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I originally wasn’t going to cover the whole Michael Richards incident. At first it seemed so petty compared to what else is going on in the world. I had second thoughts after I saw the whole tirade.

For those of you who live in a closet I will give a short summary. Basically Michael Richards, the actor who played Kramer on Seinfeld, was doing a comedy routine at the Laugh Factory in Hollywood. Apparently some hecklers were in the audience and Richards lost his temper by launching into a racially slur filled tirade directed at some black people in the audience.

Besides the unbelievable slurs he also made the following statement.

“Fifty years ago we’d have you upside down with a (expletive) fork stuck up your (expletive.)”

Richards’ comments and behavior were quite repulsive. However we have seen that the media driven Hollywood tends to rally around its own in cases such as this. Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitic outburst is practically ancient history now that he used the war in Iraq as a platform to launch his latest film, Apocalypto. It doesn’t appear that the industry shunned him for too long.

I am not sure how the Richards incident is going to play out but I have a feeling that this will have bigger consequences than the Gibson episode. I did get the feeling that Richards was reeling from the incident. But he had a couple of days to think this through and he still didn’t give a very thoughtful apology. In fact it was a bit uncomfortable watching him stammer there as he called black people “afro-American’s”. It was all rather odd and strikingly out of place. I expect next we’ll be reading about something more in The National Enquirer soon. My guess would be a nervous breakdown, drugs, alcohol, anything. This is after all why they have agents and publicists.

It is a bit interesting that David Letterman gave him a platform to speak from. Ratings are king and I suppose this will help compete against Leno. The media loves these kind of stories and Richard’s career isn’t exactly at its pinnacle. All in all that translates to good tv with respect to numbers.

I can also understand why Jerry Seinfeld would come to the aid of Richards by arranging to have him appear on Letterman. Seinfeld looks great, is smart and comes off as a good friend. This is very important considering that he also has a newly released season 7 DVD to hawk before the holiday season – so I am sure that it is good business as well.

However, I can’t quite figure out the angle of the Chicago CBS news affiliate. They covered the Letterman exclusive with a teaser. This is an obvious ratings boost. Yet for some unknown reason they also decided to get a comment from a black comedian who was intent on downplaying the seriousness of the incident by explaining away that Richards was just acting human in the face of hecklers. They also seemed a bit concerned about reporting the impact it would have on his career.

No wonder people turn the news off. It is not so much what they report as it is how they report it. The Chicago local feature of a black person who downplayed the tirade is a message that we shouldn’t be offended. After all, he is only human. I can only imagine that a conservative would be bled dry if the shoe was on the other foot. Hence they display more hypocrisy by sheer inaction. What an insult to American’s everywhere.

Welcome to just another ho-hum day in Hollywood.

Others: Hot Air

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