I’ll reformat my quotation with changes empasized.
Orignial:
Reformatted:
Sure, people should know about Fox’s illness. They shouldn’t find out by watching Fox in the throes of Parkinson’s while trying to, essentially, sell a product. The adverstisement wasn’t an exploration into the depths of Parkinson’s; or an illustrative example of the horrors of neurologic diseases. It was a political advertisement designed to get somebody elected.
Unless it is absolutley unavoidable. Which I don’t believe it was. I watched Fox’s recently taped reaction to Limbaugh’s commentary. The constrast, relating to Fox’s neurologic behavior, between the advertisement and Fox’s reaction to Limbaugh is stark. After watching Fox’s reaction video, without foreknowledge, I’d have no clue Fox had any neurologic impaiment. So, apparently, there are calmer moments. Waiting for fox to have a spasmodic event to film an appeal for election is dubious on its face (“Look at me. I’m handicapped. Buy my product.”), akin to staged news (think Broadcast News).
I would suggest to you that if you believe that folks should know about Fox’s illness, then they should indeed see the actual effects. Yes, he can (apparently) with hard work and judicious timing control his spasms for short periods of time. But not always. and not for very long. and not w/out real struggle. When the average person sees him sitting there rigidly looking into the camera, do you really believe that they “get” what Parkinson’s is all about?
I hear you. I really do. But I’m talking about venue. One shouldn’t introduce people to Parkinson’s in a campaign commercial in an attempt to curry votes, even if the candidate’s main focus is stem cells. It’s very unseemly.
However, I realize that Fox’s episodes may be frequent, and that almost any on-camera interview he does has the potential for a spasmodic event. The camera crew shows up at Fox’s house. He’s having a bad day. The shoot is costing them money. They can’t wait to shoot Fox’s spot or come back another day. I get that. I’m actually not saying that they waited for Fox to have an episode to film the advertisement; I’m saying if they did, I find it pretty nefarious.
Ohh, the proprieties! I’m certain that Rush would have been a proud co-sponsor if only Mr. Fox had invited him to help organize a proper Ice cream Social and Spazzer’s Ball.
As it is, it’s like Fox took a dump on America’s dining room table during Sunday dinner. :eek:
Just think of it as a Frat boy prank. That makes anything go down smoother.
Seriously Mince, where do you keep this mystery list of proprieties? I suspect it’s up your ass, but if there’s some actual written guide to not causing offense amongst the right, you’d be doing everyone a favor by pointing it out.
I am so very confused. I watched more of the Keith Olberman clip that **Hentor ** provided, only to learn that Michael J. Fox did almost the exact same ad two years ago in support of Senator Arlen Specter (granted, Fox was having a better day when he filmed the prior ad, but I’m not convinced that’s the point).
How exactly is he being duped by the Democrats right now?
How so? Fox is supporting that candidate, because that candidate supports what may be Fox’s best chance to be cured of his disease. As such, the effects of Parkinson’s are entirely valid information in deciding how to vote for that candidate. It’s an unpleasant truth, but opposition to stem cell research has politicized Fox’s disease. In effect, wether or not he should be cured is currently up for a vote. Shouldn’t the public get a good look at exactly what they’re voting on before they go to the polls? If, rather than a commercial for a candidate, it was a commercial for a bill that would increase funding for research into Parkinson’s, would you consider displaying the symptoms of Parkinson’s as “unseemly?”
I somehow doubt the millions of people who suffer from Parkinson’s disease, or whose loved ones are deterioriating before their eyes, give two shits about what you find unseemly. Sure, they’re currying votes for a political campaign: the campaign of the candidate who’s more interested in helping find a cure for their disease than in stemming (sorry) the advance of medical knowledge with antiquated, ignorant biases.
His heartfelt support for Arlen Specter is just one of the points made in today’s interview by Katie Couric of Fox. I caught the highlights of the half-hour interview (available in full on the website) on the 6 o’clock news program. Rush Limbaugh’s slimy not-really apology looks even more heinous after seeing Fox and hearing his side. I strongly recommend checking it out.
I think I made the same mistake as TFD - I read it as “the interview by Katie Couric, of the Fox network” as opposed to “the interview by Katie Couric of Fox, the actor”.
And now, sports fans, here’s the up-to-the-minute neo-con scorecard for this year:
Ann Coulter insulting the 9-11 widows
Tom DeLay
Mark Foley
George Allen’s racial slur
And now…RUSH!
Now, if we can just catch Karl Rove fucking a dead dog, maybe we can be rid of these toolbags once and for all and start repairing the damage their polarizing tactics have done to this nation and its citizens!
I just saw a clip of Fox again talking about how he doesn’t care about Rush. (I believe it was on the Today show).
And it actually brought tears to my eyes. When I was oh, maybe eight or nine yeras old, I loved Michael J. Fox-I used to pester my mother to rent Back to the Future every weekend. He was my first big celebrity crush.
Add to that that he seems like such a nice and decent human being, and it’s just heartbreaking to see him like this.
How anyone can defend Rush Limbaugh on this is beyond me. Unless you’re the type who thinks pointing at the disabled kids on the playground is the height of comedy.
What is so predictably sad is that even after the initial offense, and even after it was pointed out all over the place that the uncontrollable muscular movements are a side-effect of TAKING THE DRUG NOT NOT TAKING THE DRUG, Rush does not care.
He does not admit he showed himself as quite he uneducated fool, the helpless puppet of the radical right. He does not understand that Parkinson’s immobilizes, and the appearance of Mr. Fox as seen in that ad is because he TOOK his meds, not because he skipped them to “ham it up” ( sic).
It is one thing to lie. It is quite another to lie, lie, lie and then insist that the simple medical truth is a vast left-wing media created conspiracy designed to smear the good name of God and America and the President.
He would be laughably pathetic if not for the disturbing fact that he helped in no small way to deliver the 2000, 2002 and 2004 elections very neatly to the radical Right.
Even if the timing of the ad’s taping is suspicious (and I agree that it could be, it being impossible to prove otherwise), so what? If Mr. Fox deliberately chose an intense “episode” to make his point, why is that wrong? (Unless, of course, he deliberately exaggerated the physical effects of his illness, which I am not prepared to enterain without something more substantial than innuendo.)
He wants us to see how debilitating his condition can be. Why should he choose to minimize that debilitation and its consequent loss of dignity and control? Should he have deliberately chosen a less intense point in time? To what end? That is no more honest that deliberately choosing otherwise, and would certainly weaken his point.
So even if he did choose to film his ad under a particularly intense situation, so what? So long as its true, what difference does it make?