Some celebrities dip their toes in political waters. A few write op-eds for liberal or conservative web sites, while others share their views via magazine profiles and TV interviews.
And then there’s Janeane Garofalo.
I can’t imagine the rage, the unexpurgated hate that makes her say such awful/monumentally stupid/ignorant things on a regular basis.
Here’s Garofalo’s take on the April 15 tea party protests during a visit to MSNBC’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann.” (hat tip: Newsbusters):
- “This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up. That is nothing but a bunch of teabagging rednecks.”
- ” … the limbic brain inside a right-winger or Republican or conservative or your average white power activist, the limbic brain is much larger in their head space than in a reasonable person, and it’s pushing against the frontal lobe. So their synapses are misfiring.”
- “I didn’t know there were so many racists left. I didn’t know that. I — you know, because as I’ve said, the Republican hype and the conservative movement has now crystallized into the white power movement.”
Wow. To debate her point by point is absurd.
Once upon a time Garofalo was a charming actress/comedienne who made sly films like “The Truth About Cats and Dogs” and “Mystery Men.”
Now, she’s painted herself into the kind of ideological corner than even Tim Robbins wouldn’t recognize.
Fellow liberal Sean Penn is such a fine actor his performances make audiences forget his off-screen behavior. Garofalo isn’t nearly as skilled.
SIDE NOTE: Some press outlets are all too eager to sidle up to her view of reality. Check out this Austin Chronicle chat from her “Ratatouille” PR tour. See how the interviewer quickly sides with her mid-chat rant against those with whom she disagrees.
UPDATE: Garofalo strays further from the truth.
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There was no attempt to argue the tea party protests on point, just slander and the worst kind. Watching Garofalo wield the race card is both predictable and hilarious – she has no ground left to stand, except a fawning media drone like Olbermann who will bow to her every whim. She has political correctness in her corner and nothing else.
The notion that Barack Obama is faced with some racist uprising after winning 52-percent of the vote is both laughable, absurd and tiringly predictable. I hear all day how the conservatives have had nothing new since Reagan, it’s obvious Garofalo hasn’t had an original thought in years.
Keith Olberman interviewing Janeane Garofalo: Talk about a fart in a spacesuit!!! Can you say, “echo chamber?”
And Olbermann just sits there and nods … doesn’t he have the good sense to understand when a guest goes off the rails?
I had liked her in “The Truth About Cats and Dogs” but I cannot watch it anymore without thinking about her stupid political comments. Robbins did the same to the “Shawshank Redemption”. It is now a great film I cannot stand.
New drinking game. Shots every time she says Limbic or Stockholm.
Thanks for mentioning that she was in Ratatouille. You may have ruined another movie for me. Though the silly French accent may cover it.
for all her 10 dollar words and her Lisa Loeb intellectual specs, she pulls out the RACE CARD to vilify people rightfully protesting this flood of taxes, lol!!!!!!
“A right-winger or Republican or conservative or your average white power activist, the limbic brain is much larger in their head space than in a reasonable person, and it’s pushing against the frontal lobe”.
Question: Didn’t the Nazi’s contend that Jews were sub-human and didn’t the slave traders put forth the notion that blacks were somehow less than a full human being?
It seems to me that Janeane Garofalo is engaged in the same type of thinking. Maybe she would have conservatives rounded up and sent to camps or exterminated. After all, its quite obvious, they are deformed and defective.
I’ll do her a favor – I’ll say a prayer for her tonight. Poor woman needs as much help as she can get.
Grofe,
Well said. Hard to feel anger at people like Garofalo any more. Pity feels more appropriate.
The only one I heard calling anyone names was her (redneck is a racsist remark when not implied in a comedic way). I haven’t heard a peep about race from the many people from all sides of the political spectrum protesting this obscene spending. The only time I hear race, is when it’s one of these liberal hollywood elitists having marxist diarrhea of the mouth. They proclaim to be “thinkers” and think they are above the intellectual level of us in the “chattering class,” and that we can’t handle our own money and decisions without the nanny state doing it for us. She can’t even make the decision to wash her own hair or not, and she has the nerve to proclaim what is in peoples hearts? WTF. As a white person married to a member of another race with beautiful bi-racial kids, I am highly offended. You’ve just been “tea bagged” hair slick.
Thank you WWTW. I know I was a little extreme in my analogy but that was the first thing that came to mind. And, in my opinion, she forfeits the argument when she dehumanizes an entire group of people in order to elevate her view. Disagree with me – fine, call me a Nazi and the conversation is over. And – - I’ve won.
Usually, when you play the Nazi card you’ve admitted you’ve lost the argument. Not so with your analogy. If what she says is true, why should conservatives get a vote? Aren’t we mentally inferior? Sounds like she’s been in the lab, wearing a tiny white lab coat, doing the hard research to determine my frontal lobe is different, and inferior, to hers. So why should my vote count the same as hers?
Great point. And, given her past comments, she’s probably asking herself the same question.
She is the typical liberal fool. If the right disagrees with Obama we’re all racists. If they attack our president in the most vile and vicious ways, they are so wonderful and decent. I guarantee you people like her will tell you in the space of 5 min how many black friends and gay friends she has. she like many on the left might as well have it written on their foreheads, but that doesn’t make it sincere. Decent people don’t throw the word racist around so flipantly. It is so sickening what people like her and that idiot Olberman are spewing over the airwaves.
I had a bit of a crush on Janeane Garafolo–back before she got more than enough butt-ugly ‘tats to shame a carnie. I thought she was cute and feisty, but even then she was besieged by demons. Apparently, the demons won.
You know, for all the bile spewed at Olbermann-competitor (and without fail, dominator) Bill O’Reilly, if a guest came onto his show and said something half as vitriolic about any group, he’d cut them off in a second.
I think you might be onto something, Christian: someone with a world view that nasty and delusional is likely more deserving of pity than scorn.
I know this sounds childish, but has she ever been laid? I used to think she was kind of cute, but with her tats, she resembles a sailor’s bad wet dream. I don’t want to offend the sailors. She bad mouths Fox in one sentence while freely taking their paycheck with no problems. What a troll like little tool. She’s got some kind of mental problem. Probably her frontal lobe?
Great of you to share that Garofalo interview with the Austin Chronicle. This passage is hilarious/tragic in light of her statements on Olbermann:
What I took most from the film … was respect for those that are different. Do not react with fear and anger at “the other.” Do not try to eradicate the other, and don’t rob them of their dignity. You can work much better together than you can apart. The rats were afraid of the humans and had many myths built up about their evil, and the humans were afraid of the rats and had many myths built up about their evil – most of which were untrue on both sides. As they overcame their fear of one another, they focused quite peacefully in order to [create] something better than they would have on their own.
Of course, Garofalo violated that lesson just a couple of questions later in that Austin Chronicle interview when she ripped Dennis Miller, Ann Coulter, Christopher Hitchens and called everyone at Fox News “douche bags.” She will continue to violate that “lesson” that she preaches to others because she’s … well … a typical Hollywood liberal. That’s what they do.
Most absurd/asinine statement (among many) made there: Garafolo accusing Rupert Murdoch of pandering/dumbing down to the “racists”, “Klan demo”, and “white power movement(!)”…would that be the same Murdoch who signs Garafolo’s “24″ checks?
I confess I was all for the teabaggin’ jokes in childish, but pretty darned funny, retaliation since the tea party movement started it, IMO, with their “Teabag Obama” signs and Fox’s tongue in cheek baloney, pretending they had no idea what they were saying (Oh my, we’re so innocent, and now after the jokes, we’ll feign outrageous indignation). BUT I can’t stick up for Garofolo. To me, she sounds like Ann Coulter , or worse, maybe worse, and I can’t stand Ann Coulter. Lumping people together like that and ranting, I mean — what the heck is that? It was rude, obnoxious, stupid and hateful. I wasn’t into her before, and I’m not shocked or anything, but I did groan and shake my head. I realize she’s a comedienne and I disagree with the Washington Times article that proclaims she was 100% serious, like somehow Amanda would know that one way or another. I got the impression she was joking, being over the top in order to be provocative, not entirely unlike Glenn Beck and others on both sides of the fence, including Keith. But I don’t think that makes it okay. I HATE that she played on the race card. I think that may have been inspired by some of the signage. Have you seen the pics of the many signs at these tea parties? Many were legit. I don’t agree with them, but fine. Many were just whatever– not nice, but not racist. Some were flat out racist, no doubt about it. But I’m not sticking up for Garafolo. Some racists showed up and held up stupid signs. Fine. Say that. Don’t go into some idiotic rant.
now when i watch 24, i will turn the channel every time her collagen injected lips and hideous face show up on my tv screen. i would be grateful to Fox if they would go ahead and kill her character off. Barfalo must be the single most miserable human being on this planet.
Garafolo takes the easy way out by calling everyone who disagrees with her racist. There is no attempt to take on any issues, she just labels Conservatives racist and mentally deficient. Riiiight. So what about the issues Janeane? Tell us why the “stimulus” is such a good idea? Why do you support shutting down Gitmo? Do you support your guy when he bows to the Saudi king? Do you love Barack because he puts tax exemption limits on charitable contributions? Or is your love for the man based solely on race? I mean, we’re obviously racist because we didn’t vote for him. So does that mean you only voted for him because he’s black? Really, explain your rationale to me. I want to know what role race played in your decision to vote for the man. I mean, do you still like him despite his decision to up the number of troops in Afganistan? Surely you’d hate Bush for doing the same thing. Does Barack get a pass just because of his color? Tell me why I shouldn’t think you’re mentally deficient?
I was one of the few people who watched the old Ben Stiller show on Fox. yes, that was me. She is just sad, now.
It reminds me of kids in school talking about how racist everything is, even when it doesn’t seem racist at all that a person thinks Martain Lawerence was funny… or not funny. I can’t tell anymore. Does she even know who the klan were. Now, it’s always some dumb white person who screams racism.
Does she knows she’s white?
Tippy libby comment by Garofalo. She did not try to dispel their arguments but just used the “racist” card to intimidate and silence people she did not agree with. She is such a hypocrite. Tolerance. She would not even talk to conservative people. She has more concern for foreign terrorists than her fellow citizens. She truly went over the top on this one considering the only ones that have employed her was the “right-wing” creator of 24.
Also, I am sure she gives plenty of money to African-American, Latino, and Asian groups since she is so non-racist.
The only movie I really enjoyed her in was ‘Clay Pidgeons.’ An underrated movie. Ms Lefty Hatemonger is just a sideshow in it. I made myself sit through the clip of Garafalo with Olbermann. It was awful. She is so stupid and clueless. She tries to dress her foolishness up with intellectual sounding BS like ‘the Stockholm syndrome’ and ‘the limbic brain’ but that stuff is usually misapplied. In her discussion with Olbermann she described the people at the tea parties as all having over sized ‘limbic brains’ that push on the frontal cortex and make reason impossible. It was all wrong anatomically but the poor girl doesn’t know any better. She also said that the only reason for the Tea Parties is that we have a black president and the right wing doesn’t know how to handle that except with anger. It was an unusually concentrated outbreak of stupidity, personal attacks and unfounded accusations.
At first I wanted to put the clip on my blog and reasonably and factually answer her most egregious BS. But I’m beginning to think I want to spare myself too much contact with her hate and pseudo-intellectual anger. She has placed herself so far away from reason and rational discourse that it is probably best to not to further encourage her with attention or anything that could tend to legitimize her in any way.
Who really cares what this tattooed skank has to say. She is like the rock in a can…… all noise and no sense. Evidently, she likes to crawl our from under her rock from time to time and pontificate.
What a skanky ho. Was she ever relevant at anytime in her life. Why are lefties always so ugly, INSIDE and OUT.
If liberals accept her as a spokesperson, then . . . well . . . my work here is done.
Signed,
Conservative
I really liked her when she first was in movies and stuff. She was cute and funny. She seemed so real. I guess I’m with Charlie up there in that I had a bit of a girl-crush on her. I mean… in Cat’s and Dogs she was the cute one, the one a normal girl could identify with. Uma looks a whole lot like a horse.
It was so fleeting though. She got all hateful and bitter and political. It makes me sad… all these funny ladies one after another… turning into hateful cranks.
Yeah, yeah, it’s so brave of Janeane to talk like conservatives are the enemy. Talk about fomenting anti-intellectualism. Garofalo’s politics are like a religion and she’s the worst kind of demented fanatic. I think she projects all the racism she feels onto others too. Big time. The woman’s so obsessed with it 24/7 that it’s just got to be her own personal demon, in my opinion, that she’s desperately trying to hide. I’m just sayin’…
And Olbermann pulled the race card too. He said something about the protesters being angry with a black president. Huh? Like Garofalo, is there ever a second that goes by in a day when he isn’t thinking of President Obama, not as the man who is president today but as, first and foremost, a black man who they seem to think can’t cut it without their help? What is the president to them? They act like he’s some delicate flower instead of an equal who can enter the game of politics and take all that comes with it, and that includes criticism, not just the inevitable Nobel Political Prize – oops, I mean Peace Prize – he’ll be getting. Every other politician before him has managed to take the criticism and survive it (although in Jimmy Carter’s case he takes it with lots of sour grapes) and so can Obama.
There was a time after the first Gulf War when Colin Powell’s name was being bandied about Republican circles as a possible presidential candidate, by the way. He refused to run, though, so we’ll never know whether he would have received the nomination. I also think that having him as Secretary of State, followed by Condoleeza Rice did a lot to help Democrats see the potential viability of Obama’s run for office too. They were so quick to call Clinton the first black president because of their own soft bigotry not allowing them to see the rest of the country as it really is. *They* thought this day would never come when they made that silly remark about Clinton because they see racism everywhere, except where it truly resides – in their own mirrors.
President Obama was educated in private schools and the Ivy League. I hardly think he needs Garofalo and Olbermann’s constant attempts to protect a grown man from a conservative boogeyman of their own creation. “It’s the economy, stupid.” That’s one of the main issues conservatives have with this administration. The deficit grew way too much under Bush, but it was quickly shoved into the stratosphere by the earliest actions of the new administration and a Democrat congress. What about that do they not get? Talk about synapses misfiring.
Dust off that old college logic textbook and pay particular attention to logical fallacies, Keith and Janeane. You can’t get by on teabagging jokes and namecalling forever. *sigh* Then again, maybe you can, but it’s nothing to be proud of.
I love to hear this moron speak. Her and her liberal brothers & sisters have awoken free thinking, rational Americans out of their coma. Hopefully, we’ll have the same anger next year when we have a chance to electively remove the cockroaches currently infecting our country with their vitriolic viruses!
I never thought I’d do this, even when I knew Garafalo was signed to do “24″..I gritted my teeth and sat through a few episodes with her in it even though I’d heard some hateful spew from her in the past..I thought nothing would get between me and my Monday dose of “24″..but this last twisted rant did it..plus her interview with “The Village Voice” in which she stupidly outs all the cast and crew except for the writers (now down to one) “There’s nobody else whose opinions reflect that (writer’s right wing views) in the cast or the crew. And then midway through when I was working there the main right-winger left the show anyway.” Good going Jeanine..the thought of ever seeing your hate-filled face on anything ever again is enough to get me to boycott “24″. Your to blame, great job typhoid Mary.
Silly funnylady! Be funny! BE FUNNY!!!!
She said that like it was a bad thing!
I haven’t much to add to this debate other than; i’m watching her in 24 Day 7 right now and I would never have predicted that she could come out with so much ignorant rhetoric lol! I’m a UK resident and found the whole discussion laughable.
We have watched every episode of 24 since it started. Last night we watched the show (on tivo) and it was hard to concentrate on the show because everytime I saw Garafolo my mind forgot about the show and concentrated on what an idiot she is. I will not watch the show again this year. She has ruined it for me and my husband.
I did not attend a “tea party”, but I do agree with what they stand for, and it is not racism. I do not care if the president is white, black, or green, I think he, along with the left wing loons, are trying to turn this country into a socialist country. That system has never worked and I do not want it here. These people should remember a quote from Winston Churchill, “If you are not a liberal at 20, you have no heart. If you are not a conservative at 40, you have no brain.”
I can’t stand this woman and her ignorant rants. I did enjoy watching 24, but with her on the show it tipped the scale enough that I couldn’t watch it and enjoy it any longer.