Gawker
point/counterpoint
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celebrity-industrial complex
Heath Ledger Dolls Selling Like Mad
So not only has Mattel released the world's most awkward figurine, depicting Heath Ledger's Joker in the forthcoming Batman sequel, The Dark Knight, but the creepy action figures are actually selling. Really, really well. Reports the Post: "Toy peddlers are laughing all the way to the bank with Heath Ledger's Joker doll selling out at New York stores. Droves of people lined up early at the Toys 'R' Us store in Times Square... 'There are none left in the warehouse, either.'" The $10 dolls are being re-sold on eBay. Get one for $55 with a Batman figurine! Put it in your morbid Heath Ledger apartment! [Post] (Joker image via Post) -
too soon?
This Is How We Market Apartments Now
Prewar building. Stainless-steel appliances. All-night pharmacy around the corner. Service staff have Mary-Kate Olsen's phone number memorized. Get all the details on this apartment, which all but reeks of celebrity death, in the glorious Craigslist ad after the jump.
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videuhoh
Joe Klein Stuns CNNers With Stingray Death Comment
Time political columnist and netroots scourge Joe Klein managed to stir up still more hatred by crafting a political metaphor from a woman's freak death by stingray yesterday off the Florida keys. The stingray leapt onto a boat and struck the woman, who fell backward, hit her head and died. Within hours, Klein was shocking and nearly killing from embarrassment fellow talking heads on CNN by using the stingray death to make a point about how politicians trash each other through aides who they then throw "overboard." For example, presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain just suspended an aide who highlighted an inflammatory internet video about Democratic candidate Barack Obama. The incident CLEARLY screamed out for a death-by-dasyatid reference! Video after the jump. More » -
great moments in journalism
'Beheading Sodomites' Is Funny At The Wall Street Journal
Mark Steyn reviewed a book about a Broadway songwriter for the Wall Street Journal, and there was just no way for the National Review contributor to write on that topic without somehow dragging Islamic militants into the whole thing, so he wrote this hackneyed lede about how this one Muslim Brotherhood founder hated on Broadway showtunes in like the 1940s or whatever. To return to the book from the topic of Muslims Hating Our Precious Freedoms, Steyn wrote probably the worst transition in the history of literary criticism, in any language, on any planet, ever. It is, at best, a terrible joke puking its own awfulness all over women, gays, Israelis and anyone who remembers exactly how the Wall Street Journal lost a reporter in Pakistan eight years ago. It reads as follows: More » -
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too soon?
John Gibson Sews Up Heath Ledger Memorial Bad Taste Award
You know what really cracks up Fox News host John Gibson? The untimely death of Heath Ledger! The one thing John Gibson knows about Heath Ledger is that Heath Ledger kissed a boy in a gay movie for gay gays, and therefore, he was probably a total gay himself, in real life. Therefore, his death is hilarious! On his radio program the other day, the hero journalist mocked Ledger's death something like half a dozen times, opening his show with a hilarious quip about Ledger quitting us and wondering if perhaps the actor killed himself after witnessing the poor performace of John Edwards in the last presidential debate. It's funny 'cause the authorities no longer suspect suicide! Even the guests joined in, with funnyman Tom Sullivan calling him "Keith Bledger" and the lady cohost whose name we didn't catch wondering, mockingly, if Keith was perhaps a "deep thinker." Can you believe that wacky morning zoo crew went there? They're saying what we're not really thinking, because what the fuck? Listen and sputter! [Think Progress, MSNBC, Previously] -
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too soon?
Bad Taste Update
In light of Heath Ledger's tragic death—which might or might not have been related in some fashion to prescription sleep aids!—Paramount Public Relations would be more than happy to arrange an interview with one of a certain health website's many experts in Holistic Sleep Aid Solutions! Blast email attached. -
too soon?
Bad Taste Roundup
Above, a makeshift tribute to both the late Heath Ledger and the almighty dollar, found at a Best Buy in San Diego. It's the tip of the bad taste iceberg. Join us on a trip through the void where we once pretended to store the concept of our shared humanity, won't you? More » -
Anthony Lane on "Sweeney Todd": "Sondheim is serious about the misanthropic malice of his hero, whereas Depp's Sweeney comes across as one more mournful Burton wacko. His singing gives off the Cockney yowl of someone who has listened to too much early Bowie, and his ivory-pale face is crowned by a stiff black mane with a white blaze in it. If you had sat Susan Sontag down and broken the news that not everyone in New York reads Hegel, you would have got the same effect." [NYer]
