Kathy Griffin

[NovaKart]

I suppose this controversy is a little old by now but it's still ongoing.

Kathy Griffin did a photo shoot where she's posing with a prop made to look like Donald Trump's severed head. This did not go over well even with anti-Trump people and she's been attacked. She held a press conference with a lawyer and is blaming it on sexism while also apologizing for the incident.

I'm just not buying the misogynist thing here. Some people are comparing it to Ted Nugent making offensive threatening comments about Obama.

While his remarks were disgusting did he actually pose with a prop or anything like that? It sounds like just trash talk although i'm not excusing it. It's just this was deliberately done to provoke a reaction and it certainly got that.

I don't think the reaction would have been less extreme if a man had done it. And painting herself as the victim here is a really bad strategy I would say. I think it would be far better to keep quiet and hope the controversy passes over.

Also I would argue that Kathy Griffin is much more prominent than Ted Nugent these days. She's one of the top female comedians out there, among Amy Schumer, Sarah Silverman and Chelsea Handler. She might be the most prominent female standup comedian. She was hosting the new years eve event on CNN every year in front of the whole country.

Now she's got her Jane Fonda moment but at least she wasn't posing for a photo with ISIS in Raqqa. Maybe everyone will forget this soon enough, unlike with Jane Fonda.

 

[Zkribbler]

It sounds like just trash talk

Promising to decapitate President Obama and other leading Democrats is more than just "trash talk." This was a statement lauded by Trump and never apologized for by Nugent, who visited Trump in the Oval Office earlier this year. .

In contrast, Griffin's statement was wordless. I interpreted as a protest against the blood-drenched future into which Trump is leading us.

 

[Commodore]

is blaming it on sexism

And this is the problem right here. It shows that she doesn't understand why she was fired and why what she did was absolutely wrong.

 

[Zkribbler]

And this is the problem right here. It shows that she doesn't understand why she was fired and why what she did was absolutely wrong.

Did you listen to her absolute and unreserved apology? How do you get from that to saying she doesn't understand what she did was wrong?

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Doesn't sound "unreserved" if she's blaming other people.

 

[Zkribbler]

Doesn't sound "unreserved" if she's blaming other people.

..and precisely what is she blaming other people for? Where in her apology does she even use the word "sexism?"

 

[Manfred Belheim]

..and precisely what is she blaming other people for? Where in her apology does she even use the word "sexism?"

No idea, haven't read/seen it.

 

[Kyriakos]

This whole thing is idiotic. You are just making it easier for Trump to now pose as (lol?...) the victim. Which is really dumb, cause he is the potus. Remember how some people thought Obama was playing the race card? (imo he wasn't, but his DoJ head was always playing the race hard, which was equally problematic). Now Trump is playing the "someone made my son cry by posting my severed head on tv!". DUMB.

This was the last thing the US needed, more distraction, more polarizing, more garbage.

I also detest the Barron trump angle. Ok, he is 10 (?), but he is also just one kid. He isn't under any threat. US presidents routinely have (by their decisions) not one but many kids die as result of collateral damage or attacks on family members who are singled out for drone strikes. So this Barron angle is again bs.

I do fear that the US is becoming more and more a soap opera instead of a country. I am not optimistic on the future.

 

[Ryika]

..and precisely what is she blaming other people for? Where in her apology does she even use the word "sexism?"

Sounds like you haven't watched her press conference. There she's complaining that Trump is "attacking her", and that he should have just taken it from her, instead of firing back, because he's the president and he has so much more power than her. She doesn't seem to have decided yet whether she wants to play the victim, the person owning up to her own mistakes, or the tough woman.

Overall, I think this is mostly blown out of proportion. She did a stupid pseudo-edgy photo/video, people should have rolled their eyes at the old lady, and that's where that story should have ended.

I really don't know what she was expecting though, it's a bit fascinating to me. Is she isolated in a circle of wannabe celebrities who all think that pretending to murder a president you don't like gets you a positive reaction by your average American, or how exactly did she come to the conclusion that this was a good idea?

 

[civver_764]

http://heavy.com/news/2017/06/kathy-griffin-crying-trump-bullied-bullying-videos-press-conference/

Just days after issuing an apology on Twitter, comedian Kathy Griffin tearfully claimed she was bullied by President Donald Trump at a press conference.


At the briefing, Griffin and attorney Lisa Bloom addressed controversy about photos that were published Tuesday of her holding what appeared to be a severed, bloody head of Trump. She said that she has been the victim of bullying by the Trump family.

“I don’t think I will have a career after this,” Griffin said with tears in her eyes. “He broke me, he broke me, and then I was like, ‘This isn’t right, it’s just not right, and I apologized.'”

Griffin and Bloom added that the comedian is now the subject of a Secret Service investigation into the “threat,” a move that her camp said should have never happened.

“Kathy never imagined that (the photos) could ever be interpreted as a threat of violence against Trump,” Bloom said.

*gag* Kathy needs to grow the hell up.

 

[shadowplay]

I watched the press conference yesterday - she needs to fire that PR hack/lawyer immediately. She made things worse.

 

[Groff]

From my pov she's riding the Trump hate train in hopes of scoring a few points with the liberal//sjw crowd, probably in hopes of staying relevant.

“I don’t think I will have a career after this,” Griffin said with tears in her eyes.

She's 56 years old and only now realizes that your actions have consequences?

 

[Ajidica]

Should she have done the bloody decapitated head?
No, probably not. Especially as she tries to be a "mainstream" comedian.

That said, what is really getting to me is how pundits everywhere are calling this offensive and how she should not be allowed on TV. However, I'm not seeing how this is any more offensive than "Mexicans are criminal drug dealing rapists" or "we need to ban Muslims" comments that our esteemed President made. One gets kicked off TV and the other gets made president? Something is a bit off with our moral outrage comments.

 

[Disgustipated]

While we're on the subject of comedians pushing the envelop, if you feel Kathy Griffon was in the right to do this, how do you feel about Bill Maher's use of the N word on his show recently? I kind of like both Griffon and Maher because they push the envelope and none of that political correctness BS. Maher probably shouldn't use that word, but if people give Tarantino a pass for using that word, then Maher should get a pass for using it as well. As for Griffon, what she did doesn't bother me. While I do tire of all the anti Trump garbage, comedians need to continue to push the envelope.

 

[Kyriakos]

Kathy Griffon

Griffons can decapitate you

 

[Timsup2nothin]

And this is the problem right here. It shows that she doesn't understand why she was fired and why what she did was absolutely wrong.

Whether it was "absolutely wrong" or not it certainly illustrates a double standard of some sort. Nugent talks about decapitating a Democrat president and only the left is appalled, the right thinks he's a hero. Griffin talks about decapitating a Republican president, the left is just as appalled, but the right is outraged. The core problem here is with the right, not Griffin or Nugent.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

Whether it was "absolutely wrong" or not it certainly illustrates a double standard of some sort. Nugent talks about decapitating a Democrat president and only the left is appalled, the right thinks he's a hero. Griffin talks about decapitating a Republican president, the left is just as appalled, but the right is outraged. The core problem here is with the right, not Griffin or Nugent.

I absolutely agree.

To illustrate, the GOP in Georgia is even using the image to bolster it's campaign against a Democrat running for re-election:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/ne...rsial-trump-photo-featured-new-gop-ad-1009692

Did Griffin go to far? Possibly, but no worse than what Nugent did. The thing is that in America, you have the First Amendment, which guarantees the right to free speech. That gives the right of protest and criticism of the government without reasonable fear of having that freedom restricted. It also prevents people from being jailed for criticizing the government or elected representatives (unless they make actual threats against those members) just on the whim of a despotic government. I may not agree with the statements made by Griffin and Nugent, but I have to support the statements that they made, within the context of the First Amendment. They were exercising their right to free speech, accorded to them by the Constitution, no matter how wrong it is perceived to be.

In this new climate of attacks on free speech we have to be ever mindful of the attempts to curb it, and if they succeed. If we lose the freedom of speech, and freedom of the press, we run the risk of being ruled by authoritarian regimes where more of our personal rights are taken away from us.

"A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government." - Edward Abbey

 

[civver_764]

Can someone clue me in on what Ted Nugent said about Obama? Was the thing with the machine guns? That's more of a "come at me bro, see what happens" thing than a "I'm going to cut your head off" thing.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Can someone clue me in on what Ted Nugent said about Obama? Was the thing with the machine guns? That's more of a "come at me bro, see what happens" thing than a "I'm going to cut your head off" thing.

Thanks for the demonstration. "Obama, can suck my machine gun." No problem, the right can rationalize that, since it's Obama. They'll close ranks and defend their own, right up to inviting Nugent to the white house. Then they'll pretend they never heard of google and innocently ask "gee, what did he do?" But offend a Republican president and their outrage burns white hot, and can be counted on to never end.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

But offend a Republican president and their outrage burns white hot, and can be counted on to never end.

But Tim, don't you know? This is the "Age of Outrage." Just like the sixties were the "Age of Aquarius."