Say what you will about our cultural obsession with celebrities, but sometimes they just make it so darn easy for us to target them, we can't help ourselves. Alec Baldwin's New York Magazine essay called "I Give Up" launched a tirade against the media, New York, paparazzi and a whole bunch of other fun characters. Baldwin attempted to defend himself against his public reputation as a homophobe by using sensitive and politically correct terms like "F to M tranny", all whilst bemoaning how utterly hard it is to be rich and famous in one of the most expensive cities on earth. That Alec Baldwin, he really knows how to tug on our heart strings, huh?
Sure, he manages to throw the entire city of New York, Shia LaBeouf, Anderson Cooper, Phil Griffin, and Dan Sullivan under the bus as he meanders slowly toward his point, but is that really enough? If the article is meant to be a damning condemnation of the media's influence on celebrity lives and public reputations, isn't this piece a little empty?
Surely there are more people Baldwin can blame for his personal problems: Here are the five of them.
1) Ian McKellen
Um hellloooooo, Ian McKellen is clearly the most beloved homosexual in all of Hollywood, one does not simply go about calling Anderson Cooper the "self-appointed Jack Valenti of gay media culture" without at least some thinly-veiled judgmental comment about McKellen's famous support of equal rights. Mr. Baldwin, there was a point at which Ian McKellen actually said the phrase, "mutants are like gays," how on earth did that not make it into your article when the phrase "F to M tranny" did? Poor show I tell you, poor show.
2) LOGO TV
You know who hates homophobes the most? Gay New Yorkers. And you know what gay New Yorkers love to watch? RuPaul's Drag Race. And LOGO is the proud home of RuPaul's Drag Race, therefore, obviously, the phallically inclined staff of LOGO are probably somewhat to blame for Alec Baldwin's bad rep. Those darn homosexuals and their insistence on non-derogatory language and seriously excellent daytime programming, damn them all.
3) Harvey Fierstein
So Alec Baldwin is willing to shit-talk Shia LaBeouf about the crappy time he had on Broadway, but he didn't think to address the glaring question of who united the Broadway gays against him the next time round? Newsflash, you casual-user-of-unintentionally-homophobic-language you, the homosexuals of Broadway only answer to one leader, and that is Harvey Fierstein. If you go to a Roundabout theater production and receive a "frosty reception," it miiiiight be because they are all privately convinced you're a homophobe, or it's because Harvey Fierstein has launched a personal smear campaign against you. Given Baldwin's talent for completely disproportionate reactions and logical leaps of faith, it's a real shock that Fierstein didn't even get a mention in "I Give Up."
4) Beyonce
Don't think I didn't notice that Alec Baldwin only called out one woman in the course of the entire piece, and we can all agree that taking down Rachel Maddow isn't exactly much. What, so now he's a misogynist in addition to a homophobe? I feel like Beyonce is somehow to blame here as well, damn it, because I'm a freaking feminist. So there. EQUALITY.
5) God
He created us all in his image, and it's much to Alec Baldwin's chagrin that some of us were created gay. And that some of us have cameras, and that we use them to take videos and pictures of celebrities. God also created New York and like... fuck New York, so God is clearly to blame. Even more than Harvey Levin, if you can believe it.
