Hollywood sleaze Brett Ratner got booted as producer of The Oscars after he said, “Rehearsal’s for fags.” So now The Academy Awards have replaced him with Brian Grazer, a guy whose company produced The Dilemma, a film that GLAAD complained about after one of the film’s characters (played by Vince Vaughn) called electric cars “gay.”
So, we guess Grazer is okay because the insult came from a movie that he produced whereas Ratner said the anti-gay comment himself in a public forum. Hmm…
You may have heard that when Ratner left, would-be Oscar host Eddie Murphy jumped ship too. He’s been replaced by Billy Crystal. Here’s hoping that Crystal does better than James Franco and Anne Hathaway (not that that’ll be hard to do).
Via The LA Times
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Kev C
I can’t answer that question. But they appear to be picking people who suck at making movies and money.
JWilliamson
I’m with the creators of The Dilemma on that debate: They made it very clear they weren’t talking about sexuality & it happened to be one of the few jokes in that movie that could get a laugh.
Besides, Grazer got us Crystal. Quit whining. 😉
ke
@JWilliamson: “Fags” who is referring to who? “Gay” is referring to who? Jews? If not…who then.
Dick
Who cares? Billy is back. Crystal played the first openly gay character on network
TV and got to kiss Bob Seagram.
kylew
I’m ambivalent about this. After all, if you wanted to be pedantic, fags actually started as a british word that had nothing to do with sexuality, as did gay.
If the remark was meant to imply homosexual, AND that had a derogatory connotation in the context it was spoken, then I might be mildly bothered, but is it possible that these words have passed on to be stand-alone insults no longer meant as a sexual slur? I don’t know – just asking.
Dick
OOPS Bob Seagren
Hephaestion
I love Billy Crystal. He was BRILLIANT when he hosted the Oscars.
But I was really praying for an Oscars show hosted by Neil Patrick Harris, Hugh Jackman, and Cheyenne Jackson. Ahhhh….
Well at least we don’t have to worry about Eddie Murphy using the word “f#ggot” fifty times during the Oscar show anymore. The women on “The View” were all mourning the loss of Eddie Murphy… clueless idiots.
Hephaestion
@JWilliamson: Are you serious? When people say “that is gay” about something they are saying that the thing is LAME. And why are they using the word “gay”? Because they regard US as lame. They are using “gay” and “lame” as interchangeable words, as synonyms. So The Dilemma’s Vince Vaughan character regarded us gays as lame. Period. And the filmmakers had no problem with promulgating the use of the word “gay” as a synonym of “lame.” Period.
Cam
Eddie Murphy runs screaming anytime anybody mentions the word gay, I’m not surprised he jumped.
After all those rumors about him I think he just gets very very gunshy.
Hopefully the Oscars won’t be boring. They may want to consider worrying LESS about who the host is and MORE about the writers, the head writer has been the same for decades.
Roger Moore
@Hephaestion: You actually expect enlightened commentary from those bimbos on The View?
shannon
I can tell you this…ONE of the guys in this pic is secretly bi….for a FACT
yertle
@Hephaestion: Look, if you’re going to get so hot under the collar about how you perceive “gay as a synonym for shitty” as offensive to gay people, then maybe you should check yourself on how you’re throwing the word “lame” around, because it’s pretty ablist. It’s essentially saying that disabled people (someone with a lame leg, for example) aren’t cool and therefore the word “lame” = “something uncool”. It’s the exact same logic as your argument against using “gay” in a negative way, and you better believe I’m not being sarcastic because casual ablism genuinely offends me.
Jonathonz
Billy Crystal? Again? I’m definitely not going to be tuning in this year (again). Sounds like a giant snoozefest to me. They’ve missed their chance at making the Oscars relevant this year.
Christopher
@hephaestion….you are right…the CHARACTER thought gay was lame. It was a fictional character and not meant to espouse the beliefs of the real people involved. Creating a film about a murderer doesn not mean the producers endorse murder, and creating a movie with a slightly homophobic character does not mean that the producers feel the same. It’s very simple the character was fiction, and that line, at least in the minds of the creators, fit in with the character they created.
Brett Ratner on the other hand displayed his personal animus during an interview
MikeE
@Christopher: the WRITER thought that line would elicit a laugh from its target audience. THAT is a problem of homophobia.
JWilliamson
The characters in Dilemma made it very clear that they weren’t talking about sexuality. The whole ‘character arc’ (not exactly a deep one but hey) for Vince’s character is that he goes from being an insensitive, self-centred cave-man to someone more concerned with other people’s feelings & perceptions of him.
The trailer was a bad cut, mind. Here’s the full scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thSmYr9jsZk
adam
@JWilliamson: The character said he was using “gay” as a synonym for weak, embarrassing and bad not as literally having sex with the same sex. That is still derogatory, just like the metaphorical expression “he jewed me down on the price” is derogatory because it uses a minority group name as synonymous with negative stereotypical traits traditionally ascribed to that minority group.
mk
@JWilliamson: From what I’ve seen his character is the hero not a villain, he’s the cool shooting from the hip one guys are supposed to relate to when they watch the movie, the respectable business people (including closet lesbian Queen Latifah) he’s talking to accept him using gay as a general slur and are smiling by the end of his pitch, viewers are expected to be cheering his shooting from the hip stuff and consider it all american, and his turn around doesn’t include a decision that using gay as a slur is wrong.