Monday, March 04, 2013

WHEN SLAVE GIRL PRINCESS LEIA ISN'T ENOUGH.

Mark "Gavreau" Judge apparently felt the need to be humiliated, and went about it the way conservatives often do these days, by writing about Lena Dunham and Girls:
Girls creator Lena Dunham is very talented, and she’s only twenty-six, but it has to be said: like so many liberal Hollywood and New York artists, she has a powerful streak of cowardice... The girls in Girls are frustrated because the guys they date are either passive, psychotic, pretentious, degrading, or plain old losers. But what if Dunham had written in a male character who is strong, caring, attractive, highly intelligent, sexually unambiguous, great in bed, and a conservative?... 
How about this: a handsome grad student from Fordham who is Catholic, articulate, a college football star, compassionate, manly, and can debate any liberal to a standstill. Maybe his flaw is that he drinks too much, or that he once bullied a gay kid.
He could be called Gark "Javreau" Mudge! And the dark secret that drives him is that a black kid may have stolen his bicycle.

I understand the celebrity fantasy but, guy, this thing about trying to dare Lena Dunham into fucking your avatar (or at least wearing its promise ring) is just creepy. Also, did it never occur to you to make Gark Javreau Mudge's hamartia two wetsuits and a dildo?

208 comments:

  1. a handsome grad student from Fordham who is Catholic, articulate, a college
    football star, compassionate, manly, and can debate any liberal to a standstill.



    That'd have to be a fictional character all right. In a generous mood I'd concede most of it is plausible but compassionate? Now you're fucking wit' me.

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  2. Alexander von Humbug10:49 PM

    He may be on to something with a character like that. Sounds like a wonderful subject for satire and comic ridicule.

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  3. Weird vicarious-fictional-character fantasies aside, this is pretty much just Entry #252384279 in the rightblogger "This Pop Culture Thing Can't Be THAT Hard" saga.

    I mean, look, Mark Judge, if you don't get why Hollywood writers have zero interest in writing a protagonist who spouts rightblogger talking points, or if you think perhaps it's because liberal media blah blah blah, you're just not suited to be attempting to dictate pop culture. I'm sorry. I don't tune into Girls* to get my daily dose of tax-related whining.

    *In point of fact I don't tune into Girls at all, but I'm making a general point here.

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  4. Cato the Censor10:55 PM

    How about a story line where Mark Judge is stripped, scourged, and then nailed to a cross? That has a religious element to it conservatives should like.

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  5. Wait, does he even know the second season started with Hannah dating a conservative? Or is "college football star" codeword for the blahs?

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  6. I would like to see a TV show about a handsome graduate student who woos women by alternately slut-shaming them with Aquinas quotes and bragging about his years-ago exploits as a college football player. You could call it Summa Contra Puellās.

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  7. mortimer11:21 PM

    ...a handsome grad student from Fordham who is Catholic, articulate, a college football star, compassionate, manly, and can debate any liberal to a standstill.

    And just imagine what she can do with that horn sticking out of his forehead!

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  8. Girls has been overanalyzed

    Then by all means, just write another 500 words about it.

    Oh, and Roy left out an analogy from Judge that explains a lot:

    I can only point out what I think is Girls most glaring flaw: Lena Dunham did not include any control. As in a control in a scientific experiment that serves as a “normal” component that you are not conducting the experiment on. . . Girls would have been a much more compelling and less narcissistic show if Dunham had the guts to introduce a control into her Brooklyn petri dish.

    You know, there may yet be a useful application in these posts. If Earth is ever discovered by aliens, and we make peaceful contact, the time will come when someone has to explain human culture and entertainment to them. Explaining it to the writers at Acculturated should make for very good practice.

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  9. Hell, any deeper into Mary Sue territory and he'd be dispensing orgasms with his mind powers.

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  10. XeckyGilchrist11:32 PM

    what if Dunham had written in a male character who is strong, caring,
    attractive, highly intelligent, sexually unambiguous, great in bed, and a
    conservative?



    Is there a word that is to "fiction" what "fiction" is to "reality?"


    Other than "wanking?"

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  11. rickmassimo11:33 PM

    "Maybe his flaw is that he drinks too much, or that he once bullied a gay kid."



    You know, something minor.


    Or maybe his flaw is that he THINKS he debates liberals to a standstill when actually he's too stupid to know how stupid he sounds.


    I wonder where I got THAT idea.

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  12. Maybe we're being unfair. Perhaps there are some sterling examples of Judge's ideal conservative man right there on the site. Let's look at some comments:

    Much media aimed at female target audiences is designed to make them feel superior to men and people who think differently than they do. I highly doubt GIRLS will want to puncture the bubble of female delusion when feeding it is so profitable.

    I think Dunham cast these guys to type….her thinking being that if she included any guys that actually have a measurable testosterone level,they would distract from the 4 pathetic subjects of this so called show…the girls themselves

    If I want to see useless self absorbed skanks pretending to be bohemian while being subsidized by daddy I can look out any window in brooklyn or lower manhattan. no need for HBO.



    Ah, Spring! When a young man's fancy turns rancid.

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  13. Spaghetti Lee11:34 PM

    But what actor could we find capable of portraying such a stallion? I think the answer is obvious: Ross Douthat.

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  14. Is there adjective form of "fanfiction"?


    Actually, that's unfair. Most fanfic authors can distinguish their own works from reality.

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  15. Hey, these guys are much too busy writing about television to actually watch any shows.

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  16. According to his bio, Judge is the author of a book entitled A Tremor of Bliss: Sex, Catholicism, and Rock 'n' Roll. But one night at the Social Club meeting, Mary didn't show up...

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  17. I almost wrote the same comment. A couple dozen other regulars are probably gestating it at this moment. Funny how the mind works.

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  18. Maybe his flaw is that he drinks too much, or that he
    once bullied a gay kid.




    yet he's still compassionate and manly? i am confused.

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  19. DocAmazing12:19 AM

    "Delusion"?

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  20. eohippus12:20 AM

    " a male character who is strong, caring, attractive, highly intelligent, sexually unambiguous, great in bed," Shorter fuckface: "Flawless characters make for the MOST interesting kind of fiction and, if I wanted to see a weak, unattractive, sexually confused dipstick, I'd look in the mirror."

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  21. DocAmazing12:28 AM

    Judge not, lest ye be Judged...

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  22. Of course he's still compassionate and manly: it's not like he bullied a real kid, just a gay one.

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  23. MyPetGloat12:32 AM

    I suggest Lena Dunham hire Mark to be on the show. He can play himself. No acting lessons required.

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  24. DocAmazing12:37 AM

    Escapist fiction is better when there's so much to escape from.

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  25. AGoodQuestion12:41 AM

    Adding to the continuing series on conservatives and Lena Dunham/Girls, Mark Judge's self insert fic does bring a new twist. New to me, at least. Not that I'll be too surprised if he made similar suggestions for "Buffy" back in the day. "What if the First Evil was defeated by a confident, attractive, conservative, who then showed Willow what she was missing from a real man?"

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  26. AGoodQuestion12:44 AM

    And if there's anyone who knows about playing make believe while being subsidized by daddy, it's Internet tough guys.

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  27. AGoodQuestion12:53 AM

    I like it. From now on whenever anyone asks him what he does for a living, he can say, "I'm writing a sitcom based on my martyr complex." That should be fair warning.

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  28. Another Kiwi1:03 AM

    Couldn't the Judge character be a motorbike riding tough guy with a complex code of honour. Who rules the hamburger place that all the kids go to. He could wear a leather jacket and say "AAAAAY".
    Just kickin' around some ideas.

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  29. So that's the reason conservatives are so down on Girls! Why, the nerve of that Lena Dunham, making a mint off of Bill Kristol's life story and not paying him one thin dime.

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  30. How about this: a handsome grad student from Fordham who is Catholic,
    articulate, a college football star, compassionate, manly, and can
    debate any liberal to a standstill.



    Now, is he the kind of conservative who goes to liberal dinner parties and devastates everyone there, delivering the coup de grace between the main course and the cheese plate, or is the kind of conservative who goes to liberal dinner parties and spends his time staring in frustrated anger at his soup, too afraid to raise his voice, and then goes home and writes in his blog about all the comebacks he had to those smug libs?

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  31. Also: if the guy is handsome, does that mean that they can accept that Lena Dunham can in fact fuck hot guys?

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  32. RogerAiles1:21 AM

    I'd love to read Dr. Mrs. Ol' Perfesser's thoughts on Girls, but I have the feeling that she makes the Ol' Perfesser not allow her to watch HBO.

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  33. DocAmazing1:29 AM

    L'esprit de l'escared?

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  34. Would be only marginally worse than the actual season 7.

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  35. After his friends shoved that gay kid into a locker, he was sure to shove a PFOX flyer through the slot. It's close enough to compassion for this clique.

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  36. smut clyde2:01 AM

    A different term from "Mary Sue" is required when you're too lazy and inept to write the slashfic with yourself as a character, and complain that successful writers are writing successful scripts when they should be writing scripts that have yourself as a character.

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  37. Just one more comment, and then I really should get to bed - did you know that Acculturated is now a book? It's true! And you should check out the contents - People griping about Facebook and reality TV! Megan McArdle on cooking! An irrelevant piece by Chuck Colson for no reason except to draw in the paleocon dollar! An essay seriously titled "Chick Lit and the Master/Slave Dialectic"! A piece on video games where even the synopsis is so riddled with errors that it's engorging my long-dormant geek glands!

    ...I really shouldn't read this stuff while I'm tired. It's just one more reminder that no matter how much I hone my craft, I'll never have the same connections or opportunities as fucking McArdle.

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  38. Even better, it's an essay seriously titled "Chick Lit and the Master/Slave Dialectic" written by Meghan Cox Gurdon (amusingly misrendered as "Meghan Fox Gurdon" on the contributors' page), who was known in the Silurian days of blogging as "America's Worst Mother". One of her minor masterpieces concluded with one of her children piddling all over her copy of À la recherche du temps perdu. No, I'm not kidding.

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  39. DocAmazing3:18 AM

    Girls subverts meritocracy.

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  40. Pope Zebbidie XIII4:52 AM

    Ponzi?

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  41. zencomix5:41 AM

    The Fordham Catholic woulda made a great Pope, if it wasn't for those meddlesome Girls.

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  42. montag26:17 AM

    So, according to Judge, "Girls" fails because it hasn't invited Mr. Wizard into every plot line?

    Gaw-ud damn, this boy is stoopid. (I'm trying to imagine Judge's "control." It looks a lot like Fred MacMurray in a bow tie and a lab coat. Flubber optional.)

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  43. mommadillo6:37 AM

    "But what if Dunham had written in a male character who is strong, caring, attractive, highly intelligent, sexually unambiguous, great in bed, and a conservative?"

    She's writing scripts for Girls, not Shelley Duvall's Fairie Tale Theater.

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  44. Bill Hicks6:40 AM

    Ms Dunham is trying (quite successfully) to write about real life. Just because a critic like Judge doesn't recognize real life--or even himself--doesn't mean the show is wrong or Ms Dunham has failed. It might well mean he just lives wrapped in denial and delusion. Oddly, a word for that state might be, "conservative." I hope Ms Dunham takes up the challenge. I can't wait to see that Fordham, Catholic prick end up at the end of an episode discovering that his problem is, he's in the closet. Lena can then hook him up with one of her gay boys and the Fordham lad can last be seen sucking a cock as Lena tactfully closes the bedroom door.

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  45. montag26:47 AM

    This moping and whining of Judge's is all of a piece with the recently displayed embarrassment that is John Hawkins. John Hawkins thinks he's the guy Judge is describing, and Judge thinks of himself as a suitably inflatable doll for Lena Dunham to fixate upon.


    "... he drinks too much..." may well be a much more prominent feature in this conservative fantasy than Judge is willing to admit.

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  46. Derelict7:29 AM

    Soory: I think the show already has enough furniture in the sets.

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  47. redoubt7:58 AM

    what if Dunham had written in a male character who is strong, caring,
    attractive, highly intelligent, sexually unambiguous, great in bed, and a
    conservative?

    And a Fordham football star?
    Gark Javert Mudge's "Gary Sue" is probably studying for the priesthood. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, and he's probably great in bed, but not with girls. Or Girls.)

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  48. The cluelessness about how comedy works is pretty mind-boggling. I agree with him in theory that shows with lots of kooky characters should have one or two "normies" in the bunch, because they act as a grounding force. (The characters of Dave, and to a lesser extent, Lisa, on Newsradio served that role beautifully.)But he's not talking about creating a "normie," he's talking about creating a "default white male who will show those bitches what-for." That's a completely different thing.

    And once again, lost in all this is the recognition that all the dysfunction which he finds so distasteful is precisely what makes this show--and any decent comedy--funny.

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  49. Cargo8:49 AM

    So when you finally give up and unfriend your wingnut acquaintance or family member on Facebook, he thinks "Hah! I won!"

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  50. The sheer numbers of marriages stemming from connections made on
    eHarmony, Match.com, JDate.com, or EbonyFriends.com seem to offer
    undeniable proof: these services work. If you log in to find love, get
    married, and do it now, online dating may be the fastest,
    surest, most dependable way to do so. Yet, Basham suggests, this
    efficiency is not without cultural costs. Such businesslike transactions
    seem altogether antithetical to the very idea of romance.



    These people really don't hesitate to write entire essays about things they don't know the first thing about.

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  51. mortimer8:51 AM

    Maybe his flaw is that he drinks too much, or that he once bullied a gay kid.

    I'm guessing the flaw isn't that he bullied a gay kid, it's that he only did it once. Given Judge's wingnut worldview, it's the only reading that makes sense.

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  52. Mr. Wonderful8:52 AM

    Worse--that it constitutes *cowardice* not to do so. Shorter Judge: True artistic courage entails you writing my fantasy.

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  53. Mr. Wonderful9:06 AM

    D00d, it says Acculturated, not Asciencerated. More proof, as if any were needed, that conservatives don't know what art, culture, or fiction are. Here our exemplar is bitching because a comedy script fails to follow proper lab procedure. Mark's next post: "The Simpson's Baby Has Failed to Age in Over Twenty Years: An Expose."

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  54. Aimai9:08 AM

    Don't you mean " play with himself"?

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  55. "a male character who is strong, caring, attractive, highly intelligent, sexually unambiguous, great in bed, and a conservative"

    They could call him Edward: http://theoatmeal.com/story/twilight ;)

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  56. wileywitch9:18 AM

    I knew that self-crucification kit (buy now and get a Crown of Thorns FREE!) would have been a top-seller!

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  57. mortimer9:25 AM

    A sexually unambiguous conservative? Like, "Jonah Goldberg is clearly a dick" or "Without a doubt, Scott Walker sucks Koch like there's no tomorrow" or pretty much any sentence with the word Santorum?

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  58. I was wondering why season 2 of Girls was so scattershot and inconsistent, and I think I figured it out - Dunham is just trolling at this point, writing in odd fuck-buddies to annoy the Acculturatniks. The 'black conservative', the 'hot older white doctor', the 'teen Emo Phillips'. I'm not sure about the last one, though maybe it has something to do with anti-vax/autism crowd.

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  59. calling all toasters9:46 AM

    Poochie?

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  60. calling all toasters9:51 AM

    "and can debate any liberal to a standstill."

    Don't tell him that it's actually a faked paralysis to lure an opponent into simply going away.

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  61. glennisw10:13 AM

    I'm seeing a great scene with him on waterskis.....

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  62. DocAmazing10:15 AM

    Mary Or I'll Sue?

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  63. tigrismus10:17 AM

    But what if Dunham had written in a male character who is strong, caring, attractive, highly intelligent, sexually unambiguous, great in bed, and a conservative?...

    What, is your hand broken?

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  64. John D.10:18 AM

    Nobody's preventing Judge from writing his own fanfiction and posting it online, am I correct? The Free Market at work!

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  65. Wish I knew guy like that.

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  66. "A different term from Mary Sue is required..."


    Uh..."pathetic"?

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  67. Except for the Catholic part and the drinking too much as a loveable flaw this guy is clearly lusting after Mitt Romney, isn't he?

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  68. I met Mr. Aimai through the dead tree personals in a free newspaper about 21 years ago. Ah... memories.

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  69. The problem he'd have is that if he insists on writing a sex pot into his tv show in order for his Marty Stu to get some trim, he's going to run up against the basic conflict that this version of "Bridget Loves Bernie" or "The Odd Couple" or "Green Acres" or the short lived sit com about the liberal journalist married to the military asshole presupposes that the "Conservative Catholic Guy" be as wedded to abstinence before marriage as his liberal hot girlfriend is to subverting his sexual purity and stealing his essence.


    I mean: "Seduced by Eve" would make a great title for pre-priesthood slashfic but its going to make for a seriously uncomfortable tv series from the point of view of normal people.


    Scene: Our Hero invites his hot, sexy, uninhibited but sweet next door neighbor to see him play in his hot, sexy, but chaste football game and has to rescue her from being raped by her [black] [gay]hipster friends behind the stands during the halftime? She throws her arms around him in passionate gratitude and then he gently removes her arms from around his neck and says: "This is what you get for dressing like a slut. You don't see my sisters, who are all members of the Legion of Christ, being attacked under the bleachers do you?" Close up on her puzzled face as she fails to achieve orgasm and realizes (for this week) the error of her ways.

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  70. "from Fordham who is Catholic, articulate, a college football star''



    A college football star from Fordham? I thought "Girls'' was a contemporary comedy-drama. Is it based in the 1930s? Was this imaginary new character a member of the Seven Blocks of Granite with Vince Lombardi or something? The Rams haven't had a football star since Christ was a corporal. How come this masculine, manful, manly man making the suggestion knows nothing about football?,

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  71. Slocum10:48 AM

    You had me at "hamartia."

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  72. I have to say that "hamartia" is a word I never encountered before and when I googled it I fell in love, too. Knew the concept but not the word. Here's the link to the wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamartia


    I'd also like to add, trivially, that hamartia came up in the last episode/series finale of Leverage and considering that it was written by John Rogers of Kung Fu Monkey I'm wondering whether that was intended. I mean, they didn't use the word but they rather implied that the scheme in the final ep. went wrong because of the hero (Nate's) Hamartia/miscalculation/fatal choice at one and only one point because of one and only one personality flaw.

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  73. marindenver11:00 AM

    I have to admit I haven't watched Girls but I'm guessing that young Ross has already been the inspiration for more than one male character

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  74. Just a little strained, I imagine.

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  75. XeckyGilchrist11:22 AM

    No, but it needs a shave.

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  76. AngryWarthogBreath11:41 AM

    See, I get that he's going for a particular fantasy, he wants his Mary Sue to have sex with Lena Dunham, but one thing I don't think has been brought up enough is that the idea just doesn't fit the show.

    "The girls in Girls are frustrated because the guys they date are either passive, psychotic, pretentious, degrading, or plain old losers."


    Mission statement! That might have been the elevator pitch for the show!

    "But what if Dunham had written in a male character who is strong, caring, attractive, highly intelligent, sexually unambiguous, great in bed, and a conservative?""



    What if Dunham had written in a clique of sword-wielding vampire warlocks, travelling back in time from the devastated post-apocalyptic future to kill the ancestors of a current resistance movement? It'd be like Buffy meets Terminator. It'd also have nothing to do with the show as it stands, but it would make me more likely to watch it, as long as they had a relateable lead and some snappy dialogue. (I like Whedon's "pop culture reference, misspoken word, cute cynicism, that's a wrap" style, sue me.)


    It's endemic to Mary Sues. They always derail the plot. The thing is, Mark, if you keep your Mary Sue in fanfiction, the executives and editors can't screw with him at all! He could fight and defeat Sephiroth AND Batman simultaneously! And we wouldn't have to hear about him! Wouldn't that be an even greater victory for the conservative cause?


    (Sephiroth is an enemy of the conservative cause because of all the gay fanfiction about him. Batman, same reason.)

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  77. j_bird11:46 AM

    I'm sure Judge is thinking of a cool handsome Fordham graduate student friend who stops by and, simply by opening his mouth and saying something "normal", proves to all the characters and viewers what losers all the weirdos in Hannah's apartment are.

    AHAHAHA! Because art is best when the bad weird guys get their comeuppance and the normal guys win!

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  78. FlipYrWhig11:49 AM

    Rupert Pupkin?

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  79. JennOfArk11:57 AM

    Eh, whatever. While the conservatives continue obsessing over Girls, I'll be pitching my idea for a new TLC reality series that will REALLY appeal to the Republican base all these mental masturbation aficionados claim to represent. It's going to be called Alabama Skanks and it's about, well, just that. If that doesn't fly, we'll go with Lot Lizards, a series about truck-stop prostitutes, or else Talladega Coozes, about trashy redneck girls who hang out at the track and pick up trashy redneck men. Any or all of these are guaranteed to be a smash hit in the Bible belt states.


    I'm gonna be rich, I tells ya.

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  80. Yeah, I miss Dragnet too.

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  81. Uncle Kvetch12:06 PM

    Megan McArdle on cooking!



    What, a list of "The Five Most Conservative Seasonings"?

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  82. Uncle Kvetch12:06 PM

    Megan McArdle on cooking!

    What, a list of "The Five Most Conservative Seasonings"?

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  83. KatWillow12:06 PM

    Being a drunken bully is just a "flaw"?

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  84. He's the kind of conservative who agonizes over the rightness of his ideas until their truth is confirmed through an interaction with a genuine member of the working class, located in the driver's seat of a taxicab.

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  85. KatWillow12:09 PM

    My conservative Dad used to do that. When we liberal kids were completely silenced, stunned, by some idiotically awful thing he'd say, he exclaim: "I got your goat! BAA-AAAA!" in triumph. Well, okay, then.

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  86. Shorter Gark 'Javreau' Mudge: "Girls" would be better if it wasn't about girls.

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  87. Guestington P. Gorcestershire12:13 PM

    "...can debate any liberal to a standstill."
    And that's all that's required, because "standstill" is the sole motivating principle of today's Republican Party.

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  88. KatWillow12:16 PM

    Mr. Willow asked me out via email. The subject line: "Will you be my Valentine?" I had a spasm of terror, thinking it was the creepy "conservative" guy in the office whom I dated ONCE out of pity (it was his birthday). Ah, memories. Almost 20 years ago.

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  89. KatWillow12:17 PM

    Several "likes" for that. 1) salt 2) ??? not pepper, surely?

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  90. sharculese12:17 PM

    Yeah, Judge is clearly still bitter that the public didn't find Romney's prep school antics as hilarious as he did.

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  91. She's trolling everybody. She's trolling everybody almost in real time. Look, more people write about Girls than have ever watched Girls. It's nothing, it's just noise and image masquerading as a product of culture. The fact that people are capable of having an opinion about it, and the fact that Dunham has a multimillion dollar deal on a book that is even in its gestation a transparent piece of shit is just further proof that there are lots and lots of suckers out there.

    Stop thinking about this show, seriously, even if conservatives claim to be offended by it.

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  92. TomParmenter12:30 PM

    Indeed, Frankie Frisch the Fordham Flash was a baseball player. Fordham is best known for turning out FBI agents.

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  93. DocAmazing12:32 PM

    Well, it worked for Mickey Kaus...

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  94. tigrismus12:42 PM

    As his hypothetical "she should write what I want" shows the usual lack of understanding of consent, I'm guessing the hand has a re-straining order.

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  95. Jay B.12:45 PM

    Does Guest know you stole his bit?

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  96. Jay B.12:51 PM

    The girls in Girls are frustrated because the guys they date are either passive, psychotic, pretentious, degrading, or plain old losers.


    I'm sure in Guys, the guys all talk about their fulfilling love lives with their attractive, smart (but not too smart!), unthreatening and level headed partner. Who also happened to be a college soccer star at Humboldt State and dishes killer weed.

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  97. sharculese12:55 PM

    Hey, you know how America love them some Patriot League football.

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  98. sharculese1:03 PM

    They did basically that plotline on Nashville: Hayden Panettiere's sexpot country star gets together with the hot young quarterback for the Titans, a devoutly Christian mama's boy who 'respects any woman too much to sleep with her outside the confines of marriage,' who she pressures constantly with her slutty, heathen ways. Fortunately, they realized Tim Tebow Jr. (he was even underperforming as a pro, in case the parallels were too subtle) was too shitty of a character even for Nashvile, and they wrote him out.

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  99. mgmonklewis1:05 PM

    He idolizes Stanley Kowalski?

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  100. sharculese1:09 PM

    Actually y'know what, I think this is a great idea. Girls should totally try an episode where a hot, brilliant conservative dude inexplicably hangs around and they can't resist him because he's just too perfect.

    Then in the final scenes, he gets totally plastered and starts pushing around some gay dude because that's hilarious amirite guys. And everyone realizes he was just a dick the whole time, and he's left alone and not understanding what he did wrong.



    I'm sure Judge would fucking love that.

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  101. sharculese1:13 PM

    Chuck Colson on forgiveness is something that's just too perfect to be real.

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  102. Uncle Kvetch1:14 PM

    Oh, I think white pepper might pass.

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  103. redoubt1:20 PM

    I think that Father Andrew Greeley has already covered that ground. . .but they really, really don't want to know what he thinks about them.

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  104. sharculese1:21 PM

    From the book description: "As the title suggests, readers will find in these pages “A-Culture Rated.”

    Christ, they can't go two seconds without reminding you that they think they're stooping to conquer.



    Y'know, there are a million websites where earnest young television junkies will give you an episode-by-episode breakdown of just about everything on. Why they think anyone would pay to have a bunch of out-of-touch dorklords peer down their noses at the same thing is beyond me.

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  105. maurinsky1:23 PM

    Sounds like Gark would like to write some Girls fanfiction.

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  106. Ouch, that's gonna leave a mark...

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  107. I really did think you were kidding. Well, I can't say you didn't warn me.

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  108. sharculese1:35 PM

    Holy moly, this wingnut Gary Stu really puts the 'fireworks' in 'when are they gonna get to the fireworks factory?'!

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  109. redoubt1:43 PM

    He can't get out of his own way. If he could think he would have made Gary Sue a lacrosse player. (This way he could be "macho" and white.)

    ReplyDelete
  110. aimai1:43 PM

    I should say, of course, that this is basically the plot of The Thornbirds, IIRC. But we must forgive Colleen McCollough for writing Papal Slashfic because she also wrote Masters of Rome which was not at all BDSMy despite the title.

    ReplyDelete
  111. aimai1:45 PM

    To use the hollywood terminology "This character was a on journey that did not include a climax, so we decided what was the point?"

    ReplyDelete
  112. aimai1:45 PM

    Everybody gets a hug, I mean an upvote, for this volley.

    ReplyDelete
  113. aimai1:47 PM

    Well, if you think she needs white pepper because: Racism what do you think she is representing with pink salt?

    ReplyDelete
  114. He'd have to tread carefully; Meyers made a bazillion dollars off that tripe, so you just know she's got some cold-blooded, pipe-hittin' lawyers ready to pounce on that shit like wolves.
    Also, too: thank you for reminding me of one of my favorite Oatmeal comics.

    ReplyDelete
  115. No, it's black pepper. It's traditional and it proves that they're not racist.

    ReplyDelete
  116. aimai1:48 PM

    20 years ago: when men were men. Since then, according to duToit etc apparently its all been downhill for the whole sex.

    ReplyDelete
  117. redoubt1:48 PM

    Wiki-trivia tidbit: Walter O'Malley, Geraldine Ferraro--and G. Gordon Liddy--all went to Fordham Law School.

    ReplyDelete
  118. aimai1:52 PM

    I'm wondering whether he's compassionate when he's sober, or only when he's been drinking. That would make an interesting plot point. Ditto for his manliness and his catholicism. Is he some kind of alcoholic/bipolar liberal/conservative mix?

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  119. MikeJ1:54 PM

    "But what if Dunham had written in a male character who is strong, caring, attractive, highly intelligent, sexually unambiguous, great in bed, and a conservative?"

    This points out why so called conservatives believe that all of pop culture is an attack on them. The only thing that matters to them about a character is "is he conservative?" From that point on, the character is automatically heroic. Any flaws that the character might have to make the show more interesting is an attack on conservatism itself.

    It is literally impossible to write a conservative character into any form of entertainment and meet the conflicting goals of pleasing conservatives and being entertaining.

    ReplyDelete
  120. Look, Gark, here's the thing: Everyone Masturbates. Everyone. There's no shame in it. It's fun, free, and harmless. Unless you do it in public. Then everyone else gets to point and laugh...

    ReplyDelete
  121. XeckyGilchrist1:56 PM

    And who now lives in Canada.

    ReplyDelete
  122. Howlin Wolfe1:57 PM

    "I wonder where I got THAT idea"
    I don't know, either Dunning or Krueger.

    ReplyDelete
  123. That's the thing - none of the conservatives whining about the show seem to understand why it's like that. I've never seen Girls, and my suspicion is that I wouldn't like it, but I get it - it's a slice-of-life show about a bunch of disillusioned women in New York. That's not a complicated concept, and there's been no shortage of shows like it over the past 25 years.


    Maybe there's something different about this particular show that makes it such a hang-up for culture cons. But the only reoccurring complaint is that Girls is not conservative agitprop. It's like they can't fathom the existence of a television program that's not about politics.


    I have a recommendation for the people at Acculturated. Rather than spending all your time digging for political meaning in pop culture, why not put that energy to some productive use? Get some money together - no shortage of sources on your side of the aisle. Buy or rent a decent prosumer camera and an audio rig. Shoot a five-minute sitcom with your friends and upload it to a video sharing site. Then, embed that video into your site and use it as a demo reel. And suddenly, instead of just obsessing about culture, you're actually contributing to it.


    Seriously, if the spazzy nerds I run with can manage this, you guys can, too.

    ReplyDelete
  124. There's a masochistic part of me that actually wants to read this thing. I tracked down one essay, written by the Acculturated "editor," which she posted in full. 2400 words, all to reach the conclusion that Lady Gaga is popular because she's provocative. As tedious as it was, it does make me wonder what these goobers might come up with re: Facebook or video games or songwriting. For an aficionado of bad literature, this thing could be a gold mine.

    ReplyDelete
  125. sharculese2:08 PM

    So... a Girls/Archer crossover? I would watch that.

    ReplyDelete
  126. Gromet2:22 PM

    "But what if Dunham had written in a male character who is strong,
    caring, attractive, highly intelligent, sexually unambiguous, great in
    bed, and a conservative?" Uh, I can tell you what: Okay, his first 2 episodes, he's got quirks -- a Romney magnet on his fridge, he brings her to church after a Saturday night of sex, at a party he argues in favor of waterboarding -- Lena says, "Welllll, but he's so goodlooking and smart!" Then, in his 3rd episode, he refuses to attend some other character's gay marriage, and he gets a job campaigning for an anti-choice, tough-on-immigrants, defund-the-arts politician. Finally Lena and all the other 20something New Yorkers deem him way too gross to carry on with, and he is dumped as a massively wrong turn in life. He is only ever referred to once more, when one of the other characters says to Lena in anger, "Well at least I never dated Robert Bork Junior." Hmm. "Skinny Rush Limbaugh"? Okay, the last line needs work. But there you go, Gark.

    ReplyDelete
  127. Uncle Kvetch2:33 PM

    Fuck Disqus.


    That is all.

    ReplyDelete
  128. sharculese2:34 PM

    Alex P. Cretin

    ReplyDelete
  129. aimai2:38 PM

    I would like to have a lifetime of reruns on Nick at Night with this comment.

    ReplyDelete
  130. aimai2:43 PM

    This gets to the heart of the matter: who is the show for? He seems to think its called "Girls" as in "hot lesbian sex girls" or, as a friend of mine once sapiently observed about the seemingly permanent role assigned to lesbian sex scenes in male oriented porn "More for me!" But its not, is it? The market for the entire thing is women viewers. So their need--whether for realism (sad trombone sound here) or fantasy wish fulfillment (alien sex god with unlimited wealth inexplicaby chooses fat girl with glasses to rule the world and she falls into his arms, arms, arms as Sylvia would have it)--must rule the writing.


    I never watched more than one episode of Sex and the City but as I understand it certain characters (Mr. Big?) fulfilled part of the masculine Mary Sue function. I believe he was wealthy, well endowed, etc... but he was permanently unavailable and not altogether perfect. Why? Because if he were she'd have married him and stopped having adventures. That's why (generally speaking) ever since "Reader, I married him" most books end with the wedding. If you find out what happens after you are doomed to dissapointment.

    ReplyDelete
  131. aimai2:47 PM

    I would have read it as ACK-ulturated with the sound of bill the cat spitting up a furball. But maybe that's just me.

    ReplyDelete
  132. scottclevenger2:53 PM

    Conservatives don't believe in the Scientific Principle, except when it comes to Art.

    ReplyDelete
  133. satch2:56 PM

    I thought Judge's idea of a "control" would be something like a 22 year old version of Phyllis Schafly.

    ReplyDelete
  134. Jay B.3:05 PM

    Come on. It was twice as good.

    ReplyDelete
  135. satch3:06 PM

    Judge is going to have to duke it out with Nick Gillespie for for the rights to that particular fictional character.

    ReplyDelete
  136. satch3:08 PM

    Well, pink salt definitely doesn't qualify as a conservative seasoning...

    ReplyDelete
  137. satch3:13 PM

    Then she would have had to write a female character based on "Sr." Elizabeth Scalia to go with him, rendering the "great in bed" part irrelevant.

    ReplyDelete
  138. Anonymous3:26 PM

    wonderful points altogether, you just received a emblem new reader.
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    ReplyDelete
  139. coozledad3:26 PM

    I'm in. And i'm not that far from the racetrack.

    ReplyDelete
  140. In the same sense that pimps turn out 16-year-old runaways from Kansas?

    ReplyDelete
  141. The thing that interests me is that Girls covered this at least in a way already. I have watched all of it so far, and I like it (different strokes and all that). At the start of season 2 Hannah's (Lena Dunham) new boyfriend is a black guy I will call Donald (played by Donald Glover of Community). He is a conservative, and he does get in an argument with her gay friend. They split up within a couple of episodes. I thought it was interesting how she handled it, since it's not exactly because he's a dick, which he is, but part of it is just Hannah throwing him aside without a very good reason because she's being unfair, really.
    So in other words, it was handled in a realistic way, the way real people would probably behave, therefore beyond the ability of conservatives to grok.

    ReplyDelete
  142. montag24:27 PM

    This scene would inevitably be followed by a walk-on by Bishop Fulton Sheen to explain the moral of the story.

    ReplyDelete
  143. smut clyde4:31 PM

    I met the Frau Doktorin when I volunteered as a guinea-pig in a drugs trial she was running. We didn't have on-line drugs trials in those days.

    ReplyDelete
  144. Baron Elmo4:47 PM

    You guys should post some of this comedy gold at Judge's site, seriously. Here's my contribution:

    I don't know which amuses me more: all the fevered carrying-on about the political affiliations of characters in a situation comedy, or Mr. Judge's assessment that all the show needs to give it merit is a shining example of The Perfect Man, who (how could it be otherwise?) is conservative.

    Personally, I find Mark's conception of conservative manhood unconvincing at best. Is this really supposed to be a representative sample of the Big Apple right-winger -- "strong, caring, attractive, highly intelligent, sexually unambiguous, great in bed...?" Why didn't he make him a gourmet cook who dances like a young Fred Astaire while he was at it?

    Here's my idea of a good conservative character for Girls: Woodrow, a young stockbroker transplanted from the Deep South with an MBA from Old Miss, who listens to the entire Rush Limbaugh show in his office every day ("cause it bugs the libs") tells panhandlers "Get a job, moocher," gripes endlessly about having a black woman for his boss, leaves religious tracts for tips, snickers "Lookit the fags," when passing gay bars, and regularly tells Lena and her friends that they are "tramps" and doomed to eternal hellfire in his cheerful Tupelo twang.

    My character is no more realistic then Mr. Judge's... but he's considerably more entertaining.

    ReplyDelete
  145. JennOfArk5:11 PM

    Or shorter Gark:

    "There are a couple of directions Dunham could have taken to give a stronger structure to the story. She could have written in a male character who is strong, caring, attractive, highly intelligent, sexually unambiguous, great in bed, and a conservative... a handsome grad student from Fordham who is Catholic, articulate, a college football star, compassionate, manly, and can debate any liberal to a standstill. Maybe his flaw is that he drinks too much, or that he once bullied a gay kid.

    The other storyline, of course, involves orcs.”

    ReplyDelete
  146. LookWhosInTheFreezer5:15 PM

    He'll need some gay bullying lessons from Tucker Carlson first.

    ReplyDelete
  147. LookWhosInTheFreezer5:24 PM

    Shorter Judge: if only you girls would have given the Young Republicans a chance, back in college....

    ReplyDelete
  148. JennOfArk5:29 PM

    Does this mean you're volunteering to scout the talent?

    ReplyDelete
  149. Jay B.5:51 PM

    Absolutely. Gark's fever dreams aside, Girls, a show I've never seen and never cared about at all, seems obviously about single girls on the make in NYC, trying to figure out their future while having relationships.

    Having lived in New York — on the other gender side, during my single guy on the make period — the idea that you sit around talking about the insanity and insane people in your life (and whom you might even be fucking) seems pretty spot on to me.


    And the thing is they weren't abnormal people, it's just that people are, over all, fucked up or quirky, or somehow complex, especially within the framework of human interactions. We are often unpredictable creatures with diverse and ever-evolving priorities, needs and hang ups. It's the very basis of drama and life too. The nearly-perfect conservahunk with a slight drinking problem? Jesus, he's already wallpaper, the thing you escape from. The first boyfriend, or the high school sweetheart you ditched to pursue your dreams in the big city.



    These fucking gimps are even boring in their fantasy lives.

    ReplyDelete
  150. smut clyde5:51 PM

    "Busman's Holiday" wasn't that bad.

    ReplyDelete
  151. coozledad5:57 PM

    Too old. But I'll audition for the part of "Fireball', a lovably addled pit crew boss and former driver who washed out of the late-model circuit after he developed a particularly bad case of chlamydia. He dies horribly on just about every episode.

    And just for clarification, I'm not near Talledega, but the Virginia International Raceway. It's a place for idiots to drive their Porsches and BMWs at high speeds. Amazingly, I haven't seen a death chopper come to fetch one or a group of them away yet.

    ReplyDelete
  152. KatWillow6:36 PM

    a male character who is strong, caring, attractive, highly intelligent, sexually unambiguous, great in bed Hawkeye Pierce?

    ReplyDelete
  153. KatWillow6:39 PM

    Husbands are very useful that way.

    ReplyDelete
  154. The other storyline, of course, involves orcs.”

    CPAC is next week. Now with less Pammy!

    ~

    ReplyDelete
  155. AGoodQuestion6:42 PM

    Two Fonzies enter, one freedom leaves.

    ReplyDelete
  156. KatWillow6:44 PM

    Its everywhere these days. TJMaxx has a "gromet" (gourmet) food section, and its stuffed with EXTRA virgin olive oil, pink salt, green olives stuffed with garlic, and other fascinating, posh "food items".

    ReplyDelete
  157. KatWillow6:49 PM

    I often thought of the "normals" in various tv shows as being "enablers". Without their stabilizing presence the others might spin out of control.

    ReplyDelete
  158. AGoodQuestion6:53 PM

    The NewsRadio citation is worth an upvote in itself. And you're right. Judge thinks that comedy should belong to nice, normal people, given a non-functioning definition of "nice."

    ReplyDelete
  159. aimai6:55 PM

    Ok, you've got me beat.

    ReplyDelete
  160. Dr. Hyde and Mr. Jekyll

    ReplyDelete
  161. aimai6:56 PM

    Well, to be fair, I think that stuff is there because its literally past its sell by date.

    ReplyDelete
  162. aimai6:58 PM

    You also need "normals" for any show in which the hero/heroine is representing him/herself as an outsider. I mean, lets face it, you can't have any "my secret life" or things like that without a sense of cohort induced anomie. Or The Riches.

    ReplyDelete
  163. aimai7:00 PM

    Isn't that part played by Morgan Freeman, who painstakingly handwrites out the heavy handed narration the begins and ends the show?

    ReplyDelete
  164. AGoodQuestion7:00 PM

    Were they the fun kind of drugs? I mean, we've all thought about marrying a girl who can get us high, but how many get the chance?

    ReplyDelete
  165. wileywitch7:04 PM

    I always thought that was a weird expression.

    ReplyDelete
  166. AGoodQuestion7:09 PM

    snickers "Lookit the fags," when passing gay bars


    Until the shocking season finale. Hint: "wide stance."

    ReplyDelete
  167. wileywitch7:11 PM

    I met my sidekick in 3-d at a house where we were both rooming. Sometimes we e-mail things to each other while we're in the house together. For some reason, we think it's funny.

    ReplyDelete
  168. coozledad7:12 PM

    It'd be great to get him on board. Did he play football at Fordham?

    ReplyDelete
  169. wileywitch7:12 PM

    So did you start out with medication or a placebo?

    ReplyDelete
  170. aimai7:13 PM

    I'm dating myself horribly but Elsie Lee a romance novelist who tried her hand at everything from suspense to gothic to regency wrote a highly sexed up novel of a bunch of single girls living in New York, supporting themselves largely by having sex with guys and getting them to pay for the booze and smokes and other appurtanences of the high life as well as glamorous evenings out--and this was in the fifties. Of course the heroine and the "nice" girls in the apartment ended up being "rewarded" by actually marrying their marks and the bitchy french older woman whose apartment it was got dumped but isn't that a perfect reflection of the world that Gark Judge thinks we should live in? The problem he's having is the sneaking fear that the girls will never learn the error of their ways and settle down with tha tnice guy from Fordham and let him hold their sexy pasts against them.

    ReplyDelete
  171. aimai7:14 PM

    Point taken. And well done. I believe Harriet makes fun of Peter using the phrase "Oh, Mr. Rochester" when he gives her an expensive wedding trousseau gift.

    ReplyDelete
  172. aimai7:17 PM

    I knew there was basically a similarity between Nice Guys (tm) and Asshole Conservative Misogynists (tm) but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Well, I didn't want to put my finger on it.

    ReplyDelete
  173. wileywitch7:25 PM

    "...default white male who will show those bitches what-for"

    Uh huh. I just looked her up. She was "the first woman ever to win a Directors Guild Award for Outstanding Director in a Comedy Series" for an award winning television show that she created, writes, directs, and acts in. Clearly, she needs a conservative man to tell her how to do things.

    Clueless jack-asses. The default man doesn't see how anything that doesn't flatter and please him can be good, because that's what the world is for--- him. He is the arbiter of all that is worthy.

    ReplyDelete
  174. Halloween_Jack7:26 PM

    Not a fan, then?

    ReplyDelete
  175. Halloween_Jack7:45 PM

    Coincidentally, I just finished watching the complete run of Daria, the MTV cartoon, and in the last couple of seasons she starts dating this guy Tom, who is strong, caring, attractive, highly intelligent, sexually unambiguous, compassionate... and not conservative, although from a wealthy family. And, honestly, he's not that interesting of a character, as he's there mostly for Daria to work out her intimacy and trust issues. The series overall was very good, but also very much centered on the female characters, and Mudge probably would have therefore hated it. (Also, the football player is a moron who gets held back a grade.)

    ReplyDelete
  176. D. Sidhe7:58 PM

    "What if Dunham had written in a clique of sword-wielding vampire
    warlocks, travelling back in time from the devastated post-apocalyptic
    future to kill the ancestors of a current resistance movement?"

    Well, for one thing I'd be watching it when my partner has it on. As long as it had dinosaurs or aliens or something, anyway. Maybe giant whip scorpions from Pluto.

    ReplyDelete
  177. D. Sidhe8:08 PM

    I'd like to filibuster this comment until it begs for cloture.

    ReplyDelete
  178. M. Krebs8:18 PM

    Stop thinking about this show, seriously, even if conservatives claim to be offended by it.



    Bravo, sir. Bravo.

    ReplyDelete
  179. M. Krebs8:27 PM

    Geez... What's up with all the 200 comment threads these days? It can't be Disqus, can it? Maybe it was B&W photo of the two dudes on the steps that made people shy before. Or perhaps the Quotomatic Selector was a little intimidating.

    ReplyDelete
  180. LittlePig8:47 PM

    Perhaps both...

    ReplyDelete
  181. LittlePig8:49 PM

    and can
    debate any liberal to a standstill.



    Yeah, well, I'll still take the Orcs.

    ReplyDelete
  182. LittlePig8:50 PM

    Stan Lee just got a great idea....

    ReplyDelete
  183. TGuerrant8:53 PM

    I'm just going to sit here waiting for Taylor Swift to write a song about me. Too bad for you, Mark.

    ReplyDelete
  184. BigHank539:00 PM

    I stole my best friend's fiance. Well, that's what he accused me of, anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  185. LittlePig9:01 PM

    Maybe giant whip scorpions from Pluto.

    Now, now, let's be locale-appropriate. Giant Helium II Whip Scorpions from Pluto.

    ReplyDelete
  186. sharculese9:09 PM

    There's not even a whiny ass troll in this one or anything!

    ReplyDelete
  187. LittlePig9:11 PM

    Wallace libel!

    ReplyDelete
  188. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard10:02 PM

    Goddamn, Judge is just another rightie moocher. He is whining because Lena Dunham won't write his perfect "Gary Stu" character into her series. Why can't he roll up his sleeves and write and market his own T.V. show? Lena Dunham owes him nothing.

    ReplyDelete
  189. I want to have carnal knowledge with this comment, across the arbitrary species line.

    ReplyDelete
  190. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard10:23 PM

    It's already written:


    "T. Guerrant, you twee pissant,
    I'm going to dump you at the Grammys.
    Run to your mammy, go soil your jammies,
    Then take a faulty bus to Alabammy."


    Sure, it needs work, but it's better than "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together".

    ReplyDelete
  191. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard10:23 PM

    Mary Stu by proxy...

    ReplyDelete
  192. XeckyGilchrist11:07 PM

    the football player is a moron who gets held back a grade.


    But his girlfriend is obedient and has huge knockers, so the important stuff is taken care of from the conservative POV.

    ReplyDelete
  193. billcinsd11:11 PM

    her pink secrets with which she killed a national treasure

    ReplyDelete
  194. billcinsd11:19 PM

    unused drama scholarship to Jackson State

    ReplyDelete
  195. Orcs have better table manners.

    ReplyDelete
  196. But what if Dunham had written in a male character who is strong, caring, attractive, highly intelligent, sexually unambiguous, great in bed, and a conservative?...

    (sings) One of these things is not like the other, one of these things doesn't belong...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ect-kgxBb4M

    ReplyDelete
  197. I'm totally on-board with the time-traveling vampire warlocks thing. The episode where they fight Mecha Hitler after flying the Space Shuttle to the Moon to destroy the Kenyan Nazi breeding labs and then have hot 3-way sexytime with the "Ilsa The Nazi She-Wolf" clones will be my favorite.

    ReplyDelete
  198. No fair! Your comment got past the moderators over there, and mine didn't! I didn't even say Fuck this time, and I left his Mom out of it. Fuggin' prudes...

    ReplyDelete