Update to "Mean Bastards as Culture Heroes"

Jesse Lemisch   August 5, 2010

A note on "Mean Bastards": This short piece, posted after the death of George Steinbrenner, has received a kind of confirmation in Ellen DeGeneres walking out on her five year contract worth tens of millions with "American Idol." I had criticized Simon Cowell (a former AI judge) along with Steinbrenner, Trump, etc. as "Mean Bastards." According to the New York Times, DeGeneres seemed "uncomfortable in the judges' chair... she had a hard time hurting the feelings of the young contestants who... get voted off each week during the live telecasts..."  Current American culture is so mean that we have to look wherever we can to find resistance to it.