Celebrity Dumb Quotes

Okay, now I really want to read one of Willow Smith's novels. I bet they're amazing.

Chris Evans and Jeremy Renner provide a case study on a good apology statement vs a terrible one:

With the controversy making headlines at a number of major news outlets, both Chris Evans and Jeremy Renner have now released statements, apologizing for their remarks.

Evans said, “Yesterday we were asked about the rumors that Black Widow wanted to be in a relationship with both Hawkeye and Captain America. We answered in a very juvenile and offensive way that rightfully angered some fans. I regret it and sincerely apologize.”

Renner said, “I am sorry that this tasteless joke about a fictional character offended anyone. It was not meant to be serious in any way. Just poking fun during an exhausting and tedious press tour.”

Last time I checked, nobody was making Jeremy Renner star in blockbuster movies.

I'm waiting for the day when Chris Evans will do something horrible and not apologize for it and stop being the amazing human I think he is. I doubt it will ever come though.

whatthedeuce wrote:I'm waiting for the day when Chris Evans will do something horrible and not apologize for it and stop being the amazing human I think he is. I doubt it will ever come though.

I know, right?

This Avengers junket is a fascinating exercise in when PR goes right and wrong.

Well, I mean, he still said it? Laughed at Renner saying it? I'm not saying the guy needs to be tarred and feathered, but acting like a sexist douche and then having the self-preservation to apologize isn't terribly amazing to me. I would guess the guy who found calling Black Widow a "slut" hilarious is closer to the real Evans than the one who crafted that apology with his publicist.

I am in no way apologizing for these guys. But I can see how it might happen.

They're on a junket, which is basically having to have the same conversation over and over again, all with different people, all for hours. They start making jokes because that's how you cope with tedium and irritation. The notion that the Black Widow is a lustful rampaging cockmonster starts to seem hilarious. Someone asks a question and next thing you know, the idiot brain that thinks this joke is funny is all, "AT LAST MY TIME TO SHARE THIS JOKE."

These dudes forgot -- or did not even know -- several very important things:

1. Lotta women love the Marvelverse and not just because of the Chrises.
2. Lotta people have a problem with how few women get tentpole movies or decent plotlines, merchandising, etc.
3. People who already give Marvel the side-eye are not going to respond well when the actors in an Avengers movie say of the sole female first-tier character, "Yeah, banging her is an exercise in team bonding."
4. Maybe men should be re-examining whether or not it's hilarious to sift women into "whore" and "non-whore" categories, period.
5. If you're going to make a joke about how the Avengers Assemble Inside Black Widow or whatever, turn it around and make it about how fandom seems a lot more interested in that aspect and less in the awesome/asskicking aspect.

Maybe it's the side effect of A-list insularity and not having anyone to call you on your sexist bro-shit. Maybe it's a failure of the publicists to adequately brief these guys on the debates swirling around vis a vis the Marvelverse and sexism right now.

But from this angle, it looks like Chris Evans' PR team is doing a better job of spin.

swsa wrote:Well, I mean, he still said it? Laughed at Renner saying it? I'm not saying the guy needs to be tarred and feathered, but acting like a sexist douche and then having the self-preservation to apologize isn't terribly amazing to me. I would guess the guy who found calling Black Widow a "slut" hilarious is closer to the real Evans than the one who crafted that apology with his publicist.

I have to agree. I enjoy Chris Evans a lot, and I've certainly said things that I regret/would be mortified if they were captured on film forever.

But dude. You are a millionaire whose job it is to be inoffensively charming and make people want to see this movie. You have been (I'm sure) coached and trained in this very skill. Gross.

Renner can just STFU.

Since I don't know the guy and never will, I can't speak to "the real Evans," so I still give Evans credit for offering an apology that actually was an apology. It still shows a ton more social skills ability than Renner's fauxpology. I don't know whether Renner actually is an asshole but he appears to play one on the Internet.

I think they're both kind of dicks for saying it, but Renner is especially a dick for his fauxpology. 'Exhausting and tedious?' Look, I'm sure press tours are super tedious, but it just highlights how long it is since these people have had real world jobs. Waiting tables is damn tedious, working retail is tedious, answering phones in a call centre is tedious. 99% of all jobs in the world are both exhausting and tedious. The only difference is most people aren't getting paid a million bucks to do theirs. Exhaustion and tedium are most definitely not an excuse for casual misogyny.

I only saw a little bit of the interview, but wasn't the interviewer a woman? Saying something that dickish in response to a woman asking a question about the only significant woman in the franchise seems to add an extra level of dickishness to the proceedings. That's her told, then.

With that said I still do like Evans, so I hope he mentally squirms in embarrassment every time he remembers this incident for the next ten years, and is more careful in future about what comes out of his mouth, even on endless Marvel press tours. I imagine a tour like this gets very insular very quickly and it's probably easy to imagine everything you say is funny and actually a joke, as opposed to a misogynistic slur.

I really hope Scarlett Johanssen gives both of them the business. This shit is old and tired, yall.

I'm actually remembering my first summer job in a male-dominated workplace, and the casually sexist slurs the guys would throw around. They were generally not aimed at me, but they were deliberately lobbed around me with the goal of making me (and the few other women present) feel isolated and uncomfortable. It was a cool job and eventually the atmosphere ruined it.

Creating hostile work environments for women, and then blaming the women for being uncomfortable when you've gone out of your way to make them feel that way, is gross. And, as noted, old and tired.

I don't even care about the damned MCU anymore and I find myself getting angry about this.

Also, Renner, if your defense is "fictitious character," you never ever get to use lines about stories having power ever again. I mean, they do, which is another reason the comment was gross and the fauxpology shameful, but if you're going to defend yourself on the grounds that fiction has no meaning you are probably in the wrong line of work in the first place.

And writing it off as being about a "fictitious" character just seems extra slimy when you think about how large and passionate the female fanbase for this franchise is AND when you think of all the little girls who get so excited seeing female superheroes. You can't prop Black Widow up as an example of how your franchise totes isn't as sexist as it seems cause see, GIRL BADASS, and then brush off her importance when your male stars treat her just as many have kind of always suspected the higher-ups think of her.

So RDJ has said some stupid shit on this press tour as well, in addition to walking out on that Channel 4 interview, he made a crack about Mexican Innaritu's ability to use big English words correctly. Which is super assy, but to me an essential part of RDJ, or at least old school RDJ. Innaritu is a dick, and he's not well liked and he was taking aim directly at artists like RDJ who have sold their souls to a super hero franchise. I wish he hadn't gone that route to cracking on him, because I think he's witty enough to make fun of him in superior ways, but I think it's interesting that this is pretty out of character for him, he's really about as candid as most celebrities get, but his explanation to Howard Stern about why he got angry at the interviewer made me realize he has a whole new era of fans that are kids who don't know him as the brilliant, if stumbling, fuck up he was for the first half of his career. But, like, if your so concerned about setting an example to these new fans, maybe talking honestly about your addictions is probably better than making racist jokes.

Oh and the Innaritu quote:

"And I think for a man whose native tongue is Spanish to be able to put together a phrase like 'cultural genocide' just speaks to how bright he is."

I pretty much love him despite not caring for either of these moves, but I'll just have to own that hypocrisy, along with my Alec Baldwin fanning..

I find RDJ charming and a good actor but like...thats a racist as fuck comment that came pretty easily and quickly to him. I'm not white so it just makes me think like what do you have to say about my people when we make a comment about your superhero movies?

Others may find this refreshingly honest (and I respect that), but here's one from RDJ that will likely cause some saliva to end up in his food next time he gets a struggling filmmaker for a waiter or waitress.

RDJ explains why he won't do smaller indie films once The Avengers is over..

“Because they’re exhausting and sometimes they suck and then you just go, ‘What was I thinking?’ But I’m interested in doing all different kinds of movies. Sometimes the little movies are the ones that wind up taking the most out of you because they’re like, ‘Hey, man, we’re just running a couple of days behind. Do you think you can stay through your birthday and then come back on the fourth of July. And, by the way, but, like, the crew — can you pay for the craft services? And, oh, by the way, man, when we go to Sundance, it’s like, can we just sit you in a chair and you can sell this for six days in a row so that we’ll make 180 bucks when it opens in one theater? God, this is so powerful what we’re doing. What do you think of the movie? You saw it last night?’”

“I thought it’s mediocre.”

“Yeah, isn’t it the greatest?! Man, everyone’s an artist here.”

“Actually, most of you are kind of inexperienced and lame.”

He's gone from charmingly arrogant to being an egotistical prick. Sad thing is, I can remember the day when he would have begged for a role, any role in one of those films, back when he couldn't get the insurance to work on a studio film due to his constant relapses.

I...I think that I may be done with him.

Eris Rising wrote:Others may find this refreshingly honest (and I respect that), but here's one from RDJ that will likely cause some saliva to end up in his food next time he gets a struggling filmmaker for a waiter or waitress.

RDJ explains why he won't do smaller indie films once The Avengers is over..

“Because they’re exhausting and sometimes they suck and then you just go, ‘What was I thinking?’ But I’m interested in doing all different kinds of movies. Sometimes the little movies are the ones that wind up taking the most out of you because they’re like, ‘Hey, man, we’re just running a couple of days behind. Do you think you can stay through your birthday and then come back on the fourth of July. And, by the way, but, like, the crew — can you pay for the craft services? And, oh, by the way, man, when we go to Sundance, it’s like, can we just sit you in a chair and you can sell this for six days in a row so that we’ll make 180 bucks when it opens in one theater? God, this is so powerful what we’re doing. What do you think of the movie? You saw it last night?’”

“I thought it’s mediocre.”

“Yeah, isn’t it the greatest?! Man, everyone’s an artist here.”

“Actually, most of you are kind of inexperienced and lame.”

He's gone from charmingly arrogant to being an egotistical prick. Sad thing is, I can remember the day when he would have begged for a role, any role in one of those films, back when he couldn't get the insurance to work on a studio film due to his constant relapses.

I...I think that I may be done with him.

Maybe I'm an asshole, but I think it's kind of funny.

Crowbridge wrote:

Eris Rising wrote:Others may find this refreshingly honest (and I respect that), but here's one from RDJ that will likely cause some saliva to end up in his food next time he gets a struggling filmmaker for a waiter or waitress.

RDJ explains why he won't do smaller indie films once The Avengers is over..

“Because they’re exhausting and sometimes they suck and then you just go, ‘What was I thinking?’ But I’m interested in doing all different kinds of movies. Sometimes the little movies are the ones that wind up taking the most out of you because they’re like, ‘Hey, man, we’re just running a couple of days behind. Do you think you can stay through your birthday and then come back on the fourth of July. And, by the way, but, like, the crew — can you pay for the craft services? And, oh, by the way, man, when we go to Sundance, it’s like, can we just sit you in a chair and you can sell this for six days in a row so that we’ll make 180 bucks when it opens in one theater? God, this is so powerful what we’re doing. What do you think of the movie? You saw it last night?’”

“I thought it’s mediocre.”

“Yeah, isn’t it the greatest?! Man, everyone’s an artist here.”

“Actually, most of you are kind of inexperienced and lame.”

He's gone from charmingly arrogant to being an egotistical prick. Sad thing is, I can remember the day when he would have begged for a role, any role in one of those films, back when he couldn't get the insurance to work on a studio film due to his constant relapses.

I...I think that I may be done with him.

Maybe I'm an asshole, but I think it's kind of funny.

Really? He can do what he wants with his career, but his sneering comments are a slap in the face to everyone out there with a camera, a script, a boom mic taped to a broomstick, and the drive and creativity to get the thing in the can. It's one thing to say "No, I'm probably going to stick with studio work for a while." It's another thing to call most beginning independent filmmakers "Inexperienced and lame".

EDIT: Yes, even if it's true.

Eris Rising wrote:

Really? He can do what he wants with his career, but his sneering comments are a slap in the face to everyone out there with a camera, a script, a boom mic taped to a broomstick, and the drive and creativity to get the thing in the can. It's one thing to say "No, I'm probably going to stick with studio work for a while." It's another thing to call most beginning independent filmmakers "Inexperienced and lame".

EDIT: Yes, even if it's true.

Meh, I don't think it's that egotistical. He's saying that he doesn't enjoy doing Indie films, he doesn't enjoy the workload or the likelihood that they may, in fact, suck, and...he's not going to do them. I don't think it's surprising that's it's more fun and less work for him to show up on an expensive-as-fuck set and be himself (Tony Stark). It's the quote of someone who currently has a really good gig and sounds burned out about even thinking about NOT having a really good gig. I'm not gonna crucify the guy for that; he has no obligation to be in movies he doesn't want to be in or to be a workhorse for aspiring filmmakers. He doesn't have to do something he hates or pretend like working with inexperienced filmmakers is funtimes. He didn't say they should stop working or give up their career dreams; he's just not going to subject himself to something he hates. Being a movie star is more fun than being a working actor - duh.

Don't get me wrong, I do think RDJ is kind of a dick (a very talented one), but this doesn't make him the devil.

Binky wrote:

Eris Rising wrote:

Really? He can do what he wants with his career, but his sneering comments are a slap in the face to everyone out there with a camera, a script, a boom mic taped to a broomstick, and the drive and creativity to get the thing in the can. It's one thing to say "No, I'm probably going to stick with studio work for a while." It's another thing to call most beginning independent filmmakers "Inexperienced and lame".

EDIT: Yes, even if it's true.

Meh, I don't think it's that egotistical. He's saying that he doesn't enjoy doing Indie films, he doesn't enjoy the workload or the likelihood that they may, in fact, suck, and...he's  not going to do them. I don't think it's surprising that's it's more fun and less work for him to show up on an expensive-as-fuck set and be himself (Tony Stark). It's the quote of someone who currently has a really good gig and sounds burned out about even thinking about NOT having a really good gig. I'm not gonna crucify the guy for that; he has no obligation to be in movies he doesn't want to be in or to be a workhorse for aspiring filmmakers. He doesn't have to do something he hates or pretend like working with inexperienced filmmakers is funtimes. He didn't say they should stop working or give up their career dreams; he's just not going to subject himself to something he hates. Being a movie star is more fun than being a working actor - duh.

Don't get me wrong, I do think RDJ is kind of a dick (a very talented one), but this doesn't make him the devil.  

Exactly. Is this really a comment that pushes someone to be "done" with a celebrity, as if you had anything to do with him in the first place? The tiniest indiscretion is held up as "proof" that a celebrity is a horrible human being who should be written off forever and ever, and I'm completely burnt out on that junior high bullshit. If there is anyone here who has NEVER said anything inconsiderate or rude or just downright dickish, by all means, feel free to pick apart every celebrity interview and judge; you have earned it. As for me, I'm making this my last post. I just can't take the environment anymore and I have nothing of value to add to these discussions. Screw you guys, I'm going home.

He doesn't have to do something he hates or pretend like working with inexperienced filmmakers is funtimes.

Sure but someone who poured their heart and soul into The Judge shouldn't be casting stones about the mediocrity of the end product. Honestly those comments to me are the type of funny, true, bitchy things that still make me like him, RDJ's career was not resurrected by independent film, it was kept afloat by Hollywood insider friends like James Toback and Shane Black.

It's that casual racism thing, that was surprising/disappointing to me.

I just can't take the environment anymore and I have nothing of value to add to these discussions.

Uh..okay? Offering a different pov of view is valuable to me, but do what you gotta do.

Someone who poured their heart and soul into The Judge shouldn't be casting stones about the mediocrity of the end product.

This movie was all I could think of as I read that quote. Maybe he didn't have to pay for the food on The Judge, which I guess is nice for him. But the end product isn't any better for it.

So taking a giant shit all over beginning independent filmmakers is amusing and charming.

Got it. I should really stay out of this thread.

I have no problem with him feeling that way, but he definitely could have worded it better or just skirted the question. It is a little insulting to actors to imply that the work they're currently doing doesn't measure up to some standard or ideal, which is what the whole "are you ready to go back to indies" question can feel like sometimes. And I think RDJ probably has his hackles up a bit in general right now.

Because I really do think the AoU press gauntlet is getting to these guys, and their usual public grace is slipping a bit. I don't blame them for a lot of it (except the racism/sexism stuff, because it's like excusing someone when they're drunk--if you'd say it when you're drunk, you probably think it when you're not), but I don't blame anyone for being turned off by it, either. I've certainly turned on celebs for less.