Gray matter

This is the stuff I've been waiting for. With each new interview, we never know if Jake will be articulate and intellectual, or full of baffling circular phrases and self-interruptions that suggest confusion or avoidance of a subject. Clearly Jake was at the top of his game when he sat down with CNN's Showbiz Tonight and faced the toughest question with lucid fluidity.

Oddly enough, the transcript for the September 12 show is the only one unavailable on CNN's transcript page as I write this. It's a damn good thing I took the time to transcribe the first part of it myself before I left for work this morning.

Jake: I believe that governments, and I think, presidents, should act as parents to a country, you know? And I think that there are things that that country needs to know, and there are things that it doesn't. But I think that honesty is first and foremost, and I think people know when someone's honest or not, really deeply inside them.

AJ Hammer: So in some ways, it can be justifiable, if the ends are proper?

Jake: Yes. I think that's the debate in the movie. I think that's the extraordinary scene between Peter Sarsgaard and Meryl Streep, when they meet and Peter says, 'You're torturing somebody,' and she says, 'But we're keeping five thousand people alive by torturing one person.' So I think the debate is what it's about, I think the debate is what it's always about. I think that that's what makes, you know, that, you can come to a resolution that way, some interesting resolution, whereas, you know, one person takes a stance, just demands that that's how it goes, and then, like, imposes it on the rest of the world.

Already, his fans have begun to debate whether Jake was saying Yes, I believe in torture or Yes, you've asked what the movie asks. I'm thrilled because it's a far more engaging and important topic to discuss than whom Jake is or isn't sleeping with this week. As an amateur psychologist and sociologist, I'm fascinated by the concessions that some folks have made regarding Jake's comments. Why exactly is it more acceptable to believe that Jake thinks the value of torture is open to debate than that he thinks it may have its place? Doesn't the first imply the second? It seems to be all about the morality we personally wish to ascribe to Jake, and for some people there is enough ambiguity in the first interpretation to make it sound like an expression of neutrality on the subject.

For the record, I believe Jake meant exactly what he said: torture can be justifiable. He did not elaborate on under what circumstances he thinks this true; he wasn't asked to do so.

I've spent the last hour trying to figure out how I feel about this answer, and I keep coming back to a single thought: to say that torture is never justifiable would be as arrogant and unconsidered as it would be to say that it is always justifiable. In that sense, Jake has given the only answer that an intelligent man could give.

As if the contemplation of the validity of torture weren't ugly enough in itself, I found a couple of reactions to Jake's comments that disturbed me even further. Someone suggested that because of his answer, "Jake Gyllenhaal might be cool." (Sadly, this blogger appears to have missed the irony behind Fight Club.) Another strangely complimentary post proclaims "Jake Gyllenhaal Talks Like a Hetero Man." With points of view like these, it's easy to understand why a woman like me has a hard time finding a compatible man. How exactly does an acknowledgment that torture is not a black-and-white issue translate into a social perception of masculinity and heterosexuality? I may just die alone, after all.

Photos: Rendition official website, via IHJ.