"I do try like hell to not be ashamed. But, sometimes I am, I have to admit," says New Jersey-born comedienne, actress and activist, Janeane Garofalo. We've been talking for close to 45 minutes - mostly about TV, politics, the media, and the toxicity of contemporary pop culture. As I switch the tape recorder off and the conversation winds down, we briefly discuss what Garofalo herself turns to in order to unwind, which is the source of her current state of angst.
"Sometimes I fall dreadfully short, behavior-wise, activity-wise. Sometimes I'll watch bad television, sometimes I'll read crappy magazines and I'm ashamed, because I've done it," she admits. The New York resident, who recently released a new stand up DVD entitled If You Will, is currently living outside of her comfort zone in a Los Angeles hotel while filming the Criminal Minds spin-off Suspect Behavior (which also stars Academy Award winning actor Forest Whitaker).
Like crack down a pipe, The Young and the Restless is coming down the cable into her hotel room, and Garofalo is unable to resist her nightly SOAPnet fix. "I discovered it when I started staying here two months ago. And I have been falling asleep to it," she reveals when asked about her "guilty pleasures" (my words not hers).
Though a daytime drama might just be a pleasant - if unsubstantial - distraction for anyone else, for the earnestly politically correct Garofalo it's a matter of personal integrity. "If I'm going to be falling asleep, I should be reading," says the Air America alum, who doesn't want to be guilty of denigrating the work of fellow actors by using my "guilty pleasure" phrase, nor of indulging in the potentially socially toxic material we've previously been discussing.
"I do feel guilt and it is my pleasure," adds Garofalo, who it seems is constantly torn between her desire to fix society and her need to participate in it - flaws and all. Holding herself to impossible standards of moral perfection may be the source of undue anxiety, but Garofalo's awareness of her own - and our culture's - shortcomings brings sharp social commentary to her humor, and makes for an illuminating conversation - which, after a little small talk, soon turns to topics that carry more gravitas than glasses.
Nicole Powers: You rock the nerd glasses like no one else I know. You look so hot in them. But on the DVD you describe yourself as "a bit of a neo-luddite" when it comes to technology. I feel so led astray. On 24, you did all this crazy geek shit and you totally looked like you could actually do it.
Janeane Garofalo: Yeah, but I am not computer savvy. I don't use a computer. But that is not the glasses' fault. They're not nerd glasses anymore, nor have they been for years. These glasses, whether they be cat eye or Clark Kent glasses, are now such a standard of the Lower East Side of New York, that the nerd issue is long gone. So you can't be angry at me.
NP: I'm just jealous. I'm a geek, but I can't work it in glasses like that.
JG: I bet you could...I think most people look better with glasses. Especially if they are in the right frames, it enhances the character of their face. I'm glad I have to wear glasses. Not only because I like them, but, as I get older, so I don't have to worry about people really recognizing all the signs of aging around my eyes. I know I shouldn't care about those things, but I have to be honest, it does bother me to witness the aging process and glasses hide that a little bit...The show that I'm on now, I don't wear glasses I wear contacts. And, it's in HD, which is the scourge of my existence. I wish so much my character could wear glasses, just so I could hide behind them.
NP: This is the new Criminal Intent?
JG: It's Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior. But I can understand why you'd be confused because there's 8 million crime procedural shows, all with similar names.
NP: I have every confidence now that there are more crimes solved on TV each week then there are solved in real life by police in America.
JG: That's why we like those shows isn't it? We like to imagine there is a fully functioning and honest judicial system where things are properly adjudicated through the courts and the bad guys always get caught. That's why these shows are popular. Because we want to believe...In the same way, medical dramas are popular - 'cause you want to believe there's all those doctors out there who care, who will go the extra mile for you.
NP: What's going to make your crime procedural stand apart from the others?
JG: That's the problem with TV isn't it? Hopefully just having Forest Whittaker will set it apart in some way. But this is my dilemma with network television. As much as I love working there - because it is wonderful to have a job - ask anybody who's unemployed. I am filled with gratitude for working. What I'm not thrilled about is network television's constraints that they put on the writers...
I wish we had more freedom. But that's the nature of mainstream television. It doesn't really allow you to be too terribly different under the auspices of the crime genre. But Forest, just watching him work, he really is different. It's not like any other detective that I've seen. He just does it differently. He just has his own style. And, hopefully, I will be able to bring something different to it - at least that's my intention.
NP: So are you Forest's sidekick?
JG: I am indeed. It's a wonderful cast. It's Michael Kelly, Beau Garrett, Matt Ryan and Richard Schiff from The West Wing. It's nice to work with him again. The cast is fantastic and the crew is great. It's a real joy to work there. But I am not thrilled with all this violence - especially the violence against women. It really pricks at my conscience.
NP: Right. I love Law & Order, but the SVU series...
JG: Yeah, that bothers me.
NP: It makes me feel uncomfortable.
JG: Me too.
NP: Because it does make the crimes salacious and titillating.
JG: Salacious - that's the word I use on a daily basis. On a daily basis. It actually sometimes keeps me up at night, because my conscience is bothering me about it. Believe me, I'm not alone on the show in this feeling. Hopefully we will be able to get past that, because myself and the other cast members, our consciences do feel what you're feeling, and the word salacious is a perfect way to describe it.
NP: There is this weird imbalance, especially on network TV. You can show sex as part of a crime because then it's technically not sexy, but of course we all know that they're making it that way.
JG: It's for titillation purposes.
NP: But you can't show sex in a positive way, in a purely sexual way, because that's sex.
JG: It's totally fucked. And it's not culturally helpful. I don't want to be culturally irresponsible. But luckily, everyone in the cast - Forest especially - we are all hyper aware of that. So, even though they have that stuff, believe me, we are trying to move past that. I'm hoping that we can because we don't need more of it in the culture.
It's no different than British Petroleum pumping shit out into the gulf is it? It's like a pipe pumping out toxic waste, and luckily I'm working with people who are aware that that is not what we want to be doing, and hopefully we won't. But, unfortunately, you know that bullshit phrase that people use: We give the people want they want?
NP: Right, yes.
JG: Like it's the public demanding this kind of tawdry nonsense. I don't like that kind of pass the buck attitude, but a lot of stuff [like] that happens when you take these jobs on television. They sort of say, "Yeah, look, I didn't want to do that either, but the public likes it." I don't buy that. If you give them good stuff, they love it too. I mean, look at Mad Men.
NP: Also look at Oprah. I remember when the afternoon talk show circuit had devolved into this sordid and sensational scene. Then Oprah chose to break out and take the high ground, and look where Oprah is now compared to the other hosts of that era.
JG: Of course. It's a flawed argument. Sure there's some segment of the public that likes to eat shit. Fine. That's not my problem. We don't have to feed them that - right? But if you give the public good things, they do like that too. It's not fair to presume that the whole of the public and the aggregate wants a mediocre product. Also that's a weird point of origin for a show isn't it? Luckily, we have these discussions, like the one you are having now. I don't know if other shows have these discussions - maybe they do.
NP: Is it a fairly collaborative process between you and the writers?
JG: Yes. It is in that we can have these discussions. But sometimes I, and the cast, we don't prevail. We are overridden by the powers that be...So it is collaborative in that they are quite open to us at any time coming in to the offices and saying that. They go, "Eventually, once we're on our feet and the show is airing, we're going to move away from that." Then the cast always says, "But why are we starting there?"
But they feel like to start there is the way to get people, which I disagree with. But they feel like that's how you do it. You give them something they are familiar with and then you can move and get more creative. I hope in a way, in this case, they're right and I'm wrong, because I do want people to watch it. I do want to work there. I do want to keep my job. I do want to do a good show. I don't want to be part of something that I don't think is helpful culturally, and I don't want to do anything that's tawdry, masquerading as a crime series. Does that make sense?
NP: Absolutely. It is just so weird, the relationship that television in particular has with human sexuality. The flip side of that is this whole spate of shows highlighting teen pregnancy. All they've done is open their legs and forgotten to use a condom and we reward these kids with TV shows and magazine covers.
JG: It's no different than toxic waste or mercury in fish. It's low level poisoning...All of this mainstream entertainment, if you will, and mainstream tabloid journalism and mainstream corporate media news, lots of it is no different than mercury poisoning and low-level degradation. Bit by bit, piece by piece. They say you are what you eat, but you are what you read, you are what you see, you are what you process, and you are what you do with it.
NP: Right. Young children learn by repeating what they see.
JG: It's patterning and desensitization. It's a lack of consciousness. The collective unconscious is being degraded. But, you know, this is not new. This has been happening for years.
NP: It's been happening for years, but I guess the one thing that is new with reality TV is the glorification of dysfunction.
JG: You're right. And it's so-called reality TV, because it's not is it? Because what is it? The Hawthorne Effect, meaning that nobody can behave naturally because they're aware of being watched.
NP: The very fact that you're observing changes behavior.
JG: Exactly. And the producers of these shows encourage bad behavior, and then the editors are cast with editing it to the worst way. It is this chain where the shit is rolling down hill, and everybody passes the buck. Everybody says that this is what the public wants. Everybody just wants to keep their jobs. Everybody just wants to get a paycheck because they want to put their kids in a nice school...But, especially if you have kids, you should care more about this shit. You're being emotionally, mentally and intellectually shoved and pushed and prodded until you are just a blunt object, you know, societaly...I'm getting so hepped up here I'm not even articulating myself correctly. Do you know what I mean? So we're all just dense. We just don't care. You lose your empathy for people. You lose your perspective on what is proper behavior. How to appropriately treat one another.
NP: We've become desensitized to bad behavior en masse, as a society.
JG: It's just garbage, garbage, garbage. Tabloid magazines, sub-par news, crappy television programming, these reality shows where people are fighting, and, also, just the language in general. Just the degradation of the English language. The slang and the coarseness. Then add to that the texting and the sexting, and just the snark and the culture of cruelty, all of it - it's just a sea of garbage. Hopefully though, what will happen is there will be a renaissance out of it, of people rejecting this, moving in a different direction, saying, "You know what? I can't take this anymore."
NP: I'd like to think that will be the case, but the direction we're going in, I mean, can you get lower than Jersey Shore?
JG: Well, The Hills is just as shit, isn't it? The only difference is socio-economics.
NP: I guess you're right.
JG: People seem to pick on the Jersey Shore kids because it seems worse. But what is the difference between The Hills, The Kardashians and Jersey Shore? Money.
NP: You're absolutely right.
JG: What's the difference between political crime, corporate crime and the mafia? Better suits. Money. [That's] the difference between the Cosa Nostra, the actual mafia, and say Bush, Cheney, British Petroleum and Karl Rove. What is the difference between organized and political corporate crime? Better suits and they don't use double negatives.
And what's the difference between a gang of street thugs and corporate and political criminals? Money. And how we process it. Somehow Dick Cheney is considered different than any other gang member in East LA, for no reason other than imbued money/power status. And, of course, that guys like Dick Cheney are above the law, and guys in East LA are not.
NP: Right. And guys like Dick Cheney are absolute master manipulators.
JG: Yeah. They are sociopaths. Dick Cheney is a sociopath. He has no empathy. He clearly does not feel remorse, and, he clearly has no problem lying.
NP: I know that you hate the Tea Party movement, but that's a so-called "grassroots" bunch of folks that are virtually all victims of sociopaths. They're victims of manipulators who are cynically and deliberately motivating uneducated people to act against their self-interest.
JG: Exactly. Okay, the Tea Party movement, the Tea Baggers, they are suckers right? But they also are racist. Racist. It's not a populist movement at all. It's a racist movement. The first Tea Party was scheduled for Obama's inauguration day, so clearly they were upset with the job he was doing before he even did it. Never before has anyone asked to see a president's birth certificate. The Tea Party movement is built on one thing - hatred of the color of the man's skin and fear of modern multicultural America. I've never met more apologists for racists in my life then I have from the Tea Party movement.
But yes, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Dick Armey, all these cynics at the top, all these sociopaths at the top - they suffer from what [psychiatrists now] call Antisocial Personality Disorder - which, in behavioral psychology, is somebody that continuously does things that harm society, feels no remorse, guilt, [they're] not tethered to honesty.
NP: They're smart enough to know that racism is wrong, but they have no qualms about using it as a manipulation tool - to unite through a common hatred.
JG: Unite through hate. That is what the Republican Party stands for. That's what they've been standing for, more or less, since the Civil Rights era. The conservative movement and the Republican party of the last 40 years has been moving steadily to the right, and steadily to being the party of wedge issues. Because contemporary society has outgrown the Republican Party, so they have to do this. They have to keep micromanaging, and keep inspiring hate wherever they can - fear wherever they can - so that they can manipulate people into voting against their better interest. That's just a tale as old as time. What is the difference between that and any gang member, anywhere? It's the same.
NP: I think that gang behavior is more honest.
JG: Yes, it is.
NP: I think your average Tea Partier is a victim of abuse and manipulation.
JG: But they're still racist aren't they?
NP: They're blinded by hatred.
JG: And fear.
NP: But the people who are truly evil are the people that are inciting and manipulating that hatred and fear.
JG: Exactly.
NP: It's just classic mind control, and tactics of distraction. I mean the Tea Baggers aren't even talking about the tax breaks for the rich.
JG: Of course not! It's not about policy. It's about emotion. It's all limbic brain. It has nothing to do with actual policy. You can tell a right-winger - whether it be a Tea Bagger or whatever you want to call them - anything but the truth. They'll believe anything you tell them, but the truth. In fact the truth causes them to become confused and angry. They get quite reactive. They don't like facts. They don't like to think of the big picture. They don't like to be empathetic. They don't like to see things from many perspectives. They don't like nuance. It's all the limbic brain. It's neuroscience. It's emotional.
NP: The other thing that they use to manipulate is religion. It's just another manipulation tool in American politics.
JG: In all politics...It has been utilized and used as a weapon, as a divider, in every culture in every era. It's not new. One would hope we would've outgrown it by now. There's nothing inherently wrong with religion in and of itself. I don't care, especially if you're a guy like Martin Luther King. More power to you if you're going to use religion as a tool to better yourself and society. Wonderful. But that's not how most leaders use it. I also happen to like science. I'm interested in it. It answers the big questions and it comforts me. I don't know why more people who are religious don't feel comforted by scientific answers because they're fine with every other area of technology.
NP: People that reject science and believe humans walked around with dinosaurs, still watch TV and use cell phones.
JG: Exactly. They also will avail themselves of medical technology. Say they have a premature baby, they will use every area of medical technology to save their baby but they will still vote against stem cell research.
I'm getting all hepped up lady. This is crazy. I have to go soon. I have to go to work. But we have gotten into many interesting areas. I hope you don't feel that I'm being too strident with you.
NP: Not at all. SuicideGirls is all about being strident. I think there's a need to be more so. I believe that one of the greatest ills in this country is apathy. When you allow apathy to rule, that's when the people that aren't apathetic, like the Tea Baggers that are fueled with hate, can bring their minority agenda to the fore.
JG: Exactly. There's a famous phrase: Never underestimate the power of a small group of committed people. I think Margaret Mead said it. She meant it in a positive way, but it also can be used the other way. Never underestimate the power of guys like Karl Rove, and how much damage they can do.
These right-wingers never ultimately win, because time marches on and it marches past them. If conservatives always won, we'd still own slaves and women would never vote. They never ultimately win - right? But they do a hell of a lot of damage in the meantime kicking and screaming towards a more evolved society.
...Don't lose faith, or heart. The news and everything focuses undo attention on these people. The majority of the country is not backward like this. It's a good titillating news story, to focus on these people as if they are legitimate. They aren't. They imbue them with legitimacy, just like they imbued in the Civil Rights era legitimacy on the people that were beating up Civil Rights marchers. But they're not legitimate.
NP: That's why I'm really enjoying the stand Steven Colbert and Jon Stewart are taking at the moment, organizing their own opposing rallies.
JG: Of course, and you know, we can all do it...Every single one of us can take a stand personally. We can all do it. And, it does make a difference. The biggest thing, and you're quite right, apathy. That's the worst place you can be in, because then life just happens to you. All this stuff just happens to you, and you're just witnessing the back slide of culture, and you're not doing anything about it.
NP: Right. We're all complaining about Jersey Shore while watching it.
JG: Right. And also, who gives a shit ultimately? Why are we complaining about Jersey Shore? The editors and the producers of the show have made them look horrible. Just like in The Hills or The Kardashians - wherever these crap-tastic shows are. These people are edited to look at their worst, but you know, there's no reason to be watching it. It's like eating junk food. Just don't do it. Just put it down. Nobody is compelling you to watch it?
...Sometimes I'll do a radio interview and they try and discuss Jersey Shore, and I'll say, "I don't know. I haven't seen that, but do you want to talk about the Tea Party? There's other ways we can go with this conversation." And most people treat you like you're an asshole.
NP: No, I'm glad that you're fighting the fight. I very much hope with your TV show that you can push back, and you and Forest and the writers can get it to a place where you're comfortable and proud, and it moves the genre in a healthier direction.
JG: Yeah, I hope so too. Like I said, the network, they've been very good about listening, talking about this, which I think is unusual...Maybe they weren't thinking about it before - 'cause they were just making a product. Hopefully the cast is making them think about it. Or, I may get fired. That's always a possibility. I may get fired. I have to accept that. If you're going to discuss these types of things, and if its possible that somebody finds it irritating, you always have to be ready - or I do - I just have to be ready for somebody to say, "Well, maybe you shouldn't be here." Even though I want to have a job, like anyone, I have to accept they might say, "Look, this is the show we're doing, make a decision." I just have to always know that that may happen. I hope it doesn't, but I'm ready for it if it does.
NP: Well, I'm hoping for the more positive of those two outcomes.
JG: I hope so too, but you know, we'll see. I guess we'll see.
Janeane Garofalo: If You Will - Live in Seattle is available on DVD and Blu-ray.
Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior will debut on CBS in 2011.
"Sometimes I fall dreadfully short, behavior-wise, activity-wise. Sometimes I'll watch bad television, sometimes I'll read crappy magazines and I'm ashamed, because I've done it," she admits. The New York resident, who recently released a new stand up DVD entitled If You Will, is currently living outside of her comfort zone in a Los Angeles hotel while filming the Criminal Minds spin-off Suspect Behavior (which also stars Academy Award winning actor Forest Whitaker).
Like crack down a pipe, The Young and the Restless is coming down the cable into her hotel room, and Garofalo is unable to resist her nightly SOAPnet fix. "I discovered it when I started staying here two months ago. And I have been falling asleep to it," she reveals when asked about her "guilty pleasures" (my words not hers).
Though a daytime drama might just be a pleasant - if unsubstantial - distraction for anyone else, for the earnestly politically correct Garofalo it's a matter of personal integrity. "If I'm going to be falling asleep, I should be reading," says the Air America alum, who doesn't want to be guilty of denigrating the work of fellow actors by using my "guilty pleasure" phrase, nor of indulging in the potentially socially toxic material we've previously been discussing.
"I do feel guilt and it is my pleasure," adds Garofalo, who it seems is constantly torn between her desire to fix society and her need to participate in it - flaws and all. Holding herself to impossible standards of moral perfection may be the source of undue anxiety, but Garofalo's awareness of her own - and our culture's - shortcomings brings sharp social commentary to her humor, and makes for an illuminating conversation - which, after a little small talk, soon turns to topics that carry more gravitas than glasses.
Nicole Powers: You rock the nerd glasses like no one else I know. You look so hot in them. But on the DVD you describe yourself as "a bit of a neo-luddite" when it comes to technology. I feel so led astray. On 24, you did all this crazy geek shit and you totally looked like you could actually do it.
Janeane Garofalo: Yeah, but I am not computer savvy. I don't use a computer. But that is not the glasses' fault. They're not nerd glasses anymore, nor have they been for years. These glasses, whether they be cat eye or Clark Kent glasses, are now such a standard of the Lower East Side of New York, that the nerd issue is long gone. So you can't be angry at me.
NP: I'm just jealous. I'm a geek, but I can't work it in glasses like that.
JG: I bet you could...I think most people look better with glasses. Especially if they are in the right frames, it enhances the character of their face. I'm glad I have to wear glasses. Not only because I like them, but, as I get older, so I don't have to worry about people really recognizing all the signs of aging around my eyes. I know I shouldn't care about those things, but I have to be honest, it does bother me to witness the aging process and glasses hide that a little bit...The show that I'm on now, I don't wear glasses I wear contacts. And, it's in HD, which is the scourge of my existence. I wish so much my character could wear glasses, just so I could hide behind them.
NP: This is the new Criminal Intent?
JG: It's Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior. But I can understand why you'd be confused because there's 8 million crime procedural shows, all with similar names.
NP: I have every confidence now that there are more crimes solved on TV each week then there are solved in real life by police in America.
JG: That's why we like those shows isn't it? We like to imagine there is a fully functioning and honest judicial system where things are properly adjudicated through the courts and the bad guys always get caught. That's why these shows are popular. Because we want to believe...In the same way, medical dramas are popular - 'cause you want to believe there's all those doctors out there who care, who will go the extra mile for you.
NP: What's going to make your crime procedural stand apart from the others?
JG: That's the problem with TV isn't it? Hopefully just having Forest Whittaker will set it apart in some way. But this is my dilemma with network television. As much as I love working there - because it is wonderful to have a job - ask anybody who's unemployed. I am filled with gratitude for working. What I'm not thrilled about is network television's constraints that they put on the writers...
I wish we had more freedom. But that's the nature of mainstream television. It doesn't really allow you to be too terribly different under the auspices of the crime genre. But Forest, just watching him work, he really is different. It's not like any other detective that I've seen. He just does it differently. He just has his own style. And, hopefully, I will be able to bring something different to it - at least that's my intention.
NP: So are you Forest's sidekick?
JG: I am indeed. It's a wonderful cast. It's Michael Kelly, Beau Garrett, Matt Ryan and Richard Schiff from The West Wing. It's nice to work with him again. The cast is fantastic and the crew is great. It's a real joy to work there. But I am not thrilled with all this violence - especially the violence against women. It really pricks at my conscience.
NP: Right. I love Law & Order, but the SVU series...
JG: Yeah, that bothers me.
NP: It makes me feel uncomfortable.
JG: Me too.
NP: Because it does make the crimes salacious and titillating.
JG: Salacious - that's the word I use on a daily basis. On a daily basis. It actually sometimes keeps me up at night, because my conscience is bothering me about it. Believe me, I'm not alone on the show in this feeling. Hopefully we will be able to get past that, because myself and the other cast members, our consciences do feel what you're feeling, and the word salacious is a perfect way to describe it.
NP: There is this weird imbalance, especially on network TV. You can show sex as part of a crime because then it's technically not sexy, but of course we all know that they're making it that way.
JG: It's for titillation purposes.
NP: But you can't show sex in a positive way, in a purely sexual way, because that's sex.
JG: It's totally fucked. And it's not culturally helpful. I don't want to be culturally irresponsible. But luckily, everyone in the cast - Forest especially - we are all hyper aware of that. So, even though they have that stuff, believe me, we are trying to move past that. I'm hoping that we can because we don't need more of it in the culture.
It's no different than British Petroleum pumping shit out into the gulf is it? It's like a pipe pumping out toxic waste, and luckily I'm working with people who are aware that that is not what we want to be doing, and hopefully we won't. But, unfortunately, you know that bullshit phrase that people use: We give the people want they want?
NP: Right, yes.
JG: Like it's the public demanding this kind of tawdry nonsense. I don't like that kind of pass the buck attitude, but a lot of stuff [like] that happens when you take these jobs on television. They sort of say, "Yeah, look, I didn't want to do that either, but the public likes it." I don't buy that. If you give them good stuff, they love it too. I mean, look at Mad Men.
NP: Also look at Oprah. I remember when the afternoon talk show circuit had devolved into this sordid and sensational scene. Then Oprah chose to break out and take the high ground, and look where Oprah is now compared to the other hosts of that era.
JG: Of course. It's a flawed argument. Sure there's some segment of the public that likes to eat shit. Fine. That's not my problem. We don't have to feed them that - right? But if you give the public good things, they do like that too. It's not fair to presume that the whole of the public and the aggregate wants a mediocre product. Also that's a weird point of origin for a show isn't it? Luckily, we have these discussions, like the one you are having now. I don't know if other shows have these discussions - maybe they do.
NP: Is it a fairly collaborative process between you and the writers?
JG: Yes. It is in that we can have these discussions. But sometimes I, and the cast, we don't prevail. We are overridden by the powers that be...So it is collaborative in that they are quite open to us at any time coming in to the offices and saying that. They go, "Eventually, once we're on our feet and the show is airing, we're going to move away from that." Then the cast always says, "But why are we starting there?"
But they feel like to start there is the way to get people, which I disagree with. But they feel like that's how you do it. You give them something they are familiar with and then you can move and get more creative. I hope in a way, in this case, they're right and I'm wrong, because I do want people to watch it. I do want to work there. I do want to keep my job. I do want to do a good show. I don't want to be part of something that I don't think is helpful culturally, and I don't want to do anything that's tawdry, masquerading as a crime series. Does that make sense?
NP: Absolutely. It is just so weird, the relationship that television in particular has with human sexuality. The flip side of that is this whole spate of shows highlighting teen pregnancy. All they've done is open their legs and forgotten to use a condom and we reward these kids with TV shows and magazine covers.
JG: It's no different than toxic waste or mercury in fish. It's low level poisoning...All of this mainstream entertainment, if you will, and mainstream tabloid journalism and mainstream corporate media news, lots of it is no different than mercury poisoning and low-level degradation. Bit by bit, piece by piece. They say you are what you eat, but you are what you read, you are what you see, you are what you process, and you are what you do with it.
NP: Right. Young children learn by repeating what they see.
JG: It's patterning and desensitization. It's a lack of consciousness. The collective unconscious is being degraded. But, you know, this is not new. This has been happening for years.
NP: It's been happening for years, but I guess the one thing that is new with reality TV is the glorification of dysfunction.
JG: You're right. And it's so-called reality TV, because it's not is it? Because what is it? The Hawthorne Effect, meaning that nobody can behave naturally because they're aware of being watched.
NP: The very fact that you're observing changes behavior.
JG: Exactly. And the producers of these shows encourage bad behavior, and then the editors are cast with editing it to the worst way. It is this chain where the shit is rolling down hill, and everybody passes the buck. Everybody says that this is what the public wants. Everybody just wants to keep their jobs. Everybody just wants to get a paycheck because they want to put their kids in a nice school...But, especially if you have kids, you should care more about this shit. You're being emotionally, mentally and intellectually shoved and pushed and prodded until you are just a blunt object, you know, societaly...I'm getting so hepped up here I'm not even articulating myself correctly. Do you know what I mean? So we're all just dense. We just don't care. You lose your empathy for people. You lose your perspective on what is proper behavior. How to appropriately treat one another.
NP: We've become desensitized to bad behavior en masse, as a society.
JG: It's just garbage, garbage, garbage. Tabloid magazines, sub-par news, crappy television programming, these reality shows where people are fighting, and, also, just the language in general. Just the degradation of the English language. The slang and the coarseness. Then add to that the texting and the sexting, and just the snark and the culture of cruelty, all of it - it's just a sea of garbage. Hopefully though, what will happen is there will be a renaissance out of it, of people rejecting this, moving in a different direction, saying, "You know what? I can't take this anymore."
NP: I'd like to think that will be the case, but the direction we're going in, I mean, can you get lower than Jersey Shore?
JG: Well, The Hills is just as shit, isn't it? The only difference is socio-economics.
NP: I guess you're right.
JG: People seem to pick on the Jersey Shore kids because it seems worse. But what is the difference between The Hills, The Kardashians and Jersey Shore? Money.
NP: You're absolutely right.
JG: What's the difference between political crime, corporate crime and the mafia? Better suits. Money. [That's] the difference between the Cosa Nostra, the actual mafia, and say Bush, Cheney, British Petroleum and Karl Rove. What is the difference between organized and political corporate crime? Better suits and they don't use double negatives.
And what's the difference between a gang of street thugs and corporate and political criminals? Money. And how we process it. Somehow Dick Cheney is considered different than any other gang member in East LA, for no reason other than imbued money/power status. And, of course, that guys like Dick Cheney are above the law, and guys in East LA are not.
NP: Right. And guys like Dick Cheney are absolute master manipulators.
JG: Yeah. They are sociopaths. Dick Cheney is a sociopath. He has no empathy. He clearly does not feel remorse, and, he clearly has no problem lying.
NP: I know that you hate the Tea Party movement, but that's a so-called "grassroots" bunch of folks that are virtually all victims of sociopaths. They're victims of manipulators who are cynically and deliberately motivating uneducated people to act against their self-interest.
JG: Exactly. Okay, the Tea Party movement, the Tea Baggers, they are suckers right? But they also are racist. Racist. It's not a populist movement at all. It's a racist movement. The first Tea Party was scheduled for Obama's inauguration day, so clearly they were upset with the job he was doing before he even did it. Never before has anyone asked to see a president's birth certificate. The Tea Party movement is built on one thing - hatred of the color of the man's skin and fear of modern multicultural America. I've never met more apologists for racists in my life then I have from the Tea Party movement.
But yes, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Dick Armey, all these cynics at the top, all these sociopaths at the top - they suffer from what [psychiatrists now] call Antisocial Personality Disorder - which, in behavioral psychology, is somebody that continuously does things that harm society, feels no remorse, guilt, [they're] not tethered to honesty.
NP: They're smart enough to know that racism is wrong, but they have no qualms about using it as a manipulation tool - to unite through a common hatred.
JG: Unite through hate. That is what the Republican Party stands for. That's what they've been standing for, more or less, since the Civil Rights era. The conservative movement and the Republican party of the last 40 years has been moving steadily to the right, and steadily to being the party of wedge issues. Because contemporary society has outgrown the Republican Party, so they have to do this. They have to keep micromanaging, and keep inspiring hate wherever they can - fear wherever they can - so that they can manipulate people into voting against their better interest. That's just a tale as old as time. What is the difference between that and any gang member, anywhere? It's the same.
NP: I think that gang behavior is more honest.
JG: Yes, it is.
NP: I think your average Tea Partier is a victim of abuse and manipulation.
JG: But they're still racist aren't they?
NP: They're blinded by hatred.
JG: And fear.
NP: But the people who are truly evil are the people that are inciting and manipulating that hatred and fear.
JG: Exactly.
NP: It's just classic mind control, and tactics of distraction. I mean the Tea Baggers aren't even talking about the tax breaks for the rich.
JG: Of course not! It's not about policy. It's about emotion. It's all limbic brain. It has nothing to do with actual policy. You can tell a right-winger - whether it be a Tea Bagger or whatever you want to call them - anything but the truth. They'll believe anything you tell them, but the truth. In fact the truth causes them to become confused and angry. They get quite reactive. They don't like facts. They don't like to think of the big picture. They don't like to be empathetic. They don't like to see things from many perspectives. They don't like nuance. It's all the limbic brain. It's neuroscience. It's emotional.
NP: The other thing that they use to manipulate is religion. It's just another manipulation tool in American politics.
JG: In all politics...It has been utilized and used as a weapon, as a divider, in every culture in every era. It's not new. One would hope we would've outgrown it by now. There's nothing inherently wrong with religion in and of itself. I don't care, especially if you're a guy like Martin Luther King. More power to you if you're going to use religion as a tool to better yourself and society. Wonderful. But that's not how most leaders use it. I also happen to like science. I'm interested in it. It answers the big questions and it comforts me. I don't know why more people who are religious don't feel comforted by scientific answers because they're fine with every other area of technology.
NP: People that reject science and believe humans walked around with dinosaurs, still watch TV and use cell phones.
JG: Exactly. They also will avail themselves of medical technology. Say they have a premature baby, they will use every area of medical technology to save their baby but they will still vote against stem cell research.
I'm getting all hepped up lady. This is crazy. I have to go soon. I have to go to work. But we have gotten into many interesting areas. I hope you don't feel that I'm being too strident with you.
NP: Not at all. SuicideGirls is all about being strident. I think there's a need to be more so. I believe that one of the greatest ills in this country is apathy. When you allow apathy to rule, that's when the people that aren't apathetic, like the Tea Baggers that are fueled with hate, can bring their minority agenda to the fore.
JG: Exactly. There's a famous phrase: Never underestimate the power of a small group of committed people. I think Margaret Mead said it. She meant it in a positive way, but it also can be used the other way. Never underestimate the power of guys like Karl Rove, and how much damage they can do.
These right-wingers never ultimately win, because time marches on and it marches past them. If conservatives always won, we'd still own slaves and women would never vote. They never ultimately win - right? But they do a hell of a lot of damage in the meantime kicking and screaming towards a more evolved society.
...Don't lose faith, or heart. The news and everything focuses undo attention on these people. The majority of the country is not backward like this. It's a good titillating news story, to focus on these people as if they are legitimate. They aren't. They imbue them with legitimacy, just like they imbued in the Civil Rights era legitimacy on the people that were beating up Civil Rights marchers. But they're not legitimate.
NP: That's why I'm really enjoying the stand Steven Colbert and Jon Stewart are taking at the moment, organizing their own opposing rallies.
JG: Of course, and you know, we can all do it...Every single one of us can take a stand personally. We can all do it. And, it does make a difference. The biggest thing, and you're quite right, apathy. That's the worst place you can be in, because then life just happens to you. All this stuff just happens to you, and you're just witnessing the back slide of culture, and you're not doing anything about it.
NP: Right. We're all complaining about Jersey Shore while watching it.
JG: Right. And also, who gives a shit ultimately? Why are we complaining about Jersey Shore? The editors and the producers of the show have made them look horrible. Just like in The Hills or The Kardashians - wherever these crap-tastic shows are. These people are edited to look at their worst, but you know, there's no reason to be watching it. It's like eating junk food. Just don't do it. Just put it down. Nobody is compelling you to watch it?
...Sometimes I'll do a radio interview and they try and discuss Jersey Shore, and I'll say, "I don't know. I haven't seen that, but do you want to talk about the Tea Party? There's other ways we can go with this conversation." And most people treat you like you're an asshole.
NP: No, I'm glad that you're fighting the fight. I very much hope with your TV show that you can push back, and you and Forest and the writers can get it to a place where you're comfortable and proud, and it moves the genre in a healthier direction.
JG: Yeah, I hope so too. Like I said, the network, they've been very good about listening, talking about this, which I think is unusual...Maybe they weren't thinking about it before - 'cause they were just making a product. Hopefully the cast is making them think about it. Or, I may get fired. That's always a possibility. I may get fired. I have to accept that. If you're going to discuss these types of things, and if its possible that somebody finds it irritating, you always have to be ready - or I do - I just have to be ready for somebody to say, "Well, maybe you shouldn't be here." Even though I want to have a job, like anyone, I have to accept they might say, "Look, this is the show we're doing, make a decision." I just have to always know that that may happen. I hope it doesn't, but I'm ready for it if it does.
NP: Well, I'm hoping for the more positive of those two outcomes.
JG: I hope so too, but you know, we'll see. I guess we'll see.
Janeane Garofalo: If You Will - Live in Seattle is available on DVD and Blu-ray.
Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior will debut on CBS in 2011.