The Source of Denial
And again with the name-calling and hair-pulling in Tinseltown! (They only called it “Hollywood” because “Blockheadville” wouldn’t fit on the side of the mountain…)
It all started out back last fall, when “Grey’s Anatomy” co-star Isaiah Washington, fretful and peevish because actors were apparently tardy to the set, gets into alleged physical combat with star Patrick Dempsey. Then he unleashes the f-word against star T.R. Knight.
No, not that f-word. The word he called him was “faggot”.
Now this is rich, coming from someone who would probably burst into flames, or at least start punching some more, if somebody not a “brother” called him, say, “jungle bunny.”
Washington, of course, hotly denies it, but his own “Grey’s” castmates are not letting him get away with it. Katherine Heigl referred to it at the Golden Globes the other night, after the deep-in-denial-to-save-his-sorry-actor’s-ass Washington hijacked the mike from the show’s creator backstage after “Grey’s” had won for best TV drama, vehemently insisting that he had NOT called Knight a faggot, never never never. Heigl basically said he’s a lying bastard and she didn't care if she got in trouble for telling the truth. Good for you, Katherine!
Whereupon Knight went on the Ellen DeGeneres Show the day after the Globes and said that not only had the volatile Washington indeed called him a faggot, everyone on the set had heard him do so.
(Hey! Where was Rosie O’Donnell on THIS one? A real piece of homophobia, and she didn’t, you’ll pardon the expression, weigh in?)
Turns out Knight is, yawwwwnnnn, gay. And a few days after the original incident, he outed himself. What a truly classy guy. He just defended himself with the truth. And that was all he said. It's Washington who won't let it go. And who should himself be let go.
TV critic Michael Ausiello on Washington's Globe episode: "It was by far the ugliest, most uncomfortable press-room moment I have ever experienced. And judging by the shell-shocked faces on the cast — particularly T.R. Knight and Patrick Dempsey, who have been class acts throughout this entire ordeal — it was a new low for them, too. And what's ironic about the whole thing is that in Washington's attempt to clear his name, he came off as an out-of-control homophobe who throws the f-word around like it's candy.
"He's also playing fast and loose with the truth. Did he call T.R. a f----t to his face? No. Did he refer to him as one behind his back? Yes. T.R. says so himself on today's Ellen DeGeneres Show. His continued employment on a show that wears its diversity as a badge of honor is the height of hypocrisy. If ABC wants to be remotely true to the principles Shonda Rhimes so eloquently espouses through the show, it has to do the right thing and fire Washington. Anything else at this point is simply unacceptable."
Amen.
What gets me is how easily these words roll off their tongues. Mel Gibson gets lickered up, immediately he's Jew-bashing. Michael Richards gets rattled onstage, he's off on a racist n-word tear. Washington gets mad, instantly he's gay-bashing. Well, that stuff doesn't come out of nowhere. It has to have been in there in the first place, and comfortably ensconced at that, for it to come leaping out all ugly and warty at the least provocation, or no provocation. And that's scary.
I’m getting so sick of this crap. Granted, nobody calls me dreadful words like those, but down the years, I’ve certainly been called plenty of pretty horrible things by know-nothing obsessive fanatics. And sure, it hurts. But one has to consider the source and the motives, and when one does, it hurts rather less. Because then one laughs.
Because these are pathetic, fixated neurotics who are infatuated with people they've never met and things they know absolutely nothing about, who haven’t got a life and who haven’t got two brain cells to rub together while they live at home in their parents’ basements and go out to work their minimum wage McJobs.
And who are spiteful and hateful and jealous and envious because I had something they never came within lightyears of. And never would have. So I certainly don’t forgive them (being neither a Christian nor a Buddhist, I don’t have to!), but I do understand the poison swamp of nastiness from which they have oozed forth. And thus I can discount and dismiss them and their ravings.
I don’t know what Washington’s problem with gays is, though clearly he’s got a major one going on. And Knight’s responses have uniformly been gentle in tone and politely restrained in nature (I myself don’t operate that way, but that’s just me), so we’re proud and respectful.
Isaiah, just STFU. T.R., get him a tape of the classic Chevy Chase/Richard Pryor word association sketch and make him watch it till he faints. Re-education can be a beautiful thing.
It all started out back last fall, when “Grey’s Anatomy” co-star Isaiah Washington, fretful and peevish because actors were apparently tardy to the set, gets into alleged physical combat with star Patrick Dempsey. Then he unleashes the f-word against star T.R. Knight.
No, not that f-word. The word he called him was “faggot”.
Now this is rich, coming from someone who would probably burst into flames, or at least start punching some more, if somebody not a “brother” called him, say, “jungle bunny.”
Washington, of course, hotly denies it, but his own “Grey’s” castmates are not letting him get away with it. Katherine Heigl referred to it at the Golden Globes the other night, after the deep-in-denial-to-save-his-sorry-actor’s-ass Washington hijacked the mike from the show’s creator backstage after “Grey’s” had won for best TV drama, vehemently insisting that he had NOT called Knight a faggot, never never never. Heigl basically said he’s a lying bastard and she didn't care if she got in trouble for telling the truth. Good for you, Katherine!
Whereupon Knight went on the Ellen DeGeneres Show the day after the Globes and said that not only had the volatile Washington indeed called him a faggot, everyone on the set had heard him do so.
(Hey! Where was Rosie O’Donnell on THIS one? A real piece of homophobia, and she didn’t, you’ll pardon the expression, weigh in?)
Turns out Knight is, yawwwwnnnn, gay. And a few days after the original incident, he outed himself. What a truly classy guy. He just defended himself with the truth. And that was all he said. It's Washington who won't let it go. And who should himself be let go.
TV critic Michael Ausiello on Washington's Globe episode: "It was by far the ugliest, most uncomfortable press-room moment I have ever experienced. And judging by the shell-shocked faces on the cast — particularly T.R. Knight and Patrick Dempsey, who have been class acts throughout this entire ordeal — it was a new low for them, too. And what's ironic about the whole thing is that in Washington's attempt to clear his name, he came off as an out-of-control homophobe who throws the f-word around like it's candy.
"He's also playing fast and loose with the truth. Did he call T.R. a f----t to his face? No. Did he refer to him as one behind his back? Yes. T.R. says so himself on today's Ellen DeGeneres Show. His continued employment on a show that wears its diversity as a badge of honor is the height of hypocrisy. If ABC wants to be remotely true to the principles Shonda Rhimes so eloquently espouses through the show, it has to do the right thing and fire Washington. Anything else at this point is simply unacceptable."
Amen.
What gets me is how easily these words roll off their tongues. Mel Gibson gets lickered up, immediately he's Jew-bashing. Michael Richards gets rattled onstage, he's off on a racist n-word tear. Washington gets mad, instantly he's gay-bashing. Well, that stuff doesn't come out of nowhere. It has to have been in there in the first place, and comfortably ensconced at that, for it to come leaping out all ugly and warty at the least provocation, or no provocation. And that's scary.
I’m getting so sick of this crap. Granted, nobody calls me dreadful words like those, but down the years, I’ve certainly been called plenty of pretty horrible things by know-nothing obsessive fanatics. And sure, it hurts. But one has to consider the source and the motives, and when one does, it hurts rather less. Because then one laughs.
Because these are pathetic, fixated neurotics who are infatuated with people they've never met and things they know absolutely nothing about, who haven’t got a life and who haven’t got two brain cells to rub together while they live at home in their parents’ basements and go out to work their minimum wage McJobs.
And who are spiteful and hateful and jealous and envious because I had something they never came within lightyears of. And never would have. So I certainly don’t forgive them (being neither a Christian nor a Buddhist, I don’t have to!), but I do understand the poison swamp of nastiness from which they have oozed forth. And thus I can discount and dismiss them and their ravings.
I don’t know what Washington’s problem with gays is, though clearly he’s got a major one going on. And Knight’s responses have uniformly been gentle in tone and politely restrained in nature (I myself don’t operate that way, but that’s just me), so we’re proud and respectful.
Isaiah, just STFU. T.R., get him a tape of the classic Chevy Chase/Richard Pryor word association sketch and make him watch it till he faints. Re-education can be a beautiful thing.
posted by Patricia Kennealy Morrison | 10:47 AM
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