It was bound to happen – an inevitable character assault on former Miss California Carrie Prejean by a host from MSNBC, the place for misogyny [1], after K2 Productions, the company that directs the Miss California USA pageant, filed a publicity-seeking, lawsuit.
Prejean unintentionally created a firestorm when she answered a question from self-proclaimed gay rights activist and gossip blogger Perez Hilton during the Miss USA pageant. Her offence was to say that she believed marriage should be between a man and a woman.
On MSNBC's Oct. 20 “Countdown with Keith Olbermann.” Olbermann dedicated part of a segment with the Village Voice's Michael Musto to a lawsuit seeking the $5,200 from Prejean [2], known for her stand on gay marriage, for breast augmentation surgery.
“To Miss Prejean, briefly – you play Judge Judy in this equation here,” Olbermann said. “Does the Miss California pageant have a prayer of getting their breast augmentation loan back?”
Musto, who writes a column about gay issues for the Village Voice [3] gave the lawsuit no chance and took a few jabs at Prejean over her breasts.
“They have a better chance of getting the breasts themselves,” Musto replied. “But no, that money is spent. By the way, Keith, we were just talking about balloon boy. Now we're talking about balloon girl. I'm so proud of that one. Look, I'm not making fun of her because she's beautiful. Let's face it, she could be a float in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. She's very inflated and she's not giving it back. She didn't even keep the receipts.”
The dirty little secret about the lawsuit is that K2 Productions Executive Director Keith Lewis has publicly said he harbors sympathies for proponents of gay marriage [4]. And it's evident the lawsuit is an effort to embarrass Prejean for her stance she bases on her religious faith because it references the Bible [5], stating that “had she heeded the guidance of the Gospel of John, who admonished only those who are without sin to cast stones in judgment, she might have avoided this legal battle.”
But Olbermann had a bizarre take on the suit, suggesting there was some equivalence between Prejean's traditional views on marriage and her maintaining that the suit breaches her privacy.
“She says her privacy was breached when the boob job came out,” Olbermann said. “Yet, she didn't have a problem sort of positioning herself to get in the privacy of the lives of gay people who wanted to get married. Do you think the irony of that is intelligible to her?”
Musto neglected to give a serious answer and went on mocking Prejean.
“I think she leaves ironing to the help. Oh, irony? I can't believe I went there,” Musto said. “No, she's not big on irony. I actually think she has some consistency, or feels she's being consistent, in thinking, well, two large same-size breasts should not be discussed any more than two same-sex genitals. Whatever.”
Immediately after the lawsuit was reported, Prejean's attorney Charles LiMandri told Andrew Breitbart's Big Hollywood Web site [6] the suit was part of an effort to attack her reputation.
“This is just the latest installment in K2 Production's ongoing smear campaign against Carrie Prejean. They have proven, once again, that they will use whatever scurrilous accusations they can dredge up – or invent – to try and tarnish Carrie's reputation and her good name. It is both appalling and pathetic to see K2 and their friends in
Like this article? Sign up for "Culture Links," CMI's weekly e-mail newsletter, by clicking here [7]. [7]