Come Back to Earth Robert DeNiro
At a star-studded gala honoring Angelina Jolie last night, Robert DeNiro reportedly got angry at some tech guy for “condescending” to celebrities. Chill out Robert DeNiro.
Yeah Robert DeNiro, you made some cool movies. Really cool. But take a look around my man. You are at a star-studded gala sponsored by the Wall Street Journal at the Museum of Modern Art in midtown Manhattan surrounded exclusively by rich and famous people. That is the setting for this drama. The most chi-chi fucking time and place imaginable. Yeah, you are a good tough guy in movies Robert DeNiro. But look around you.
Then, at this incredibly fancy and grotesquely self-congratulatory event, where your job is to present an award—an award!—to Angelina Jolie, you make a big scene, according to Page Six:
“We are a long way from San Francisco,” joked tech mogul Stewart Butterfield of hot app Slack, when he scanned the room of “supermodels and movie stars” including Karlie Kloss, Brad Pitt and Jared Leto, who gave him the award. Butterfield joked he was receiving the “nerd award” and pointed at De Niro, mentioning, “I watched ‘Godfather II’ on the plane . . . when you killed Don Fanucci, I liked that.”
De Niro, up next, growled, “Whoever the last speaker was . . . I thought you were a bit condescending to us actors . . . celebrities. I’m gonna go on record with you just to say that. And I don’t give a f - - k who you are.”
Robert DeNiro. My man. You are embarrassing yourself my man. You are on stage at a fancy gala at a fancy museum literally giving an award—an award!—to Angelina Jolie, my man. You are in good gangster movies Robert DeNiro but you are not a gangster. You are a rich guy standing on a stage at MoMA backslapping with Brad Pitt and, if you can believe it, presenting some sort of award—award???—to Angelina Jolie. You are not presenting the Nobel Peace Prize my man. You are there to garner good PR for the Wall Street Journal and to appear in paparazzi photographs. That is your “role” in this “drama.” I don’t know if you know this but the “WSJ Magazine Innovator Awards” is not a “serious” thing, in the grand scheme of the world. It is a place for people to wear expensive dresses.
Far be it from me to defend some rich tech guy who invented Slack (who also apparently got an award?? For Slack??) but he didn’t really say anything that crazy and then you got on stage and said something crazy Robert DeNiro. Specifically you said “I thought you were a bit condescending to us actors . . . celebrities.” As if such a thing is possible. Apart from the fact that he wasn’t actually that condescending, such a thing is not possible. You have the world’s luckiest and fakest job Robert DeNiro. There is almost nothing that can be said that is truly “condescending” to celebrities because the very role of “celebrity” is in fact a massive prank pulled upon the populace, to lull us to sleep while the sort of rich people who attend the WSJ Magazine Innovator Awards collect an ever larger share of our national wealth. You got to be extremely rich and famous by being in movies Robert DeNiro. There is nothing graceful to say about that except “I am very thankful,” which would have been a good thing for you to say on stage rather than what you said, which to be honest sounded crazy as hell.
Imagine if you had to have a real job! You don’t though, you are a celebrity. Don’t go around acting haughty about it. You’re not out here curing diseases my man. You’re out here standing in front of a step-and-repeat. I do like your movies Robert DeNiro but check yourself. You might be getting that celebrity brain disease.