A Quick Note on Scandal and Morality Clauses
Just a very quick note on this week’s episode of Scandal, a show that’s doing some of the most interesting (network) work in storytelling, female desire, postfeminism, race, and the intersections between all of the above. But what I found interesting about this week’s episode had nothing to do with those qualities and everything to do with it’s evocation of “morality clauses” in contracts — a page straight from the playbook of classic Hollywood.
If you don’t watch Scandal, the basic premise is as follows: Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) is a “Fixer,” a term borrowed from classic Hollywood and meant to connote her behind-the-scenes, treading the line between legal/illegal, “fixing” of various potential scandals. She also works on political campaigns, but that’s another story.
Within this particular episode, Pope is hired to help spin the scandal from the revelation of an old affair between a female CEO and her former law professor. When she was a law student and he was a law professor, they engaged in an affair; now said affair is coming to light because the law professor is nominated for the Supreme Court. Not an altogether unfamiliar scenario.
But what really interested me was how the company of which the female participant in the affair (nicely played by Lisa Edelstein, formerly of House) is subject to censor from the company of which she is the CEO, which threatens to fire her for violating the terms of her contract, specifically, a “morality clause.” Even though her “transgressions” occurred fourteen years in the past, her Fortune 500 company could still fire her for actions that did not adhere to the moral standards of the company. Or, more bluntly, any actions that, once revealed, would incite negative press coverage and make the stock price drop.
The board of this company seems to have the CEO cornered: her actions violate the morality clause, even if they were committed years ago, and they’re about to vote to fire her. But at the last minute, some associates of Olivia Pope barge into the board room and threaten to all sorts of dirt on the other members of the board, all of whom have also signed contracts with morality clauses.
In truth, these Pope Associates have nothing. No dirt. I’m sure they actually could find something, but they had a time crunch. But the very suggestion that they had dirt was enough to make all of these (male) board members feel very guilty and quietly rescind their threat to invoke the morality clause in her contract. As close up of individual board members makes abundantly clear, the vast majority of them have also violated their own morality clauses.
And here’s where we return to Classic Hollywood. Morality clauses never (or very rarely) actually govern the behavior of the contracted individual, whether a member of a board or a Hollywood star. Instead, it’s all about appearance — and surveillance. Companies publicized morality clauses much in the same way that the studios, following the scandals of the early ’20s, publicized their own clauses. Ultimately, adherence to the clauses mattered very little — indeed, no star was every fired. What mattered was the appearance of strict moral regulation.
Perhaps even more importantly, the knowledge of such clauses legislates behavior. Or, rather, makes it go underground, ostensibly immune to surveillance. In classic Hollywood, this meant relying on Fixers employed by the very company that had made you sign the contract with the morality clause. Today, it means that individuals, whether on the corporate or celebrity level, understand that their behavior will be surveilled. Crucially, however, it doesn’t mean that they will actually alter their behavior. Humans do “immoral” things, broadly defined. Humans have affairs; humans do drugs; humans have peccadilloes. Morality clauses persist not to actually change behavior, but to a.) make outsiders believe that the company/studio/whatever does not endorse that behavior and b.) to force that behavior underground.
It’s a totally screwy system. But that’s ideology and the realities of American conservative values.
