A few days after the news broke that comedian Tracy Morgan went on a
homophobic rant at a show in Nashville, his
30 Rock co-star, Tina Fey, responds with this statement:
The violent imagery of Tracy's rant was disturbing to me at a time when homophobic hate crimes continue to be a life-threatening issue for the GLBT Community. It also doesn't line up with the Tracy Morgan I know, who is not a hateful man and is generally much too sleepy and self-centered to ever hurt another person. I hope for his sake that Tracy's apology will be accepted as sincere by his gay and lesbian co-workers at '30 Rock', without whom Tracy would not have lines to say, clothes to wear, sets to stand on, scene partners to act with, or a printed-out paycheck from accounting to put in his pocket. (Source)
While I understand Fey is trying to be professional, at once admonishing his hateful comments, while not throwing a coworker under the bus, I expected more from her. She's been a good LGBT ally in the past, and calling Morgan "too sleepy and self-centered to hurt another person," and saying that his behavior "doesn't line up with the Tracy Morgan I know," minimizes the seriousness of his actions. Plus putting the onus on his gay and lesbian co-workers to forgive him rubs me the wrong way. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who feels this way:
Tina Fey hopes GBLT people accept his apology for the sake of his career (I rather hope his career ends for the sake of GBLT people. Maybe I have different priorities) and joined Morgan’s non-pology in claiming “he is not a hateful man.” I’m sorry, he just spoke about stabbing his child if he were gay. Either you’re saying he didn’t say that (and there’s no denial) or you’re claiming that’s not hateful. It is Tina, he is a hateful man and claiming otherwise is offensive and diminishes what he said. A non-hateful man would have bitten his tongue before saying those words.
As far as I’m concerned there was no point in an apology – because you can’t apologise for this. There is no magical word in any language of the world that will make downplaying the damage homophobic bullying causes to our youth ok. And there isn’t a word imaginable that would make the idea of stabbing children because they’re gay remotely acceptable or forgiven. And my ability to “take a dick up the ass” won’t ever make me be able to accept this “joke.” (Spark in Darkness)
What do you think? I was kind of surprised to see a number of blogs praising Tina Fey's statement, but frankly, I'm pretty disappointed.
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