Irony on so many levels.
Posted on 09/14/2007 4:53:10 AM PDT by Kaslin
Nearly everyone with a television can make jokes about TV awards shows, especially the speech-making. How many times have people made the hoariest jokes about thanking the "little people," or mimicking Sally Field's Oscar speech: "You like me! You really like me!" But Kathy Griffin, the comedienne with the self-satirizing "My Life on the D-List" show on that D-list network Bravo, took the ritual to a new low when she won an Emmy for Outstanding Reality Program.
She mocked Jesus Christ.
"A lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award," she declared. "I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus. So, all I can say is, 'Suck it, Jesus.' This award is my god now."
The audience reaction? Reporters noted laughter in the crowd. Griffin certainly knows Hollywood diehards would be pounding the tables over that one.
It's certainly a ritual for entertainers to thank God or Jesus when they win awards. Some of them are very sincere, like gospel singers at the Grammy Awards. Others have looked more than a little ridiculous, such as during the Vibe Magazine Awards in 2005, when several rappers took home awards for "songs" with nasty lyrics about shooting people -- and then thanked God.
Griffin could have mocked the ritual without mocking Jesus and millions of Christians. But she had to shock, to say, "Suck it," and suggest she'd rather worship her Emmy award like it was a pagan goddess. Was she sorry? No. Reuters reported she was "unrepentant" when asked about the speech backstage. In fact, she was well pleased with herself: "I hope I offended some people. I didn't want to win the Emmy for nothing." Griffin's official Website giddily declared her line "will go down as one of the best quotes in Emmy history."
The public doesn't think so, and Hollywood knows it.
The cable channel E! announced they would scrub the remark from their taped broadcast of the Creative Arts Emmy Awards. (It wasn't part of the more prominent Emmy show that aired on Fox.) Some media outlets also scrubbed the actual remarks from their news stories. Associated Press reporter Lynn Elber would only explain Griffin made "an off-color remark about Christ." Some TV outlets, like MSNBC, also scrubbed the line in their retelling of the story. Good for them.
That wasn't as strange as Reuters, which began its dispatch with the words "Comic Kathy Griffin's 'offensive' remarks about Jesus" will be edited out. Employing quote marks around a word is meant as a warning light that something isn't necessarily so. An insult against Jesus Christ isn't necessarily "offensive," according to this wire service.
Reuters, you may remember, also doesn't believe the 9-11 murderers were necessarily "terrorists."
Kathy Griffin has this kind of double standard, too. Many irreverent performers aren't equal-opportunity besmirchers. Griffin appeared clutching her Emmy on the Ellen DeGeneres talk show a day after the furor broke, and when DeGeneres suggested it can be tough on the other side of the joke, as she was the butt of a lot of jokes when she declared she was gay, Griffin turned dead serious and insisted: "Not mine. Not mine." Griffin would never mock a gay person. But Jesus and Christians? Bombs away.
Griffin explained that she had rules about her targets, and one was, "I don't make fun of people who have a sense of humor about themselves." So, in this case, with one enormously broad brush, Kathy Griffin has decided that the vast majority of Christians are incapable of taking a joke. But there is funny, and there is insulting. Griffin doesn't have a clue of the difference.
The funny thing is that for someone who doesn't like religious phonies, Griffin is the biggest phony of them all. In a scabrous interview with a gay newspaper in Houston, Griffin called herself a "complete militant atheist" and complained, "We have to listen to everybody's 'God this' and 'Jesus that.'" She told that interviewer she fell away from the "stupid" Catholic Church in high school in the 1970s.
But then Reuters quoted one spin-control attempt issued by her publicist after her Emmy insult: "Am I the only Catholic left with a sense of humor?" And guess what she wore on her necklace on the Ellen show? A visible golden cross.
Irony on so many levels.
The “spirit of the thread” has nothing to do with it. The accomplishments of Special Olympians are actually honorable and add immeasurable joy to the lives of the participants.
If I looked like that, I’d be angry at God too!
‘But there is funny, and there is insulting. Griffin doesn’t have a clue of the difference.’
Actually, she clearly understands the difference. And she choose to be insulting so as to ingratiate herself with those she requires access to for the majority of her material.
She makes her living mocking the stars, til recently. I suspect she’s decided to ‘expand’.
Its a poor decision, one that will cause her to fade away in the end. You can’t offend 80% of your potential market and not pay a heavy price.
With one of those mini bats they used to give out on "free mini bat day".
My thoughts exactly. Richinoc's "humour" is on a par with Griffin's.
Isn't that the truth?
She played herself in that annoying role on Seinfeld — hardly an act — she is her OWN reality show
Hammer . . meet nail.
What was the audience’s reaction?
Bump!
Agreed, though I take no pleasure in that.
Your always safe slapping someone who is taught to turn the other cheek.
Indeed, if they called Mohamed a dog to be funny, they would then live a life of constant fear.
1 - Who watches the Emmys?
2 - Who cares what she says?
3 - If you actually ever listened to Carol Burnett and Bob Hope in a club, in their day, you’d know they said much worse things (I don’t know anything about Red Skelton)
4 - Learn to take a joke, next thing you know you’ll be strapping bombs to your wives and children.
All of my horses are better-looking. From either end.
As they say
"UGLY is through and through."
As Jesus said in John 3:3, be born again or go to hell.
Obviously she thinks she’s going to impress somebody with such comments. Maybe she’s playing to the “Satan crowd”?
Making fun of retarded kids isn't the best way to make a point about how ignorant a comedian is for making fun of religion.
You forgot old and ugly.
But you go right ahead! :-)
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