Politics

'But Nancy Pelosi is Still a Total C*nt': Gary Oldman Apologizes for Anti-Jewish Remarks in Playboy Interview

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As I noted yesterday, the great actor Gary Oldman recently outed himself as a libertarian in a Playboy interview.

That Oldman chose to do so immediately after ruminating on how unfair it is that he isn't allowed to call Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) "a cunt…a fucking useless cunt" is, well, what's the Italian phrase for comme ci comme ça again?

Oldman, who defended offensive outbursts by fellow rage-aholic thespians Mel Gibson and Alec Baldwin, also riffed on how that tribe that runs Hollywood, well, runs Hollywood:

Alec calling someone an F-A-G in the street while he's pissed off coming out of his building because they won't leave him alone. I don't blame him. So they persecute. Mel Gibson is in a town that's run by Jews and he said the wrong thing because he's actually bitten the hand that I guess has fed him—and doesn't need to feed him anymore because he's got enough dough. He's like an outcast, a leper, you know? But some Jewish guy in his office somewhere hasn't turned and said, "That fucking kraut" or "Fuck those Germans," whatever it is? We all hide and try to be so politically correct. That's what gets me. It's just the sheer hypocrisy of everyone, that we all stand on this thing going, "Isn't that shocking?" [smiles wryly] All right. Shall I stop talking now? What else can we discuss?

After public denunciations from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and Simon Wiesenthal Center, Oldman has apologized thus:

I am deeply remorseful that comments I recently made in the Playboy Interview were offensive to many Jewish people. Upon reading my comments in print—I see how insensitive they may be, and how they may indeed contribute to the furtherance of a false stereotype. Anything that contributes to this stereotype is unacceptable, including my own words on the matter. If, during the interview, I had been asked to elaborate on this point I would have pointed out that I had just finished reading Neal Gabler's superb book about the Jews and Hollywood, An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews invented Hollywood. The fact is that our business, and my own career specifically, owes an enormous debt to that contribution.

I hope you will know that this apology is heartfelt, genuine, and that I have an enormous personal affinity for the Jewish people in general, and those specifically in my life. The Jewish People, persecuted thorough the ages, are the first to hear God's voice, and surely are the chosen people.

I would like to sign off with "Shalom Aleichem"—but under the circumstances, perhaps today I lose the right to use that phrase, so I will wish you all peace–Gary Oldman.

More here (and all thanks to Alan Vanneman, whose latest books, Author! Author! and Vorak of Kolnap, are damn good reads).

The special-pleading half of me that is half-dago (in a Joe DiMaggio sort of way) feels a need to say: Wait, but Nancy Pelosi is still a cunt? 

I get it, the Last Acceptable Prejudice™ is slagging prominent Italian Americans (whether they are objectively awful politicians is a separate matter). You never have to apologize for making fun of the spicy-meatball crowd. Where's Joe Columbo, the mafiaoso who started the Italian-American Civil Rights League in 1970, when you need him? Oh, that's right: He was fatally shot at close range by another goombah at the group's second annual rally protesting negative media portrayals of Italian Americans.