As long as I am praising articles from the Sunday New York Times, let's give a shout out to Lee Siegel, who makes the point I was trying to make about the New Yorker cartoon being poor satire... and of course, doing it that much better.
Oh, and as long as I'm at it, let's give a link to TalkLeft's presentation of Vanity Fair's tweak of their Conde Nast cousin, with an even funnier version of a McCain cartoon.
Time and others are taking her (as usual) to task for her snarkiness, but I have to say I think Maureen Dowd is onto something... though not something that's as bad as she thinks.
Flash forward to the kerfuffle — and Obama’s icy reaction — over this week’s New Yorker cover parodying fears about the Obamas.
“We’ve already scratched thrift, candor and brevity off the list of virtues in this presidential cycle, so why not eliminate humor, too?” wrote James Rainey in The Los Angeles Times, suggesting “an irony deficiency” in Obama and his fans.
Many of the late-night comics and their writers — nearly all white — now admit to The New York Times’s Bill Carter that because of race and because there is nothing “buffoonish” about Obama — and because many in their audiences are intoxicated by him and resistant to seeing him skewered — he has not been flayed by the sort of ridicule that diminished Dukakis, Gore and Kerry.
Dowd, of course, is worried about being out of a job... or at least, as Joe Klein suggests, forced to be serious.. but as I said, I think she's on to something, something I've been noting for a couple of posts and counting: the New Yorker flap, the discussion of humorlessness... there's something of a sea-change coming in political comedy, I think.
Continue reading "One... And That's Not Funny. (Or, Are You Ready For The New Seriousness?)" »
For some odd reason - yet to be explained - my Mom's copy of The New Yorker hasn't arrived yet (she's a subscriber - oh, come on, like that's a surprise); thus, both of us had to wait until it made the news to discover the controversy of the cover.
Now, I have my Obama issues, but this one is actually one where I kind of have to agree: the artwork is amazingly offensive, at least from what I can tell. Playing up the worst perceptions of stereotypes about the Obamas (he's a Muslim terrorist sympathizer! she's an anti-American radical!) may seem witty on the Manhattan Cocktail Party Circuit... but out here in Elsewhere, we've got people actually believing this nonsense. Thus, the "this is satuire that plays on people's extreme fears" stuff misses an important point... this isn't really satire.
i tend to think satire has become the ugly stepchild of humor these days - lots of people claim to like it, or know how to do it... but few really do. Satire, sadly, is not saying some snarky, asinine thing about something you don't like and then laughing as if it were funny. That's just being mean... and something of a jerk. Liberal that I am, I tend to blame conservative "humorists" for this sad state of affairs; the dark strains of bitterness and sarcasm that have animated much of the right's approach to political debate in the past 15 years or so have done little to lift the discourse, or improve the state of our humor generally. But with
lefties moving into the ascendancy, I can see I was too narrow, and lately, that same sort of unfunny bitter sarcasm can come just as jarringly from left as right.
Look, I'm about as dry and upscale as my humor as you can be - browsing Mom's New Yorkers, I'm still surprised how many times I laugh at especially Manhattanite notions of humor - but this thing isn't funny (and PS, am I the only one thinking "that looks more like Angela Davis than Michelle Obama"?). It's more that notion that shock and outrageousness sells papers, and controversy - any controversy - is good publicity. Perhaps the best news is that the New Yorker flap disctratcted me from the mag cover that really had me offended - that glamour shot with no text that Jann Wenner put on the cover of Rolling Stone. It's clear that an Obama Presidency will be a real sea change in our humor nation; comedy is far enough along that making fun of the black guy for being black will seem inappropriate, and Obama's deification has clearly put him out of reach of a lot of comedy. And surprisingly, for me anyway, I think that's probably not such a bad thing... a deification rules go.
Rumors of wild Hollywood living aside, apparently it's over for Sarah Silverman and Jimmy Kimmel.
All I can say is: me, too. I was stunned to hear that Carlin's dead, and the usual "what a great guy" or even "what a funny guy" seems beside the point. Carlin was too alive, too present, really, to deserve reverie. He'd have said "Fuck you, cocksucker" (using two of the seven), and ignored it.
I'm sort of fascinated that what we celebrate in Carlin really happened in the last 10, maybe 20 years. He was an old comic, from an old tradition, and like many of them, he got funnier, and feistier, with age. I don't even know what he was like in his actual youth; in the seventies, when he was in his forties, he was really sort of a counterculture holdover; but suddenly, in the eighties and beyond, he came into his own, and was really completely unstoppable.
In that hazy way, we will remember for those moments of speaking truth to power, and forget that his best humor was "old crank" humor maybe amped up a notch or two: if it was official, or established, or serious, or had some beaurocracy attached to it, Carlin hated it. He hated that we had to be polite, or perhaps more accurately, that we pretended that we had to be polite. As a result, though, he probably gave license to a sort of inner asshol-ishness that's not necessarily an improvement. Though I enjoyed his various specials... I usually got a little weary as they wore on.
But oh, when he was on! When it was seven dirty words or other hot topics, and he killed. Or, as the grizzled anchor of "The Aristocrats", the brilliant, savage documentary about one of the dirtiest jokes ever, he was soft spoken yet brilliant. We won't have to miss him (there's so much video)... but oh, what a shame that someday... we'll have to explain him.
I can't choose: Ezra, Dana Goldstein and Nick Beaudrot all found wickedly funny moments. I offer them all, together. Share and enjoy.
Last week, a little lost amidst the political roilings, I noted the passing of Sydney Pollack over at NewCritics. Pollack was one of preferred directors, classy and tasteful, the very notion of Hollywood Establishment, at least to me.
As I mentioned there, I think Tootsie remains one of the great screen comedies; and one reason for that, besides his assured direction, is Pollack's sharp performance as Michael Dorsey's agent.
There's a lot of great moments in there, but the one that I still think of first is the moment, at the height of the craziness, when Michael, having been groped by one man and proposed marriage by another (as Dorothy), goes to his agent and explains all of it to him. As he says in passing that he got a marriage proposal and oh yeah, even got a ring, the two of them stop and check out the ring. And Pollack compliments the ring and asks how he plans to handle it, and for a moment, they both fall into discussing Dorothy's life as if it's real.
In the comments there, Steve Barnes reminded me that Pollack's acting was, in many ways, as key to him as his direction:
There’s a good reason why Mr. Pollack was known as and actor’s (or star’s as the case may be) director. He was a very good actor himself. From appearances in several of his own films, to roles in Woody Allen’s “Husbands and Wives,” Stanley Kubrick’s “Eyes Wide Shut” to the final season of “The Sopranos,” he put a pretty solid string of performances on screen. He deserve to be remembered for those, too.
I agree with Steve, and it's very true that Pollack was a wonderful, underrated and subtle performer, often the best thing in the works he's in. And I think his sensitivity as an actor does explain volumes about the trust he got (and deserved) from his actors, especially stars - like Redford - who were not necessarily famous for talent first (don't get me wrong, I love Redford as an actor... but let's not pretend the blonde and the baby blues aren't key).
In any case, this is a good time to recommend Steve's equally informative and thoughtful post over at his own blog, which I think merits regular visits. And to remind anyone in a position to schedule film festivals (like, say Film Forum) that a retrospective of Pollack, as an actor, would I think be a revelatory thing - like another facet on a diamond.
Grey's Anatomy season finale in 5 minutes!!!!
- Red
I heard there's some primaries going on tonight... (I'm about all primaried out after a record-breaking day over at The Hillary 1000.)
So how about a humor break?
I'm stuck in terrible rush hour traffic at the Mass Pike E/Rt. 95 interchange in MA yesterday, after smooth sailing home with the man from an anniversary break in Portsmouth, NH. We're slowly merging into traffic, cutting off and being cut off by the hordes of road-enraged Massholes all around us. A Chevy Tahoe rolls up, a woman - gabbing on her cell phone - behind the wheel. I notice an enormous peace sign sticker stuck on the gas tank. As we crawl along beside her, I see it says "1.20.09" in small letters. I get it...
This driver is protesting President "National security consequences if we limit oil supply reserves; let's just ask the Saudis for more! more! more! Since murderously plundering another country for their supply seems to be slightly more costly than anticipated" Bush at the gas tank....of her gas-guzzler...
Actually, maybe it's TEH IRONY that burns...it burns!!!!!!
Via, of all people, Jonah Goldberg... this is amusing... and dead on.
Recent Comments