MIM Notes 187 June 1 1999

Jenny Jones case: pornography
murder and the profit-making media

by MC5

The "Jenny Jones Show" on television lost $25 
million in a Michigan jury verdict May 7th. We 
celebrate for the family of a murder victim 
killed by "Jenny Jones Show" pornography.

A participant on the show named Jonathan Schmitz 
murdered Scott Amedure three days after learning 
on the March 1995 taping of the show that Scott 
Amedure had a gay crush on him. The lurid 
premise of the program is to show television 
audiences the reactions of people presented with 
humyn interest surprises. In some similar shows 
like the "Jerry Springer" show, participants go 
to fisticuffs on stage. Some people fake their 
conflicts to get on television, but some as in 
this case, are truly stirred up by the profit-
hungry media.

Anti-gay bigot Jonathan Schmitz was embarrassed 
that the crush was not by a womyn and he had 
signed papers consenting to air the show no 
matter his reaction. He picked up a shotgun and 
shot Amedure twice in the chest. Of course the 
main fault is the fault of the bigot who clearly 
demonstrates the skewed priorities of such 
bigots.

Nonetheless, the "Jenny Jones Show" and many 
others like it profit from stirring up lurid 
emotions on television. As the attorney for 
Amedure's family pointed out, the "Jenny Jones 
Show" should also take financial responsibility 
in the loss column for their business.

MIM does not quite agree with that theory, 
because MIM does not believe in the profit-
system at all, but we thank attorney Geoffrey 
Fieger for making it clear in court and on 
television that there was a causal chain of 
reasoning. The notion that there is "free 
speech" with no life-and-death consequences is 
overly facile, an invention of libertarian 
dogmatists who actually hold back the day when 
there is actually free speech in a future non-
violent world called communism. Already the 
defendant is deliberately confusing litigants' 
suits with government censorship and is saying 
it will appeal and that the decision "chills" 
the media.

As with Catharine MacKinnon's approach to 
pornography, Geoffrey Fieger's approach to 
entertainment media is theoretically sound. We 
also celebrate in this particular case for the 
family of Amedure, but we know that most such 
cases will not go well and hence Fiegerism is no 
solution.

It just so happens in this murder there was a 
dead body found and a weapon with a shooter that 
had a clear and documented motive. In this 
Amedure civil case, there were big money 
attorneys on both sides;  hence it is not likely 
that there were any amazing distortions in the 
case as there are in many--only the usual 
attorney lies. In many cases, the identity of 
the killer, the location of the body, witnesses 
etc. are not as clear-cut. The type of rape 
cases MacKinnon involves herself in also involve 
questions of what she herself sees as subjective 
consent, something not necessary to address in 
criminal murder cases.

From MIM's point of view, Amedure died from 
pornography, maybe more clearly than anyone in 
any case MacKinnon has worked on. We call it 
pornography, because it is entertainment 
involving sexuality, and also, we are more 
certain it is pornography because it is for-
profit. The for-profit angle assures that there 
is some group of people essentially 
appropriating the sexualities of other people 
for reasons other than one-on-one interaction.

In fact, for MIM, the Amedure case is one that 
is useful for defining the very term 
pornography. Many do not approve of Catharine 
MacKinnon's and MIM's expansive use of the term 
"pornography." Here we see it involves some form 
of speech involving sexuality that causes or 
reinforces oppression. Under capitalism, the 
most important pornography is the entertainment 
media--ranging from "Jenny Jones" to Playboy to 
Hollywood to hard-core porn films to pop music. 
It is impossible to think about gender or sex 
and not be influenced by pornography.

The genius of MacKinnon is to look at cases like 
Amedure's and see that there are elements of 
sexuality as they intersect with capitalism that 
cannot be located in the mode of production. 
Although we know the "Jenny Jones Show" is for-
profit and hence we see a mode of production or 
society's organization of work partly at fault, 
we also see that there is something about 
sexuality that leads to violence when stirred up 
by capitalism. What is getting stirred up is the 
question of gender.

The "Jenny Jones Show" only succeeds because it 
is not work; it is entertainment. It is about 
leisure-time, which is the sphere of gender, not 
class. Something about the sexualities of 
straight men leads to murder and MIM believes 
this is something peculiar to gender oppression 
and not just capitalism. We can go so far as to 
say that this gender oppression has its own very 
peculiar dynamics, because it targets more gays 
than lesbians for homophobic violence. If it 
were simply a matter of reduplicating the 
dominator/dominated superstructure of capitalism 
in a monkey-see-monkey-do fashion, we would not 
expect gay men to receive more repression than 
lesbians. What is happening with the Jonathan 
Schmitzs of the world goes beyond bad things 
they learned from the structure at work.

By the way, Schmitz won a court appeal to 
overturn his 1996 conviction for murder. He will 
be retried in August. The whole court procedure 
is rather inefficient for dealing with social 
problems. The typical right opportunist says we 
need more bright lawyers like Geoffrey Fieger to 
fix the system. The typical ultraleftist will 
say we should streamline the courts to assure 
convictions of whoever happens to be tried for 
the murders of the Amedures of the world.

It is much better to prevent violent 
contradictions than to focus society's energies 
on the court system. Eliminating for-profit 
production will insure that people will produce 
entertainment media without extraneous 
motivations to oppress. In addition, MIM does 
not plan on resting with the abolition of the 
profit system when it comes to gender 
oppression. We plan to study and conquer all the 
causes of romance-related murder. 

Notes:

1. Reuters at 
http://news.excite.com/news/r/990507/15/ news-
jennyjones

2. http://www.cnn.com/SHOWBIZ/TV/9905/07/ 
talk.show.slaying.02/