In September, five teenage boys killed themselves after being physically or verbally (or both) assaulted for being gay.
The suicides of Tyler Clementi, 18, Billy Lucas, 15, Asher Brown, 13, Justin Aaberg, 15, and Seth Walsh, 13, have brought national attention to the epidemic of bullying in American schools.
Now, a number of stars, many of whom have personal experience with anti-gay bullying, are speaking out in hopes of raising awareness and providing support to teens and young adults who are being victimized or who are having trouble dealing with their sexuality. The topic is also addressed in a cover story for this week’s People magazine and in a week-long series on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360.
Most recently, ‘Project Runway‘ mentor Tim Gunn spoke candidly about his own suicide attempt and his support for The Trevor Project, a national 24-hour, toll-free confidential suicide hotline for gay and questioning youth. “I understand the desperation. I understand the despair,” an emotional Gunn said with tears in his eyes. “And I understand how isolated you can feel … It will get better. I promise.”
Comedienne Sarah Silverman has inspired some controversy by positing that a national atmosphere of institutionalized homophobia, as exemplified by the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy as well as campaigns for constitutional amendments to ban civil marriage for same-sex couples, are at the heart of this epidemic.
(Warning: Explicit Language)
Other celebrities involved: Ellen DeGeneres, Neil Patrick Harris, Bill O’Reilly, Anne Hathaway, Jenny McCarthy, Daniel Radcliffe, Lance Bass, Ian Somerhalder and Kristin Cavallari.
Happy Friday! For today’s top ten celebrity quotes of the week, we have Jimmy Kimmel talking about “Lost”, Sarah Silverman’s good influence and Sarah Jessica Parker talking about going topless! Enjoy!
“Watching Lost is what I imagine it must be like to be trapped inside the brain of Paula Abdul.”
– Jimmy Kimmel, at ABC’s upfront presentation of its new fall schedule
“No surgical tweaks. No Botox either. I think it is terrible, these girls in their late 20s injecting their faces and lips. One told me, ‘If I kill my muscles now, I’ll never get wrinkles.’ Can you imagine?”
– All-natural beauty Salma Hayek, weighing in on Hollywood’s anti-aging obsession, to InStyle
“I will not be singing and don’t expect any track suits at my wedding.”
– Engaged star Jane Lynch, on keeping her Glee alter ego, Sue Sylvester, out of her wedding plans, to People
“You don’t want to see me topless.”
– Sarah Jessica Parker, on why she’s the only Sex and the City star to not have done a nude scene, to Eonline.com
“Sorry, but the last time I had baby food, I believe I was 1. I’ve been on solids for about 40 years now.”
– Jennifer Aniston, denying reports that she was on “The Baby Food Cleanse,” to People
“It’s like Superman with the cape.”
– Bret Michaels, on continuing to wear his signature bandanna even during his hospital stay for his brain hemorrhage, on The Oprah Winfrey Show
“I’ll starve to death before I’ll cook for myself. I think I could survive a week without eating.”
– Megan Fox, to Allure magazine
“I took a picture with Ron Howard last year at the Oscars. I thought it was the funniest thing. I asked, ‘Is it for your kids?’ He said, ‘No, it’s for me.’”
– Robert Pattinson, to USA Today
“I’ve always wanted to be a woman. For 5 minutes.”
– Sting, who got his wish when he appeared in drag for a rendition of “Big Spender” at the Rainforest Fund’s 21st birthday celebration, to People
“I’m terrified this is what [young] people are going to think adults are supposed to be like. It makes me feel like I actually am a good influence on kids.”
– Sarah Silverman, on reality shows like The Real Housewives and The Bachelor, to People
Matt Damon took some serious ribbing Saturday night when he was honored in Beverly Hills with the 24th American Cinematheque Award.
Jimmy Kimmel teasingly said,
“He doesn’t deserve this award. I don’t know who they weren’t able to get, but I’d go with Tom Selleck before I’d go with Matt Damon.”
Sarah Silverman, who joked that she gave Damon, 39, “his first really big break” with their crudely funny 2008 viral video hit, said she was going to have a hard time roasting him.
“The worst thing I could say is, you know, Matt Damon is like, maybe he’s a perfectionist,” she told the audience, which included Don Cheadle, former President Bill Clinton and Damon’s Invictus director Clint Eastwood.
“And his breath is like, Jesus! And his hair plugs are really obvious. Besides that, there’s like nothing. So sorry, roast not possible!”
I could care less about the hair plugs, it’s the nasty breath that’s giving me the willies.
source: Stars Tease Matt Damon for Bad Breath, Hair Plugs [people magazine]
With all the drama surrounding Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien it is time to take a look at the most hated comedians of all time and as you guess, Leno is indeed one of these comedians.
Jay Leno:
Why he’s hated: He’s poisonous prune juice.
Jay Leno is the inspiration for this list. He is everything a comedian shouldn’t be. His material hasn’t been funny for years, it’s is dumbed-down for a crowd that doesn’t want be challenged intellectually, and in the brotherhood of comedians, he betrayed his brethren by selling Conan down the river. Jay Leno is the runaway winner on this list.
Jeff Dunham:
Why he’s hated: Racist puppets.
If Jeff Dunham wasn’t a comedian, he would probably be a Klan leader. The man is so racist, and so crude, that anyone laughing at his jokes should be ashamed of themselves. Thankfully Comedy Central mercifully canceled The Jeff Dunham Show after one season. Using puppets to be racist makes everyone overlook that it’s not actually a racist puppet, but a racist comedian with his hand jammed up a puppet’s ass.
Carlos Mencia:
Why he’s hated: He’s a thief.
Not only does he steal jokes from classic comedians but he’s needlessly racist and had no sense of comedic timing whatsoever. Plagiarism and lack of comedic skills leads to him having a television show on Comedy Central. Where he continues to plagiarize and mock every promising comedian on the planet.
Dane Cook:
Why he’s hated: Insufferable prick.
Dane Cook wasn’t always hated. In fact, he was actually liked at one point. He was just catapulted to fame so fast, that he didn’t have nearly enough material to sustain himself as a consistently funny comedian. Instead of telling jokes, he just degraded into becoming the douchiest man in all of comedy. He had one of the worst specials HBO ever aired, and his trademark “superfinger” made everyone want to just give him the regular finger.
Rosie O’Donell:
Why she’s hated: She starts shit with everybody.
It’s one thing to be outspoken, but there is also a breaking point. Rosie O’Donell—while a good comedienne—simply can not stop picking fights. In her time, she has had very public feuds with Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Donald Trump, her publisher, Star Jones, and Barbara Walters . Everybody loves a good feud, but at this point, people are growing weary of her antics.
George Lopez:
Why he’s hated: Somehow flipped tired, racist jokes into a career.
George Lopez, if anything, gives hope to people who want to be famous but have absolutely nothing to offer. George Lopez literally brings nothing to the table except jokes about how Latino, black, and white people differ from one another. If you want to see someone be on point about racist issues, just watch Dave Chapelle. In fact, watch Dave Chapelle, then watch George Lopez immediately after. You will see such a large gap in comedic sensibilities that you will become angry. Angry at the fact that not only did George Lopez have a terrible sitcom for 6 years on ABC, but now has a terrible late night talk show. And they’re both successful. There is no justice in this world.
Carrot Top:
Why he’s hated: Stupid props.
It seems that every new moon Carrot Top takes a break from working out to go to The Tonight Show, manically grab props out of a bag, (an ashtray attached to a bottle for redneck moms? HA!) and then promptly recede back to the gym to work on his delts.
Sarah Silverman:
Why she’s hated: She uses crudeness as a crutch.
A lot of people like Sarah Silverman, but she definitely deserves a place on this list. There are plenty of comedians that are cruder, blunter, more disgusting, and funnier than Silverman. Only they will never even sniff the success that Silverman has attained. So why did she become successful and they didn’t? Because she’s Jewish, she’s attractive (but not afraid to wear a wacky mustache in public!), and she says “fuck” a lot while talking about taboo subjects.
Gallagher :
Why he’s hated: He’s the original Carrot Top.
A man who built his reputation on an act that isn’t even remotely funny. His humor was mainly physical, and when he did actually use words to make jokes, they were terrible. Like his famous bit on how T-O-M-B and C-O-M-B are pronounced differently. What a riot!
But what makes Gallagher even worse is how poorly he’s aged. Just check out his recent interview with The Onion’s AV Club. He comes off as jaded, old, bitter, racist, obnoxious, and most of all not funny. This is a man who became famous for smashing watermelons calling the current comedy landscape “mediocre and boring.” That alone right there should merit him a spot on this list.
What comedians do you love and hate? I agree with this list completely because I hate all of these people.
source: The Most Hated Comedians of All Time [Gawker]
As we all know the end of the decade is upon us and there is lists from everything to do with the best pornstars to the best plates of this decade. So carrying on in this fashion, here is the top 10 best stand-up comedians.
With a cultishly popular MTV show (Human Giant), a flourishing stand-up career, a scene-stealing turn in Judd Apatow’s Funny People, and a blog he actually posts on regularly, it’s only fitting that twentysomething comic Aziz Ansari make our list. Whether he’s hanging with idol Kanye West or bloodying up Ted Leo as “Clell Tickle: Indie Marketing Guru,†Ansari stays connected to the music world while taking us all on the highway to the comedy zone. And watch out, entertainment journos; Ansari recently started writing articles for the likes of Interview. Besides, who else can lay claim to literally being the A to Z of comedy?
Mitch Hedberg was a master at relating simple observational ironies to his audience. His stand-up routine could’ve been achingly unfunny in someone else‘s hands, but an atonal, stream-of-consciousness delivery teased an almost confessional humor out of life’s idiosyncrasies. His death from a drug overdose in 2005 only added to his mystique, transforming him into a cult comedy icon.
Eugene Mirman’s dozens of online video clips and his three brilliant standup albums this decade—along with the work of peers like Zach Galifianakis and Patton Oswalt—have taken comedy in a bold new, hilariously absurd direction. Mirman is the undisputed king of the perfectly executed non-sequitur (“This is a bag of dandelions! These aren’t chicken strips at all!â€), an expert lampooner of all things pop-cultural (check the Mötley Crüe Behind the Music clip at Eug-Tube), and a master at adapting angry screeds to soulless corporations into stage plays. Plus, he’s a Maxim-magazine-certified “sexpert.â€
No one has can pull off the role of the oblivious blowhard like Gervais. The Office showcased his knack for playing a self-important ass, and his brilliant BBC series Extras extracted hilarious performances out of the biggest stars in show business. But the real surprise is how his stand-up comedy sometimes even surpasses his character acting. Emily Riemer
Like more than a couple funny people on this list, Silverman specializes in the thorniest of topics—race. The woman who once delivered a bit about Martin Luther King just couldn’t help herself, even in the get-out-the-vote video below, which mixes earnest enthusiasm for Obama with wicked jokes about ethnicity.
David Cross is alternative comedy‘s renaissance man. He cut his teeth on HBO’s wildly subversive Mr. Show with co-creator Bob Odenkirk, a fellow traveler in L.A.‘s mid-nineties standup circuit. Cross spent the next decade and a half headlining tents at festivals and appearing in music videos with Yo La Tengo and the New Pornographers, becoming indie-dom’s patron saint of irony. He’s played cultural critic, antagonist and slaughterer of sacred cows on two stand-up albums to date (released on Sub Pop, natch), the first of which earned a Grammy nod. And in 2003, he pulled his analrapist stocking over his head for a turn as Tobias Fünke in the now-legendary Arrested Development.
Although he first hit it big in the ‘90s, Rock became comedy royalty in the 2000s. While he was making fluffy, mainstream films like Madagascar, he never shied away from edgy comedy, and his HBO specials and stand-up appearances from the 2000s are among his best, sharply skewering black culture, politics and even Oprah.
I’m not a big fan of stand-up comedy, but the first time I heard a Patton Oswalt bit I immediately felt a deep, emotional bond with that round little man. His rant about KFC’s Famous Bowls—which I’d lamented over with friends but never so eloquently as his definition: “a failure pile in a sadness bowlâ€â€”has become kind of an annoying Thing (even to him, I think—when I saw him in February, he chastised a guy for requesting it between jokes), but it perfectly encapsulates what I love about him. Oswalt has this deep sense of cultural shame that radiates outward but also pierces deep into his own psyche—he knows how ridiculous everything is, but knows, too, he’s no better than anyone else. He’s funnier than just about everyone else, though, so that helps a lot.
In 2008, we described Zach Galifianakis’ act thusly: “a mix of the hyper-intelligent and the low-brow—blink-and-you’ll-miss-them absurdist nuggets. Sometimes the joke is simply the mispronunciation of a word, other times it’s in pushing a button that’s particularly taboo with his audience.†Since then, the dude’s blown up a little bit, starring in blockbuster movies (The Hangover) and critically acclaimed television (HBO’s Bored to Death), while having many an awkward moment on his web series, Between Two Ferns. Did we mention he’s got a beard that just won’t quit? Catch him live if and when you can.
The funniest man of the decade spent some well-documented time off the grid, then emerged from seclusion to assure everyone that he wasn’t crazy, a crackhead or a crazy crackhead. It’s no wonder speculation was so intense: When he stepped into the spotlight—whether on his side-splitting Comedy Central show or in a stand-up setting—Dave Chappelle was supernaturally magnetic. You couldn’t take your eyes off him, couldn’t stop laughing, and couldn’t help yourself from watching to see which taboo he’d skewer next. Race was his specialty, as evidenced in the clip below, which contains his immortal “Terrorists do not take black hostages†bit.
I’m not a big fan of Stand-Up but this list is pretty spot on in my opinion. Thoughts?
source: The 10 Best Comedians of the Decade (2000-2009) [Paste]
In the latest DeclareYourself.com ad campaigns, celebrities try to use reverse psychology by saying “Don’t Vote.”
The ad features a whole lot of celebrities including Amy Adams, Tatyana Ali, will.i.am, Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Bacon, Maria Bello, Halle Berry, Selma Blair, Kate Bosworth, Kevin Connolly, Courteney Cox, Ellen DeGeneres, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jaime Foxx, Jonah Hill, Djimon Hounsou, Dustin Hoffman, Anthony Kiedis, Ashton Kutcher, Adam Levine, Laura Linney, Eva Longoria, Tobey Maguire, Demi Moore, Esai Morales, Natalie Portman, Giovanni Ribisi, Sarah Silverman, Ethan Suplee, Kyra Sedgwick, Michelle Trachtenberg, Usher, and Forest Whitaker.
