Everyone is pissed at Bette Midler for a tweet she wrote on Saturday joking about the cancellation of Caitlin Jenner’s show, I Am Cait. The tweet was promptly deleted, but it looked like this:
The Internet was quick to tear her to shreds, denouncing her as transphobic and out of touch.
On Sunday, Midler issued an apology, though if we’re being overly analytical the all-caps COULD be construed as a sort of eye-roll. Whether it has anything to do with her past critique of Jenner’s conservative politics is also unclear.
I don’t know whether Midler’s apology is sincere or not, but there’s something about the phrasing that does make me a little sad. I think it’s in the last part, “I SEEM TO HAVE MISREAD THE TEMPER OF THE TIMES,” which reads as a tacit admission that the once preeminent comedy goddess and gay icon has lost her way with the people. “I seem to have misread” runs parallel to “I seem to have misplaced my glasses,” a superficially commonplace musing that often belies some deeper internal shift, particular in people who are aging. Is Midler losing her spark? Is she out of step with pop culture and her ability to discern “funny” from “offensive”?
Or maybe she’s just sort of sorry, what the hell do I know. I still think this one’s good:
