Jason Biggs' awful Twitter feed is ruining "Orange Is the New Black"

Really? Another cruel "Bachelorette" joke proves that the "OITNB" actor isn't ready for prime time

Published May 21, 2014 3:52PM (EDT)

Jason Biggs           (AP/Richard Shotwell)
Jason Biggs (AP/Richard Shotwell)

Somehow, he's still at it.

The "Orange Is the New Black" costar Jason Biggs has raised hackles yet again with tweets about the current season of "The Bachelorette," featuring a suitor who died in a paragliding accident after filming.

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What's most eye-catching about Biggs' tweets is that they have the cadence of jokes but aren't, really; there's no insight or twist -- they're just weird little bits of vitriol. It's so important to Biggs to convey the message that he, personally, finds the untimely death of someone on TV funny that he didn't bother to actually do the work of constructing a punch line.

This is hardly Biggs' first time getting shamed for his viciously mean and distasteful tweets -- he's been criticized, too, for joking about special needs people who appeared on "The Bachelor." Biggs, who, prior to his current turn in "Orange Is the New Black," had worked only sporadically outside the "American Pie" franchise, appears to love the attention; his Twitter feed has been full of Biggs' retweeting his critics, as well as mocking the entertainment-news outlets that've covered his outbursts time and again.

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But covering Biggs' persistent awful taste isn't, or isn't solely, indulging a celebrity who wants to troll us. Biggs isn't on just any series -- he's on a show that's been roundly praised for its sensitivity and nuanced take on issues of sexuality, gender and race. And he spends his off hours putting out into the world jokes like this, or this, or this. In a cast composed largely of women who speak eloquently in public about all manner of issues, Biggs spends his time drowning them out with jokes about how ugly are the women and how gay are the men of "The Bachelor" franchise. He seems like an actual nightmare!

There isn't, and shouldn't be, a litmus test on opinions when it comes to an actor's employment. But the manner in which Biggs has chosen to express himself on Twitter -- using each airing of "The Bachelor" or "The Bachelorette" to let fly another round of sexist, homophobic or just plain nihilistically mean jokes -- is and should be a public-relations problem for "Orange Is the New Black." Part of Biggs' job as an actor is not to cast his series in a negative light, no matter what the series; that he's associating a show that's simultaneously funny and humanistic with a public persona that's neither is extremely unfortunate. Biggs, who works on a show otherwise staffed with diverse and outspoken actors and writers, has, in aggregate over the course of the constantly broken silences on his Twitter feed, nothing to say but that he finds everyone ugly or closeted or appalling or less than human.

It's excessive to hope that he gets written out of the show, but maybe some of the screentime that goes to his dead end of a character could go to Laverne Cox's character -- and, between takes, maybe she could talk to him about maintaining a public profile based on something other than hatreds.


By Daniel D'Addario

MORE FROM Daniel D'Addario


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Jason Biggs Orange Is The New Black The Bachelor The Bachelorette Twitter