Fin: The fall of Russell Brand, "but he's a comedian," and declaring podcast bankruptcy

Plus, an old documentary shows in Philly Friday night; read all about it in today's Inquirer

And you thought this was the worst it would get…

Thank you, everyone, for reading The SS Ben Hecht this week. Let’s get right to this week’s items:

Bad, Bad Russell Brand

Russell Brand was one of those people who had a run as a movie star that was very short. It happens a few times a decade: An actor or actress steals the show in one movie, they get a succession of starring roles, those movies flop, and then that's that. Far from a rare thing.

Before his Hollywood career, Brand was well known in his native Britain as a comedian and TV host (or a "presenter," as they call it over there). He turned a lot of heads with his supporting turn in Forgetting Sarah Marshall but then, after the flops of Get Him to the Greek and the horrendous Arthur remake (which co-starred Greta Gerwig!), he had a talk show on FX that lasted very briefly. It all started and ended within about five years, and was ten years ago; during that time, he squeezed in a brief marriage to Katy Perry. 

More recently, Brand has had yet another act as a conspiracy YouTuber. He appears to be one of those erstwhile leftists who had their brains broken by the pandemic, and began pitching Alex Jones-like conspiracies about vaccines, Ukraine, and "The Great Reset." Picture Glenn Greenwald, except straight, British, and a veteran of very different brushes with showbiz, although Brand was never involved with any movie nearly as good as Citizenfour.

But of course, Brand is now in the news for something much worse: He has been accused of four different women of rape and sexual assault, and the allegations were made in the British press, where tabloid protections are very different. The accusations are quite credible. 

So naturally, the line from Brand and a lot of his fans is that… it's all a conspiracy. And that “they” have all conspired to ruin his career as retaliation for his political commentary. Many have reacted with some variation on “Russell Brand couldn’t have done that! Because… I like him!”

There have also been lots of tweets like this one: 

If your heroes are all getting accused of sexual assault, I think that's less an indication of active conspiracies to frame them, but rather that it might be time to consider who your heroes are, and why, and that it might be time to find some new ones.

I think one of the lessons of the #MeToo movement is that we'd all love it if people accused of sexual misconduct whom we like, or are fans or political supporters of, were innocent all the time, and the people we hate were always guilty. But life doesn't work out nearly that neatly. See Seth Simons' indispensable Humorism newsletter for more about intersections of such things (both sexual assault and right-wing extremism) and comedy. 

(That said, some of us were right all along about Sound of Freedom, a horrible movie with horrible intentions that was all about canonizing a horrible man.)

I can confidently say that if Russell Brand had the exact same career, except that in 2020 he had prominently started espousing my exact political views, I wouldn’t be any more eager to defend him.

Hasan Minhaj and the truth 

Speaking of comedians, Hasan Minhaj hasn't been accused of anything nearly as bad as what Brand has, and he's also considerably more talented. But a New Yorker piece last week raised some troubling allegations that Minhaj, in many of the stories he's told in his stand-up specials has not been true. 

Sure, every comic lies or embellishes or exaggerates a little bit. But in this case, Minhaj was claiming first-hand ties with a few incidents — an FBI informant infiltrating his mosque, his daughter being exposed to anthrax, a high school girlfriend rejecting him for racist reasons — that didn't happen. In Minhaj's case, it appeared, these stories were told while he was wearing his political commentator hat, more so than telling jokes, so it's not quite the same thing as, say, Chris Rock telling a funny sex story that might not be quite on the level. 

If you've read me for a long time, you know I'm not a believer in the "but he's a comedian!" defense. That's been used over the years to excuse a lot of bad things, usually racism, and I don't think comedians are special people who are exempt from the rules of normal human behavior. 

Do I think this should be career-ending for Minhaj? No, and after all, comics have done way, way worse and kept their careers, to the point where comedy, contrary to popular belief, is probably the American industry least affected by cancel culture. For all we know, he'll get some great material out of the whole thing. 

My only comments on Rupert Murdoch's retirement

I once worked for a Fox TV station for five months, so I guess he was my boss. Take it away, Ewan…

"[He] now and then darkened the skies a little. Closed men's hearts. Fed that dark flame in men.  The hard, mean, hard-relenting flame, that keeps their hearts warm while another's grows cold, their grain stashed while another goes hungry."

James Cromwell gave a great interview to Matt Zoller Seitz, about that very scene.

Declaring podcast bankruptcy

I ordered the new iPhone, opting for the iPhone 15 Pro, and it’s set to arrive today. I got three years out of my previous phone, the iPhone 12 Pro, but I figured it was time for a change, even if it required replacing several chargers. 

As I prepared to migrate, I noticed something: In my podcast app, I had 441 unlistened-to podcast episodes, dating back to when I first got the phone in November of 2020. And when I made that switch, I seem to remember having at least a couple hundred left on that old phone. It’s like I’m declaring podcast bankruptcy, and discharging those hundreds of episodes.

How did this happen? It just seems like I have more podcasts that I listen to than I do time to listen to them. Like a lot of people, I'm sure, I fell behind during the lockdown phase of the pandemic. 

 Back when I had a daily commute and worked in an office, I would listen all day long and in the car both ways, but I haven't had an office job since 2017. 

It makes me feel a tad guilty. I have whole seasons of, like, "The Tobolowsky Files" and "You Must Remember This" that I never listened to. There are episodes of podcasts that are defunct, and almost certainly episodes (Marc Maron, probably) in which the guest has since passed away. 

And I refuse, on a general principle, to listen to podcasts at double speed, even if it means falling further behind. The way Karina Longworth says "Join us again, won't you?" just wouldn't hit the same if it were sped up. 

But the podcasts are nothing compared to my Instapaper queue, which now runs over 300 pages.

Andy Reid and Bill Clinton 

The best commercial of the young NFL season is this one for State Farm, featuring Andy Reid, Patrick Mahomes, and pitchman "Jake from State Farm." 

It gets mileage out of Reid's well-known appreciation for food, and also gives him an opportunity to be funny, something he certainly wasn't ever known for back during his Philadelphia career. 

But I couldn't help but notice- isn't the spot pretty much a direct lift from the 30-year-old SNL sketch, with Phil Hartman as Bill Clinton at McDonald’s and using analogies about aid to Somalia as an excuse to mooch food?: 

The bit is notable as probably the only SNL bit that mocked Clinton for overindulging in food; it was all horndog jokes, all the time, for the next 25 years. 

I feel like if that sketch were made today, Rob Schneider would have said something much meaner about Somalia. 

This week's writings

This week in the newsletter, I interviewed the filmmakers behind the Jason Kelce documentary, looked back on 30 years of Dazed and Confused, and reviewed The Saint of Second Chances and Flora and Son. 

For Splice Today, I reviewed Mr. Jimmy, a wild documentary about a Japanese guy who became obsessed with Jimmy Page, recreated Zeppelin concerts note for note, and then came to Los Angeles to run roughshod over the area's Led Zeppelin tribute band scene. See this movie, it's amazing.

For the Philadelphia Inquirer, I wrote about Amateur Night at City Hall, a documentary from 1978 about Mayor Frank Rizzo, one Rizzo hated so much that he tried to block its local PBS broadcast. I interviewed the filmmaker, Robert Mugge, and the movie is getting a rare local screening Friday night at the Lightbox Film Center. The story will run in Friday’s paper.

For Living Life Fearless, I looked back at Rounders, on its 25th anniversary, the very same week John Malkovich returned to Billions, created by the same two writers, and also as a Russian character.

And for 19FortyFive, I wrote about a dumb thing Ted Cruz said. 

One more thing: I’ll be doing the Sandy Koufax thing and skipping Monday while observing Yom Kippur, but watch for two newsletters on Tuesday. Also next week, two movie reviews about recent news events. As always, thank you for your support.