A Tale of Two Whistleblowers…

I thought that I might post this before it surfaces on the biography channel or something… with the revelation of Mark Felt as the shadowy figure “Deep Throat”, everyone is coming out of the woodwork to either lionize or condemn him for what he did… I submit that this is the plight of all whistleblowers, and merely a consequence of what they have chosen to do;  their motivations are relatively unimportant, in that it all boils down to survival… which is what human beings do best. Whistleblowers are generally cut from all cloths in life, with most being very average with average foibles, and neither saint nor sinner… it is the public which chooses to make them one or the other… A fitting example is to contrast the life of Linda Boreman, aka Linda Lovelace, or the original “Deep Throat” with that of Mark Felt.

(more)

(First, as a trivia question, I will award big mojo to anyone who can come up with the original person to suggest the nickname “Deep Throat” be applied to Mark Felt… if nobody comes up with it, I will post it later)

Linda Boreman burst onto the scene of American Pop culture in 1972 starring in a pornography film entitled “Deep Throat”. The plot revolved around a woman who was matchless at her abilities in felatio, and indeed derived sexual pleasure and orgasm from the act as she had a clitoris in her throat… that was about it. This, plus her then unheard of skills at oral sex documented on film was enough to capture the heart of American pop culture. At the time, pornography had achieved a brief degree of respectability for many debatable sociological/psychological reasons that it rapidly lost and has not held since. The bottom line was that it was OK in most circles to have seen this film and to discuss it in public. Spiro Agnew was reported to have watched it at Frank Sinatra’s, Sammy Davis Jr. became enamored of it to the point of indulging in an affair with Linda herself, Richard Nixon himself was rumored to have seen it… At the time, it was not considered to be particularly offensive to be seen walking around in a T-shirt such as this:

While the movie has made an estimated 600 million dollars, in the typical story, Linda Boreman received, in essence, nothing… Instead she was relegated to the seamy underworld of near fame and the abusive world of pornography. She went on, with the help of feminist advocates Gloria Steinem and Catherine MacKinnon, to actually speak out and “blow the whistle” on the physical and other abuses of the “sex industry” before congress.  Predictably, at that point, she was reviled by those in power in the pornography industry, as well as many males who could not give up the fantasy that she enjoyed what she was doing on screen. She was of course lauded by those championing women’s rights.

Linda spent the remainder of her life struggling for some degree of normalcy and attempting to recover from the greatness that was thrust upon her. She fought for, and was rumored to have prostituted herself for the safety and survival of her children, enduring multiple abusive relationships, and failed careers. She suffered through bouts of substance abuse, a double mastectomy, complicating hepatitis, and ultimately a resultant liver transplant. Ultimately she died after complications from injuries sustained in an auto accident at age 53 in April of 2002.

I think that there can be some direct parallels drawn between the lives of Mark Felt and Linda Boreman who are tied together inextricably by the same moniker. Both did what they thought was right in many given points throughout their lives, and probably did some things that they were not proud of, as have we all… Both dealt in different ways which seem to be converging, with the imposed societal drawbacks of being a whistle blower. I think that both should be applauded without judgment for their human abilities at survival.

In closing, I would leave you with the words of Linda Boreman from a 1997 interview, which I would be willing to bet Mark Felt would identify with:

And I hope that you will think twice before donning one of these T Shirts that I think will rapidly and inevitably surface from the Third Right: