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From: tom@utcsri.UUCP (Tom Nadas)
Newsgroups: net.tv,net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Harlan Ellison quits TWILIGHT ZONE
Message-ID: <1797@utcsri.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 14-Dec-85 10:51:23 EST
Article-I.D.: utcsri.1797
Posted: Sat Dec 14 10:51:23 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 14-Dec-85 11:20:11 EST
References: <783@rtech.UUCP> <674@hou2b.UUCP>
Reply-To: tom@utcsri.UUCP (Tom Nadas)
Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto
Lines: 40
Summary: 


As a professional writer, I abhorcensorship.  However, there is a great difference between
censorship and maintaining some level of good taste,
especially in a collaborative medium like television.  True,
Harlan was the writer in question, but producer De Guere, actor 
Asner, whoever they selected as director, and the programming
mavens at CBS all would have had to live with the fact that
the terrifying thought that Santa did not like black and 
hispanic children would have been put in some children's minds.
Even if the resolution of the episode had proved otherwise, the
mere asking of the question may have been inappropriate to ask
in prime time.

Consider, for instance, an episode from actor/director/child star
Jackie Cooper's autobiography.  A director wanting boy-actor
Jackie to cry his heart out on camera told Cooper that his pet
dog had just been killed.  Cooper did indeed cry to the director's
satisfaction.  Afterwards, the director revealed it had all been
a "harmless" joke and Jackie's dog was fine.  The question:  was
it (either Ellison's raising the question of whether St. Nick
likes visible minorities or the director's suggesting the dog was
dead) justifiable?  Or are some ideas, especially those relating
to and (given TZ's timeslot) targetted at children, best left
unspoken?  

Ellsion has walked off virtually every long-term commitment he
has ever had and bitched about virtually every short-term media
project that has ever come to fruition.  It was predictable
that he would leave TZ in a huff.  It was only a matter of time.
I, too, think he has a wonderful way with the English language,
but he is hardly irreplacable.  C'est la vie.

RJS in Toronto
Posted c/o
-- 

					Tom Nadas

UUCP:   {decvax,linus,ihnp4,uw-beaver,allegra,utzoo}!utcsri!tom
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