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Jerry Lewis Doesn’t Deserve a Humanitarian Award at the Oscars
The Oscars are about to insult people with disabilities.
At the Academy Awards ceremony Feb. 22, the board of governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences will present its Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award to Jerry Lewis.
Lewis is notorious for making disparaging remarks about others, particularly gay people and women.
But he has said equally degrading things about people with disabilities.
For decades, disability rights activists have criticized how his annual telethon for the Muscular Dystrophy Association exploits people with disabilities by making us into objects of pity.
To this, Lewis responded in 2001, “You don’t want to be pitied because you’re a cripple in a wheelchair, stay in your house!”
Lewis becomes particularly enraged when those who protest against his telethon and him are people with muscular dystrophy — like me.
In a 1993 article in Vanity Fair magazine, he said about me, “This one kid in Chicago would have passed through this life and never had the opportunity to be acknowledged by anybody, but he found out that by being a dissident he gets picked up in a limo by a television station.”
The damage Lewis has done to the disability community goes far beyond name-calling. He and his telethon symbolize an antiquated and destructive 1950s charity mentality.
This says that people with disabilities have no hope and nothing to offer unless we are cured, so the whole focus should be raising money for behemoth charities that can find that cure.
This is a dangerously simplistic outlook.
It devalues and dehumanizes people with disabilities by suggesting we can be worthy contributors only if we first shed our disabilities.
It gives people permission to avoid addressing the daunting task of creating an inclusive society if they simply make an annual contribution to Jerry.
Disability rights activists still fight daily to shatter the barriers that exclude and segregate people with disabilities. Those barriers are rooted in the outmoded charity mentality.
Lewis and his telethon are the primary force that perpetuates that mentality.
By giving Lewis this honor, the board of governors of the Academy shows that its view of people with disabilities and our potential has not evolved in 50 years.
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49 Comments so far
Show AllI wonder if Mr. Ervin suggests that MDA return all the donation money, just to be pc on this matter.
That is not the point. A gift to the wrong person for the wrong reason at the wrong time is still a gift and can be useful to the recipient, but the art of giving transcends any mere utility, and sorry, but Jerry doesn't have it.
Interesting perspective.
I havent see Jerry Lewis in a long time. I remember that in his telethon he would start to get arrogant near the end, but if the money number didnt top the previous year he would suddenly go into begging mode.
Chris Rock had a routine mocking the JL telethon, and the fact that every year he asks for money but the children never seem to get a cure. "Lie to me Jerry. Get Spielberg and do some spfx trick!"
This effort to view "disabled" people differently is a challenge to the medical research industry, which may claim noble goals, but often there is a strong component of simply providing money to keep researchers employed, usually by torturing members of non human species with the occasional announcement of another breakthrough.
Listen to the news when you next hear about a breakthrough using non human animal research. Somewhere in the text it will say: "although a human cure is many years away." It always seems many years away.
I recall an interview with an especially empty headed researcher in which he called MD "mouscular" dystrophy because a similar sort of illness can be replicated in mice so easily.
It was a big joke to him. I guess researchers dont fall far from the same tree that sprouted J Marion Sims and Mengele.
Another thing to ponder, what if Lewis' telethon was strictly to provide money for care services for people with MD? Would the donations be significantly less?
Research money is seen as an investment in your own interests, since you or a loved one may face the same thing.
The term "Miracle Cure," its no accident that the lingo of a preacher would creep into scientific materialism funding drives.
I bet ancient greek augurs would be the same when reading the entrails of dissected birds.
Thanks for the article Mr. Ervin. I wouldn't worry too much though about the award. First, I don't think many teens and younger ones even watch, yet alone know about, Lewis' telethon. (And if they did, I'm sure they'd be instantly bored.) Second, this same group is light years ahead attitude-wise from the older generations as far as regard for people with disabilities. Third, the older folks who have the outdated attitudes you speak of aren't going to change much regardless. They'll be swayed more by experiencing the correct attitudes from their kids and grandkids. I DO suggest you get more active (if you aren't already) in great programs like Character Counts.
I have a family member with Duchenne MD. I'm sure the boy doesn't know or care about these things as long as something or someone is helping to cure his condition. But thanks for making people aware of these matters.
What never enters this conversation is that MD is a genetic disease that could be most likely eradicated if the people who have it in their families would just stop breeding. When I see people who have two or three children with this disease, and who knew it was a possibility, I get simply livid. This is cruelty and the pinnacle of selfishness.
While it might seem possible to eliminate Duchenne muscular dystrophy, if known carrier females did not have children, this is simply untrue. A third of cases are due to new mutations that the patient's mother did not inherit. In addition women who inherit the mutation might have no affected male relative.
Regarding multiple cases in a single family it is quite possible that the elder (eldest) child is not diagnosed until the age of 5 or 6 (especially if the disease is less severe). I fail to see why you get livid since it does not really affect you. My reaction would be one of empathy wondering whether the youngest affected were born due to a lack of diagnosis or the mother exercising her autonomy. I know however that were one to ask an affected person he would almost certainly say that his life, such as it was, was preferable to non-existence.
"exploits people with disabilities by making us into objects of pity."
Yeah! Why would any one feel pity for someone who can't move their limbs? How shameful! It's not like it's a big deal to be confined to a wheel chair for the rest of your life.
"Pity: sympathetic sorrow for one suffering, distressed, or unhappy."
To pity these people - how insulting!
OMG are you really the single most insensitive human being on the planet...or merely the stupidest?
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so." Bertrand Russell
I think most people would rather be 'enabled' than pitied, though some may enjoy that kind of attention.
In the summer of 1967 a senior revenue officer from the Hollywood branch of the IRS met with Jerry Lewis' attorney at her nearby office. Lewis owed hundreds of thousand of unpaid taxes to the federal government. Despite having spent this money on purchasing Israeli bonds instead of rightfully paying it to the U.S. Treasury, Lewis got off for pennies on the dollar, the vast majority of overdue taxes were simply erased. This was approved by the IRS area supervisor at that same office.
A letter regarding this incident, which had to be sent anonymously to the L.A. Times, was never printed but those fellow agents fumed about the incident and the word got out although only anecdotally. An article entitled "Tyranny in the IRS" was published in a magazine soon after but didn't mention this incident specifically, just similar practices going on at the time.
Lewis is a Zionist who owes his allegiance to Israel, not the United States. He needs to be either arrested or deported.
Sadly, but very typically, those who owe millions are handled with kid gloves, even protestants and catholics.....The IRS cannot win battles with $600/hour tax attorneys.
That you assert so arrogantly a claim to know exactly how Lewis spends his money is a bit strange to say the least...
Some topics are like overturning a large rock, much crawls out.....
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so." Bertrand Russell
"Some topics are like overturning a large rock, much crawls out....."
May I use that in the future? There have been a number of large rocks turned over here lately and this would have been perfect to describe the situations.
No copyright protection here, Thomas my friend. Imitation is flattering too....
Most of those rocks seem to have been hurled at you..
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so." Bertrand Russell
The old rock target...thats me! Thanks for the go ahead, I really liked that one!!
There seem to be a lot of folks that don't care for either the truth or another viewpoint lately.....oh well, my patience with ignorant statements seems to be wearing thinner lately.
Patience....Ahhh it becomes so increasingly difficult doesnt it. I find myself renewed by some posters here, and in despair for our national IQ when I read the stuff of others...A normal situation I fear.
Thomas, I have begun to become more selective in my readings. I simply skip the posts of those whose efforts have proven to be useless , ignorant and churlish. Some are so engaged in making themselves the "winner" that they do not see how much they embarrass themselves. A perfect example is the slime hurled at Lewis' religion, as if that was relevant at all... Then there is Joe Hope, I will always read his stuff, he is such a caricature after all....
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so." Bertrand Russell
RR
"I have begun to become more selective in my readings. I simply skip the posts of those whose efforts have proven to be useless , ignorant and churlish. Some are so engaged in making themselves the "winner" that they do not see how much they embarrass themselves. A perfect example is the slime hurled at Lewis' religion, as if that was relevant at all..."
Possibly I can be smart enough to flatter you by imitating your oh so intelligent position. Some here don't seem to live on the same planet, so wrapped in ideology and so interested in "winning" as you say its a wonder they can use Wrigley and walk simultaneously. Others are just too stupid to understand a simple sentence.
"A perfect example is the slime hurled at Lewis' religion"
Truly there are some postings that I feel dirty simply for reading them. Pond scum.
Maybe I'll do better in the future and ignore certain fools.
Thanks!
Yes, I remember Chris Rock's comment that the MDA doesn't do anything. "They don't even give the kid some crutches." This is just another one of America's great charity scams: the United Way, American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, American Red Cross, etc. A great story concerns the American Red Cross who during WW2 collected items from Americans to give to the soldiers overseas. Americans were constrained by rationing at the time but true to their good-hearted nature gave generously. The American Red Cross made individual boxes full of these items and proceeded to SELL them to the soldiers. And let's not forget the corporations who strong arm their employees every year, threatening them with no raises and no promotions, to contribute to the United Way. Medicine in the United States is a business not a humanitarian service. Research, drugs and surgery makes a lot more money than finding a cure which would reduce the income from the former three.
One year the Muscular Dystrophy foundation "earned" $21 million and spent $18 million. Why don't they just call it the TV broadcasting station foundation?
Always knew there was something fishy about Jerry. I've always found his brand of comedy obnoxious. It's the only thing about the French I don't like.
I don't give to charities. I give to people on the street who ask for help. The nearest I come to a charity is the Salvation Army. And I'm waiting for someone to expose them.
"You will eat, bye and bye,
In that glorious land above the sky;
Work and pray, live on hay,
You'll get pie in the sky when you die."
That's the chorus to the "Preacher and the Slave", sung to the tune of "In the Sweet Bye and Bye," a hymn the Salvation Army was known for. Joe Hill was inspired by the theology of the "Starvation Army:" save souls first,then feed the people. I really don't know how they operate now.
Sioux Rose
GEORGE M: Pretty prescient in that Jerry Lewis IS a Pisces, sign of the fish. I remember in his early movies he seemed to mock retarded, or certainly intellectually slow individuals. I figured he paid back karma by doing the telethon to assuage his conscience.
But like Chris Rock mocked, "How come Jerry's kids are still walking around... how come there's no cure for the common cold?" Rock was making a solid point that all this money gets collected but the fundamental diseases do not alter. Thus the approach qualifies for the definition of insanity, they keep repeating the same steps as if "next year" they'll "get there," the promised land. Reminds me of gamblers betting on the next hand into perpetuity, or until they are lifted out of the casino.
P.S. I have a concern for NYC Artist. She has not posted in some time? If you are out there, I (and I'm sure others), hope you are okay. I noticed after New York got hit with lots of cold weather/electrical problems you stopped posting.
Ms. Rose,
Someone noted, weeks ago, that she left due to the difficulties she was having reading the posts in such a small type face...
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so." Bertrand Russell
Thats truly a shame. She was delightful.
I missed the posting giving that information. Its strange that CD doesnt have an option for larger typeface for reading. Many articles do.
Or you could use your browser to zoom 150-200%, than fit to width. That's what I do, otherwise I'd not be able to read anything online...
Excellent! small print is for young eyes!
My cat taught me a trick by lying on the control button. If you hold down control while using the scroll wheel in the center of the mouse, you can increase/decrease the size of type without changing any permanent settings. Can anyone tell NYCArtist?
Joe
I seem to remember NYCa noting an old computer with old software...Maybe she hadnt access to modern solutions.
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so." Bertrand Russell
Whenever you see "race for the cure", think twice. What multinational corporations are sponsoring or propping up this foundation?
Many of the cancer foundations are propped up by corporations with carcinogenic products. There's an entire "think before you pink" movement to re-examine the causes of breast cancer, as opposed to finding a cure.
Remember how W. Bush once looked for weapons of mass destruction under his own desk and all over the oval office, and he didn't find them? His nuclear football was under his desk the whole time. Ah, but he was looking for Saddam's WMDs in his office. So it is with corporations that search for a cure for the people that they themselves disable. Not a cure for the disease, a cure from people.
This is true for MS, diabetes, cancer and heart disease. This isn't as true for MD.
MD is also blessed with strong incurability. Of course, this means that a fraternity can raise funds for MD year after year for centuries on end.
The irony is that even if they find a cure, you will not be able to benefit from it unless you have insurance (and if they approve the treatment). Under these circumstances, I will not donate one dime. Same with organ donation, they encourage you to donate your organs, even if you are ineligible for one yourself (due to lack of finances). That is why we need a single payer health care system so badly. Let Lewis run his MD telethons and collect his award, just do not donate.
Sioux Rose
PAUL K: Good post. A friend of mine headed the American Cancer Society in Puerto Rico years ago and told me MOST of the money collected went to salaries.
Instead of asking people to examine their lifestyles (which would mean lots of toxic profits never got sold), or demand that "industrial food" meet some basic standards of nutrition, it's far easier to launch this search for the holy grail insofar as the magic pill/answer is concerned.
I am COMPLETELY convinced cancers are the result of toxic exposures, our bodies end up eventually succumbing. Some of us have better resistance, strong genes, a very "connected to nature" lifestyle, excellent diet that helps offset this exposure. The detritus of nuclear weapons and particles in the air can also be a factor given how much tonnage of toxic molecules has gone into warfare. EVERYTHING comes full circle, another reason to wage peace.
Asking people to examine their lifestyles and their foodchoices isn't as easy you think it is.
Many people are happy and content with sedentary lifestyles, while stuffing themselves full of unhealthy foods, as long as they don't think about what is going to happen to their bodies in 10-20 years time.
Simply telling them that what they are doing isn't healthy doesn't work. Simply telling them to exercise more, to eat more vegetables, etc, isn't enough. They KNOW. People generally know that a sedentary lifestyle, combined with a diet high in sugars and refined carbohydrates, is going to lead to adult onset diabetes, and heart disease at some point in their lives.
The problem is that many people do want a magic pill. A simple easy solution.
You have to provide them a means to live a healthy lifestyle without asking for too many sacrifices from them. That is the hard part.
Beautifully written, and I agree with you 100%. But there's an even larger issue here. Bear with me:
Back in the late 20s antibiotics were discovered. They actually cured certain bacterial diseases. Since then however, western medicine has not produced a single cure for even one single disease. Let me repeat - NOT A SINGLE CURE FOR ANY DISEASE IN 75 YEARS. Oh, there have been lots of new treatments, and occasionally these treatments succeed in destroying tumors or forcing viruses into remission. But that hardly qualifies as a "cure". And occasionally vaccines are discovered to prevent the onset of disease, but they are of no benefit to those already stricken.
Modern medicine is remarkable in many ways - When the human body is injured, it can usually be repaired good as new. Symptoms can be alleviated. But actually curing disease? Don't bet on it. All the marches, walks, demonstrations and telethons do is raise false hope.
I've always thought that the obnoxious Jerry Lewis telethons were a joke and a scam. He has to be getting a cut from it every year. How else does he maintain his lifestyle? There's too much money to be made from disease. That's why there have been no cures, and that's why we keep being poisoned.
As someone of a 'certain age' I know how hard it is to act on behalf of another human being. The fact is: we are all 'crippled', especially as we grow older. Imperfect, condemned to death, we act poorly and 'all too human'. So be it. Perhaps because he has an overarching ego, or perhaps because, even if only once, he felt genuine pity for another human being and, by extension, the entire human condition, Lewis started his movement.
Ervin says: "He and his telethon symbolize an antiquated and destructive 1950s charity mentality."
Granted. What other mentality should he represent?
The movement is always larger than the man, and this is no exception. Lewis is condemned, like the rest of us, to grow infirm, demented, and only then, when everything that defined him is taken away, to die.
Against that tide, he started a movement that is bigger than him.
Let him be honored for that... at least. Any one of us could do no better.
Good point.
A very good point.
Does Jerry Lewis support stem cell research?
You can't legislate the disability out of disability. You can change what you call it ('cripple', 'spastic', 'disabled', 'differently-abled'), but each word you use will acquire the same connotations because it means what it does.
Sometimes pity is appropriate, provided that it's backed by *action*. There's a word for pity backed by action: 'compassion'. It's something we need a little more of.
http://www.users.bigpond.com/pmurray
http://www.paulmurray.id.au/ageofworms
You are not with the PC program my friend.
"Sometimes pity is appropriate, provided that it's backed by *action*. There's a word for pity backed by action: 'compassion'. It's something we need a little more of."
This is a beautifully made point.
You are all correct, medical treatment has turned in to BIG BUSINESS. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater, though. There have been advances in many areas of treatment. Far, far fewer people die from heart disease, for example, than in the 50's (when my uncle perished at 45). The same with curing leukemia with bone marrow transplants (which would likely have saved my sister from dying of an aplastic anemia at 9, as a result of chloramphenicol administration--bone marrow transplants were experimental then and without success).
Stem cell research is likely to make bone marrow transplants better where rejection issues are resolved. Perhaps stem cell research will lead to organ cloning, and become the 'antibiotic' breakthrough of our times. HOWEVER, what does it matter if the majority cannot afford such treatments? Here we are as taxpayers funding most of the research, while big corps reap the profits. In my view we live under an uber corrupt and perverted--yes perverted--system of medicine.
I saw a one hour movie "The Right Feels Wronged" (something pretty close to that) If our economics completely collapse, frightened, angry masses of far right religious half wits could usher in another dark age. There may be no more scientific research of any kind.
There is no Jerry Lewis.
"Joseph Levitch" uses that name though.
Levitch became infamous in Hollywood, a town of vulgarity, for his racist hatred. His 'telethons' to 'help' kids were actually to help his horrific image. His ugliness was becoming notorious and it was effecting his profitability. $$$???, Telethons!
He has said anyone with MD is "1/2 a person,"
Called another an "illiterate faggot"
And women "reproducing machines" not fit for comedy.
God though, in his infinite wisdom, has seen fit to visit two heart attacks, cancer and diabetes on this particular Chosen Child.
And Viral Menningitis, which Levitch was hositalized for MONTHS for in Australia recently. Joseph Levitch, American Hero, then SKIPPED OUT on his hospital bills. Again, just recently.
I'm from LA. This guy is infamous for his meanness. Straight Viciousness. I grew up hearing the stories.
He deserves an Oscar for being Hollywood's Biggest A%&*#@@ of the 20th century. An incredible feat. Joseph.
'Joe Levitch/Jerry Lewis', another triumph of Zionism's Midas touch for the Chosen People. An antisemitic Semite strikes again at the soft underbelly of American compassion and finds riches to plunder in retirement funds and Muscular Dystrophy and send to Israel (through the American Jewish Congress Treasurer Bernard Madoff) so Palestinians and Lebanese can die by Phosphorus bombs, DIME bombs, and then be incinerated by High Energy Lasers so as to not leave any evidence of the horror which is Israel and Zionism and AIPAC's "good Jews of Manhattan and Miami and Hollywood".
michael jordan
http://sites.google.com/site/apolloguide/
But, in re Jerry Lewis, can 60 million Frenchmen be wrong? (In this case, I'd probably have to say yes.)
The Nutty Professor an arrogant despiser of the crippled?! I don't believe it.
You are wise to take haters with a heaping grain of skepticism....
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so." Bertrand Russell
On the bright side, somewhere down the road science might be able to eliminate the genetic material that produces this dreadful disease.
Let's not give up on something that could turn out to be positive for future generations.
They'll sooner find a 'cure' for baldness. It's a genetic illness, the only way to cure that sort of thing is to prevent it. Otherwise treating the symptoms is the only thing you can do with it. For baldness, the cure is a good razor and not giving a damn about all the rest of you damned hippies. (you should have seen the look on the faces of some of the tories whom I've called hippy.)