Oh, I agree on balance. It's like saying nobody should make a conspiracy thriller in case idiots on the internet think it's a documentary. But racists justifying themselves with Tropic Thunder always gives me that "fuck it, what's the point of anything any more?" feeling.

I never had a problem with Papa Lazarou, though it's hard to really quantify. I think it's because the thing that bothers me most about blackface is the chumminess, the clubby atmosphere of impersonating another race so an audience of your race can go ha ha, yeah, they are like that, aren't they?

To me, it was transparently obvious what the point of that bit was - but the sheer number of people I've heard defending actual, unironic, racist blackface with "well, Robert Downey Jr did it in Tropic Thunder!" makes me wonder whether it was worth it.

Yes, here in Britain we have absolutely no history of blackface or minstrelry!

This just sounds like some weird sex thing. "Seize it, Gunther! Seize my monkey!"

Not just you. I feel like I'm in a parallel universe where hammering the same obvious observations into your head for six years counts as "intelligence and subtlety".

"I want to say a little something that's long overdue
The disrespect to women has got to be through
To all the mothers and the sisters and the wives and friends
I wanna offer my love and respect to the end."

I was expecting the caption to be "Look at this terrifying sea creature scientists just discovered (and ran screaming from)!"

A giant big-mouthed predator with leopardskin markings? Does its vagina look like a catfish, by any chance?

I thin the crucial difference between Gaga and Bowie is that Bowie was bringing some cutting-edge music to match his cutting-edge image. With Gaga it's hard to avoid the feeling that all these stunts are designed to distract you from the fact that the music is just standard-issue chart pop.

Yoo Ji-Tae, from Woman is the Future of Man and Oldboy:

It's an interesting question. On the one hand, there's no reason why straight or bi women shouldn't have sexual fantasies about gay male celebrities - they're only fantasies, after all. I thought it was quite cool and progressive when people were petitioning for Matt Bomer to play Christian Grey (despite the…

They were hoping to do Pierre, or: The Ambiguities, but they got tired of using so many sad faces.

I used to think that at least they were only ruining each other's lives. You know, like Russell Brand and Katy Perry. Dating each other keeps them away from people I like. But now they've got a kid... I'm just shuddering to think of the laundry list of psychiatric problems that poor thing is going to have in later…

This is a brilliant story. I'm also going to steal it so the next time someone looks at my laptop I can explain to them how it's totally normal to fall into writing erotica by accident.

Low-budget and subtitled movies are bad. Okay.

Oh, what I'd give for Simon Amstell to host an awards show. "Miley is smoking! That'll teach Dubya!"

Top to bottom reading of Justin Bieber's sleeve tattoo: Puma Pride, mom's eye, Comic Sans, wanking Joffrey. It expresses every facet of his personality right there.

I think the fact that it's got a contemporary setting makes people expect some sort of sexual element, too. People with socially conservative views like to cling onto things set before 1963 as a sort of comfort blanket, where there was no sex, the only violence was harmless murders in country house libraries, gays…

True, but their parents probably think challenging people on their idiocy is Marxist indoctrination and have specifically sent them somewhere to avoid that happening.