Biases up front: Robert Davi is a friend of mine. I’ve know the guy for almost four years, personally like him, admire his talent, and most certainly admire the fact that he was one of the first of the familiar Hollywood faces willing to come out of the conservative closet to speak up for his country. Other than a quick conversation at a film festival, the first time I met Robert was around the time his writing/directing debut The Dukes was out winning all kinds of festival awards. Aware of his politics, I sent a blind email to his production company introducing myself and my site and asked for an interview. Within a few days Robert invited me to his house, bought me lunch and was unfailing gracious and generous with hours and hours of his time.
It’s worth pointing out that this happened long before Big Hollywood, before I knew Andrew Breitbart, when I was running a site that on a good day received a few thousand hits. The fact that Robert had never heard of my site and still treated me like a feature writer from People Magazine — the fact that he was doing me a favor and never acted as though he was — was not lost me on then and still isn’t.
Yes, I am biased. Now you know that. No secrets here. And if you believe my bias has in some way colored the case I’m about to make exposing Zachary Woolfe, a writer at Capital New York and the New York Observer, as yet another left-wing hitman disguised as a “journalist,” that’s what the comment section is for.
To make my case, though, the first thing I’m going to do is not argue a single word found in Woolfe’s snarky Capital New York smear-job of Davi — a tactless, unprofessional piece of obvious character assassination that barely tries to disguise itself as a serious profile of an artist in transition. No, for this exercise, we’re going to play make believe and assume that a guy I’ve known for years really is the Miserable Show-Biz Monster Woolfe is so eager to make him out to be.
That’s right, we’re going to take Woolfe at his word and still prove he set out to trash and embarrass his interview subject.
Oh, the wonders of research.
Though Woolfe has written a number of pieces for them, according to Capital’s website, he’s only been a contributor there since June of 2010. Comparing apples to apples, since June Woolfe’s written profiles/interviews of novelist Bill Clegg, composer Esa-Pekka Salonen, the vendors at a Gay Pride event, the indie rock band The Fiery Furnaces, singer Angela Meade, and conductor Charles Mackerras — and yet it’s only Robert Davi who Woolfe hung out to dry.
In other words, out of 7 articles looking at 7 different individuals and artists, Davi is the only one Woolfe found deserving of this treatment.
Iffy, but possible.
But it’s not until you look at the many profiles/interviews Woolfe’s written for the New York Observer that you enter the arena of the impossible. I went back six full months and read dozens of articles written by Woolfe about dozens of artists — most of them in the world of opera — and not a single article even came close to the sneering contempt Woolfe used to bury Davi.
Remember, what we’re doing here is playing make believe and taking Woolfe at his word. We’re pretending Davi is the Clueless, Tactless Hollywood Ego-Monster Woolfe makes him out to be. But… if we’re going to pretend that a man who isn’t any of those things is, if we’re going to take Woolfe at his word, we also have to believe that over six months that involved his being exposed to dozens of artists (most of them in the Diva-ish word of opera), that it was only Robert Davi who Woolfe found deserving of a profile designed to make his subject look ridiculous and shallow.
To be clear, Woolfe’s certainly written profiles of artists that contain criticism. In fact, I would argue that until he met the openly conservative Davi that Woolfe’s writing has been professional and fair-minded. He obviously loves the world he writes about and greatly admires those who bring that world to life. And yet it’s Davi who gets the snotty Gawker treatment.
I wonder why?
Again, rather than speculate, you can learn more about Woolfe from his own words here.
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