Leave it to über-contrarian Bill Maher to post insensitive and uncalled for comments about the late, great Stan Lee.
This past weekend, the American TV host hopped on his blog to share a scathing open letter on “adulting” and generally belittle the medium of comic books. To make things even worse, his high-brow ramblings also suggested that the sheer popularity of comics, as an entertainment medium, is part of the reason why Donald Trump was elected. His words, not ours.
Now, Maher’s taking a chance to clear the air and respond to all the outrage surrounding his comments. Speaking on Larry King Now, here’s what he had to say about it:
“But talk about making my point for me: Yeah, I don’t know very much about Stan Lee and it certainly wasn’t a swipe at Stan Lee. Yeah, fine. I am agnostic on Stan Lee. I don’t read comic books. I didn’t even read them when I was a child. What I was saying is, a culture that thinks that comic books and comic book movies are profound meditations on the human condition is a dumb f**king culture. And for people to get mad at that just proves my point.”
Clearly, Maher isn’t going to win too many people over with his explanation above and frankly, he’s just digging himself deeper into the hole that he’s already in. Not to mention that the incendiary timing of his original post paints it as nothing more than a case of a frequent provocateur taking an all-too-easy opportunity to stir up a response. In other words, it’s classic Bill Maher.
Then again, the TV host hasn’t been the only subject of widespread condemnation in the wake of Lee’s passing. Actor Armie Hammer also came under fire after he criticized his fellow celebrities for remembering Stan’s death by sharing photos of themselves with the comic book legend. Since then, however, the Call Me by Your Name star has apologized for his comments, revealing that he still needed to work on his “Twitter impulse control.”
Despite these incidents, it’s become pretty clear as the tributes to the late Stan Lee continue to flood social media that most fans would rather remember the life and work of the man in their own way, instead of letting the conversation be hijacked by a single button-pushing post.