Today in Supreme Court History: August 10, 1993

8/10/1993: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg takes oath.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

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[Dan Schiavetta]

Bowen v. Kendrick, 483 U.S. 1304 (decided August 10, 1987): Rehnquist notes that the Court always puts down for full appeal a case where a district judge has declared an Act of Congress to be unconstitutional. So he refuses to lift the judge’s stay of enforcement of the D.C.’s Adolescent Family Life Act, which provided for funding of sexual counseling programs run by religious institutions. However on full appeal, he wrote the opinion holding that the Act (heh) did not violate the Establishment Clause, 487 U.S. 589, 1988.

Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 85 S.Ct. 1 (decided August 10, 1964): Black refuses to stay district court orders enjoining restaurants from refusing to serve blacks (not people named Black; people who actually were black). Black (the man this time, not the race) states that a stay would in effect hold the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to be unconstitutional, something which only the full Court can do. (As we know, the Court upheld the district court and “whites only” public accommodations became illegal, 379 U.S. 241, 1964.)

Heckler v. Turner, 468 U.S. 1305 (decided August 10, 1984): Rehnquist stays enforcement of a disputed welfare rule (whether mandatory tax withholdings are a work expense or deducted from income), on which there was a split in the circuits, because Congress had just passed a law resolving the ambiguity. Unsurprisingly, the full Court ultimately decided in accordance with the new law (it’s a work expense -- ?? not helpful for the “working poor”!!), 470 U.S. 184, 1985.

[Dan Schiavetta]

today’s film review: Putney Swope, 1969

I don’t know how well this film has aged, but when I snuck away in high school to see it, it was a blast.

Swope is the token black on the board of directors of an ad agency (and the only “moral” one; when he objects to advertising toy guns as a bad example to kids in the ghetto, he’s countered with: “You deny a kid a toy gun, suppress his natural urges, and he will turn out to be a homosexual!”). The early scenes are the most bizarre, white guys whose ad ideas are psychotic.

When the chairman has a fatal heart attack during a meeting (and his assistant steals his watch) and a new chairman has to be elected, each member of the board, prohibited from voting for himself and hating all the others, “throws away” his vote by voting for Swope. Swope takes over and turns it into an (almost) all-black “revolutionary” agency called “Truth and Soul”. He starts wearing Fidel Castro proletarian clothes and smokes a cigar. They model themselves on the Black Panthers (complete with armed receptionists). The hilarious inversion reminds me of the parts of Bulworth where the title character enters the black underclass and gives it power, at least temporarily.

We see that this is, still, an ad agency, whose business is to encourage consumers to spend their sparse funds on products they don’t need. (To quote the Cary Grant character, living in a different time and place, in North by Northwest, reviewed here last week: “In advertising there’s no such thing as lying. There’s only . . . expedient exaggeration.”) Cutting deals and following market trends makes Swope’s re-made agency little better than the white high-class whores they replaced. They are just selling sex and fantasy. A really low-grade skin magazine from that era (no! I didn’t buy it!! I heard this from a friend!!!) hit the nail on the head with a cartoon: on TV a busty girl is holding up a bottle of soda and saying, “You should buy Fizz Cola because I have big tits!” The real problem is that this kind of stuff actually works. Makes you embarrassed to be a human.

Back to Putney Swope . . . The best bits of this black-and-white movie are Truth and Soul’s commercials, which are in color. I checked and they can still be seen online: “Face Off” zit cream (see below); “Ethereal Cereal”; “Dinkleberry Frozen Pot Pie”; “Lucky Airlines” (bare-breasted babes jumping around in slo-mo, a logical extension of the sexualizing of stewardesses, i.e., the real-life “I’m Susie — Fly Me!” campaign); and last but not least the (lower-cost fan) commercial with the girl dancing around piles of garbage who ends by saying: “You can’t eat a (higher-cost) air conditioner.”

Note early appearances from Allen Garfield and Allan Arbus. And the cursing nuns. And the two-foot-tall President of the United States.

This loony film was conceived by Robert Downey (Sr.) who had to dub his own voice in for the star, Arnold Johnson, who couldn’t remember his lines. It is of a piece with other loony films of that era, each of which I enjoyed, such as “The Magic Christian” with Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr, “The Ruling Class” with Peter O’Toole, and “Zabriskie Point”. I haven’t looked back at most of these, because I’m afraid I’ll see that in fact they were bad movies. I’ll hold onto the fond memories.

finally . . . I’m showing my age but in 1969 to us this was hilariously transgressive and also poetry on a par with Shakespeare, to piano accompaniment, a happy in-love teenage couple running hand in hand in a public park, sunlight, trees, sharing ice cream cones, riding a bicycle built for two, I think they’re singing in F major, or at least something is definitely going on in F:

He (black boy): “It started last weekend At the Yale – Howard game When I saw your beaver flash I’ll never be the same, oh – oh . . . ”

She (white girl): “You gave me a soul kiss Well it sure was grand You gave me a dry hump Behind the hot dog stand, oh yeah . . .”

He: “I used to have pimples But I made them disappear” She (to the camera): “He faced life with Face Off It made his skin so clear, mmmm . . . ”

He (to the camera): “A pimple is simple If you treat your pimples right” She: “My man uses Face Off He’s really out of sight . . . And so are his pimples”

[exeunt]

[Mr. Bumble]

Could that movie be made today or is it in the same class as Blazing Saddles?

[Dan Schiavetta]

I don't think the n-word is used, if that's what you mean.

[Mr. Bumble]

That's not what I mean. Do you think the use of the word nigger is the only thing that people would find objectionable today?

[Dan Schiavetta]

I think the n-word is the only reason Blazing Saddles couldn't be made today. Which is stupid.

As for Putney Swope, the film is pre-feminist, in that (as I recall) women are useful mostly for their bodies. You might remember (if you’re my age) Stokely Carmichael saying that the only position for women in his organization was “prone”. The film doesn’t go that far, so I think the answer is yes, it can be made today, with some change in wardrobe, and with more gay inclusion.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

There's also that whole "French Mistake" dance bit with Dom DeLuise making all the gay jokes and his command to "watch...me...faggots!" Probably wouldn't fly today.

[SRG]

The Ruling Class is as entertaining as I remember it when I watched it again a few years ago, though the quality of the video transfer left something to be desired.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Peter O'Toole, a British Peer who thinks he's Jesus, casually climbing a stepladder and putting his arms up on huge cross he's installed in front of the mantle in the Grand Hall of his Great House.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Which was why Mel Brooks himself always answers the question with "What do you mean, I couldn't make it THEN!"

I'm also reminded of the famous Randy Newman quote when questioned about "Short People." He said "Yeah, it was supposed to be a parody on racism. But it turns out, I was right about those little fuckers."