By Kim Voynar Voynar@moviecitynews.com
What Roger Said, Er, Tweeted — and a Jackass Backlash
Updated: The Washington Post is now reporting that Ryan Dunn’s blood alcohol level was more than twice the legal limit, and that he was driving his Porsche at 130MPH when he crashed, killing himself and his passenger. Which, Jackass fans, makes Roger Ebert’s tweet correct, even if you still think it was too soon to tweet about it.
The only person Dunn’s friends and family — and Jackass fans — have to be pissed off at here, is Dunn himself, who was engaging in irresponsible, antisocial, asshole behavior and got himself and his friend killed in the process. End of line, folks.
In case you missed all the uproar, Roger Ebert is taking some internet heat for Tweeting this …
“Friends don’t let jackasses drink and drive.”
… in the wake of Jackass star Ryan Dunn’s death, along with his pal Zachary Hartwell, in a fiery crash. According to this MSNBC story, Dunn might have been driving in excess of 100 MPH in the 55 MPH zone when his car jumped a guardrail. Reportedly, Dunn and Hartwell were photographed drinking in a bar shortly before the crash. There’s a photo up on TMZ, I hear, if you’re really feeling the need to see it.
Does the fact that Dunn was drinking in a bar shortly before the fatal crash mean Dunn was drunk? No, and toxicology reports will take weeks. Regardless, unless investigation reveals that his Porsche was malfunctioning or that someone deliberately rigged his car so that it would be traveling that speed without him making the volitional choice to put his foot on the accelerator, he was almost certainly driving recklessly, and it’s fortunate that he didn’t hit any other vehicles in the process of crashing his car.
Ebert posted a video of Dunn’s friend Bam Margera’s mother, April, talking about Dunn’s history of driving too fast to back up his assertion that Dunn had a history of reckless driving behavior. Dunn’s friend and Jackass co-star Bam Margera, gossip blogger Perez Hilton, and legions of Jackass fans took Ebert to task for tweeting what he tweeted. Legions of Ebert fans fired back. Ebert didn’t apologize, exactly — he said offered his sympathy to Dunn’s family and friends, and regretted that his Tweet was considered cruel and was perhaps “unseemly,” but he stopped short of actually saying he took it back.
Question is, was Ebert right to tweet what he did? And moreover, does the speed at which Dunn was reportedly driving make it irrelevant if he was legally drunk or not? To me it almost makes it worse if he wasn’t drunk; if he was inebriated you could at least argue his judgement was clouded and that caused him to make a foolish and dangerous choice, whereas if he was sober and driving over 100 MPH, well, then he deliberately made a choice that caused both his own death and that of his friend and could have killed anyone else unfortunate enough to be in his path.
Sadly, neither option really makes it any easier for Dunn’s and Hartwell’s family and friends, who are left behind to cope with their loss.
What do you think? Was Ebert out of line in tweeting about a tragedy?