Capital New York is reporting that film critic J. Hoberman was let go from The Village Voice, where he has been a staff writer for nearly three decades and senior film critic since 1988. The news isn’t terribly surprising–several longtime staffers have parted ways with the paper in recent years, but it’s certainly a blow to the Voice’s already deteriorated reputation and another example of the changing (crumbling?) nature of both journalism in general and specifically film criticism, which has had something of an identity crisis. Comment.
Village Voice
2 posts
Somehow, the most prominent aspect of the attack on Lara Logan that has caused forthright people to desire intense social isolation has been the opportunity it has allowed people to, apropos of nothing, display a total lack of forethought and respect where sexual violence is concerned. The news cycle being what it is, you would think educated, otherwise sensible people were falling over themselves to go out of bounds with judgments over this they have no real connection to. They have been publicly shamed, some of their careers have been disrupted, and yet it seems like the open season for blithe pontification on the Logan case seems to still be in effect.
The latest to tread dangerous waters appears to be Ward Harkavy over at the Village Voice’s Runnin’ Scared blog. The title of his first thought piece? “Lara Logan: Was She Actually Raped? It Makes A Difference”, which anyone for whom sexual violence is salient will be taken aback by. Wading into the text mixes the initial shock with a dose of healthy confusion, as Harkavy is pushing to clarify whether the attack on Logan was “actual rape” because he feels that there isn’t enough outrage over it. Harkavy’s follow-up post (“Lara Logan: The Rape Question, and a Scandalous NYPD Connection”) elaborates a bit further on this point – he argues that “sexual assault” is a sort of soft word, used to defang and discredit cases of rape (he cites a pretty heinous NYPD case to illustrate this).
I have to admit that when I started to write this post, when I was initially shown the “It Makes A Difference” editorial, I was aghast enough to make it about how the Village Voice royally fucked up and embarrassed themselves, but even as I think the particulars here are still really messed, the concerns Harkavy’s justifications raise are worth considering to some degree. “Sexual assault” as a term is meant to eliminate the sort of hierarchal stratification of violence that puts penetrative rape at the very top, to the exclusion of all else, but it stands to reason that the intentionally generic nature of the term lends it to use as a sort of desensitizer.
But there are more pressing problems with the argument, beyond that it’s a, uh, novel way to approach the issue, and could just as easily be a thin veil to cover the harrassment of survivors (I take Harkavy’s apparent concern for justice in his posts at face value). The first problem is that this isn’t an abstract, hypothetical thought experiment, it’s a real horrific thing that happened to a real person, and seizing on her case to make a wider point does her a grave disservice, to put it mildly. Harkavy’s argument that the public interest trumps Logan’s right to privacy is not just a tad unsettling. The second problem is that the question being asked accepts in its premises the idea that non-penetrative assaults are less worthy of concern than (to use Whoopi’s unfortunate phrase) “rape rape”. It’s a gamble that Harkavy is cavalierly taking on Logan’s behalf – if penetrative rape did in fact occur, he can then forcefully argue for greater media salience and activism, but if it didn’t he’s painted himself into a corner from which he can only admit that it isn’t as big of a deal as it’s made out to be. There are several possible scenarios that could prove to be just as traumatic as penetrative assault (and if it doesn’t really matter, why would you ask in the first place?)
But even as Harkavy’s posts are, at best, woefully misguided and essentially counterproductive to efforts to recast dialogs around violence, I don’t think it’s appropriate that this guy should be pilloried, as he probably will be (in some corners at least) in the near future. From the looks of his post history, the guy is the Village Voice’s crime beat reporter, and I imagine (though I could very well be wrong) that his perspective is akin to many of those in law enforcement: Simpatico in many respects with the desires of citizens against sexual violence, but at least partially tone-deaf when it comes to matters of structural and social injustice. The dude is not John Boehner, and as disrespectful and callous as his posts come across, I would disagree with the calls to fire his ass that are surely on their way. Who knows if a clarification or begrudging apology is appropriate, but the very least to be done is an immediate moratorium on the pursuit of this “clarification”.
Ultimately, the brunt of the blame for this embarrassment likely lays with the Voice’s editorial staff. With his history of covering rape cases for the paper and hammering out alerts regarding wanted suspects and missing children, it’s possible that the editors felt Harkavy was a good fit for an editorial series on the Logan attack. It’s disappointing that no one was willing or able to point out the severe problems that naturally followed from the series’ line of questioning. I expected more from a decent rag like the Voice.*
As for the possibility that the Village Voice used the headlines it did to cynically court outrage and the pageviews it brings? The idea is so preposterous as to be beyond consideration.
* I was halfway through a complaint to Foster Kamer before I realized he doesn’t work there anymore.