A few years back when Hoopi Goldberg was telling whoppers about lynchings in Chicago, she kept saying she “remembered” reading about them in the news when she was a kid. Five minutes of research revealed that it was an impossibility. Not only were lynchings rare in American history, none occurred in her childhood. Presumably someone got to her and told her to stop it because she has not talked about it since.
Bill Clinton suffered the same memory problem with church burnings. Confusing Hollywood’s version of reality with his own, he claimed to remember black church burnings in his youth. In one of life’s ironies, no churches of any color were torched in his youth. There had been a bunch of church arsons at the time he made the claim and the press tried to make it into a race thing, but it turned out that many, even most, of the churches were white, not black.
Anyway, Denzel Washington is recalling memories that never occurred. The locals would have fainted if anyone used such language. Unless he and his old lady were dressed as pimps for a role, no one was mistaking him for anyone other than the star of the most popular show in town at the time. St. Elsewhere was a huge hit and based in Boston. The stars of that show could have robbed banks in the city and no one would have thought ill of them.
Everyone is tired of famous clowns and jugglers pissing and moaning about how tough they had it. In this age, no one has it that tough, unless they did something incredibly stupid like commit a crime. Denzel Washington was raised by prosperous, middle-class parents. He went to private schools as a kid. Maybe he encountered a bad word here and there, but the guy has otherwise lived a charmed life. Instead of pissing and moaning, he should be thanking white people.
Casting Denzel Washington in the role Edward Woodward created was silly and unserious in any case.
The last verified lynchings in the US took place in Duluth, Minnesota in 1920–a fact that gets trotted out by Duluth media in an annual display of self-flagellation.
Washington hasn’t fallen under my bar, which, being an actors bar, is set on a curve, making it very, very low bar. The Romans got this one right, putting slaves, gladiators, and actors in the same social class. Gladiators and actors enjoyed their celebrity and renumeration while accepting their place. A good actor is a good liar and manipulator, and we tend to do the things that we are exceptionally good at. Washington is an above average fellow, given the genre. We have a duty to not take actors for more than the scum they are, and that failure is… Read more »
Whiskey does a great take-down of the new EQUALIZER over at his blog. Looks like a real stinker, so Washington is probably trying to gin up some fake controversy to attract some attention. Odd that this tough guy actor is promoting his tough guy movie by portraying himself as a nervous Nellie and timorous weakling. I was going to check the flick out, but not now. Denzel just alienated the few white people who may have been inclined to purchase a ticket. Boston is an odd choice of venue to insult white people. Washington hedges his bet by insulting working… Read more »
Something seems to go wrong with aging stars leading them to say and do insanely stupid things. I’ve always suspected that the huge amounts of money they get for doing nothing useful warps their thinking. Maybe by late middle age it blooms into full blown insanity. Danny Glover went crazy around this age. Mel Gibson. I think Woody started raping his kids around his fifties. I do like Denzel as an actor, but this pity party stuff frosts me no end. There’s no better place to be black than America. Denzel is proof of that and should be proud of… Read more »