Does anyone here believe that what Michael Richards said and Mel Gibson’s outburst represents what a certain amount of people in their class feel? Affluential, wealthy, mostly-white, mostly-male group of people who were used to believing that they held the most power.
9/11 proved that being a world power didn’t really mean much. The various business scandals showed that being rich and powerful didn’t make you immune to the law. In fact, the lower and middle-class were more than happy to see a rich person brought down.
Could the rich, white males - a group not normally associated with any group other than “The Man” has started to feel left out? A group of people that aren’t arrogant because they are white, or because they are rich, or because they are male, but because they are all three. A group of people who normally have no need for others suddenly find themselves with no one to turn to.
I see it as some sort of mass outbreak of Irritable Male Syndrome. It’s like the bully who was finally stood up to and beaten up. Finding no sympathy, they lash out to whoever is around.
Don’t forget there are many rich white men who are not assholes, or who at least are assholes in a completely different way than Gibson and Richards. George Soros, for instance. . . . No, Jew, doesn’t count . . . I’m thinking . . .
Not just any rich person. I’m always quite happy to see the downfall of a rich person who thinks that, because he’s rich, the rules don’t apply to him the same as they do to everyone else. Or the downfall of a rich person who thinks his riches make him a better person than the rest of us. To a lesser extent, I wouldn’t be too unhappy to see the downfall of a rich person who made clearly bad choices in his life. But I’d be unhappy to see the downfall of a rich person like Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, who use their riches to make a positive difference in the world, and who aren’t too obnoxious or stupid.
Is this true? They have to answer for themselves but they might represent a certain number of people. And not just any certain people but a very powerful group of people.
It is almost certainly true that any statement made by one person reflects the beliefs of ten or twenty more who don’t say those things–or at least don’t say them publicly. And many celebrities say the same things that other people do- or at least say things which are no worse than what other people say–and it is only when celebrities say them in public that they get attention.
I’m not sure that one should assume that all, most or even just many celebrities believe the same things that Michael Richards and Mel Gibson have recently come under fire for saying. They probably aren’t alone–but that doesn’t mean that what they have to say is representative of what many people who are superficially like them think.
The only one putting them into a group is you. “Rich white guys” is so vague as to be meaningless. Two samples out of a set that may well include hundreds of thousands of individuals are less than meaningless.
Don’t discriminate against groups of people. I know some poor white guys that say stuff like that and at least one old white lady of modest means that does as well. I am serious. Oh, I know at least 2 union laborers that spew things like that as regularly as Old Faithful.
There are plenty of people capable of doing those types of things but it doesn’t seem to break down well to rich white men. I think you already didn’t like rich white men and wanted to pin something on them at the first opportunity.
I love the OP, because it turns the tables a bit - what’s often done to people of color, the OP dares to do to rich White men.
Of course with an n of 2, it’s a little ridiculous to draw conclusions about rich White men. But that hasn’t stopped people from generalizing about a handful of Black New Orleans residents stealing TVs during Katrina, or a handful of undocumented Mexican nationals committing violent crimes.
Very true. Gibson certainly was powerful prior to his ‘incident’: not only was he still considered a major superstar who could headline a movie; but the massive amount of money made by The Passion Of The Christ even as Gibson moved outside of the studio system to make and distribute it… Gibson seemed to have pushed a new paradigm and position onto Hollywood, and seemed to have forged the keys to a kingdom that a lot of studio execs wanted into.
But Richards? Richards made a lot of money by playing an extremely notable character on one of the top sitcoms of the '90’s. He has parlayed this fame and fortune into… a sitcom that didn’t even last a full season before getting yanked for lousy ratings. And a made-for-TV adaptation of a Dickens novel. Hell, according to IMDB, he hasn’t been involved in anything for the last five years other than talking about his role in Seinfeld. This is power?
As for Gibson, I’m sure he represents the modern rich studio player. It’s long been a nasty rumor that Hollywood is secretly controlled by the anti-Semites, who try and force their right-wing propaganda down America’s throat; it’s good to finally see some of the truth come to light.
In honesty, the truth is what 'luci said. Some people are assholes. Rich people just tend to have cameras already pointed at them, so when they implode or reveal their inner demons, we get to hear about it on the nightly news. We don’t hear about the local comedian who used the n-word to attack a heckler because, well, nobody really cares.
White American males being the bad guy? No, I think that fits a lot better today than it did in the early '90s. In the opinion of most of the world, anyway.
How does someone like Isaiah Washington fit into this theory? I’d be tempted to use these three points of data and say actors are assholes. But the more likely explanation is that a lot of people are assholes and we only hear about them if they’re famous and personally known to us.
Mel Gibson’s dad is a noted holocaust denier. I’d suspect any antisemitism on Mel’s part has more to do with his upbringing (which wasn’t particularly upper class, IIRC), than his current wealth and career.
Rich guys who weren’t raised by antisemitic fundamentalist catholics may have differing views.
Nonsense. Being a world power means you can get away with a lot of shit. Don’t believe me? Ask an Iraqi. We’re not perfectly immune because we’re a powerful country, but power makes the world go 'round and power is still what most people want.
It’s not like ‘everybody else’ never liked seeing the rich brought down. See also: Antoinette, Marie.
Interesting hypothesis you have there, but ultimately, I’d say the things that are to blame for what Gibson and Richards did are: prejudice, a sense of entitlement, poor self-control, and in Gibson’s case, alcohol. So we agree about the reasons, basically, but I don’t think they’re connected to major sociological forces.