Culture Briefs

Bimbo discrimination

“Perhaps the most notorious case of antidiscrimination law impinging on lowbrow art involved actress Hunter Tylo. The producers of the steamy prime-time soap opera ‘Melrose Place’ hired Tylo to play the show’s latest promiscuous bimbo, Taylor McBride. …

“Tylo’s contract included a clause forbidding any ‘material change’ in her appearance. When Tylo became pregnant before the new season started shooting, the producers fired her, explaining that they did not want their bed-hopping vixen character to be played by an obviously pregnant woman. … Tylo, who gained 47 pounds during her pregnancy, was to be filmed cavorting pool-side in a thong bikini.

“Tylo sued for employment discrimination. … The judge declined to dismiss the case … and the jury found in Tylo’s favor, awarding her $5 million. Tylo’s attorney, Gloria Allred, enthused that Tylo ‘is absolutely a living Susan B. Anthony and a Rosa Parks all rolled into one.’”

—David Bernstein, from his new book “You Can’t Say That: The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties From Antidiscrimination Laws”

No common sense

“The horse we call privacy has begun to pull the American wagon into a situation where there is no common sense of values, morality, honor, decency, or the common good. …

“As one Supreme Court justice wrote in affirming once again the woman’s right to choose abortion, ‘our age increasingly understands the right of every woman or man to determine her/his sense of the meaning of life.’ This means that the general public can neither praise the actions of Mother Teresa nor condemn those of John Dillinger. …

“The concept of privacy, like that of diversity, is not found in the Constitution, nor in the Bible, nor in the great philosophers. What anonymous authority imposed ‘privacy’ on us, giving it the power that used to be ascribed to the commandments of God?”

—Harold O.J. Brown, writing on “Dangerous ‘Virtues,’” in the July/August issue of the Religion & Society Report

More than Madonna

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