In September of 2011 I wrote the above blog about political
issues. In the context of events of the past couple of weeks I feel that a
follow up is in order. This time it involves celebrities and free speech, more specifically,
how some speech is freer than others.
Paula Deen is in many ways the quintessential
southern woman, with her gawdy make-up, big hair and syrupy drawl. Watching her
show is a hoot since she plays up so many stereotypes that non-southerners have
of southerners. All of her recipes are slathered in “buddder” and her cackling
laugh is enough to make even the most pretentious among us laugh or at least smile.
Well, after it was discovered that Paula has used the “n” word on numerous occasions
in her life, she lost everything faster than a New York minute, the judgment
fairly dripping from members of the media who confessed shock and horror that a
60 something southern woman could possibly ever used such outrageous language.
I couldn’t help but picture Captain Renault blowing his whistle and declaring
to Rick that he was “shocked, SHOCKED to learn that there was gambling going on
in here!” But such is life in the politically charged atmosphere of 2013
America…unless you happen to be a liberal celebrity like Alec Baldwin.
Baldwin’s career as an actor and political gadfly
for all things Progressive has been littered with profane explosions, from degrading
humiliations of his own daughter, infantile temper tantrums on airplanes, to
sometimes violent exchanges with photographers, and now with the advent of
Twitter, countless homophobic tirades and F-bomb laced eruptions. In our hyper
sensitive world where any negative opinion expressed about homosexuality is
greeted with almost unanimous indignation by the thought and speech police in
the media, Alec Baldwin, by virtue of his lockstep liberal reliability always
gets a pass. I see Mr. Baldwin pitching Capital One’s credit cards to me in
commercial after commercial with the clever tagline, “What’s in your wallet?”
Mr. Baldwin still makes movies and stars in the widely acclaimed TV show,
30Rock. His movies are not boycotted by the Rainbow Coalition and there aren’t
streams of angry activists outside Rockefeller Center demanding that NBC cut
ties with this unrepentant homophobe. Mr. Baldwin’s latest Twitter explosion
was as follows:
“I’m gonna find you George Stark , you toxic little
Queen and I’m gonna f*** you up…you lying little b****, I’m gonna f*** you up.
I’d put my foot up your a** but I’m sure you would like it too much.”
How long would it take for any public conservative
to lose everything if this sort of talk came from him or her? About as long as
it took for Paula Deen to lose everything over a word she never said on her
television show, only in private legal depositions and other private moments.
Liberalism is a “get out of jail free” card for
hotheaded celebrities. Nice.
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