VMA host Russell Brand used the “R” word - retarded – to describe President George W. Bush during last night’s awards telecast.
Can we expect an MTV boycott? More cries for censoring the word? Or will disability groups let this one slide, given the context?
Update: The Special Olympics responds to Brand.
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Worst of all, he wasn’t funny. If you’re going to make a bunch of vile remarks about Bush and Palin’s kids, then they’d at least better be hilarious. Brand didn’t say anything some teenagers I know couldn’t think of if they had a few minutes before going on stage.
Making a “Bush is stupid” joke today is like doing a “Bill Clinton is sexed up” gag eight year ago. The theme is exhausted, and frankly not so funny the first time.
Imagine the gags that didn’t make his final cut … ugh.
If he really wanted to be daring and original he would have attempted to joke about Obama and trash him. Absolutely no one in the entertainment industry does it.
Great point, Opus. No matter your ideology, the “bravest” thing any actor/comic could do right now is tweak Obama. Doesn’t have to be mean or nasty, just cutting.
But “outrageous” behavior often falls in very specified, safe areas.
I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s next to impossible to talk about politics and still be funny — especially in such a polarized political environment as today’s.
Jake — I disagree. I think the problem is that today’s artists are so frenzied in their politics that they can’t separate them from their art. It’s why we get so many lousy anti-war movies … and why formerly funny minds like Bill Maher have become tiresome. They either can’t separate the two, or have no interest in doing so. And their work suffers as a result.