Monday, February 12, 2024

TV: The hate spreaders

June 5th to June 10, 1967?  The Six-Day War.   The Arab (Egypt, Syria and Jordan) - Israeli War.  As it was taking place, Omar Sharif and Barbra Streisand shared a kiss in front of the cameras for a scene in FUNNY GIRL. and both were attacked for it around the world.  Both chose to respond with humor.  Omar Sharif responded to being called a traitor by some in the Arab press by declaring, "I never ask a girl her religion or her nationality before I kiss her."  Barbra responded, "You think Egypt was upset, you should have seen the letter I got from my Aunt Rose."

 

A lot has changed in the decades since, a lot remains the same, a lot has gotten worse. 


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Barbra Streisand has called for a cease-fire and for peace and the response was for many to attack her.  To trash her.  She can't call for an end to the killing and be pro-Israel in today's climate apparently.  And Barbra's charity work for decades has made clear she is very pro-Israel.  (It also makes clear that she is pro-people -- of every nationality.)


We're not pro-Israeli government.  We don't pretend to be.  We're Americans who aren't that thrilled with our own government (that especially includes the Crooked Supreme Court) and we're not that impressed with any governments elsewhere in the world.  


We have faith in people, we have hope for people.  But we're not fans of those who pretend to represent them.  


And maybe that -- or our big heresy -- is what gives us a bit of distance to view things from a wider perspective.  Our heresy?  Yes, we're saying it loudly and proudly on the day of the Super Bowl:  We aren't sport fans.  A lot of people are disappointed in Martina Navratilova and all the hatred she's been dispensing.  Us?  We're not disappointed.  She's never mattered to us or impressed us.  In fact, she was awful on WILL & GRACE -- unable, in a bit part, to even speak her three lines clearly and instead bleating like a sheep.

 

So not really giving a damn about sports, we've never been into the whole shirts versus skins grouping.  

 

Sadly, others are too into it, overly vested in it US V THEM in fact.

 

Take lousy actress Selma Blair.  There was always something off about her -- besides that face.  

 

Turns out, the soul was as ugly as the face.  Last week, she made the news over a comment she left online.  CAIR notes:

 

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights organization, today condemned anti-Muslim remarks made by actress Selma Blair and encouraged her to apologize and dialogue with the Muslim American community.

CAIR also called on film studios and talent agencies to stop punishing artists who express support for Palestinian human rights while ignoring hateful remarks by artists who support the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

In a comment on Instagram, Blair reportedly wrote: “Deport all these terrorist supporting goons. Islam has destroyed Muslim countries and then they come here and destroy minds. 

They know they are liars. Twisted justifications. May they meet their fate.”

According to allegations posted online, Blair has also allegedly liked other posts on social media that expressed anti-Muslim and anti-migrant sentiment.

In a statement, CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said:

“No one is born a bigot, and we should never assume that someone is doomed to remain a bigot. 

“Based on the hateful and ignorant remarks that Ms. Blair made, we doubt that she has ever engaged in any meaningful interactions with her Muslim colleagues in Hollywood or other members of the American Muslim community. We encourage Ms. Blair to apologize, and we also invite her to dialogue with our community. 

“We also call on Hollywood studios and agencies to stop punishing artists who express support for Palestinian human rights while ignoring hateful comments by artists who support the ongoing genocide in Gaza.”

CAIR recently released new civil rights data showing that it has received 3,578 complaints during the last three months of 2023 amid an ongoing wave of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian hate. Most recently, in Austin, Texas, a man screaming racist slurs attacked a group of Palestinian American Muslims who had just attend a pro-ceasefire protest.

On Monday, Feb. 12, (noon ET), CAIR plans to hold a news conference with the sons of Samaher Esmail, an American citizen and grandmother from New Orleans who was recently kidnapped, beaten, and denied access to medicine by Israeli forces in the West Bank.


Selma's deleted her social media and is trying to hide out.  That won't erase what she wrote.


But it's more than Selma.  Clearly.  There are people who have lost it 100%.  A lot of them.  But the "more than Selma"  we want to focus on is domestic abuser Michael Rapaport and nut job Debra Messing.




That is exactly right.  Debra Messing immediately made her Twitter feed private thinking that would allow her to escape accountability.  Michael's too stupid to try that or anything else.

 

So three hateful idiots.  Do they even matter?


As actors, probably not.  Selma has no career and she never really did.  She started on THE CW in a poorly watched show that managed to struggle on air for two seasons during which she delivered a pathetic and embarrassing performance in CRUEL INTENTIONS (contrast her pathetic performance with Uma Thurman playing the same character in DANGEROUS LIAISONS if you don't get how bad Selma's performance was).  Then a series of films that bombed and a small role in LEGALLY BLONDE.  Though Elle Woods, Bruiser, Emmett, Paulette and others were back for the sequel, Selma Blair's character wasn't -- and no one missed her.


But here's where they're dangerous:


Actress, producer, and activist, Debra Messing, has signed on to executive produce the feature documentary, Primal Fear about the explosion of antisemitism on college campuses, on social media, and in the streets since October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel. Wendy Sachs, the co-director and producer of SURGE, is directing the film and will also serve as an executive producer. 

Interviews include: Debra Messing, Michael Rapaport, Noa Tishby, Scott Galloway, US Rep. Ritchie Torres, and US Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.


PRIMAL FEAR is going to be garbage made by liars.  Selma wrote an outrageous and racist Tweet and Michael and Debra co-signed it and we're supposed to believe that they can offer a truthful documentary?


Anyone stupid enough to go into business with Debra Messing at this point is not an honest broker.  She wants to produce a 'documentary' about 'the explosion of antisemitism' as she's making outrageous slurs against immigrants and Muslims?


And let's address that so-called documentary and throw in faux feminist Sheryl Sandberg's 'documentary' as well.  If you missed it, Sheryl's making a 'documentary' about those mythical 1000+ women raped on October 7th.  Over a thousand women, according to the Israeli government, over a thousand rapes.  And no proof of even one. 


Some people get into arguments.  We're remembering one with a man at a party a few years ago.  He's an agent which means he talks a lot and rarely knows what he's speaking of.  The topic was?  The work of Tennessee Williams.  He had no working knowledge at all. Contributions included a comparison of 27 WAGONS FULL OF COTTON and whether it works better as a one-act play or a short story which veered into a discussion of the televised production starring Leslie Ann Warren and Ray Sharkey that then steered around to CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF and how the role Elizabeth Taylor played in the film was originated on Broadway by Barbara Bel Geddes.  At this point, the agent pipes up that Candice Bergen did a great job in the role.

 

Silence.

 

Candice Bergen.  


All eyes on the agent, he gulped.

 

Uh -- the agent insisted nervously --  he was talking about a TV production that Candice did "years before that" of CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF with Treat Williams.

 

Oh, he meant Ann-Margret.  It was suggested he was referring to the 1984 TV version that starred Ann-Margret as Blanche and Treat Williams as Stanley.


Offered the lifeline, he refused to take it.  No, he continued to insist, it was Candice Bergen.


It was not Candice Bergen.  It was never Candice Bergen.


And he could have admitted his mistake and we could all move on to something else.


But he dug in and wouldn't admit his mistake and made a fool of himself.


That happens all the time.  We all make mistakes.


It's likely that a number of people who keep screaming against a cease-fire are people who realize that they made a mistake but are too vested in their image and too pig headed to admit it.


That's a real shame because there are a lot of lives involved.  There are a lot of people being killed.


That includes innocent civilians in Gaza.  That includes children.   Last week, Gideon Levy (HAARATZ) noted at least 11,5000 children had been killed in Gaza.  Even as crazed and bellicose as Debra Messing is and can be (remember, she killed the WILL & GRACE reboot with her on set b.s., NBC was happy with the ratings and wanted a fourth season of the reboot), she has to grasp that the 11,5000 children are not killers, are not Hamas, they are just children.  


And because of the actions of adults, they are dead children.

Among the dead children?  Six-year-old Hind Rajab. 




She was in a car with her cousins.  They were killed.  She was the last one alive.  She was on the phone asking to be rescued.  The ICRC sent out an ambulance.  The Israeli military that shot up the car she was in then attacked the ambulance and again attacked the car killing her and both paramedics Yusuf al-Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoun.  AP notes, "Palestinian Red Crescent spokesperson Raed al-Nims said Israel has killed 20 of its staffers and wounded about 30 others since the war began."

These are not honorable actions.  They aren't ethical actions.  They are War Crimes and go to building a strong case that genocide is taking place.

That's the side you've chosen.  And you refuse to adjust course.  

You're in no position to make a film on any aspect of this issue because you have chosen to defend the murder of children.  

 

As for Sheryl and her laughable film, no feminist with a working mind has ever found her to be a feminist.  She tried to market herself as that and some celebrities helped her there but it never took because she's  not a feminist.  If she wants to make her film about the mythical rapes, she needs to be prepared for the response she will get about destroying hospitals and attacking medical workers, leaving women to give birth in unsafe conditions is not feminism.   Margherita Stancati and Abeer Ayyoub (WALL STREET JOURNAL) reported last week:

 

There were more than 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza when the war began on Oct. 7, according to United Nations estimates. Gaza has one of the highest birthrates in the region.

Some 180 women in the enclave give birth each day on average, many now with little or no medical help, sometimes in dirty, overcrowded shelters, public bathrooms or cold, makeshift tents, according to the U.N., healthcare workers and residents.
Giving birth in normal times can be a traumatic experience; going into labor in a war zone multiplies the distress and danger. Gaza’s new mothers and their babies are especially vulnerable to the fallout from the conflict between Israel and Hamas taking place around them, where the battlefield is sewn into civilian areas, from disease and displacement to shortages of food and water.

Expectant mothers who make it to hospitals in Gaza rarely get the level of care they need, according to the U.N. and healthcare workers. With only 13 of the enclave’s 36 hospitals functioning, and those only partially, the facilities are short-staffed and overwhelmed by the number of war-wounded. Maternity services are low on the list of priorities for hospitals, and women in labor are often turned away, the workers and the U.N. say.


People like Debra and Sheryl refuse to face these realities.  How do they do that?


You saw how Debra does it when she signed off on Selma's hate filled rant.  Everyone is Hamas to these hate merchants.  There are no innocents, insist the Debras and Selmas, they are all killers.  Just like they deny the Christians in Gaza, these hate merchants deny the humanity to be found in the majority of Muslims.  Denying people have humanity is the oldest and easiest way to justify racism and murder.  It's always been that way so there's nothing new to Debra or Selma or the hate that they are spreading.


Michael?


Michael's just a dumb, reactionary idiot.  And he should have been shut down a long, long time ago.  Certainly, for beating up Lili Taylor alone, he should have been packing from polite society.  Instead, he's still participating and dragging us all down.  Usually, it's with his transphobia but he varies his hate to also include all immigrants to the US and all Muslims.  


These hate merchants are a danger to us all.