Kanye: Just Plain Drunk

Last Sunday night, Kanye-Gate erupted when rap superstar Kanye West highjacked heartbreak crooner Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech for her MTV Moon Man award for Best Female Video (best female video? What do X and Y chromosomes have to do with how good a video is?). West grabbed the mic from the startled willowy 19-year-old to tell the judges they got it wrong, that Beyonce had the best video. But, when public opinion swiftly and viciously fell hard on West (even the leader of the free world called him a “jackass”), he was contrite: he’s just a pop-culture maven who takes these matters seriously and must speak when MTV gets it wrong.

And, suddenly, we have a trend. After South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson’s “You lie!” debacle and Serena Williams’ expletive-laced tennis-court tirade, media outlets from the Detroit Free Press to Beliefnet to CBS News have been lamenting the loss of manners and civility in the public space. The New York Times columnist David Brooks even cites West’s “self-indulgent expression” as the latest in a series of steps “across a sort of narcissism line.”

Perhaps it is. But let me just take Kanye West off the “civility offenders” list for a moment and put him on the “just plain drunk” list. West’s outburst isn’t some mystery of manners or ego we need to examine, take home, and naval-gaze over; this isn’t the death of civilization as we know it. The man drank a good half-bottle of Hennessy before lurching onto the MTV stage (perhaps more than half; photos during throughout the event show the bottle’s content getting progressively lower as the night went on). He rocked a snake woman on one arm and a bottle of hooch on the other. Classy.

The real question is: Who takes a giant bottle of cognac to a theater? In my experience, that would at least be a sign of trouble and at worst just a big-time alcoholic. Now I’m not saying West is anything of the sort—celebrities do all sorts of idiotic attention-getting things for no better reason than that they can. Still, a great way to ensure you aren’t going to embarrass yourself at a huge public event is not to make a bottle of Hennessy your arm candy.