We’re all aware of CNN’s forthcoming live broadcast of George Clooney and Grant Heslov‘s Broadway presentation of Good Night, and Good Luck, straight from the Winter Garden theatre — Saturday, June 7th at 7 p.m.
Viewers will see an actual stage performance, one that will be concurrently watched by a seated Manhattan audience. The final performance of the play will happen on Sunday, 6.8 — a matinee as Clooney will be attending the Tony awards that evening at the RCMH.
This will be a historic presentation — the first time in history that the performance of a Broadway play has been broadcast live — and fairly wonderful, I feel, on its own merits. There will be pre- and post-show discussions. The presentation will be on CNN’s cable channel as well as CNN.com.
Set in 1954, Good Night, and Good Luck is basically about high-stakes patriotism and the scarcity of backbone and how very few stood up to the brutes and bullies of that era. It’s about Sen. Joseph McCarthy‘s reign of political terror, and how various people in the political and TV realm reacted to this “red scare” atmosphere.
A few called McCarthy’s bluff, but at the time it seemed as if the most influential opponents of McCarthy’s tactics numbered only two, at least as far as general public knowledge was concerned — attorney Joseph N. Welch of the 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings and legendary CBS newsman and See it Now host Edward R. Murrrow.
Murrow’s famous anti-McCarthy expose, which aired on March 9, 1954, condemned McCarthy’s argument that if a person disagreed with or called into question McCarthy’s witch-hunt tactics, then he or she must be considered a Communist dupe or sympathizer or perhaps even an actual, card-carrying pinko who was looking to undermine or weaken the U.S. Constitution and its system of government.
The HE commentariat isn’t going to like this, but beginning in 2018 or thereabouts wokesters had pretty much the exact same deal going on. McCarthy’s, I mean.
If you disagreed with woke fanaticism and had the temerity to question its theology (institutionalized DEI, identity issues above everything else, #MeToo cancellations, pregnant men, Lily Gladstone for Best Actress, the power and the glory of being LGBTQ and especially trans, the 1619 Project as absolute gospel, drag shows in elementary schools, presentism or the historically absurd casting of POCs in certain historical settings, Woody Allen labelled a monster, tearing down statues of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, older straight white guys deemed inherently evil, men competing in women’s sports, the George Floyd riots), you were presumed to be a bad person — perhaps a closet racist or homophobic or transphobic or at the very least a social undesirable.
As it was in the ’50s, nobody wanted to be hit with possible cancellations or social ostracizing or worse, and so they kept their yaps shut.
Who were the intrepid souls who stood up to the woke Khmer Rouge during this reign of terror (’18 to ’24)? I’m obviously no Edward R. Murrow but I sure as shit stood up to the insanity, and so did Sasha Stone starting in ’20…day after day after day after day. Very few manned up in this fashion. Everyone ran for cover.
