There have been some overdramatic reactions to Fox News host Laura Ingraham’s criticism of NBA star LeBron James’ recent vulgar rant about the president, but they’ve now been topped by one from actor Michael Rapaport.
After James recently said Trump doesn’t “give a f***” about the American people, Ingraham called him out on her evening show for his negative remarks and advised him to keep to sports. “Shut up and dribble” has been the phrase many media outlets have cited, but it’s a variation of a phrase Ingraham has used for years, such as when she told Jimmy Kimmel to “shut up and make us laugh every once in a while” (instead of pontificating on politics from the stage, as he so often does these days).
Her book “Shut Up & Sing: How Elites from Hollywood and the Media Are Subverting America” was published 15 years ago.
“I’m an equal opportunity critic when it comes to left-wing celebrities sounding off on topics of which they know precious little, and as you can see, race has nothing to do with it,” Ingraham said later when some people called her “racist” for her LeBron comments.
James himself said during a press conference ahead of the NBA All-Star Game this weekend, “We will definitely not shut up and dribble. … I mean too much to society, too much to the youth, too much to so many kids who feel like they don’t have a way out.” He also said, “I had no idea who she is … until now. So she won in that case.”
Now Michael Rapaport, who has starred in films such as “True Romance” and “Sully,” went on a rant posted to Twitter. He said scathingly, referring to Ingraham, “No cluckhead, you shut up and dribble … deez nuts, b****. You mayonnaise-eating, melba toast, no seasoning on your chicken cracker …”
The rest of what he said is even worse and not worth repeating.
Related: An Open Letter to LeBron James from a Big Fan
Rapaport tends to warn people ahead of time — before making his awful remarks — that he’s about to be offensive. So he knows exactly what he’s doing: “I’m apologizing in advance. I know this is going to offend some women. But I had to do it,” he said.
From there, he continued his vulgar rant and made even more hateful and horrible comments.
Rapaport is yet another Hollywood liberal who constantly tries to take the moral high ground against President Donald Trump and his supporters. In the past, he called Trump a “terrorist” and a “dumb motherf*****.”
On the now-canceled “Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore,” Rapaport even said Trump had an “old-school slave owner mentality.”
Really? Is this the best modern liberalism has to offer? A celebrity who judges the president for his comments, but then excuses himself from dehumanizing and insulting a woman simply for disagreeing with him?
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How does this individual have over 300,000 Twitter followers? How is this a person invited onto programs like Larry Wilmore’s to give his opinions about anything?
Perhaps Rapaport is so angry because he recently became unemployed. The actor and sports fan was hired by Barstool Sports as a commentator, but he was recently fired for insulting the website’s fans. Barstool’s biggest fans call themselves “stoolies” and Rapaport thought it would be a good idea to write on Twitter that “stoolies” had “lost in life.”
Barstool founder Dave Portnoy posted a video to his Twitter account addressing Rapaport’s firing (Rapaport had gone on an angry Twitter rant against many Barstool employees) and said, “I never fire people. I’m firing someone before I’ve gotten out of bed … Just f***ing keep your mouth shut sometimes.”
If Rapaport had followed that advice, he might still have a job — and he might not be exposed as a misogynist using his leftism as an excuse to attack women who threaten him.
If Hollywood is really serious about the #MeToo movement, men like Rapaport who try to dehumanize and delegitimize women who disagree with them need to be dealt with. For an industry that says it is trying to move in a socially tolerant direction, they are toxic.
PopZette editor Zachary Leeman can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter.
(photo credit, homepage image: Michael Rapaport, CC BY 2.0, by Romain Novarina)
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