This week’s rant is not by me or by a Hot Button reader. It comes from the cyber-pen of Ben Affleck, who wrote it late Monday night after reading the following question on the View Askew website: “I was reading about the Dogma controversy with Disney being worried about religious groups protesting against the story of , and I was curious to what your opinion is on this whole thing. Do you understand how the religious groups may protest and Disney should be worried? Or do you think it’s just a fantasy movie that no one should take too seriously?”
Mr. Affleck took this opportunity to rip a new anal pore for a journalist who dared to ask him about the film. His rant — and this one defines “rant” — follows:
“I actually have a very strong opinion on this matter. Some chump who writes for an Internet tabloid (Mr. Showbiz I think it’s called — how silly and lame is that?) snuck into the Armageddon junket and asked me about Dogma at a print round-table interview (circular tables filled with seven or eight journalists with tape recorders who ask questions and tape record your answers.) Everyone was (appropriately) asking about Armageddon (“What’s Bruce like?” “How hard were the space suits to wear, day in and day out?” etc., etc.)
“So, all of a sudden, this one fool plunges into a rambling, semi-coherent Dogma question, out of the blue. First of all, this is inappropriate, as all the journalists accept the invitation to the junket (where they are feted with gifts, free food, little pins and books and jackets, etc.) under the implied agreement that, for good or ill (and many, as evidenced by the deluge of negative press the movie got, evidently chose the latter), they would write about the movie.
“All but two of the some-odd 120 journalists I spoke with over the two days were good to their (implied) word and wrote about Armageddon. The exceptions were some idiot from a Chicago paper and this chucklehead from Mr. Showbiz (What kind of a name is that? I mean, to borrow a phrase; ‘Who the f–k talks like that? That is f–kin’ baby-talk!’ You don’t hear Sam Donaldson stooping to refer to himself as ‘The White House Prowler,’ or some such nonsense, just to pick up a few errant viewers…) decides to write about a film that won’t be released for another year, no one has seen, few have read and has literally nothing to do with Armageddon. His question would be disallowed by any competent judge as seriously leading were we in a courtroom, but we are far from there. The O.J. jury got a better look at the truth than these ‘celebrity-journalists’ (a contradiction in terms if ever I’ve heard one) give you.
“He begins ‘I hear Michael Eisner is very nervous about Dogma…’ ‘Really?’ I say, ‘That surprises me.’ He nods his head furiously and begins taking copious notes. I stare at him dumbly, as I can’t imagine what he’s writing down (or why, since 18,000 tape recorders are running at the table.) I go to great pains to say ‘I don’t know Michael Eisner. I’ve never met him. That seems strange…’ ‘Oh, yes,’ he assures me. Very nervous.
“At this point I’m wondering how this pathetic dingbat has any idea what Michael Eisner thinks, since I get the distinct feeling Eisner wouldn’t throw this guy a nickel if he were standing next to an off-ramp by a vending machine with a sign saying: ‘Will write senseless horses–t for two-bits.’ But I play along, out of politeness and answer in very non-specific terms along the lines of ‘Well, the Disney/Miramax marriage is not always easy, but both parties have a proven formula for success, it wouldn’t surprise me, necessarily, to find out that one party or another had its nervous moments at times, but I know Joe Roth [Disney exec/entertainment head], and he’s a very smart guy, I know Harvey [Weinstein, Miramax Co-Chairman], and he’s also very on top of it, so I assume everything will work out, blah, blah, blah…’
“After that response, Mr. Showbiz (who has already demonstrated that he knows far less about his namesake than the average Internet user, nevermind supposed Internet industry ‘insider,’ in contrast to what his moniker seems to suggest) goes on a rather lengthy and prosaic tirade about some ‘war’ between Disney and Southern Baptists over same-sex health benefits. At this point it occurs to me that we have gone so far afield as to be almost comical, but I nod politely and think ‘Note to self, avoid sitting at table with Mr. Bonehead in foreseeable future.’ And I leave it at that.
“Weeks later, a piece runs on Chucklehead’s site under some outrageous headline like ‘Affleck forsees trouble with Dogma and Miramax.’ I groan. The ‘text’ of the piece is really an elegant exercise in selective quotation, misquotation and out of context, text-manipulation. I assume it’s taken this guy the intermediate weeks since the junket to cobble this piece together. Only now, too late, do I realize I’ve been had by the Tim McVeigh of the gay left, and duped into playing a role in his imagined ‘war’ between Disney and some fringe religious group. There’s always some guy with an agenda. And, more often than not, the end product reflects that agenda much more than what you were trying to express in the interview. Ah, freedom… at what price. At least I’m not running for office (and coming up next, after ‘Beastiality On-line:’ Mr. 37th Congressional District!!!)
“So, you heard it here, from the horse’s mouth. There is no Dogma controversy that I (or anybody I know) know of. In fact, there isn’t even any Dogma yet. So, a word to the wise, beware of Greeks bearing gifts and always beware of journalists with kooky pseudonyms. My only comfort is in the old adage, ‘What goes around comes around.’
“By the way (and for the record) that’s Karma, my friends, not Dogma.”
WRITER OF THE DAY: The “rambling, semi-coherent, chucklehead, chump” is Jeffrey Wells, a long-established entertainment writer who now works primarily for the L.A. Times Syndicate. The article that Affleck cites has an awful lot of direct quotes in it, cobbled though they may be. (You might also find it interesting that Affleck and his publicists were sent the transcript of the roundtable interview before Wells delivered his story to Mr. Showbiz and that the publicist told Wells at that time that Ben stood by everything he said.) And this quotation from the article is particularly hard to claim as out of context: “It would not surprise me if the political situation around Dogma was very tenuous. I know [Miramax co-chairman] Harvey Weinstein has his trepidations about this, and he’s gotta answer to Disney.” Well, Ben says he knows Harvey. And Ben says Harvey has trepidations. Sounds like controversy to me. I can’t defend the article headline, “Affleck Prophesies Dogma Controversy,” because all he really does is acknowledge the possible controversy and that it had been considered by Weinstein and possibly others. But this response seems a little over the top. And the thing I find most fascinating about it is Affleck’s basic contempt for the media, in general, and the inherent falsity of most junkets in specific. Here it is, indeed, from the horse’s mouth.

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