Life Imitates 'South Park'
"After the TV show Queer Eye for the Straight Guy begins showing, metrosexuality becomes a major fad among both the men and the boys, and they all begin to act effeminate. At the school bus stop, instead of their usual winter clothing, Stan, Cartman, and Kenny wear unmasculine clothing. Kyle, who does not want to conform, is beaten up by a metrosexual gang at school. Mr. Garrison and Mr. Slave, the town's gay couple, are opposed to the fad since they feel that the gay culture should be unique to gays. The women of the town are initially in favor of their husbands' improved hygiene and willingness to communicate, but soon tire of the men becoming increasingly self-absorbed."--Wikipedia.org summary of "South Park Is Gay!," aired Oct. 22, 2003
"Booker OK With Speculation That He's Gay: 'So What Does It Matter if I Am?' "--TalkingPointsMemo.com, Aug. 27, 2013Haw, see it's funny because... uh... 'cuz fags.
Historically in the world of comedy, there's no laugh too cheap to get -- cf. Albert Brooks,"I tell you one thing, when he said ‘shit,’ I almost died!" But when you don't even bother to construct a joke because you know your audience will go for anything Politically Incorrect, you may have actually created a frontier.
That whole 'metrosexual fearfearfear" thing I never understood. I am without a doubt quite rough around the edges - doesn't mean I don't want to impress-romance my wife once in a while.
ReplyDeleteAnd I guarantee you, on his off days, Taranto does not lie around in BDUs and a wife-beater eating cheetos. Dickweed.
Taranto shares the sad trait of revealing much more about himself than about the purported subject (or object) of his juvenile snickering so common among rightwingers.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, do they not get that every time they give in to their ids they reveal how gibberingly terrified they are that they're not manly enough? Smarter people would have long ago gotten the clue that maybe the reason for their insecurity about their masculinity is that they have a fucked up notion of what constitutes manliness.
Straight men be walkin' like dis, gay,.... I can't even finish it. Taranto is dumber than words can adequatly express. And I have words at my disposal that no one has ever even HEARD of!
ReplyDeleteThat guy Lonegan who's running against Booker seems like a Todd Akin-style turd. I think he'll be good for a few dumbass GOP lizard brain moments over the next few months.
ReplyDeleteGay marriage has been legalized in six or so states over the last four years, the first gay pro athlete came out a few months ago, half to a little over half of the public supports gay marriage, and the GOP's strategy for defeating Booker is apparently going to be 'he's a big ol' queer. Vote Republican.' Their sense of timing, as always, is impeccable.
He literally cannot comprehend the idea that a person wouldn't be
ReplyDeletehorrified and outraged if someone mistakenly thought them gay. Like,
holy shit dude, chill out.
I like the main part of the article, which argues that we don't need the Voting Rights Act anymore because all that racism stuff was a long time ago, and now racism is dead, as dead as Trayvon Martin.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I can't wait for one of Taranto's famous "HA HA HA" tweets linking to this story of the Republican political candidate and Post-Racial American in Maine who posted a photo of Obama with a link to a story about impeaching the president. He also wrote "Shoot the Nigger" above it, but he say's not at all racist.
ReplyDeleteHistorians of the Reagan presidency told the Hollywood Reporter earlier this month that the script is mendacious in its portrayal of the 40th president as racially insensitive.
ReplyDeleteOh, Reagan was very racially sensitive. He was sufficiently sensitive to talk about States' Rights at the site of a famous murder of civil rights workers, and to spin tales of welfare queens.
It's not about laffs, but elsewhere in the column:
ReplyDeleteIf blacks were still oppressed in the South, you wouldn't need to go
to the theater to see it. You could watch it in high-definition in your
living room, on the evening or cable news.
I mean, yeah, if they were shot down for walking while black in Florida, you might be able to see something about that on cable news. If.
The Carlson piece got us to thinking about why race plays such a
central role in the worldview of today's liberal left, and why those on
the left seem to suffer from a compulsion to exaggerate wildly the
continuing prevalence of racism.
All those comments on Youtube and every goddamn newspaper website in America are just one very busy Klan guy.
John Scalzi had a very amusing post on this just the other day (http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/08/26/to-the-dudebro-who-thinks-hes-insulting-me-by-calling-me-a-feminist/). It was the same crapola: somebody thought he'd shrink back in horror at being called "a feminist." Their inability to put themselves in anyone else's shoes -- to imagine what anyone else thinks -- just gets more and more obvious all the time.
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of racially-sensitive Republicans, I think of this:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeJ3OwLN1mQ
Cut Jimmy some slack, guys. Remember, he and his fellow conservatives have recently lost one of their primary rhetorical tactics - calling people they don't like homos. They're having a hard time adjusting to the idea that it's OK to be gay, particularly after the collapse of the former Soviet Union took much of the sting out of calling someone a commie. Before you know it, they'll be forced to debate ideas on the merits, which probably isn't going to work out very well for them.
ReplyDeleteSo, Taranto thinks we should all be scared of Cory Booker because "metrosexual" (I think Taranto's issue is less with the "sexual" and more with the "metro", based on that tripe I just read, but that's another discussion).
ReplyDeleteIt's not Cory Booker's fault he's running against Barney Frank's Dining Room Table.
"...their insecurity about their masculinity is that they have a fucked up notion of what constitutes manliness."
ReplyDeleteThat, or as I think is often the case (witness George W. Bush and Vladamir Putin, just to name two obvious examples), they are closet homosexuals, or at least harbor some kind of attraction for other men. I'd bet if ever a "real" history of the world were written, we'd find that a good number of the worse crimes against humanity were committed by closeted homosexuals trying to prove their manliness.
Oh, hello:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2005/03/29/femininity-and-the-wimp-factor/
Bonus Jeff Gannon reference in there; another name that Taranto is no doubt working hard to shove down the memory hole.
"Our view, meanwhile, is that while major civil-rights legislation was
ReplyDeletea necessary condition in achieving racial equality, it was not
sufficient. Normally such an assertion would be speculative, but in this
case history proves it true. In the aftermath of the Civil War,
Congress enacted sweeping civil-rights laws. But they were a dead letter
by the end of the 19th century because the political will to enforce
them and the judicial will to uphold them were both lacking."
So... legislation requires enforcement mechanisms. Thanks for THAT news flash, Jimmy. Of course, the Roberts Court and various states are already way ahead of you. Gutting the enforcement provision of the Civil Rights Act, writing 'stand your ground" laws to ensure that investigation of suspicious incidents of gunplay will occur only if local authorities feel like it, and a *wink wink, nod nod, they had it comin'* attitude of local prosecutors, police, and judges that make it hard to investigate allegations of anti gay discrimination are facts of life that water down anti discrimination laws to the point of worthlessness, but Taranto already knew that. Conservatives are not as dumb as they sound.
That's our Jimmy--staying on the bleeding edge of social commentary by citing a ten-year-old South Park episode (well after the series had started its slide, IMO). Bonus: the bit above that is a critique of Hans Blix based on Blix's caricature from Team America: World Police. Heaven help us if Jimmy discovers Mind of Mencia.
ReplyDeleteIn an especially deflating twist, the head of the former Soviet Union, former KGB chief Vlad Putin, is now one of the world's leading gay-bashers. Strange bedfellows, and then some.
ReplyDeleteThe South Park guys have always been assholes....they think (or pretend to think) that, just because there really are liberals out there and that there is such a thing as "PC conformity," it is equally, if not more, "cool" (or brave) to "stand up" to them (the libs, PC-ness, etc) than to the real powers that run the country (the MIC, corporate plunderers, etc).
ReplyDeleteHere is all you need to know about them:
'...."We went to a party in Malibu on the beach recently," says Stone, "and this woman came up to us, like, 'Oh, my son is at the University of Colorado, and I can't get him to go to class, because he snowboards all the time.' I'm immediately thinking, 'Fuck you and your kid,' because I couldn't afford to snowboard in college, Then I say, 'Yeah, I still go to Colorado to visit my family.' She's like, 'So they really are just a bunch of gun-toting hicks out there, aren't they?' I'm like, 'I just told you my mom and dad and sister live there.' Then Trey walks up to her and says, 'George Bush is a great man.' She looked like we'd poured acid in her ear. We were laughing our asses off." "That's the most punk-rock thing you can do in L.A.: say 'George Bush is fucking awesome' instead of talking about how lame it is that he's fighting for oil," says Parker. "The only way to be more hardcore than everyone else is to tell the people who think they're the most hardcore that they're pussies, to go up to a tattooed, pierced vegan and say, 'Whatever, you tattooed faggot, you're a pierced faggot and whatever.'" He looks very pleased with himself. "That's hardcore."'
http://www.vanessagrigoriadis.com/southpark.html
Wow, you really are sticking it to the man by using anti gay, anti woman slurs against vegans! How hard core, how punk rock! Why, that Malibu liberal mom and that tattooed vegan might do.....what to you, in return? Try standing up to Big Oil, to the National Security state, and so on, and face being charged with being a terrorist, and then get back to me on how the two are even close to being equal.
This. Hence the war on women, the inability to comprehend consent, the giggling slut-shaming, etc., etc. They're stuck in a lose-lose: all the sexual insecurity of nerds, without the intellectual brilliance. Life as eternal adolescence. No wonder they vie to see who can be the most adroit teacher's pet.
ReplyDeleteWhat is it with these conservatives and shoving things down holes?
ReplyDeleteMaybe, except most nerds don't keep doing it after you sit them down and tell them, "You know, girls would like you more if you started treating them like people instead of like they just escaped from your favourite manga -- which I read too, because girls can be nerds just like you."
ReplyDelete(It's a shame we often have to do this, because it really shouldn't be female nerds' job, but it does save wear and tear on the sanity and sex life, such as it is...We're nerds, okay?)
Right-wingers never learn, because acting that way is *the point* for them.
Why does the line "You ain't hardcore if you spike your hair but a jock still lives inside your head" spring to mind?
ReplyDeleteI mean, aside from the fact that when I read that, I heard Jello Biafra's head slamming into a wall, and I'm 4000km from San Francisco.
I'd pay folding money to see James Taranto walk up to Booker, call him a fag, and shove him.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't pay Taranto's medical bills.
Excess ain't rebellion,
ReplyDeleteYou're drinking what they're sellin'
Yeah, there's no doubt that a plagiarizing self-loathing Latino who relies on "beaner" jokes would become a conservative hero.
ReplyDeleteBarney Frank had to run against his dining room table in a primary. Now, here's my shameful confession... I think Ms. DRT is hot as hell, in a gaminesque sort of way.
ReplyDeleteMayor Booker is running against Steve Lonigan, no? I know that guy from his oddball 'bagger radio commercials.
"Cocksucker" should be considered an honorific, not an insult. What guy doesn't love to get his cock sucked?
ReplyDeleteThey'll always have 'Commie,' tho.
ReplyDeleteReminds me of the classic Onion headline:
ReplyDeleteTearful homosexual admits he's governor of New Jersey.
And of course, Bonzo went to Bitburg, which showed his sensitivity to the plight of the Nazis.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8m2LpYGV0E
~
They don't like the gays shoving their huge, engorged, throbbing agenda down their throat.
ReplyDeleteThey really do have the magic touch, the Republicans. They manage to point out practically the only thing I LIKE about Booker and attack him on it. The guy says he doesn't care if people think he's gay? That's actually pretty cool! He's a Wall St. suckup, a centrist fraud and a half-minute away from being the No Labels poster boy, but they make fun of the fact that he's comfortable in his own skin?
ReplyDeleteThey do this to Democrats all the time. I fucking HATE 90% of all Democrats, but when "pro-choice" "pro-civil rights" and "pro-gay" become part of their definition through the lines the GOP chooses to attack them, Jesus, they seem principled. Dim times, these.
Booker would probably be angrier if Taranto said something mean about hedge funds. (Not that Taranto would do that.)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/us/politics/cory-a-booker-criticizes-obamas-bain-ad.html?_r=0
~
+ 10,000,000 for "gaminesque"
ReplyDeleteAlbert Brooks once said in an interview that he had an idea that would have parodied the sort of lame-brain, lowest-common-denominator 'comedies' made by the cretinish likes of Adam Sandler. He didn't give any details other than the title: "the Great Big Dumb Stupid Movie." Presumably, he had no luck in getting any funding for the proposed film. Either that, or he was just kidding about it, or it was just some idle notion that wouldn't have gone very far anyway.
ReplyDeleteYeah, South Park sucks. Always has done: I watched it for its first couple of years - a smutty-minded cartoon that featured a cast of brats who swore like sailors? What wasn't to like? - but it soon became clear Parker and Stone had a very limited bag of tricks. They made up for that with increasing shock value, which in turn really amped up the cruelty factor, to the point where it became actively uncomfortable to watch; just incredibly mean spirited material, and not in a good way. (The same thing eventually happened with Family Guy, ironically, given that I believe Seth MacFarlane is at least somewhat more liberal-ish in his politics. But assholism knows no political boundaries, one supposes.)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, in addition to the above points, SP started turning more overtly right wing in its politics. I also glanced through a couple of interviews with the two hacks responsible for it back in the day, an eye-opening experience to say the least. One was with Trey Parker as the sole participant, and it was pure Rush Limbaugh. Not even in the specific political stances he took, so much as the relentless, non-stop self-aggrandizement and self-pity. Parker went into great detail whining about how jealous people were of him and how much pleasure he took in rubbing his success in other peoples' faces. The shameless need to gloat while simultaneously claiming victimhood, in other words, which is the mark of the true wingnut.
But it was the Playboy interview with both Parker and Stone that really turned me off them for good. They were asked about their antagonism towards Barbara Striesand. Now, I'm not a fan of Striesand myself; I can see why she has a reputation for being an arrogant piece of work, and so was inclined to examine Parker and Stone's reasons for disliking her with an open mind...and their answer could not have been more stupidly childish and small-minded. Striesand had been publicly criticisizing some Colorado politician for his anti-gay stances at the time, which enraged the two of them beyond belief. If I'm remembering correctly, an actual quote from the interview was along the lines of, "So you don't like Colorado?!? Fuck you! Fuck you!" Quite the pair of conservative intellectuals, no?
Yup, the same former mayor Steve Lonegan who had a public hissy fit when he saw a Spanish billboard in his town.
ReplyDeleteThere's a rumor that Christie scheduled the special election to bury Lonegan and deny him the Christie coattails because of all of Lonegan's attack ads against Christie in the 2009 gubernatorial primary, while simultaneously denying his no-name opponent in this year's governor's race some of Booker's own coattails. It's a pure Christie move, but I can't say I'm sad to see Lonegan get dumped on.
The only way I can see of making that parody work is to camouflage one of the fire exits as a screening room entrance and get the marks back out into the parking lot, just like Ripley's "This Way to the Egress" sign.
ReplyDeleteTaranto, of course, would go three times.
No, he lies around in his filth and eats babies.
ReplyDeleteMint green is so not his color, though.
ReplyDeleteWait...an Egress isn't a female Egror?
ReplyDeleteCoincidentally, "pixie cut" has just made it into the OED.
ReplyDeleteI have to dissent somewhat. Sure, Stone and Parker are assholes; they always have been. But they aren't rightwingers. They're nihilists, which is a special category of asshole that shits all over everyone on both the left and the right. They are pretty much equal opportunity with their potshots. I think the speech at the end of Team America: World Police sums it up pretty well - where the world is divided among (according to Stone & Parker) pussies, dicks, and assholes. Pussies get fucked all the time and get fed up with dicks because dicks fuck pussies. And dicks are, well, dicks - they go around fucking everyone, while assholes just shit all over everything. So while pussies want to reign in the dicks, it's important to remember that dicks ALSO fuck assholes and thus have a useful purpose.
ReplyDeleteI think the deal here is that Parker and Stone think of themselves as dicks, handing out deserved fuckings, when in fact, they are actually assholes, who just go around shitting all over everything.
For ten bucks you can find out.
ReplyDeleteIt's a fair cop.
ReplyDeleteThat Post-Racial American himself says he's not racist. He's explained to the media that there are plenty of people in the white community he hates, too. Oddly, though, he called the white community "the white community" instead of coming up with his best equivalent for "nigger" and posting Joe Biden's picture with a "kill" caption. I am mystified.
ReplyDeleteBut Vlad sure does like posing for beefcake shots. I guess he's just playing hard to get.
ReplyDeleteTo paraphrase an old Daily Show joke, this is what you look like when you're afraid of metrosexuality.
ReplyDeleteDon't be silly. An egress is a graceful wading bird, female OR male. Obviously they can't all be females, or the species would die out.
ReplyDeleteThis is like that time Moffat said stupid shit about how the Doctor should always be male. (I'm a geek, we make these comparisons.) I wasn't angry about it, I really wasn't, because it didn't make any goddamn sense. I couldn't honestly see what he was saying. I mean, it made the same amount of sense to me as:
ReplyDelete"Jack and Locke later return to the hatch to find the alarm blaring, Sawyer on the floor, and Kate nowhere to be seen. Jack tracks Kate down and accosts her for leaving the hatch. In the ensuing confrontation, Kate suddenly kisses Jack, however, she immediately runs away. Sayid discovers Kate sitting at Shannon's grave. She apologizes for missing the funeral and confesses that she thinks she is going crazy, to which Sayid replies that he saw Walt in the jungle just before Shannon was shot and asks if that makes him crazy too." - Wikipedia.org summary of "What Kate Did", aired Nov. 30, 2005
"The lust of avarice as so totally seized upon mankind that their wealth seems rather to possess them than they possess their wealth." - Pliny the Elder
"Blergh?" I said, incisively.
And as with Moffat, I realised that I was neglecting to pay attention to the central foolishness of the speaker: with Moffat, that we should consider gender essential even to a shape-shifting alien timetraveler; and with Taranto, that anything gay is exactly the same as everything else gay. Thus, a trend of straight men dressing well, as overblown by a cartoon that has some genuine hits but a tendency to otherwise be shit, is exactly the same as someone not caring if other people are wrong about his sexuality.
The conclusion I drew from Moffat was "man, really smart people can be really, really stupid". I don't think that's the conclusion I'm going to draw from this one.
Too true. But that was Sophy's dinner gown on her first night with the Ombersleys so everybody wants it!
ReplyDeleteDidn't he actually announce his presidential campaign at that site? In your face much? All those young bucks buying t-bones with food stamps didn't miss that super-subtle message.
ReplyDeleteCleverly stated. And total bonus points for working Pliny the Elder into your comment. Really classes up the joint.
ReplyDeleteOHMIGOD! It's Herb Tarlek!
ReplyDeleteTo me, that very speech proves not only their assholery but their right wing assholery. Basically, it seems to be saying that "dicks" (rightwingers) are necessary to keep the "assholes" (the "axis of evil" enemy du jour) in line. Everyone else is a "pussy." Useful to some extent because they are a check on the dicks when they overdo it, but mostly useless, on the sidelines, criticizing the dicks and the assholes equally, because they don't understand the difference.
ReplyDeleteWell, I don't subscribe to their taxonomy. To me, they are assholes (who are in reality indistinguishable from dicks, only the flags are different), and since they specifically sympathize with the right wing, they are right wing assholes.
The stuff about Streisand, on and off the show, is really off the charts. OK, we get it already, she is old and you don't like her politics. But to turn her into some kind of monster is really overkill.
ReplyDeleteWhich is the same thing you see here in the material I quoted about the liberal Malibu woman. First of all, about her son. What, since he snowboards while in college, "fuck him" (and her too)? Just because, they claim, they couldn't afford to snowboard when they were in college? WTF? Everyone who can afford something, at a particular stage of life, that they couldn't, is to be condemned? Gee, I guess I'm not seeing the consistency in that with the rest of their libertarian crap. And, anyway, cry me a river, Mr. Rich TV Show Producer. Poor baby, couldn't afford everything you wanted in the past, and even though you can now, you are still deprived and worked up over it? How about fuck you instead?
Then the stuff about Colorado. OK, the woman was over the top in her stereotyping. But, with all due respect, really, who cares if your parents and sister live there? Seems to me you two don't give a shit about who you ridicule and treat like shit. But if someone, even indirectly, says something negative about YOUR precious family members, that's a different story. Again, how about fuck you instead.
And, finally, frankly, the show was never any good. The same laugh lines are used over and over, and were never that funny to begin with. And the drawings stink too.
Conservative gives killer one-liner to caricatured sniffy elitist liberal incredibly rude dirtbag at a cocktail party? You know it never happened.
ReplyDeleteGeorge Bush is awesome overwhelms liberals? Does he think we have not got fuckwit brothers and uncles?
These two are incapable of being pointedly rude without shitting in the punch bowl.
plenty.
ReplyDeleteOh holy shit! A grand sophy reference? How i live this blog
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't buy a used car from that man, but he'd keep trying to sell me one, anyway.
ReplyDeleteThat's the sort of mindset that led Mike Judge to excrete The Goode Family, his most notable failure to date.
ReplyDeleteTheir knee-jerk Colorado insecurity complex reminds me of Caribou Barbie's constant evocation of Alaska everytime she opens her mouth. She always wraps herself in the Alaskan flag so that if someone criticizes her, it's tantamount to criticizing the whole state.
ReplyDeleteYeah, there's that too....Leaving aside the stupidity of their "thesie" (ie always act like an asshole, no
ReplyDeletematter the target, cuz that makes you cool), the whole thing sounds like BS. First of all, Stone's dad was a professor and textbook author, was Stone really so poor that he couldn't afford to EVER go snowboarding while attending the University of Colorado? Then again, the liberal Malibu mom sounds suspiciously like she was provided by central casting. And, as you mention, the various devastating "punk rock" responses to liberals seem more like wish fulfillment fantasies than actual anecdotes.
Like an adolescent, telling the story of some, for the most part made up, confrontation with "the man," and each time he tells it he was more and more successful, cool and clever, and the man was more and more dumbfounded and astonished by his wit, non conformism, "hard core" nature, and so on.
But that's the thing - they don't "specifically sympathize" with the right wing. They don't "specifically sympathize" with anyone; they shit on everyone. That's what makes them assholes - they don't really seem to believe in anything other than that they are above it all.
ReplyDelete"I'm gonna get me a Chevy with two steerin' wheels!"
ReplyDeleteThat's okay, he can easily be frightened off by throwing lit matches at his polyester suit.
ReplyDeleteWhile that might sometime be the case, this "let's shift the blame back on the homos", just seems... off.
ReplyDeleteSaul Goodman?
ReplyDeleteAfter a regrettable doughnut bender.
ReplyDeleteJeff Gannon, International Man of Mystery.
ReplyDeleteAgreed, that story about the Malibu liberal mom is just a little too pat and convienient, not unlike the 'regular Joe' cab driver types we keep hearing about from conservative newspaper columnists, who always reliably pop up (as if by magic) to validate every stupid opinion spewed by jumped-up little turds like David Brooks.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I buy that, Jenn; I've heard other people comment aout Parker and Stone's supposed nihilism as well, but it's always struck me as a very thin rationale covering what's basically nothing nobler or more complicated than reactionary laziness. It's the same way that creeps like Camille Paglia play the "reasonable" card by hyping the fact that they're still - even if only technically - registered Democrats. Which, of course, gives them 'credibility' whenever they bash feminists, gays, liberals, etc. It's a very obvious and transparent sleight of hand when you know where to look for it. And needless to say, it's all very self-serving. When practised by people in the public eye, it can be nicely summarized with just two words: "Lookit me!"
ReplyDeleteWhich doesn't mean I'm accusing the two shitheels of anything like a comperhensive political agenda. No, Paker and Stone's only real politics is whatever benefits Parker and Stone.
Um, no, they sympathize with who they see as "the dicks," ie Bush and Co. As opposed to (obviously) the "assholes" (again, the axis of evil enemy du jour) and the "pussies" (liberals, mostly).
ReplyDeleteNihilism is actually a plausible, philosophical stance. These weinies don't merit the label or live up to the idea. They are simply suck ups to the powerful and nasty boys to the downtrodden, the exact opposite of what satire is supposed to be all about. They are here to comfort the already comfortable and add further afflictions to the already afflicted. And then they have either the lack of self awareness or chutzpah to valorize themselves over it! "Wow, I was really 'hard core' when I 'went up' to that pierced, tattooed vegan who was minding his own business and called him a 'pussy' and a 'faggot!. Punk rock, man!'"
HMDK,
ReplyDeleteGood sentiment, but inaccurate on the facts, imho. The blame is being shifted to the condition of closeting or self-closeting.
The harm is being attributed to the shame, the strange imaginings that go into the shame, to outside wickedness that brings about the shame, that whole complex back-and-forth.
It's a "let in the light," "sunlight deodorizes the laundry" sort of proposition, seems to me.
-dlj.
Momadillo,
ReplyDeleteGreat post, but a wee bit on the optimistic side, seems to me: they still control the majority of the Statehouses, which means they control the gerrymandering of Congress.
Republicans need to be shown that this is a problem for them, that the gerrymandering has had the result of putting the crazies in charge, and destroying the legitimacy of the non-crazies.
Take the Supreme Court, for instance. Justice Roberts is basically a friendly, half-wit frat boy who wants to get along by going along. Now he finds himself to his utter dismay, I'm sure, fronting for the brain dead perjurer Thomas and his handlers here and for the the brilliant 13th century fascist Scalia there. He has nothing in common with either of them, and I'm sure he's flummoxed by them at any Federalist Society function where they run into one another.Thank goodness for alcohol.
-dlj.
I think they moralize too much to be nihilists. That's also the reason I can't hack SouthPark.
ReplyDelete"Which doesn't mean I'm accusing the two shitheels of anything like a comprehensive political agenda. No, Parker and Stone's only real politics is whatever benefits Parker and Stone."
ReplyDeleteTrue enough. But doesn't that also pretty much describe right wingers in general? All about their own interests, even to the point of incoherence and inconsistency, and, being a public right winger is more or less always an entrepreneurial thing.
Hi K. Of course you and I read all the same books! Didja check out the Scalzi thing? Really worth a look.
ReplyDeleteI can't be the only one to whom it has occured that this parsing of Stone and Parker's political sympathies is veering a bit close to the conservative "analysis" of pretty much every piece of popular culture. IOW, probably not worth any of our time.
ReplyDeleteThat having been said, I agree, John D., with regard to the "reactionary laziness" you note. I don't think it proves a political agenda or sympathy, however; it just proves that Stone and Parker are assholes, which is the one thing on which we have all agreed.
True story: back in 2007, I made a bet with James Taranto that Al Gore would run for president again. Whoever won had to buy the other a martini on her next trip to NY. I haven't been to the city since 2005 (which seems unreal to me upon reflection, but life got crazy), so when I do eventually head there--sometime soon, I dearly hope--I'll need to make good on the martini, which Mr. Taranto has probably forgotten about.
ReplyDeleteHey, I may be a hopeless liberal but I'm not a hopeless bet-maker.
Okay, I can see that. And thanks.
ReplyDeleteYup, you gottit.
ReplyDeleteCheers,
-dlj.
No cheers needed, I'm drunk already.
ReplyDeleteJenn, I don't think any of us are particularly in disagreement here; in minor details, maybe, but not with the larger points. And you're right that it's likely not worth any of our time going into such minutiae. Except that whenever we let this sort of nonsense pass by without commenting, we tend to be ankle-deep in crap before we know it.
ReplyDeleteAnd honestly, I'd say there's a very real difference between the typical right wing 'analysis' of popular culture and the discussion we're having here. The scum often attack things that aren't political at all, just popular, while Parker and Stone have an explicit agenda (self promotion) that they try to pretend is something else. That it happens to align with sucking up to the status quo is what keeps them so reliably right wing, though it's probably safe to say they'd turn into Democratic Party propagandists overnight if they saw any advantage in doing so. (And it's not even as if that would automatically make their output any less instinctively conservative, really.) I think it's exactly as Philadelphialawyer says: They suck up to the powerful and shit on the downtrodden, and expect to be paraised as courageous for doing so. Just like Camille Paglia and far too many other media whores than I can count these days...
What is "unmasculine clothing"? I've never seen this section in department stores.
ReplyDelete