As mentioned in the previous post, the New York Film Critics Circle had their awards ceremony this week, and as a three-time former chairman of the circle, our favorite old curmudgeonarion thesaurasaurus Armond White was in the audience. At one point, Michael Moore took the stage to present an award for How to Survive a Plague, at which point White and a friend began to heckle him, shouting “F*ck you!”, which is much less Armond White-like than when he shouted “Ethel Waters!” at Viola Davis last year.
Moore was on hand to present the award for Best First Film to David France, whose feature “How to Survive a Plague” is a salute to ACT UP, the radical protest group whose most notorious action was to send thousands of protesters to St. Patrick’s Cathedral during the Christmas season in 1989. Dozens stormed into the December Mass to disrupt the prayers and desecrate the Host, which Catholics believe is the Body of Christ. A stunned John Cardinal O’Connor looked on in horror. The publicity stunt was denounced by David Dinkins, Mario Cuomo, Ed Koch and the Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Rights.
Moore, saluting the ACT UP film, said the American public was indifferent to the AIDS crisis as it happened and indeed breathed “almost a collective sigh of relief that it [AIDS] was primarily victimizing gay men.” Moore went on to say he liked the film’s reminder that “the Cardinal couldn’t get through Mass at St. Patrick’s.”
Moore stated, “I personally like that one. I say that as a former seminarian.” But White and a friend shouted, “[Bleep] you!” “You liar!” “Shut up!” and “Drop dead!”
Moore responded, “I’ve pissed off the Catholics,” and began a blessing in Latin. He then went on to say that “those who would deify Reagan and Pope John Paul II are responsible for the deaths of thousands of people . . . because of their bigotry.”
You see, in the world of Armond White, Catholicism is almost as sacrosanct as those benefirous priapizians of modern masculinity, Neveldine and Taylor, whose effervesphorescent tours de force in multi-dimensionarious explosiatalitarianism out-patinas the lambency of even Paul WS Anderson and Jack and Jill. As such, a vulgar interloafer like Michael Moore must be punished with the most withering pejoratives in the junior high milieu.
Moore later Tweeted that he was “heckled by right winger.”
White — who has dished out his fair share of criticism to Moore in his reviews — was later heard saying that Moore “disparaged Catholics,” and told us, “I was offended . . . He was there to present the film and not present a personal political diatribe.”
I know, when you invite Michael Moore somewhere, the last thing you expect is a political diatribe.
Moore says, “I was just describing some of the things of the film . . . [White] is a reactionary conservative [bleep]hole.”
Armond White for a comment. He says, “My comment is that Moore is a paranoid leftie buffoon who assumed he was in a room of fellow-travelers. I’m not a right-winger or a Catholic but I am a Christian and was offended by his hateful statements. And as a member of the NYFCC I resent that he used our event for a political platform.” [PageSix/PostArtsBlog]
American political discourse, ladies and gentlemen. Sorry, Michael Moore, Armond White is not a right-winger, he’s just a gay black Christian republican who lives in New York and supports the NRA (as far as I can tell). Duhh, everyone knows that.