Hollywood: From Groucho Marx to Prostitution
Jim Tugend, Hollywood movie producer and author of "Selling Sex in the 21st Century," speaks on his experiences growing up as the son of one of Paramount Pictures' first movie producers and transitions to how he has used his talents to shed light on an often hidden and despised industry: prostitution.
SPEAKER:
M1
Hello
and welcome to episode 230 a public interest podcast with your host Jordan
Cooper where we interview politicians activists advocates and others who seek
to improve the state of the world. We're here today with James Coogan and
author of selling sex in the 21st century empowerment escorts in their own
words is available on Amazon and Kindle. He's Additionally written numerous
screenplays his teleplay the four sided triangle was produced on Tales From The
Crypt HBO series. He taught writing for The Writers Guild of America West open
door programs designed to teach screenwriting to minorities and for the east
west players and Asian-American theater group. He wrote and directed short
films soulmate the caretaker which won a gold special jury awarded the film
Festen to use them. Soulmates played numerous times in Showtime and
internationally. He co-produced an associate produced 20 TV films and directed
for theater. He worked as a technical writer for several companies most notably
IBM
International Business Machines. To get to as a member of the Writers Guild of
America and more information about his publications can be found at two can the
media dot com. Jim thanks so much for joining us today. How you doing.
SPEAKER:
M5
I'm
doing fine thank you.
SPEAKER:
M1
Excellent.
We're glad to have you on the show and the first question I like to pose to you
is what are you currently doing or what have you ever done to advance the
public interest and why.
SPEAKER:
M4
That's
that's a good question. I really kind of spent most of my career trying to
write something that would help the world understand itself better and then
have it in addition to joining various organizations. Well for example the
teaching of that was pro bono even though I wasn't wealthy I was fortunate
enough that the writers guild we had 18 teachers and none of the others any of
the students sold anything and all of mine did. So I've been able to help other
minorities get their chance and underserved people to get in the field and
become professional writers. But generally my father who was a writer he said
you know writers can change the world. The Good Soldier Schweik left Austria
out of World War One. And so I try to do that whether consciously or not and
sometimes my writing was ahead of its time and didn't so I said my God why
wasn't that made 10 or 15 years later. But I have devoted myself and I spent a
lot of time studying politics and I've had a political blog which was
just
kind of private read by well-known reporters and try to study and learn and try
to pass on what I think often with humor.
SPEAKER:
M9
So
Jim you mentioned that your writing is often referred to as being ahead of its
time. How so and why.
SPEAKER:
M4
Well
I don't know. I've been kind of able to foresee what trends are growing. I was
into eastern thought in the 50s and 40s late 40s. And that was 20 years ahead
of his time and following politics with kind of the understanding of the way
things seemed to be working and not compartmentalizing as much as most people
do able to. It's hard to say for example I foresaw the future of martial arts
many years before it was popular. And I for a little while I wrote articles on
it but they weren't really terribly serious because I was fortunate enough to
to know a lot about it. That's not known but it's an important issue because
that hero became someone who was going around beating up people who go around
hurting people. You have to really become a little inhuman yourself. You have
to kill an innocent part of yourself before you can hurt someone else. That's
my first screenplay which was probably my best shows the attraction in martial
arts and it particularly in Ninjitsu. But then you you'r
e
destroying yourself while you do it to morrow. Yes.
SPEAKER:
M9
I'd
like to I would like to transition into your unique story and from there we're
going to go around what writing is an eventual we'll make our way into
prostitution in their own words. But let's start with you at the very beginning
you were raised in the showbusiness family. You started in poverty in the 90s.
Your parents were to start were in poverty in the 1920s and you worked your way
up the showbusiness ladder to become quite prominent as a writer in in in that
world in the film and TV.
SPEAKER:
M4
Well
my father and my mother before him in and theater.
SPEAKER:
M9
So
Andrea what it's what it was like to grow up in a showbusiness family and how
that eventually led to you choosing to remain in show business in a different
way.
SPEAKER:
M6
Well
it was interesting. You know however you are brought up to think of that as
normal and the people around you you don't think anything unusual about it.
SPEAKER:
M4
I
was raised in Beverly Hills So we didn't think of ourselves as particularly
privileged or anything. It was just the norm even though a lot of our friends
were not in the business they were we were accustomed to it like the Marx
Brothers would be at our house for weeks at a time. We had two or three at
Malibu Colony homes but they were all of them. Oh I see they were in our home
for two or three weeks at a time. I was raised with them and a lot of my humor
probably comes from Groucho and Harpo Groucho particularly from Harpo to do
pantomime somehow it's just natural but they were referred to by those names.
SPEAKER:
M9
Did
you call them by another name or no.
SPEAKER:
M5
When
when when Groucho called on the phone he would use the name of one of the
characters he played in the movies and he wouldn't break from it. Dr. Finkle
saying and he wouldn't break for me dad is Dad it's Groucho. But they did go by
those names.
SPEAKER:
M9
You
say like could you. Could you pass me the milk at dinner or something like that
you refer to them by their normal birth name.
SPEAKER:
M5
No.
No.
SPEAKER:
M9
No
and it was interesting and so OK. So you you met a bunch of different ok and
what did they think about you going into writing.
SPEAKER:
M5
They
didn't you know they didn't try to influence me one way or the other. So was
kind of a mixed blessing to be with he was always so funny. But it was always
at someone's expense. And so you'd You couldn't help laughing but it was cruel
to the person who is making fun of who is quite often his wife of the moment.
And they were these young models and he would make fun about his sex life.
Right. Or he'd make fun of me or whoever it was you'd feel sorry for them but
you couldn't stop laughing. He was an amazing amazing content for
contemporaneous. I mean he would just make it up off the top of his head. He
didn't need you know scripts or anything like that.
SPEAKER:
M1
He
was going anyway. Harpo was quiet naturally the one who never spoke at all.
Right.
SPEAKER:
M5
Well
he that's right. He did. He did. He spoke but he didn't. He had a quiet voice
and I was actually a stage manager the first time he spoke onstage and there's
ironic he was he was a gentle soul he was very much like a kid he would hide
under the blankets with his kids and a flashlight reading reading comic books
when they were supposed to be asleep. That's kind of sweet person he was. The
brothers were all quite different.
SPEAKER:
M9
And
then you grew up in this environment where these international celebrities will
just waltz through your your home.
SPEAKER:
M5
Well
you see that my father was actually he didn't want to be known. He never had a
publisher. But he was far more powerful and well you know probably although he
didn't show it off.
SPEAKER:
M4
Probably
more wealthy and more productive than any of them and they all looked up to him
and would bring him their material if they were working in a movie to rewrite
or if they had a TV show they go around the golf course with a notebook and
then he would help them the George Burns or whoever it was. They looked after
him in a way but it wasn't really whether you're in show business or not
someone might be an accountant and they were treated just the same as a star in
those days. It wasn't as much the people I knew it wasn't really segregated to
who's a star who's not. In fact Joan Harper wanted that date at that time
because their films were made before I was born. It was like a member of the
family you know like family members could be secretary or someone who you don't
know quite what they did. They did a little writing and it didn't matter their
status publicly Did you always want to be a writer don't always be part of this
world or did you read it.
SPEAKER:
M5
Well
I was a rebellious person and I was sort of a I was small and had big teeth.
And so I the only way I could get attention was by doing stunts. But they all
had a philosophical trend behind them but I didn't want to be in the motion
picture business I wanted to be a novelist. And fun funny. I've just published
my first book but it's not a novel it's nonfiction but I didn't really want to
emulate them at all. It just turned out the first time I directed in college it
was the first time I had ever done. Usually something easily that you know I
had no training in directing seemed to be the most natural thing I've ever
done. You know most things take work. I wasn't a great athlete due to lack of
confidence. I think I was I'm small. You know I was five eight and a half and
so I wasn't really trying to emulate it at all.
SPEAKER:
M2
Larry
found all of your all of your exposure even though potentially you had
something going on. I'm directing film and he started doing that in college.
SPEAKER:
M4
I
started directing plays in college. I was actually the first practically the
first person to direct the main stage play in college. The generation that came
when when people came back from World War Two they were older and they directed
plays but I was the only other one to do that and some other thing.
SPEAKER:
M7
Are
we talking about the 1940s when you were in college. That was in the late 70s.
And then you will kind of ironic that you wanted to be a novelist as a teenager
and you hadn't.
SPEAKER:
M4
Still
have yet to write and all I know is that that is interesting. And one of the
finest times that I had with my father was he had a library with books from
floor to ceiling and when we would go in the library and we have discussed
books and I would read them and discuss it with him and afterwards or I'd read
screenplays years before a movie was made. And at nine years old he was running
Paramount Pictures and there were jokes in the trade papers that I was running
Paramount Pictures because I'd made him a number of suggestions which they
followed. And it was sort of a it was a joke. But reading books it's it's more
than about. It wasn't for perfection it was just what we love to do and
discussing that was when I was closest to my father in a way.
SPEAKER:
M2
So
you said your dad was running Paramount Pictures.
SPEAKER:
M3
Was
there any discussion at any point over that table about what was in the public
interest or why anyone was doing it. Was it because it was fine or this was a
good way to make money and escape the poverty or the depression. What is it
that was driving your family and then subsequently you and all these different
actors and producers and Hollywood types. Was it the fame was it the money was
it really they thought they could provide an escape from the harsh realities of
depression and war. What is it that was driving everyone as we ran about in the
1930s and 40s and all the tribulations that ensued during those times.
SPEAKER:
M6
Well
first my father he didn't write really serious films. He did produce them or
get them made and he bought Hitchcock to America and a capability whether it's
big chance.
SPEAKER:
M5
But
his films were mostly entertainment. On the other hand he was personally sort
of the cog in the wheel of getting a seat in England during World War II. He
was the head of a anti-Nazi organization. I shouldn't say the head of he was
but one of the leaders has an anti nasty organization and he personally lobbied
President Roosevelt for the Lend-Lease program where America loaned 15
destroyers to England before the war. And you know he was surprised that
Roosevelt said I'll only do it if you can get the Republicans to privately
agree not to make an issue out of it which they had to do and then come back it
so we were he was involved very involved with we're Jewish and he was involved
with people in Poland and Russia the Russian war relief. All these people who
at home were killing Jews to fight the Nazis. He was involved in many many
things I knew nothing about. Some say he was representing Israel. I've been
sworn to secrecy but he was very very involved internationally in politics
in
ways that I barely know. I just heard a little bit of it.
SPEAKER:
M2
Well
back in the early to mid 20th century anti-Semitism was rife around the world.
SPEAKER:
M3
Obviously
the obvious the obvious example being the Holocaust but you didn't have I think
Charles Lindbergh was a prominent Nazi sympathizer or there were fascism and
communism are rising around the world.
SPEAKER:
M2
Anti-semitism
was ubiquitous in many places and even in the United States there were places
where blacks and Jews and dogs were not allowed into a particular cafe. How is
it that you and your father were able to succeed as Jews in a world that had so
much hostility towards Jews and has that shaped your career in any way.
SPEAKER:
M4
Well
in show business it seemed to be kind of a natural for Jews who have a funny
way of talking they like to use humor just as I think African-Americans have a
very humorous way of talking and they come to it naturally. There wasn't too
much prejudice in the film business. I found it in school I was sent to a
private school and it was all in all boys and it was run by a church in the
military.
SPEAKER:
M6
But
at the only dance class of dancers that they had they would invite everyone but
the Jews Well I made them pay for that. I thought oh that's great because I
wish I could actually cause a bit of trouble. When I was young to put it very
mildly it had all their fair game. And at the end of which I was called up
before the Council for disrupting one of their dances. I say well you should
have had a dance class organized with no Jews allowed. And how did you disrupt
the dance. Well they do that someone was causing trouble and I was small so I
could just slip in without an invitation just because she was studying
everyone's papers so carefully. I walked around the dance floor very
comfortably with a thousand Beebe's building through my fingers and people
started to fall. Then I went outside and I said and I'm afraid I threw a
percussion grenade behind. And there's not a sound like a candidate much much
much worse. And I think it takes almost half a minute to go off. And I remember
I was
crossing
the street and it was like the heavens opened up and God screams because I
didn't expect it to break all the windows of the buildings facing in the sand
for it echoed back and forth across the Los Angeles basement. The whole nation
rather four minutes for about a minute and then you just heard sirens coming
from all over they didn't know what it was. There's no shrapnel so I thought it
was harmless. I thought of it as a practice grenade but I later realized when
they said percussion grenade it's a bad noise.
SPEAKER:
M7
So
people were scared of the percussion noise and they ran again they slipped and
fell down on the PBS.
SPEAKER:
M5
Well
yeah. They didn't know who it was. Everyone paid they had to pay so much for to
replace that glass.
SPEAKER:
M7
And
you see right here because I'm Jewish right. How did you get your hands on the
grenade.
SPEAKER:
M6
One
of the one of my I had a team of friends and followers. One of them his father
had had stolen them from active duty in World War II and we tried it out. So we
had to three of them and we tried them out. And my god sound. It wasn't like
anything you've ever you ever want to hear.
SPEAKER:
M7
So
did they ever admit Jews the subsequent stampin.
SPEAKER:
M5
I
don't know. Probably but what I did is I gave myself was I was just sort of shy
person. So I was doing something crazy like this. And I certainly got you know
they have a student court and these people are sitting there with medals and
all that stuff. And it was this. He was the head of the group. You know Darryl
Zanuck the head of state and Century-Fox and his son who's a great producer of
many of the greatest films of all time. And they're sitting there in court. You
have to go in it's like a military trial. Why didn't you pay your fair share of
the costs of this. I said well I didn't throw that practice grenade back there.
The reason why I didn't throw that back there was you had no right to have a
dance class with no Jews allowed. And they all looked at their shoes and I
looked him in the eye and they wouldn't look back. So I think that ended up I'm
sorry Miss Lisa Ryan was the name of the person organizing these dancers and
she accused me of being a Communist agent. Is this in
30
days. Was this the days. Yes. And so it was very prevalent you know we weren't
allowed in certain places. Hold on.
SPEAKER:
M8
Let
me just interject for a listener who aren't familiar McCarthyism is named after
Joe McCarthy a United States senator of the 1950s from I believe Minnesota who
is the chair of the United States Senate House Un-American affairs committee
and basically did the Red Scare the blacklist in Hollywood and identified
people as communists subversives and ruined a lot of careers. That's just a bit
of history in the entertainment political world in the 50s and in the cold war
for those who weren't familiar.
SPEAKER:
M4
So
to my left here just a second to my father's finance chairman Chairman for
Helen GEOGHEGAN Douglas who the only female congresswoman who was her finance
chairman when she called Ronald Reagan and she said Ron you've been supporting
me and this guy Nixon is red baiting me and you are you're you're far to the
left of me.
SPEAKER:
M5
You're
you. He's using you for ammunition. So please stop publicly supporting me.
Reagan also came to my father. My father was producing TV theater. He had a
special deal from the other producers in which no businessman could talk to him
about any creative matter at all they couldn't even say a word.
SPEAKER:
M4
And
Ronald was the spokesman and he came to my father and I can use the word but he
said look with these blue nose you know people was a little worse than that
want me to read it was the speech that General Electric someone of General
Electric had written for him and they had him going around speaking and he said
I don't want to be Republican or conservative. What am I going to do I can't
get a job. Please give me a job with my father did. And he went to his friends
at a power center which the Jewish power center of Ronald Reagan in and around
the.
SPEAKER:
M1
And
he's got his first gig with the American Medical Association protesting the
1965 LBJ Medicare Social Security.
SPEAKER:
M5
I
don't I don't believe that was. That was later. That was much later. OK.
SPEAKER:
M6
So
stick with them. And at that point he did get a job.
SPEAKER:
M8
I'm
sure he was a Democrat at this time.
SPEAKER:
M4
He
was very liberal. He was more liberal than say Helen GEOGHEGAN doublers or my
father. He was but he was upset. His terrified terrified and horrified by what
they wanted him to read this idea of privatizing the Tennessee Valley Authority
and he went to the other people that he knew who were of all different
political stripes who said I think they're going to turn him into a politician.
SPEAKER:
M5
And
I think he's going to go all the way and they laughed at him. And then when he
was elected my father wouldn't shake his hand. But I have a letter from Reagan
to me just say what a man of great honor and integrity.
SPEAKER:
M9
My
father was Ronald Reagan change from being a liberal to a conservative.
SPEAKER:
M1
He
was hired by General Electric and that's the way originally it was in his own
self-interest to be conservative in his view.
SPEAKER:
M5
That
if people think his friends think he did have it they think he didn't have
close friends he did originally but they think that he began to believe the
part after a number of years. But even when he was governor that reporters
according to the times they said they would talk to him they say Come on Randy
why don't you just talk in your normal voice then this voice you put on when
the cameras are on. But he was the you know he was kind of serious up. In fact he
was very very shake Morath mortar which we could almost get into the subject of
my book. It was it was not a staid person. Sure.
SPEAKER:
M9
Well
I would like to get to that book in just now. So we've been talking about many
different historical personalities famous personalities celebrity and you here
with your book selling sex and the 21st century turn to quite the opposite. It
seems to be a tension in a lot of what you're talking about these very public
figures who are shrive to some extent your father. Are you not interested in
the limelight so you say and you're finding prostitutes in your own words
talking about selling sex and the 21st century and how the Internet is
influencing the sex business. Could you talk about how you came to research
this topic and produce this Boston and why you decided you need to start
speaking to prostitutes and others who were selling sex in the 21st century.
SPEAKER:
M5
Well
I first of all I like to take up any case that's in injustice and my attitudes
changed drastically during this time of the writing the book I interviewed
people sometimes for months I looked at people who are talking about these
prostitutes and advertise on the on the Internet. They're talking about it on
TV so I looked at it and they all say how much they love what they do and all
that kind of thing. And but I for some reason I thought it would be interesting
to find out what their attitude is if they like what they're doing so much. How
come other people consider them the worse. So I just decided to do an in-depth
study for years and I had that I was blessed to find a psychotherapist who
would help me analyze them. But what were saying is that's the problem.
SPEAKER:
M8
There's
that moral question which which is before we go into that just for our listeners
sake the psychotherapist you found is Dr. Chris Petersen's 17 theaters said she
was the head of a professional.
SPEAKER:
M6
She
was the dean of the Pacifica school for creates doctors psychotherapy and she
was a professor and and a practicing psychologist.
SPEAKER:
M5
So
you're doing you're able to do a study with somebody who is formally saying
well I did the research and then we got together and then he did wonderful
commentary and a lot of things I would take for granted. And you would see that
they're covering up something so that I would go back and ask more questions I
find out that she was often right sometimes she was mistaken. And I kind of it.
We both found that the psychological theories are no longer valid because of
her. What did you discover. Well first of all there is a huge division which
everyone knows and the feminists and psychologists ideas about what
prostitution is. But as one university study pointed out of anthropology there
have been two big changes in prostitution and sex generally in human history.
Fifteen thousand years ago when they started farming I thought people together
and marriages and families. And the second one was the Internet a whole new way
of meeting. And there's also the mores where young kids today they
say
they'll meet up they'll hook up. We don't even know each other's name and just
have a little sex and move on and they've seen you know you know sometimes
brutal pornography by the average age of 11 and it's a whole new generation.
And the Internet I discovered more than the birth control pill. Oh yes that was
nothing compared to this. It is. And also you have to consider public media and
I'm not against it. I'm not taking a side on this. But public media if you
watch a regular 10:00 drama you're going to see someone likely to see someone
naked or all these people having sex. And if you look at an ad for a pop singer
it'll be more revealing than you'd probably see in a 50s. And I'm just. And
whether we like that or not it's a fact. You know the fact is that all this all
the surveys and studies of young people show the same thing and I'm not without
judging and you can judge it or not it's the reality and it's kind of
interesting if you don't start with reality. You're missing the
point.
You know you can have a theoretical or moral objection but that's what's
happening. So the difference between that and jumping into say prostitution for
a few years or a few months is not that great. But I originally thought that
these people are happy with what they do. But then they say you know don't say
that because there's the prostitutes themselves would want to say I'm all right
but most of the people who do this are not there in Great Depression. The
problems being the perception that they have to live with the perception people
love them. They did they did a Gallup poll that shows that what is the most
highly sought of professions all the way down to the lowest and the highest as
nurses and the lowest is prostitution and very up more than any other business.
Prostitutes are nurses you know and they do that on their side more than any
other business.
SPEAKER:
M7
And
so many of them feel empowered by it. What do you mean figuratively like
they're nurturers clients literally seeing their sexual crimes. There are two
different worlds. There will be a nurse in a hospital who works her shifts and
then on her off time is a prostitute.
SPEAKER:
M5
Yes
or seriously they'll be one and then they'll quit and do the other they would
then go back to nursing so they usually have some They're both nurturing. You
have to be able to figure out what the person wants and can relate to them. I'm
just guessing now you say I know I'm probably I'm just giving you the facts as
I learn. I interviewed I say it was nice but I look back and I get a few to 120
of them and contacted many others and that's just what I've found. And are they
keeping this a secret from those in their lives. Yes. That's one of the
toughest things they have. Some of them don't. But one of the hardest things
about being a prostitute is that it distances you from family occasions like
Christmas and Thanksgiving because you don't want to sit around and lie. So
that's if they were not thought of as these terrible beasts they wouldn't have
to do that. So that's one of the worst thing for them. And you know it's not
what we think. I'm talking about looking how they felt about
their
lives and many of them that's someone trying to sell me something. Many of them
you know did not like it because of the attitude against it and then their
families or their families. Ignorance of what they do both you can it all
depends on the person but usually the father is interesting and I bring a lot
of cliches. I find that they're simply not true. They were they were mistreated
by their mothers very often but in most cases I find someone who is raped by
her father for example. But very often their mother was an motherly or even
brutal. And so that's a cliche that goes out the window. Many of them were
raised or had some experience like that. And a psychologist explains it better
than I do which was I always thought of but many of them were not many of them
had very happy childhoods but look I look at it this they also have they call
it the Internet has these sites that are built specifically for prostitutes or
their customers or both. And one of them and it's like sugar
babies
and sugar daddies where they set up to make a contract between a man and a girl
who's a rich man and a young girl where they will pay for her college right now
if you go to college. The states don't support them anymore so you have to go
in depth. And 20 years later you're still in debt when they go to college. They
come out without debt because a man has agreed and signed a contract and not
mentioning sex to pay for tuition or whatever the agreement is signed.
SPEAKER:
M8
So
he will be an exclusive client for her or help her out.
SPEAKER:
M5
No
no they don't take them out. Now these are rich men. I just want someone who
himself would say they meet first in this and maybe they will have they find
out what his schedule is or they'll decide to have weekends together or Wednesdays
together. So in one case a girl had two sugar daddies. That's unusual but in
many cases they meet a first and sometimes if there's no sex there's no sex in
the contract. A lot of prostitutes see people who they never have sex with. And
it's as if it's a matter not so much about the sex it's about someone who will
listen to you without judging you and someone you know that's the Doctor. Dr.
Peterson compared it in a new theory that's in the book to psycho psychology.
Someone who to listen to you. And it's more manly to see a prostitute than a
psycho psychologist. But essentially it is quite the same someone who will
listen to you without judgment. And as he said just a warm touch but the touch
doesn't have to be physical.
SPEAKER:
M8
It
can be verbal and individuals individuals you define them as prostitutes
because they're willing to sell sex but in some cases they don't very often.
SPEAKER:
M5
And
with that they say that she has a client that she sees off and they like to
have the same repeat clients. And sometimes they might have sex with them or
they might just go to the theater and have dinner and either have sex or not.
So it's like a girlfriend. Yes. But without the responsibilities. And a lot of
the men have have problems of attaching.
SPEAKER:
M6
They
have their own problems the fact that men that I interviewed I interviewed
quite a few of them. They're the ones who come out on the short end of the
stick and more often they become they lose track of reality. They say I can't
tell you what I'm doing or what's going on. I have to get a better job because
I can't afford it or it it controls them ask in ways that they cannot explain.
And I've talked with rich people and poor people who do this. But in most cases
it's really takes over their life and they need it.
SPEAKER:
M10
I
hate to do this but we are approaching the end of this pie kind of thing. So we
have to wrap it up in such an amazing trove of stories. So I'd like to ask you
to reflect upon your work both this book about revealing different. What's the
common thread. Why is it. How are you doing good deeds of public interest. It
sounds like stories and telling narratives are incredible and revealing. I
guess the humanity of so many different types of individuals and showing who
they really are behind the camera. Who is that. Does that resonate with you
what exactly have you been doing with public to advance the public interest.
And what do you hope your legacy will be. What do you hope you will have
achieved at the end of your career through your work.
SPEAKER:
M6
Well
I don't think I was as successful as I should have been with them in motion
pictures but I felt many other people do you know I'm very good at doing
something where I don't get paid. But I want to like every writer has to
understand ourselves better. I think would make the world a better place. I had
one professor say I ask him. It seems that everyone is anti-social or
anti-establishment who's a great writer he said no no no no only since the
Industrial Revolution when society became mad that the writers started to
become anti-establishment. But I think he tried not just for its own sake but
to try to wake people up to what's going on in their prejudices. For example
most of the people that the prostitutes and many prostitutes themselves came
from an extremely conservative prohibitive background the most enormously
varied only they were. And so by being so telling people that they can't have
it makes them want it all the more. And it's hypocritical and destructive. You
know they
're
hurting people who who get unnecessarily creating all this tension. I think
that if we understand ourselves better we'll make a better world. And I think
that's what every dramatist or a writer hopes to do.
SPEAKER:
M8
So
that has been James Coogan the author of selling sex and a 21st century
empowerment escorts in their own words.
SPEAKER:
M3
He
is also the author of numerous plays. Director of numerous films theater
theatrical productions a teacher and a man of many stories. You can learn more
at two media dot com. He speaks about his work as being aligned with advancing
the public interest by seeking to help others understand themselves better and
in so doing he makes the world a better place. He seeks the weak people often
their prejudices. He emphasizes creativity in the creative process over
destruction and destructive process. He remarks about Groucho Marx being
hilarious but he also remarks on the cruelty inherent in that company and
laments that the comedy had to be at someone's expense. He I think conveys a
point that may very well make the world a better place which is that according
to Jim.
SPEAKER:
M2
Normal
is relative. What is normal. He grew up in in the midst of Hollywood and
Beverly Hills. And that was normal for him then. And the stars. They were the
normal neighbors. And Friday night dinner I guess and I guess there's so many
normal's out there and normal's can change for each individual just the course
of their life. He speaks about an inherent openness that he wishes all
Americans all listeners to have an openness to new experiences new identities
without prejudices or preconceptions. He challenges these prejudices from the
very beginning and throwing B-B balls and causing disruption at a school dance
in high school and challenges challenges preconceptions when it comes to
prostitutes often the most vilified individuals in society by objectively
speaking that many of them also seriously work as as nurses and which is at the
other end of the spectrum the most honored honorable profession according to
public opinion. So I think GM is trying to say that life as a writer is r
eally
on first contacts and life life is an inherently nuanced complex and sometimes
paradoxical an incomprehensible world and we populate it. And I guess he seeks
to advance the public interest by encouraging us to embrace his complexities
discover explore and more than anything embrace each other as human beings in a
world that's increasingly disconnected with transactional relationships. Jim
I'd like to thank you for joining us today.
SPEAKER:
M6
You're
welcome. That was very well put.
SPEAKER:
M2
Well I just
appreciate that. And this has been episode 208 of public interest podcast.
Thanks for joining us once again.