A lot of unusual things happen to a person once it gets reported that they held up their drink-driving arrest to declare that people of Jewish faith had been the evil masterminds behind every single piece of global conflict in the history of the world.
When this happened to Mel Gibson in the summer, he may well have expected that he'd become – temporarily at least – a bit of an outcast in Hollywood circles. Chances are, though, that Mel Gibson didn't expect to become a fully paid-up expert on celebrities saying insanely offensive things. But that's what Mel Gibson is – people are lining up to ask him what he thinks about Michael Richards, the former Seinfeld star who recently decided to quit his job as a comedian in order to take up screaming disturbingly racist insults at black people in front of an audience. For the record, Mel Gibson 'feels bad' about Michael Richards, so at least we can all sleep soundly in our beds tonight knowing that.
When Mel Gibson decided that being arrested for driving round Malibu swigging from a bottle of tequila was the best possible time for him to air his views about where exactly the Jews went wrong, everything that followed was completely uncharted. When Mel Gibson gave a not-very-convincing apology he was feeling his way around in the dark, and it took time for him to slowly find his feet and apologise again to community leaders then sneak off to rehab and apologise on TV, only to slag off the Iraq war while waiting for Courtney Love to give him a character reference. And these improvised steps helped pave the way for Mel Gibson's gradual re-acceptance into society again.
Michael Richards, on the other hand, seems to be treading Mel Gibson's rehabilitation scheme as a way to make up for his gigantic racist outburst getting all over the internet last month. Only problem is that Michael Richards is rubbish at it. The first step was spot on – a semi-coherent garbled apology, which Michael Richards gave on Letterman. Then was supposed to come the apology to community leaders, which is where everything fell apart for Michael Richards. First Michael Richards apologised to Al Sharpton – who wasn't having any of it; and then Michael Richards apologised to Jesse Jackson – who in turn decided that everyone should boycott Seinfeld.
Nothing's going right for Michael Richards – he daren't follow Mel Gibson's scheme any more in case he ends up mistakenly suggesting that the Iraqis wouldn't fight so much if they had a fucking fork up their asses or something. Michael Richards badly needs Mel Gibson's guidance, and Mel Gibson is only too happy to give it to him. People reports:
"I feel really badly for the guy. He was obviously in a state of stress," Gibson tells Entertainment Weekly for its Dec. 8 issue, referring to the former Seinfeld star's racial outburst. " You don't need to be inebriated to be bent out of shape. But my heart went out to the guy." As for Richards's critics, "They'll probably torture him for a while and then let him go. I like him." … As for the career price he might have paid for the incident, Gibson tells EW, according to the Associated Press, that people in Hollywood are not refusing to work with him. "No, people aren't like that," he says. "Those are just the headlines: 'Mel ostracised by Hollywood! Hollywood is what you make it.' There is no great pooh-bah up there saying, 'Go! You are condemned!'"
We're sure this pooh-bah denial from Mel Gibson will be a great source of relief to Michael Richards, who now just has to quietly wait at home for a few months before some other fucktard of a celebrity pops up on YouTube screaming abuse at another racial group, at which point he'll happily pass the pooh-bar torch down to them. It's like the circle of life, but more offensive and featuring more nobsacks.
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