Matthew Wrather hosts with Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, and John Perich and special guest Amanda Marcotte to revisit l’affaire Polanski and talk about the trivializing of sex crimes and then proceed to trivialize sex crimes by segueing to David Letterman, Robert Evans (the movie producer), Bob Evans (the restaurant), the Arbys Logo, and the Dialectic of Bruce Springsteen.
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I think one question that you touched on a little, but that could be discussed at greater length, is to what extent can sex be “inappropriate” independent of unequal power dynamics? Too, is it even possible to have a completely equal sexual relationship that is in no way fraught with weird, somewhat creepy, power imbalances? I think even for those of us who have generally happy, healthy sex lives, there is often a sense of imbalance, and this sense shapes a majority of the kinks that characterize all but the most vanilla sex (some really obvious examples are dom-sub play, rape fantasies, blindfolding, cheerleader fantasies, and your garden variety “you’ve been a very bad girl/boy” dirty talk). So how do you draw the line between a harmless kink and something that’s just plain bad? How — given the huge distinction between public and private life in terms of behavior and the extent to which we can know a given public person’s internal mental state — can you even tell if people have crossed the line? It’s very hard to know if power plays in the bedroom are extensions of gatekeeping in the board room or simultaneous but discrete processes involving the same two people. (Or, you know, the same four women, three men, and a llama, if you’re feeling more Vaudevillian about it. This will probably get you more hate mail, but my money’s on the llama for the “worst day” award in this scenario, because assuming average cognitive capability by species, the llama is obstensibly the only one who couldn’t vet — so to speak — the anonymous craigslist ad.)
Also, completely off topic, but Pete: If you’re serious about Wu-Tang, I recommend offering brownies or pie. Mint Milanos are iffy, because people tend to either like or hate them. You obviously can’t risk the latter. Alternately, pie and brownies are only disliked by bad people, which members of Wu-Tang clearly are not.
-Another reason that companies generally have a no-frat policy is because if one of the people get fired they can always whistle-blow on the fact that they were sleeping with a superior and that was the reason they were fired, costing the company massive dollers in legal fees and settlements (if they settle out of court) plus having to deal with a damaged reputation through out their field.
-Is ‘Zombieland’ the adaptation of ‘World War Z’ (by Max Brooks) or is it just a ‘kill all the zombie’s we can find in a number of creative ways’ movie?
@Megan – Zombieland is billed as comedy about a shut-in who meets a girl, in a post-apocalyptic zombie world. It’s a device to set the situation.
re: Polanski redux – does having an alcoholic abusive father let someone off the hook for being an alcoholic and abusive? So, Polanski’s shitty life vis a vis Holocaust and Manson victim does not give him leniency or special consideration for a crime he pleaded guilty to, ditto for being in a creative profession. The call addressed the absurdity that this was about an extradition of ideas and the touchiness sovereign nations extraditing people willy-nilly.
@OTI – is there someway to increase audio quality? This is 2009 and it’s been over a year of podcasts. Some of you sound like you’re crammed through a tin-can at 56k. (Alternatively, I do covet a beer every time I clearly hear one opened during the call.)
Point taken, Darin. I’ve taken a pretty relaxed attitude about call quality, since even the big guys have some Skype snafus on their shows. But since I moved to LA it’s gotten worse, and I’m going to invest some time in the problem before the next show.
I’m surprised that nobody brought up that psychological test/study that highlights the duality of man. The test was featured in the astrology episode of Penn and Teller’s Bullshit show. Basically, the test was just a bunch of generalized dual statements, like “at times you are extroverted, but at other times you feel quite introverted”. 70% of the test sample felt that this was a good or excellent representation of themselves.