The Reluctant Whore

Jerry Lewis was working his bizarre, schtick riddled heart out over the long weekend doing a telethon for Muscular Dystrophy and at one point he made a joke about someone’s “illiterate faggot” son.


We all saw what happened last time someone said the word faggot. That’s right, there was a lot of awkwardness, heavy meetings with lawyers who had to ascertain whether or not ABC could keep Isaiah Washington on without losing viewers, they found they probably couldn’t so they let him go, he mouthed off, went to “rehab”, came back, got a job in the cinematic remake of “The Bionic Woman” and everyone got on with their lives. Oh yes, and the NAACP gave Washington an award for the social impact his presence on TV had had among the black community. GLAAD woke up for a moment and slapped someone too.

The best part about the Lewis video clip at TMZ where Lewis actually says the words “illiterate faggot” is the second afterward where it immediately downloads what he’s done and he sort of goes all wide eyed, frozen and freaked out and quickly ushers the pace of the show onward. In his mind he had to keep it perky and funny for several more hours over the top of his internal stock take of career highlights seeing as he saw his marketability flash before his very eyes the moment he trusted himself to say what was in his head.

One thing no one seems to have considered: what if Jerry Lewis was literally referring to an illiterate faggot. Bundles of sticks are not known for their reading abilities and consequently, if he were doing that, he’d probably be spot on.

This was still nowhere near as good as when Michael Richards said the word “nigger” and then, after the shock of it sunk in, he just kept right on firing it off. No, that was so masochistically horrifying and amazing it was difficult to stop watching; sort of like the Miss Teen USA contestant answer from last week and Britney Spears in general.

So, in short we should stand by for a form letter from GLAAD that calls for the cultural beheading of Jerry Lewis sometime over the next month and who knows, maybe he’ll get an award from the NAACP. [source]