Rashomon [1]
I will tell you the story as I experienced it, because I think I learned some new lessons about context and point of view. During the course of the Oscars, Natalie Portman and Ben Stiller came on stage to present an award. She, as usual, looked lovely. He, on the other hand, wore an obviously fake and extremely shaggy beard, a matching shaggy wig, and dark glasses. His tux looked fine, but he was chewing gum and he gave the appearance of being disoriented. I instantly gathered that it was an act and, as he played it out, I began to think it was really very funny. This was unusual for me, since he usually just annoys me.
I thought he was doing a clever routine called something like “Everything Nobody Wants to Get Caught Doing at the Oscars.” I liked it well enough to order a copy of Tropic Thunder2, wanting to give old Ben another shot. I even liked it well enough mention it to my spouse again, two days later.
This produced a not-uncommon spousal reaction of bouncing up and down on the sofa and crying, “Ooooo, ooooo, ooooo, I’ve got something to show you”! Of course, having raised my curiosity, the spouse then insisted that we watch What Just Happened3 (funny, BTW) before showing me what produced the bouncing ooooos.
Trusty laptop in hand, I was told to go to David Letterman’s website and watch a video of a recent Joaquin Phoenix appearance. This I was happy to do, being an admirer of Mr. Phoenix’s work, even though I was puzzled about what it had to do with Ben Stiller at the Oscars. As I’m sure you know by now, what I saw shocked me.
I understand that Letterman was in something of a fix, unless the whole thing was a pre-planned hoax (which would be bad enough). I cannot understand why he didn’t get Phoenix off the stage when it became apparent that something was very, very wrong.
Seeing the video produced a radical about-face in my opinion of Ben Stiller’s performance. It was no longer funny in the least. It certainly wasn’t clever. For some sad reason, everyone learns to mock the weak, the sick, the poor, very early on. Any child can do it. Only after outgrowing it can you become witty and clever.
I am angry. Ben Stiller wanted to go, and did go, on stage cruelly to mock an extremely fine fellow actor while he was down. It’s pathetic and disgusting and ugly. Worse, the Academy and the ABC network allowed him to do it. What were they thinking?
Then, as if the original Letterman broadcast was not enough, Letterman and CBS decided to air the program again, four days after the Oscars. The video has been running on the internet for a couple weeks. What are they thinking? Actually, I know what they’re thinking: money and ratings. Everybody wants to watch the king turned village idiot. They’re motivated by unadulterated greed, and I can at least understand that.
Context and point of view are everything if you want to understand anything. Ignorance may feel sweet for a while, but it certainly isn’t bliss. As long as I had the Ben Stiller Oscar routine in the wrong context (i.e., a clever original skit) I liked it and it made me feel happy. But I was looking at the routine in a vacuum. Once the oooooing and bouncing stopped and the video put the routine in its proper context (i.e., mocking a colleague in trouble), I hated it and it made me feel angry and unhappy. I traded my innocent point of view for a sadder but wiser one.
I say that ignorance is not bliss because it can lead you and others into so much trouble. Suppose that I had never learned about the Phoenix/Letterman interview. Suppose I continued in my misapprehension that I had under-appreciated Ben Stiller all this time. Suppose, to ease my guilty feelings, I then ordered every Ben Stiller movie I could find and, worse, watched them all. Suppose that, in my ignorance, I began to tell everyone I know how funny I thought the Oscar routine was. I would, at the least, be condemned to hours and hours of (for me) agonizingly bad movies and an extremely bad reputation among my friends, because their point of view would then be that I liked to laugh at people with disabilities. Their context would be wrong, but there you go. Since my context was wrong as well, I wouldn’t know enough to correct them. My ignorance would also enrich Ben Stiller and reward him for bad behavior. But I wouldn’t know that. It just goes on and on.
Everything in this world depends on your context and your point of view. Have you ever listened to witnesses at a trial?
I think every trial lawyer should see Rashomon4. It involves four characters who each gives his or her own account of the same series of events involving sex and death. When the characters are finished, each account is so different from the others that you’d think they had been in different quarters of the globe. And yet each is recounting what he or she thought took place. It’s all context and point of view.
I think all unemployed lawyers should think a lot about context and point of view. Think very hard about how others perceive you. If you are lucky enough to get an interview, gather context about the job, the firm, and, if you can, your interviewers. Understand the Business of Law; not just the Practice of Law. I know that it seems like any of us should snap like a fish at any offer that comes our way; but we need to consider the conext of the firm making it. Check where you can for the context of the firm. You don't want to go down again.
This week’s events have helped me to understand that everything is not what it seems to be. You can’t take anything at face value. You must find out where it came from to know if it’s safe. Context and point of view change everyone’s perceptions of events. To be more certain of understanding, you must try to master both.
1 Daiei Motion Pictures, 1950, directed by Akira Kurosawa, starring Toshirô Mifune, Machiko Kyô, Masayuki Mori, Takashi Shimura.
2 Dreamworks SKG, 2008, directed by Ben Stiller, starring Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey, Jr, Nick Nolte.
3 2929 Productions, 2008, directed by Barry Levinson, starring Robert de Niro, Robin Wright Penn, Sean Penn, Catherine Keener, John Turturro, Bruce Willis, Stanley Tucci, Michael Wincott.
4 Rashomon.
Perspective.
It really takes a unique convergence of weird external happenings (cheap Ben Stiller antics juxtaposed to a vulnerable but dynamic Phoenix) combined with internal wrestlings of our own lives (yeah, I guess unemployment in the legal profession will offer that), to force a new(ish) perspective.
UL, though, your conclusions frustrate me. I know they are open ended, but they're still somewhat directed. You urge your fellows, likewise unemployed, to evaluate potential offers, despite the impuse to snap at the next. I appreciate that. But what are the grounds that should give pause?
Firm culture? Personalities?
Where does the substance of the work come in?
I've been struggling with economics as an associate for half year now. The reason? The work is amazing. I've been neck deep in community fights; have argued dozens of adminstrative pleadings; community strategies with municipal leaders; and even a successful third circuit brief. Three years in and I have more experience in empassioned fights (as opposed to PI battles) than most of my law school peers.
But my pay was reduced from salary, to part-time, to independant contractor, to even less hours. Each time, I renegotiated my entire family to make it happen so I could continue doing the work. Because it was about the work.
Eventually, it was no longer sustainable. There was/is an added dimension to the wrestlings you discuss in my struggle: the pay wars against the passion. To be an unemployed lawyer who is willing to work for $40 Gs a year so long as he can work in his passion subject matter is pretty debilitating when there is no work. I simply can't go lower, I have a daughter. Imagine that, "I'm sorry, I can't take less then 40,000 a year." But then the next level of thought: am I really just a naval gazer who can live on less money? etc....
Of course, in writing this, I know I subject myself to the expected onslaught of BigLaw chatter about the whining "TTT" lawyer (not from you, I gather - I hope). For what its worth, I'm a top tier graduate, law journal member (though I despise having to even say so - it defeats the whole point).
All of this to say: the substance of your thoughts probe the boarders of the legal profession, but are hemmed in by a perspective that comes from BigLaw. Is there a way, in this unique time, to step back and think about law generally - not just the next job - but rather what we are doing and WHY we want that next job?
More to say, but I'll stop recognizing my rambling tendencies. I enjoyed this last post. The analogy was well crafted and well taken. Thank you.
Touch base soon, I'm sure.
Peter
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