Remember Norm Macdonald? Back in the 1990s, he spent a few years anchoring the Weekend Update desk on Saturday Night Live. There he made a number of jokes about O.J. Simpson pretty obviously murdering his wife, which didn’t go over too well with NBC executive (and Simpson pal) Don Ohlmeyer. Then Macdonald starred in a few movies and a couple of sitcoms, did some standup comedy specials, wrote a fictional “memoir,” and hosted a web show with a mentally challenged fella named Adam Eget. Macdonald is less famous than a lot of people, but more famous than most of us. He’s basically at a Norm Macdonald level of fame, which seems pretty appropriate. He’s what they call a comic’s comic (“they” meaning people who say things like, “He’s a comic’s comic”). Now he’s got a Netflix show coming out. But then, who doesn’t?
There was a time when I would’ve considered myself a Norm Macdonald fanboy. Back then, just thinking of the phrase “Fifteen dollars a man” or picturing his hunger strike to protest Margaret Thatcher could get me chuckling on a weekday morning. Macdonald could make me laugh like nobody else. I liked him so much that whenever I wrote about him, I didn’t even have to look up the spelling of his last name.
That’s why it’s sad that now I have to turn my back on him for refusing to join my chosen outrage mob.
Yesterday the Hollywood Reporter published an interview with Macdonald, and he said a lot of things you’re not supposed to say if you want to work in show business in 2018. After expressing bad opinions like “Trump isn’t so awful, I guess” and “The Constitution makes sense” and “Lefties in LA are crazy,” Mr. Macdonald really put his foot in it.
WARNING: YOU WILL BE TRIGGERED
I’m happy the #MeToo movement has slowed down a little bit. It used to be, “One hundred women can’t be lying.” And then it became, “One woman can’t lie.” And that became, “I believe all women.” And then you’re like, “What?”…
The model used to be: admit wrongdoing, show complete contrition and then we give you a second chance. Now it’s admit wrongdoing and you’re finished. And so the only way to survive is to deny, deny, deny. That’s not healthy — that there is no forgiveness.
Louis [C.K.] and Roseanne [Barr] are the two people I know. And Roseanne was so broken up [after her show’s reboot was canceled] that I got Louis to call her, even though Roseanne was very hard on Louis before that. But she was just so broken and just crying constantly. There are very few people that have gone through what they have, losing everything in a day. Of course, people will go, “What about the victims?” But you know what? The victims didn’t have to go through that.
Wow, Norm. Wow. Just, just… wow.
Look, if you don’t think Roseanne Barr should be drummed out of show business for a mean tweet about Valerie Jarrett, I don’t know how to talk to you. If you think Roseanne is a human being with human thoughts and feelings, you’re a monster. If you think Louis CK should be talking to her, or to anybody… I mean, what?
What these people did was unforgivable, and if you say they should ever be forgiven, you cannot be forgiven.
Jimmy Fallon canceled Macdonald’s scheduled Tonight Show appearance last night, and well he should have. Fallon remembers what happened when he tousled Trump’s hair instead of screaming in his face, like he was supposed to, apparently. He’s not going to make that mistake again. (And Macdonald actually defended Fallon’s interview with Trump, which just makes it even worse.)
#MeToo is good. Anybody who questions anything about #MeToo is bad. Just because the face of the movement might be a sexual predator herself, that doesn’t mean you should say a woman is capable of lying about sexual assault. There are good guys beings and bad guys beings, and once you’ve made your choice, that’s it. There are victims and victimizers, and you’re either one or the other. It’s as simple as that.
Macdonald has since apologized for his heresy:
Roseanne and Louis have both been very good friends of mine for many years. They both made terrible mistakes and I would never defend their actions. If my words sounded like I was minimizing the pain that their victims feel to this day, I am deeply sorry.
— Norm Macdonald (@normmacdonald) September 11, 2018
But of course, repentance isn’t enough. It’s never enough. Now it’s admit wrongdoing and you’re finished. Norm Macdonald was right. For that, he must be destroyed.
And who will we get to destroy him? You guessed it: Frank Stallone.
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