Written by: Alex Green
Blake Shelton is sorry and I don’t care.
And neither should you.
The country singer got busted last week for a series of now-deleted racist, misogynist and homophobic tweets that revealed a dark and ugly counterpoint to his lumbering, country-good-guy persona.
For reference, here are the tweets in question as they appeared on Shelton’s account:
“Grown men who wear Chuck Taylor’s may as well write on their fore head ‘Cucumbers turn me on!!!’”
“Standing in line at a coffee shop in LA talking with the man in front of me. He orders a skinny caramel latte. I couldn’t tell he was gay!!!”
“Wish the dickhead in the next room would either shut or learn some English so I would at least know what he’s planning to bomb!!
“I was 19-years old when my heart first got broken…I’m over it now but I wonder what that fat ugly bitch is up to…”
“I’m not gay but I think Ellen is hot! . . . Wait a minute. . . What?!”
“Question for my gay followers…Are Skittles y’all’s favorite candy?”
“I think the bartender lastnight put some of that date rape drug in my drink…OMG!! He was like so cute too!!!”
“If you haven’t noticed Richard Simmons is gay, you haven’t noticed Katy Perry’s boobs…”
“So I just figured out a great excuse for my sick fantasy about Dakota Fanning. I thought she was Amanda Seyfried…”
(By the way, the Dakota Fanning bit was allegedly posted when the actress was underage.)
After a few attempts at wriggling out of authorial ownership of the tweets–a hacked account, a claim they were written years ago–Shelton finally took responsibility and issued this apology: “Everyone knows comedy has been a major part of my career and it’s always been out there for anyone to see. That said anyone that knows me also knows I have no tolerance for hate of any kind or form,” he wrote. “Can my humor at times be inappropriate? Yes. Hateful? Never. That said I deeply apologize to anyone who may have been offended.”
The “I was only joking” defense is the weakest way to explain anything.
And it leads to one dominating question: Why did you think what you did was funny in the first place?
And another: Why did you think the person you were making fun of would also find it funny?
And lastly: What the fuck is wrong with you?
Aside from the Huffington Post declaring, “Blake Shelton issues the worst non-apology for homophobic tweets,” for the most part, the media collectively sighed in relief that they were able to again focus their attention on Ryan Lochte, Donald Trump and the closest Kardashian they could find.
In other words, they got to go back to their sweet spots, happy they don’t have to face the fact that the golden boy of country music and the much-loved judge on The Voice is a rather hideous person.
Because let’s face it, a country singer from Tennessee proving in a series of grammatically wobbly tweets that we are not post-racial, post-homophobia or post-hateful demands the kind of attention that the media would rather not give.
And that they would rather not give it demands attention, yes?
My guess is that as you’re reading this the story has been swept so far under the carpet you forgot or didn’t even know it happened.
As a body politic the American media seems to be unwilling to to stop liking one of their favorite, most personable celebrities.
In his book Houdini’s Box, the British psychotherapist Adam Phillips wrote:”Fame is the modern word for permission.”
Indeed.
Blake Shelton has been permitted to aw-shucks his way through an empty apology and get back to his Stefani-ing of America, in spite of the shocking depth of his hateful heart.
The fact is, Shelton apologized because he had to, but his apology was never going to mean anything because recognizing one is caught is not the same as recognizing one is wrong.
And getting caught doesn’t flip a switch in one’s soul.
It doesn’t work that way.
If Shelton is sorry about anything, he’s sorry you know the truth about him. And the truth is that Shelton is a straight-up homophobic, women-bashing racist.
And in that ugly trio of qualities, Shelton’s true focus–the one that he returns to again and again–seems to be with the gay community. So fixated is he that even a disaffected teenager playing Pokemon Go and only half listening to this story might suggest that Shelton’s repeated abuse leveled at the gay community sheds a rather revealing light on an inner conflict that’s continually playing out in his psyche.
And what of Gwen Stefani? How does she feel about her boyfriend’s work on Twitter?
Well, we don’t know because she’s said nothing.
Nothing.
And if we accept the idea that silence means approval, Stefani’s refusal to comment–and an insider telling Hollywood Life that Stefani’s mortified doesn’t count–can only mean she agrees with his positions.
No doubt about that, eh?
From his music to his seemingly genial work on “The Voice” you may have thought you knew Blake Shelton, but these tweets prove you probably didn’t want to in the first place.
Look at his apology–he doesn’t think there’s anything hateful about his tweets and the real problem is that nobody gets his humor.
As you were, Blake Shelton.
After all, you’ve always been this way.
