MICHAEL RICHARDS (responding to a black heckler): Shut up! 50 years ago we'd have you upside-down with a fucking fork up your arse! (Sound of laughter and cheering from the crowd.) You can talk, you can talk, you can talk, you're brave now, motherfucker. Throw his ass out. He's a nigger, he's a nigger, he's a nigger. . . .
AUDIENCE MEMBER 1: Oh my God.
MR: A nigger, look there's a nigger. (Sound of surprise from audience) Ooh, Ooh!
AUDIENCE MEMBER 2: (inaudible) . . . calling me a nigger?
MR: (inaudible) . . . you calling me (inaudible), nigger?
AUDIENCE MEMBER 2: That ain't necessary.
MR: Well, you interrupted me, pal. That's what happens when you interrupt a white man.
Michael Richards' apology:
Mr. Richards appeared on numerous TV and radio shows to apologize, and to announce that he would begin psychiatric counseling. Here's what he said on Jesse Jackson's radio show:
I'm sorry. I'm very, very sorry to the African-American community for the upset and as a performance artist in the course of what comes through in the motion of my work, I can't say that I'm happy this has all come about because it's out in the open and I've been a conduit to something that I think is quite meaningful and the work begins outside, and the work begins inside. Bless you.
Effect on Michael Richards' career:
Killed it.
What Bernie Mac said at several hundred comedy clubs:
(Talking about his two-year-old niece and effeminate six-year-old nephew): I came home at two o'clock in the morning. The two-year-old gon' tell the faggot -- (pause for audience reaction) -- to go downstairs for some milk and cookies! I'm comin' upstairs, the faggot walkin' downstairs. He gon' walk past me like I'm a visitor, you know. (Imitates his nephew's blank stare.) I said, uh, "where the fuck you goin's?" (As his nephew, in a stereotypically gay voice:) "To get some milk an' cooookies!" He said it so funny, I wanted to hear him say it again! I said, "some what?" (As his nephew:) "Some milk an' coooookies!!'"
Bernie Mac's apology:
Effect on Bernie Mac's career:
Won him a starring role in Spike Lee's movie The Original Kings of Comedy. That appearance inspired Fox producers to create The Bernie Mac Show.
Fast-forward to 6:55.
1 comment:
The Bernie Mac thing bothered me when I first saw it but not that much. I think because Richard's rant was said in anger but Mac's was meant to be funny. Mac seems to be an equal opportunity offender, too. You'd think I'd be more sensitive to the barbs flung in my general direction but I wasn't.
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