This week, Ted, Teresa, and Maegan talk the ethics of outing closeted lawmakers. Last week, the movie Outrage opened, a new documentary by the compelling filmmaker Kirby Dick, who's previously confronted the MPAA's rating system and the Catholic Church's abuse scandal. This time he's going after Congressmen, Senators, and other elected officials, most of them Republicans, who have held anti-gay positions in public while hiding their own homosexuality in private. Kirby names names in the film, which many news outlets have refused to do in reviewing the film. We have an exclusive short interview on today's show with Dick, as he talks about the news coverage and calls out these lawmakers as hypocrites. But the film raises thorny ethical issues. A person's sexuality is intensely personal; what right is it of Kirby's to expose these people? After all, it's not against the law to be a hypocrite.
Moving on to lighter subjects, the White House Correspondents Dinner held its own fair share of laughs and even a few groan-worthy moments. But most people agree President Obama knocked it out of the park, right? He was hilarious, certainly, but should the President of the Free World be making so many mean-spirited remarks? Obama's acid tongue has more than a few similarities to a past presidential jokester: President George W. Bush. And what about the Wanda Sykes roast? She had a few choice lines, and the biggest one - calling Rush Limbaugh a terrorist and accusing him of being the 20th hijacker - is getting some nasty responses from the beltway. Was she out of bounds? Can a joke about 9/11 be funny, even if it's tasteless?
Finally, we talk the new Star Trek movie. Our resident trekkie, Teresa, calls out the moviemakers for their portrayal of torture: they show it without dealing with any of the issues surrounding it. Can a summer blockbuster like this preserve the brainy thought-provoking aspects of the Star Trek franchise while still corralling a new audience? And what's with all the mocking of trekkies by the movie's stars, Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto, on SNL? You do know that trekkies pay your bills, right? All this on today's Wilshire & Washington!
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Wilshire & Washington, the weekly Blog Talk Radio program that explores the intersection of politics, entertainment, and new media, features co-hosts Ted Johnson, Managing Editor of Variety; conservative blogger Teresa Valdez Klein (www.teresacentric.com), and liberal blogger Maegan Carberry (www.maegancarberry.com). The show airs every Wednesday at 7:30am PST on BlogTalkRadio.com.