You guys heard about that incident on the JetBlue flight that happened on Tuesday, right? The pilot had some sort of mental breakdown due to an unnamed and unexplained medical situation, and basically he freaked the hell out. He was screaming about bombs and Al Qaeda, and passengers had to restrain him while the co-pilot made an emergency landing. You can read about it in detail all over the rest of the internet, but those are the basics.
And now for the celebrity gossip!
Since this whole thing is a pretty big topic in the news this week, Carson Daly decided to discuss it on his radio show. Now, I typically think that Carson seems like a pretty sweet dude, but he made a really, really dumb joke:
“Most of the people were on their way to some sort of security conference in Las Vegas … it was like a bunch of dudes and well trained dudes … thank god.”
He laughingly continued, “With my luck, it would be like … ‘this is the flight going to [the gay pride parade] in San Francisco … I mean, that would be my colleagues.”
Then, changing his voice to sound like a gay stereotype, Carson said, “Uh, we’re headed down to Vegas for the floral convention.”
Yeah, Carson Daly actually said that. It barely even makes sense, that’s how lame it was. There’s the homophobic issue to tackle, which we’ll get to in a minute, but can we take a moment to just consider what a truly bad joke that was? It’s embarrassingly not funny. All I did when I heard it was roll my eyes while thinking about how awesome a floral convention sounds.
Ok, now for the offensive part: people were really offended. One such offended person is the mother of Mark Bingham, a man who died on Flight 93 on September 11th:
Yes, my gay son was known in our family for bringing me flowers on my birthday and Mother’s Day. He also was known for careening down the rugby pitch, and, on the morning of September 11, 2001, for charging unarmed down the aisle of a doomed Boeing 757 to face knife-wielding Islamist thugs in a hijacked cockpit. No one among his pick-up team of fellow passengers was asking ‘Are you straight? Are you gay?’ No one doubted that a guy who weighed 220 and stood 6’4″ tall – who could run over a charging opponent on the field, and ran with the bulls in Pamplona earlier that summer – would be an asset to a desperate group trying to overcome a threat on board an airliner.
And, of course, Carson has issued an apology:
“We live in a time where gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals find courage every day to overcome adversity, stand up to bullying and find equality. I’m truly saddened that my words today suggested otherwise. I’ve long been a supporter of Gay and Lesbian rights, and I’m saddened that my comments, however unintentional, offended anyone, specifically members of the LGBT community. The fact that I have hurt anyone is devastating. I’m not that guy. I’m proud to be an ally of the LGBT community and will continue to fight with them.”
That’s sweet and everything, but where’s the apology for the super shitty joke?
I read his apology as “I’m not that gay” at first.
It bugs me that he says, ‘I’m saddened that my comments […] offended anyone.’
It seems like he’s saying, ‘Sorry you got offended at my totally inoffensive joke!’ Instead of ‘Sorry about my offensive comments.’