Can anyone honestly claim that Larry David seemed serious when he yelled "you're a racist" at Donald Trump on last night's SNL? Trick question: I said "honestly." Enter Washington Post TV critic Hank Stuever who in his review of Trump's SNL appearance last night [subtly headlined "Trump’s sorry night on ‘SNL’: An overhyped bummer for us all'], actually claimed that that David's "racist" cry seemed "genuine enough." But if ever an actor went out of his way to signal that he was simply spoofing, it was David.
Have a look at the clip, and you'll see that--far from expressing genuine outrage--David at one point struggled to keep a straight face. And when Trump asked him what he was doing, David sheepishly shrugged his shoulders and threw out his arms in apologetic explanation, saying he "had to do it" because they promised him $5,000. "Genuine enough?" How about "obviously acting?"
It was a year in which the dominant cultural story was the sad, but eerily almost predictable drug-addled death of Michael Jackson. But there were a few good moments sprinkled in with the outrageous and the tawdry in 2009. My choices for cultural winners and losers this year: 
HBO's hit series "Curb Your Enthusiasm" has pushed the comedic envelope for many years, but what happened in Sunday's episode was so disgraceful it's already received comment from the Catholic League's Bill Donohue.