• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Let's Remember That Time Jimmy Kimmel Cried Over a Fuckin Lion

Status
Not open for further replies.
Kimmel is a 100% Democrat. But of course, lets crucify him for some odd reason while Trump and his friends are doing psychotic shit.

Genius thread.
 
it's not two different things, you are missing his point. Forget about anybody being mad at Jimmy Kimmel for a second, the crux is this: Jimmy Kimmel is a television late night host. His job is to be fairly safe and have broad appeal. So why is it safe to talk about a lion being unjustly killed in this country, but not okay to talk about black people being unjustly killed? Why is one a much more widely accepted viewpoint to have, while the other is divisive and uncomfortable? That's the point.

And when you think about it like that, it's really scary.

Kind of makes you ask yourself what has really changed over the last 50 or 60 years.
 

Lord Error

Insane For Sony
This kind of stuff never sits well with me, for that precise reason and even broader - how do people justify being so upset over pets and wild animals in general, when there's so many people suffering so much, and they clearly don't get upset over that nearly as much?
 
Isn't this a false equivalency? Don't care about this one thing if you don't care about this other thing more? I get the anger, and it is a very noteworthy and noble topic to be front and center, not sure the argument is sound though, to immediately compare the two things and act as it immediate discounts or invalidates the other. It would be like critiquing the very people "wasting" time posting in this thread rather than protesting about inequality in the "real world" by doing something.

Look, I get what you're saying and it was actually a very reasonable argument. I just think we shouldn't witch hunt those who have passion for something that leads to more good on this world, anything that leads to more positivety is what we need. I do agree though there are bigger issues in the world - I wish I could be a bigger part in solving them, I really hope to see issues like inequality resolved in my lifetime. I do like the convo this thread will create though, so thanks for posting it, hadn't seen that video before.

I fail to see how the two issues are related.

Just because you say they are, doesn't mean they are.

This has to be one of the most ridiculous threads in GAF. There a million causes and deaths worth crying about, Kimmel isn't a bad guy because he cried for a lion and didn't cry for the rest.

This is EXACTLY what I was talking about in the OP if you actually read the whole thing. I'm not saying Kimmel CAN'T express concern or sadness over an animal's death nor that it's a bad thing. I'm saying when you are totally SILENT on all other serious social issues that have resulted in pain and sadness and then choose to BREAK THAT SILENCE over a fuckin lion, well, Kimmel you got some splainin' to do.

He could have kept silent like he does on every other sad story, he chose to come out and do a whole five minutes with a call for donations over that one little lion. Thus, it is fair to ask why he didn't say ANYTHING when those black people who were killed made NATIONAL news and resulted in upheavals ACROSS THE NATION. Those killings were not tiny little incidents that you can excuse him for not getting involved in, they've been at the center of ours news coverage and political debates. Yet, he chose to speak over a small, isolated story about a lion that no on remembers today.

So yes, the two things are related.
 
I hate the idea of them being equal to human life, which they are for a lot of people. It shows in the stunning lack of empathy people have for actual humanity.
Can you blame them? Some higher animals are better people than most people. I know octopuses who are smarter and more decent than most people on r/thedonald.
 

Alienfan

Member
You can be upset with more than one thing at once, what a shock I know! Animal activism and the needless killing of animals are absolutely important issues. What fucks me off is watching people get upset over these singular incidents of cruelty, but not bat a single eye when it comes to the billions of animals killed each year for meat. Animal cruelty only becomes an issue when it affects the cute ones.
 
Kimmel is a 100% Democrat. But of course, lets crucify him for some odd reason while Trump and his friends are doing psychotic shit.

Genius thread.
If Trump read the things being said about him on this forum by the majority of people here, he would want to wash his phone off.
 
Kimmel is a 100% Democrat. But of course, lets crucify him for some odd reason while Trump and his friends are doing psychotic shit.

Genius thread.

That's irrelevant. Even if Jimmy Kimmell wanted to come out and say something similar about Eric Garner or Freddie Gray or any of the other black men who were murdered by police (and maybe he wants to, who the fuck knows) he couldn't. His employer and their advertisers would cause a shit storm. Why is that?
 
Kimmel is a 100% Democrat. But of course, lets crucify him for some odd reason while Trump and his friends are doing psychotic shit.

Genius thread.
Read the whole OP and not just the thread title. Honestly, the OP says this:

Jimmy Kimmel took damn near FIVE fucking minutes out of his show to cry on camera about a fucking lion complete with a plug for donations. But, where was Kimmel when Trayvon Martin died? Where were his tears for Eric Garner? Tamir Rice? Michael Brown? Freddie Gray? I'll make it easy for you, there weren't any, not on camera at least. They were never mentioned on his show. And, there DAMN sure weren't any plugs for donations to any civil rights fund.

Does that truly seem like an "odd reason" to you?
You can be upset with more than one thing at once, what a shock I know! Animal activism and the needless killing of animals are absolutely important issues. What fucks me off is watching people get upset over these singular incidents of cruelty, but not bat a single eye when it comes to the billions of animals killed each year for meat. Animal cruelty only becomes an issue when it affects the cute ones.
You could be upset about two things at once. Unfortunately, Jimmy has never been upset about one of these two things ever.
 

msdstc

Incredibly Naive
That's irrelevant. Even if Jimmy Kimmell wanted to come out and say something similar about Eric Garner or Freddie Gray or any of the other black men who were murdered by police (and maybe he wants to, who the fuck knows) he couldn't. His employer and their advertisers would cause a shit storm. Why is that?

Ratings.
 

anaron

Member
yes let's shit on a human expressing empathy over a friendly animal being killed for the sake of a trophy.


I hate the idea of them being equal to human life, which they are for a lot of people. It shows in the stunning lack of empathy people have for actual humanity.


nah, you're the one with lack of empathy. it's not a fucking contest and considering the amount of people who don't care about either, shitting on those that actually bother to do is so backwards.
 

Mesousa

Banned
Kimmel is a 100% Democrat. But of course, lets crucify him for some odd reason while Trump and his friends are doing psychotic shit.

Genius thread.

Kimmel definitely is the passive racist modern democrat that represents the current "Liberal" Democrats.

Every night in America a bunch of white liberals in california sit around in his audience and laughs as he makes the most lazy stereotypically racist jokes at the expense of his day laborer "Helper" sidekick Guillermo, who checks every offensive Latino stereotype you can imagine.

I remember when his smug face when he had trump on, and tried to laugh off tweets calling him about about his use of Guillermo. Kimmel is a 1st class prick.
 

kswiston

Member
That's irrelevant. Even if Jimmy Kimmell wanted to come out and say something similar about Eric Garner or Freddie Gray or any of the other black men who were murdered by police (and maybe he wants to, who the fuck knows) he couldn't. His employer and their advertisers would cause a shit storm. Why is that?

I don't watch late night talk shows outside of GAF linked clips. Did he talk about the Orlando shooting?
 
This kind of stuff never sits well with me, for that precise reason and even broader - how do people justify being so upset over pets and wild animals in general, when there's so many people suffering so much, and they clearly don't get upset over that nearly as much?

I have no problem with that, if someone is more sad over the death of their pet in their own personal life than victims of some terrorist bombing, that's fine. That's human nature. You actually have an emotional connection with your pet, you have no connection with a group of faceless human beings. Kimmel wasn't crying or doing a segment about something that personally happened to a pet of his and he wasn't crying at home. He went on national TV and cried over a lion he probably only learned existed a day ago over all the real human lives that had died and continue to die. That's fucked up.
 

msdstc

Incredibly Naive
Well yeah, that's the point. Talking about how unjust it is that an animal in another country was unjustly killed won't hurt his ratings. Talking about how unjust it is that minorities in our own backyard are being murdered would.

But I can't really blame him for that. I think it's a stretch personally. It seems like the same argument of "why do you buy things when that money could go to xyz"
 
Where do my fellow brown people lie in tat list ? :(
We probably just need to make a new line item called "Not White" instead of trying to get everyone somewhere on this list.
Dude who killed Cecil lives 3 houses down from me. It's weird living close to international news.

I've never met him.
Small world. Did you deal with lots of news vans and such coming around, or not much really?
 
But I can't really blame him for that. I think it's a stretch personally. It seems like the same argument of "why do you buy things when that money could go to xyz"

Like I said, remove the need to blame or not blame Kimmel personally from the equation (and OPs post) and that is where the discussion is to be had.
 

Valhelm

contribute something
I have similar thoughts toward single-minded vegans folks who act all self-righteous but can't be bothered about human suffering.
 
Because his sadness over the lion was genuine. If he had taken 5 minutes to talk about how deeply sad he was about Tamir Rice, Trayvon etc. it wouldn't have been genuine. When people who feel like him look at animals being gunned down they see innocence being killed, but when they look at black people they see anything but innocence in their subconscious. No matter how wrong they really think those acts against black people are there is still no empathy or sadness. White supremacy ingrains not to look at black people as innocent beings and Jimmy Kimmel, like many people, falls victim to that.
 
That's irrelevant. Even if Jimmy Kimmell wanted to come out and say something similar about Eric Garner or Freddie Gray or any of the other black men who were murdered by police (and maybe he wants to, who the fuck knows) he couldn't. His employer and their advertisers would cause a shit storm. Why is that?

Stephen Colbert has no problem addressing Black Lives Matter on his show.
 
But I can't really blame him for that. I think it's a stretch personally. It seems like the same argument of "why do you buy things when that money could go to xyz"
I don't think OP is mad at Jimmy Kimmel specifically, but rather is pointing out how it became a national event when some special lion was shot, when saying "hey, can we stop shooting innocent black people" is a big controversial statement.
 

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
I hate the idea of them being equal to human life, which they are for a lot of people. It shows in the stunning lack of empathy people have for actual humanity.

While I generally agree I wouldn't blame someone for loving their pet like a child as there are a ton of reasons for that or make a statement a ludicrous as hating all pets. Comes off as irrational and misguided and I'll also say I agree with what the OP is saying.
 
Stephen Colbert has no problem addressing Black Lives Matter on his show.

Like I said, I'm not absolving Kimmel, I don't know whether he would say anything even if he wanted to. But Colbert made his bones as a political pundit. CBS knew what they were getting when they hired him, and his audience to a certain extent expects that. Kimmel came from the Man Show. He's a living, breathing fart joke in comparison.
 
It's the media game. One picture of a cute kid or animal that died can get people to open their wallets much faster than statistics or pictures of dead adult men. I don't know if there is a racist angle. In the Vietnam war there were the famous photos of the young girl burnt by napalm and in the 80s there were the images of African children affected by famine. It was tried again with the picture of the drowned Syrian boy in Europe even though the majority of people crossing the sea are young men not children.
 

Alienfan

Member
I have no problem with that, if someone is more sad over the death of their pet in their own personal life than victims of some terrorist bombing, that's fine. That's human nature. You actually have an emotional connection with your pet, you have nonsense with a group of faceless human beings. Kimmel wasn't crying or doing a segment about something that personally happened to a pet of his and he wasn't crying at home. He went on national TV and cried over a lion he probably only learned existed a day ago over all the real human lives that had died and continue to die. That's fucked up.

Your argument just seems like an extension of the old "what's the point of focusing on X issue when people are starving!". I don't see much of a problem with Jimmy going on TV and crying about the poaching of innocent animals (which he's totally fine doing).
 

PSqueak

Banned
Spineless coward does a sob story that can't possibly anger anybody instead of meaningful social commentary that will turn off whatever bigoted conservative viewer base he might have?

Isn't surprising from the fucker who helmed "The man show".

But yeah, pretty upsetting, people would rather use their air time and power to do cheap rating boosters rather than spread meaningful socio-political commentary to the masses, this is our reality, people value entertainment more than...anything else really.
 
I tend to care more about animals than I do most people to be honest. One look at the news or around this website lately actually and it's not hard to see why.
 

slit

Member
People look at animals as completely helpless and dependent on humans making the right decisions for them. People don't look at other people the same way unless they are small children. It doesn't have much to do with being white as it has to do with being human. No matter what race you are you can have more empathy for animals then you do for fellow human beings.
 

Goodstyle

Member
He's a talkshow host. If he started crying about black kids getting unjustly killed by cops his white fans would be pissed.
 

Staccat0

Fail out bailed
did you read what he wrote? those are all the dead people killed without a trial for petty reasons.

You were responding to someone who said people can be upset about two things, by ask "what people?"

The answer is probably "Cue media outrage, especially by white folks, that demanded this "monster" be skinned alive and so on and so on."

And the bored assholes who left nasty Yelp reviews also mentioned semi-derisively.

I think the murdering of innocent black people by a militarized white supremacist force disguised as government and how white people (I am white) just cannot be brought to give a shit is sickening.

And they truly don't give a shit. Real talk: most people in this thread saying they care don't really care. People who gave a shit would vote in local elections and not liberals don't. It's nice for a FB rant and that's about the most you'll get.

...I just know plenty of non-white people who think lions are dope and think it's a weird line to draw in that sense. The parallel is fair though.
 

PSqueak

Banned
People look at animals as completely helpless and dependent on humans making the right decisions for them. People don't look at other people the same way unless they are children. It doesn't have much to do with being white as it has to do with being human. No matter what race you are you can have more empathy for animals then you do for fellow human beings.

Yeah, but if he does a segment on cecil because it's news, then why didn't he do segment on human tragedies which were also news?

(rhetorical question, i know exactly why, as per my post)
 

Alienfan

Member
I have similar thoughts toward single-minded vegans folks who act all self-righteous but can't be bothered about human suffering.

Lucky they don't listen to you, because they're doing more good than you are I bet. We can't feed the whole world's population on meat for starts and the climate change impacts of the meat industry are tough to ignore.
 
We probably just need to make a new line item called "Not White" instead of trying to get everyone somewhere on this list.

Small world. Did you deal with lots of news vans and such coming around, or not much really?

Yeah, the day they found out where he lived there 3 or 4 news vans there, only one I recognized was Sky News. Also whenever I walked my dog I would see 2 or 3 people watching the house for like a week after that, dunno what their deal was, it kinda freaked me out so I didn't really talk to any of them.

He's got to at least park like a douche, no?

He's got a LONG ass driveway so douche parking is pretty impossible. He's got a pickup truck that I think is lifted though so there's that
 

EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
This kind of stuff never sits well with me, for that precise reason and even broader - how do people justify being so upset over pets and wild animals in general, when there's so many people suffering so much, and they clearly don't get upset over that nearly as much?

You think Jimmy Kimmel consciously deliberated the ethics of allowing himself to display an emotional response over a lion he felt sad about, in consideration of all the human suffering taking place throughout the world that he does not address, and came to an internal justification about his eventual behavior prior to spontaneously crying on the show?
 

Cagey

Banned
Is there any issue of human suffering he's talked out and subsequently broke down as a reference point here to say "he cares about lion lives and not black lives" rather than "animals upset him more than people"? I would guess maybe a couple of the mass shootings?

Because otherwise this is a massive and unfair leap.
 

Simmins

Member
Is there a video of Jimmy Kimmel crying on camera over the shooting of children in Newtown? I believe most of those kids were white correct? So if there is no video does this imply he cares more about a Lion then White Children being gunned down?

Now I agree that most people in the media have deference to all of the black lives being taken unjustly, but I don't think that this is a good example of that. There is definitely a problem when children like Tamir Rice get gunned down and no one even blinks an eye, but I don't think this is one of those times.
 
Most people have stronger sympathy for animals than people. It's pretty fucked up at times, because we should feel more connected as human beings, but I'm not sure why it is the way it is.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom