Panel Discussion

Let's meet our panel.
She is a film critic, a contributor to "The Fox Movie Show," and the co-host of KPRZ'S "Holly McClure Live," Holly McClure right over here.
Holly.

[ Applause ]

Holly: Hey, Bill.

Bill: Hey.

Holly: Good to see you.

Bill: Good to see you.
One of the very fine stars of a very fine show, "The West Wing"
Wednesdays at 9:00 on another network, Bradley Whitford.
I love this show.

[ Cheers and applause ]

I love that "West Wing."
The star of the upcoming movie "Shadow of the Vampire."
His "Circle Comedy Tour" hits L.A.'s Henry Fonda Theater this weekend, Eddie Izzard is back, everyone.

[ Cheers and applause ]

Eddie.
How are you, sir?
God save the Queen.
She's one of the stars of the phenomenal "Blair Witch Project."
Her new movie, "Boys and girls," opens tomorrow, Heather Donahue.
Heather.

[ Applause ]

Hey.
How are you?
Wow.

Heather: Nice to meet you.

Bill: Thank you very much.
All right.
And these are --
discs for another show.

[ Laughter ]

Okay.
I want to talk a little bit about political correctness, oddly enough, because I mentioned this in the monologue the other day, the National Alliance for the mentally ill is protesting Jim Carrey's new movie "Me, Myself & Irene."
They say it is insensitive to people with multiple personality disorders, which is, by the way, not the same thing as schizophrenia.
And they sent us this writer's guide about a year ago.
It's from the National Stigma Clearing House.

[ Light laughter ]

And it says you can't use words like "Schizo, psycho, wacko, looney bin, insane asylum, funny farm."
You know, with wackos like this out there, how --

[ Laughter ]

How can I not use these words?
Is what I'm saying --

Eddie: Are they saying you can't use them, or people shouldn't --

Bill: This is a guide for people in television, to set an example on the public airwaves that we should all be a little more sensitive to people who are nuts.

[ Laughter ]

Bradley: They're schizophrenic.

Bill: They are.
I would remind them, this is a Farrelly brothers movie, you know.

Holly: It offends everyone, bill.
I mean, midgets will be offended, Albinos will be offended, children will be --

Bill: You've seen this?

Holly: Oh, yes.

Bill: Oh.

Holly: And everyone --

Bill: Right, 'cause you're a film critic, yeah.

Holly: Everyone will be offended.
No one will walk out of there feeling they've --

Heather: But is it funny?

Holly: There are funny moments, yes.
Very offensive, but they're very funny moments.
It's the Farrelly brothers, so --

Bill: These are the guys who made "Something About Mary."

Holly: Exactly.

Heather: But it's entertainment, and they made a lot of money.

Bradley: The problem is not when you're laughing at a Jim Carrey movie about schizophrenia.
The problem is when people are laughing at a documentary about schizophrenia.
That would be a problem.

Bill: And certainly, the Farrelly brothers are not a documentary.

Holly: No, they're not.

Bill: I believe their last movie was about a woman who used semen as hair gel.

[ Laughter ]

Holly: But you know what?
You know what?
"Something about Mary" had a sweetness to it.
I mean, even though there were some bizarre things that happened that were funny, it was kind of a sweet story.
This is just a bizarre story and Jim Carrey's mean in this movie.
So I mean, he offends everyone.
So, I -- trust me.
Albinos will protest, midgets will protest.

Eddie: You can't call them midgets, though.

Holly: Well, they do in the movie.
Black midgets.

Eddie: I thought people of restricted growth.

Holly: They call them midgets in the movie.
That's what they say.
I'm saying -- I'm naming who will be offended from the movie.

Eddie: But I was saying, if the clearing house is saying you can't say all these words, they better come up with some words for people who cut you off on the road and you want to lean out on the window and say, "Hey, you --"
And you've gotta have something to say.

[ Laughter ]

"You whack --
you pretty bad-driving type person," that doesn't work.

[ Laughter ]

We need alternative swear words, cuss words.

Bill: But Eddie, I have to tell you, you know, England is worse than America.
I mean, you think we're politically correct and we are and it's gotta stop.
But England -- listen to this --

[ Laughter ]

Eddie: But before you say that --
I think "Politically correct" is a bad term.
It's a media term.

Bradley: Censorship.

Eddie: It cuts in.

Holly: Paranoia.

Eddie: It should be positive attitude.
It should be open-ended.
Pa, positive attitude, in that you can move that.
But the word correct is bad.

Bill: Well, listen to this, mother --

[ Laughter ]

In gloucester, England, they now have undercover bigot police.
You talk about big brother.
They took police who sit in a restaurant and try to overhear the conversations of people.
One man has already been arrested for inappropriate table talk.

[ Laughter ]

Bradley: That's the charge?

Bill: That's the charge.

[ Laughter ]

Another one was mimicking an Indian waiter.
Well, if you can't make fun of ethnic waiters --

[ Laughter ]

You know.
Why do you think we go to that restaurant?
It's not the food.

Heather: Doesn't this just go to show why the first amendment is so important and why so many people come to this country?

Holly: Yes.

Heather: We have those freedoms, no one else has them.
And as many problems as there are with it, it's still ultimately --

Bill: Do we really have those freedoms?
John Rocker's out of a job, 'cause he's an [ bleep ].

Bradley: No, John --

[ Laughter ]

John Rocker was not sent down until he wasn't pitching well.

Bill: That's the lie that the Atlanta Braves tell you.

Bradley: If he was pitching --
if he was at the top of his game, they would have kept him up there.

Bill: That's ridiculous.

Bradley: He's a schmuck.
He shouldn't get fired.

Bill: He was a schmuck.
He got fired because he's a schmuck.
Not be -- he had a bad stretch of pitching.
He was one of the best pitchers -- anybody else with his record who wasn't speaking the way he spoke, would not have been sent down.
That was a cover story, "He's pitching badly."
Come on.

Heather: But he wasn't put in jail.
He still wasn't arrested.
He might've lost his job, but he wasn't arrested, like this guy in this restaurant for imitating an Indian waiter.

Holly: Well, first of all --
first of all, who is defining what is derogatory or not?
Who's defining what is bigoted or not?
Who is making up the rules so that we know even where to start from?
Who's setting the standards for this?
I mean, if we get so sensitive to the fact that someone says something --
what happened to just ignoring the person, saying, "Sorry, I don't believe that" --

Bradley: Well, Rocker was saying --
faggot, Jew.
You know, I mean, he was --
it was pretty clear.

Holly: And it's not right, okay?
But did it really hurt anyone?
I mean, really, did it --

Bradley: And even if it does --

Heather: Who's to say the guy's not giving a tribute 'cause he loves the melodic quality of the Indian accent?
How do we know it's not a tribute to the Indian waiter?

[ Laughter ]

Bill: Well, okay.

Holly: That's a good point.
That's a good point.

[ Applause ]

Bill: I give a melodic tribute to Indian food about two hours after I eat it.

[ Laughter ]

Eddie: But from experience, would you say that's what he's gonna do?
I doubt that.
You know, 'cause --
if that was just -- that, for me, is just as pure racism, much more than --

[ All talking at once ]

Heather: So do you want to arrest Hank Azaria for doing the voice of Apu on "The Simpsons"?

Holly: But did the Indian guy even hear it?
I mean, if you've got a policeman sitting there, writing down comments, what people say in the privacy of their dinner at a restaurant --

Bill: But Holly, that's not the point.
Even if it does hurt somebody, the government isn't here to stop all hurts.

Holly: Exactly.
My point.
Exactly.

Bill: There is hurt in life.

Heather: Amen.

Holly: I agree with you.

Bill: The government's only here to prevent physical hurt --
robbery, rape, being beaten.
Okay, not -- you know, what happened to sticks and stones?

Holly: That's true, that's true.
I agree with you.

Eddie: I think what happens in the real world on the street is just gonna happen.
No one's gonna legislate against that.

Bill: Right.

Eddie: And what happens in the government, governments shouldn't -- and television and media shouldn't be using racist terms.

Bill: Exactly.

Eddie: And there should be laws on that.

Bradley: And I agree with you on this, as it applies to, like, hate crimes.
I mean, I think that it's a very scary, slippery slope to go down, that you prosecute someone differently for what they're thinking.

Heather: Right.

Holly: Yeah, than what they do.

Bradley: It's not part of the process, but it's certainly --

Bill: Well, then you are a very good actor 'cause you convince me of the opposite when you play your character.

Bradley: Well, they were paying me.

[ Laughter ]

Bill: We gotta take a break, we'll be right back.

[ Cheers and applause ]

---


[ Cheers and applause ]

Bill: All right, we were talking about --
okay, whatever.
Whatever.
I was gonna say, words that hurt.
And often, as we were saying, you know, it really isn't a matter for the law.
It doesn't affect your life.
But here's a case where it really did.
I don't know how many are familiar, there's a college called Beaver College.
Okay --

[ Laughter ]

I do not bring this up for any cheap joke.
This is a story in the news.
And the story is that they are having to change their name.
I mean, they have been there since 1853.
And, of course, people have made jokes.
Beaver has taken its [ bleep ] for its name.

Holly: Oh!

[ Laughter ]

Bill: But --
they just voted --
their board, 23-1, to change their name to something else, anything else.
Because --

[ Laughter ]

It's not the joke, it's the fact that people can't apply anymore because of Internet filters.
The Internet filters out that word.
They see that word, "Beaver," and --
so kids who want to know about --

[ Laughter ]

Holly: Beaver College.

Bill: Yes.
Kids who might want to get into Beaver, can't.

[ Laughter ]

Eddie: I thought it --
I thought the problem --

Bill: And boy, are they right.

Eddie: I thought the problem was the case that people were going to Beaver College, and it was coming up with like 99 sex sites.

Bill: Exactly.

Eddie: And they were right at the bottom of that.

Heather: I thought that and I did a search for Beaver College today.
And all that came up was Beaver College.
That's all I got.

Eddie: The actual college?

Heather: Yeah.

Holly: I did, too.

Eddie: So they're doing very well, then.

Holly: I looked it up, too, and I didn't see anything other than Beaver College.

Heather: But what's the big deal?
Again, it's like, I'm sure this whole publicity thing is just getting more applicants for Beaver College.

Eddie: But did you look it up on a kids' site?

Heather: No.

Eddie: Did you have to go to one of those kids' Websites which filters out things?

Heather: But wouldn't that site filter out all the porno?
I think people, again, with all the Internet porn and whatnot, people are making such a big deal out of nothing.
People have had -- boys have had "Playboy" in their dresser drawers since the day it was published.

Bill: Yes.

[ Laughter ]

Holly: And how do you know?

Bradley: No, you know, I majored in diving at [ bleep ] state --

[ Laughter ]

Holly: So now, you know there's better.

Bradley: I think if the name of your college is Beaver College, you just have to say uncle.
Because it's gonna be --

Bill: Yeah.

Bradley: It's gonna be silly.
I mean, the parents, "Yeah, we're so proud of Timmy, he got into Beaver."
You know --

[ Laughter ]

It's gonna be tough.

Heather: Gotta have a sense of humor about it.

Bradley: It's like an AIDS reduction plan.
I mean, change your name.
You know?

Bill: The AIDS reduction plan?

Bradley: Remember, it was a diet thing.

Bill: They had to go out of business.

Bradley: Right.

Bill: Sometimes you just gotta throw up the white flag.
That was just bad timing.
But you're right, there was a diet --
I remember -- you're right, I hadn't thought of that in years.
But when AIDS came along, there was a mint called AIDS.

Bradley: Right.

Bill: And I'd hate to be in that marketing meeting.
"Okay, fellas, we need some really good ideas on how we are gonna pull ourselves away from that other AIDS."

Bradley: "We're the different AIDS."

Bill: Yeah.

Bradley: "We're the other AIDS."

[ Laughter ]

Eddie: Aren't there other colleges other than Beaver College that have this problem?
There must be.

Bill: Ball State --

Bradley: Ball State.

Bill: -- Comes to mind.

[ Laughter ]

You know.

Bradley: Ball State U, Ball U.

Holly: Well, people are still going there, so obviously someone found the school.
And they obviously like it.

Bill: Oral Roberts probably has an Internet filter --

[ Laughter ]

Carnegie Mellon, I would think probably --

Eddie: Well, couldn't Beaver College just keep the name and then have pornography as one of their main subjects --

[ Laughter ]

They'd get a lot of people surfing porn sites and then saying, "I want to go to that college.
It's so much fun."

Bill: Well, you know, I mean --

Bradley: Beaver school, yeah.

Bill: We talked about this recently, that libraries have -- or don't have, on their computers, any of these filters and they want them, and I think they should have them, because you couldn't put "Hustler" magazine in the library.
And yet, the ACLU does not want the library to be able to ban pornography --

Bradley: Does the library provide hand cream and tissues, or is it -- ?

Bill: Well, they should, because, I mean --

Holly: Yeah, because that's what it's gonna attract.
Basically what you're doing with a library having pornography is you're setting a situation for every pedophile who wants to come in, and every child molester who wants to come in.
Basically, it's a candy store.
They can come into a library, get their jollies, and also look around for the next prey.

Bradley: It's a mess.

Heather: And they're also gonna have to improve the filters that are used, though.

Bradley: Yes.

Heather: Because they're so inaccurate, and they're so --

Holly: Why do we even have to have porn in the library in the first place?
Why do you have to --

Heather: 'Cause it's online and you have to have Internet access.

Eddie: Why do the pedophiles and whatever come into the library?
Why don't they just get the computer and do it at home?

Holly: Because then they get children there.
The point is that then they have the kids there to prey on.

Bill: It's a one-stop shopping situation.

[ Laughter ]

Holly: It's a one-stop shopping thing.
See it, get it, you look it up --

Eddie: That's very American, isn't it?

[ Laughter ]

Bradley: A minimal.

Eddie: We haven't got that set up yet.

Bill: You will.
Stay with us.
We'll be right back.

[ Cheers and applause ]

---

Announcer: Join us tomorrow when our guests will be actor and comedian Pauly Shore, songwriter Jimmy Jam, recording artist Tracy-Dawn, and from the band Guster, Ryan Miller.

[ Applause ]

Bill: All right, we were talking about the difference between England and America.
I always like to do that when you're here, Eddie.
And of course, your country is a Socialist country.

Eddie: Social Democratic now.
It has sort of moved away from Socialist.
Socialist was equivalent to Communism.

Bill: It's Socialist, believe me.
And our country is about this far away from being a Socialist country and I'll give you an example.
This week, President Clinton decreed that all Federal Employees get 12 weeks off, paid, if you want to have a baby.
If you want to spit out a child, as your recreational diversion --

[ Light laughter ]

Your employer and fellow workers will cover you, 12 weeks of paid vacation.

Heather: Amen.
Amen.

[ Applause ]

Bill: All right.

Eddie: They seem to like it.

Bill: There's plenty of Socialists right here.

Heather: And why not?
I mean, what?
You should have a child who then gets raised by a Nanny who then is completely frustrated, brings a gun to school?
Like that --
I mean, at what point --

Bill: People used to take care of that situation on their own.
They were like, "Ooh, I'm going to have a baby, I guess I better take certain precautions, find certain people, maybe get a wife,"
whatever it took.

[ Laughter ]

You know, whatever arrangements had to be --

Heather: It's just not as economically possible anymore.

Bill: What?

Eddie: I mean, I could see it both ways.
But you are America now, you are the Roman empire.
You --

Bill: Thank you.

Eddie: There's no one else, since, you know, USSR --
went out of that.
So it's just you and the Roman empire.
Very similar thing.
And so you've got this cash, you got the government surplus.
And so spread it around.
Have a holiday.

[ Laughter ]

[ Applause ]

Bradley: But is it also in addition to --
for having a baby if you're taking care of someone who's sick?

Bill: That's also true.

Bradley: So it's not just people recreationally spitting out children.

Heather: No.

Bill: No.

Heather: And it would cost the government $60 million a year.
How bad is that, when you look at the scheme of the government --

Bill: $60 million?

Heather: When you look at the scheme of the government budget, it's not that bad.

Bill: The figure is wrong.
$60 million can't be right.
Holly --

Heather: I was reading about it today.

Holly: That can't be right.

Bill: At $60 million --
They can't buy a wrench at the Pentagon for $60 million.

[ Laughter ]

I think it's probably $60 billion.

Heather: People have to earn it.
It's not automatically given to you.

Holly: Okay, but wait a minute.
Who's having the babies, first of all.
Men aren't gonna take off to have babies for 12 weeks, obviously.
It's the women that are doing it.
Let's look at the small business owner.
What happens to him?
Let's say he has four or five employees and two of them get pregnant.

Heather: But we're not talking about small businesses.

Bill: Yeah, we are.

Holly: Yeah, we are.

Bradley: No, he doesn't have to pay.

Holly: Yes, he does have to pay.

Bradley: No, he doesn't have to pay.
The federal government --

Holly: In essence, he has to hire somebody else to come in and cover the shifts.

Bill: It's businesses --
I don't know what the figure is, but it's a certain number.
And it's not -- you don't have to be a big --
this is not just general motors we're talking about.

Holly: No, it's small-time businessmen.
It's gonna put the small businessmen out of business, because they won't be able to afford paying for someone else to come in and cover the person who left for 12 weeks.

Bradley: So what is your answer to someone whose child is dying, a single mother's child is dying.

Holly: I'm a single mother, I've had three kids.
Trust me, my kids have all been sick, I've had to take time off from work, and I've had to take time off from a job to even have a baby.
So I understand it.

Bill: What did people --

Heather: If they had leukemia, if their mother had a stroke --

Holly: Okay, but this is it, you guys, okay, then, let's have some sick leave then.
Then why not Clinton -- which, by the way, he usually does these bills on Friday evening when the news won't cover it and he can slip 'em through so nobody knows --

Bradley: But he didn't with this one.

Holly: But why won't we have some kind of legislation to cover sick child leave, then, so you can take off --
if your child is sick, you can prove they are, and take care of the child.
Why does it have to be a 12-week vacation --
'cause you know kids aren't sick for 12 weeks out of the year.

Bradley: What do you think Clinton's motivation is?
Just, "Let's spend some dough and get a vacation"?

Bill: No, to pander to voters, like his motivation always is.

Bradley: But why?

Heather: Why would he care?
Exactly.

Bill: I mean, what did people used to do before the government wasn't there to take care of all your big problems?

Holly: Exactly.
Before Big Daddy.

Bill: I don't know what happened --
what did people do?

Heather: Are you talking about the Golden era of the '50s, when the mother was able to stay home 'cause it was economically possible for that to happen?

Bill: I guess I am.

[ Laughter ]

Holly, I gotta take a commercial.
We'll be right back.

[ Applause ]

---


[ Cheers and applause ]

Bill: All right, do you know that the --
Two years ago, the head of the FBI took advantage of this, 12 weeks off?
Head of the FBI?

Eddie: He did do that or will do that?

Bill: He did.
Just like your --
Tony Blair is doing now.

Eddie: Had a nice baby.
So what, should we kill him?

Bill: I'm just saying, if you got a big job, maybe you shouldn't take a lot of time off when you got a really big job like that.

Eddie: Had the FBI already done this, even though the law was just now --

Bill: Yeah, and that's why our security is in such good shape in this country, as you see every day.
Okay, I gotta go sell some secrets.
Pauly shore tomorrow with Jimmy Jam, Tracy-Dawn and Ryan Miller.

[ Applause ]

             
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