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Rupert Everett calls Americans "blobby", "whiny victims"
"I'm totally off the States now. ... The reaction to 9/11 and then George Bush - really, they've got very blobby as a nation. ... Now they (the Americans) are whiny victims whose language is entirely taken from two TV shows - Friends and Sex And The City - and there's nothing sexy about them any more. And that kind of semi-blindness about the rest of the world, which was attractive when America was exciting, is really unattractive now." Friends and Sex and the City? I couldn't be more offended by that generalization, and I couldn't help but wonder what he means by "blobby". Of course, this isn't the first time he's unleashed his tart tongue about Americans, especially our entertainers. "George Clooney thinks that, provided he does films which are politically committed, he's allowed to do Ocean's 11, 12, and 13", he says. "But the Ocean's movies are a cancer to world culture. They're destroying us." And Clooney the man? "He's not the brightest spark on the boulevard. He'll be president one day. Mark my words, if he's straight, he'll be president." De Niro, Redford, Keaton, Allen, Pacino ... They're all just tragic parodies of themselves. Al Pacino looks like a mad old freak now. I say give it a rest, or go and do some serious stuff..." "The other day I saw a film called Because I Said So with Diane Keaton, and I thought, 'here's one of the women we loved most in 1970s cinema, debasing and humiliating herself in this load of trash'. "Why? Because we're sheep, we just follow the herd ... It's just part of the huge amount of product that's put out now that's really bad. And it's our fault. We're all responsible for how the culture is. You can't draw a distinction between the celebrity nonsense on television and the film industry." It's okay, Rupert, we still love you. You're like the eccentric gay uncle we like to visit on summer vacation, because you let us stay up late, eating bread pudding and regaling us with "stories". After the break, you can see a very young Rupert and Cary Elwes in a clip from Another Country. Submitted by on Wed, 2008-06-04 10:57. |
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Ya gotta admit...
Forreal!
I was going to say the same thing and you beat me to it. Because I Said So was one of the worst movies EVER MADE.
That said, I resent being called "blobby". Maybe he meant "bloggy"? Because in that case I've been called worse.
Nice Picture
That portrait of the "Roop" is perfect. Maybe he and George Michael can get together for a "fat one" and get caught in public doing it in the park. Show us "stupid" Americans how it's done.
I don't think England can call anyone blobby. By and large (pun intended), English people have a tendency to be soft and flabby and they have to workout a lot just to look nornal. Take that Roopy.
I'm sure Brent will completely agree with Roop. He'd never miss an opportunity to criticize America, what with Reverend Wright being right and all. I wonder if Roop is an Obama supporter?
*sigh*
"George Clooney thinks that, provided he does films which are politically committed, he's allowed to do Ocean's 11, 12, and 13... But the Ocean's movies are a cancer to world culture. They're destroying us."
Said the man who voiced Prince Charming in two Shrek movies
Just sayin'.
Blobby means fat...there
Blobby means fat...there was a novelty icon here in the 90s who was called Mr Blobby that was big, pink and fat. Calling people blobby took off lol.
Ahem...I am not soft and flabby. Actually, the US has a bigger obesity problem than us, so technically Rupert has got a point.
Hot but sort of rude
I really don't like when anyone generalizes all Americans or all Britains. I for one have watched Friends or Sex and the City a mere handful of times and wasn't all too interested. I doubt that I speak or act like any of those shows, being a young gay Latino who sees little to nothing relatable in the pasty white clans of Friends or Sex and the City.
Nonetheless I really could care less at what the aging gay celebs like he, Elton John, or George Michael have to say about America, other celebrities or gays. When George Michael says he looks for sex in the bushes because thats what gays do, I can't help but wonder, "what gays?" Not the gays I know.
And I will not be lectured about taste by the villian from Inspector Gadget.
wow....
Hm....interesting stuff. I don't really understand what he means by us taking the language off friends/SATC.....
I don't try to be like any characters I see on TV and if i *AM* like a character, then okay....we're all like someone on tv one way or another...but whatever.
as for the reaction to 9-11 and Bush....HOW does he want us to react to them?? 9-11 was tragic and horrible and....so yeah....does he want us to pretend it never happened, laugh about it, throw a celebatory party?? please, help me understand.
as for George Bush....once again, how are we supposed to feel about him? I will be straight out honest and say since 9-11...I have never really felt as safe as i use to living in America....and yes, I feel like his damned decision to enter into the war was idiotic and dangerous for this country. (I sometimes fear the thought of us getting out of Iraq) I don't see my opinion as whining though....i like to see it as being concerned for the country i live in....
As for george clooney and the ocean movies being a cancer....oh please, paris hilton is more of a cancer to our culture than those movies.....
If he truly feels this way, maybe he should keep his mouth shut....i mean, by continuosly ranting, it makes me wonder what he is getting at. Maybe he really misses Americans or something.....but for whatever reason, feels he is not welcome to this country...?? no idea. PFT
Rupert's right
Liz - I think that a person can totally love his country, as I do, and still see and express its flaws. I personally think that Rupert is correct in much of what he says, especially about the reaction to 9-11 and our “semi-blindness about the rest of the world”. After we were attacked by a terrorist group based in Afghanistan, we went to that country to capture or kill those involved. We had most of the world, including Muslims, behind us. But then we decided to attack Iraq based on trumped up reasons, and because of a stated goal to bring democracy to the Middle East. Most of America hopped on that bandwagon, even though Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11, and there was no legal or philosophical justification to invade a sovereign nation. In actuality, we did it because we were America, and we could do anything we wanted. That’s the semi-blindness he’s talking about. We only see the world on the basis of the American viewpoint, completely ignoring the viewpoints of other nations. Hence we had “freedom fries” and “freedom dressing” because those awful French wouldn’t agree with our righteous cause in Iraq.
I think he’s also referring to how gullible we were regarding Bush and Cheney’s overt playing on the concept of fear. We haven’t been attacked since 9-11, and, according to an excellent article by Fareed Zakaria in Newsweek, verified studies show that, apart from violence against civilians in Iraq, terrorism throughout the world has declined markedly in the past five years. And yet we’re all scared witless and see attackers everywhere. In reality, there is a lot more anti-American feeling throughout the world, but that’s almost entirely due to our actions since 9-11.
Also, we ARE a blobby country. Statistics clearly show a shockingly huge percentage of Americans are obese. And we do seem really whiny, always bitterly complaining about something, whether it’s that the world doesn’t appreciate how wonderful we are, or that one of our candidates had a pastor who said controversial things, or that gas prices are too high (even though we’re not willing to take the steps necessary to address that), or that there’s not enough kissing on a silly soap opera. So I do think he has some valid points to make.
ARRGGGH
I had this long ass reply to your post and was thisclose to clicking 'comment' when the power decided to go out. *curses thunderstorm*
First of all, you said "we" a lot.....i would try not to use that word, because me personally....I don't consider myself part of "we" - -I am me. I don't want someone to see me and think "oh, liz. american. she thinks like all of them."
I was not one of the people who believed Bush's reason for going to war in Iraq. Yeah, like most of the country, I was angry over 9-11...but I didn't want to immediately kill people from the country where the terrorists came from.....
As for semi-blindess - - I do not see the world based on the American viewpoint. I see the world based on MY viewpoint. I don't think America is the best of anything...we may be pretty powerful in ways, but the best? heck no.
As for whining.....I don't whine about gas (i dont drive)...I don't whine about silly soaps and the lack of kissing....I am simply saying "tell it right or not at all" - equality...but if that is whining, so be it...whiner be I.
Ha Ha! That happened to me too...
...the time I wrote my longest post ever. It was 2:00 in the morning so I had to rewrite it the next day.
I'm sorry I implied I was talking about you, which I wasn't in any way. The "we" totally referred to a generalized America. There are, of course, huge numbers of individuals in America to whom Rupert's criticisms don't apply at all, and others to whom they apply just somewhat. But there are enough that fall into his objectionable categories to allow me to understand where he's coming from.
Being realistic...
Rupert does have a point to a certain extent.
More Americans were killed in gun violence in 2001 than died in the 9/11 attacks. The average American is still at greater risk of being killed by a tornado than by a terrorist. For that matter, self-inflicted hazards like people driving while talking on a cellphone, eating or attempting to apply makeup pose a greater immediate risk to our general safety.
9/11 was unquestionably horrible. But a lot of people got all worked up more so that they could jump on the emotional bandwagon than anything else. It was as if it were a reality TV show. I was in Atlanta on 9/11/2002, the one year anniversary. I was utterly disgusted by all these people who lived a thousand miles away from NYC and didn't know anybody who died but were gushing on talk radio about how "deeply affected" they were by it.
Europeans have lived with terror to a much greater extent than we have and for far longer. The IRA was a major threat in the U.K. for a long time. Spain has had the ETA blowing things up for decades now. Now step even further afield and imagine what it's like to live in Israel, or Afghanistan, or Iraq, or most of Africa, or parts of Southeast Asia.
Even after 9/11 Americans still enjoy a level of domestic security against terrorism and foreign military threats that most countries can only fantasize about. Yet we act as if we were the most victimized people on Earth these days.
All of that said, it's also true that Rupert is bitter because he really hasn't been able to do well in America (his own fault for latching onto Madonna). Now that Hollywood is just beginning to open up to the idea of openly gay actors Rupert has aged out of the leading man kind of roles he was once an option for.
hmm....
Because that wasn't what it was about
Let's be honest here. There are far more brutal mass-murders going on all the time and most of these same people don't bat an eyelash. Most don't even care about the many conflicts in places like Darfur for example.
Also, in our retaliatory zeal to lash out at somebody to gain a sense of venegance for 9/11 we have killed a lot more civilians than al Qaeda did on 9/11. I remember when then White House Press Secretary was asked about this he said something like: "I'm more concerned about the people that were killed on 9/11".
And folks wonder why the rest of the world thinks we're callous and self-serving?
But it goes even further. I also live very close to NYC. Those towers have been there my whole life. A lot of people I've spoken to have expressed shock that I haven't made a holy pilgrimage to the WTC (even though I'm in that part of Manhattan fairly frequently). I don't go because I consider it ghoulish. Like going to a stranger's funeral just to particpate in all the emoting.
You see, listening to a lot of these people talk, I realized that their feelings weren't really for the people that died. It was for themselves. The attacks shattered their sense of entitlement to absolute safety and what 9/11 was allowing them to do was to act like they were victims, even though they themselves were unaffected.
It created a sense of community amongst wannabe "victims" who felt that they personally were threatened and needed consolation, validation or something. And they were fine with any level of retaliation as long as it didn't affect them personally. We could go to war for example, but don't dare reinstitute the draft, because they would prefer the war be fought by people who made the mistake of enlisting. We could drop bombs on children so long as we had a vague belief that there might be terrorists in the general vicinity. We could lament how the whole world hates us, supposedly for our freedom.
And yet again, it was all very narrowly focused. Most of the same people that think it was important to do whatever it takes to gain vengeance for 9/11 also oppose gun control despite the fact that more people lose their lives in gun violence than to terrorists.
Like I said, 9/11 became a great reality TV show for people looking for a fix of deep emotion. It wasn't some "distant" massacre of people in faraway lands. It was here. It had extensive real time media coverage. There were all kinds of patriotic group activities they could get involved in to feel like they were particpating in something.
But in the end it didn't raise many peoples' real sense of value towards human life. It just became a single event that they could all get excited about.
Amen
I worked at the WFC on 9/11 (which was connected to the WTC). I was evacuated with my co-workers as the tragedy unfolded. I watch people fall to their deaths and I ran for my life when the towers fell. Once we returned to work, our new offices looked directly into the rubble and we watched day after day for months as the debris was cleared.
And nothing made me angrier than seeing hawkish middle americans jump on the victim bandwagon in their call for blood. Maybe it's just me, but when you live through something like that, taking someone else's life, even in retaliation or revenge, becomes unthinkable. I support bringing Al Qaida to justice, but I am revolted how this event was twisted to support a war in country that had nothing to do with the attack.
I know that no one person or group has a monopoly on grief. No one group owns a tragedy. When these things happen, they happen to the world. However, it seems to most Americans, if it didn't happen to us, it never happened.
I was watching the television coverage of the London bombings and I watched in absolute disgust as one channel asked survivors of 9/11 if they had any advice for the London victims on how they could survive and recover from the events. I screamed at my TV "Are you F%$@#king kidding me!" What absolute gaul, what absolute narcissism to act as if we were the only people who had ever suffered at the hands of terrorism, as if we were the only people who had experienced this. It was an insult to every person, in England, in Spain, in Israel, in Darfur, and everyone else who had ever suffered because of terrorism. When I saw that I felt deep shame.
www.thebittersuite.blogspot.com
The sad irony
The sad irony is that most of the people I know who live within an hour's drive of NYC have not been to the mourning platform at the WTC. We just feel little urge. The bulk of the visitors are, as you said, tourists who come so they can tell their families back home all about it and they can wallow in the emotion.
We've been very public with this spectacle and the ironies in it are not lost on the rest of the world. Americans can still get on a city bus without worrying about it being blown up, unlike Israelis for example.
Geographically distant from most of our enemies and possessing unrivalled military power, Americans have a sense of entitlement to absolute security from foreign threats. We are, on the whole, far safer than even our European allies. That an enemy successfully attacked us provoked a shockwave of hysteria as people lost their sense of security. But more than that, it triggered an absolute conviction that American lives are simply more valuable than foreign lives.
In the nearly 7 years since 9/11 there have been numerous natural disasters, conflicts and wars in the world. Some of them were started by us. But still people here in America go on about 9/11 as if nothing else matters or ever could matter, except another attack on America.
Hence our public image in the world is not very good. But most people are too polite to call us on it too loudly. But sometimes less tactful ones like Rupert do.
well...
I do agree on how it didn't raise people's sense of value towards life. (it never does, even though people convince themselves it will)
as for people not caring about darfur....I don't think darfur even gets that much coverage....i see it from time to time on oprah or cnn....and I don't know whether to blame the media or just people being ignorant/not caring about it...
I can't speak for people in Atlanta or texas...but 9-11 shattered me emotionally in the sense that i just have never felt safe in this country as i use to....i don't consider myself a victim though....but things have never been the same in this country since....and the war hasn't helped. IMO, people feeling that their sense of entitlement to safety has been shattered makes sense to me....for the reasons i stated above. Everyone wants to feel safe and when you don't feel safe....what are we supposed to do...how are we supposed to feel?
I am not sure if that makes me sound like a victim or whatever....but thats how i feel about it. EH
The reality is...
The greater sense of danger that people feel after 9/11 is largely illusionary. It is the result of hype perpetrated by the Bush Administration and the media.
Maybe I'm jaded. Growing up in the 70's and 80's we lived with the real worry that things with the Soviet Union would get really bad and there'd be a nuclear war that there would be no chance of surviving. Or if you did survive the world would be such a horrific place that you would want to be dead.
Statistically-speaking most Americans are still much more likely to be killed by something domestic than by terrorists. Natural disaster, especially weather events with global warming stirring things up, gun violence, cancer-causing pollutants, automobile accidents....the list goes on and on.
While 9/11 was spectacular (as it was inteded to be by the terrorists) it did not reflect an ability to attack our entire country. They used airliners as WMD's because they didn't have any actual WMD's. That the attacks took place to begin with was no surprise. Sociopolitical analysts had been warning since the 90's that a major terrorist attack, particularly against New York, was impending. Especially after the failed attemtpt to bring down the WTC with a truck bomb in the parking garage.
Given that more people in America were killed in gun violence in 2001 than by terrorists, it's rather amusing that people were nonetheless more worried about terrorists. Personally, I'm more worried about growing gang activity and gun violence in nearby Philadelphia than I am by terrorists. And that's even allowing for the fact that I'm on airplanes a lot for business!
In the meantime, our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have killed a lot of civilians and made us few friends and many new enemies. Or do you imagine that when we kill someone's friends or relatives while hunting terrorists that they don't hate us for it? Why should they feel more caring for us than we do for them?
And why doesn't our media carry more images of what's going on in places like Darfur. European news outlets carry coverage of it almost constantly. Could it be that our corporate-owned, ratings-driven news outlets are simply reacting to the fact that Americans care more about whether Britney's regained visitation with her kids than we do about children dying in Africa?
He's right about a lot
But people known for a penchant for sex in steam rooms shouldn't throw towels... I guess gym bunnies are the only non-blobbies left.
Poor Diane Keaton. She has really made some klunkers lately. I had to leave 'Mad Money' about thirty minutes into it.
Right, But Still a Humungous Bitch
Back when My Best Friend's Wedding made him Everybody's Favorite Gay Charmer Roop moved to L.A. He had a house in one of the canyons and spent his evenings trolling the leather bars of Silverlake. Comes the down he could be foudn passed on in a booth at the Yukon Mining Country on Santa Monica Blvd. in WeHo. IOW he didn't have a lot of fun here, and I suspect that colored his impressions of the U.S. overall.
IOW, "Bitter, Party of One!"
Exactly -- More like "Bitter Aging Queen" than "Eccentric Uncle"
If you haven't got anything
If you haven't got anything nice or constructive to say you shouldn't say anything.
That's what my old Granny used to say.
There's no need to have a go at us English though just because Rupe's got a screw lose.
Personally I love you yanks.
Friends and Sex and the
how bout...
Heh.
Actually, both are probably
Really?
Okay, so as long as we were hot, then it was okay that we were 'dumb' 'shallow' and 'tasteless' but now that he doesn't want to shag us anymorea(or more to the point, we don't want to shag him anymore), suddenly he has standards?
And he'd be lucky to lay under the feet of any of those actors he named.
I used to love Rupe, even to the point of reading his autobiography, but seriously? STFU now.
THe part of his comment I really don't get is
"And that kind of semi-blindness about the rest of the world, which was attractive when America was exciting, is really unattractive now."
Really, Rupert? You found our "semi-blindness" really attractive when we were "exciting"? That sure makes you seem shallow. Are most of your friends people who are "exciting" despite their serious flaws? What an icky way to live your life and view the world. No wonder you're bitter, because most everyone and everything eventually loses that patina of excitement. And then what's left?
Personally, I've never found our blindness (nor any other countries for that matter) anything other more than hugely depressing.