and a group of large, powerful, corporate ones. Rutter is a blackmailer and deserved a blackmailer's appropriate punishment. But he was not given appropriate punishment: he was savagely hammered into the ground, not for having broken the law, but for having dared to challenge corporate Hollywood. The court was used like a set of Mafia knuckledusters, with the judge as enforcer. And when the public power takes the side of the rich private interests against private citizens, whatever the cause, that is bad news for every private citizen. The power that is used now to multiply, beyond law and justice, the punishment inflicted on a pathetic individual crook, will be used tomorrow against any private citizen who may have to challenge Hollywood not for money, but for matters of honour and justice.
For those of us who share my views on religion, on morality, or even only on sexuality, there is a further piece of bad news: the preservation of the corporate monopoly on the manipulation of sex and what is called "glamour" for the purpose not only of making money - something at which they are not actually very good - but above all for the pushing of a pseudoliberal social agenda that amounts to the destruction of sane standards; an agenda which is in evidence in practically every movie Diaz ever made. And it seems to me quite right, therefore, to end this review of an obvious abuse of justice with her preening comment: "Although I wish that this unfortunate situation hadn't occurred in the first place, I am very gratified that justice has been served."
That is not the only comical feature of the phrase in question. "Miss Diaz" had "a position of confidence" in "Mr.Rutter"? Give me a break. Anyone who has herself shot nude and in sadistic poses by a professional porn photographer must be abnormally stupid to put any confidence in the man; and the fact that Diaz dodged, one way or another, the important step of signing a model release form, shows that she had as much confidence in Rutter as he deserved. The judge's Victorian sentimentality is not only trite (and ungrammatical), it is wildly out of place. Cameron Diaz is quite clearly a smart young woman. She has made consistently excellent career choices, with the only problem that they were consistently immoral and degrading. From the disgusting antics of her breakthrough hit "There's something about Mary," she has shown a preference for what are called "black comedies," foul-mouthed material, and material which in any possible way denied or mocked the ideas of decency and public and private order. Anyone who has the stomach to play some of the roles she played needs no protection from the bench.
Having said that, Rutter was probably a forger (someone forged her signature on the model release form, though he claimed it was not him) and certainly a blackmailer; and he deserved appropriate punishment for that. But that is not what he got. I am no lawyer, let alone cognizant with the laws of the state of California; but I find it strange that, rather than being indicted on a charge called blackmail, Rutter was accused of grand theft and forgery. I find the charge of grand theft is incomprehensible, given that Diaz posed for those photos of her own free will and that they were Rutter's property under copyright law; and that the forged signature, under those circumstances, was little more than a misdemeanour.
I have, in other words, to suspect that the prosecution presented, and the judge accepted, those charges, not on the facts, but on the (justified) hope that they could get more years of prison out of these charges than out of the obvious one, blackmail. And the judge's words suggest a reason why: the breach of "confidence" involved in trying to relieve Cameron Diaz of some of her wealth in exchange for not publishing her photos and video made this, in the judge's eyes, a crime that required particular punishment. Cameron Diaz had done those shots, presumably been paid for them, and moved on; and now she found herself faced with them again. This is the crime that needed three-plus years in jail to punish: to have incommodated Cameron Diaz. This case, in short, has all the appearances of a conspiracy between prosecution and judge to punish an attempt to blackmail a big-name Hollywood celeb. Rich and famous actresses, however close to whores they may be, are not to be exposed and above all not to be incommodated.
The matter of being incommodated, much more than that of being exposed, is central Otherwise we might wonder where the benefit in the trial lay, since it exposed the young Diaz as a slut just as effectively as any publication might have? It lies in a very simple fact: control. This is not about preserving Diaz's image; she does not have any. Her authorized photoshoots are every bit as much wank-material as any porno series - I have seen one made with her sister, which strongly hinted at homosexual incest - and her private life is that of a courtesan on the make. (Does anyone seriously think that she and Justin Timberlake are actually in love, rather than agreeing to feature as a Golden Couple in the eyes of photographers for a while?) It is about keeping control of it in her hands.
Indeed, I do not think Cameron Diaz, rich or not, star or not, is even the primary consideration in this at all. Does anyone seriously think that if she had been some transient American Idol celeb blackmailed for thousands rather than millions, the LA prosecutor's office would have mobilized the laws of grand theft and forgery, and the judge pontificated about breach of trust? Of course not. What Rutter did wrong was to interfere with corporate Hollywood's regular game of manipulation of their stars; images, a game to which "Miss" Diaz lends herself happily. This is about a city that still bears in its collective memory the scars inflicted by Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons, and their control of the flow of news and the image of its denizens, and that swore, once that generation of journalists was dead or gone, never to allow anyone to control their images again. This is about Hollywood, and Hollywood's right to control the public view of its members. Hollywood does not mind, any more than "Miss Diaz" does, that "Miss Diaz" is universally known as something that, if spades were called spades, would be called a tart; so long as it can control, manipulate and justify the view of her sluttishness, making it something glamorous and cool and elegant, something to admire rather than despise. A woman who appears half-naked in managed studio photos by high-ranking and highly paid artistic photographers is highly different from a woman who appears half-naked in the work of a mediocre pornographic hack and then allows him to do as he will with her pictures; and a woman who mimes homosexual incest with her equally glamorous sister in a beautifully lit and posed studio shot is very different from a woman who mimes sadomasochism with a hired male model and then gives away the rights. Of course she is.
However, whether or not you question the right of Hollywood actresses to make a career out of manipulative sluttishness, this trial is still very bad news for the average citizen. The reason is this: that it amounts to a blatant conspiracy between moneyed private power and the public justice system, to protect moneyed private power, its interests, its activities. This was not a matter of high morality: it was a clash between a small, independent crook and a group of large, powerful, corporate ones. Rutter is a blackmailer and deserved a blackmailer's appropriate punishment. But he was not given appropriate punishment: he was savagely hammered into the ground, not for having broken the law, but for having dared to challenge corporate Hollywood. The court was used like a set of Mafia knuckledusters, with the judge as enforcer. And when the public power takes the side of the rich private interests against private citizens, whatever the cause, that is bad news for every private citizen. The power that is used now to multiply, beyond law and justice, the punishment inflicted on a pathetic individual crook, will be used tomorrow against any private citizen who may have to challenge Hollywood not for money, but for matters of honour and justice.
For those of us who share my views on religion, on morality, or even only on sexuality, there is a further piece of bad news: the preservation of the corporate monopoly on the manipulation of sex and what is called "glamour" for the purpose not only of making money - something at which they are not actually very good - but above all for the pushing of a pseudoliberal social agenda that amounts to the destruction of sane standards; an agenda which is in evidence in practically every movie Diaz ever made. And it seems to me quite right, therefore, to end this review of an obvious abuse of justice with her preening comment: "Although I wish that this unfortunate situation hadn't occurred in the first place, I am very gratified that justice has been served."
