If you don't want to read the whole thing, I can summarize: any depiction of fat people enjoying life or relationships should not be shown on TV, because it sends the message that fat people don't have to lose weight to be considered human beings. Or something like that.
The entire article is a hilarious abortion of anything that could be considered useful discussion; it was apparently prompted by the question "Do you think it's gross when the fatties kiss each other on that 'Mike and Molly' show?"... which, you know, is exactly the philosophical humdinger that has kept many people staring at the ceiling in the wee hours of the night. Personally, I think it's gross that people watch shows like "Mike and Molly" at all, mainly because they have the same relationship to "jokes" that Marie Claire thinks fat people have with "treadmills", but I guess a special brand of people that wants all their entertainment to be recycled sitcom bullshit that doesn't require even an iota of independent thought were offended that the main characters have never seen a Jared Fogle Subway commercial.
I don't even understand the complaint: "I really love this sitcom, but those fatties are ruining it with their affection." You know there are other sitcoms on at exactly the same time, that use exactly the same storylines and jokes, that have thin people standing in for the main characters, right? Or if you think white people kissing is gross, they even have shows that use exactly the same storyline and jokes, but with black people. Frankly, if you want the illusion of choice when it comes to shows that are all photocopies of each other, you couldn't have picked a better time to live.
Enjoy some of the excerpts from the column, in italics, along with my commentary.
As CNN explains, "the show centers around a couple who meet at an Overeaters Anonymous group [and] has drawn complaints for its abundance of fat jokes [as well as] cries from some viewers who aren't comfortable watching intimacy between two plus-sized actors."
Since we're talking about people who regularly choose to watch sitcoms, it's clear that the simple solution of "close your eyes during the kissing parts" - a strategy that has been effectively employed by children since basically the dawn of motion pictures- hasn't even occurred to them. Still, I have to admit I'm worried about the implications of the CNN story. Not the part where putting kissing fat people on television kills us all with heart disease... the part where people were complaining for too many fat jokes. Look, you can't take away fat jokes from a sitcom starring fat people, any more than you can take away "black people and white people are different" jokes from a sitcom where on of the main characters has a black friend.
This worries because audiences are effectively saying, "I'd like even less humor in my already chronically unfunny Thursday night programming, because laughing sometimes hurts the part of my head where thinking comes from." This is exactly the sort of request that Pod People make right before they slowly point at you and begin their soulless shrieking.
For some reason, I can't stop laughing about how they both call it "the nigger word".
So, you know, Doctor Laura's kind of a cunt. (I imagine that would make her squirm, but hey, they say it on Showtime, so... cunt cunt cunt.)
Unfortunately... she's also... sort of... weirdly... kind of right.
:-/
Look, obviously Dr. Laura should get her ass fired... not because she said "nigger" on the air, but because her approach to giving advice seems to be channeling Michael Richards before sounding weirdly upset about how "white people vioted [Obama] into office". I dunno', maybe Dr. Laura just figured she didn't have any black listeners before this, but come on; black people have radios, too. In fact, they probably have yours. BA-ZING, racially-charged comedy!
So yeah, using what is ostensibly a "call in and ask for advice" platform as a way to segue into a rant how about black people are taking over America by being legitimately voted into office ("by white people", remember... that's black people's most insidious trick!) is definitely grounds for termination. And also, I have to shake my head in Dr. Laura's direction for apparently not seeing the huge shitstorm forming on the horizon as soon as the first "nigger" slipped out.
But she isn't totally without a point, even if she isn't exactly clear herself on what that point is. It's the part where she talks about her (painfully unfunny, wholly unoriginal) "joke" about how "white people can't jump, I want you on my team". There are differences between the races, man... if there weren't, Chris Rock and his Gilbert Gottfried voice would have gone into politics instead of comedy. You should always be dubious about statements like "black people do this, white people do that", but I still think there's a difference between "racism" and "jokes".
Sure, you can say "racist jokes are based in stereotypes that shouldn't be supported", but quit being a pussy. With rare, mostly Bill Cosby-related exceptions, all good humor is at somebody's expense, for dozens of reasons, for all races and creeds. If you take "race" off the table, that suddenly throws every other reason to make fun of somebody into question... and everyone likes to make fun of someone every once in awhile.
Okay, maybe you're one of those people who only laughs at "Family Circus" comics. And I'll admit that there's a difference between "jokes meant to be hurtful/bullying" and "good-natured ribbing". And I'll way admit that I'd only ever say "nigger" to a black guy if he was in disguise, even if it was part of a joke. But there shouldn't ever be topics that are just "off limits", either for discussion or for jokes. I think what Dr. Laura was trying to say (before she got distracted by how fucked up it is that we actually elected an African American black man to be President) was that not every insensitive comment or politically incorrect joke is "racism", and that if we really want to move forward with the understanding that they are racism and they should be treated as such... well, I hope your ready for society to break down so we can make time in our day for the epic shaming that we all have coming to us.
I pretty much agree with that. The reason is pretty easy to spot: it's because yesterday's superhero fans are all like 30 now and still buying most of the superhero stuff. The kids aren't kids anymore and comic books aren't really a kid-friendly medium these days. Not that you can't find a kid-friendly comic book... it's just that nobody reads those, so good luck getting Robert Downey Jr. to star in the movie version.
Still, it's hard to just tell parents that their kids can't like comic books when Marvel still markets a lot of stuff at very young children. it's a tricky balancing act... I don't want my comic book movies dumbed down to accommodate the Chuck E. Cheeze party happening in the first few rows of the theater, but I also see why parents complained that "The Dark Knight" gave their kids nightmares.
Ultimately, though, it comes down to where it's always come down to: parents need to check the stuff they let their kids watch. And they need to be ready to put up with the kids' incessant whining when they're told they can't go to the huge movie release that weekend with all of their friends.
I want Batman movies that give you nightmares, dammit.
To clarify, I don't like him as a person. And I haven't really liked anything he's attached his name to since.... well, "Lethal Weapon 4", probably (and given Mel's apparently deep-seated feelings about black people, it seems like "Lethal Weapon 5" will forever remain a distant dream). But even though he's apparently always been secretly psychotic, I have to admit that I've loved so many of Mel Gibson's movies over the years. "The Road Warrior" is probably my favorite post-apocalypse movie ever. All the "Lethal Weapon" movies never fail to elicit a "Oh, Lethal Weapon, sweet!" response from me if I chance to see them on TV. "Maverick" is hilarious, "Braveheart" is epic, ...shit, even "Chicken Run" is pretty good.
But you're just not allowed to like anything Mel Gibson has ever touched these days. It's not fair... he didn't used to suck so bad that he made your teeth hurt. He wasn't always frothing-at-the-mouth crazy. Once, people round the world respected and admired him, and you're just a big fat stinky liar if you say any different.
I've been here before.
When Chris Benoit killed his family and then himself, WWE did the only thing they could: they surgically removed him from the history of their company. Nobody mentioned him. No clips were shown. All his matches were thrown in the vault, and in the rare cases where they did have to include him on a DVD (the only case I can even think of is the Triple H/Shawn Michaels/Chris Benoit title match at Wrestlemania 20), they took out all the positive commentary towards him and, if I remember correctly, even removed his entrance.
Nobody wants to be on your side when you're a lunatic murderer, not even retroactively.
The same is true, it seems, for wife-abusing, racist, religious-fundamentalist nutjobs, even if they were Mad Max.
I don't really know anything about the law. And as someone who doesn't really break the law, I'm not actually all that worried about this, at least not in the sense that it will affect me personally. Plus, having read the article, I now know that you have to say the secret codeword for your rights to apply, so as soon as the cuffs go on, you can bet I'll be ready with the safe-word on my lips.
What I do find troubling, though, is the philosophical ideas that seem to surround this decision; namely, the idea that cops "have to work around Miranda" (that's the quote at the very end of the article).
Wow. Sorry our Constitutional rights are so damn inconvenient, law enforcement. I'm sure it would be a lot easier to make arrests if you could deprive us of legal counsel altogether, but here I thought that the point wasn't to make it easier for you to put people in jail.
Sure, I think the guilty should be punished, and I appreciate how hard the police have it. They've got to gather evidence and build a case without stepping on enough toes to get them in hot water with the press, and then there's the frustration of seeing all their hard work unravel thanks to legal loopholes and that kind of bullshit. Everyone is frustrated when an obviously guilty man walks free, and it's easy to take that knee-jerk anger and start thinking that the process should be streamlined, that the number of hoops that law enforcement has to jump through to make a conviction should be reduced.
The trouble is that that's exactly the opposite of how our justice system should work.
People forget that the law enforcement isn't ever supposed to be an easy job. You have to be absolutely certain, and that should always be a backbreaking labor. Detectives should lose sleep over what they do. They should have to face long nights, early morning, hard work, and frustration. They should check and double-check everything, and then they should do it all again. And most importantly, they should never lose sight of the fact that, basically 100% of the time in their occupation, they are dealing with innocent people.
Yes. A policeman who finds a blood-covered, knife-wielding man standing over the body of a freshly murdered child is dealing with an innocent man. That's how our justice system is supposed to work.
The police collect evidence and build a case, but the question of innocence or guilt is not ever their decision. The idea that restrictions on them should be eased so it's easier to pry confessions out of people is completely contrary to that idea. Confessions should never be pried out of people, anyway. Confessions shouldn't count for shit unless they're supported by evidence.
I guess I can summarize it best by flat-out stating exactly where I stand on justice: I would sooner turn a child-raping murderer lose on the streets to rape and kill again than imprison an innocent man for his crime.
I know that sounds horrible, and it is. That's not a decision we should have to make... but we do. And it's the right decision, because the alternative is far more horrible: society misuses the idea of "justice" to imprison an innocent, and the guilty party is still free to commit more crimes (because, remember... imprisoning an innocent man means the guilty party goes free). That's two unforgivable evils stacked on top of each other.
The lesser of two evils is always still evil, but sometimes that's the choice we're faced with. And in that case, the lesser evil is the right choice, even if we feel shitty about it.
That post I made about Oprah and fucking her (not, like, fuckingher, but more like "she should go fuck herself"... though, upon rereading, I guess I can see a pretty big "I want to fuck Oprah" subtext) got posted on Reddit by my friend Dave as a transparently obvious part of our grand scheme to conquer the internet and rename it "Shawntopia" (the rest of the staff of CinesterTheater.com disagree with me on the name).
Anyway, it's gotten our website like 13,000 hits in only a few hours. Not a lot, not really... but, you know... a lot.
This is kinda' weird for me. I mean, I wouldn't have posted this on the internet if I wasn't mostly certain that I wanted other people to see it, but now I have to worry about context. Posts I make on the fly based on a fleeting moment of anger about another article I was reading (and all of this right after I got off work) are certainly fun, but it's also not very convincing. And I certainly don't want to be giving the anti-vax movement ammunition when they cry about how quick everyone is to demonize them. It makes them look like the underdog... which, you know, they are, but they're not the kind that you should feel good about rooting for. Sweep the leg, medical science.
Anyway, I was clicking through the comments on the Reddit article, and there's a couple I'd like to respond to. Most of them probably won't see it, and those that do probably won't be in any big hurry to visit our website ever again... but like a homeless person who just won the lottery, I've been given so much that I don't even really have a concept of what it is I'm spending. So sure, I'll be bankrupt before you know it... but I'll get to carry all my shit around in a goddamn Porsche.
But you know what? Fine. Attractive women are always on the lookout for ways to make the world care about them that aren't breast-related, so if Jenny wants to live in an imaginary world where she's defeated the medical establishment with her rogue brand of healthcare, let her. She's not hurting anyone (except, perhaps, her son... oh, and all the parents who listen to her lies and fearmongering... oh, and plus she's pretty much chewed up everything good about Jim Carey... but, you know, other than that...), so let her have her day in the sun.
But you, Oprah...
I've never met her, but in general I believe that Oprah is a pretty smart lady. Maybe not book-smart (though she sure as fuck reads a lot, since she has approximately 36 billion Official Book Club Selections each year), but she's certainly business-savvy. And from a purely moneymaking standpoint, a Jenny McCarthy talk show will put some asses in the seats; Jenny's reimagined herself as a brave crusader, and a lot of desperate parents of autistic children are turning to her (patently ridiculous and demonstrably false) philosophy as kind of a last-ditch source of hope for their own children. You take a bunch of desperate people and one boisterous nut-job, and you've got the makings of a religion, and even the most devout amongst us have to concede that few things have as much raw moneymaking power as religion.
So Oprah's probably looking at all that and fucking salivating.
I don't know who in Hollywood started the rumor that Chris Evans is A.) A good actor and B.) A good choice for Captain America, but neither one of those is the case. I'll reserve judgment on Thor, since I don't think I've seen that guy in anything, but honestly, Thor's an Avenger I can take or leave most of the time, so unless he pulls out some kind of wicked awesome Jack Sparrow/Joker/Doc Holiday shit, he's going to be a non-entity as far as I'm concerned.
But it was still exciting, because The Avengers would have Robert Downey Jr., Samuel L. Jackson, and Edward Norton. I mean, wow. With that much awesome, it was a little greedy of me to expect them to cast someone who can actually perform and at least slightly resembles the character from the comics when casting the lead role of the film (Captain America), so my utter disappointment in Marvel at letting that fuckwad Chris Evans double-dip on playing a superhero was mostly mitigated by the fact that I'd be getting big dish of supercool in 2012.
Now it's going to be a big dish of supercool that the waiter dipped his balls in right before bringing it to me. Sure, if I didn't know he did it, I might not notice the slightly salty taste... but fuck, Marvel, you practically brought the guy to my table and made him do it in front of me. And then he had the audacity to still expect a tip.
A bunch of people at work yesterday were buying Sherman Alexie books. You may have heard of him; he's probably the most popular contemporary Native American author writing today, and his books have titles like "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven".
So sure, his books sell... but I mean, they were selling a lot yesterday. Generally, that only happens if the guy is in town to do a book signing, or if he just passed away. And since I knew he wasn't doing a book signing at our store, I just sort of assumed the second choice.
So when a guy came up with like five or six copies of Sherman Alexie books, I figured he'd be a good guy to ask.
"Did he pass away?" I asked, holding one of the books up and pointing to the author's name.
"Why do you think that?" the customer asked.
"It's just that I've sold copies of his books to like 35 different people so far today," I said. "That usually only happens if the author just died or if he's in town to do a book signing."
The man laughed, fishing out his ID so that he could pay with a credit card. I took it, glanced at the name.
It was Sherman Alexie.
"Oh," I said.
"Oh!" I said again.
Sherman Alexie laughed.
So, if you ever read a memoir of his where he talks about the time somebody asked him if he was dead... that was my bad.
