On Tuesday TMZ posted a photo shoot of comedian Kathy Griffin holding a decapitated head of President Trump ISIS style. According to TMZ “Kathy Griffin wants Donald Trump’s head … but she wants it bloody and detached from his body.”
The backlash from this was quick. Republicans and Democrats alike condemned Griffin’s photoshoot. CNN has since dropped its contract with Griffin, and Squatty Potty dropped a campaign ad featuring Griffin, stating the photoshoot was “deeply inappropriate and runs contrary to the core values our company stands for.”
To try and minimize the damage, Griffin posted a video on Twitter apologizing. However, this doesn’t seem sincere since she was anticipating a reaction like this. While doing the photoshoot Kathy joked with one of the cameramen, “We have to move to Mexico today ’cause we’re gonna go to prison, federal prison.” Clearly she knew what she was getting into.
Furthermore Griffin held a press conference on June 2nd saying “A sitting president of the United States, and his grown children, and the first lady, are personally – I feel – personally trying to ruin my life forever,”
Griffin is now trying to paint herself as a victim and blame President Trump for his reaction. If she was truly sorry she would take responsibility for her actions and not try to make herself out to be a victim.
While it’s good to see the consequences and large backlash Griffin is receiving it still highlights the huge double standard the mainstream media has about making jokes between liberal and conservative figures.
After then-President Obama was mocked by a rodeo clown in a Missouri state fair in 2013, all future Missouri state fair Rodeo clowns had to go through sensitivity training, the Missouri Rodeo Cowboy Association President resigned, and the rodeo clown who mocked Obama was fired.
In comparison, violent depictions of President Trump have been going on for over a year now without any consequences or little to no backlash from the mainstream media. For example, at the Women’s March, Madonna said that she “thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House” and Snoop Dog released a rap video depicting the assassination of President Trump
Calls for President Trump’s assassination are nothing new as thousands of people do it everyday on Twitter, even members of the media casually talk about his assassination. However even social media platforms such as Twitter have extreme bias when it comes to threats like this.
A Twitter user by the name of Bryan Mitchell had his Twitter account temporally suspended after posting a similar picture as Griffin except Instead of Griffin holding up Trumps head, Mitchell was holding up Griffins head. If this image was so gruesome that Mitchell had to have his account suspended then why hasn’t Griffin’s account been suspended?
This highlights the problem social media has with restricting conservative content. Last year news broke that Facebook artificially put in trending topics in an attempt to suppress conservative news. Indeed, right-leaning facebook groups regularly have their content removed or their accounts suspended.
While it’s good to see the mainstream media for the most part condemn Kathy Griffin this was a long time coming. It was only a matter of time before a comedian crossed the line far enough to offend most people and force the liberal media to condemn their actions. Next week, Kathy Griffin won’t be mentioned again, negative press of President Trump will continue, and left leaning comedians will go back to mocking President Trump.
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