COKIE: Danny Goldberg is an executive at Artemis Records who
testified in front of Congress this week, defending many of his colleagues
in the industry. George Will joins us for questioning.
GEORGE WILL: Mr. Goldberg, you just heard Senator McCain
commenting on your comment that “millions of people like it”; the
antecedent
of the pronoun being some of the kind of material—particularly music—that
Mr. Lieberman and others find objectionable.
What is the limit of consumer sovereignty here? How much should it be respected
and how much should you say, “I don’t care if millions want it, they can’t
have it”?
DANNY GOLDBERG,
Well, why should your opinion or Senator Lieberman’s opinion be more important
than what the public likes? The fact is, this is a very diverse country.
There’s people of all different religious backgrounds, people live in different
parts
of the country. Different parents have different ideas about what’s appropriate
for
their kids. And—and the American way—that’s created this musical culture
that
inspires the whole world—the American way is to let each family make their
own
decision about what they want in their house, not people in Washington,
media or
in the Congress.
Ediotr's Note: See how Republican that last statement was?
Why should the massive, intrusive federal bureaucracy decide for us?
Are we not free to make our own decisions?
What happened to freedom in this country?
The GOP hates it when you turn their arguments back on them.
GEORGE WILL But the—most parents, frankly, would
laugh at the idea that they are in charge of the pull popular
culture can have on their children. Popular culture’s so ubiquitous.
You said in your testimony, “I do not believe that either government or
any entertainment industry committee has any business telling me and my
wife what entertainment our children should be exposed to.”
Do you really think—I know you have a 10-year-old and a six-year-old—
that you can control what your children are exposed to?
DANNY GOLDBERG I think, so far, we can. I think as kids get older
it’s
more difficult. But I don’t see any moral good coming from having a committee
somewhere try and make the same rules for all families. I think parents
have a
lot of influence at the younger age. They really do have control. But I
certainly
don’t see why Washington pundits or congresspeople are better equipped
to
understand the language of teen-agers than the teen-agers themselves, or
the artists who make the records.
GEORGE WILL Well nevermind a committee somewhere, how about Mr.
Goldberg?
Suppose Eminem, who’s extremely popular and creates lots of profits, came
to you with
some of his interesting music about chopping people up with machetes and
raping his
mother and that’s sort of thing. This may be what you call "teen-age talk."
Would you distribute that?
DANNY GOLDBERG Well, there’s been a healthy debate about Eminem
in the music
business. And I respect the people that don’t like him, especially
because of some of his
anti-gay comments, and I respect the people that like him, that see him
as a humorist.
I think that this is a country where four-letter words are acceptable to
some families and
unacceptable to others. Themes of violence have been part of entertainment
and art for
hundreds of years, as you well know, George. I think it would be
a tough call.
But Eminem’s not my artist. I certainly choose many times not to put out
records that I
think are offensive. And other times I’ve put out records that I think
were appropriate
that you might think were offensive.
GEORGE WILL It’s, obviously, difficult establishing social causation
between this
piece of music, this book, this film, and that particular act, but there
is such thing as
a general coarsening. Can you and I agree that, for example, the ubiquity
of anti-Semetic
images and themes in pre-Nazi Germany may have paved the way for the
Germans to go toward Hitler?
DANNY GOLDBERG I certainly don’t think it was a good thing. But
I think it’s
extremely inappropriate to compare anything that’s happening in this country
now to
Nazi Germany or pre-Nazi Germany.
Ediotr's note: Good for you, Danny.
Make him eat that crap.
GEORGE WILL Well—well, we’ve just had a terrific crusade against
the corrupting
influence of Joe Camel in getting young people to smoke. Why are we so
aroused
about Joe Camel and not so aroused about, say, Eminem, who gets awards
for
extremely violent, coarse, obscene material?
DANNY GOLDBERG Well, you say ‘obscene,’ first of all—and you know
that’s not true,
because the courts have a definition of obscenity and if it were obscene
it would be illegal.
ha ha
We're not hearing much rebuttal from the smug bastard, are we?
But tobacco has been scientifically proven to cause cancer that kills people.
There is no
evidence at all that—that—that songs about violence or movies about violence
cause—cause
bad behavior. There’s an article in today’s New York Times by Richard Roads,
who’s studied
kids who kill other kids, that says that there’s absolutely no—no causation.
And there’s
disagreement among experts. There was no disagreement among scientists
about tobacco’s
physically causing cancer. That’s the difference. And I think you know
that.
ha ha
C'mon, George - debate this man!
You gonna sit there and let him pound you this way?
GEORGE WILL So—so would you say—do you know then, that, say, the
prevalence of racist imagery and stereotypes in American history had nothing
to do
with racism and racial violence in this country?
That it was innocuous? Harmless?
DANNY GOLDBERG I think the people who commit violence are responsible,
not entertainers.
ha ha
This guy's good.
George is having to eat it, because what else can he do?
He can't answer Danny, because Will's balls are in a snare, here.
I think that racist or any type of offensive, immoral entertainment is
bad.
What I don’t think, is that there are simplistic categories that a committee
in Congress
or a Washington talk show host can create that would make my job any easier
in
choosing what we put out or what we don’t put out. It’s—there’s a complex
relationship
between entertainment and—and the people who consume it.
Archie Bunker was portrayed in “All in the Family” as being a racist, and
yet most normal
people understood that that was an unsympathetic view that he was propounding.
So, you know, simplistic categories don’t work. But is there immoral, disgusting
entertainment?
Definitely.
Can people in Washington in the political class, who are decades removed
from the
core audience, understand it? Based on the evidence so far, no.
GEORGE WILL Let’s as well stay with this for one more moment, where
you say those
people who commit violent acts are responsible, not any prompting or cue
from the culture.
Is, then, someone who starts smoking responsible? Why should we blame Joe
Camel?
I mean, don’t you say on the one hand that clearly you can locate causation
in cigarette
advertising and cigarette marketing, but somehow you can’t locate causation
in the marketing
of what you market?
DANNY GOLDBERG No. I—I’m saying that there’s causation of the product
itself and
cancer in one instance, and there’s no causation whatsoever of the product
itself
and violent acts in the other.
GEORGE WILL Thank you very much, Mr. Goldberg.
ha ha
George Will is such a spineless, no-facts loser of a debater.