Bill Maher Is a B.C. (Big Creep)
A trip down sleazy memory lane. The Playboy Mansion. Politically Incorrect. SPY. All the hits.
A fun (sad) game I like to play entails name-searching the SPY magazine (1986 - 1998, RIP) archives for mention of whatever contemporary villain/public figure I find annoying/unnerving at any given moment to see whether SPY had their number back in the day. They usually did.
For example, the one and only mention of Ghislaine Maxwell (March 1993 issue), makes her out to be a thirsty creep with a sketchy past. That certainly tracks.
CNN CEO Chris Licht’s baffling decision to add Bill Maher to the network’s talking heads roster sent me on a trip through SPY, where I happened upon this anecdote (Nov-Dec 1995 issue) from his time helming his old panel show, Politically Incorrect.
It’s not like it’s news that Bill Maher is a B.C. (Big Creep). The two things I remember about him from the ‘90s are his tenure hosting PI and the fact that he always seemed to be at the Playboy Mansion. In fact, he loved spending time at the Playboy Mansion so much that he filmed a week’s worth of PI episodes there in May 2000. If you follow me on Twitter, you’ve already seen me post the magazine print ad featuring Maher looking extremely cool and not at all embarrassing.
This is a portrait of a man comfortable in his own skin:
One of the episodes is up on YouTube and it’s quite a time capsule. On the left side of this weird little outdoor conversation pit, we have the nightmare blunt rotation of Hef, Adam Corolla, and Maher. Carmen Elektra is safely tucked away in the corner. I’m choosing to believe the Hefner-Corolla-Maher row was the inspiration for the Human Centipede franchise.
To Maher’s right is Bijou Phillips, Stone Temple Pilots frontman Scott Weiland (RIP), and “Advice Goddess” Amy Alkon. Jeff Bridges is floating around somewhere. This West Coast Algonquin Roundtable kicks off with Maher making a disparaging (and dated as hell) remark about Mike Tyson’s rape victim, Desiree Washington, saying that because she willingly entered Tyson’s hotel room, she “knew” what she was there for. As if the physical act of crossing a hotel room threshold voids a woman’s ability to change her mind. (Tyson was convicted of rape in 1992 and served three years out of his six-year sentence.)
The remark kicks off a conversation about whether women are obligated to “put out” if a man pays for their airfare or spends significant amounts of money on them. Of all the men on the panel, Weiland, THE FRONTMAN OF A BAND, serves as the voice of reason, interjecting that it is “shameful” for men to think they are owed sex if a significant amount of money is spent.
Here are a couple of cool dudes hanging out at the mansion where the guy in pajamas keeps a harem of sex slaves:
When most of the panel agrees that hypothetical couple should discuss their expectations before the hypothetical man fly this hypothetical woman in for a date, Maher throws up his hands and calls it “politically correct bullshit” and claims that clearly communicating intentions and discussing sex beforehand “ruins it.” Here’s a shot of Maher giving us tantrum jazz hands:
That was where I noped out of this Y2K relic. It will surprise no one to find that Maher’s takes on the #MeToo reckoning of 2017-2018 were about as borderline alarmist as you’d expect from one of Hef’s most frequent houseguests.
Anyhoo, I’m glad a major news network is giving this fresh voice a chance to interject his bad faith takes on how the trans community’s humanity should be up for debate, a debate presumably arbitrated by a myopic contrarian whose main concern seems to be reassuring himself of his own relevance. Wild how these are the voices that always seem to be elevated above all others.
Catch you next time.
xo,
Maggie
P.S. Happy International Women’s History Month! Especially to Susan Kuhnhausen, the ER nurse who choked the life out of the hitman her husband sent to kill her. I hope this queen is having a lovely and restful Sunday.
He has been insufferable for decades