But last week, he drew gasps instead of laughs during a gig in Nashville. As audience member Kevin Rogers wrote in an explanatory "Why I no longer 'like' Tracy Morgan" post, Morgan peppered his set with anti-gay remarks, including the assertion that "all this gay shit was crazy and that women are a gift from God and that 'Born This Way' is bullshit, gay is a choice, and the reason he knows this is exactly because 'God don't make no mistakes' (referring to God not making someone gay cause that would be a mistake)." He also reportedly said that his son "better talk to me like a man and not in a gay voice or I’ll pull out a knife and stab that little nigger to death." Rogers says that "As far as I could see 10 to 15 people walked out. I had to fight myself to stay seated, but I knew if I got up ... he won."
[. . .]
If there's any good to come out of Morgan's completely boneheaded behavior, it's that he was called out for it and he issued an apology -- something that one might optimistically view as a teachable moment. And more than that, it's opened up the conversation about the issue of sexual orientation and nature vs. nurture. An astute exchange on Jezebel Friday asked, Why should it matter? As one commenter wrote, "I've always said that the unspoken underpinning of the 'born this way' argument is that it tacitly legitimizes the idea that if people chose to be gay, hating them would be justifiable. Instead of, you know, hateful."
During his set last week, Morgan reiterated an old, self-justifying gag of his, that "if you can take a dick, you can take a joke." But whether you're born this way or find yourself along the way doesn't matter. You can take a joke without taking abuse. (Mary Elizabeth Williams, “Tracy Morgan goes on an anti-gay rant,” Salon, 10 June 2011)
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I'll say it again: working class people don't care about gays
And Tracy Morgan is a transplant from the working class.
This is a problem that gays are going to have to figure out. Your alliance with liberals is skin-deep at best; it's fashion, an affectation, like organic food.
Meanwhile the gay sons and daughters of the working class grow up in a culture of hatred and abuse. (SedanChair)
It Gets Ugly on the Liberal Plantation
Tina Fey has let it be known that she is Tracy's boss, and that she owns him. Without her, he would be just another talent-less, no-name beggar in rags on the street. The statement she has released on this issue is:
"the Tracy Morgan I know...is not a hateful man and is generally much too sleepy and self-centred to ever hurt another person. I hope for his sake that Tracy's apology will be accepted as sincere by his gay and lesbian coworkers on 30 Rock, without whom Tracy would not have lines to say, clothes to wear, sets to stand on, scene partners to act with, or a printed-out paycheck from accounting to put in his pocket."
On the scale of personal insults, this is close to a 10. I would much prefer being called a nigger. (Mobutu)
Tina Fey
"the Tracy Morgan I know...is not a hateful man and is generally much too sleepy and self-centred to ever hurt another person."
The Tracy Morgan she knows can actually be angry and hateful. The question I would have Tina Fey ask herself is, why does she find appealing the sort of man who could reveal himself to be, who could strongly sway, antigay? Why isn't she just drawn to better people? Why do we idolize her so much? Is it to put a managable ceiling on what we'll permit to be extraordinary?
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This Letter was deleted from the Tracy Morgan article,
so I reproduce it here for your viewing pleasure:
☼ ₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪ ☼
So, when overweight teens are bullied and depressed and commit suicide, it is O.K. to stand on the stage and make jokes about fat people, and to have comedy skits on TV making fun of fat people.
But when gay teens are bullied, depressed, and commit suicide, it is NOT O.K. to make jokes about gay people, and to have comedy skits on TV making fun of gay people.
I get it. We get it. Don't worry, it gets better. No one will be allowed to make fun of you for the rest of your life.
It's good to be gay. It's all the rage now.
☼ ₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪ ☼
Thank you, and have a pleasant tomorrow. (Scriptorum)
Barely still good to be gay
I would say it's barely still good to be gay now, Scriptorum. I think in an age swinging strongly Depression, no one really wants to be associated with anything he or she still thinks of as 'weak,' as in need of spirited defenders. The impulse amongst liberals will be to at some level communicate a hesitancy to associate yourself too strongly with them. Something of this is involved in the hipsters' movement to the neanderthal/paleo/industrial/ grandfather 'worship.' And in the blossoming in the acceptability of anti-boutique-liberalism-sort-of-liberalism of back-to-fundamentals Chris Hedges. Maybe too with Tina, where though everywhere around her are her elf-workshop gays, I think she would rather us not think her 1/10th lesbian.
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Scriptorum
RE: “Liberal Jews and Gays control the media. They run it, they staff it, they are it. And they will make fun of and trash anyone they damn well please, but woe to the man or woman who makes fun of or trashes them.” (Scriptorum)
The most emerging liberal voice is Chris Hedges', who maintains that liberalism has become as exclusive, self-concerned, as unfair and inert as you believe it to be. When you read his language of justice for the working man, see how well anyone not typically understood to be constituted of working stock, of pure blood, common man aspirations -- of the Appalachians, perhaps -- could find themselves belonging within it -- however much he may salute the gay community or what not.
Liberals have been exclusive. The people they so eagerly disparage have been victimized. But the people they have antagonized are WAY worse than they. When the tide tends their way, how easy a time they are going to have in rebuttal when many liberals are themselves looking to distance themselves from the remnants of hippie liberalism in favor of something stockier, and when the IMAGE of the dispossessed minority is allowed to fade at a time when the casual truth of who "they" everyday are, conveys an instant accusation against them -- even if it's just simply their urbanity. "You've spent 50 years defending this! -- and against humble, unassuming, TRULY tolerant, TRULY put-upon us!" Blood on the streets.
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@Scriptorum
Gays are prominent in the entertainment industry because a number of us are very entertaining!
The biz is one of the most competitive in the world. If you aren't pleasing a lot of people in one way or another, then you are OUT, and there are a thousand people in line behind you ready to take your spot.
Are you bemoaning the fact that 'your folks' aren't adequately represented in the entertainment business? Well, then, maybe you should go into show biz and see how easy it is. Start producing media/entertainment, instead of just being a consumer. You'd get an education, if nothing else. (willie99)
willie99
Gays are prominent in the entertainment industry because a number of us are very entertaining!
The biz is one of the most competitive in the world. If you aren't pleasing a lot of people in one way or another, then you are OUT, and there are a thousand people in line behind you ready to take your spot.
So gays are prominent in show biz because they are more willing to please a lot of people in one way or another than people like Scriptorum are. This may be reality, but do you think this reality sits well with a public that hates the fact that their feeling the need to do the same has made them effeminate, an affliction they are spending much of their spare time compensating for? You'll draw ire with it, because your success mocks, and demonstrates to many people what is most wrong with America.
@Patrick
I don't really understand your post.
I don't think effeminacy is an "affliction". However, I DO think that a lot of homophobic men (both straight and gay) who have ignorantly equated effeminacy with homosexuality evince an irrational fear of being perceived as effeminate, and, therefore, they spend a lot of energy trying to compensate for that.
It's kind of sad hearing them try to lower their voices, or mute their facial expressions, or censor themselves in the language they use, lest someone think they are suspiciously effeminate.
Anyway, back on topic, I hope Tina Fey fires Tracy's ass. Tina's comments were funny, and appropriate, but Tina and NBC need to take action, otherwise they're just hypocrites. A tap on the wrist isn't enough. Sorry. (willie99)
willie99
I don't think effeminacy is an "affliction". However, I DO think that a lot of homophobic men (both straight and gay) who have ignorantly equated effeminacy with homosexuality evince an irrational fear of being perceived as effeminate, and, therefore, they spend a lot of energy trying to compensate for that.
Clearly YOU don't think effeminacy is an affliction, but I am suggesting that good a good bulk of the American public (increasingly) does. What do they think effeminacy is? -- well, of the likes of being constituted to read and please the endless expectations of other people, something you say is ACTUALLY sufficiently characteristic of gays that is mostly responsible for gay success in show biz.
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@Scriptorum
Re: “Jews never assimilate to the societies in which they live, they always set themselves apart, they always look down on others. Their own Rabbis preach that non-Jews are less human. So it is just coming out of the wash now. They can't hide it, and they don't even try to hide it anymore.” (Scriptorum)
I don't think any community of Rabbis is really going to keep a flock from affiliating with Others they have a strong affinity for -- people who, if no one was telling them "otherwise," they'd want to be social with, out of sensed similar disposition. Like is drawn to like, regardless. If despite this Jews can still seem bundled, it may have to do with them actually being very different from the people you would have them more affiliate with -- that is, the experiment you would have them undertake, has already at some level been tried, or strongly felt out, and they're back to what makes sense.
Should they (more affiliate)? Maybe not if they're ACTUALLY better, and have consistently been, historically. The conservative ones aren't, but the liberal ones as an aggregate surely are (it's Rabbit from Updike's "Rabbit" series' overall take, though he wonders why he always sees them with blondes) -- though they'll be doing better once they abandon circumsicion, which IS still based on child hate. There is a sense that what most Americans still most need is to become more Jewish.
You're (having) at Salon for its ongoing liberalism, but as I am making apparent, I think you can see signs of a drifting conservatism even in what looks to be all too evidently liberal responses, and it is that I think is most significant, am most concerned about.
Appreciate your honest take.
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