Do Celebrities Get Off Too Easy?

Take Michael Richards, a.k.a. Seinfeld's Kramer, who melted down on some black hecklers at L.A.'s Laugh Factory on the weekend, angrily shouting the N-word at them and even evoking lynching ( "Fifty years ago we'd have had you upside down with a f---ing fork up your ass!").

A bad enough career-limiting move, but at least Mel Gibson managed to keep video of his meltdown off the Internet. A cellphone vid of Richards' tirade (which he seemed eventually to be clumsily trying to turn into a free-speech monologue) showed up first on tmz.com and later on other sites.

Monday night, an agitated Richards appeared via satellite on Late Night With David Letterman, giving what amounted to a random apology, evoking Hurricane Katrina and inchoate societal racial rage, denying he was racist and inspiring awkward laughter from Dave's audience.
"Seeing that video brought up all these feelings of nausea and angst," political comic and Daily Show commentator Lewis Black told the Sun yesterday. "It's like a nightmare of the worst comedy-club experience you can imagine."

The difference between Richards' outburst and Mel Gibson's drunken, anti-semitic tirade is "Mel has a career. And he will still because he's a moneymaker, and that's what matters in Hollywood. What are they going to do to Michael Richards? Cancel his sitcom? He doesn't have one.

Source: www.canoe.ca