Social Justice - A Conversation

Unknown Speaker 0:00
You're listening to locally produced programming created in a you envy studios on public radio K, u and v. 91.5. Hi, I'm Charles Stanton. I'm on the faculty of the Honors College of UNLV and the Boyd School of Law. Hi,

Unknown Speaker 0:18
I'm Lana weatherald. I'm a third year law student. Welcome to social justice,

Unknown Speaker 0:22
social justice to conversation conversation.

Unknown Speaker 0:27
Well, good evening, everybody. Happy Thursday. Once again, I'm joined alongside Professor Charles Stanton out of the William S. Boyd School of Law, who also teaches at UNLV Honors College. My name is Lena weatherald. I am also a student at William S. Boyd School of Law graduating this May we bring you social justice, the conversation again tonight, and we want to start with I think we've been talking about it sort of for the last few weeks, but what's going on over at Fox News with the Dominion lawsuit and everything that has sort of come to light in light of this Dominion lawsuit. I'm gonna let the professor lead it off with sort of what's been going on to give everybody sort of some background information before we get into some discussion. Okay,

Unknown Speaker 1:03
thank you, Lana. Good evening, everybody. Yeah, it's, it's gotten crazier by the day. So, Dominion is a maker of voting machines. And basically, they sued Fox Broadcasting on the grounds that they had been defamed, their reputation had been defamed by the idea that there was a bogus election reporting, bogus, bogus election recording that the machines were not properly working the whole, a whole slew of things. Well, anyway, Dominion and dominion sued Fox, and they deposed Rupert Murdoch and a number of people who worked for the fox Corporation. What came out, originally was the fact that most of the On Air talent of Fox knew that what they were saying on the air was untrue. They knew that there was no election fraud, they knew that there was no fraudulent intent on the part of the civilian company. They knew that the election was valid and that the election was not a hoax. Well, anyway, after those depositions were taken, I guess it was a few days ago, they released more depositions. In those depositions, basically a number of the Fox talent, basically came out and said that that they had no use for Donald Trump. That was Tucker Carlson.

Unknown Speaker 2:35
I think I believe Tucker Carlson's words where he hated, hated,

Unknown Speaker 2:39
yes, passionately, passionately hated Donald Trump hated. But one of the things that struck me that was so fascinating, was the whole the whole thing having to do with they're declaring Arizona for Biden, on the night of the election. Now, of course, they were the first to do it. And they made the call that Arizona was going to go for Joe Biden, okay. Anyway, Trump had called Rupert Murdoch, and Rupert Murdoch had told him that they were going to stay with that call. A couple of days later, they had to make a call for Nevada, these of the whether they should declare for Biden, and their projections and their prognostication of this election was that with the remaining votes that were left to be counted, Trump wouldn't be able to overtake Biden. And practically and, you know, from from a sure from a purely scientific stance standpoint, the election was going to be in Nevada was going to be declared for Biden, but they didn't do that. And the it's very interesting to read the transcripts of the deposition because basically, their reason for not doing it was not that they didn't have proof that Biden was going to win that state it was that they didn't want to inflame and antagonize their viewership their their viewership. So to me it to me, that's like the breaking the fundamental rule of what broadcast news should be, I mean, you can you can have you can have a slant on the news. And they do and you know, you can have people who are, you know, opinion opinion, givers not not so much news delivers, but when it comes to a matter of actual news, not to be delivered by you know, people on at the eight o'clock hour or nine o'clock hour, but like people like Martha McCallum and Brent bear, you have to deliver the news. It doesn't make any difference whether you antagonize me Whoa, they don't like it or, you know, it's it's gonna you know, you know, make your viewership feel bad. It is what it is the numbers of the numbers. And that just it just strikes me that the thought that I have is these people have a broadcasting license. How do you have a broadcasting license? Not only one you're you're you're putting out stuff that people who listen to the show, don't realize is totally untrue. And then when it comes to reporting the election results, you're afraid to report the election results. Because the people who listen to your station or network might not like it, and you're afraid that they're gonna go to Newsmax or one America. That's not the purpose of a of a broadcasting company.

Unknown Speaker 5:39
And God I have heard just recently, you know, in light of all of this Dominion documents into just everything sort of coming out that you're seeing these false equivalencies, where you're seeing people in retaliation say, Well, what about MSNBC? Well, what about CNN, they're doing the same, no, they are not that they may peddle a bias, they do not penalize. And I think there is a big difference between what holding a viewpoint and lying. What Fox News does is, is lies and those lies then led to violence directly, we saw where those lies then led. That's not the same sort of thing that's happening on MSNBC, nor is it the same sort of thing that's happening on CNN. And I think those equivalencies are getting dangerous, because what Fox News does is dangerous, and I'm not so sure that what MSNBC or CNN does is that same inherent level of violence caked into its broadcasting.

Unknown Speaker 6:30
I the whole thing to me is kind of mind boggling. Because you know, when you watch, you know, and I pretty much watch, I try to watch all the networks to get an idea of you know, what their viewpoints are, I always believed Well, you know, they they cater to their audience, and that I always believe that people like Sean Hannity, and of course, Lauren Ingram, I always thought, well, it's not what I believe. But maybe they honestly believe that it was true. But now it's been completely unmasked that they didn't believe that oh, so how do you go out there every night, and deliver a script or a screed or whatever you want to call it? And you know that the thing is bogus? How do you do that?

Unknown Speaker 7:19
Money because Tucker Carlson has become a poster child for the Republican Party, and he's not qualified at all to be so but look at him, look at how much power and money he's he's amassed by just going out there and spewing that that nonsense. Money talks, and as long as we keep people keeping these people, you know, on prime time television to the tune of six, seven figure salaries, we're gonna keep hearing the nonsense. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 7:42
it's interesting. It's interesting, though, how, you know, when you get into a legal setting, right, the truth comes out, right? You know, when people have to take a deposition, all of those things go by the wayside. And you get down to the to the meat of the matter, as my mother used to say, and that it all it all comes out,

Unknown Speaker 8:01
but and then they're dumb enough to text this stuff. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 8:05
Well, the other the other, the other. The other aspect, the other aspect about it, of course, is that they're still doing it. And the words they were talking a couple of nights ago about about how there, you would think that there would be this major uproar in they don't care. But but it's the audience does not care at all, the audience, the audience still believes it. And the audience probably hasn't really looked into the Dominion lawsuit. When

Unknown Speaker 8:37
confronted and when confronted with the details and the realities of the Dominion lawsuit. That is their responses. Well, look at MSNBC, it's like what what are you talking about? How are these two things even comparable? And I just, I worry so tremendously, because then you see Tucker Carlson is almost doubling down. I don't know if it was probably two or three nights ago at this point. He's showing like maybe the one or two videos that are the least violent possible encapsulations of what happened in the Capitol on January 6, this like the one video he could find the two videos he could find that don't show just absolutely abhorrent, inappropriate violence. I just bizarre he's doubling down.

Unknown Speaker 9:16
Well, what I want and it's it's been said by a number of people, how would you give I'm not even talking about Tucker Carlson. How would you give those tapes that they collected on that day to Capitol Police, to anybody for the police or a law enforcement agency? You wouldn't? I wouldn't be given even to CNN or MSNBC, right. It's a it's a law enforcement. It's not something where you know, you're gonna give it to somebody and they can play around with it and edit it and do all these crazy things. It's evidence, right? It's evidence of criminality. Right. I

Unknown Speaker 9:53
think we could boil that one back down to cell phone culture. Everybody with a cell phone all the sudden thinks they're a news reporter thinks they're a journalist or thing So you have the credentials to be sharing the things without thinking about the consequences of sharing those things. I think that's part of the issue, too. Is everybody there in the Capitol had a cell phone? And then everybody thinks that they're a journalist? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 10:09
no, absolutely, absolutely. Well, we can, we can bounce like that right over to the state of Florida. And all the things that are going on down there.

Unknown Speaker 10:21
Each day, there's a new nightmare of boards,

Unknown Speaker 10:25
a new, unexpected card fold from the bottom of the deck. And now of course, it all started it all started with with an educational plateau. We blew college stop all these woke kids, but now it's really going into the University of Florida, Florida State University. And the idea basically, that the the executive branch of the Florida government is going to basically take over universities dictate what they can teach, have the power at any time to remove anybody that teaches there? I mean, it's some scary stuff.

Unknown Speaker 11:08
Yeah, there is very little I had found like redeemable about my decade's long venture in the state of Florida except the higher system of education. I believe that the only thing Florida has going for it is those wonderful universities with people that are really passionate about things that genuinely matter. And I think Florida is going to lose one of the very, very few remaining Beacon's it has right other than the beaches, you've got UF you've got FSU. You know, that's what makes that state strong. And that's quite frankly, a lot of the people I knew that were successful, were out of state students. In those undergraduate programs, they were coming. You know, they were the smartest kid in Georgia. They were the smartest kid in Alabama, and they knew that they had a better chance in Florida. What's gonna happen to those kids? Are they going to want to come down to you know, pardon my French here? DeSantis is hellhole. No, they're not, you're going to lose the best and the brightest kids in the South that were previously coming to institutions in Florida to other institutions, because of what Ron DeSantis is doing, and it will hurt Florida. It will hurt people not only we're not talking lawyers, people in politics, people in power, we're talking Florida's doctors will suffer because what is going on in the university system, large teachers obviously will suffer because what is going on the university system nurse? I mean, the list goes on and on and on and on. From the from the bottom up. I don't think it's a stretch to say that Florida will suffer because of what Ron DeSantis is doing. Yeah, in the higher education system.

Unknown Speaker 12:29
And it's it's interesting. K through 12,

Unknown Speaker 12:32
too, I should add K through 12, who was ripping books off the shelves from kindergarteners, that too. Yeah. What's

Unknown Speaker 12:37
interesting also, though, is they're getting a lot of people to move down the floor, who have the who have the same political ideology that he does, and because of the favorable, you know, tax tax system, that they have the you know, going down there, but I just find I just find that interesting, especially having to do with teaching, you know, the racial history of our country. And if you look at the athletes on scholarship on USF, and you FFS is is is majorly as majorly populated by people of color. And you're basically saying, well, that none of those things, none of those things ever happened in our country. Right. It was very interesting. A couple of weeks ago, they had Bryan Cranston on with Chris Wallace. Yeah, that was lovely. And he was talking and you know, he was talking about making America great again. And he says, Well, he says, you know, you could you could interpret that really as, as a racist comment, because Make America Great Again, for who? It certainly wasn't. It wasn't for people of color. It wasn't for the indigenous population here. So who was it actually, who was it actually grateful for

Unknown Speaker 14:03
women, white men, who have absolutely no women, no people of color, white men. That's it. That's what was great for,

Unknown Speaker 14:10
ya know, it's what we have, I think you can tie Fox News into what's going on down in Florida, because they're both connected by a philosophy of denialism, the denialism that, you know, the world is changing. Yeah, that I was and that the world is changing, that Trump really won the election that it was fraudulent. And I think it's also and I we've, we've discussed this previously. I think it has a lot to do with economics. I believe that although it's true that there's a, you know, certainly cultural prejudice and a bias, racially spread, but it's I think it goes beyond that. I think it's an economic thing. Because if you can create a world A world where there was no prejudice. Every nobody was discriminated against. We stopped teaching history, particularly relevant in the teaching of young people who go to the high schools in the colleges, then what need is there for social programming? What need is there for social programs, what need is there for diversity, inclusion, equity, when we were all equal, always, right? You see, and they just want to create this, this fantasy world, and the children and young people will not get this essential education, because they don't want you see, what they really don't want, is they don't want a unified society. They don't want people to be equal, they don't want women to be equal.

Unknown Speaker 15:44
Correct. And that is exactly where I was gonna go with it. I think 100% is an economic issue, it is an economic jealousy issue. You are now seeing a subset of very successful people of color that are now multimillionaires of women who are multimillionaires, people of color in positions of CEOs, women in positions of CEOs, and you've got a white lower middle class looking around, thinking that should be me. Why isn't that me? That always looked like me, that person was always me. Yeah. And now it's a girl that looks like me, or a person of color, or it's not the system is changing, and no longer inherently benefits the white man. And I think that so much of it is wanting to see themselves whole. I mean, wholesale in those positions of power, and seen other people then you you think, you know, birds of a feather flock together? Well, there's a there's a woman in charge, she's gonna hire more women, or there's a person of color in charge, well, then they're gonna hire more people of color. And instead of viewing that as, even in the playing field, right, or somehow, you know, bringing people up to justice or up to speed that previously never worked. It's viewed as something's being taken away. Yeah. They're taking away what used to be mine my right to this job as a CEO as a high pain, whatever, corporate. That's what they think they think that it is not a result of more equality that women and people of color are finally getting more powerful positions are finally making more economic strides. Right. They think it's a result of them taking it away from them, not because of their own merit, but because they took it away. That's what I think underlies a lot of jealousy. Plain and simple. Yeah. Well,

Unknown Speaker 17:20
it's interesting, you know, in the entertainment world, I wanted to get into this as we, we had discussed it briefly. Well, right. Yeah. The movie tar. With Cate Blanchett. Great actress, though she is, oh, absolutely wonderful actress, but I, you know, and watching that movie, and I'm gonna say, but I have to say, and I'm gonna throw it over to the female side of the broadcast. Here is a woman who achieved the position of conductors for a major symphony. Now the women who have been able to do that are few and far between. It was only very recently that the New York Philharmonic got an equal amount of men and women in there and their particular symphony. And I am sure that you could get you could put, you could actually, you could still keep Cate Blanchett in a movie. And you could make a movie about what that journey was a struggle, what have you, for a woman to try to succeed in a field that was always male dominated. And it was always very hard for a woman to achieve. But what happens in the movie, of course, is that this woman who, you know, obviously, she has a prodigious knowledge of music and all the rest of it is is is is an evil person, a malevolent person, a person who would not be a role model for any woman or man or anybody else. And it just makes you wonder how Hollywood creates these archetypes archetypes of women. I just finished reading a book about the Oscars. And it's really interesting how so many of the women who won the Academy Awards have won them for like roles that really went to basic of women. And there's a certain philosophy that they have, as to what will give her the award that she plays a certain kind of role. And that's what women

Unknown Speaker 19:26
you know, so I'll start off with talking about tar I think I think she will win the Oscar. Unfortunately, I think she will. I think you hit the nail on the head when it when women have to be depicted as this hard as this strong as this mean. There's a scene in tar that I thought just was I almost wanted to turn the movie off. She's in a she's in a scene with a classroom. And there's tons of students and there's one student who's playing devil's advocate a little bit like any student in any classroom would you know that kid you have that kid in every one of your classes if you've ever been in higher education because more than one times more than one right and it's you But she just the way she handles this student, it was so demeaning, and so debasing. And so God awful that the student ends up leaving, and then you're you're forced to sit as a viewer and thinking, well, that's the pinnacle of female success, right? They're making a student student of color it was anyway, so upset that he leaves the classroom, right. It's like what what is that that strong, powerful female leadership that two young girls are going to look up to is someone making someone so uncomfortable they leave the room their place of education that they're paying for? Like that's that was what was running through my mind is I'm supposed to look up to this woman or I'm supposed to, I mean, I get that she was but we're supposed to view her as evil and see all that but that's she did reach the pinnacle of success and that was underlying the whole thing. So I was very off put, I was very off put by that movie, but like you say, when women then play that stereotypical role, you saw it with Jennifer Lawrence and Silver Linings Playbook you saw it with Viola didn't when you play these certain roles, that's when you win the award. Halle Berry too. Young when you play certain roles that fit what Hollywood casted you in the first place to be well then of course, you'll get your Oscar but these aren't roles that then make women or girls one want to join Hollywood or become movie stars or actresses because you know that kind of slop you're gonna get fed, but three not going to want to reach this sort of level of success because you then know what you have to be. You either need to be an absolute crazy bimbo like Silver Linings Playbook, Jennifer Lawrence, you need to be evil and cold hearted like tar, you know, I just don't. It does not show and what we do and women and film, it does not show the accurate depiction of what an everyday powerful successful woman is. And that duality and dichotomy of all the things she can be in the nuances of that woman. Those aren't captured in these films. I don't I don't feel like meaningfully. And I think you've got a lot of women and girls that then look up to the wrong things.

Unknown Speaker 21:43
Yeah, the wrong things. Yeah, I think I think too, that men are given a free pass on a lot of these things. We had shown the film recently, The Contender with, you know, Joan Allen, and the demand who would who would be involved in these trans transgression, right. Would not be judged the same as a woman. I think I think though, that's changing a little bit. Oh, yeah. As far

Unknown Speaker 22:14
as Jada Pinkett Smith a little bit and how much flack she's catching? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 22:18
well, me, I think I think I think me too, has had a major effect. Pretty particularly at the higher levels. There's going to be a very interesting program on tomorrow night, which I recommend to everybody highly. I have not I have not pre screened the movie. I've read something about it. It's called the sin eater. It's going to be on Hulu and FX. Okay. It's about Anthony Pelecanos. Okay. And Anthony Pelicano was the private detective for almost every powerful person in Hollywood. And Michael Jackson. Oh, wow. And, and he apparently taped all the phone calls of the people he was representing. And now he's out of prison. And he's ready to share his story, to share his wealth with the multitudes. You know, but it's always been, you know, reading the book that I finished. It's always been about illusion, though. You know, when you when you look up to some of these people, oh, this is a great, you don't know the people you don't know who they are? No, you know, and it was very interesting to read in the book about Sidney Poitier. All the struggles that he had to get where he was. And then of course, once he reached that plateau, they said, well, there's too much Sidney Poitier. We got to give him roles that really weren't, you know, worthy of him. You know, I actually had the pleasure of meeting him one time, oh, how lucky he was. He was as advertised. He was really a really good, a really good guy. And he told the story when he was going to be a guest who's coming to dinner. He had been in the heat of the night, which was a huge hit. He had been to serve with love. They had to interview him. So he had to go to Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn's house. So he could be interviewed, never going to interview, the biggest film star in the world. And, you know, he was, you know, he's he was with Katharine Hepburn and she goes, Well, I've never really talked to a black person before. And he's sitting there he's go, Oh, my God, it's right. But he he wrote, he wrote, he wrote his autobiography. If he was around if he was still alive today, and he was a younger man, I can imagine what the autobiography could have been. All right, but all of the things that he you know, went through in everything

Unknown Speaker 24:47
right? Yeah. And I think so much of it now with celebrities have sort of lost have lost the idea of having that illusion because of we've talked about a million times for cell phone culture right. Now, peep anybody with a cell phone can catch a celebrity at their worst The moment can catch them doing things they shouldn't now we've given them access to Twitter. So we know what these people think God Oh. So I think now, the sort of illusion that Hollywood tried to create by making these people mystical and keeping all their crap behind closed doors, right has sort of faded. Because we know how dumb they are. We see what they tweet, we know how dumb they are. We watch their interviews on Tiktok. We know how dumb they are. We see them in, you know, shopping in the mall now in their crappy clothes. Because we've had these cell phones, we have these things around, we are able to sort of, I think, understand a little bit more. But Hollywood is still by and large has done a very good job of I think keeping the worst of it under wraps.

Unknown Speaker 25:34
I think I think one of the problems that you have, though, is that the idea of privacy's disappeared, it was very interesting the other day, Bruce Willis, his wife was talking about how they follow they follow them around when they're going out. She for

Unknown Speaker 25:53
those of you that don't know Bruce Willis was recently diagnosed with dementia. And his his family has asked for sort of peace and asked for sort of some time to leave leave, leave him alone leaves

Unknown Speaker 26:03
a man Come on, you should know better than that. But, you know, everything is sort of broken down on that score, you know, and it really really is it's nobody ultimately it's nobody's business right? In a house man or something like that. Just leave people to do what they have to

Unknown Speaker 26:18
like he hasn't given us enough Yeah, first of all, it doesn't given the country enough of his you know, body time and effort, like let the old man be.

Unknown Speaker 26:27
Just wanted to recommend a book that I just finished reading was the the Demi Moore, autobiography, really, it was wonderful. Good to hear.

Unknown Speaker 26:35
Bobby's been a big fan of her. One

Unknown Speaker 26:37
of the most honest, unflinching, human, probably autobiographies. Not only that any movie star has written, anybody's read, good to know, lays it out there.

Unknown Speaker 26:51
I've always enjoyed her. And you can tell I think so much of who a person is by the child that they then have, and those nepotism babies, you know, it's been a hot topic lately that they're all kind of problematic. These children of Rumer Willis, Demi Moore and Bruce Willis, his job, she is a class act. I mean, she takes really, really poignant roles. I think she's very articulate. I think she's done the right things as far as what nipple baby shouldn't be doing in their sphere in Hollywood. And I think that's a testament to Demi Moore. So that's, that's really interesting to hear that her book was as advertised. That's awesome. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 27:20
I enjoyed it. I read it through, wow, I read it through No, that's good to hear it, which was great, you know, but there needs to be more women who speak out about these things, particularly about their experiences in the not just the entertainment industry. They actually had a very interesting article about this woman now, who is the intimacy coordinator in the movie industry. And she's sort of become the number one intimacy coordinator in the movie business because they

Unknown Speaker 27:53
didn't used to do that. I mean, there was no intimacy coordinator for sex scenes on movie sets. So it's nice that at least that's changing. Yeah. But

Unknown Speaker 28:01
she really has an interesting philosophy about how people should work with one another. Interesting, which is way, way overdue in the Hollywood world. Right. But I think I think that's changing too, though. Yeah, I think that's changing too.

Unknown Speaker 28:17
I agree with you. Alright, so I think we've covered everything we'd like to cover this afternoon. We do want to remind you guys that we are always taking questions. We are always interested in having you guys here what we should be talking about and see if there's any topics you'd like the professor I to broach. So you can go ahead and send any emails you'd like to w e t h e l one@unlv.nevada.edu. And we'll be sure to cover anything you'd like in our next show. And with that, we thank you for listening, and we'll see you again next Thursday.

Unknown Speaker 28:44
Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 28:45
Thank you for listening to our show. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at weather one that's w e t h e l one@nevada.unlv.edu. Or to contact Professor Charles Stanton, contact him at CHA R L E S That's Charles dot Stanton s t a n t o n@unlv.edu cn N axon

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