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The first time I saw Jack Valenti was when I was in junior high; I was in Washington, DC at some rarefied event, full of powerful, smooth, very rich people. The people you rarely see in the media because they are so removed from the hoi polloi they are sort of ephemeral in their presence compared to the rest. As well, Senators and top Congressmen, a couple of cabinet members were floating around. Valenti was very distinctive; he arrived just after Warren Beatty. I think it was an event at the State Department on the top floor. Some annual thing for the party's biggest contributors. Sponsored by some wine trade association, so of course the food and wine were endless, glamorous and ethereal (yes, I did drink lots of champagne, over those several hours).
The venue, a very large room, with a balcony along the entire length, which as I remember seemed hundreds of feet long, was sumptuous, dark red, maybe gold leaf around the giant mirrors and on the ceiling, one single crimson and gold carpet that went on and on under antiques, flowers in urns 20 feet high, the lights of Washington were twinkling through the wide-open floor to ceiling doors. In the soft dappled lighting were dark areas where low conversation and a few careful words could be discretely exchanged.
Valenti, still today, looks exactly the same even though it's been 20 years. Now that I know he's 82, it's hard to imagine he was maybe 62 then, because he seemed 80 in a way, and yet sort of ageless. I kept watching him, after asking who he was, because he seemed to know everyone there, which was amazing in my junior high mind, because there probably were 1000 people to know. His cheeks were crinkled just as they are now, with that big shock of wild hair, and he just slipped from person to person, shaking hands and planting a few words with each. Much more interesting than Beatty, who has star power but not real power in the way he holds himself. Valenti was the opposite. He was better than anyone in that room, which was pretty much the Olympics of palm pressing and networking. At the time, I did not really understand what he did, but I could see he was very very good at it, whatever it was.
Anyway, Louisiana Congressman Billy Tauzin has apparently accepted the job to head the MPAA. I've only seen him on the House floor, have no idea if he can do what Valenti does, though I'm sure he's well connected. Guess it's time to go rent that Martha Stewart/Billy Tauzin bbq'd shrimp episode to rate his schooze factor. It's possible the requirements and people to know have changed for the top post at the MPAA. But I suspect they wanted the most well connected person they could find, to execute their agenda which seems to skirt public involvement in favor of courting a few powerful folks effectively, quietly, until it's too late for the public to do anything about the policies made that so unfairly tilt the copyright regime in favor of incumbent copyright holders, to the detriment of the public domain and the kind of innovation that leads to new jobs, industries and redistributions of power and wealth across existing industries, as we move deeper into an information economy.
Update 10/27/03: Bernard Weinraub/NYTimes on the idea of Valenti leaving the MPAA.
Posted by Mary Hodder at October 25, 2003 05:48 PM