Celebrity Scandal!
Jane Curtain reveals John Belushi secret misogynist?
[Apr. 13]
Deceased Baby Boomer John Belushi of (The Blues Brothers (1980) fame) was unfriendly to women, says green celebrity actress and comedienne Jane Curtin. The Saturday Night Live funny woman who got her first big break doing variety comedy on SNL, recently dished dirt about the dead celebrity to Oprah Winfrey. The result? She has ignited a celebrity scandal debate over whether or not Belushi was a sexist (who thought men were better than women) or really a misogynist (a man who has a deep seated hatred of women) hiding behind comedy and his famous face.
Jane Curtain recently appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, alongside such comedy powerhouses as Chevy Chase and Tina Fey. Curtin said 1975, following the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s, was not a friendly time in the workplace for women who were competing for the jobs once exclusively held by men.
Jane Curtin called the environment “misogynistic.” She noted that she couldn’t even get a credit card in 1975, because she “was a self-employed female. Things were very different. Women were not treated equally,” she told Oprah. and she lashed out specifically at John Belushi.
The Huffington Post reports on the Jane Curtin discussion of SNL and John Belushi with Oprah:
“Their battles were constant. They were working against John, who said women are just fundamentally not funny,” Curtin said. “So you’d go to a table read, and if a woman writer had written a piece for John, he would not read it in his full voice. He felt as though it was his duty to sabotage pieces written by women.”
Tina Fey likewise gave credit to Curtin for her struggles against a male centered workplace in comedy, among the likes of John Belushi on Saturday Night Live.
“By the time I got there, in that read-through room… our director was a woman; one of our stage managers was a woman,” [Tina Fey] said. “The more women that were in the room to laugh at the different pieces, then [the more] people were like, ‘Oh, OK, maybe we’ll put it on.'”
While John Belushi certainly had an incredible impact on comedy, both on Saturday Night Live and in film, it’s a little disappointing that he couldn’t give the same credit to women like Jane Curtin and Tina Fey, both of whom are bright green celebrities and talented actresses and comediennes. John Belushi was in a unique position to see these and many more starlets shine over the years.
GREEN CELEBRITY STATS:
Last year, Jane Curtin won $50,000 for charity in the Jeopardy! Million Dollar Celebrity Invitational Tournament, which went to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF. And green celebrity Tina Fey received a Love Our Children USA’s “Mothers Who Make A Difference” award in 2009. Fey also supports Autism Speaks and participates in charity donations to support children’s causes, according to Look To the Stars.