My first thought was this has got to be from The Onion. It isn't: Forest Whitaker and Meghan McCain to share bigotry and discrimination stories at USA Network panel. No, really.
I don't know about Whitaker. With his talent and years of hard work, obviously he was going to succeed in life. Does anyone really want to hear a gifted Oscar winner whining about how tough it all is?
But Meghan McCain...that poor, poor girl. Not literally of course, since she comes from money and privilege few will ever know, but the things she has to put up with, like becoming famous for who her dad is and not via any actual accomplishments of her own...it's just heartbreaking. Add into that getting a book deal simply because of her last name and definitely not her writing ability and I don't know how the poor thing copes.
McCain's problem isn't her weight (as she's fond of claiming), it's her blithe stupidity and misplaced sense of self-importance in the political world. Her privileged sense of victimhood and insistence on blaming everyone and everything but her own lack of intellect on her status as a public joke doesn't help. And don't get me started on her trying to lay claim to a new conservatism, she's about as conservative as Michelle Obama. But by retaining her symbolic "R" she can at least find work as a famous useful idiot and gets to feel important.
Honestly, for all her bleating about it, I don't even think she's really that fat. Chunky maybe, definitely husky, pudgy at worst, but so what? I'm fatter than she is and if that's the worst thing someone can say about me...then I'm probably a really decent, reasonably intelligent person who just needs to eat healthier and exercise more. But if you read some of the crap she comes up with, you can see why she desperately needs a way to try and distract people from her real problem - that despite the golden exposure and opportunity afforded her by her lineage, she just doesn't have the intellectual heft of other well-known female conservative political pundits and that by trying to be just that has opened herself up to being an object of ridicule.
And one more thing - with her family's bucks, unlike the rest of us McCain could easily employ a personal trainer and dietician to whip her into shape. But if she did that, what would she use as an excuse against the "h8ters"?
I do feel bad seeing USA Network being part of this. Over the past few years they've really broken out as a major original programming player, with a record of launching hit shows that is pretty much flawless. I have to wonder who at USA made the decision to send the network down this road. It started with a stridently preachy ad campaign for tolerance, but of course Hollywood-style tolerance, so no icky conservative-types need apply to be "Character Approved". I'm not saying it's a bad thing to suggest that people be nice to each other, as long as it really is all-inclusive, rather than some animals being more equal than others.
I wasn't in the room when the Characters Unite campaign was developed, so I have no idea if it came about from a genuinely sincere desire to make the world a better place or if it's just a corporate image builder. But I do know how ridiculous and calculated it looks to me. Seriously, they couldn't find anyone else more appropriate and worthy for this showcase than a blonde, privileged heiress who misidentifies herself as conservative to show how inclusive and tolerant they are? Hitching your wagon, whatever your wagon is, to someone who is just a joke and not what she claims to be is never going to help your cause.
This comment on the linked article at the top completely, totally hits every single nail on the head. I wish I'd written it:
I wish I was able to attend. The satire potential for this is just off the charts. I can't wait to hear all about it, especially when Whitaker's legitimate stories of bigotry as a black man are countered by McCain's whining about how tough it is not being as hot or smart as a Palin. Seriously, how is that not comedy gold?
No comments:
Post a Comment