As some of you may know, Ryan Dunn, one of the cast of the MTV series Jackass, died on Monday in an automobile accident.
Evidence—such as a photo posted to his Tumblr account—suggest that he was drunk when he crashed his Porsche in central Pennsylvania, killing himself and a passenger.
A small war of words erupted, though, when film critic Roger Ebert weighed in with his two cents on Twitter.
Ebert, who as a result of surgery for cancer, has permanently lost his voice, has taken to writing and tweeting to utter the words he cannot say out loud. [I should add that Ebert's politics certainly lean far closer to the progressive than the conservative, although I cannot say exactly where on the spectrum he lies.]
In any case, he had two tweets about Dunn's death. The first was this one:
"Jackass" star Ryan Dunn, RIP. His Porsche flew through 40 yards of trees. http://bit.ly/...
His second one, though, is the one that has caused the furor:
Friends don't let jackasses drink and drive.
This prompted a friend of Dunn to post his own replies (censoring mine, to avoid problems with filters):
I just lost my best friend, I have been crying hysterical for a full day and piece of s— roger ebert has the gall to put in his 2 cents
About a jackass drunk driving and his is one, f— you! Millions of people are crying right now, shut your fat f—ing mouth!
Both TMZ.com and Perez Hilton criticized Ebert for being "insensitive." But as Ebert notes, in the comments on Hilton's story, most of the readers are siding with Ebert.
Personally, I can understand where Ebert's coming from: while perhaps he might have been better off if he had waited a while before commenting, I don't think that what he said is wrong, and if Ebert's tweet could possibly keep someone from repeating Dunn's mistake, then I think that's worth being seen as "insensitive."
What say you: was Ebert's tweet "insensitive"?