November 7th, 2011
I get why there are people who hate Bill Simmons. For one thing, the Venn Diagram of his fandom and Dane Cook’s would probably show an unseemly amount of overlap. For another, he has a schtick. It’s really, really good schtick. But it’s still schtick.
That said, I’ve always kind of liked him and there’s one thing I really admire about him: Unlike nearly every other sportswriter in America, Simmons actually cares about the writing. And, even more important, he has intellectual and writerly aspirations. That’s why he geeks out over Malcolm Gladwell and why he hired Tom Bissell and the Masked Man at Grantland. Look: I’m not trying to make Simmons into William Shawn here and goodness knows, Gladwell isn’t the platonic ideal of intellectual sophistication. But at the same time, it’s impossible to imagine that anyone else in the sports-writing business–say, Peter King or Michael Wilbon–would even know who any of those guys are.
In other words, Simmons may not have the perfect aspirations, but at least he aspires to something higher. And that’s kind of awesome.
It’s what’s made Grantland such an interesting place for the last couple months. It’s not warmed-over sports columnist bluster. It’s not internet dick jokes. It is, first and foremost, a collection of the kinds of essays Simmons would want to read. Which is probably the best way to design any publication.
That is, until today, when Grantland ran this Mark Harris piece arguing that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences should fire Brett Ratner. Here’s Harris:
after a screening of Tower Heist, the film’s director Brett Ratner dismissed a question about his process by saying, “Rehearsing is for fags.” . . .
What I do care about is what the Academy does, which should be either to ask for and receive his resignation from the show or to drop him as the producer of a show that is supposed to represent the best the industry has to offer. There’s not really a long, nuanced debate to be had about this. If he had used an equivalent racial or religious slur, the discussion would go something like, “You’re fired.” Apology or not. The same rule applies here. You don’t get a mulligan on homophobia. Not in 2011.
And there we go. Grantland is now a repository for political axe-grinding. Harris’s essay isn’t really about anything. It’s just a little nugget, barely a few hundred words long, about something that really pisses him off. And has absolutely no bearing on anything.
But the real giveaway here is how lazy it is as a written piece. No jokes. No art. No incisiveness. I suspect you could find nearly the same rant sketched out in the comments sections of dozens of blogs this week. How lazy is it? Harris charges Ratner with “homophobia”–which isn’t at all his offense. “Homophobia” has become so imprecise a term as to be basically useless. Ratner isn’t afraid of, and seems not to hate, gays. Maybe using such an offensive vulgarity ought to be a firing offense, but saying “rehearsing is for fags” is no more “homophobic” than saying “rehearsal is for pussies” would be “gynophobic.”
The fact that Harris was allowed to toss off such a lazy piece of writing suggests that Grantland is willing to let its aspirations slide. So long as its for the right cause.
-
What’s tragic about this is that I was just enjoying Bill’s piece about Eddie Murphy — not because I agreed with everything Bill wrote but because I admired Bill’s attempt to take Eddie and his career seriously.
-
One stupid 3-paragraph piece means the whole publication now sucks? Sorry, I’m a little more forgiving than that. Every magazine publishes looney bullshit sometimes. So what?
-
Simmons implies in his basketball book that Eddie Murphy, Magic Johnson, and Arsenio Hall had a weird sexual relationship. Of course, he also asserts that Wilt Chamberlain was gay, so I’m not sure how much plausibility to concede him on this general subject.
-
A lot of people think Wilt Chamerlain was gay.
-
[…] On the other hand, there’s this exercise by Chuck Klosterman: 1. Lew Alcindor (UCLA, 1966-1969): This, I cannot deny, is a form of cheating that even Sam Gilbert would find egregious. Obviously, Alcindor changed his name in 1971 and had a decent pro career; one could make the argument that perceiving “Lew Alcindor” as a separate entity from “Kareem Abdul-Jabbar” is essentially a question about the definition of personhood. But here’s the rub — I suspect Jabbar himself would argue that he is not the same Catholic stickman who showed up at Westwood in 1965, and it was that pre-Kareem who remains the most jaw-dropping college player to ever walk the planet. The fact that UCLA won the national title during all three seasons Alcindor played is merely the third-most interesting detail of his college career; the fact that the NCAA outlawed dunking due to his dominance is probably second. But to me, the thing that will always be most unfathomable about Alcindor was his very first game, played when he was an ineligible freshman: UCLA was coming off back-to-back national championships. As an exhibition, the Bruin varsity — ranked no. 1 in the nation — opened the season by scrimmaging the freshmen team. Alcindor had 31 points, 21 boards, and eight blocks. The freshmen hammered the varsity by 15 points; the no. 1 team in the country could not beat a player who could not yet play. As an ineligible 18-year-old, Alcindor was (at worst) the fourth or fifth-best basketball player in the world. So I guess talent does matter, sometimes. Cancel reply […]
-
I agree with Bryan. Every publication publishes crap from time to time – heck, every writer writes crap from time to time, even if they are generally awesome. [Reference to the host’s articles omitted.]
There’s a bunch of stuff I don’t like about Grantland. Contra-JVL, I don’t like the wannabe middlebrow attitude. Malcom Gladwell is, in general, awful. But Grantland’s ratio of good stuff to crap has so far been, IMO, better than most other mainstream sports publications’.
-
I don’t see how the article can be considered crap when it played a part in getting Ratner to actually step down:
http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/11/brett-ratner-steps-down-as-oscar-producer.html -
The same way that falsely crying fire in a crowded theater incites panic. Crap that gets results is no less crappy.
-
The other problem with this is that Simmons is one of the few popular writers around nowadays who even flirts with political incorrectness, without necessarily consummating the relationship. I always get the feeling from him that he’s saying as much as he feels he can get away with without being blacklisted.
Whereas this is the same PC nonsense I can get anywhere.
Galley Friend J.E. November 7, 2011 at 7:00 pm
Feigned outrage over political incorrectness is for fags.