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Clooney vs. the far right: what's gay about George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck? In a gay-press exclusive, the superstar director fills us in—and tells us why he's hopeful for America's future on gay rights and civil liberties
Advocate, The, Dec 6, 2005 by Anne Stockwell
At another point in our national history, George Clooney wouldn't be a hero. We'd know him simply as a gifted filmmaker with a nose for ideas and a knack for exploring them on-screen--an A-list actor who's fast moving beyond his bread-and-butter career to take up a lasting role behind the camera.
But in his soft-shoe way, Clooney has for some years now been on a hero's journey, and gays and lesbians have always been invited along. He's a showbiz Robin Hood bewitching fans of all sexes in blockbusters like Ocean's Twelve, then using his clout to make personal films for himself and opportunities for others. Through Section Eight, the production banner he shares with Steven Soderbergh, Clooney has lent his support to gay directors like Todd Haynes (Far From Heaven) and John Maybury (The Jacket). Actually, Clooney's second directorial feature, Good Night, and Good Luck, offers a yeasty gay subtext. But he doesn't milk it. As with so much of his work, it's only there if you look.
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Everything that's most appealing about Clooney comes together in this pared-down, black-and-white trip back in time to the 1953 battle between legendary TV newsman Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn) and Communist-obsessed inquisitor Sen. Joe McCarthy. Clooney, who cowrote the script and who also costars, doesn't dumb down the history. Exposition comes and goes under bursts of overlapping dialogue. The action races.
McCarthy, one of the great American scenery chewers, is not portrayed by an actor but seen via actual TV footage. And in scenes from 1954's famous Army-McCarthy hearings, McCarthy is flanked by another infamous name: attorney Roy Cohn, the senator's closeted but antigay right-hand man [see page 58].
Murrow's on-air challenge of McCarthy started to wake the American people up. But it was the fallout from Cohn's machinations on behalf of an alleged boyfriend that went on to discredit and destroy McCarthy. Good Night, and Good Luck takes us back to the moment when it all came down.
It's well known that Clooney is the son of a newsman. He likes to talk about the respect for journalism he was raised with, the obligation to "speak truth to power." And although Clooney refers to himself as a "big old liberal," he didn't make this stuff up. His reporting is as deadpan as his own way with a quip.
Clooney is a lot of fun to talk to. He's canny and all, but he doesn't feel handled. He's not afraid to speak up. That shouldn't be rare, but it is. It shouldn't be unusual to hear a male star say "I think you"--meaning gays--"should feel hopeful" about the prognosis for gay rights in America. But it is. Maybe Clooney shouldn't be a hero. But he is. In times like these, what can you do?
What a movie.
We're really proud of it.
The film goes back in time to the moment when Edward R. Murrow took on Sen. Joe McCarthy. In doing this movie now, who are you taking on?
I say this in every interview, so I'm not just picking an obviously biased place to say this, but I've been a big old liberal my whole life, and I'm hard-pressed to find when [liberals] have been on the wrong side of social issues--to lose the moral argument. Without the liberal view we'd still be burning witches at the stake, and women wouldn't be voting, and blacks would be sitting at the back of the bus, and we'd be in Vietnam, and McCarthy'd be in power. It's not to knock a conservative point of view, but [ don't understand how we lose a moral argument. And so I found that it was a good time, rather than for me to try and preach--I've seen many of my friends who are actors do that, and I find that to be ineffective at the very least. I find myself turning the TV off at times, because I go, "Ugh, don't do it, don't jump!"
Right.
I found if you can keep something in a historical reference, then you're at least able to raise a debate. And the debate should be as simple as this: This isn't a Right-or-Left, red- or blue-state issue; these are constitutional issues. It was the Republicans that took McCarthy down, not the Democrats. And ultimately the questions are, too, about the responsibility of the fourth estate. Are you going to step up and ask difficult questions of power? My father's an anchorman for 30 years. He went after Jimmy Carter when the OPEC nations raised the price of oil, and he went after Gerald Ford when he pardoned Nixon. The responsibility of the fourth estate is to constantly question authority. Because we know over the history of time, without that challenge, then power corrupts.
So, then, what's been happening lately, George?
Well, that's the second part of this. [The film] is also about bringing up the debate and discussing the use of fear to erode civil liberties. We do this, as you well know, every 30 years. Bomb us at Pearl Harbor and we round up all the Japanese-Americans and stick them in detention camps. We come to our senses and go, What the hell were we thinking?--usually led by the press. I see actually some teeth in the press, which is nice to see again. But in general, I find that it's a good time to address the idea that us imprisoning people without the right to face their accuser, without a speedy trial or Geneva convention rights--that's a union we're protecting that I don't recognize.
