BLACK RAIN: Michael Douglas And Catherine Zeta-Jones Reportedly ‘Furious’ Over Son’s On-Air Humiliation On CNN.
Michael Douglas and his wife, Catherine Zeta-Jones, are reportedly very displeased over the manner in which their son Dylan was humiliated during a roundtable discussion on politics with CNN commentator Scott Jennings.
Young Dylan was left stuttering incomprehensibly midway through the interview, which has seemingly become a source of mockery behind the scenes.
Now, according to sources, his parents, Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, intend to blacklist the entire network, as they believe CNN crossed the line.
Jennings is of course, loving every minute of this:
For years, at the top of the IMDB page of quotes attributed to Michael Douglas is this: “I’m not a big filmophile. I don’t watch movies a lot for a hobby. I spend all my time watching sporting events. Because, opposed to movies, you can never tell how they’re going to end.”
Assuming Douglas ever actually said that, as Jennings hinted in his troll of Douglas as Gordon Gekko, it’s reminder that sports teams lose because the other side is more talented and/or better prepared. Whether Douglas is playing a baddie like Gekko or a character such as President Andrew Shepherd (another baddie, let’s be honest), he’s speaking dialogue from a script that was written months in advance before he hits the soundstage. Scenes are rehearsed endlessly before the cameras turn over. But it’s easy for an actor whose dialogue was written by someone like Aaron Sorkin to think that real life – or even cable TV – always works the same way:
Among the worst disasters for progressivism in recent decades has been the work of Aaron Sorkin, whose impossibly articulate ratatat dialogue made it way too easy to imagine sexy technocrats saving the world. It’s great entertainment, but normalized unreasonable expectations of the flawed human beings who happen to have high IQs and impeccable credentials.
As a child of the New Left, I never missed The West Wing: it was irresistible catnip for my adolescent hopes and dreams, and so much more satisfying than whatever was on the news—except for the eloquent public intellectuals on the Bill Moyers show on PBS. Later, as an idealistic policy major at Brown, I was surprised and disappointed to find basically nobody operating on that level.
It was only when I’d lucked into joining the Moyers organization that I began to understand how such Sorkinesque eloquence was manufactured each week—not with deliberate dishonesty, but ever more misleading as years passed and the scene grew shallower.
We’d typically tape on Thursday or Friday mornings to turn around by Friday nights. Being of Bill Moyers’ approximate height, I was tasked with showing up early to fill his chair as gruff union guys set up cameras and lighting. Then, as Bill’s blogger and research assistant, I’d watch live interviews from the control room to highlight quotable moments.
Uncut conversations were eye-opening; it was astonishing how often our esteemed guests hemmed and hawed and got basic facts embarrassingly wrong. And how many came off batshit crazy: one, later an anchor on MSNBC, speculated that Captain Sully’s Miracle on the Hudson—visible from our west side offices—had been God blessing the Obamas.
Drafting the Moyers Blog and promotional listings, I’d sit in with producers and video editors to consult on coalescing broadcasts. They were like wizards, casting away awkwardness and errors to sculpt artful vignettes of the most compelling bits of conversations that often stretched well over an hour or more.
So many of the most rousing clips came from when guests were at their most factually inaccurate, and editors deftly dipped in and out to pull and seamlessly reassemble the very best parts. It was wondrous alchemy, and a privilege to work with super-talented creatives, but the reality of our academic pundits remained the same.
Viewers, or at least those motivated enough to weigh in, frequently testified that their social-democratic faith had been wavering until they’d seen whichever inspiring interview affirming what they’d always believed. I always found that frustrating, wondering if they might have reacted more thoughtfully to the real deal than the perfected package that aired.
Jennings seems to agree that this is what happens when a leftist steps into a unscripted event with a Republican who is prepared for the debate:
In his interview with [Meghan] McCain on Monday, Jennings said he was surprised that Zeta-Jones and her husband were reportedly left infuriated by the debate.
‘I’m more than willing to apologize personally to Catherine Zeta-Jones over a nice seafood dinner if she wants to do it,’ he cheekily remarked.
‘Actually, I have to say Dylan was really nice off the air,’ he continued. ‘I think he was honored to be there.’
‘We had what is relatively a normal exchange,’ Jennings then insisted. ‘He made his Democratic talking points. I dismantled him. Not an uncommon thing to happen on CNN.’
When he then saw that Zeta-Jones and Michael were livid about the segment, Jennings reiterated that he was ‘surprised.’
‘But I think that what happens with some of these folks is that they exist in a very tight little bubble. They never really talk to Republicans or conservatives. They don’t really get outside of their bubbles, where people tell them how smart and good-looking they are.
‘And then they wind up on television with someone of a different persuasion, and it’s surprising to them.’
‘I hope Dylan comes back,’ Jennings added. ‘I’m sure he’ll get better at it.’
Earlier in the interview, McCain said she thought Dylan ‘should not have been booked on a show with you because it’s like bringing a knife to a gun fight, quite frankly.’
She then went on to say that the entire segment on November 10 made her feel ‘so uncomfortable,’ as she referred to herself as the ‘queen of nepo babies‘ thanks to her father, the late Senator John McCain.
‘I have been put on TV way too early as a nepo baby,’ she said. ‘And of all people, Paul Begala schooled the living s**t out of me the one and only time I went on Bill Maher,’ McCain said of a former adviser to then-president Bill Clinton.
‘I have been Dylan Douglas,’ McCain continued. ‘But what didn’t happen is my parents didn’t have a meltdown. My dad was like, “Buck up and move on.”‘
If only Dylan had gone into the profession like Michael and Kirk – he would have had great writers supplying him dialogue, and the chance to do take after take to get those line readings pitch perfect.
