Comedian Russell Brand appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe this week, supposedly to talk about his world comedy tour Messiah Complex.
Instead, co-host Mika Brzezinski and panelists Katty Kay and Brain Shactman mocked him, pretended they couldn’t understand his accent and referred to him in the third person.
At one point, he was being called “Willie Brand”.
From the moment Brand explained the theme of his tour being the exploration of how Malcom X, Gandhi, Che Guevara and Jesus Christ’s icons are used to designate conscious and meaning, the three journalists were lost and resorted to mocking to shield their discomfort.
At about 5:30 minutes into the video, Brand responds to their mocking.
“You’re talking about me as if I’m not here and as if I’m an extraterrestrial,” he said, “thank you for your casual objectification.”
When the conversation began to break down, Brand asked , “Is this what you all do for a living?”.
He then took over the broadcast to talk about Edward Snowden, the NSA spying scandal and Bradley Manning.
“Look beyond the superficial, that’s the problem with current affairs, you forget about what’s important, you allow the agenda to be decided by superficial information, what am I saying, what am I talking about, don’t think about what I’m wearing, these things are redundant, superficial, don’t be distracted,” said Brand as Brzezinski cowered in the background.
In short, they couldn’t handle him… and it made great TV.