The Turn-On by Steven Goldstein

Author:Steven Goldstein
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-10-21T16:00:00+00:00

Alec Baldwin, Brett Kavanaugh, and Double Standards for African-Americans

Could there be a public figure whose career has survived more publicly reported instances of rage than Alec Baldwin?

In 1995, Baldwin allegedly punched a cameraman2 in the nose for trying to film Baldwin with his then wife Kim Basinger and their newborn daughter outside their home in Los Angeles.

In 2007 he left an infamous voice mail3 to his then eleven-year-old daughter calling her a “rude little pig,” among other insults and offensive language.

In 2011 he was kicked off an American Airlines flight in Los Angeles4 for refusing to stop playing Words with Friends on his smartphone as he waited for the plane to take off. When asked to turn off his electronic device, he became belligerent and was thrown off the plane.

In 2012 he had a couple more altercations with news photographers. He punched one5 and ended up calling another6 a “little girl.” The “little girl” was a man.

In 2013, Baldwin chased a photographer7 outside his Manhattan apartment and called the man a “c**ksucking f*g.”

In November 2018, Baldwin was arrested for assault and harassment8 for supposedly hitting a man in the face over a parking dispute outside his home in New York City.

The tantrums show remarkable diversity. They include bouts not only with paparazzi, but also with others who don’t seek to exploit celebrities at all. But Baldwin—praised for his role as Jack Donaghy on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock and as Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live—remains likeable to a remarkable number of people. He wins Emmys and Golden Globes, appears in movies such as The Boss Baby and Mission: Impossible, and gets to host television shows such as the prime-time revival of Match Game.

Baldwin gets the benefit of the doubt again and again. He even gets to craft his own construct of likeability to distract from his public bouts of rage. That’s what his impression of Donald Trump is, aside from being uproariously funny to progressives. Yes, the same progressives who would have otherwise written off Baldwin for his rage years ago.

Lest anyone think Baldwin might be tired of playing Trump, the impression has been the ultimate likeability rescue of Baldwin’s career. The actor’s real-life rage, which should have destroyed his relatability, protectiveness, reliability, and compassion long ago, has been rescued from the trash heap by the president he hates. Baldwin owes a lot to Donald Trump.

Now imagine if Baldwin were African-American. How would he be able to escape the Angry Black Man label so many African-American males have had to work overtime to avoid? Hint: He wouldn’t. His popularity and career opportunities would be zero.

Compare Baldwin with another president, Barack Obama. Even when he faced criticism inextricably mixed with racism, Barack Obama conducted his presidency to avoid coming across as an Angry Black Man. Many of us said to ourselves: How could he not scream in frustration?

At the 2015 White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, the guests included Luther, played by Keegan-Michael Key from Comedy Central, as President Obama’s so-called anger translator.

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