Have you been keeping up with the David Cross flame wars? In case they haven’t edged the primary season off the front page of your local rag, the Observer helpfully brings everyone up to speed, while giving Cross yet another chance to make his case. This is the situation, in brief: David Cross has a supporting role in Alvin and the Chipmunks. Inasmuch as said film is widely perceived as a shoddy piece of kiddie fodder attached to a Christmas merchandising campaign, former fans of the actor-comedian perceived Cross’s appearance in it as a betrayal of his indie cred. (Apparently everyone missed last year’s Curious George, in which Cross essayed a similar role as a beloved cartoon character’s nemesis.)
Fans went on the attack, posting venomous comments on sites like the Onion’s AV Club. "It wasn't simply that I read somebody said I was a 'douchebag' for doing this,” Cross told the Observer. “I read hundreds—literally hundreds [of comments] ... Just a lot of it, enough so that when I read Patton's thing it was the breaking point.” That would be Patton Oswalt, whose offhand comment on his Myspace page led to Cross posting a response on his own website. Isn’t the Internet great? Imagine the fun if it had been around back when Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis broke up.
Cross discusses his early career struggles, the issue of integrity, and why he even bothers to respond to anonymous Internet comments in an interview that raises even more questions. For instance, what to make of the image of Cross settling in beneath a painting of the Reagans posing with Michael Jackson? As Cross says, “The biggest joke of all is that the fact that when this article comes out, it will only make things worse.” He said it, not us.