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Real Time: Ain't No Mountain Low Enough

"Did you see that clip from Bill Maher" comes at you one of 2 ways, ways you can usually spot in the tone of the questioner. It's either the "can you believe this" tone of exasperated outrage or the "You've gotta see this" of a Maher loyalist often meant to imply to the questioned that your similar balloon of preconceptions needs bursting. This week, of course, it was "Have you seen Sharon Osbourne" though Maher managed to upstage both her and himself, with a separate bombastic rant about covid hysteria and praise for Ron DeSantis.

Yeah... I'm not here to get into most of that... but maybe I'll circle back to it.

No, what struck me is how I mostly consider Maher an irrelevancy. I've never bothered to review Maher's shows, or even discuss him generally when discussing tv comics; I don't really see the point. Maher's essentially been doing the same shtick for years (even arguably launched a slew of wannabes, like, say, Greg Gutfeld), with about the same effect on the national conversation all along. And me... I don't really see the point.  

But hey, I'll say it: Real Time with Bill Maher is an overhyped, undercooked mess of classy trash - insult humor for the quasi-sophisticate set who enjoy the self satisfied host's air of smug superiority and takedowns of easy marks. Granddad to all the "nothing matters and what if it did" comic takes on politics (oh wait, that's George Carlin), Bill Maher can probably ride this dead horse into retirement... but that's not going to change the pointlessness of it all.

Maher started his career bouncing around the middle of the stand up golden years, back in the eighties when the spots were plentiful and the white guys ruled. Not great, not terrible, Maher has a way with a sly wisecrack or arch putdown and what was, at the time, a "postmodern worldview towards current events" that only afterwards did many of us notice was upscale nihilism in a deadpan dress. In the early nineties, Maher parlayed that shtick into the nascent Comedy Central's late night offering "Politically Incorrect" which, largely by timing, arrived in the right place at the right moment. Skewering "political correctness" in a modest, nobody cares timeslot was a good perch for him and the growing power of cable combined with an appeal to college kids and recent grads lent him an air of Letterman like hipness.

In general, Maher isn't: arriving in the early moments of the Clinton era made him the perfect foil for West Wing era type Kennedyesque hopefulness; it helped that Maher's personal presentation was straight out of the Rat Pack/Playboy After Dark hipsters of a similar era. When Clinton's personal issues blew up into the impeachment saga, Maher rode his act over to parent ABC, and took over their late-late slot (after Nightline), again showing that being a modest success in a nothing timeslot is a kind of stardom. That gig fell through after 9/11 when Maher's screeds against Muslim terrorists crossed from sarcastic to, well, all too real.

And that's Maher's real problem, trying to find that knife edge of just outrageous enough, but not pushing it, insults to the hobby horses of one side or another. Self described as liberal, Maher is just another cynic who is pretty sure they're all liars and crooks, or not cool enough to get what's really going on. He bolstered that act by combining a mix of generally 2nd to 3rd rate celebrities with the kind of political bomb throwers (legendarily, Ann Coulter... but pretty much most of those nineties right wing "author/pundit/columnists" and the eventual lefties who chased after them), tossing a straw man amongst them, and seeing if it caught on fire. Oooh, the outrageousness! Cue the clutched pearls!

Since getting tossed by ABC, it was inevitable that Maher could still find a buyer for what he was selling, and so... there he is, muddling through on HBO as he has for 18 years and counting, still hawking it like an aging stripper who went up market and is now mostly rhinestones and feathers and a lot less skin. Maher skews the proceedings by giving himself both an opening and closing monologue, ten minutes or so with someone usually hawking a policy book or memoir (I'm guessing John Boehner, soon enough), and another 10-12 with 3 "guests": still a Coulter like object, a well meaning but usually clueless Hollywood type and a DC pol looking to ziz up their recognition numbers. No insight, I guarantee you, will be derived.

Trying to get through it is exhausting - I suspect Maher sustains himself, these days, on the fact that John Oliver, while funnier and more topically relevant, comes across as a bit dry and airless. Maher's always been the class clown of the frat party, frantically working the room, pushing any button til he hits, and that desperation does get the job done, eventually and usually. Maher's real Achilles heel is that his monologues, while clever, insist on making him the hero of the joke: he's the one armed with the brilliant insight, the "secret truth," the last thrilling reveal. It's hard being Pithy on Purpose - it is, actually, the opposite of pith. If Maher's occasional flashes of brilliance lead to an indeed meaningful insight, he drowns the good in a sea of "it's meaningful because I say it is." It's too easy, in the end, for Maher to simply play the eternally cynical contrarian, reminding you - the audience - that your real weakness is caring about something, someone, or worse, a principle like justice or ultimate good. Pour yourself a whiskey and listen up kids... the world is going to let you down. See how right I am? QED.

And so Maher tried to double bill his cynical counterprogramming, absolving Osbourne of the racist stench that got her booted from The Talk, while simultaneously piously intoning that only he could serve as arbiter of what is sensible covid health policy and what is overkill. On the latter, he's neither, though the antiscience, anyone can play expert motif is probably more in tune with the times (and why that story mauled Osbourne's, yet again). Osbourne plays to his personal, still Rat Pack-y demeanor as an aging hipster who is weary of the performative wokeness. She may play well to a part of his audience, but Maher's own bad reputation is starting to catch up to him... and Osbourne's presence just underscores how much of Maher's act is long past its freshness date.

Because, ultimately, the "cancel culture" myth is just the "politically correct" bugaboo in new words: a sort of "it's unfair to criticize me for saying this awful outrageous thing when you're just as awful, mostly for being critical." As Politically Incorrect demonstrated, Maher can beat that dead horse all he likes, and make a clever not exactly funny show of it... but ultimately, there's nothing there but dead ends. Real Time may let him take the old material and dress it up like Dick Cavett, but the shtick remains and the act is beyond old. It's not that Maher may get cut, yet again, on his knife edge of outrageousness... it's that the knife is pretty dull these days. Even if the faithful haven't yet caught on to that.

Coming 2 America: Give The People What They Want

The thing about Eddie Murphy is that the bar he set really was of his own making. You kinda had to be there, but as a culture we went from zero to Eddie so quickly it almost seems like a quaint fairy tale now. Saturday Night Live to 48 HRS to Beverly Hills Cop with what, an HBO special in there for good measure? The man really was comedy gold. And all by just being, well, Eddie.

Movie stardom is its own specialized, particular thing. It's acting, sure, but it's also being, that instant quality you have in front of the camera where the audience expects you and you just deliver you... as a young moviegoer I didn't entirely understand watching the process as it was happening to newcomers I liked. I get it now. I can see the way that stardom arrives, how it happens... how it's really not new or different, it's just the right person in the right place, at a certain time. And Eddie, well... that happened.

But the bar is high and Eddie, while there have been brilliant hits, there's been plenty of misses, and a lot of... well, just okays. It's easy to blame "expectations" and that bar... but I think it's probably that usual thing about writing and directing. Get great writing in front of Eddie, get him a great director... and he shines. I mean, really shines. Dreamgirls. His last appearance on SNL. Good Eddie is fine. Great Eddie is... well, kids, you kind of had to be there for those opening weeks of Beverly Hills Cop.

Of all his initial stardom projects - before the first trough of 91-96 - Coming to America always seemed like a promise not quite fulfilled. For all that it was - a big budget, pretty much all African American driven project that succeeded tremendously - it also was a bit hit or miss. What works (seriously, go back, it's a satisfying watch, in spite of itself) really works, what doesn't... well, they can't all be Beverly Hills Cop.

And here's where looking at Coming 2 America is frustrating: on the one hand, the bar is maybe too high, on the other, it has been more than 30 years, and you think we might have learned, well, something. But what we have, well, is kind of what we get when you get good, but not great, Eddie. Coming 2 America, while funny in starts and fits, never quite gels into the kind of "second swing at what still feels really promising and just out of reach" that the first film has long represented. While his core audience will get a lot of what feels familiar... what's missing is the kind of sharp attack and insightful power of Eddie's best work.

Like it's predecessor, Coming 2 America leaps over Paramount's mountain to return us to that magical, fictional nation of Zamunda (and the movie more or less fails to land the obvious joke about Wakanda being nearby) where Eddie's Prince Akeem is moments away from becoming King. Without a male heir, the country's future seems vulnerable... until we discover (conveniently) that Akeem may have, well, also fathered a child while he was in America with another woman - and here, in one of the film's brightest moves, it inserts Leslie Jones not just into the sequel, but also the original film. In short order Akeem and Semmi (a somewhat wan reprise from Arsenio) wing their way back to Queens, pick up the son and his Moms and head back to Wakanda... I mean, Zamunda, to ...

Well, to be honest, nothing makes a lot of sense once Lavelle (the son, ably played by Jermaine Fowler) comes on the scene, and the film meanders between a young man's quest to become prince, some tepid family drama, and Eddie learning to be the Lion King or the Black Panther... or something. Fundamentally, the problem is that much of this isn't nearly as funny as it wants to be, and the familiar dilemma of many an Eddie film - all the dick jokes and gross outs - is as present as ever. Is clever too much to hope for? I don't see why - and I mean that literally: this thing has a dream, cross generational cast of African American talent, almost all of it semi-wasted.

Because part of what's always separated Coming to America - and, indeed, Coming 2 America makes even more explicit - is how it put black America in a film in front of white America.  Eddie's movie stardom has always been about confronting our racial divide in ways that shake white cultural complacency, and celebrating African American heritage. The original film made a point of telling a story aimed at black America to show white America would watch... and they did. Coming 2 America just doubles down on that promise. The thing is, that promise should feel more, well, promising... shouldn't it?

More pointedly, the film literally dances uneasily around what was, in the original film, already a dubious stew of racial, ethnic, cultural and wildly sexist tropes. Yes, women fare better here, but barely. Partly that's because of Jones, who's apparently incapable of phoning it in, as well as the serene presence of Shari Headley, reprising her role as Queen Lisa, and reminding us that Hollywood can let women age gracefully.  But lots of sexist nonsense abounds. I don't even know where to begin with the dicey aspects of what passes for "African" here. At best, the film skates by what's obviously problematic with a nervous laugh and a "well, we are a comedy" ... but there's a field day to be had unpacking it all.

The film quickly and neatly wraps everything up, largely by importing what seems like the tone and approach of another film all together... and even that's fine, if a bit Tyler Perry, by which I mean a lot of feel good moments black people like and a hearty dose of sentimentality. For what it is, Coming 2 America wraps things up as well as can be expected. It's fair, though, to ask why no one tried to do more.

Director Craig Brewer did Dolemite with Eddie (after helping produce and direct Empire, and writing Hustle and Flow), but I'd call this more akin to his directing the remake of Footloose - he's capable and he gets the sensibility of the source material... but he's not exactly visionary (and he's no John Landis, for better and worse). As for the script, it definitely feels assembled by the committee credited with writing it: no real point of view, full of pedestrian dialogue and a bit of a mess. What's best, I suspect, is the music - how can you miss with cameos from Gladys Knight and En Vogue and Salt and Pepa? - and some pretty tasty (Ruth Carter of course) costumes (including Eddie's, natch). Which isn't everything... but like much of this project, hints at what could have been, well, great, rather than just okay.

The younger cast are lovely but colorless, including Fowler. But who knows what could have been, with a better, smarter script and more of a point of view? Coming 2 America isn't Bad Eddie - not Norbit bad, or Pluto Nash bad - it's just that "somewhere in the middle" Eddie which reminds you (still) that he can open a picture, but feels a little disappointing. Like I said... that bar is high for a reason, and that reason isn't entirely fair. The trouble is, really, that we all know that Eddie is entirely capable of "fuck that bar." And that's the Coming 2 America I was hoping to see. It's in there, somewhere, still fighting with a crowd pleaser to get the fuck out.

TV Season 2015-16: The Best of What We Saw

The idea of a "traditional" TV season is all but dead, thanks to time shifting and online sources, never mind the crush of DVD compilations. And really, TV has been divided down into quarters, as 13 week storytelling (even 6 or 9 week stories) have come over from Europe as a valid "season" of a show. 

So is old style, 22-24 episode seasonal storytelling outdated? Too much? I can't say - there are shows I wouldn't dream of dropping everything to watch each week, and stories not worth telling long form... but having spent another year glued to Supernatural, I can't say the form has no uses left, either. What I can say is that episodic television is enjoying a renaissance unlike anything I've seen in my lifetime - the variety of quality, smart, interesting options to watch has never been more varied; the creativity on display rarely more inventive; and the ability of storytelling to move audiences rarely so accomplished.

This is a highly selective, personal list. I'm not big on conventional choices or top ten faves. And I certainly have a fondness these days for comic books fantasy and sci-fi, as do many of us (yet somehow, no love for Game of Thrones). So here, just to put it out there, a few things I've watched and loved from Fall into Spring:

1. Supernatural (Season 10, on DVD; Season 11, the CW). Nothing else like it has ever lasted this long on TV. And who else could tell a story from the point of view of the car ("Baby," this season's fan fave) and pull it off? After confronting heaven, hell and everything in between, it's been hard to know how the chroniclers of Sam and Dean Winchester could find fresh ground - yet here they were, going back to the beginning of time to revive The Darkness, a malevolent force bent on erasing all of creation (and, as luck would have it, God's sister). If things got a little off kilter at times - a little airless, a little too meta by half - the various gems along the way were a reminder that in many ways the show still has much to discover. Then, too, the quality of the performances from the leads to the passing guests - ensembles should always age this well.  And "God is Chuck" is a piece of legend and lore worthy of the mythology of the show.
2. Lucifer (Season 1, Fox). Supernatural was so impressed, they threw it in as a toss-off: "maybe I'll move to LA and become a detective." But Fox's midseason mystery fantasy entry had, unsurprisingly, a lot of charm and sexiness, not to mention some better than to be expected writing and acting as well. (And not nearly as surprising is Lucifer himself, Tom Ellis, who had already done a lovely, similar turn as a junkie doctor on Rush in a one season USA stint). Preposterous? Sure, and at times, the mundane plotting wasn't up to the lurid, daring intensity of the premise... but it worked a lot better than it had any right to, and just enough to leave people panting for more.
3. The Flash (Season 1, DVD; Season 2, the CW). Of comics on TV, The Flash has raced past all of its neighbors (the CW: comics and ghouls! And a couple of wacky ladies!) to establish itself as the genre's star. Much of that appeal is on the back of Grant Gustin, seemingly from nowhere (actually from Glee, where he honestly put the star back into musical comedy), as an utterly sincere, guileless young man suddenly able to save the world. Extrapolating on Season One's jumble of gobbledygook science, time travel and parallel universes, The Flash could easily fly off the rails at any moment (and, in its own trip to heaven/nirvana, nearly did), but the show's upbeat approach and willingness to believe (and relative consistency) covers sins other shows wouldn't necessarily survive. Three flashes, two bad flashes, and many multiple roles later, the cast looks game, the mythology holds, and the race is on.
4. RuPaul's Drag Race (Season 8, Logo). A short, tight run for the crown this year was helped immensely by an even more jaw dropping array of talent and beauty on display than before: by the time the season had weeded its way down to stunning Naomi Smalls, sassy Bob the Drag Queen, and the breathtaking looks of online star Kim Chi, it was clear that drag, and Ru Paul's faith in her chosen art form, needed no defense. That battle had been won, years ago, as demonstrated both by the opener's "100 drag queens" premise, to the finale's opening shot of RuPaul and her Superstars. Eight years later, the possibilities seem endless for a man in a dress. Any one of this year's three could have been - and will be - a superstar, but Bob's selection was a reminder that the goal here is TP - the Total Package. And Bob's Taraji by way of Viola Davis skewering of an Empire diva was, in itself, off the charts. And only the beginning.
5. Rosewood (Season 1, Fox). Police procedurals ebb and flow, but never really go away - just ask SVU. And somehow, simply by insisting on diversity casting, Fox has managed to breathe fresh life into a premise as old as Quincy - the crusading medical examiner, this time as a black man. Morris Chestnut surely has one of the best roles on television, and he's playing the heck out of it... not to mention seducing the camera with his eyes. If it's not quite all it could be, it's a lot more than we're getting anywhere else.
6. The Americans (Seasons 1-3, Amazon Prime; Season 4, FX). I am very late to the ball on this one, having heard good things over the years, but never diving fully into the "Russians living here as ordinary Americans, spying on us" in the Reagan eighties. As it turns out, the whole thing is wildly riveting. Big ideas about identity, and loyalty and who can you trust bouncing against the intimate dramas of family and coming of age and life in a changing time. Add in a top flight cast, and stir. There's no better explanation of the power of binge watching than finding a gem like this, in the middle of the game.
7. The Man in the High Castle (Season 1, Amazon Prime). Phillip K. Dick's writing has ascended into the pantheon of Hollywood's go-to sci-fi fantasy projects, but I'm not sure his work has ever (even Blade Runner) been as well represented as this "what if the Axis won the war" fantasia. Envisioning an America divided up between Germany and Japan - with the Rockies as a rough terrain no-man's land - The Man in the High Castle's depiction of alternative history is masterful, subtle, and feels true, no mean feat when it's all made up. Political thriller, time tampering mystery and much more, The Man in the High Castle promised much in its pilot, and delivered in 13 episodes dropped, as online series do, into the mix all at once. And so well received, we we even get more.
8. The Road Warriors and AM Joy (MSNBC) Political coverage is a nightmare this year, both reflecting the mess on display, and of course, helping to create it. There's not a lot of good - and I'd hate to overlook the bright spots of competent panels on CNN, the Chris Matthews interview of Trump, the occasions of pithy insight from Maddow... but there's a lot of bad - the general meltdown of Fox, the Trump cheerleading of Morning Joe, the horror that is Wolf Blitzer. And in the midst of all of it, MSNBC decided to do a wholesale makeover of its whole schedule, from bringing back Brian Williams (eh), to losing Melissa Harris-Perry in a storm of angst and academic drang. While the finished product is still touch and go, it's hard not to appreciate some of the effort to think out of the box - from reviving Joy Reid into MHP's spot on weekends, every bit as insightful and yet less didactic; to a weekday roundtable of the top women reporters covering campaigns, including Kasie Hunt, Katy Tur, Hallie Jackson and Kristen Welker, all doing great work, along with Steve Kornacki (cute, though the "white guy with the data crunching" thing is both hackneyed and a little insulting). While CNN flails and Fox retreats into the old angry demographic, MSNBC may well be figuring out how to do 24 hour news and analysis that isn't a complete head shaking mess.
9. Masterpiece Mystery (PBS). No, I'm not going to give a self congratulatory pat on the back to Downton, basking in its easy tropes about wealth and class and British manners - sudsy soap operas will always have an appeal, especially using the hoariest of cheap gimmicks and plot twists to keep the audience coming back for more. No, let's celebrate what Downton has wrought, such as it is - a reliable engine for well produced British television to find a classy home on Sunday evenings. Sure Mystery used to stand on its own, but folded into Masterpiece isn't so bad either, and as much as anything is helping to give the enterprise legs beyond the chase for another blockbuster ("Wolfe Hall" is hardly cutting it, nor "Poldark" nor a half dozen more). Sure Grantchester (riding the well worn trick of casting Robson Green) and Endeavour (riding the well worn afterglow of Inspector Morse) aren't exactly plowing fresh ground, but classic detective work is rare these days, and while Kenneth Branagh is a bit of a dud as Wallander, the respect for source material these days is especially strong. A bit less Call The Midwife, a lot less Mr. Selfridge... and no more Darlene Shiley (Masterpiece's main donor, buying herself a vanity spot in the network's plea for donation cattle call)... and we're all good.
10. SNL (Season 46, NBC)... Or as we used to call it, Saturday Night Live. Rarely has it been funnier. Rarely has the cast been this deep, and never more diverse. If it's still hit-or-miss on the sketch humor - and still too much miss - the good has rarely been this great: Kate McKinnon's "maybe this time" version of Hillary Clinton, those sparkling videos and song parodies ("First Got Horny 2 U", or "Hello" as Thanksgiving uniter), and even the sly understated (at best) humor flying between Colin Jost and Michael Che on Weekend Update. And Leslie Jones is fierce!

Honorable Mentions: Modern Family (only cause I'm not really watching it consistently; but in reruns my goodness is it funny), Schitt's Creek, Happy Endings (The best 40 episodes of random comedy cruelly left behind) The Real O'Neals, Telenovela, Shameless, Archer, Legends of Tomorrow, Limitless, Madam Secretary, Penny Dreadful, Billions, Empire, Grandfathered... and anything that's on up against judges scoring singers or dancers. 

Friday Favorite: Trainwreck

If there's an indication of Amy Schumer's intelligence throughout Trainwreck, it's actually apparent in the first shot: Colin Quinn - when did Quinn ever get a shot like this! - as the dad, riffing for his daughters on how mom and dad are divorcing over dad's interest in, well, other dolls. The doll metaphor puts near perfect uncomfortable childishness on the whole enterprise ("how about a slightly overweight cocktail waitress doll?"), while underlining the womanizing and how bad of a parent he can be. But the joy of it is Quinn, tearing into the bit with a relish only a smart comic can. How many comics put the tour de force moments in the hands of others?

Schumer's trust in the talents of others - of wanting, not just being willing, to join an ensemble - enriches Trainwreck on every level. Anybody could put a female protagonist into a bad job at a men's lad book (still around? Yes), but putting Tilda Swinton in as your nightmare editor, with coworkers like Vanessa Bayer, lifts the whole thing to amazing levels of insight - about women in the workplace, the hell of magazine writing, and a world bent on reinforcing the worst sexist roles and tendencies. (And Swinton, all spray tan and blonde extensions and East End accent, vanishes yet again into the magical depths of her near boundless talent, as if her next role was stepping into The Only Way Is Essex.)

All of that, and the real genius of Trainwreck is that Schumer, as a writer, is willing to lay all this insight into what could be, but really isn't, a standard romantic comedy. The romantic comedy has had a rough time of it until recently - distorted and tortured into the "rom com" "chick flick" where all women want is Prince Charming, and all men want to do is watch something else. There was a time when these tales of two improbable people finding love and each other had actual depth - complex characters, emotionally resonant stories, some insights into the human condition. Trainwreck can't do it alone, but it does suggest that the worst may be somewhat behind us.

Director Judd Apatow has done a lot of work, much of it very good, in this regard; he's helped redefine the roles for both men and women in these types of films, not losing sight of romance, while allowing modern, more aggressive comedy to find its place. A lot of this, still, comes from the SNL world of sketch humor - Trainwreck is loaded with performers from recent seasons - but mostly we're just living through a transition where comedy, and the world it makes fun of, have changed. And Schumer's voice has become one of the essential elements.

It's a woman's voice, and a woman's voice that's not bound by convention or traditional notions of any sort. Amy, the main character, is wonderfully her own woman, in ways both positive and negative. She's brash, independent... but stuck in a lousy job, with family issues, personal problems and a bit of chemical dependency. Her bad relationship with a lunky boyfriend falls apart over her one nights stands. Her dad is ill, And by chance she starts working on a story about a sports doctor - she hates sports - who might be a good guy.

Here too is more great casting - Bill Hader's in that wonderful underrated position (Steve Carrell is about the only other one I can think of) where he's both slyly funny and genuinely likable, an everyman who always makes it work without calling a lot of attention to himself. It's a role that has to sell sincerity without feeling stale, and Hader makes it just quirky enough to keep it out of the realm of utterly unbelievable.

But this is Schumer's first chance to shine on the big screen and she tears into it with such gusto it's hard not to be amazed. Sure, she's been offering variations on this gal in her standup and on her remarkable TV show all along, but here she takes the various pieces, and fashions the whole person, a not entirely likable young woman who nonetheless earns audience sympathy; and manages to make points about all the bullshit thrown at young single women, while reminding us that things defined as feminine - softness, tenderness, vulnerability - are essential and valuable for us all.

Arguably, Trainwreck, loses its way in the final 15 minutes, when the need for tidy endings overwhelms what's come before - oh look, another Hollywood "drinking problem" solved by cleaning your apartment of half empty bottles - though the sentiment works and you won't figure these characters simply go gently into that good night. Rarely do films tap into both the ecstatic laughs of comic genius and the real pain of love and loss so thoroughly. And almost never has film shown the kind of respect for women as their own agents, in ways both good and bad. Trainwreck marks an assured debut, and unlocks some real possibilities for women's roles and stories on film. And that, surely, is some very good news.

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Weddings and Women and Washington... and some thing about the Supreme Court that starts with W...

I was hesitating to continue in this vein, but this week was so full of gay marriage news: the people registering to marry in Washington state (insert joke here about using now legal pot, too), and the Supreme Court dithering for days about whether to take any gay marriage cases, and then at the final minute taking the DOMA case and the Prop 8 case... well, I think we can keep joking about who is going to marry whose boyfriends or girlfriends, now, can't we?

Because it's funny... until Antonin Scalia says marriage is between a man and a woman. And then it's not... although I think if he does that in an opinion, it will basically be hilarious.

Anyway, here are the responses from women, straight and gay. Links to the originals below.

 

 

 

 

 

The Straight Guy Response

Via Towleroad, the answer I was seeking:

 

Personally, as with the "gay guys will marry your girlfriends", I find the hilarity kinds of overcomes the dopey, underlying sexism of the argument. And I find, as a gay man of a certain age, that both sides of this "debate" kind of jibe with the way life is now - funny gay guys who don't see every straight man as a potential boyfriend, and straight men who aren't nearly as uptight about gays (or gay seeming stuff like a fashion sense) as we were led to believe. I remember the straight friend at my last company who said, with heartfelt assurance, that he'd "totally be my wingman" in a gay bar... and the layers of assumptions and prejudices I had to put away as a result. I don't think "we'll marry your girlfriends" is a good or realistic plan... but heck, even threats like that can start a dialogue. And isn't that a good thing?

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Ew, It's Gross. I'm Not Doing It (Plus Some Thoughts On Taylor Swift)

 

"We are never ever ever getting into leather" is much fun (via one of my regular must reads, the World of Wonder blog), but then so is the Taylor Swift original which kicked off her album Red.

 

 

Swift has gotten a lot of grief because the song, apparently, is a thinly veiled diss of Jake Gyllenhaal. This is in line with previous songs, her subtextual critics suggest, with a string of songs aimed at exes and occasionally their new girlfriends. For her part, Swift doesn't entirely deny that her songs come out of her experiences, or that some of them are indeed, about a specific person or event.

That is usally how one writes a song.

I'm sort of struck by the obvious sexism at play in this, and by the blindness of otherwise sensitive types (like Jezebel) to the double standard at work. It's as if all that material written by high profile male rockstars to their (often equally high profile) girlfriends and exes never happened. Did nobody hear the backstory of "My Sharona"?  Or how Dylan aimed a string of (actually rather bitchy) singles at his girlfriends from the sixties (including, just as a for instance, Edie Sedgwick)? How about something more recent - did no one listen to the words to "Gives You Hell" by All American Rejects? (Yeah, I don't love it either... but still).

Apparently, it's wrong for a woman to complain about bad boyfriends... or something. Or perhaps it's just that Swift's kiss-offs are aimed at young, handsome, popular celebrity men whose puppy dog reps (even a dog like John Mayer) preclude thinking badly of them in the public sphere. Perhaps it's simply the charmed nature of Swift's career and her own super-sweet public persona. I know I resisted at first, but Swift's chops as a musician and songwriter have become simply impossible to dismiss or ignore. And that, really, is why a song like "We are never ever getting back together" has sting. 

Whatever the case for resistance and ugly backlash, I can't help the feeling that if Swift were a man and the disses in question were aimed at ex-girlfriends we wouldn't be having this backlash and the star would be a hero, not a bitch. And that's just like... ew.

We Will Marry The Crap Out Of Them

CollegeHumor's Favorite Funny Videos

 There's some issues of sexism attached (it's only boys, and a certain type of gay boy at that)... but I just find the underlying politics of it - gay boys taking back their power - somehow liberating. I do wish they someone would add lesbians to this... because that would make the mind-spinning complete. 

Okay, This Really Is The Gayest Beer Commercial. Ever.

Okay, I wouldn't usually go there with this, but the past 36 hours I've been having YouTube trouble (and it's related to having FireFox trouble, but I'm back to using Safari), and I didn't see this thing when I first tried to find it. This is totally NSF... well, everywhere, or anything, but definitely NSFW, I think. If I was still drinking beer, though, I think I'd have to at least go buy a six pack of theirs. Or something.

 

 

The One About Ron Paul

Since I've done most of the others... oh, hell, that came out wrong, didn't it? 

But anyway, enough about me. Let's talk about Ron Paul.

Ron Paul is a libertarian. That means, apparently that he believes in "liberty" above all else. Or something. At least in theory. In practice, Ron Paul says a lot of kooky things that everyone thinks are fascinating because he seriously seems to believe that one cannot possibly deviate from one's overarching theoretical principle. even if the "logical conclusion" makes no sense.

Representative Paul - he's been in Congress for quite a while - also has the real politician's gift for making otherwise outlandish statements seem perfectly reasonable. He presents well. He has that "am I the only one who sees this?" quality that suggests that he does, indeed, see something more clearly than the rest of us. Of course... this is not actually a good test.

There's this long debate about just how much libertarians and conservatives actually have in common. For one thing, Ron Paul is no fan of defense spending or an expansive foreign policy, mostly because he's generally no fan of government of any sort. Or not much sort. Or something. It's a very long debate and people on either side of it can argue about really esoteric details for a really long time. If we're lucky, we can use this to distract them... and run away.

Libertarians are the ones who think that society is best when the individual is pretty much allowed to run free, free of rules and pesky regulations and the ever present hand of Big Brother. Conservatives don't like Social Security because it's socialism. Ron Paul doesn't like Social Security because it's the govertnment. See the important distinction?

So the thing is, there are a lot of people who fancy themselves "libertarians," and most of them really like Ron Paul. A lot. And because the Republicans can't seem to exclude any wild idea from their side's discourse, Ron Paul has built himself a pleasant libertarian fiefdom within the GOP. Republicans don't really want a lot of Ron Paul... but if Ron Paul stays calm, most of those "libertarians" will reliably vote Republican. You know... for the people who want the government to regulate people's marriages and sex lives. Because that's totally, like, liberty.

Ron Paul, by the way, doesn't have a problem with gay marriage. He has a problem with (wait for it...) marriage licenses.

Look, I try to take Ron Paul seriously - and believe me, if we'd taken Ron Paul a little more seriously, perhaps we'd have better avoided the train wreck of Senator Rand Paul, his son, every bit as out there, but not as bright - and then I go and listen to Ron Paul... and I can't do it. I just can't do it.

So... did you hear the one about Ron Paul actually winning Iowa?

I'm sure it's just, you know, a joke. 

And win or lose, you've got to admit, it would be pretty funny. It's almost as if he could be President. Or something.