In July, the Media Research Center noted an obituary for Hot Air writer Karen Townsend, adding, “RIP. Wrote a plethora of piquant awards-show stories for NewsBusters!” Indeed, Townsend wrote for the MRC for a few years, and we caught her hate-watching the 2018 Oscars, ranting along with Alexis Moutevelis Coombs that “so self-indulgent and stuffed with liberal propaganda, that it ran a full 50 minutes late.” For the 2021 Oscars, Townsend helped push the narrative that the show talked about black people too much.
But she also wrote about things other than award shows; for instance, she had regular anti-LGBT freakouts:
- Townsend was appalled that Smithers came out of the closet on “The Simpsons,” and was relieved that Stewie from “Family Guy” did not.
- She groused that a transgender Miss Universe Pageant contestant got attention.
- She spent time hate-watching “I Am Jazz,” about a transgender teenager.
- Townsend also hate-watched “Riverdale” and was upset that conservatives were depicted as evil and gay people weren’t.
- She was quite upset that Netflix’s “raunchy animated series” “Big Mouth” introduced a transgender character: “It’s too bad but these days, a transgender character is the new requirement in television and online series. Every series must have a trans character to be sufficiently woke, even a show about middle school kids.”
- She was one of the many MRC writers triggered by Lil Nas X.
- She freaked out over a fictional transgender person on the show “Station 19,” insisting there aren’t enough transgender people to warrant appearances in TV shows.
Here are more samplings from the ConWebWatch archive on other subjects:
- Townsend ranted that the TV show “The Fosters” “continues to shove teen abortion and LGBT sex education on America, this time pushing the issues even further when it comes to parental knowledge — or lack thereof.”
- She complained that the reboot of the “Murphy Brown” series made a note of how many lies Donald Trump told while president.
- She helped hate-watch a miniseries on the history of the gay-rights movement, huffing that “The slander of President Ronald Reagan’s legacy by liberal gay activists continues” and insisting that Christians are the real victims of discrimination.
- She cheered an episode of the rebooted “Roseanne” because it made her feel secure in her dubious fear of Muslims.
- Townsend was upset that Swift used an acceptance speech at the MTV Music Awards to promote her petition online in support of the anti-discrimination Equality Act, huffing, “Maybe Swift is the one who needs to calm down[.]”
- She grumbled that the plot of one TV show featured an explosion at a clinic doing embryonic stem-cell research that one character blamed on “anti-choice” activists. She also was annoyed that a character on “Gray’s Anatomy” said she wasn’t ashamed of an abortion she’d had years earlier when she was in an abusive relationship.
- She lashed out at an episode of “Chicago P.D.” because it was “portraying the police as racists and always the ones in the wrong.” She melted down over a different episode of the show, complaining that the actor playing a black character said it was “his job is to ‘make black people look good’ to white audiences,” insisting “That was liberal-speak for convincing white people that they are all racists who must be re-educated.”
- She was also stuck hate-watching “Supergirl,” whining that “Even in the world of superheroes, the white characters are taken to task for not being woke enough for their black counterparts.”
Townsend’s final ConWeb appearance came in June when, as we noted, WorldNetDaily published a Hot Air column by Townsend headlined “Are the Bidens intimidating Hunter’s jury?” She remained biased and hateful until the end, it seems.