Publishers must stand up to the mob

Suppose you’re a writer with a self-destructive proclivity for sticking your neck out. Would you sign a book contract that would be cancelled in the instance of ‘sustained, widespread public condemnation of the author’? Even cautious, congenial writers are working in an era when a bland, self-evident physiological assertion like ‘women don’t have penises’ attracts a school of frenzied piranhas. So journalists would be fools to sign a document voided if, in a magazine’s ‘sole judgment’, they were the subject of ‘public disrepute, contempt, complaints or scandals’.

These are the ‘morality clauses’ arising in standard publishing contracts in the wake of #MeToo. Primarily a Hollywood weapon of the 1930s and 1940s, morality clauses were used particularly to frighten actresses from disgraceful hanky-panky. So savour the irony: this legal loophole was designed to oppress women, especially in regard to sex. In consequence of a movement meant to thwart the oppression of women, especially in regard to sex, the clauses are sneaking back.

What makes these stipulations so alarming is their vagueness. Who exactly is ‘the public’? Who, or what, speaks for ‘the public’?

I think we know. ‘The public’ is Twitter.

Most popular

Jawad Iqbal

Blue Origin’s all-female space flight was a step backwards for feminism

Enshrining mob rule in legal contracts can only further embolden the cranks, the kooks, the grumps — the sanctimonious, the embittered, the aggrieved. As word spreads that outrage on digital steroids can not only hound and intimidate writers, but can consign years of their hard work to the bin, the Twits are further motivated to crucify anyone who breaks their imaginary rules.

These clauses are popping up largely to protect publishers from the blowback of alleged sexual misconduct of the sort that trashed the reputation of Junot Díaz (now exonerated). Granted, I’m not all that worried that I’ll suddenly start dry humping an intern at the HarperCollins Christmas party without the poor kid’s consent; the post-menopausal libido has its advantages.