Why? Because he apparently dared to persecute Robert Downey Jr. with an "uncomfortable line of questioning," as the media's phrased it.
It was the jealous media enraged that a fancy-dressed Muslim got an interview, only BECAUSE he's a Muslim. So that means he has to be the ISIS of interviewers. So let's blow out of proportion a few questions he asked. And let's make a story out of HIS work because WE couldn't get to Downey.
Guru-Murthy picking on Downey, and cruelly dredging the past? Hardly.
With many a stutter, and after exhausting the boring topic of Downey's stupid new movie, The Guru rather apologetically asked if he could discuss the man himself, and not the Iron Man character. "I don't want to pry…" he began, as he asked about Downey's stint in jail. "About your incarceration…" he asked, using the polite term...
He asked about a quote Downey gave, saying it was hard to come out of jail a "liberal" Does that mean Downey is no longer a liberal?
"I appreciate your point of view…" Downey said, seemingly not too offended about the question. "I couldn't even tell you what "liberal" is," he said. He said that what was quoted years ago about prison might have nothing to do with his view now. Which is still a lot more interesting than listening to the usual hype about how these stupid comic book movies keep getting better all the time, and the effects are wonderful, and the action scenes will blow you away, blah blah.
The Muzzy calmly, politely asked, "Does that mean you're not liberal, or you came out of prison not liberal?"
"Are we promoting a movie?" Downey gently asked. The man just turned 50 (proud, actually PROUD of booking Duran Duran and Steely Dan as his birthday party entertainment). The man is old enough to answer a fucking dull question about politics. And he did: "I wouldn't say I'm a Republican, Liberal or a Democrat…you can have opinions and they can change…"
The Muzzy, perhaps unwisely, but still very polite, said, "I don't know how comfortable you are talking about yourself…you can answer if you want to or not if you don't want to…"
Fair enough?
Downey replied, "You better get to your next question," intimating that, like all the tedious interviewers he was having to talk to, there was a time limit. In fact, the Guru only had about three minutes, which he wanted to use to talk about his subject's notorious drug usage in the past. Specifically:
"...Y-you think you're free of all of that? I'm just asking questions that's all."
Good question, really. When you're one of the biggest stars in the world, are you more tempted to use drugs? If not, what grounds you, and what helps you cope?
Downey politely took off his microphone and stood up. End of interview.
Most any other interviewer would've milked this moment, trying to get Downey to throw a punch or something. But instead of goading the actor, The Guru sat in his chair and murmured an apology.
For his part, Downey didn't seem too offended, just glad the interview was over and that he avoided answering personal questions. He should've simply been smart enough to have his publicist make a list of "off-limits" topics that he didn't want to discuss. It didn't seem like this was the case. Downey never once said, "I thought you were told not to ask me personal questions."
An irony here, is that this hoopla is just making the news...and Downey is already back in America and doing more hype interviews. I just saw him, last night, lather and blather his way through a David Letterman interview. Downey was distant, smug, bored, and his charm was on automatic pilot. He did the kind of Ringo or McCartney act of letting the interviewer know "I'm the star, and YOU are being tolerated." The vibe this guy was giving off was, "Let me remain charmingly superficial. I'm cool, and you won't blow my cool" Which is fine. Gury-Murthy didn't blow Downey's cool either.
The most obvious question you could ask Downey is how he, like McCartney and other huge stars, copes with the pressure, and how he handles the existential situation of "is that all there is," and not taking drugs. Is it that he's begun spawning again? (Downey has two fresh brats, both under 3 years old). Brats will take your mind off your brooding, that's for sure.
On Letterman's show, aside from bragging about rock bands appearing at his birthday party, all Downey did was to show (boring) photos of his new baby. He then accepted Letterman's adulation for showing up at a hospital and (standard photo op) presenting a one-armed kid with a new "Iron Man" robot arm prosthetic. Even Downey was a bit embarrassed by getting praise for showing up at a hospital just because some defective brat had a hero wish. He admitted, HE didn't invent the apparatus, although he'd "take credit" for showing up and making a dream come true. As Letterman babbled about what a great guy Downey was, Downey deflected it with modesty, as well he should.
I wouldn't have bothered watching all this drivel except I was waiting for Elvis Costello to come on next. Before that happened, Letterman showed a clip from the new movie, and it was trying my attention span...and was only about 20 seconds long. It stunk. Actually, the funny part was that before the real clip, Dave did his almost standard prank of showing a fake clip, first. He showed a black and white clip from a bad 40's sci-fi movie. The crowd laughed, but Downey just gazed around, seeming to be a lot more offended by the joke than anything Guru-Murthy had said to him a few days earlier. Dave, realizing he'd apparently disrespected a man with a limited sense of humor, called out, "OK, let's run the real clip."
The media could as easily have headlined, "Letterman insults Downey; shows Fake Clip." But the media had already cried wolf a day earlier against Guru-Murthy.
It's nice that the media always seems to have a link to a YouTube clip so you can "judge for yourself," but it's putting extra money into the hands of GOOGLE, and it doesn't justify this "made you look" bullshit.
Guru-Murthy, at least in this case, was a lot less obnoxious than Martin Bashir, another token-Muslim who got ahead for his color and religion and not his talent. But really, if it took talent to have a talk show, Corden, Woss and a lot of others would be on the unemployment line.
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