Gary Oldman coming under fire for comments to Playboy Magazine

[luciusfunk]

Is that apology for real ?

I think the apology is racist. Why are the Jews the chosen ones ? Why can't I be the chosen one, why can't I be the first to hear God's voice ?

Because from the sounds of it he believes the bible, in which the Jews are God's chosen people.

Loser. (Gary Oldman, not you.)

Edited June 25, 2014 by luciusfunk

[Val22]

I think Gary Oldman is a great actor. whatever his opinions are of people is his right to say it. I give him credit for not caring who reads what he says.

But honestly it's Playboy, how many men are going to actually read this article and not just look at the naked women? lol

[Zint]

I've never called anyone a fucking jew or a n. i. g. g. e. r.!.

"Fag" gets tossed about randomnly, I've used it, in lighthearted situations...when someone is being a deliberate goof or something...and always in knowing that the person it is directed at will not have a problem with it. But, is it acceptable considering there are those who are hurt or offended by it?
There was a time, not so long ago, when it was meant in the exact same context as n. i. g. g. e. r.! or fucking jew, so in these progressing times, why should it get a free pass?
It's a pertinent question.

I get where Oldman's head is at, there's a lot that still needs sorting out, but I don't see the harm in pointing out why a derogatory phrase should be unacceptable.

Edited June 26, 2014 by Zint

[ZoSoRose]

He is getting flack for speaking the truth?

Racism is a terrible, terrible thing but I'd be lying if I said I never said anything terrible before or thought something wrong. It happens....

Political Correctness has gotten out of hand this day and age

[downzy]

He's right, more or less.

And with Baldwin, Gibson and with a lot of people actually, when you say the word "fag", "jew" or "hooray for tolerance!", you aren't angry at those groups of people. You're probably just angry and unfortunately that anger comes out in a form derogatory words. You feel crappy on the inside and you want to express it and push it out of you in an equally crappy way. It's not exactly right or wrong, it just is. It's part of our nature. Of course we should always try to restrain ourselves and be civil. But if a person calls someone else "a fag" in a moment of anger, we shouldn't automatically assume the person hates gays. Sometimes we can refrain from judging and stop to think about is there something bad going on in that person's life and can we somehow help them to get rid of that anger. Because being angry all the time is a cry for help.

If, in your anger, you have to resort to derogatory, racial, incentive, or hateful comments or words, yeah, there's a problem with that and those committing those mistakes should be called out for it. Using anger as an excuse is ridiculous. Many people are quite capable of expressing anger, frustration, or criticisms without resorting to derogatory language.

Anger is a natural human emotion. How one deals with that emotion is a measure of who we are as a person. Sorry, but when people use stereotypes or incentive language to communicate that anger they should be reprimanded. It shouldn't be accepted. That isn't to say that people don't make mistakes. We've all said stuff that we regret. Sometimes the regret is instant, other times it takes a little bit of time once the anger dissipates. And the right thing to do in those cases is to apologize. But there are expressions and utterances that are too loaded to walk back from. The N word is one. The F word (relating to a member of the LGBT community) is becoming one.

There's no doubt that many of Hollywood's elite is from the Jewish faith. But does Oldman help Gibson's cause by saying that we've all said racist things? I don't know, that seems like a bit of a reach to me.

Edited June 26, 2014 by downzy

[downzy]

Here's a great little clip from Louie, Louis CK's show, about the origins of the F-word (starts at 4:50 and you have to watch it on YouTube - it won't play here):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-55wC5dEnc

Edited June 26, 2014 by downzy

[jekylhyde]

He's right, more or less.

And with Baldwin, Gibson and with a lot of people actually, when you say the word "fag", "jew" or "hooray for tolerance!", you aren't angry at those groups of people. You're probably just angry and unfortunately that anger comes out in a form derogatory words. You feel crappy on the inside and you want to express it and push it out of you in an equally crappy way. It's not exactly right or wrong, it just is. It's part of our nature. Of course we should always try to restrain ourselves and be civil. But if a person calls someone else "a fag" in a moment of anger, we shouldn't automatically assume the person hates gays. Sometimes we can refrain from judging and stop to think about is there something bad going on in that person's life and can we somehow help them to get rid of that anger. Because being angry all the time is a cry for help.

If, in your anger, you have to resort to derogatory, racial, incentive, or hateful comments or words, yeah, there's a problem with that and those committing those mistakes should be called out for it. Using anger as an excuse is ridiculous. Many people are quite capable of expressing anger, frustration, or criticisms without resorting to derogatory language.

Anger is a natural human emotion. How one deals with that emotion is a measure of who we are as a person. Sorry, but when people use stereotypes or incentive language to communicate that anger they should be reprimanded. It shouldn't be accepted. That isn't to say that people don't make mistakes. We've all said stuff that we regret. Sometimes the regret is instant, other times it takes a little bit of time once the anger dissipates. And the right thing to do in those cases is to apologize. But there are expressions and utterances that are too loaded to walk back from. The N word is one. The F word (relating to a member of the LGBT community) is becoming one.

There's no doubt that many of Hollywood's elite is from the Jewish faith. But does Oldman help Gibson's cause by saying that we've all said racist things? I don't know, that seems like a bit of a reach to me.

Of course, you should apologize it you say something stupid. And the less you use those words, the better. But people make mistakes and many times other people are a little too quick to judge those people.

[Estranged Reality]

his apology on kimmel felt like he was just trying to copy jonah hill, and i think he'd have been better of not really addressing it. he said on the show how his words caused great offense and wounded many people across the world -- did they really? i just thought he expressed himself rather poorly. whereas hill's apology came across as sincere and sympathetic, oldman's felt really weird to me.

[downzy]

He's right, more or less.

And with Baldwin, Gibson and with a lot of people actually, when you say the word "fag", "jew" or "hooray for tolerance!", you aren't angry at those groups of people. You're probably just angry and unfortunately that anger comes out in a form derogatory words. You feel crappy on the inside and you want to express it and push it out of you in an equally crappy way. It's not exactly right or wrong, it just is. It's part of our nature. Of course we should always try to restrain ourselves and be civil. But if a person calls someone else "a fag" in a moment of anger, we shouldn't automatically assume the person hates gays. Sometimes we can refrain from judging and stop to think about is there something bad going on in that person's life and can we somehow help them to get rid of that anger. Because being angry all the time is a cry for help.

If, in your anger, you have to resort to derogatory, racial, incentive, or hateful comments or words, yeah, there's a problem with that and those committing those mistakes should be called out for it. Using anger as an excuse is ridiculous. Many people are quite capable of expressing anger, frustration, or criticisms without resorting to derogatory language.

Anger is a natural human emotion. How one deals with that emotion is a measure of who we are as a person. Sorry, but when people use stereotypes or incentive language to communicate that anger they should be reprimanded. It shouldn't be accepted. That isn't to say that people don't make mistakes. We've all said stuff that we regret. Sometimes the regret is instant, other times it takes a little bit of time once the anger dissipates. And the right thing to do in those cases is to apologize. But there are expressions and utterances that are too loaded to walk back from. The N word is one. The F word (relating to a member of the LGBT community) is becoming one.

There's no doubt that many of Hollywood's elite is from the Jewish faith. But does Oldman help Gibson's cause by saying that we've all said racist things? I don't know, that seems like a bit of a reach to me.

Of course, you should apologize it you say something stupid. And the less you use those words, the better. But people make mistakes and many times other people are a little too quick to judge those people.

People make mistakes, but not all mistakes involve racial or religious bigotry. Everyone gets into a fight with their significant others from time to time, but how many are depraved enough to say some of the things Mel Gibson has said. I give you one example: "You look like a fucking pig in heat, and if you get raped by a pack of n****rs, it will be your fault." Why bring race into the equation if he doesn't think that black people are more prone to raping others?

Mel Gibson is a hateful person. As a human being, he's almost impossible to defend. ER made a good point in a different point about separating the art from the artist, but trying to defend Mel Gibson as man because we're all a little more racist than we think we are (credit to Magisme for that line) is absurd. Suggestions that Mel is unfairly judged because he says things while angry is not only untrue (since he's on record saying hateful things while sober) but disingenuous. Saying that he deserves a little more slack because we're all hypocrites suggest that we're all capable or saying (and believing) stuff like this: "Fucking Jews... The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world…"

It's one thing to suggest that Jewish people run Hollywood (which is, itself, a generalization), it's another thing to make disparaging comments about Jewish people because you feel as though they have too much influence in your industry/career. I have my own ingrained prejudices that I work to counter on a continual basis, but the extent of my own prejudice is no where in the same league as Mel Gibson's.

Edited June 26, 2014 by downzy

[Johnny Drama]

Jews do run Hollywood. ...I don't understand how that's racist. Saying they start wars is another thing all together though.

But yeah I'm with Gary. I think it's bullshit how you can be called a homophobe for calling someone a fag when you're not a homophobe, or a racist for using the N word when you're not actually being racist but then on the flipside some lefty darling/gay bloke/black guy can say whatever they want with actual malice and it's considered speaking out or they're just messing around.

[ZoSoRose]

I agree with what a lot of what Gary Oldman said, as we are all guilty of saying and thinking bad things

Mel Gibson is a hooray for tolerance!, though. Love his talent, but he sucks as a person

[downzy]

What I find bizarre is this assertion by Oldman:

"“Mel Gibson is in a town that’s run by Jews, and he said the wrong thing because he’s actually bitten the hand that I guess has fed him."

So is he saying that Mel said the wrong thing because it was wrong in and of itself, or wrong simply because of his profession? According to Oldman, if Mel was, say, a firefighter in Australia, would his comments on wars being caused by Jews still be wrong?

[downzy]

Jews do run Hollywood. ...I don't understand how that's racist.

I don't think people are taking issue with Oldman because of this comment, but the fact that he's too easy to dismiss Gibson's prejudice on the basis that we're all a little prejudicial. As ER argues in his OP, Oldman seems to be confusing context. Satirists like Bill Mahr and Jon Stewart invoke racial, religious, and gender stereotypes in an effort to say something larger about the relevant issue. Moreover, Oldman's comments gives him the appearance of being daft on the issue, since he seems to be treating all offensive comments and thoughts with the same weight and consideration. It's one thing to slip up and use a racial slur once, it's another to repeatedly say some really ignorant shit as Gibson is on record doing. .

Someone like Jonah Hill, or say Michael Richards, might say something in the heat of the moment, but to say that Hill's mistake is akin to what comes out of Gibson's mouth is wrong.

Michael Richards is an interesting example. If you watch his appearance in Seinfeld's show Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, you can tell he was shattered by how he lost control of himself while on stage. So much so that he stopped performing stand up altogether.

You just don't get that from Gibson. He is on record saying extremely hateful things about African Americans, Hispanics, women, Jewish people, gay people. So it's not as though Oldman is now considered a racist himself, but that his defence of someone like Gibson is misplaced.

At least, that's how I read it.

Edited June 26, 2014 by downzy

[Jabberwocky]

The last person to make a sincere public apology was R. Budd Dwyer

[luciusfunk]

John Friend's Blog

"Freedom of the intellect means the freedom to report what one has seen, heard, and felt, and not to be obliged to fabricate imaginary facts and feelings." - George Orwell

"Being Jewish is not a matter of religion"

"No man will treat with indifference the principle of race. It is the key to history, and why history is often so confused is that it has been written by men who are ignorant of this principle and all the knowledge it involves. . . Language and religion do not make a race--there is only one thing which makes a race, and that is blood." - Benjamin Disraeli, Jewish former Prime Minister of Great Britain

Since the French Revolution, when Jews were granted citizenship in France and eventually all of Western societies, Jews have been considered and treated as a religious minority, rather than a hostile alien racial entity seeking to subvert, pervert, and control the host nation, ultimately resulting in total Jewish domination of the entire society.

Dr. F.K Wiebe, author of Germany and the Jewish Problem, published in 1939, offered this analysis of the situation:

It is an incontrovertible historical fact that those peoples with a settled abode who throughout the ages afforded hospitality to nomadic Jewish tribes, invariably regarded the latter as an essentially dissimilar race and not merely as a different religious community. Hence hospitality was only granted to the Jews under special conditions. It is interesting to observe in this connection that in every case where a European State was weak and financially impoverished, the restrictions imposed on the Jews were greatly relaxed and eventually abrogated. The numerical preponderance of the Jews in Eastern Europe which has become the reservoir of Jewry in modern times is to a large extent attributable to the political and financial weakness of the former Kingdom of Poland.

The opening of the so-called "modern era" seemed nevertheless to herald a period of permanent peace and rest for the hitherto restless wandering Jew. It was the era of enlightenment, of liberalism, of belief in the ideals of progress and the rights of man. Conformably with the principles in vogue in this era, the Jews only differed by their religion from other citizens and as such enjoyed equality with the adherents of other religious bodies. They were no longer considered as appertaining to a different race, in other words as strangers. Differentiation on ethnical grounds between the Jews and the native population was on principle abolished by the French Revolution, and this principle was adhered to alike by the legislation and the social custom of ensuing decades.

The nineteenth century was thus dominated by the tenet of the emancipation and assimilation of the Jews.

Especially today, most people consider Jews to be nothing more than an insignificant, persecuted religious community, when in reality being Jewish transcends religion - always has, always will.

Stephen Fry, a homosexual Jewish actor living in Britain, recently openly declared that "Being Jewish is not a matter of religion," according to The Algemeiner, confirming what virtually all "anti-Semites" and "racists" have been saying all along:

Stephen Fry: "Being jewish is not a matter of religon"

Legendary British actor Stephen Fry asserted on Tuesday that Jewish identity can come irrespective of ones religious beliefs.

His comments came in a Twitter conversation with follower Julian Storey who questioned why a gay person would identify with Judaism.

Storey wrote, It puzzles me why any gay person would wish to follow a religion which disapproves of them? Fry, who is gay and Jewish, responded, Being Jewish is not a matter of religion: Im a Jew, but dont follow judaism.

The Jews have always and will always operate as a racial entity (and a hostile, subversive one at that), and yet they deny that very same principal to others, particularly White European peoples. As the great German philosopher Martin Heidegger once wrote, "The Jews, with their marked gift for calculating, live, already for the longest time, according to the principle of race, which is why they are resisting its consistent application with utmost violence."

A "consistent application" of the principal of race around the world would be a much more harmonious and natural ordering of the world than the Jewish Utopia we are currently living under. Unfortunately for the Jews, they would have to stop living as parasites, criminals, and scavengers in the various nations they currently occupy, and find something productive to do amongst their own kind (if that's even possible), rather than exploit and defraud non-Jews. Is there any wonder why Jews resist the "consistent application" of the principal of race "with utmost violence?"

http://www.john-friend.net/2014/06/being-jewish-is-not-matter-of-religion.html

Wow

[Gia]

This is just my opinion but I live in a world where people call each person a hooray for tolerance!

it's not that big a deal... we have way more shit to worry about

the fact that it's news worthy made me realize how privileged people are tbh

I wish I had "white people problems"

P.S. I like the way I live.. we talk shit but in the end it's better than being a fake ass bitch

Edited June 27, 2014 by Gia

[Georgy Zhukov]

Lol. White problems.

[Gia]

Lol. White problems.

Lol you ought to know right?

Edited June 27, 2014 by Gia

[downzy]

Mods... Dopey's post is a good example where censorship is warranted. Nothing to do with the topic; completely inappropriate; and unabashedly anti-Semitic.

[***Flawless]

Gary's attitude is a clear sign of racism, homophobia and sexism that still effects people and that's why it's a problem. To think of someone negatively because of their race/ethnicity/gender/religion/sexuality is disgusting.

Cry about people being PC all you want but if you take a step back, you'll see you're just complaining because you're being told your words are offensive and because you're so entitled, you don't like hearing that you can't do what you want without repercussions.

[Georgy Zhukov]

Lol. White problems.

Lol you ought to know right?

I am all about the white problems.

[Angelica]

Jews do run Hollywood. ...I don't understand how that's racist. Saying they start wars is another thing all together though.

But yeah I'm with Gary. I think it's bullshit how you can be called a homophobe for calling someone a fag when you're not a homophobe, or a racist for using the N word when you're not actually being racist but then on the flipside some lefty darling/gay bloke/black guy can say whatever they want with actual malice and it's considered speaking out or they're just messing around.

Except Gibson actually is all those things, so I'm not sure what you're getting at. I don't think Baldwin is homophobic at heart, but he's clearly got some issues there and he deserved all the shit he got for those repeated instances of using gay slurs. People suffering consequences for the stupid hateful shit they say is a fundamental part of how free speech works. You have a right to express any dipshit belief you care too, and people have a right to criticise you, cease your employment etc because of it.

Edited June 27, 2014 by Angelica

[Georgy Zhukov]

Reminds me of American Government class. The teacher told us that we can now say whatever we want because freedom of speech will be practiced openly. So one of my friends yelled
"fuck hooray for tolerance!s!" to which shocked everyone. Hey, teacher said we can do it.

FYI it rhymes with diggers.

I personally don't give a fuck what they say. Racism and bigotry is embedded in us. Listening to rap music, interracial dating and all that won't change that.

[Angelica]

Gary's attitude is a clear sign of racism, homophobia and sexism that still effects people and that's why it's a problem. To think of someone negatively because of their race/ethnicity/gender/religion/sexuality is disgusting.

Cry about people being PC all you want but if you take a step back, you'll see you're just complaining because you're being told your words are offensive and because you're so entitled, you don't like hearing that you can't do what you want without repercussions.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/26/gary-oldman-anti-pc-brigade-political-correctness

PC language is widely viewed as an encroachment on individual freedom. In this sense, the persistent rightwing offensive on the concept has won out. The argument goes that offensive language is so because those taking offence choose to; equality, therefore, is the right to demean and abuse minorities if the fancy takes you. Political correctness as humourless language policing is an idea so normalised that blatantly racist, sexist, ableist and homophobic slurs can be protected under the rubric of free speech. It has become banal and even tyrannical to try to argue for language and behaviour that respects women and minorities.

That quote is dead on. While the concept can and has been taken to foolish extremes, at heart isn't it just about being a fucking civilized human being?

Edited June 27, 2014 by Angelica

[ZoSoRose]

I'm going to step back from this one. People shouldn't judge each other based on race, culture, religion, etc but most of us sometimes say and think things we shouldn't. We are all just people after all.

Let's all just get along and lock this thread before it undoubtedly gets worse