Is Kathy Griffin for Real?

As Kathy Griffin says in her upcoming movie “I’m Kathy Griffin and I never learn my lesson”. That seems like the unvarnished truth since Kathy Griffin: A Hell of a Story, aired earlier this year on South by Southwest and eventually earned a one-day theater spot just a few days back. The documentary, a look back at her life and how it’s changed since 2017 when she held up the infamous ketchup-streaked head of what symbolized the current POTUS, is nothing less than a reminder to people (as though we needed it) that Griffin is somehow able to climb up out of the mess she made and count on those that are firmly standing against Trump to praise her over and over for being ‘brave’ and sticking out an investigation into her life that might not have happened had she simply badmouthed the president as so many others had. But this is Kathy Griffith, she’s among the few that simply has to take things to a level that no one else would dare, and as Sheila Marikar of The New Yorker alludes to she’s not about to back down from anyone.

That wasn’t quite the story a while back however if people can remember since Griffin, after her ill-advised photo shoot, found herself in a great deal of trouble for thinking that free speech is great and all, but actions and ideas promoting violence don’t carry consequences. The funny thing is that she did apologize, but then, a year later when she was finally cleared and ready to get on with her life, and when she surrounded by her fellow women on The View, she decided to just casually take the apology back and revert back to form. But this is the woman that people think is ‘brave’ and ‘courageous’ for standing her ground and making a statement that others wouldn’t dare. It’s almost amusing to think how quickly people distanced themselves from her, and the deals she lost because of this mess. Plus the trauma that Rob Crilly of The Telegraph writes about that was caused to others was something she seemed to not take into account to promote her ‘comedic’ performance.

The crying, the lamenting, which was followed by the claims that she was being bullied, that she was being unfairly dealt with, that there was a double standard in place, seems to indicate that Griffin never once thought that she would be brought to task for such pictures, especially considering who the effigy was representing. It’s one thing to hold up the decapitated head, or representation thereof, of a person you don’t happen to like, but taking such a picture of a head representing a person that was just elected as the leader of the United States is, as most people would know from common sense, bound to draw a good deal of attention, particularly if you don’t happen to be too ashamed of it. The tears started flowing as Griffin realized she had called down a great deal of trouble because of her actions, but the victim card also came into play rather quickly as well, seeking to absolve her from all moral or ethical implications since it was established that, thanks to the Freedom of Speech, she didn’t in fact break the law. That’s all well and good and it’s important to have free speech, but freedom from consequence isn’t a part of normal life in the US. What that means if you’re not getting it is that Griffin had every right to say and do what she wanted, but not expecting someone to call her out on it was a bit foolish.

A couple years later though, here we are and there she is again, back at it as though she wasn’t a sobbing mess not that long ago and claiming that she was being ‘held back by a white man’, which is kind of funny really. Had she decided to rein in her more sarcastic and controversial tendencies we wouldn’t have seen this go beyond a simple article on how she dislikes Trump. It’s funny really since there are photographs that still exist showing Trump and Griffin palling around not too long ago, and anyone doubting this can take a look at Benjamin Arie’s article in the Lexington Libertarian to see the big smiles. Obviously something happened to sour whatever respect she might have had for him, but typically when this happens people tend to talk to each other or perhaps badmouth each other over Twitter. One of the last things people tend to do is show an image of a decapitated head, no matter how satirical, and then proceed to play the victim card shortly after receiving death threats and a call from the FBI.

So her movie, A Hell of a Story, is no doubt going to be all about how she ‘survived’ the post-Trump scandal that she caused, but in truth, it’s how she got to hide behind the First Amendment, play the victim card, and work the system to her favor. But hey, it should be informative, right?