The Moral of Captain Phillips: More Guns, Less crime

November 14, 2013August 1, 2019 Rilaly3 Comments

The takeaway that most will probably have, after watching the movie Captain Phillips, is that none of this would’ve happened if the crew of the MV Maersk Alabama had had a gun on board.

Photo by Michael Buckner/Getty Images for CFN

The natural reaction to such a statement, by a member of the anti-gun contingent, would be that having a gun on board would’ve only exacerbated the already violent incident that occurred aboard the MV Maersk Alabama (the Alabama). True, any viewer would have to admit, if that member of the crew had used that weapon at an inopportune moment. If the crew had waited until the pirates were on board, and a shootout was inevitable, more violence, and more death would’ve occurred. Anyone who watched the account detailed in the movie, however, knows that there were a number of opportune moments where the appearance of a gun would’ve put an end to the incident, or prevented much of what happened from even occurring.

There is a scene in the movie where Captain Phillips attempts to scare the approaching Somali pirates off by faking a radio exchange between he and the U.S. military. In this faked exchange, that was transmitted to the pirates, Captain Phillips used his voice to speak to the fake officer, and he altered his voice to sound like a U.S. military officer responding. It was an ingenious ploy, but it proved ineffective.

Following the failure of this ploy, most uninformed viewers probably thought displaying guns was the next, natural progression, to intimidate the pirates with a display of strength. Why doesn’t Phillips instruct his crew to line up on the bridge of the shipping container with AK-47s pointed at the pirates? Wouldn’t that discourage the pirates from boarding the Alabama if they knew that the shipping container’s crew could match their arsenal? Wouldn’t it have even discouraged the pirates if the crew lined the bridge with Colt .22’s pointed at the the pirates, even though the Somali pirates had AK-47s? It’s a political axiom among some citizens, some paid consultants on 24-7 news networks, and some politicians that more guns equal less crime. This idea is also in the risk, benefits algorithm that most criminals use to determine if they should commit a crime, and which victims make for softer (i.e. less risky) targets.

Contrary to the anecdotal evidence provided in movies, most criminals don’t enjoy the idea of an old-fashioned, mano-y-mano duel to determine who is the better man. Most criminals, as opposed to the anecdotal evidence provided in movies, don’t seek to validate their mental, or physical, prowess by engaging in a battle with worthy adversaries. Most criminals don’t seek a “real-life” chess match with a brilliant crime solver, tha leads them to being caught, only to have the criminal turn to the crime solver saying, “Good show, jolly good show.” Most criminals are thugs that want money, easy money, and they search for that sizable advantage –like a mountain lion surveying possible prey– that allows them to obtain the most money with least possible risk.

There are, as has been suggested elsewhere, debatable points regarding the actual incident, Captain Phillips’ account, the crew’s account, and the account put forth in the movie. One thing that is not debatable is that the incident would not have been near as harrowing, dramatic, or worthy of movie production in Hollywood if, at least, one of Alabama’s crew members were permitted to carry, and fire, a gun.

That story would’ve gone something like this: Somali tugboat approaches container ship, Phillips eventually recognizes that this interaction may not be coincidental, or harmless, Phillips warns pirates in a number of ways, Phillips and crew then exhaust maritime and personally devised tactics to dissuade pirates from coming on board, and pirates, desperate for easy money, test these tactics and prepare to board the ship. While attempting to board, pirates are then shot. Roll credits. There’s no room for creativity in such a story, and no interpretations of the mindsets of the players involved. There’s no good guy/bad guy drama to detail, no harrowing survivor stories to reveal the human survival instincts, no need for any creative hijinks that lead to a good guy victory, and likely no movie. That story would just be too simple: trained crewman pulls gun, warns bad guys by displaying gun, shoots bad guys when all warnings prove ineffective, and bad guys die. Roll credits.

In the movie, there was no talk among the pirates regarding the fact that most cargo ships don’t carry guns. There is no talk, on the net, regarding whether or not these pirates, or all pirates, know which shipping companies allow container ships to carry guns, and which do not, but one has to guess –based on the fact that this is their chosen “trade”, and that they don’t want to die, or get shot– that they know.

Some reports have it that international laws prohibit container ships from carrying guns, but most have it that no such laws exist, and that each shipping container is allowed to carry guns, according to the shipping company’s discretion. The company that owned the MV Maersk Alabama, is the Waterman Steamship Corp., and a current report by Ben Hart of Conservative HQ suggests that “the crew is suing this shipping company for $50 million for gross negligence, alleging “willful, wanton and conscious disregard for their safety.”” {1} There is no mention of the fact that this “willful, wanton and conscious disregard for their safety” is specific to Waterman Steamship Corp. prohibiting its shipping containers from carrying guns, but one has to guess that’s mentioned somewhere in that suit.

Some opinions have it that most shipping companies have deemed it cheaper, as an overall expense, to simply pay pirates their ransom requests than it would be to train a gunman on board their ships. This sounds a little conspiratorial, but it contains enough probable truth that it’s worth reporting as a possibility. Other theories have it that allowing a trained gunman on board elicits a measure of accountability, or liability, on the part of the shipping company if anything should happen to probable pirates, or the crew, in a shootout. One other theory has it that training an individual to use a gun, a probable staple in any insurance plan, would cost the shipping company some of their profit. All of these possibilities discount the value of human life, and the human suffering that can result from such incidents, but one can guess that such a shipping company would not suffer from bad press from the anti-gun media for their general prohibition of guns on their shipping containers.

If there were any pre-boarding conversations among the Somali pirates, about the possibility of guns on board the Alabama, I’m guessing that that chunk of dialogue was purposely omitted from the movie script. The reasons for that are simple: Such an inclusion would be one of the only things that audiences talked about while exiting the theater, and the discussion involving the tactics Captain Phillips used to survive would be ancillary to the “If they had just had a gun, none of that would’ve been necessary” conversations. It would also go against the Hollywood crew’s politics to leave their audience with such a moral, and the movie probably never would’ve been made. As actor Tom Hanks ruefully claimed, this harrowing story carries a politically incorrect, and pro-gun, message with it.{2}

There are some people who simply abhor guns, however, and some of their reasons are apolitical. Some of them have personal experience with guns changing otherwise negotiable incidents into irretrievably violent ones, and those of us who see guns as a natural conclusion of such incidents, must respect those opinions when they’re based on personal experience.

The British Navy has recently found a defense for these people, and possibly all shipping companies, fearing pirate intrusion into their shipping lanes: The “Britney Spears” defense.

Britney Spears, reports the Metro, is the secret weapon of Britain’s Royal Navy merchant officer Rachel Owens to scare off pirates. Ms. Owens cites the singles Oops! I Did It Again and Baby One More Time as being particularly effective in this regard.

Ms. Owens, who regularly guides huge tankers through these waters, said the ship’s speakers can be aimed solely at the pirates so as not to disturb the tanker’s crew.

“It’s so effective the ship’s security rarely needs to resort to firing guns,” said the merchant officer. “As soon as the pirates get a blast of Britney, they move on as quickly as they can.

“Her songs were chosen by the security team because they thought the pirates would hate them most.

“These guys can’t stand Western culture or music, making Britney’s greatest hits perfect.”

Steven Jones, of the Security Association for the Maritime Industry, added:

“Pirates will go to any lengths to avoid or try to overcome hearing Britney’s singles. I’d imagine using Justin Bieber (singles) would probably be against the Geneva Convention.”{3}

Although these humorous tactics are listed as effective, we don’t know how effective they are, as they are listed as effective tactics without numbers. We do know that the appearance of a gun thwarts any subjects of questionable means. We also know that we don’t live in a perfect world in which the tactics and techniques that captains employ work 100% of the time, as opposed to what some television shows and movies might suggest. Moments such as the one captured in this movie often progress past checkers and chess style maneuvers to brutal realities, and all players involved should at least prepare for the worst case scenarios to occur. In the case of the MV Maersk Alabama, it appears as though some of the players involved did not prepare the crew for the crime committed here.

{1}http://www.conservativehq.com/article/15113-why-heck-was-ship-unarmed-ben-hart-reviews-%E2%80%9Ccaptain-phillips%E2%80%9D

{2}http://www.michaelmedved.com/column/dangerously-gun-free-high-seas/

{3}http://metro.co.uk/2013/10/27/britney-spears-songs-used-to-scare-off-pirates-in-somalia-4163217/

The Uncompromising, and Unsuccessful, Band Called Death

October 31, 2013June 11, 2025 Rilaly2 Comments

“Sometimes, your convictions are just wrong,” is the theme, the moral, and the import of a movie called: A Band Called Death. This line is so integral to this movie that it would have been a pertinent, provocative subtitle for the movie.

This movie tells the story of how a man of strong, artistic convictions –and the rest of the loyal band mates, that backed his conviction in public– decided to tell one of the most powerful men in the music industry to go to hell … and how that decision ended up destroying what could’ve been a storied career in music.

I realize that I’m not in the business, and I don’t know what sells, but this theme seems so integral to the movie that the producers should’ve considered for the byline to distinguish it from all of the movies of the week, documentaries, and docudramas that focus on the theme of how a man of artistic integrity fought against the man, the industry, and the corporate execs “that don’t know music” and won.

Such feel good stories are legion in our culture, because they appeal to the idea that a creative man can take on the man and win! Americans love the underdog, and we love the “underdog” mentality. We love it when the lowly individual stands up to the man, tells him to go to hell, and his uncompromising, artistic purity wins out. We consider these stories inspiring and almost romantic, because we’re little guys too, and this idea that a little guy would have what it takes to tell music mogul Clive Davis to go to hell and win out might land him on our personal Mount Rushmore.

A Band Called Death is not one of these stories.

These romanticized stories are told so often, most often in America it seems, that some of us make the mistake of believing that they are common in an artistic industry like the music business. They’re not, and some part of us knows this, but those same parts of us wish they were true more often, and that’s what makes them so compelling.

What is more common, as illustrated in the movie A Band Called Death, is that the music industry executive, and the man in general, knows more about the industry than the uncompromising, twenty-something artists.

“Nothing against (the corporate, industry honchos),” you often hear the good-natured, ‘no hard feelings’ little-guys-turned-stars suggest. “They know the music industry, but they just did’t understand our music, and our fans, and they couldn’t see what we were trying to do. They were more interested in the cookie cutter bands that do things in a more normal, more popular manner to appeal to Middle America. We held true to our convictions, and the rest is history, our history, baby.”

This history, in this case the history of modern music, would be written without a band called Death in it, because they refused to compromise, a decision that left them in the large slush pile of the uncompromising.

Clive Davis heard the band called Death, and he enjoyed their music so much that he decided to sign them. Even though their music, punk music, was outside his particular area of expertise, he decided to give them a chance. He decided to pay for them to have the studio time necessary to record an album, he offered them a recording contract that amounted to them receiving $20,000 a piece, huge money in 1971, and a man like Clive Davis doesn’t make such offerings without first knowing how tempestuous musicians can be. He didn’t want to change their act, and he believed in them and what they intended to do, but he did have one misgiving: the name of the band.

The other members of the band called Death claim that they were not married to the name. They appeared to like the name, but their convictions did not extend to the point that if a man like Clive Davis informed them that he did not like the name they would not change it. Guitarist, and founder of the band, David Hackney, was another matter. He chose the name of the band. He chose the name as an homage to the death of his father. It was the whole reason David Hackney formed the band, and he developed themes and creative designs around the name Death. He even went so far as to have T-shirts made. He made it clear that he wasn’t going to change the name of the band no matter what. At one point, Hackney even went so far in the presumed, yet not detailed negotiations, as to tell someone involved in the negotiations to tell one of the most powerful men in the music business, Clive Davis, “To go to Hell!”

Before the reader leaps to their feet in applause, they should consider the fact that Clive Davis had enough experience in the industry, and in the market, to know that some artistic convictions just won’t work. Before anyone raises their fist in solidarity of Hackney’s provocative rebellion, they should consider that anyone who worked with talent for as long as Clive Davis had, understood artistic temperament, and that artistic variation was his life’s blood. They should also consider the fact that the man worked with a wide array of artists including: Rod Stewart, Janis Joplin, Barry Manilow, Carlos Santana, and Aretha Franklin. A man who has worked with such a wide array of talent doesn’t do so with an uncompromising ego. We can guess that Clive Davis often went against his own instincts to indulge artistic temperaments throughout his career, and that he may even have encouraged obnoxious rebellion to his requests, but he also learned, along the way, that the road to success occurs at a crossroads between artistic idealism and the realities of the industry.

Davis, like any talent executive, knew talent when he spotted it. He knew that all talent can be tweaked, and that there are some vital ingredients to all artists that makes them unique. He knew that if one tweaked that natural talent too much, they could end up losing the unique quality that made them the exceptional talents that he decided to sign. A man like Davis couldn’t have achieved half of what he did in the music business, if he wasn’t able to recognize when to tweak and when not to tweak.

When dealing with creative artists, a music mogul like Clive Davis also learns how wrong he can be over the years. He knows that for all of his instincts, some of them are impulsive and status quo ideas, so he hires a number of advisers who aren’t afraid to tell him his ideas don’t account for the stratification of the market. He probably signed Death, because he didn’t have any punk bands, and we can guess that he wasn’t a punk aficionado, but his advisers informed him that Death were uniquely talented and gifted. His advisers and fellow investors probably saw Death as a profitable entry into the punk market.

We can imagine that Davis didn’t like the idea of the name Death for a band, but he was willing to put it to his investors and advisers, and that they nixed the idea too. It’s great for an outlandish artist to be different, and somewhat loony, in other words, but there are lines in the sand drawn by segments of industry, that know their customers’ lines in the sand, and that those lines were far different in 1971 than they are today.

Clive Davis was later proven correct when the members of Death attempted to release a single without him, and they were greeted with rejection every step of the way. The members of the band told the documentarians of A Band Called Death that the rejection they faced had little to do with the music, or their overall talent. The rejection, they said, had everything to do with that moment when they were forced to reveal the name of their band to the various outlets they pursued. One of the band members claimed that after a time, he would cringe when the name of band would arise. He stated that he had nothing against the name, and he knew Hackney’s drive to maintain the name, but the band member experienced negative reactions to the name so many times that he would cringe when it came up.

After enduring years of such rejection, Hackney finally relented. He changed the name of the band to The 4th Movement, and the band changed their form of music from punk rock to gospel. After this proved unsuccessful, the other band members formed a reggae band called Lambsbread. The band called Death would eventually receive some of the notoriety they always felt they earned, thirty-five years later, and eight years after David Hackney’s death.

As with every other musical act in existence, it’s possible that Death may have never achieved fame, but the prospect of having the Clive Davis name behind them, his pocketbook, and his promotions team must have caused some internal squabbles and sleepless nights among the Death members. When the final realization struck that their window had indeed closed, one can only cringe when we think about how close they were. That cringe becomes almost painful when we try to imagine what David Hackney must have went through when it finally became clear to him that his righteous, rebellious conviction was wrong, and it wasn’t just Clive Davis who disagreed with him. Everyone did, and it cost him what could’ve been. By the time he finally realized the errors of his way, it was too late. His window of opportunity closed.

It’s easy for those of us watching the movie A Band Called Death to criticize David Hackney, in hindsight. It’s easy for us to cringe when we learn that the members of his band told him, in private, that his decision to stick with the name of the band was beyond foolish. Hackney believed in his band, however, and he believed that the name Death, and the theme that spawned from it, was the comprehensive idea behind the band gelling so well together. The idea of listening to Clive Davis, however, selecting a different name, and moving onto a career with a different name, may have felt “plastic” to the 1971 Hackney.

We can also assume that the impulse to tell Clive Davis to go to hell felt so right to Hackney, in the moment, based in part on the age he lived in. In the 50’s, music execs controlled the music world, and the stars did everything their handlers told them, because they felt fortunate to be in the position they were in. In the late 60’s and early 70’s the climate began to change, and more bands began carving out their own niches, telling those in authority positions to go to hell and succeeding after doing so. Hackney may have considered the idea that he would, one day, be rubbing elbows with Pete Townshend, Alice Cooper, and all the other top stars of the day, and he may have thought that the act of telling Clive Davis to go to hell would be a point of appreciation among them. We can assume, Hackney loved all the same stories we’ve all heard of rock and roll stars believing in what they did so much that they were willing to tell those who opened doors for them to go to hell, and that romanticized notion may have driven Hackney to do it. We can also assume, he didn’t consider how many of these stories were myths created by the band, or even the record executives, to bolster the renegade, rock and roll image that fans almost require of their rock and roll heroes.

The theme, and moral, of the story of The Band Called Death is that some of the times, some of your uncompromising convictions are wrong, ill-advised, and just plain dumb. Some of the times, the man knows more about the matter at hand than we do, and as much as it makes us feel like a tool to do so, some of the times it’s just better to listen to him. Some of the times, the difference between landing in the slush pile and success involves making some compromises, even when it breaks our heart to do so.

We’ll never know how many of our favorite rock stars made compromises, or the quantity or quality of those compromises to get to the top, as it does nothing for them. It would also do nothing for the corporate guys who advised them to change something, or anyone else in the hierarchy involved to reveal such information to us. We just know the myth of how their uncompromising, artistic integrity fueled their rise to the top, and we love those myths. We love to think if we were as talented and gifted as David Hackney was, a talent son incredible that one of the best talent spotters of his day, Clive Davis, signed to a contract, that we would tell a Clive Davis to go hell too, and join him in the slush pile of all of the uncompromising artists that were never appreciated in their lifetime.

Sons of Anarchy, and the war of words on violence in the media

October 18, 2013October 30, 2014 Rilaly2 Comments

What would cause a forty-seven year old man to become so enraged that he regresses back to his high school days, and his favorite high school swears, by calling another grown man “a f***ing douchebag”? What would cause a seemingly brilliant mind —a mind that created six seasons of a highly rated television show— to become so desperate in an argument against a critical opponent he calls them “an idiot that is idiotic, unintelligent, not bright, and an angry white guy with an exclusionary plan, using fear and (G)od to spread a gospel of ignorance?” What would then cause other men —men purported to be respected in the mainstream— to read such a letter and regard it as “widely respected”?

Founder of the Parents Television Council (PTC), and current Media Research Center (MRC) member, Brent Bozell, and Sons of Anarchy creator, and primary screenwriter, Kurt Sutter engaged in a war of words regarding the violent nature of that show’s September 10, 2013 season premiere for its sixth season.

Brent Bozell claimed, in a Fox Nation piece, that the show’s premiere was gratuitous with it’s depiction of violence. Some of the scenes, that Bozell catalogued from the show include, a Columbine-style “School shooting, ‘milking a fictional Catholic school shooting for commercial gain,’ as well as two rapes, and a man drowning in a bathtub of urine.”{1} Sons of Anarchy creator, primary screenwriter, and showrunner, Kurt Sutter, claimed that he didn’t include any of those particular violent scenes for shock value, and Bozell responded to that, and a war of words was born.

Most of the back and forth that occurred between these two doesn’t interest me. I’m not overly concerned with Bozell’s greater, moralistic fears for society, or the role of Michelle Obama in this matter… or any other matter. I also don’t think Sutter’s “widely distributed, widely read, and widely praised” letter was effective, but the reason I deem this exchange newsworthy is Brent Bozell’s attempt to dissect the motivations for making violent TV shows today, by using Sons of Anarchy as a focal point for that argument.

Sutter wants people to believe that the larger plot point was how the biker gang, in this series, is going to (slowly, over many episodes) reap the consequences of their gun-running. But we know what the “bigger objective of the episode” is: “Ka-ching.” You load as much sensationalistic sludge in your debut episode to build some ratings momentum. The “narrative arc” that follows may try to make some sense of that avalanche, but it doesn’t justify it.”

The fact that the narrative arc may not ever justify the inclusion of violence is true, but for many of us that just doesn’t matter. Most of us don’t care what happens in the aftermath of such scenes. We don’t care if there is a greater moral message, or if the character learns from his depravity, we just want the scenes. We want to rubberneck on that interstate accident to see that guy’s leg sticking out of the car, every night, in primetime, and in the comfort of our living room. We want to see a Mr. White cut off a policeman’s ear, as happened in the brilliant Reservoir Dogs, to speak into it. He cut off the cops ear and said stuff into it. Suh-weet!!! What happened to Mr. White in the end? Did he learn from his malfeasance? I honestly don’t remember, because I don’t care. We want to see blood fly, and we want to see the perpetrators of the violent act walk away like it’s just another manic Monday. This, as Mr. Christopher states in the quote below, is what is called “torture-porn”. Writers know all about torture-porn, as do screenwriters, and everybody that’s into this type of fiction, but it doesn’t advance their agenda to talk about it in this manner, so we don’t. We call it art, we defend it as art, and we expect our audience to define it as art regardless how far down the pole we slide.

(Sons of Anarchy) began as a well-produced, white-washed examination of morally ambiguous bikers,” writes Tommy Christopher for Mediaite, “But it has devolved into melodramatic torture-porn.”{2}

As Mr. Christopher alludes, most creators/show runners have one, maybe two, and possibly three seasons of a television show, in mind even before the production of the first season begins. They have it all logged in what is called a show’s bible. That bible contains tight scripts, motives for actions, reactions, characters, characterizations, beginnings and endings, and anything and everything showrunners can think of to pitch to the networks then make what they hope to be a great show. If they are lucky, and that term may be considered relative over time, and their show gets renewed a couple times, the showrunner begins to realize that the material in his bible is finite.

Most showrunners don’t plan on making a season six when they begin. They can’t. They have to take it day by day, and season by season. It’s the nature of the business. If a showrunner is lucky enough to have a season six, one cannot blame them for feeling some desperation, and some pressure, be it external, or internal, to create a sixth season that is as great as his first or second. The first couple of seasons of tight scripts that the showrunner pined over for years, and in some cases a decade, are gone, and they’re left with months to produce cutting edge material that keeps them atop the hip, cutting edge, cut-throat world of TV.

One has to guess that in place of those tight narratives, Sutter chose to supplant them with torture-porn, and murder-porn, scenes that kept his show cutting-edge and popular. One has to guess that there was great deal of pressure on Sutter to make this season’s premiere the greatest ever made, just as there is immense pressure on every writer to do it, and possibly overdo it every time out, until “it” hopefully becomes unforgettable. If Sutter were not under such pressure from the network, and their advertisers, one would think that Sutter would have been able to shrug off Bozell’s charges better, and say that the man doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Sutter’s juvenile attack on Bozell, suggest that Bozell must have nailed Sutter’s motivations so well that Sutter had no defense for it.

The You-So-Stupid defense

“I would imagine these (PTC and MRC members) are not evil people,” Sutter says, in an attempt to be sardonic. “But they are just not very intuitive or intelligent individuals. It’s such a small and simple view of process. The fact that people want to be monitoring what my children watch is terrifying. There is no awareness of what is the bigger objective of that episode is, the bigger point of the narrative.”{3}

It’s not complicated, I would counter and Mr. Sutter knows it, and that’s what makes him so sensitive to Bozell’s charges. Sutter wanted to have provocative, cutting-edge, timely, and popular scenes. He got eight million viewers. Do you know how many showrunners would kill for eight million viewers? You did it Mr. Sutter. Quit trying to make it seem more complicated than it is. You won!?

Bozell countered Sutter’s charge:

“(Sutter and his team) are getting paid millions to offend as aggressively as they can possibly imagine. They have nothing to discuss but their own “intelligent and intuitive” work and how outrageously hip they are.”

OUCH! Placing myself in Sutter’s shoes —as a creative writer that writes scenes that are violent, based on the numerous violent scenes that I have enjoyed in fiction, movies, and TV— I have to say that Bozell’s insightful condemnations would wreck me. I like to think that I’m a creative, intuitive, and intelligent writer, but when someone takes away my ammunition as thoroughly as Bozell did in two sentences, I would probably start making mean faces and throwing spitballs too.

The Censorship Defense

“Whenever that stuff crosses the line into censorship, it’s just scary … I’m not a social guru, I’m not a guy with an agenda politically, socially or morally. I’m a f***ing storyteller.”

Most artists misuse the word censorship when someone criticizes their work. It’s their desperate attempt to thwart criticism, for in the truest definition of the word, Bozell is not capable of censoring Sutter. Bozell does not work for a government agency, he does not work for Sons of Anarchy in any manner, or for the network that airs it, and he does not have any direct pull with their advertisers. He is simply acting as a critic, in the manner Brent Bozell has always offered criticism. Anyone that pays attention to Brent Bozell knows who he is, and how and what he critiques. If you don’t like him, don’t read him. When Robin Williams denigrated religious preachers, was he censoring Jerry Falwell, or was he a righteous dude? In this game, it all depends on which side of the stadium you’re sitting on.

The Start-A-Debate Defense

At one point, Mr. Sutter claimed that he just wanted to “start a debate” on the topics covered in the show. He obviously picked that “start a debate” card out of the politician’s excuse hat that contains the cards “start a dialogue,” and “start a conversation”. The problem with using such a line is that some of the times an actual debate breaks out, and you might encounter someone that takes the other side of that debate. It appears that the debate that Mr. Sutter wanted to start was one that he was entirely unprepared for, and he was left with nothing more than personal attacks and swears.

The aspect of this debate that is utterly confounding is that anyone that reads Bozell’s actual blog on this topic, will probably have to re-read it about five times to figure out how this relatively benign criticism sent Sutter on such a tear. You’ll wonder how such a relatively benign criticism could cause a forty-seven year old man to lose his mind and write a letter that calls another grown man a “Pathetic, f****ing douchebag.” I’m not sure what school of thought Mr. Sutter currently calls home, but having nothing left but juvenile names and petty accusations says more to me about Mr. Sutter than it does Mr. Bozell.

In his letter, Sutter writes that Bozell is an “idiot” and his organizations are “idiotic”. He claims that Bozell is about nothing more than his agenda, that is “desperately trying to create a lobby”, and that Bozell and “his hate club are flaccid and impotent”. Sutter writes that Bozell is: “Not very bright, (that Bozell’s) message is archaic, and loving parents can innately sense that the PTC has no heart and no real interest in the betterment of children. You reek of McCarthyism and holy water. And right-minded folks can smell you coming a mile away.” He writes that Bozell is “just an angry white guy with an exclusionary plan, using fear and god to spread a gospel of ignorance.” Sutter then concludes his letter with: “I bet your kids hate you.” {4}

In a piece for the Washington Free Beacon, Sonny Bunch claims that this Sutter letter was: “Widely distributed, widely read, and widely praised.”{5} I know that it’s written to denounce a conservative, and I’m sure that those on the receiving end of these distributions hate conservatives, but I’ve tried to read this “widely praised” letter with objectivity, and I can’t understand how anyone would consider it a “gotcha” moment for Mr. Sutter to celebrate. It reads like a letter a teenage boy would send to a girl that just dumped him, and it makes the reader want to take Sutter aside and say, “There are other fish in the sea.” Adolescent rage are the only words that come to mind when I read Sutter include “idiot” and “idiotic” in the same sentence. When he criticizes Bozell’s attempts to lobby professionally, it sounds like the raging, teenage boy is trying to find the perfect punctuation to the letter, along the lines of, “and I hope that you don’t make the pom pom team either.”

I don’t understand why Sutter didn’t just let it go. I don’t understand why Sutter didn’t just say, ‘Bozell is a religious, conservative, and he’s not my demographic, and the only people that read his column are religious conservatives.’ I don’t understand why he would want to give Mr. Bozell’s opinions more airtime.

At this point in the overall debate of artistic content, so many provocative artists have defended themselves in so many ways, that all of Mr. Sutter’s defenses now sound like clichés. Sutter could’ve tried the “reflecting a culture” response that rappers give, but even that has become a cliché at this point. He could’ve tried turning the responsibility back on the parents, with the cliché: “Hey, it’s their job to watch what their kids are watching not mine.” The only response that is not cliché, and the one I would use if I had eight million viewers, is, “People watched it. Scoreboard! I provide a product in the same manner Budweiser provides a product, or Coke, or Hostess. It may not be good for you, or the culture, as Bozell puts it, but that is a decision each household has to make. That is what the free market is all about.” The only thing that would prevent me from doing an “Eight million viewers” touchdown dance would be if I had some sort of insecurity about the material I created that attracted eight million viewers.

Bozell wrote: “The (FX) network and the “creative team of Sons of Anarchy” are getting paid millions to offend as aggressively as they can possibly imagine.”

This line, more than any other, probably provoked Sutter, because it called to mind all the pressure Sutter felt to do it, and overdo it, with more shock, and more violence than he had included before. I’m sure he felt personal, and professional pressure to equal, and possibly top, the progression that began with Goodfellas, moved to Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, to The Sopranos, and finally to Breaking Bad, and that he hoped to carve Sons of Anarchy a niche somewhere in that lineup. Judging by Sutter’s vitriolic response, I’m guessing Sutter feels he fell short, and Bozell’s commentary only intensified that feeling.

When Sutter tells you it’s not about the shock, I can tell you –as a writer of violent crime fiction– that it’s all about the shock. To paraphrase Bret Easton Ellis, I try to write something that will shock my friends, and my friends are pretty jaded. All the movies and shows listed above have jaded us, and we are always on the lookout for our own progression in that line. We love to shock, we live to shock, and we probably wouldn’t be writing today if it weren’t for those inspirations shocking our sensibilities into this direction.

I would not be interested in writing a story about a quirky family in New Hampshire that happens to live in, and own, a Hotel. All the power to John Irving, one of the greatest living writers, but that ain’t me. I would love to achieve the fame, and sales, of The Bridges of Madison County, and Tuesdays with Morrie, but I’ll never write stories like those. I need a little violence in my stories, to be intrigued. I need a lot of violence to be interested, and I need this violence to reflect a culture that has the perpetrators walking away from these extremely violent scenes like it’s just another manic Monday. I am not a violent person, but I think those movies listed above were monumental, and influential. All of them bordered on being gratuitously violent, in a manner that shook my foundation and my fundamentals, and after viewing them, I decided that I wanted to write the progression, and I’m sure that it was Sutter’s goal too.

The problem with being this open and honest about your intentions, or your agenda, is that you’re allowing others to see your intentions, and your agenda, and that somehow minimizes your intentions, and your agenda in a manner that makes them too apparent. If an author has a violent scene that is cool, very few of them will say that they just wanted to write a violent scene that was cool. They’ll tell you that the character, and the plot, are driven by a myriad of complications that will become clear when the narrative arc reaches its climax. Yet, if you watch these shows, and movies, as often as I do, and you read ‘the complications to come’ interviews from their author, you find that more often than not, it was all about the shock and awe of writing violent scenes that were cool. You can’t say that though. Saying things like that makes you feel too much like a carnival barker trying to get patrons to take a look at the bearded lady, and the problem with that is that there might be some critic that comes along and says it’s just another bearded lady, and you’re just another carnival barker.

{1}http://nation.foxnews.com/2013/09/21/bozell-newtown-amnesia-hollywood

{2}http://www.mediaite.com/online/brent-bozell-is-right-something-should-be-done-to-keep-kids-from-watching-sons-of-anarchy/
{3}http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-bozell/2013/09/19/bozell-column-newtown-amnesia-hollywood#ixzz2hztXmyLo

{4}http://www.mediaite.com/tv/youre-a-pathetic-fcking-douchebag-sons-of-anarchy-creator-goes-off-on-conservative-activist/

{5}http://freebeacon.com/blog/brent-bozell-kurt-sutter-and-cultural-relevance/