Monday, April 6, 1987
Daily Nebraskan
Page 7
n
O
O
--' f ' t .
c.
A
T-
1A
By Charles Lieurance
Senior Reporter
fill in Mcn" is Pssib5y tlie
jjl finest tribute to Ameri-
can myopia to grace the
big screen since Griffith's "Birth of
a Nation."
Barry Levinson, who proved his
mastery of period pieces as the
director of "Diner," bore recreates
what is essentially the js;i:ne time
periofl but fror.t a different point of
view entirely
"Diner" was a small f.!m v. It h
f;r-;h. r;
that dealt v.-ith
ordinary pec; le who hr.i no L!;:a
who they vcre. "Tin Men" is a big
picture, cr.d it s built 1;' ? a fortress.
Us concerns are massive and
its
characters are sr If ; -sured Don Quix
otes whose illusions, though des
tructive and politically repellent,
eventually win us over.
Dill Eahowski (Richard Dreyfuss)
and Tilly (Danny DeVito) sell alum
inum siding just before the rules of
the salesmen's game became regu
lated by the federal government.
They are snake-oil salesmen who
have turned their unscrupulousnc-ss
into an integral part of the Horatio
Alger tale. The screen hasn't seen
such likable criminals since "C-tch
Cass Jy and tK& bir.daTtce Kd.
so p rcui is r.et ilzi they c3 jpcrr-.
PTL Tearlygate
I decided to write another column
about the PTL scandal for two rea
sons. Reason one everywhere I
go people keep asking me, "I'm dying
to read your next column about Jim
and Tammy. When are you going to
respond?"
"There won't be another column
about PTL," I've told people as disap
pointment surfaces on their faces.
"I've drained the issue. Jim got laid
and Tammy's a junkie. And how many
jokes can I make about her eyelashes?
Sorry. It's time to move on to something
else."
f
C Harrah's
H J' ) Hollywood
by Scott
Harrah
But on Friday, I realized that I had to
write about Miss Tarantula Lashes
once more when I picked up the Lin
coln Journal and read the latest piece
of scandal about the "Pearlygate"
controversy.
Here's the second reason for another
tale of trash about the Bakkers. You
asked for it, readers:
The Washington Post reported in a
national wire story that Tammy Faye
had a platonic "fling" with Gary S.
Paxton, the Grammy award-winning
singer-songwriter of classic hits like
"Alley Oop" and "Monster Mash."
Her husband, Jim, who resigned
from the PTL ministry two weeks ago
after the world discovered that he had
an illicit sexual tryst with church
secretary Jessica Hahn in a seedy
Exhibit of art chairman Ruffo at Sheldon April
The Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery
will present the exhibition, "Joseph
M. Ruffo: A Graphic Image" from
Tuesday through May 24. This is the
first public opportunity to view, in
depth, works by Joseph M. Ruffo
since his appointment in 1984 as
chairman of UNL's art department.
The exhibition of more than 60
capitalism. Tilly and Babowski are
social Darwinists without, even
knowing it. In America if you're a
sucker w ho's got a big enough piece
of the American dream to afford a
nice suburban home, it's perfectly
acceptable for a man with wit and
cunning to come along and scrape a
little of that dream off the top.
That's America for Tilly and Dabow
ski. evinson has managed to ccp
. ture a truly bizarre mcmcr.t in
-.-.American history. It's twh a
small lament that t:,..:e's i...lly
r.clhirg t . 1 2 rid C :ut it i.i thi-
,; (. - . v... t;..
great but a' . tract. It's the e::.Iy 'COs
and, at least far ordinary Americans
"especially aluminum-siding sales
men, apparently), the shape of the
Araerican dream is changing. Defore
that it was relatively simple.
Babowki and Tilly are drowning
in its awesome simplicity. They are
the living components of Hazel Motes'
quote in Flanncry O'Connor's "Wise
blood": "A man with a good car
don't need no justification." Levin
son fills the frame with layer upon
layer of shining automobile f;r.s and
the plot cf the film hinges cn a
grudg2Ti:iyhcdd3;.;aim,ti:,:',aki
ter E
3i:Unia::!.his:';;
... JUi A.' 'J
iiias7;r-',r,t!:?r;
Florida hotel in 1980, said he was aware
of the affair and seduced Hahn because
he wanted to make Tammy Faye jealous.
Paxton's ex-wife Karen told the
story to the media because she felt that
Jim was trying to protect Tammy Faye
by taking all the blame for his sex
session with Hahn.
"I
kept all this to myself for
years because I didn't want
Christians to turn away from
PTL," she said. "Jim is covering up for
Tammy Faye, which is fine. That's the
kind of man he is. But they (Jim and
Paxton) were both destroyed by Tam
my's transgressions. I don't want to
hurt Tammy Faye, but why should Jim
and Gary be scapegoats?"
Paxton and Tammy Faye spent nights
alone during studio recording sessions,
she said. Paxton was producing her
albums in the late 70s and trying to
transform the walking cosmetic coun
ter into a singer "who nobody would
laugh at." She said he liked to call
Tammy Faye "Ladybird."
Paxton, 48, said that he and the
Christian superstar "were just friends,
never more than that," but revealed
that their relationship sometimes
became quite passionate. "You're with
somebody a lot and become too close a
friend sometimes, then realize you're
too close and quit."
Linda Wilson, Tammy Faye's per
sonal secretary, said she warned the
Queen of Maybelline about having "even
an affair of the heart."
"We talked about her and Gary,"
Wilson said. "I said to her, 'Tammy, a
relationship with the Lord comes first,
then your relationship with your hus
band.' "
Jim banned Tammy Faye's alleged
works includes examples of draw
ings, etchings, lithographs, silk
screens and collagraphs. It is a sur
vey exhibition ofRuffo's expressions
from an early-1965 simple image to
his current works which combine
and culminate the best qualities of
graphic techniques and visual ideas.
"These accomplished works strike
poetic and visiomn-y.
His lifestyle encompasses all the
"good" things in America, disposa
ble income, disposable women and
a disposable disposition. Even as
his world is drastically changing
and his vision is being proven utterly
flawed, he is envisioning the new
world.
illy, on the other hand, is more
! ' af.Vctod by the amorphousness
--- cf the Dream, He's no poet, He
got a wife ar.d home just to s::y he
had theni tut the lif? he prcfxs is
rrjrh tm:!!:r, ils'd rather be out
:Mcyi2. ReyievVS
with the boys than at home with his
wife (played dilliger.Uy by Barbara
Hershcy), and he obviously prefers
the small, mobile confines of his
new Cadillac to the stifling stasis of
the home.
Levinson's film is about the arrhy
thmia in the heart of the American
machine, the little hitches in the
smooth movement of the gears and
wheels. The government has decided
to regulate the Tin Men's flimflam
by defending the sucker against the
wiles of men like Tilly and Babowski.
On a street full of hugs? finned cars,
;,:a Vcllwrssa pops up. fiala-codes;!
tf hcn::r cro Irckfn for the s:!:2 cf
Irnr :zn. As the cr:::tir.rticn cft!.c '
scanol
lover from the PTL show even after
Paxton wrote the evangelist an eight
page letter begging for forgiveness.
So there you have it the latest
installment in the scandal that seems
to get more interesting and sensational
every week. When will it end?
Many people have lambasted me
for making a mockery of Tammy
Faye in the past year, but what
they fail to realize is that I love her.
Why else would I spend so much time
writing column after column about her
hideous make-up, her dingbat quotes
and her overall hyperbolic nature? To
me, Tammy Faye is thesource of a new
cult following, second only to Evita
Peron's and the worshippers of "The
Rocky Horror Picture Show." She has
no idea how many secular fans used to
tune in to PTL and "Tammy's House
Party" to be thrilled by all the melo
drama, high camp, poor taste and hilar
ious tragedy her presence offered.
If anything, she'll be remembered
for her aphorisms and epigrams. "Girls,
my make-up's running, but that's what
bein' 1 woman is all about," she once
said. Not even Oscar Wilde could top
that.
Or how about her insight. In her
autobiography "I Gotta Be Me," Tammy
Faye shows that under all that caked
on goop, she's really a thinking woman
who knows how to tell a philosophical
tale. Her poor dog Chi Chi kept taking a
leak on the drapes in her living room,
she wrote, so she prayed to God and
asked him for help. Alas, the pooch
croaked and Tammy Faye was heart
broken, but she said she soon realized
that Chi Chi's death was God's way of
solving her problem. And Tammy Faye
has had dry drapes ever since.
a balance between the tangible and
the formal qualities of visual abstract
structure. The artist takes the vis
ual world 03 a starting point and he
transposes the reality of the seen
into an abstracted reality of a gra
phic image," said George W. Neu
bert, director of the Sheldon Mem
orial Art Gallery and curator of the
and eventually steals her away from
him. Suddenly all the very real
windmills that the two are jousting
with turn to air.
Tilly loses his wife, his car, his
home and his job to this arrhythmia.
Babowski loses his job, the subject
of all his poetry and vision, to it.
"7 T either man really has any
j thing left, but they are so
X "'4 .unaffected it's hysterical. This
movie is made all the sadder by the
lack cf tears in it. By the end of it,
Tilly and Enhowskl are just walking
blindly into the na'.v America where
they can't be boys anymore.
; And "Tin Men" is about boys,
about.- their petty little problems,
their silly wars, their wandering
discussions about nothing in par
ticular (although every word is ut
tered as if it affects the course of
humanity) and their absolute ina
bility to deal with outragoousncss of
fortune in anything but an outrage
ous manner.
"Tin Men" is a beautiful film. I'd
be hard-pressed to come up with
another that cares enough to create
each and every character with three
dimensions. The leisure-time con
versations cf the Tin Men about
everything from breads to "Bonanza"
are priceless. Each of the Tin Men
has a mannerism that prevents him
frcm b;c';?r a thrc.vr.'.xy, Or.3 is
cb::::.: J v.iih U13 unreality cf c ci
te in TV sl-.ey.s. Ar.elUr cra't step
,. . .f i , ....
al continues.
As for her politics, well. . . she's
obviously too dumb to know any
better. She can't help it that she
was once stuck in a money hungry,
deceptive sham masquerading under
the ruse of religious evangelism. She
just wanted pretty clothes and some
one to hear her sing. "Honey, I never
had any talent as a singer, but I let the
Lord into my life and he made me one,"
she once told PTL viewers.
God also told her that it's okay to
wear monolithic amounts of make-up.
She once said that she thought cosmet
ics were sinful and that God would
strike her down if she wore them, but
one night he came to her and told her
that make-up was a Christian thing to
wear. She started the Tammy Faye
Cosmetics line soon afterward.
And now she's more famous than
ever. She and Jim are both on the cov
ers of Time and Newsweek and even are
the butt of a new string of jokes. Plus,
PTL officials have decided to pay them
twice as much as they made when they
were part of the ministry because
"without Jim and Tammy Faye, there
would be no PTL."
Her story now needs to be told in a
"made for TV" movie. I plan to write it.
I think I'll call it "On the Brink of a
Miracle: The Tragic Story of Jim and
Tammy."
I already know who I want to cast. I
want Charo to play Tammy Faye.
Imagine her delivering Tammy's lines:
"Oh, Jeem, have choo seen my meenk
I theenk ze dog has peesed on it!"
And I want Don Knotts to play Jim.
What about the theme song for the
film, you ask? How about if I get Gary
Paxton, the wicked soul, to remake
"Monster Mash," but retitle it "Eyelash
Mash." Charo might actually have a hit
exhibition.
Joseph M. Ruffo is a graduate of
the Pratt Institute in New York and
received the first Fulbright Grant in
the Visual Arts to Brazil in 1963. In
1865, Ruffo received his master of
fine arts degree from Cranbrook
Academy of Art in Michigan. Before
working at UNL, Ruffo was acting
Dreyfuss and DeVito are so lik
able that it's alarming, espe
cially considering how really
slimy their characters are. It's un
believable the empathy one can
muster for these two.
Hershey, like most of the women
in the movie, doesn't really have
much to do. Levinson's men are
finely crafted, and his women are
automatons at the mercy of their
boy games. The men are everywhere
at once, careening through life irres
ponsibly and the women are seated
in neat rows doing docile secretar
ial tasks.
The only real flaw in the film was
Levinson's choice of music. The
Fine Young Cannibals as an early
'60s bar band is jarring, and their
music doesn't really accompany Tilly
and Babowski's.life well. There is
too much emphasis on rock and soul
music and not enough on the pop
schlock characters like this would
most likely listen to. When the Sina
tra tune finally appears, it does
more to enhance the mood of the
film than all the other songs com
bined. But this is a flaw so small that it
hardly counts. "Tin Men" takes on a
huge chunk of Americana and han
dles it like it happened yesterday.
For most directors a scope this large
would become unwieldy and lose its
momentum half ay through. Levin
son tresis it like child's piey.
-ft filiHU-:
Tammy "Ladybird" Bakker
if she sang it.
I know I've been cruel, PTL follow
ers, but I can't resist ridiculing
Tammy Faye. I worship her and I'm
bummed out that she won't be on any
more. I just hope I can console the
Christian crowd that believes in her
benevolence. "You are a cold and
insensitive being," one incensed high
school girl told me in a letter. "Tammy
Faye does excellent work and has
helped many people. You have no right
to judge people you don't know. . .You've
probably never seen the Bakker's pro
gram. . . .You've probably only seen
them while flipping the channels look
ing for the Playboy Channel!"
Not exactly. . .But I can't wait for
Hugh Hefner to announce that he
plans to publish Tammy Faye's nude
photos in Playboy. We'll have to wait
and see if she ever had any taken.
7 - May 24
dean of the College of Humanities
and Fine Arts at the University of
Northern Iowa and chairman of the
Division of Fine Arts at Barry Col
lege in Florida. Ruffo has received
many awards for printmaking and
is on numerous aft-advisory com
mittees as well as being a private
design consultant.
"
'. ' ... X : .
v ; .
,, 1