Showing posts with label amy miller. Show all posts
Showing posts with label amy miller. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

CONSERVATIVES AND THE DARK ART OF COMEDY.

Politico reports that Jon Stewart visited the White House twice in the Obama era. To you and me and other ordinary citizens, no big; but to the Washington Free Beacon it’s “Jon Stewart Secretly Visited Obama White House Two Times” — that’s two (2!) times, America! — a development “previously unreported in the media.” The story concludes: “Stewart has become infamous for his consistently negative portrayal of Republican lawmakers. He will appear in his final episode as host next Thursday.”

You may be wondering, why the ominous tone? Turns out it’s widespread among the winger brethren. “That’s the clown-nose-on, clown-nose-off issue again with Daily Show and its clones,” seethes Ed Morrissey at Hot Air, replicating a ten-year-old wingnut talking point; “they want to be taken seriously as cultural drivers and news disseminators, but don’t want the responsibility for disclosing their biases or their slants.”

One wonders: What “desire to be taken serious” or “responsibility” is Morrissey talking about? The responsibility to look glum and serious like Ben Shapiro? (If Chuck Todd decided to try and be funny, would he be more likely to increase his effectiveness, or to embarrass himself?)

“Secret visits, unprecedented access,” sputters Amy Miller at Legal Insurrection under the title “It’s Official: Jon Stewart is an Obama Shill.” “Comedy is an effective buffer against criticism,” Miller says, carefully sloshing the volatile essence of comedy between two beakers in the pale moonlight, “and now we know that there was a coordinated effort to control which Administration foibles got ha-has, and which were exposed for actual critique. It’s not a particularly shocking revelation, but it does serve as one more layer of slime covering the travesty that is the relationship between liberals and the media.” (You disgusting jokesters! I knew there was a reason why they made you sit at a table far from the paying customers!)

The Politico reporter “never questions the appropriateness of Obama’s private meetings with the liberal comedian,” gasps Newsbusters. "A DEMOCRATIC OPERATIVE, MASQUERADING AS A COMEDIAN... Potemkin Village? We’ve got a whole freakin’ Potemkin Culture," crypto-fascizes Ole Perfesser Instapundit (h/t @punditdotcom).

“While President Obama was leaving the money on the nightstand for the rest of the press… he was making waffles and fresh squeezed orange juice for Johnny in the morning,” says alleged comedian Steve Crowder. “…If you ever needed any more proof as to the corrupt relationship of not only the press, but the entertainment industry with the Democratic party… you’re welcome.” In a healthy democracy apparatchiks would encourage the people to laugh at Steve Crowder, not some commie oaf!

“Confirmed: Jon Stewart Was Obama’s Official White House Jester,” snarls Philip Wegmann at The Federalist. His lede is precious:
Molière, the 17th century French playwright, once observed that “comedy alone can correct the vices of men.” Too bad he never watched The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. It turns out that the Comedy Central funnyman was just another flak for the Obama administration.
Whereas Molière was always telling people what a treasonous bastard Louis XIV was. Surely you remember “La comédie de l'acte de naissance”? Wegmann closes,
Comedy probably won’t see another Stewart anytime soon. His comedic genius will be hard to match. But one can’t help but wonder, what if Stewart had really gone after everyone? How many laughs did he lose by telling canned-political jokes? How many vices went uncorrected?
Does it strike you as it does me that these people have never told a joke — I mean, never done so just for the pleasure of making their friends laugh? (Though they may have lab-tested some pieces of ordnance marked “humor” for their loathsome work of correcting vices or whatever, and stood sadly in their lab coats watching them fail, wondering why their creatures never came to life.)

This is sort of the essence of conservatives when they talk about culture. They show not the slightest awareness of the fundamental truth that comedy, like drama and film and music and everything else like it, is animated by something much deeper and more elemental that politics — though artists may become political themselves and be motivated to approach those subjects, particularly when the society they’re born into is as fucked up as ours. Art confuses conservatives, so they despise it, and treat it as some unfair advantage that liberals have. They don’t think artists tend to be liberal because liberal society gives human beings the breathing room to develop their talents — such a thing is impossible for them to grasp; they think it’s because ObamaHitler and his fellow Hitlers have found some community called “Artsilvania” or something where people are temperamentally just like conservatives except talented, and paid them a great deal of money to promote liberal lies (which, in the conservative imagination, they would do happily because money is more important than anything).

I’d feel sorry for them if they weren’t working so hard to destroy everything I love.

UPDATE. Angergrams keep coming in. "I’ve always viewed Stewart as Obama’s messenger boy and this pretty much confirms it," says American Spectator's Aaron Goldstein, whose usefulness in any capacity has never been demonstrated. And the New York Post's Kyle Smith calls Stewart a "partisan hack" who "allowed himself to be seduced by power. He sold out. He dined with those he should have been dining upon." Back in 2009, Smith was yelling at Will Ferrell for making fun of newly-evicted POTUS George W. Bush: "Is it too much to ask for Hollywood's leading comic actor not to use the deaths of our troops in combat for a giggle?" his subhed sputtered. Smith was talking about a bit where Ferrell's Bush interrupted a moment of silence for the war dead to take a phone call. This is an ancient gag (there's an especially funny variation involving Ralph Richardson in O Lucky Man! starting at 6:45 here) but Smith seemed never to have heard of it, and to be mortally offended:
The problem is, during what turned out to be merely a pause to set up the punchline, I actually was thinking about our war dead, and so were a lot of others. Left and right, we all believe, or supposedly do, in honoring the sacrifice of our servicemen and women. 
Here, Hollywood is letting its mask slip...

But is it too much to ask for our war dead to not be ridiculed by wealthy comedians? Maybe those who fly on private jets, live in closely policed communities with surveillance cameras covering every inch of their property and send their kids to private school don’t understand that there is such a thing as public security, and that it isn’t a joke...
Also, how about that bastard George Grosz, painting deformed World War I veterans so disrespectfully instead of promoting kinder, küche, and kirche like a good citizen?  That Smith's talking about anyone else's hackery is rich, but I'll say this for him: What he lacks in talent he makes up for in nerve.

Sunday, July 19, 2015

CONSERVATIVE OUTREACH TO WOMEN IS GOING GREAT, AGAIN.

Carly Fiorina did a short video for BuzzFeed in which she turns around popular sexist tropes in an office setting -- e.g., "How do you walk in those shoes?" "I didn't know men could be funny," "Does your wife help out with the kids?" It's a little over a minute long, totally innocuous, and of a genre that goes back to George S. Kaufman's If Men Played Cards As Women Do, at least. If anything the effect is to make Fiorina seem like a good sport, and not just the woman who nearly destroyed Hewlett Packard and thinks that was a good stepping stone to the Presidency.

Yet Amy Miller at Legal Insurrection thinks the video is worse than bad. While admitting through gritted teeth that "humanity goes a long way when it comes to connecting with voters and gaining trust on a more personal level," she says,
Carly is funny, engaging, and smart—but she used that power for evil. She walked into a young, modern, progressive venue, and threw her own womanhood under the bus in an effort to pander to a base that will never vote for her. 
Fiorina has defined herself as a businesswoman, CEO, and force to be reckoned with; she should not have to—and should never (NEVER)—have to play into the hands of liberals who work every day to manufacture divides in our society. 
This isn’t effective outreach; it’s Stockholm Syndrome.
Maybe she thinks gender reversal jokes are the first step toward gender reversal, Caitlin Jenner, and dogs and cats living together. Sadder still is Ashe Schow at the Washington Independent Examiner, who admitted "that I laughed multiple times throughout the video" before she got her mind right and "concluded that it was just another attempt to divide people" through the dark art of humor. Schow even explained why some specific sections did not meet her standards for minute-long internet joke videos. For example, the "men talking over women" gag:
This one I've experienced. Maybe it's sexism, maybe I didn't speak up loudly enough. I've had people steal my ideas — and my jokes — because I wasn't heard and they were.
I'd love to know what ideas of Ashe Schow's somebody stole, and what workplace they were worth stealing in.
One example of this occurred at one of my previous jobs — but I can't conclusively say that it was due to the fact that I am woman and not, say, the fact that I was new to politics and knew very little compared to the people around me (I definitely lacked confidence due to that).
You've all been there, right, ladies? Some man talks over you and then steals your idea, and you think, hmm, maybe I'm to blame for this, but one thing I'm sure about is that it has nothing to do with institutional sexism.
...it also happens to men. Certain bosses take credit for their subordinate's ideas, regardless of whether the subordinate is a man or a woman.
Also, in prison men rape other men, so I don't see why everyone makes such a big deal about women getting raped. On the joke about women getting asked about work and family more than men:
The difference here reflects poorly on both sexes. When women are asked this, the implied question seems to be: "Why don't you spend more time with your children?" At the same time, not asking this question of men comes with the undertone that men don't need to be there for their children, or simply don't need to care about them.
I bet men really suffer from this one. No one asks if I'm spending time with the kids. I feel so -- not-validated! 

They have a female candidate who's pretty conservative and the minute she acknowledges the experience of many, many women voters it's like she turned into Germaine Greer. They're really asking a lot of their white male base in 2016.

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

THERE'S SOMEONE FOR EVERYONE IN THIS WORLD.

Donald Trump threw his hairpiece in the ring today, and most people reacted with the solemnity the event demanded. Even Republicans seem to grasp that Trump's insertion is no blessing on their chances in 2016.  But Trump has a few friends among the conservative elite. Jeffrey Lord of the American Spectator is here to tell you smart-alecks that Trump has the love of the people:
The other day, Trump took a stroll outside of his iconic Trump Tower with Fox and Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade. Not surprisingly there were everyday folk instantly swarming to Trump. They wanted a picture, they wanted a handshake, they wanted to have a word. At one point, standing on Fifth Avenue, Trump is flagged by the driver of a lumber truck. “I know you!” the driver says with a laugh and a grin. 
Why? Why this Grand Canyon-size gap between media and political elites and average Americans when it comes to the subject of Donald Trump?
#1: This is probably the first time since 9/11 that anyone at the Spectator referred to New Yorkers as "average Americans." #2: I can easily see the same rubber-necking and gawking visited upon your average Kardashian, but I'm not sure what that means for their national electoral chances. (If Trump stayed out there a couple of days, he'd probably be getting the same reactions those guys who dress up as Elmo get at Rockefeller Center.)
Why is it that he is consistently underestimated whether the subject is his financial worth or his political viability? 
The answer in this corner is that Donald Trump is seen by many Americans as the very embodiment of the American Dream. Someone with vision and drive who settles down and focuses, working hard day in and day out to make his own dreams come true. And succeeding. When millions of average Americans look at Donald Trump — they see — shocker! — themselves.
If I were the American people, I'd sue for defamation. Also hot for Trump: Ben Shapiro. Yes, despite his defenestration from TruthRevolt, his prose lives on at Breitbart.com, where he has a "top seven moments from Trump’s speech." I dusted them for irony and came up empty. Example:
“I Don’t Need Anybody’s Money. It’s Nice…I’m Really Rich.” This, in a nutshell, is what makes Trump awesome. Trump may be the only candidate in the race who isn’t ashamed of being wealthy. He sees wealth as something Americans should strive for and be proud of, not something Americans should degrade. Trump also said that he had lobbyists who could get him any policy he wanted, and that as president, because of his wealth, he wouldn’t be beholden to anyone. If Trump actually sticks to this pitch, he’d do a true service to America, where Mitt Romney is supposed to act contrite for earning lots of money and creating lots of jobs...
I bet the guy in the lumber truck loved it. Shapiro is bullish on Trump's chances: "Trump must understand that he’s seen as a clown by the media – he’s too smart not to see that," he analyzes. (How'd David Horowitz let this guy go?)  "But being seen as a clown can be advantageous, because it comes with zero expectations of actual substance. Every gaffe by Jeb Bush throws mud on his skirt; every lucid moment from Trump elevates him..." Someone should check Lord's and Shapiro's bank accounts and see if they made any big deposits lately.

At Legal Insurrection, Amy Miller:
I think that most strategists would agree that a candidate who flaunts his wealth in the way that Trump has could prove problematic with the voting base. That being said -- at this point, why not try it?
She has a point. What if Mitt Romney had gone around lighting cigars with $100 bills, or paying children to dance for him?
...I may not understand what it feels like to own a yacht (anyone have a yacht I can borrow to test this?) but I do understand what it feels like to earn enough money to make a major purchase, or treat myself to a luxury item. Why shouldn’t he be proud of his towers in the same way I’m proud of the things I’ve earned?
I sweated and I saved and I was finally able to come up with $100,000 to pay off my $20,000 credit card debt from the 1990s. In another ten years I may be able to pay for this appendectomy, and then I'll be even more sympathetic to Donald Trump!
...as a wonk, I’m interested to see how his campaign plans on introducing Trump the Man to the American people.
My sources tell me Trump will do a listening tour where he hits the town halls, walks up to random voters, and offers them a million dollars to let him sleep with their wives.

Other conservative writers have less motivation to praise Trump and grimly make do with whatever dog-ends are available. At Hot Air, Allahpundit says Trump is a creature of the liberal media, who inflate him only as an excuse for "not having to cover more credible candidates like Rubio who pose a legit threat to Her Majesty. My guess is they’ll give him plenty of oxygen." If only someone could read this to Trump so he'd know what a patsy he's been played for!