Movies & TV / Columns

The 411 Dumpster Fire of the Week: Jussie Smollett

February 17, 2020 | Posted by Bryan Kristopowitz
Jussie Smollett Empire

The 411mania Dumpster Fire of the Week

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the latest edition of The 411 Dumpster Fire of the Week. I’m Bryan Kristopowitz.

I had hoped to talk about the 2020 Daytona 500 in my introduction for this week’s Dumpster Fire of the Week, but due to the endless screwing around by both NASCAR and Fox, it’s 4:26 PM as I write this and the fucking race just started. Now, NASCAR could have moved the starting time of the race up to 2 or 2:30, as there was rain for Daytona in the extended weather forecast and various support races during the week were delayed by rain, including the Duels qualifying races on Thursday and the Truck race on Friday night. NASCAR could have worked with Fox and Fox Sports to come up with a plan to change the schedule around so the race could start earlier. None of that apparently happened, though.

Was it really necessary to have a three hour pre-race show that started on Fox Sports 1? No. NASCAR and Fox could have moved up all of the pre-race ceremonies and the rest of the bullshit they do before the start (I’m sure the President would have been fine with coming in earlier so he could do his photo op and the starting command and then leave or stick around and pretend to know what was going on or whatever the fuck he ended up doing) so the race could start before the rain.

Nope. NASCAR and Fox really needed to do all of the bullshit as originally scheduled.

This is one of the things that I hate about NASCAR and auto racing, either big time racing or local/regional racing, in general. No one involved ever has any contingency to switch up the schedule in the event of potential weather or anything else. All anyone wants to do is just fuck around because that’s what was originally scheduled. It’s annoying as hell and it makes it that much harder to continue being a fan. Things certainly happen during a race that cause delays. Accidents. A blown engine that puts oil on the track. Track damage that needs to be repaired before continuing. But endless delays before the fucking show starts?

It’s madness. And nonsense. And it’s never going to change. And that’s just stupid.

And it just started fucking raining again. Hard. Jesus Christ.

And now onto this week’s Dumpster Fire of the Week.

DumpsterFireImage1

JussieSmollett1

This week, the 411 Dumpster Fire of the Week goes to disgraced actor and Dumpster Fire Hall of Famer , for being indicted a second time for staging a fake hate crime and lying to the police about it. Smollett, who claimed to have been attacked in late January, 2019, by two masked men who beat him, put a noose around his neck, and made racist and homophobic remarks (Smollett is gay), was recently indicted by a special prosecutor on six felony counts of disorderly conduct that come from four separate false reports that Smollett allegedly made to the police. Smollett was originally indicted in February of 2019 for making false reports to the police, but those charges were then inexplicably dropped in March of 2019, Smollett paid $10,000 to the city of Chicago, and the case was sealed.

Now, if you read the article at the link and if you’ve been following this story, there are potential political shenanigans at work here. No one knows why Kim Foxx, the Cook County State’s Attorney that was investigating the case, decided to end the whole thing. There’s been speculation that people in the upper echelons of Democratic Chicago politics engaged in some sort of pressure campaign to drop the case against Smollett (someone linked to former First Lady Michelle Obama may have influenced Foxx in her decision), but the special prosecutor hasn’t charged anyone besides Smollett with anything. However, with the way this new indictment has come down, it isn’t hard to believe that there could be further charges and further indictments coming in the future for the other people potentially involved in this scheme. I mean, why wouldn’t that happen at this point? And it should happen. Because this story is just awful.

When Smollett’s hate crime claims started falling apart and the police put out their theory of what really happened, the story became even more galling than it already was. Making false claims to the police about a hate crime that ended up having political ramifications (Smollett claimed that one of his masked attackers said this was “MAGA country”) was bad enough in and of itself. Perhaps Smollett was just crazy/had mental problems and was looking for attention? Instead, it was revealed by the police that Smollett staged the attack, paying two friends to help him out with the scheme, so he could then generate public sympathy so he could then ask for more money from the producers of the TV show he was still on at the time, Empire.

If all Smollett wanted was more money, he couldn’t ask for it? Smollett couldn’t get his agents/representatives to help him ask for more money? Smollett couldn’t just go public with his salary demands, like so many other actors and performers have done over the years? Staging a hate crime that leads to a false police report that then leads to social unrest simply because he wants more money from his employers? That was really the best option and the best approach?

What a fucking idiot.

Smollett hasn’t had much of a career since this reprehensible scheme was revealed. He was written out of Empire and it doesn’t look like he’ll be back in the show’s final season. Smollett hasn’t been asked to appear in anything else, movies or television (there’s nothing listed beyond Empire on Smollett’s imdb page). And that’s the way it should be. Smollett hasn’t apologized for the harm that he’s caused to the country, society, and the world, and until then he should be banished to the annals of fucking stupidity. And if Smollett ends up in jail, that’ll be good, too. He deserves nothing but the world’s unending disdain.

I’ll say it again. What a fucking idiot. And what a terrible, terrible person.

**

And now for this week’s honorable mentions…

-Now thoroughly disgraced celebrity attorney and liberal TV personality (for a little while) Michael Avenatti, for being found guilty of extortion, wire fraud, and transmission of interstate communications with extent to extort in a case where Avenatti tried to sue Nike. Avenatti claimed innocence, but no one on the jury believed a word of it, and it sounds like Avenatti could go to prison for decades (maybe). And that isn’t the only legal trouble Avenatti finds himself in at the moment (he has charges against him in both New York and California). It will be interesting to see what happens in those cases and if he actually gets decades in prison. What a disgrace.

-Former Mayor of New York City and 2020 Democratic Presidential hopeful Michael Bloomberg, for the mountain of allegations that are coming out about him and his business. The story at the link, which shows Bloomberg as what amounts to an uncaring racist, is only one of many stories that are out there now and is just the start of the coming deluge from both his Democratic opponents and the right wing machine that’s scared of him for some reason. Will Bloomberg be able to provide actual non-bullshit answers to these allegations or will he find a way to get by them? And is Bloomberg aware that while his candidacy is the wet dream of “the liberal media,” he will not get the same kind of pass that “the liberal media” gave Trump back in 2016? I don’t think he is.

-Dumpster Fire Hall of Famer, ultra-right wing radio personality, and drug addict Rush Limbaugh, for his recent comments regarding 2020 Democratic Presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg. While it isn’t surprising that Limbaugh is a raging homophobe, what he said is still terrible and he should be condemned for it. Thankfully, he has, but that condemnation won’t stop him, or any of his fellow ultra-right wing radio personalities, from saying the same kind of shit endlessly in the event Buttigieg gets the nomination.

This is the world we continue to live in, folks.

-Disgraced televangelist and convicted felon Jim Bakker, for selling a product that he falsely claims kills coronavirus within 12 hours. You would think that a man who convicted of fraud and sent to prison for fraud would refrain from engaging in fraud by selling this nonsense, but then that isn’t the world we live in. It really is a damn shame that Bakker still isn’t in prison, because it’s obvious that that’s where he belongs. Piece of fucking shit.

**

Thanks for reading. Agree? Disagree? Sign up with disqus and comment. You know you want to, so just go do it.

Please “like” The Gratuitous B-Movie Column on Facebook!

Oh, and B-movies rule. Always remember that.