Posted on 11/20/2006 7:03:27 AM PST by torchthemummy
Michael Richards exploded in anger as he performed at a famous L.A. comedy club last Friday, hurling racial epithets that left the crowd gasping, and TMZ has obtained exclusive video of the ugly incident.
(Excerpt) Read more at tmz.com ...
Apparently the heckler called him a cracker and a white boy first. Cracker pretty much means redneck. He responded by calling the heckler a n____. How come black people can call white people anything, but white people can't respond. Seems like the only thing a comedian can say which is unacceptable is something "racist".
I just saw the Letterman segment, and Richards seemed completely off-kilter and at times almost incoherent. Anyone would be rattled by the kind of situation he's in, but you'd expect a stand-up comic to be able to handle five minutes without stuttering. Even with Jerry Seinfeld and David Letterman, two old friends who are great at improvising, there to throw him a rope, he was still flailing.
Richards has made a living for 20-some years based on his manic persona, and it wouldn't surprise me if he started with some nose-candy to keep it up. Some people use rehab as a way of sidestepping scandal, some because they're genuinely messed up and act in ways they wouldn't when sober, and some as a bit of both. With Richards, I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see a bit of both in the next few days.
he will check himself into rehab next week - and say he was on booze and drugs.
I was fascinated at the abject stupidity of some of Letterman's studio audience, who completely failed to grasp the obvious and kept laughing, thinking it must be some comedy routine. Even after Jerry Seinfeld admonished them to "Stop laughing, this isn't funny" some still couldn't figure it out.
#459---yes, the comparison was a stretch, but I suppose if you whispered sweet nothings as TheInvisibleMan you could get away with it.
---The way I've always seen it is that when someone like Richard Pryor said it (and he even titled one of his albums "That Nigger's Crazy")he did it as "the white man's victim"---someone whom, even though his public persona was as defiantly "black" as anyone's in show biz, was letting his audience know he was now the stand-in for Mr. Charlie, but one that Mr. Charlie, or any "honky" authority figure,
could not censor for using that language, because, after all, isn't that the language of the racist, the bigot?, and he wouldn't want to censor himself, would he. Pryor and others had internalized that "victimage" and got away with it because it simply confused the white audience so much they were nonplussed and didn't quite know WHAT it meant.....they only knew it felt good to laugh, and relieve the tension that came from hearing the "N word" come from the mouth of an "N".Meanwhile Pryor gave everyone in his audience a "wink" that implied "take it any way you want, and it will tell me who you are"
Very complex, this race dynamic.
I don't know about his perversions, but definitely an addict. That's what killed him. But he was also an often insightful, often funny, and completely fearless social critic. A lot of what used to be the domain of columnists and commentators is now carried on by stand-ups, because the "serious" commentators don't have the cajones.
Listen to someone like George Carlin (in the early years; now he's more bitter than funny), Bill Hicks, Richard Pryor, Sam Kinison (he's mostly remembered for his screaming schtick, but there was more to the guy), Chris Rock (the bit where he says America needs new black leaders, and then nominates Pat Reilly, because no one has taken more black men to the promised land), Whether you agree with their premises or not, they have a stiletto-sharp way of finding things you oughta be thinking about. If HL Mencken were alive today, I think he'd be a comic rather than a columnist.
Well good luck with that. There's way more mileage the way it is. All he has to do is make a public apology and show his DNC membership card and all will be forgiven.
Racism was invented by the KGB? What color is the sky on your world?
They were laughing/gasping because not once, but twice, he called the hecklers Afro-Americans (not african americans). Just dug his hole deeper for me...
Yeah, that struck me too. I found my self saying "stop laughing" to the TV about 30 seconds before Seinfeld did.
But I wouldn't be too harsh on the audience. Nervous laughter is sometimes a way to fill an awkward silence when you don't know what else to do. I've found myself doing it, even when I knew before the sound escaped that it wasn't quite the right response. I was able to recover by saying something thoughtful or sympathetic, and the members of the Letterman audience weren't.
Maybe the studio should have a "SHHHHHH" sign above the stage to complement the "APPLAUSE" and "LAUGHTER" signs.
That was bizarre. Are people really that dumb?
I wonder if something else is going on in his life.
I could be wrong but people who throw tirades like this usually have some sort of underlying problems.
Sort of makes Mel Gibson sound like a pussy cat.
Not knowing the "real" michael richards, the audience have no clue how to take him outside of Kramer.
From what I understand, Richards is a rather quiet man off stage.
Seeing him squirm during Letterman made me feel pretty much at a loss of words. He didnt know what to say to fix this and it was apparent he is truely sorry. You get to a point where you start saying things just to be mean and I believe him and Gibson both went the try to be hateful just to be mean but go too far to turn back.
I dont believe he is a racist. I believe he was going into an unrehearsed social point about racist words but sorta lost control of his point as the hecklers yelled back and things went haywire.
I think the video is more or less in its entirety. If you watch it carefully, the beginning about a half-second of the camera whipping across the seat backs, which looks like someone wasn't taping the whole show, but pulled the camcorder out of a purse or pocket or bag, then pushed the button, when they thought something extremely unusual was about to happen.
I would guess that the heckling, and even the first part of Richards' response, weren't caught on tape. At least not on that tape.
It's like the Rodney King tape, which begins after the pull-over ended and the beat-down started. The only tape of the first plane hitting on 9/11 is from a professional cameraman, because only a pro or a serious hobbyist would think first to point the camera up rather than to drop the camera to his side and look up.
The really sad part was when Richards tried to drag Iraq and Hurricane Katrina into his rant. Brother....
Ah, yes...But Richards didn't make a movie about Jesus, did he?
Afro-American was the preferred PC/academic term in the '70s and '80s. A prefix, like Anglo-American or Sino-American. Some folks consider it antiquated, but I've never heard of anyone finding it offensive. It does not refer to the hairstyle.
I saw Richard's appearance as a last minute attempt to salvage the 'Seinfeld' DVD (7th season?) sales. They go on sale tomorrow.
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