CNN has ended its decades long relationship with comedian Kathy Griffin as co-host on its New Year’s Eve show after a massive bipartisan outcry over her posting a photo and video of her holding up a fake bloody head of President Donald Trump.
Doing comedy showing a (fake) decapitation of a President clearly would be an unwise career move for anyone associated with a corporation concerned for its image. So it comes as no surprise that she was fired. Her co-host on the New Year’s Eve gig was not amused:
For the record, I am appalled by the photo shoot Kathy Griffin took part in. It is clearly disgusting and completely inappropriate.
— Anderson Cooper (@andersoncooper) May 31, 2017
Nor was CNN, as Variety notes:
CNN has fired Kathy Griffin from their annual New Year’s Eve program, which she cohosted with anchor Anderson Cooper.
The network made the announcement via Twitter Wednesday morning.
“CNN has terminated our agreement with Kathy Griffin to appear on our New Year’s Eve program,” the CNN Public Relations account tweeted.
A spokesman for Griffin said she would have no comment beyond the apology video she posted on Tuesday.
The termination comes one day after the comedienne posted a photo and video of her holding a fake severed head of President Donald Trump. She later apologized for the photo and video, saying it went too far, and removed it from her Twitter account. She had made it as part of a photo shoot with Tyler Shields, but they did not disclose what the project was.
Trump tweeted about the photo early on Wednesday, writing that Griffin “should be ashamed of herself.”
“My children, especially my 11-year-old son Barron, are having a hard time with this. Sick!”
CNN issued a statement on Tuesday night, condemning Griffin’s video and saying that they were evaluating New Year’s Eve plans.
She made an apology carried on You Tube.And, as is now the custom in many social media/political firestorms such as this, she at first defended the photos. Then — like magic — issued her apology. One someone first defends his/her action and then issues a seemingly heartfelt apology after, it suggests the apology is more a way to make the controversy go away. The first statement as a controversy breaks is the most telling.
Posting of the video/photo with a fake bloody Trump head drew disgust from both sides of America’s 24/7 political war. No, it isn’t funny showing the murder of a president.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a R or a D. Or the right or the left or an independent.
Why?
Not all nutcases are on Twitter, in comments sections of websites, on Facebook, or writing posts (like yours truly). Yes, images showing, make fun of, or suggesting the murder of public officials should be widely condemned. They contribution to further vulgarizing of America and the further desensitizing America to violence.
And, in political terms, they can boomerang. One of the best takes on this is by John Arvosis, owner of the lively blog Americablog, writing on The Daily Beast in an article titled:”Hey, Kathy Griffin, the Left Doesn’t Need Its Own Ann Coulter.” Subtitle: “Imitating conservative trolls may feel like fun. All it does is feed a Fox News marketing machine.” He starts off with this:
Channeling her inner ISIS, comedian Kathy Griffin appeared in a photo shoot Tuesday carrying the bloody decapitated head of Donald Trump. The conservative internet is apoplectic, but a lot of us on the left aren’t terribly pleased either. Griffin’s beheaded heathen stunt isn’t just grotesque—assassination jokes go over in Washington about as well as Holocaust humor in Tel Aviv—it’s also bad politics.
He notes her apology:
And good for her. While I get the “joke”—Griffin is quoting Trump’s obscene comments during the campaign about former Fox anchor Megyn Kelly—gags about killing the president are never appropriate, and it’s good that Griffin has now acknowledged that. Imagine how Democrats would react if Ann Coulter were photographed swinging the disembodied head of President Obama. And in fact, Democrats were rightly livid when two University of Wisconsin football fans dressed as Obama with a noose around his neck. There was an equal outcry, back in 1994, when Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) joked that President Clinton was so unpopular among soldiers in North Carolina that he’d better bring a bodyguard if he visited the state.
This is not to suggest that the left and right are equal in their embrace of violence as politics through other means.
And:
It’s an Ann Coulterization of politics—valuing trollery and shock value above all else. And I’m worried about its spread to the left: not what we are, but what we may become. We’ve seen a creeping intolerance on the left, from the Bernie Bros to the Richard Spencer-punchers. It’s subtle, and not nearly as bad as the right, but it’s there. I’ve worked in national politics for nearly 30 years, and it is difficult to face an enemy for decades and not ultimately become them. Their anger fuels your anger. And the incessant attacks on everything you hold dear can eventually break you. And it’s our job as progressives to be better than that. To be better than them.
But there’s another reason I’m speaking out about Kathy Griffin’s joke: It’s not just bad manners, it’s bad politics. I work in Washington because I care about our country and want to make a difference. Joking about Donald Trump’s violent demise doesn’t help us win any votes in Congress or at the ballot box. All it does is feed a Fox News marketing machine desperate for anything it can find to detract from Donald Trump’s latest himbo eruption. While Trump will still be president for the foreseeable future, his presidency is increasingly on the ropes, particularly as the Russia investigation continues to hit closer and closer to home. Why do anything to detract from that?
He later ends with this:
One of the few things that can save Donald Trump is Democrats screwing up.
So, to all the Kathy Griffins out there, please just get out of the way.
Go the link and read it in its entirety.
photo credit: Peter Morawski TIFF 2011: Kathy Griffin via photopin (license)
CORRECTION: The original version of this at first mention referred to Kathy Griffin as Kathy Gifford, and by her correct name in the headline and throughout the story. We regret the error.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.