In case you missed it, Samantha Bee’s Full Frontal show mocked the “Nazi hair” of CPAC attendees last week. One such head of hair belonged to a young man who said his hair was shorn that way because of brain cancer. The show apologized repeatedly, deleted the entire segment from its YouTube channel and made a donation to the man’s GoFundMe account. But Fox News saw this as a great excuse to attack Bee while pretending to take the high road.
First of all, as the video aired on Fox shows, the joke was a very brief part of a much longer visit to CPAC and the shot of cancer patient Kyle Coddington’s head was even briefer. I can think of much worse behavior that got far less concern trolling on Fox News. Anyone remember Donald Trump’s bogus birtherism on Fox? Let me know when he gets around to apologizing.
Tucker Carlson Tonight joined several other Fox shows to discuss this “news.” But it may have taken the Fox poutrage cake with guest Joe Concha’s suggestion that Full Frontal could wind up causing Coddington to commit suicide.
Concha acknowledged that the show would not have “attacked” Coddington had they known he had cancer. But that may have been the only awful thing Concha didn’t think Full Frontal capable of. “It’s a very hateful show, Tucker,” Concha said. “This is what late night has become unfortunately.”
Then Concha got to the dire consequences he foresaw Samantha Bee causing:
CONCHA: When you, on national television, show a 20 year-old college student and you call him a Nazi in the context of his hair, in the context of a conference that he is attending – here are the consequences that could happen.
Take the cancer out of this. He goes back to campus. Do you think he gets mocked and bullied? Well, given the hostility on college campuses, probably. And then what happens next? He either brushes it off or it goes in another direction that we’ve seen on so many college campuses and that is that it spirals into a thought process of probably even hurting yourself or worse. We saw it at Rutgers in New Jersey where a kid was exposed as being gay and before you knew it, he drove up to the George Washington Bridge, Tucker, and he threw himself off. That’s how quickly these things can spiral out of control. And Samantha Bee has yet to apologize for calling this kid and other kids there “a Nazi.” Instead, she does this half-baked apology like, “We’re sorry we offended you?”
Hey, Samantha, here’s an idea. Why don’t you pick up a phone, ‘cause this kid has Stage 4 cancer. There is no Stage 5 and apologize to him directly by phone in your own voice instead of a stupid tweet that wasn’t even an apology in the first place.
Now, I agree the segment was rather tasteless. But at least the show apologized and took responsibility. Unlike, say, former Fox contributor Monica Crowley, who blamed her obvious, numerous instances of plagiarism on “a political hit job.” And while I will not belittle the possibility or consequences of bullying, Concha’s concern about the effects of a brief head shot seems a bit odd given that he seems to have had none for Bill O’Reilly’s personal attacks on Dr. George Tiller - who was subsequently assassinated. Yet Concha has repeatedly appeared on The O’Reilly Factor without demanding that Bill O’Reilly apologize to anyone, apparently. Heck Concha even wrote about a recent Fox settlement of a sexual harassment claim against O'Reilly recently (the third we know of, not counting the allegations he assaulted his wife) without indicating any concern for women who might be around O'Reilly.
Of course, host Tucker Carlson didn’t mention any of that. Instead, he launched his own attack on Samantha Bee for “going after somebody” for not being diverse enough. We never found out who that was. But we had plenty of time to view a photo of Bee’s writers at an award ceremony that Carlson posted. He then sneered, “Doesn’t seem like a very diverse group to me.” Besides Bee, the photo showed four men and three other women. At least one of the men was obviously a person of color.
All hail basic cable! Samantha Bee wins for Outstanding Achievement in News and Information #TCA16 pic.twitter.com/BRBFWzQrPa
— The TCA (@OfficialTCA) August 7, 2016
Concha and Carlson shared a malicious laugh as Concha claimed that out of the show’s 33 writers, producers and directors, only one woman is African American.
Watch the poutrage below, from the March 10, 2017 Tucker Carlson Tonight.
What was Fox’s response when Donald Drumpf apologized after making fun of a disabled reporter at one of his rallies?
Oh, right — there was no apology and Fox just kept laughing . . .
@ Eyes On Fox: “A few might recall Fox News once had a comedy show called the ‘Half Hour News Hour’. Forget any obvious puzzlement over why a news channel sponsors an intentional comedy show . . .”
Especially when so much rightwingnut humor in general, and Fox in particular, is unintentional . . .
.
One example of a “Half Hour News Hour” joke that’s always stuck in my mind was a running gag during one show where it pretended environmentalist Ed Begley, Jr. was headed for their Fox News studio. They mapped his progress including him dumpster diving. Eventually Begley was murdered by muggers, if I recall.
You can’t get much meaner than that. Of course, Fox News fanboys find murdering environmentalists to being enormously funny.
The thing that gets me here is Bee had no clue the guy’s a cancer patient. His head’s not completely bald which is typical of people on chemo. An apology is warranted but I wouldn’t lose sleep over an unintentional faux pas.
Note the argument made by Tucker and the clown isn’t that a cancer patient will commit suicide. It’s that every person highlighted with ‘Nazi hair’ is a potential suicide victim. This is a bit much for a network that doesn’t mind at all being as mean and vicious towards its political enemies as necessary to promote right-wingers into power.
Tucker hate is as close are your nearest mirror.
So should the rest of the world just take it that whatever Faux is running down they really mean to be talking up???!
Welcome to the Bizzarro World of Faux!
Bee, through her show (and apparently a tweet—which seems to be an okay way to apologize if you’re a right-wing jackass), has apologized—UNLIKE Trump or any of the other FoxNoise shitwads. Did you not actually read the full article here? Trump was mentioned ONCE by Ellen (and it was perfectly fair).
As for Bee’s comments in general, so fucking what? Seriously. The fucking right-wing doesn’t give two shits about sick people any other time, but oh boy—a special little CPAC snowflake with cancer, and suddenly he’s supposed to be beyond reproach. Maybe the kid should’ve been asking his fellow attendees how repealing Obamacare will affect HIS treatment.
Oh. And back in 2012, when the GOP was having one of their little townhall debates, do you remember what the response was by the audience when an ACTIVE-DUTY SOLDIER mentioned that he was gay? He was BOOED. And not one of the “brave” candidates on the stage chastised the audience. But we’re supposed to give a shit about some little punk (allegedly with cancer) who gets teased? And really, the only teasing he’s going to be in for at school, is his being an idiot conservative—not for his alleged cancer.
Fuck off!
