Roger Ebert is a notoriously beloved online presence, but the film critic is now at the center of a Twitter firestorm. After Jackass star Ryan Dunn was killed in a fiery car crash early Monday, Ebert tweeted "Friends don't let jackasses drink and drive." It's not known if Dunn was intoxicated at the time of his death, though he had posted pictures of himself drinking hours before the crash, and may have been speeding at more than 100 mph in a 55 mph zone. Ebert's tweet was quickly seized upon, with Perez Hilton deeming it "extremely insensitive," and Jackass fans raging on Ebert's Facebook page. The film critic has since offered an apology, calling his response "unseemly," and saying that he "was probably too quick to tweet." But he also noted that many supporters agreed with his anti-drunk-driving message. Does Ebert deserve such broad condemnation?
Yes. Ebert's tweet was ill-timed and in bad taste: This was just plain "stupid," and totally uncalled for, says Seth Abramovitch at Gawker. At the time of the tweet, it wasn't known conclusively if Dunn was driving drunk, and "friends and fans were still in mortal shock over the awful news." There's no need for a lecture from a movie critic on the danger of drunk driving at that point, if ever. This sums up "everything that's annoying about Twitter," namely, "people wanting to be heard, me not wanting to hear them."
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