Exploiting the Truth
To my mind, it's immaterial whether Fox took his meds before recording this political advertisement. Some people who have Parkinson's cannot afford the medications. How can exposing the truth about a disease be unbecoming or exploitative. At least Fox and McCaskill are telling the truth, which is more than we can say about most Republicans lately.
2 comments:
I think that Fox is appearing himself to appeal not only on the basis of his fame but also to evoke an emotional response from the audience by displaying the symptoms of his disease. But, as you say, it is the truth. He lives with the symptoms of the disease, and he is making his personal suffering public because he believes it is a matter that needs public attention. Every time I see an ad asking for donations to St. Jude, I see an image of a sick child. Same reasons, same goals--hopefully motivating public response to an important problem. So while I do believe that Fox went on TV blatantly displaying the symptoms of Parkinsons for political purposes, perhaps even intentionally abstaining from meds, there is nothing wrong with his choice to do that. It is the truth.
Once again, Oxymorn has his finger on the discursive pulse of Uhmerrikah. For those newly coming to this story, Harrogate has discovered a stunningly broad context he feels it might be useful to share:
This Michael J. Fox-bashing thing is getting mad play on the internet and Talk Radio right now. The Right blogosphere is all over it, Fox News Channel had it as their main online headline most of the day (concurrent with the transcript Chimpy's undoubtedly brilliant Iraq speech), and Townhall collumists and bloggers are already piling on. And of course, Rush Limbaugh was the one who started all the huffing. It figures.
Now, whenever it stops raining in St. Louis, some group has put together a response ad to air during Game 4 of the World Series. Famously conservative actress Patty Heaton (_Everybody Loves Raymond_ and Cards Game 4 starter Jeff Suppan join a gaggle of socially repressive celebrities; it ought to be some pretty entertaining bile all the way around.
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