Oh jesus...

This weekend, when asked if he rehearses his actors before he shoots a scene, director Brett Ratner said ‘rehearsals are for fags’ and now he’s in a whole lot of trouble for it. For those of you who don’t know, Brett Ratner is a pudgy, untalented little turd of a man who somehow stumbles into making some of the biggest (and shittiest) movies in Hollywood. Most recently he made the film Tower Heist, and though I haven’t seen it, it stars Ben Stiller as a black building manager and Eddie Murphy as someone who used to be good at something but hasn’t done it in a long time, so it’s probably pretty good.

Ratner, despite his lack of physical charm or discernable talent has managed to carve out a really great career for himself which includes banging my dear Lindsay Lohan and several Victoria Secret models (this weekend he also said he banged Olivia Munn and then admitted he was lying in what’s gotta be the weirdest, most age/career inappropriate way to make yourself look like an asshole I’ve seen since I was about fifteen). He’s also now in a ton of hot water for casually bandying about the word ‘fag’ or specifically ‘fags’.

Ratner’s since apologized, and the response from GLAAD was something along the lines of ‘Well, that apology is a good start but we need to see him take more steps towards really exemplifying that it’s never okay to use these hateful….” It went on and on like this and eventually, I stopped reading. It’s not that I totally disagree with GLAAD or that I think that the word fag should be casually used all the time or anything. It’s more that the whole construct of Brett Ratner apologizing to the world and GLAAD kind of accepting his apology but not really is such a fucked up, stupid social construct that it completely sickens me. Forget the word fag for a second. What the fuck is going on in our universe?

As per my understanding, there’s a guy or a gal or a group of guys and gals (or guy or gal identified) who essentially have the job of being watchdogs over the public sphere at large and who decide when something has crossed the line (motherfuckers are constantly crossing the line) and how much retribution needs to be doled out in the case of each incident. Now they’re laying out hoops for Brett Ratner, which he can either ignore and look like a dick, or jump through and look like a dick. Nothing, whatsoever can come of this but a bunch of indignant assholes on either side of the issue working each other up with a bunch of yelling. There’s no endgame, just dickthumping for the benefit of the converted. This is fucking insane.

Now, don’t misunderstand me. People who are gay and transgendered and sexually confused (or any combination therein) have a tough, shitty uphill struggle through the world of idiots and bigots that we live in. People who despise gay people tend to use words like faggot and fag to denigrate them. It’s generally not a polite thing to do to use these words in any context at all. This is all completely 100% true. It’s also true that Brett Ratner saying that rehearsal is for fags isn’t gonna make anyone start hating gays, and his apology isn’t going to change anyone’s vocabulary. But this isn’t really even the point.

The point is that if I was with a friend or acquaintance of mine and they used a word that I found to be offensive, I’d say something like “hey asshole, watch your fucking language” and if they said “hey, sorry” that would really be the end of it. I wouldn’t have to like this person’s attitude. I could fucking hate their guts directly in response to their stupid, cavalier use of offensive language, but at no point would I feel that it was my place to press for anything beyond an acknowledgement that they’d said something that bummed me out. Who the fuck is this brain trust at GLAAD that have decided that an apology for a casual shitty soundbyte isn’t enough? They weren’t elected. They don’t represent gays or transgendered people at large any more than I represent the whole of the Lawrence Arms and we’re only three guys! “It’s a good start but we’d like to see…” Fuck you. That’s just self righteous dramatic hissy fit offense taking that really, truly hurts more than it helps.

It bears mentioning that Brett Ratner doesn’t have any fans. He’s got ‘celebrity’ in the most literal sense, but he’s got no more fans than the guy who lit Transformers or the team that made the fat suit for Big Momma’s House. He’s just a cog. He’s not an artistic force of any kind and his attitude and personality sucks, so what’s going on here? If this is the case of a bunch of people jumping all over this asshole because no one likes him just because they can totally get away with making him look like the dick that he undeniably is, well, I dunno…that seems a little cross-purposed with the purported goal of GLAAD, but GLAAD is cooler than Brett Ratner any day, so whatever. If it’s really, truly an attempt to drum up outrage, I’ve got news for you GLAAD: Everyone worth a shit on this earth knows that assholes say shitty things from time to time. Everyone who’s NOT worth a shit isn’t paying attention to your outrage anyway. I understand that this planet has a long way to go before we get to a point where sexuality and sexual identity aren’t big issues, but this ain’t the way to roll. Would you like to see a sample press release that I’d like to see you copy the next time someone like Brett Ratner says something stupid in public? Okay, good. Here it is:

“Wow. That guy’s a real asshole. I thought he was smarter than that. It’s a shame he’s not, but when you look at his shitty canon of work, it seems sort of obvious in retrospect, doesn’t it? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some rehearsing to do.”

I don’t know, people. I get the indignation and I get that shit has been ignored for so long that it’s gotta be dealt with now at every turn and all that, but again, it’s a fucked up social construct that some group of people in some organization are demanding retribution for words on behalf of a large group of extremely disparate individuals. None of it matters. Public apologies are contrived PR stunts and so is everything that follows them. This is true 100% of the time, regardless of sincerity. It’s just a shame that the response of GLAAD seems to be like a shitty contrived PR stunt too.

Finally, if, in fact, rehearsal is for fags, then maybe Brett Ratner needs to get some more fags into his shitty movies, because frankly, this non-fag methodology isn’t working out too well for him.
Xoxoxo