Alec Baldwin's silver daddy hair = perfection- Page 4

[DAME]

Posted: 11/17/13 at 2:52pm

You know..... Corine used to swear up and down in the early days that you were Harvey.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 11/17/13 at 2:55pm

I remember. I'm trying to rekindle that mystery.

[DAME]

Posted: 11/17/13 at 3:00pm

She also thought you were Bruce Villanch. But I don't think you are a "bus and truck" version of anyone.

[Liza's Headband]

Posted: 11/17/13 at 3:17pm

There is never justification for racial, homophobic, or anti-semitic slurs.

[DAME]

Posted: 11/17/13 at 3:34pm

And that was not a dig at anyone. I love BV. He was just on tour with Hairspray at the time.

[best12bars]

Posted: 11/17/13 at 3:42pm

So if anybody is justifiably provoked ... say a kid at school or a mom in a store or a person at work ... we can say that they're "nuts but not evil" if they call someone a "little faggot" or a "God damned n*gger" or a "c*ck sucking queer," just as long as they were angry with a good reason first when they said it?

They're not evil, they're just nuts.

That's just our nephew Bobby or our Aunt Carol or our Cousin Roger acting up again. Anger issues.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 11/17/13 at 3:47pm

Kids at school who say "ni**er" or "f*g" are not "evil." They have been taught that those words are acceptable and they have to be re-taught that they ere not.

But they are not "evil."

Neither is Alec Baldwin "evil."

"Evil" is a word that should be reserved for acts that are "evil." Otherwise, you render evil banal.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 11/17/13 at 3:47pm

Kids at school who say "ni**er" or "f*g" are not "evil." They have been taught that those words are acceptable and they have to be re-taught that they ere not.

But they are not "evil."

Neither is Alec Baldwin "evil."

"Evil" is a word that should be reserved for acts that are "evil." Otherwise, you render evil banal.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 11/17/13 at 3:55pm

Of course not evil. But it deserves to be called out on, and not just brushed under the carpet as something people accept.

[best12bars]

Posted: 11/17/13 at 4:12pm

I think you're getting snagged on semantics here. I don't think Harvey or I mean evil as in a serial killer but evil as in malice.

And at what age or stage does it go from something you were taught to something you do out of anger or malice?

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 11/17/13 at 4:12pm

"And that was not a dig at anyone. I love BV. He was just on tour with Hairspray at the time."

Which was a first national tour.

Not a bus and truck....

[DAME]

Posted: 11/17/13 at 4:18pm

I STAND CORRECTED!

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 11/17/13 at 4:28pm

Who is arguing with who here and why? Has anybody here said what Baldwin said is acceptable or defendable?

His hair looks great, that's what I said. Both things can be true, you know. What he said is unacceptable and his hair looks great. One of the signs of adulthood is to be able to hold two contradictory truths without making your head explode. Otherwise,you spend your life like our resident concern troll looking for contradictions, hashtagging some illiterate rendition of "hipppokrit" and claiming you won a debate that nobody's having.

[suestorm]

Posted: 11/17/13 at 4:33pm

To those of you who are making excuses for Alec... what if Paula Dean, Sean Hannity or John voightt said the same thing the same amount of times. Would you tie yourself into pretzel to make excuses for them too? There's your answer. bought

[best12bars]

Posted: 11/17/13 at 4:49pm

I don't think anybody is saying it's acceptable, so there's no argument.

I guess if it weren't Uncle Hottie as the topic of discussion, we'd be having a different, better discussion about the line between "malice" and "learned behavior."

Admittedly, though, this thread was about hair.

Updated On: 11/17/13 at 04:49 PM

[best12bars]

Posted: 11/17/13 at 5:00pm

By the way (threadjack!), my question above isn't rhetorical. I'm not even sure I have my own answer for it.

I believe we're all taught to hate and fear (as Hammerstein said), but at some point ... and I'm not sure when ... we should all be held accountable for the choices we make, even in the heat of the moment. When are the excuses of age, cuteness, location, education, etc., used up? When are you held accountable for yelling derogatory slurs in a confrontation? When is it easily dismissed and quickly forgotten even if it's not acceptable?

/threadjack.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 11/17/13 at 5:39pm

Honest to Christ, I've had it up to here with that South Pacific lyric. People more often are quite carelessly taught. Or aren't taught at all but give in to the worst part of their natures for a variety of reasons. Maybe we can segue from Hammerstein to, oh, I dunno, Jung or SOMEBODY for ideas about why people say unacceptable things out loud?

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 11/17/13 at 5:43pm

Preach!

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 11/17/13 at 6:07pm

Again, for me it has nothing to do with his being supposedly hot. That would be the reason I overlook Prince Harry's bad actions. Though it's probably fair to say that whether you already like the person or not makes a difference.

Three famous examples of celebrities making supposed slurs: Michael Richards, Paula Deen, Alec Baldwin. The point I was making about context wasn't about whether it's ever acceptable; it was "Do I get the feeling that making these remarks are indicative of this person's feelings toward the group in question?"

I'd never heard of Richards being bigoted against African Americans prior to that. On the other hand, it wasn't one word in a moment of anger; it was a tirade that apparently went on and on. So that one's kind of a draw for me. I couldn't understand it then or now, and I have no idea what it says about him as a person.

I don't think Deen is a hater of blacks. I'm certain she knows and likes black people who like her back. But the evidence seemed to indicate that there have been decades of actual prejudiced, even demeaning, behavior.

Baldwin seems unable to govern his temper (provoked though he may be, and I think he is often deliberately provoked), and he goes for school-yard-bully bad words. He shouldn't use them--no one should--but do I think he's anti-gay? I personally don't get that impression.

Everyone's free to feel differently, of course.

[Jane2]

Posted: 11/17/13 at 6:37pm

"She also thought you were Bruce Villanch."

I once heard he was Michael Musto.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 11/17/13 at 6:41pm

I was.

[DAME]

Posted: 11/17/13 at 7:42pm

And now?

[Jane2]

Posted: 11/17/13 at 9:34pm

Now he's Woody Allen

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 11/18/13 at 8:09am

Here's the thing about moments of heightened emotion -- people still only employ language that makes sense to them, what they believe, regardless if it's a part of their weltanschauung or personality that they have trained themselves to clean up on a daily basis.

If I get into a screaming match with a coworker, in a moment of extreme anger, I will not call him a "lemon-coated banana toothpick." Because that doesn't make sense in the context of me and him and the two of us in an argument.

If I get into a screaming match with a black man, in a moment of extreme anger, I will not call him a "n*." Because I'm not racist.

To me, black people are not n*s, and my coworkers are not lemon-coated banana toothpicks.

So, I have a hard time with this idea that words which "slip out" in emotional moments somehow weren't really "meant." If anything, those moments seem truer, like the stupid sh!t people say when they've had too much to drink.

I've never once accidentally called someone "spic" or "fag" or "retard" or "chink." Because I hate those words, and they're not to be applied to people. (Excepting satire, I guess, or dramatic writing; they do have value in what they can teach us.)

I'd much rather Baldwin just acknowledge what he said, apologize, and we can all move on, hoping that something was learned. This backpedaling and pandering and lying wrapped up in the guise of "I've always loved gay people" makes things way, way worse.

[Kad]

Posted: 11/18/13 at 10:39am

Baldwin, as it has been stated, is a narcissist. And when he feels he is not being treated with the respect he is due, he lashes out in any way in order to demean and devalue people. And a really effective way of doing that is a slur like he used here. It is something he needs to cop to and needs to address, because it's really at odds with his otherwise liberal image- and tarnishes it.

Is he homophobic/otherwise bigoted? I don't know. But he certainly knows the weight of those words and how they cut.

Updated On: 11/18/13 at 10:39 AM