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Bougielala mothafucka ([info]thoms) wrote in [info]unfunnybusiness,
@ 2012-08-11 12:39:00


Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Bailey Hanks, back in 2008, won the MTV reality show Legally Blonde: The Musical - The Search for the Next Elle Woods, and with her win, got to take over for Laura Bell Bundy in the role on Broadway from the end of July until mid-October of that year, after which the show closed. She has continued to perform the role in regional theatres.

On August 1st of this year, National Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day (as set forth by the Frothy Mixture himself), Bailey tweeted this picture.

Needless to say, her compatriots from the Great White Way were a little less than pleased.

Jamie McGonnigal wrote this for Huffington Post after tweeting his disappointment to her and giving her an opportunity to explain herself. Upon her response of "I am a proud Christian," he found himself blocked.

She apparently attempted to apologize, before deleting her Twitter outright, forgetting that the Internet Never Forgets. Screencaps of her tweet and picture quickly made their way all around social media, and her Facebook fanpage got slammed

Many people in the Broadway community took to Twitter to express their disappointment, and fans of Bailey took to Twitter to defend her and cry. Broadway performer John Carroll wrote an open letter to Bailey via Advocate.com and basically read her to filth.

Broadway's original Elle Woods, and generally awesome human being, Laura Bell Bundy also released a statement:

“As I fully support everyone’s right to freedom of speech and belief, MY belief is that hate and bigotry is wrong. That is MY first amendment right. I choose not to support an organization against the equal rights of any group of people– especially my beloved gay community… whom without I would not have a career, a livelihood, creative fulfillment, any good shoes, taste, music, a stylist, a publicist, a producer, a writer, a director, a choreographer and two of the greatest friends a gal could ask for. I knew there was a reason I always liked beef better than chicken anyway.

I will never forget that love I have received from the gay community and I hope to give them back that love in equal measure.”


Following Laura Bell's response, a few friends of Bailey's took to Tumblr to deride everyone for being soooo meeeeean.

Morgan Karr & Ryan O'Connor, neither of whom really seem to get that, yeah, it's about more than chicken and it's about more than marriage equality, it's about giving money to a company that basically wants LGBT people driven to extinction with their donations to organizations that support such.

A guy named Dan Kohler, who apparently played the Emmett to her Elle in a recent run of the musical in Birmingham, also responded.

Bailey had stayed silent until this morning, when she posted on her Facebook that she was deleting the fanpage account, and attempted to apologize once more. Reactions are mixed.


(Post a new comment)


[info]lil_miss_stfu
2012-08-12 12:14 am UTC (link)
Pst! Dan's surname is right underneath his post (Kohler).

I think the truth likes somewhere between Dan's post and Jamie's reply to Dan's post. There's no way she *couldn't* have known what was going on when she went to Chick-Fil-A that day. But this dogpiling really isn't going to teach her much, is it?

(Also, is it me or does Dan seem to think that Bailey is a bit derpy?)

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[info]lil_miss_stfu
2012-08-12 12:15 am UTC (link)
Don't you hate it when you spot a typo just as you hit post?

*truth lies

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[info]thoms
2012-08-12 12:16 am UTC (link)
My friend said that too. She was like "So, Dan there just basically admitted that Bailey's a fucking dumbass, in slightly more flowery language."

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[info]lil_miss_stfu
2012-08-12 12:19 am UTC (link)
Pretty much. I read it as 'she's a sweet kid, but a bit of a thicky.'

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[info]thoms
2012-08-12 12:27 am UTC (link)
Which from what I remember from the reality show (which I watched because I adored Legally Blonde), is about right. She was... not overly bright, and played up her Southern blonde persona for all it was worth. She also had a meltdown when they cut a few inches off her hair. IDK.

I remember thinking, when she originally said she wasn't aware of it all, "To paraphrase the musical you're milking for all it's worth: you're dumb, but you're not that dumb." So where Dan may think she wasn't, I think Jamie's a little closer to the truth.

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[info]rosehiptea
2012-08-12 01:29 am UTC (link)
I don't know anything about either one of them, but that's how I read it too. He basically said she wasn't going to say anything deep about this because she's not very deep.

But I'll admit the "I'm a Christian" so-called excuse just goes right past me. Religion doesn't excuse anything. But I'm very heavily biased on that point having left a (part of) a religion partly over LGBT issues.

(Sorry, I'm being very unfunny but then this is unfunnybusiness.)

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[info]thoms
2012-08-12 02:19 am UTC (link)
That's what's getting me. Is her friends keep going "She is just very religious!"

And? Doesn't excuse her being that ignorant.

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[info]kita0610
2012-08-12 02:17 am UTC (link)
Being a proud Christian does not actually make it okay to be a hateful bigot. In fact, it pretty much requires you to be THE VERY OPPOSITE OMG I HATE THE WHOLE PLANET WE LIVE ON.

*breath*

Ok. Done now.

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[info]mirhanda
2012-08-13 05:03 pm UTC (link)
I agree so hard. If these so-called "Christians" would actually read the book the profess to follow, they'd not be so filled with hate.

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[info]mmanurere
2012-08-13 05:27 pm UTC (link)
It's just a matter of which parts of the book to follow.

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[info]staroverthebay
2012-08-12 03:18 am UTC (link)
It seems to me that the point at which this went from distant to personal for most people involved was the moment Bailey said "I'm a proud Christian" to defend herself.

If she had said "I just love their chicken sandwiches" as a reason for posting on such a politically charged day, the backlash would have been much less.

I go to Jack in the Box not because I am a proud agnostic, or because I support whatever organizations they donate to... I go to Jack in the Box because I fucking love their grilled sandwiches and the fact that I can get a breakfast sandwich at any time of day. If I found out that Jack in the Box was supporting anti-gay legislation or other motions to demonize and dehumanize a specific class of human, I would certainly never announce that I supported the place in the first place (especially since weaning myself from them would take me some time.)

But she didn't do any of that. She didn't say that she went there because the food is so damned good. She actively invoked her religion when called upon to explain her actions.

I'm not trying to say that she deserves to be dogpiled and derided, but this attempt at saying that "Maybe she posted it just because she really likes their sandwiches!" is pretty much debunked immediately the moment she said "I am a proud Christian" as her defense.

I'm sorry, but if that's her go-to defense for anything, then she is furthering the problem that Christians are whining about ("Everyone hates Christians because they think we're bigoted!"), instead of trying to contribute to a solution.

So, yeah, Dan Kohler's response is basically him saying "LOL she's too dumb to know the difference" when it's pretty clear to me that she DOES know the difference, at least to some degree.

(Reply to this)(Thread)


[info]amadi
2012-08-12 08:32 am UTC (link)
I didn't read Kohler's response as "she's too dumb to know the differnce" as much as "she's not capable of explaining herself in depth and don't expect her to try."

In other words, she stays in her lane, and her lane is shallow as a teaspoon, but sadly this time around she stepped in something deeper than that.

She needed a 30 minute consult with a crisis manager, but she's probably not aware enough to know that either. This is going to hurt her in a career path where she will constantly be surrounded by people who Do. Not. Do. Anti-Gay. Bigotry. no matter the 'reason' for it.

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[info]mmanurere
2012-08-13 05:31 pm UTC (link)
This is going to hurt her in a career path where she will constantly be surrounded by people who Do. Not. Do. Anti-Gay. Bigotry. no matter the 'reason' for it.

Yeah, it really can't be good for one's career prospects to proudly proclaim one's support for a group that spends millions of dollars trying to criminalize a major chunk of your co-workers. I hope she has a backup career planned. (Maybe the depressingly lucrative right-wing martyr speaking circuit...)

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]issendai
2012-08-12 03:41 pm UTC (link)
A few years ago, my mom forwarded me a piece of glurge that sorta-kinda looked like a "spread Christmas cheer to everyone!" poem--unless you actually read it, and then it was a "WISH EVERYONE MERRY CHRISTMAS REGARDLESS OF THEIR RELIGION, OTHERWISE THE MUSLIMS WILL WIN THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS" poem. I replied to her with a note along the lines of, "Uh, Mom? What's with the bizarre anti-Muslim sentiment out of nowhere?" and a link to a pertinent page about the "war on Christmas." She didn't reply.

A few days later when we talked on the phone, I asked her again what was up, and she said, "Oh, everyone was forwarding it around the office, so I passed it on," then refused to talk about it any more. It was just something everyone was doing, so she went along with it, and it didn't occur to her that there might be something more to it until I called her on it. (Then, being my mom, she didn't want to deal.) It's typical of her, and of a lot of people like her: What her social group says about a thing is more important than the content of the thing itself.

So I can completely believe that Bailey went along with Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day, thinking it was a fun social event that had something to do with supporting Christianity. When she started getting backlash, well, conservative Christianity already has a built-in explanation and response: You're being attacked for your faith, so dig in your heels and use these set phrases. It looks like someone managed to get through to her and explain what was really going on, which is a wonderment, 'cos getting through that kind of defensiveness is like teaching a box of rocks to fly. And now she's trying to 'splain the situation to a fanbase that doesn't understand how her compartmentalized mindset can even exist.

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[info]elektra3
2012-08-13 09:50 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, that was my take on the situation. Besides, she, uh, doesn't seem like the brightest light on the marquee. It's not at all hard to believe that she genuinely didn't understand what was really going on.

On an unrelated note, do you still have a copy of that poem?

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]issendai
2012-08-14 01:44 pm UTC (link)
I do! It's here.

Yerch, it's worse than I remembered. Mom, what were you thinking?

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[info]elektra3
2012-08-14 08:49 pm UTC (link)
...Oh, wow.

The thing that gets to me is - there is no universe in which any of that is even remotely true. Christianity is unquestionably the dominant faith in the US. The radio playlists before Christmas are pretty much wall-to-wall Christmas music. It is extremely rare, during the holidays, to find decorations for anything other than Christmas. And yet somehow, the merest suggestion that, "Uh, hey, Christmas isn't the only holiday going on right now" means that there's a ~war on the faith~. It's like they're fantasizing about being persecuted. I mean... who the hell does that?

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[info]thebratqueen
2012-08-14 11:31 pm UTC (link)
It is extremely rare, during the holidays starting in about July and getting earlier every damn year to the point where you wonder why the stores even take the Christmas stuff down in the first place, to find decorations for anything other than Christmas.

Fixed that for ya. ;)

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[info]full_metal_ox
2012-08-15 09:24 pm UTC (link)
And is there some part of "Happy Holidays" that expressly excludes Christmas?

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[info]lizbee
2012-08-14 10:23 am UTC (link)
"WISH EVERYONE MERRY CHRISTMAS REGARDLESS OF THEIR RELIGION, OTHERWISE THE MUSLIMS WILL WIN THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS"

OT, but I find that so strange, because my stepmother is a Muslim, and she really likes the whole Christmas thing, and wishing people a merry Christmas, and sending really obnoxiously OTT gifts to her sisters. People: MORE COMPLICATED THAN LABELS AND STUFF.

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[info]uldihaa
2012-08-16 02:41 am UTC (link)
Stupidity, ignorance, and bigotry share a flavor. They taste like chicken.

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[info]tinmiss
2012-08-18 06:41 pm UTC (link)
I did not know that about chick fil a, but then I don't eat chicken or go to places with chicken in the name. Huh.

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[info]tofuknight
2012-08-19 03:38 pm UTC (link)
I'm almost jealous that you managed to miss it for so long. You aren't missing anything: not only does blatent bigotry make anything taste bad, but the food isn't that good. (I went years ago, before I knew about the extreme gay hate-on the owner has)

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[info]tinmiss
2012-08-20 11:29 pm UTC (link)
I have no idea how I managed it, except that I do tend to spend my free time studying and/or finally catching up on extra reading, i.e. under a rock.

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