Liam Neeson has landed himself in a spot of trouble

Bigbagofcans

People expressing more outrage for a few thoughts that he had (which most people would in similar circumstances) than outrage for the fact a woman was raped.

gmisk

Edward M wrote: »

You don't seem to have a realisation of the depth of the troubles in Northern Ireland.
That was much deeper than a p shooting a c and vice versa.
You'd need to actually study up what all that was about.

Of course there were more intricacies than just that, but a lot of the terrorist groups had exactly that mentality, oh a "catholic" pub was blown up, we will do the same to a "protestant" pub.
A lot of the time it was tit for tat along those lines IMO.

razorblunt

Yer Da sells Avon wrote: »

Even ignoring the whole racism thing, and the fact that he made someone else's personal tragedy about himself, how can people see where he was coming from? He didn't just want to kill the perpetrator; he wanted to kill some random person who bore a vague resemblance to the perpetrator. If someone you care about was raped or murdered, would you honestly even dream of killing some random person who you know didn't commit the crime, but who merely shares a physical characteristic with them? Would you even entertain that idea for a second?

Yes, yes I would Kent.

Zak Flaps

Zak Flaps wrote: »

The whole this is f*cking stupid. I feel sorry for the people giving out about Neeson. Go live your life.

This is what the media does to distract you from real news. They create outrage from stuff that doesn't impact the majority of people

sirmanga

Aron Rotten Meteorology wrote: »

This is what the media does to distract you from real news. They create outrage from stuff that doesn't impact the majority of people

Exactly. Just like the report on the children's hospital mess is due on.... March 29th.

Gee, imagine if there was a massive news story happening that day which will eat up all of the news coverage and divert attention away from the report...

biggebruv

What about the “black bastard” part why did he have to call the person that couldn’t he have just said black man or colored man.

sirmanga

biggebruv wrote: »

What about the “black bastard” part why did he have to call the person that couldn’t he have just said black man or colored man.

He was using the words of how he felt at the time. He even used air quotes.

Also, I have read about people asking why the first thing he asked was what colour was the rapist. When did he say that was the first thing he asked? He said that he asked "if she knew the rapist, what colour he was..."
He never said that was all he asked. There is such a thing as cutting a long story short. Besides, he said in a later interview that he did ask about height and other things before the question of colour.
The point of his story was that he went after a "black bastard" that's why he didn't waste time telling the full story of his conversation with his friend who was raped.

Are people actually this stupid? Or are they deliberately missing the point?

Outlaw Pete

biggebruv wrote: »

What about the “black bastard” part why did he have to call the person that couldn’t he have just said black man or colored man.

He referred to them as a "bastard" as that was the kind of black guy he wanted to beat. He wasn't after any random black guy as is being reported. I'm sure he seen lots of black guys on those nights but he was specifically looking to beat a black guy who initiated trouble with him. Thankfully that never happened and he came to his senses.

sirmanga

Also, as he said this happened when he "returned home" he must mean when he was living in London. Because if he was going looking for a black man in Ballymena in the 1970s he'd have a better chance of spotting the Loch Ness Monster.

brooke 2

rusty cole wrote: »

lets say Liam calls the cops and they arrive and say to this woman, can you describe your attacker?... 5ft.10, about 200lbs, moustache, jeans, red jacket...
So do the cops not ask about ethnicity? to narrow it down? or does Race not come into it?
I understand he was acting like a madman but on the question or race, to ask about ethnicity in such a situation as to refine an accurate description of a perpetrator , is that not obvious? his motivation was mental yes but I don't see this is racist.

But why was it his first question after she said that the attacker was not someone she knew?

buried

Liam Neeson was talking 100% total wollix because in real life Liam Neeson is not volatile hardman. His daily real life ain't "Batman Begins Taken Two - I will find you and I will cosh you". He was talking absolute total wollix and now he's been caught out because, - he was talking wollix. If any of you actually think this lad, 30 years ago, while he was a known actor, was literally prowling the streets of some city with a bat FOR A WEEK looking to KILL someone.....lol C'mon FFS. Liam Got carried away with lies into all over the place land. It Good enough for him too. That's what happens when you spew lies in order to show off. Talk the truth. Talk the Logos. F**king eegit

brooke 2

tuxy wrote: »

https://www.reddit.com/r/ireland/comments/anrl9t/ah_jaysus_liam/

Obviously stealing this idea from reddit but can you image if this was a weekly series where Liam tells an offensive anecdote.
I'd subscribe for sure

'Liam, please take the advice of the movie poster behind you!' ('Silence') :D

sirmanga

brooke 2 wrote: »

But why was it his first question after she said that the attacker was not someone she knew?

Who said it was the first question he asked?

brooke 2

sirmanga wrote: »

Who said it was the first question he asked?

Did you listen to his interview?

Outlaw Pete

buried wrote: »

Liam Neeson was talking 100% total wollix because in real life Liam Neeson is not volatile hardman. His daily real life ain't "Batman Begins Taken Two - I will find you and I will cosh you". He was talking absolute total wollix and now he's been caught out because, - he was talking wollix. If any of you actually think this lad, 30 years ago, while he was a known actor, was literally prowling the streets of some city with a bat FOR A WEEK looking to KILL someone.....lol C'mon FFS. Liam Got carried away with lies into all over the place land. It Good enough for him too. That's what happens when you spew lies in order to show off. Talk the truth. Talk the Logos. F**king eegit

What utter nonsense. So he's just going to, off the top of his head, make up a story about his girlfriend being raped, wanting to beat a black guy over it, and how he later sought help from a priest over it? And why now? I mean he's made a bunch of vigilante revenge type flicks, why wait until now to make up such a story?.

Nah, he's not the type to make up shit to sell a film and sure as hell is not gonna wait until he's 70 to start.

Franz Von Peppercorn

Someone described John Barnes as stupid before. This is a fairly well argued piece though.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/08/liam-neeson-john-barnes-race-bias-racism

Smarter than most college professors in my view.

Franz Von Peppercorn

Wollix. I like that word.

sirmanga

brooke 2 wrote: »

Did you listen to his interview?

Yes. But he never said the first thing he asked was what colour was the rapist.

You see, he was telling a story with a very specific point. That point being that he had some stupid vengeful thoughts about black people. That is why he mentioned asking his friend what colour the rapist was. He was getting to the point of the story. To say that he asked her what height, colour hair etc. the rapist had would have been useless information for the message of his story. As he said on the Good Morning America interview the day after this story broke, he did ask about all the other things like height before he got to race.

Why would he give a verbatim account of the conversation he had with his friend? The interviewer asked him to give an example of a time when he sought revenge. So he gave an answer, and got straight to the point.

It's like when someone asks you for the time, you don't tell them the make of your watch and what kind of batteries it takes.

timthumbni

I think people are mistaking Liam for some sort of Einstein. He is an actor. Aside from Schindlers List a very forgettable actor.

His words were stupid but he is an aging actor. And not a very serious one for that matter.

I think he is confusing his acting roles with real life sometimes tbh. I have cringed at a few of his utterings before. In Norn Iron we wld refer to him as a bull****ter...

FunLover18

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

Someone described John Barnes as stupid before. This is a fairly well argued piece though.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/08/liam-neeson-john-barnes-race-bias-racism

Smarter than most college professors in my view.

It's an excellent piece, the most interesting point of which I think is the bit about the word "racist" not lending itself to a nuanced conversation and this thread highlights the point perfectly. EDIT: I say that without casting blame on any particular individual or side of the discussion.

buried

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

What utter nonsense. So he's just going to, off the top of his head, make up a story about his girlfriend being raped, wanting to beat a black guy over it, and how he later sought help from a priest over it? And why now? I mean he's made a bunch of vigilante revenge type flicks, why wait until now to make up such a story?.

Nah, he's not the type to make up shit to sell a film and sure as hell is not gonna wait until he's 70 to start.

Didn't say the story about the girl being raped was made up Pete, this fairytale of him roaming the city streets for an entire week with a bat looking to kill someone in order for "revenge" for it is 100% made up wollix. Think about it for two seconds

He might have to make up fairytales to help advertise this particular film because what I've heard of it, its all over the shop, just like Liam's stories

biggebruv

buried wrote: »

Didn't say the story about the girl being raped was made up Pete, this fairytale of him roaming the city streets for an entire week with a bat looking to kill someone in order for "revenge" for it is 100% made up wollix. Think about it for two seconds

He might have to make up fairytales to help advertise this particular film because what I've heard of it, its all over the shop, just like Liam's stories

Tbh I think it’s all BS too he got carried away promoting his movie he must belive he really is ras al goul from Batman lol

eagle eye

timthumbni wrote:

I think people are mistaking Liam for some sort of Einstein. He is an actor. Aside from Schindlers List a very forgettable actor.

Star Wars, Kinsey, Gangs of New York, Batman Begins, Michael Collins, Breakfast on Pluto to name a few.

The Rape of Lucretia

Whatever about his racism, why would a guy freely admit guilt to attempted murder like that ? Even after all these years. Any bizarre that people are getting all caught up in his racism, and not really bother by the fact that but for his failure, he would be a vigilante revenge murderer. Murder is no biggie compared to racism for the snowflake generation I guess.

Robert Wolfe

At the end of the day he's worth something like 60 million, so the snowflakes are free to tweet their displeasure while they que for the job centre or while they search for zero hour contract jobs. Liam will still be laughing.

Edward M

The Rape of Lucretia wrote: »

Whatever about his racism, why would a guy freely admit guilt to attempted murder like that ? Even after all these years. Any bizarre that people are getting all caught up in his racism, and not really bother by the fact that but for his failure, he would be a vigilante revenge murderer. Murder is no biggie compared to racism for the snowflake generation I guess.

I pointed that out very early in the thread.
Prisons are full of, "sorry it shouldn't have happened, I realise now how stupid I was people".
If Neeson had happened to get involved with someone I wonder how his life would have turned out?
And I actually don't believe his story, OK, maybe the rape happened, a terrible crime on its own and enough to make anyone very angry to the point of violence.
But I think he embellished his reaction for a comparison with his screen character.
Stupidly he made it racist in its tone.

take everything

FunLover18 wrote: »

It's an excellent piece, the most interesting point of which I think is the bit about the word "racist" not lending itself to a nuanced conversation and this thread highlights the point perfectly. EDIT: I say that without casting blame on any particular individual or side of the discussion.

Read that.
About the most sensible thing anyone has said on the whole thing.
Always liked John Barnes. Great article.

SoundsRight

Channel 4 are showing Taken tonight. Must be laughing with the timing.

MonkieSocks

sk8erboii

Taken: Out of Context

AllForIt

buried wrote: »

Didn't say the story about the girl being raped was made up Pete, this fairytale of him roaming the city streets for an entire week with a bat looking to kill someone in order for "revenge" for it is 100% made up wollix. Think about it for two seconds

I agree completely with this. Likely he did have some strong feelings but he embellished the story for effect and indeed went OTT. His story doesn't sound plausible at all as he told it.

timthumbni

eagle eye wrote: »

Star Wars, Kinsey, Gangs of New York, Batman Begins, Michael Collins, Breakfast on Pluto to name a few.

I am well aware of his acting resume. Imo he was only good in Schindlers list.

And you actually refer to Gangs of New York..... shudder...... it was the biggest piece of crap I’ve ever watched.

AllForIt

timthumbni wrote: »

I am well aware of his acting resume. Imo he was only good in Schindlers list.

And you actually refer to Gangs of New York..... shudder...... it was the biggest piece of crap I’ve ever watched.

Agree. He was awful in Star Wars too but maybe that's a bit unfair as the movie was crap generally but he didn't bring anything too it. SL was the only movie I though he was any good in tbh.

SeanW

I've thought about this for a while and have to come down on Liam Neeson's side of this.

It's clear that after hearing from his friend about being raped, he spent a week prowling around Northern Ireland looking for a (most likely innocent) black man to kill in tribal revenge. That's reprehensible. But in Northern Ireland at the time, that's was "normal."

From what I understand, a lot of the sectarian murders that occurred in the Troubles were based on tribal revenge and score-keeping. According to the song "There Were Roses" written by a family in the North that were friends with people from both communities, certainly the paramilitaries operated on the basis of killing innocent people for trivial and bizarre reasons.

For example, if the PIRA murdered an innocent Protestant teenager, the Loyalists, rather than killing a Provo in revenge, or going after the dirtbag who gave the orders, would find some innocent, unarmed Catholic teenager to murder to "even up the score". Even if neither of the teenagers had wanted anything to do with the insanity made no difference. No-one was an individual. Everything - absolutely everything - was sectarian and tribal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=411hNIdHWx0

In that hellscape, L.N.s thoughts, and more importantly actions, while still reprehensible, were understandable.

It was still a stupid thing for him to say though because, as Karl Rove said "If you're explaining, you're losing." LNs thoughts and actions are easy enough to explain given the context of his young life, but in this Twitterati-SJW-white-men-are-evil-by-default-racism blah blah culture we have, it was a very stupid thing to say, and he should have been aware of that working in Hollywood. Hope for his sake, he has his money made.

tuxy

SeanW wrote: »

Northern Ireland looking for a (most likely innocent) black man to kill in tribal revenge.

I was sure we had concluded it was probably London.
He said he roamed black areas.
How many black community areas were in Ballymena in the 70s?

SeanW

Oops, my bad.

The incident may have happened in London, but was still a Catholic from mid-century Northern Ireland. To coin a phrase "You can take the boy out of Northern Ireland, but you can't take Northern Ireland out of the boy."

You're right, there probably weren't many black people in NI at the time, they probably had the good sense to stay away from the place. But if he went prowling around London looking for a black man, it's strange that he didn't find any ...

He was still a moron to talk about it though.

brooke 2

The Rape of Lucretia wrote: »

Whatever about his racism, why would a guy freely admit guilt to attempted murder like that ? Even after all these years. Any bizarre that people are getting all caught up in his racism, and not really bother by the fact that but for his failure, he would be a vigilante revenge murderer. Murder is no biggie compared to racism for the snowflake generation I guess.

And if I understood Susannah Reid correctly, on the morning programme with Piers Morgan, she said that Neeson doubled down when the GMA interviewer asked him if he would have gone through with the killing (if he had met his random black man) :rolleyes: He said that he would have!!

branie2

He was man enough to admit what he did was wrong

Penfailed

branie2 wrote: »

He was man enough to admit what he did was wrong

He wasn't man enough to admit that he made the whole thing up to try and promote his latest film.

Former Observer

Robert Wolfe wrote: »

At the end of the day he's worth something like 60 million, so the snowflakes are free to tweet their displeasure while they que for the job centre or while they search for zero hour contract jobs. Liam will still be laughing.

I'm not sure Liam is a laughing about this. Seems the joke may be on you and your absurd exaltation of capital wealth.

brooke 2

Penfailed wrote: »

He wasn't man enough to admit that he made the whole thing up to try and promote his latest film.

Did anyone notice what he said at the end of the GMA interview in which he doubled down and said that if he had met a black man he would have killed him?

'Don't forget to go see the movie.'!! :rolleyes::rolleyes:

imme

Is he fond of a drink our Liam.

Either way it goes to show that most actors are puppets, their best lines are written for them.

The Nal

https://twitter.com/JamesMelville/status/1098728450603581441

Wheety

If that's his reply to the guy in the audience, trying to make Barnes look bad with the question about Neeson, he destroyed him. Guy looked so sheepish by the end and just slightly nodded :-)

Great answer tbf

Hector Savage

The Nal wrote: »

https://twitter.com/JamesMelville/status/1098728450603581441

Wow !! SPOT ON!

The Nal

1 min in

jmayo

Wheety wrote: »

If that's his reply to the guy in the audience, trying to make Barnes look bad with the question about Neeson, he destroyed him. Guy looked so sheepish by the end and just slightly nodded :-)

Great answer tbf

Watched that life last night and was inspiring.

Bruce was good because she let the question lie after that because there was nothing more or better to be said.
Very good piece of work by her as well.

Barnes was measured on what he said about repatriating yer wan from Syria.

He was always classy on the pitch and he is still a different class.

The Nal

jmayo wrote: »

Watched that life last night and was inspiring.

Bruce was good because she let the question lie after that because there was nothing more or better to be said.
Very good piece of work by her as well.

Barnes was measured on what he said about repatriating yer wan from Syria.

He was always classy on the pitch and he is still a different class.

And he has plenty of experience of racism himself. Hero of a man.

DEFTLEFTHAND

imme wrote: »

Is he fond of a drink our Liam.

Either way it goes to show that most actors are puppets, their best lines are written for them.

I remember he was kind of jarred on the LLS one night, I think it was the 50th anniversary show.

He ruined the surprise guest by letting slip that he was chatting to Bono backstage.

Deebles McBeebles

When did John Barnes become so articulate and informed? He's a joy to listen to much as he used to be a joy to watch.