I said it the other day and I'll say it again: Conservatives ARE NOT FUNNY. They never have been and likely never will be. Worse, the harder they TRY to be funny, the more pathetic and foolish and unfunny they look. This particularly applies to Eric Metaxas and this latest effort to joust against Kimmel and Fallon and Colbert. The show's utterly predictable attempts to punch down at liberals and Democrats likely did a face-plant before five minutes had passed, and the rest of the show dully followed suit.
But then this follows another notable facet of conservatives: they have NO IDEA nor willingness to laugh at themselves, to be self-deprecating or self-conscious of their own foibles. They take themselves WAY TOO SERIOUSLY and insist that THEIR way is the RIGHT way and woe be to them who argue otherwise.
And with an attitude like that, laughter is NOT part of the equation.
They are ideologues and as such, have no sense of humor. Show me a fanatic with a sense of humor. The only thing which amuses them is when someone on their hate list suffers misfortune. These truly awful people have the rest of us by the shorthairs and it is up to us to somehow push this genie back into the lamp.
The only conservative I've ever known that was unafraid to make himself look silly or be the butt of the joke was Kelsey Grammer on Frasier. He also put in memorable performances at the X-Men's Hank McCoy/Beast.
There's a chasm of difference between Metaxass and Grammer. The latter actually has talent. Let's see Sucker Punch do Shakespeare.
Didn't know that Grammer was a conservative, but if so, he's one exception to the rule amid damned few others. The hell of it is, until conservatives as a group CAN learn to laugh at themselves, the whole political dynamic in this country is going to continue to be in a very bad way.
I’m watching Fraser lately, and while his character is wealthy (how, radio personalities don’t get paid like television) it’s his father (the cop) who pushes the right wing propaganda. But then the show was made decades ago when folks weren’t quite so radicalized against their neighbors. He even had some positive scenes with gay men on the show, right in the middle of the don’t ask don’t tell era.
I have heard Grammer make some statements of conservatism that were concerning, but I can’t recall details. But being a part of X-Men, (another example of normalizing LGBTQ people) you’d think he would think twice about hitching his wagon to the current Republican crowd.
Adam Sandler and Tim Allen are conservatives. David Zucker is not a comedian but he's a conservative *director* who created some good comedic movies (Airplane! and Naked Gun) .
It's not the case that 'conservatives can't be funny'. It's more the case that 'anyone who puts their tribal message ahead of the comedy won't be funny,' and that tends to happen more with conservatives than with liberals. You have to take your personal hat off and put your professional comedic hat on when you go on stage, and for some reason we see a lot more liberal comedians being good at that compartmentalization vs. conservatives.
Part of it is that today's Republicans aren't "conservative," they're outright fascist. Conservatives can have a sense of humour. Even on the left I have heard (and occasionally made) jokes about the sillier stuff on our own end of the spectrum, such as the amazing ability of the Democratic Party to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, or extreme instances of "wokeness" (like those college courses (often found in humanities departments with names of the form "_____ Studies") where the main purpose seems to be for the professor to promote their own, one-sided political position on one or more topics). There is much that a sincere conservative could make fun of on the far right: the proliferation of conspiracy theories, all sorts of silliness about Donald Trump, etc. But conservatives have been purged from the radical NSGOP for being too attached to their principles (such as the rule of law, fiscal responsibility, maintaining American leadership, etc.) or simply unwilling to join the mandatory personality cult of sycophantic Trumpsuckers and pretend Trump is a great leader whose horrible policies will "make America great again." For example, the Lincoln Project, run by conservatives, has made some pretty funny, even edgy ads.
The radical right is too obsessed with promoting hatred and violence to leave room for humour. They spend all their time calling for political opponents to be fired, blacklisted, arrested, or even murdered because they said something that hurt Trump's feelings (such as accurately reporting the numbers of people at anti-Trump protests) and trying to come up with new ways to turn bigotry into policy: it's hard to produce humour when your mind is filled with hatred and misdirected anger.
The jokes they tend to make remind me of Dug’s joke in Up.
“"Hey, I know a joke! A squirrel walks up to a tree and says, "I forgot to store acorns for the winter and now I am dead." Ha! It is funny because the squirrel gets dead.”
Hear you Gwen. Conservatives are yesterday's men & women and today's tribe - who have had a very high processed diet of US capitalism, nationalism, tabloidism and fear offered to them on a daily basis are a completely different tribe to understand and rationally engage. One now need be both linguist & anthropologist as well as psychologists, sociologist & ethical Sunday Sunday school teacher who speaks slowly.
Goodness, even the tenets of Christianity - that being grace, humility, empathy, love for the less fortunate and material & social contentment - is not just foreign, but regarded as socialism and weakness.
And to think that trillions $ have been spent all these years on external enemies at the expense of public education, national health care, aged care, child care, community services and essential public services & utilities for all US citizens, who at best now contend with a pseudo democracy within Pottersville Nth America.
Grammer also did drama as George Washington in a movie about Benedict Arnold. He was great. He has the advantage of being a good comedian, so I think he can take himself and politics not too seriously.
MAGA never tires of hearing any mockery about Democrats, liberals and LGBTQXYZ. To them, that's funny. They can't laugh at themselves, or their delusional obsession with Jesus and their Bible.
Hadn't thought of P. J. O'Rourke, though I remember his contributions to Car and Driver magazine fondly. He gives the impression of being at home with himself, a trait not shared with the typical conservative, and I think that one characteristic may be key to the whole business of either being funny or utterly NOT being funny.
Liberals are probably better at making fun of themselves than these folks. I’m still hoping for punk rock to reemerge where everyone was made fun of and critiqued.
But is such a thing possible? The only right wing guests they could have that had any sort of draw have their politics so intertwined with their personalities that they can't just talk about their lives without the hate and anger spilling out.
Just as Jesus intended his loyal servants to be. After all, they have to convince others to BELIEVE in their almighty, omniscient, omnipotent deity who created them and the world around them, and who controls everything that happens to everyone and everything.
Ziglag isn't a city of refuge for David. It's an enemy town. David, hero of Israel, has taken up the sword of Goliath and is now fighting for Gath as it's champion. Worse, David is raiding on behalf of the Philistine king of Gath. He attacks innocent neighboring towns, slaughters all of the inhabitants, and then lies to the king that he raided an Israelite town.
In other words, adult David has become the very Goliath serving the same enemy king that he destroyed as a young man.
It's a lesson about how those who seek to solve their problems with violence become the very thing they wanted to destroy.
There's some irony there.
Evangelicals aren't the heroes. They made themselves into the very enemies they imagined themselves fighting.
This is impossible to pass up. The spirit is willing, but the sarcasm is weak.
“ The bottom line is that when it comes to popular culture, Christians love to create cheap imitations that are never as good as the real thing.”
When it comes to spirituality and what religion is supposed to inculcate in its followers, Christians love to create cheap imitations that are never as good as the real thing.
When it comes to morality, love of others, and devotion to the betterment of mankind, Christians love to create cheap imitations that don’t even try to be as good as the real thing, although their press kits would disagree.
As with Christian rock, it doesn’t make Christianity better, it makes rock ‘n’ roll worse. When it comes to Christian morality, it doesn’t make Christianity better, it makes morality worse.
Where else can you find a huge number of people who are constantly trying to control other people for their own good, or so they claim, when they’re really trying to control people for the good of Christians? Where else can you find a huge number of people whose fecal bleating is constantly accusing others— INNOCENT OTHERS — of all kinds of perfidy which, it turns out, seems to be the special provenance of the feral bleaters, those ravening wolves unconvincingly dressed in sheep drag? And where else can you find someone who “Jesus saying “give away all that you have and follow me” when what they obviously mean is “give me all that you haven’t followed Jesus.”?
I watched about a minute of Metaxas. Quite apart from his jokes being fairly lame and not particularly funny, his body language oozed anything but confidence.
Well at least they’re spending money on TV programs few people are going to watch, rather than trying to make the world a better place.
“They were trying to create a universally beloved show rather than one where Republicans were always the butts of the jokes.”
Well, if the Republicans didn’t want to be the butt of jokes, then they shouldn’t be so fucking ridiculous. Jewish space lasers, hand jobs while vaping at Betelgeuse, they’re eating the cats and dogs, etc. the only problem with laughing so hard at these people is that we are distracted from the evil they are perpetrating enough to allow vulnerable people to be victimized by them.
The clip was so dumb and unfunny. “Yeah, Harrison Ford is old, dur hurr.” He still doing more for other people than Metaxis or the Republicans Party as a whole. Didn’t he save a kid in Yellowstone a while back, he was old then. (He is problematic regarding his relationship with Carrie Fisher during Star Wars) The Republicans have made it more likely scouts get harmed at our national parks.
Oh noes, Biden is old. Well gosh, so is your orange messiah. Biden still has grace and a capacity for independent thought, rather than the clearly demented sherbet pervert.
A year and some back, my gal and I worked RuPaul's Drag Race, I THINK at the KeyBank State Theater. My primary recollection of the event was that IT WAS 𝗟𝗢𝗨𝗗, to the point where I and a lot of my fellow Red Coats were wearing hearing protection. I know that the crowd had a good time, but to be honest, for the large part, I really wasn't all that impressed.
Please understand, I got NOTHING against drag queens, and I genuinely dig the idea of Drag Queen Story Time. That one event, though, just wasn't the best.
Before they had heard of Drag Queen Story Time, they'd have had no problem with Mrs. Doubtfire reading to kids. It's no different than having the guy in the Santa suit reading them a story. Someone in a costume entertaining children and if we're lucky encouraging them to find other stories in books.
I hear you, and I'm here to tell you that THIS WAS RIDICULOUS. I mean loud to the point of being potentially hearing-damaging. Fifty years ago, I made my living with my ears, as an audio engineer for a private film and video production facility. For the last 45 years, I have been an enthusiastic audiophile with a considerable investment in my sound system.
I VALUE my hearing ... and that environment that night was seriously problematic for my ears.
My first introduction to a gay bar was one of my roommates was participating in a drag show at a bar in Roanoke Virginia in the early 80s, of all places.
I found this comment to be both accurate and damning on a personal level. And is one of the main reasons I’m getting a divorce from my right-wing husband. Not only does he not know the difference, his whole family doesn’t know the difference, and he thinks he should get to gaslight about it. No, you don’t get to tell me and our daughters that we can’t perceive how you behave as mean.
I'm not going to ask any personal questions, but do be careful and keep yourself and your daughters safe. Some of the things I've heard from right-wing menfolk are worrying, to put it mildly.
I would put it as background noise while doing something else, that way I wouldn't lose my time and still catch up if they say something actually funny.
"Think Letterman or Dick Cavett in tone: humor first, with no space for snark or ‘clapter"
There's your problem right there. Letterman was plenty snarky. So much so that I quit watching him for a while when I was more conservative. I got better.
Was it Cher who refused to be a guest on Letterman’s show for years and years? And when she finally agreed and he asked her why she had refused so many invites, replied “Cause you’re an asshole.”
The religious right will learn nothing from this failure, and will go right on believing they can impose their religion on this country and everyone will passively submit. They know full-well Christianity is in decline and are desperate to find ways to turn the tide. Not the least of which are their continuous attempts to get government to backstop their religion.
When you demand the spotlight 24/7, you invite ridicule. If the right wingnuts would open their eyes, they would see that the late night hosts poke fun at whoever is in the white house or aspires to the white house. Trump has been relevant to that point for 10 years now. and before that he invited people poking at him with his racist 'birther' movement.
“Sadly, much of late night over the past decade has shifted from being genuinely funny to becoming a vehicle for tribal signaling – even occasionally straying into messaging far beyond comedy. We believe the country deserves something better.”
This statement displays the real issue: the right-wing doesn't understand that 𝒊𝒕 𝒊𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒃𝒍𝒆𝒎, and the rest of us are just trying to survive until the issue can be addressed. Late night talk shows haven't changed, the right-wing has, and not for the better; these folks have become so deeply entrenched they can't even stand other white Americans. If late night talk shows aren't funny to you anymore, that means you're losing touch with reality, not that they aren't funny anymore; and it's time to take stock and find out where you got lost, not time to 'fix' the shows. To essentially demand that comedy shows stay in their comedy lane, then tell everyone else they have to tolerate 'more Jesus!' everywhere is telling.
And dine on you after you're dead, and they can't find any food in the house. Not that there's anything wrong with that.😁I can't remember where but some country has asked for old pets to be donated for the carnivores. I'd be quite happy to have them eat me once I was dead. Luckily they're not that fussy eaters.
Last night my visiting nurse spent 30 minute pounding on my door. He finally called maintenance to let him in. As long as the VA pays him, I will not be eaten. I owe him a debt of gratitude because he spent weeks checking in on my cat during my recent hospitalization.
You want a good laugh ? Fidèle once took all the customers of a grocery shop hostages. She refused to let them out before getting her "mommy" (DM) back.
Decades ago my father would take our border collie with him when he walked to the convenience store for coffee. Small town in Kansas. Pretty much every day. Matthew would sit by the door to the shop and wait. One day Dad had forgotten his wallet. He took the receipt, signed it, and gave it to the new clerk on her first day. She looked puzzled. She called out to the back of the shop to ask the owner if the shop extended credit. The owner hollered back, “Is there a black and white dog waiting at the door?” “Uh…, yes.”
I had velcro kitty for weeks. She was curled up next to me, and followed me around. She would not leave me alone. After several weeks she is now comfortable finding a quiet space for naps.
This happened when I was still in high school decades ago. One day my friend and I were watching t.v and the cat goes upstairs. Next thing we knew we hear an errowwww. Then the cat came rolling down the stairs with a whole bunch of water. We rush upstairs to see where the water was coming from. It turns out that the cat had sharpen its claws on the parent’s KINGSIDE WATERBED. The floors of that room were hardwood floorboards which did warp and twist. Let’s just say the parents were not happy with the cat, whose name was LOKI.
I guess the cat was trying to live up to the Norse god of Mischief (Chaos).
When you see Christians producing parody versions of well known iconic logos for fast food, TV shows, movies, video games, etc. You know it's going to be bad, worthless, and tasteless no matter how amusing they look. No different than seeing creationists (especially Dumb Idiot Ken Ham) trying to set up and operate museums and theme parks as an alternative to secular museums and theme parks. They want to be part of the entertainment and educational world, but time and time again they prove themselves worthless, their shows, their materials, media, and displays boring, tasteless, unrealistic, baseless, made-up fantasy that's down-right slanderous, always one-sided, always toxic, attacking anyone or anything that objects, contradicts, and disagrees with them, always petty, always malicious, always sorrow or anger induced, etc. etc. etc.
Any time someone puts the political message ahead of plot and dialogue, it's generally going to fail. "Don't Look Up" is a great example of a similar failure on the left; great concept, but in beating you over the head with the political point, it became unfunny and stilted.
Art can be political and be good, if you put the art first. Politics framing itself as art is generally hamhanded, obvious, and not good. People are pretty good at recognizing a commercial.
I said it the other day and I'll say it again: Conservatives ARE NOT FUNNY. They never have been and likely never will be. Worse, the harder they TRY to be funny, the more pathetic and foolish and unfunny they look. This particularly applies to Eric Metaxas and this latest effort to joust against Kimmel and Fallon and Colbert. The show's utterly predictable attempts to punch down at liberals and Democrats likely did a face-plant before five minutes had passed, and the rest of the show dully followed suit.
But then this follows another notable facet of conservatives: they have NO IDEA nor willingness to laugh at themselves, to be self-deprecating or self-conscious of their own foibles. They take themselves WAY TOO SERIOUSLY and insist that THEIR way is the RIGHT way and woe be to them who argue otherwise.
And with an attitude like that, laughter is NOT part of the equation.
They are ideologues and as such, have no sense of humor. Show me a fanatic with a sense of humor. The only thing which amuses them is when someone on their hate list suffers misfortune. These truly awful people have the rest of us by the shorthairs and it is up to us to somehow push this genie back into the lamp.
I think you hit that nail on the head there, Stephen.
They have mean-spirited senses of humor, as I have seen from 15-year-olds of all ages in their spamming, trolling, and flaming.
Mean humor is not humor.
As Henny Youngman said:
"Your mother is not funny.
"Your mother-in-law is hilarious."
That simple.
Sometimes they're funny, though never on purpose.
Pre-CISE-ly!
Spot on. It is a big bit sad really.
Conservatives always wind up punching down.
The only conservative I've ever known that was unafraid to make himself look silly or be the butt of the joke was Kelsey Grammer on Frasier. He also put in memorable performances at the X-Men's Hank McCoy/Beast.
There's a chasm of difference between Metaxass and Grammer. The latter actually has talent. Let's see Sucker Punch do Shakespeare.
Didn't know that Grammer was a conservative, but if so, he's one exception to the rule amid damned few others. The hell of it is, until conservatives as a group CAN learn to laugh at themselves, the whole political dynamic in this country is going to continue to be in a very bad way.
He doesn't seem to be hateful and angry, just fiscally conservative like the NSGOP used to be before the fascists took it over.
I’m watching Fraser lately, and while his character is wealthy (how, radio personalities don’t get paid like television) it’s his father (the cop) who pushes the right wing propaganda. But then the show was made decades ago when folks weren’t quite so radicalized against their neighbors. He even had some positive scenes with gay men on the show, right in the middle of the don’t ask don’t tell era.
I have heard Grammer make some statements of conservatism that were concerning, but I can’t recall details. But being a part of X-Men, (another example of normalizing LGBTQ people) you’d think he would think twice about hitching his wagon to the current Republican crowd.
He is able to compartmentalize his roles from his personal life. Not only has he said concerning things, his private behavior is also distressing.
That's the thing with actors, they can show a pleasant face to the world but you're never sure if that's who they really are when no one is looking.
Dan Butler, who played the womanizing Bulldog Briscoe, was openly gay off-screen. They even had his character come out on the reboot.
Adam Sandler and Tim Allen are conservatives. David Zucker is not a comedian but he's a conservative *director* who created some good comedic movies (Airplane! and Naked Gun) .
It's not the case that 'conservatives can't be funny'. It's more the case that 'anyone who puts their tribal message ahead of the comedy won't be funny,' and that tends to happen more with conservatives than with liberals. You have to take your personal hat off and put your professional comedic hat on when you go on stage, and for some reason we see a lot more liberal comedians being good at that compartmentalization vs. conservatives.
[edited]
Part of it is that today's Republicans aren't "conservative," they're outright fascist. Conservatives can have a sense of humour. Even on the left I have heard (and occasionally made) jokes about the sillier stuff on our own end of the spectrum, such as the amazing ability of the Democratic Party to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, or extreme instances of "wokeness" (like those college courses (often found in humanities departments with names of the form "_____ Studies") where the main purpose seems to be for the professor to promote their own, one-sided political position on one or more topics). There is much that a sincere conservative could make fun of on the far right: the proliferation of conspiracy theories, all sorts of silliness about Donald Trump, etc. But conservatives have been purged from the radical NSGOP for being too attached to their principles (such as the rule of law, fiscal responsibility, maintaining American leadership, etc.) or simply unwilling to join the mandatory personality cult of sycophantic Trumpsuckers and pretend Trump is a great leader whose horrible policies will "make America great again." For example, the Lincoln Project, run by conservatives, has made some pretty funny, even edgy ads.
The radical right is too obsessed with promoting hatred and violence to leave room for humour. They spend all their time calling for political opponents to be fired, blacklisted, arrested, or even murdered because they said something that hurt Trump's feelings (such as accurately reporting the numbers of people at anti-Trump protests) and trying to come up with new ways to turn bigotry into policy: it's hard to produce humour when your mind is filled with hatred and misdirected anger.
The jokes they tend to make remind me of Dug’s joke in Up.
“"Hey, I know a joke! A squirrel walks up to a tree and says, "I forgot to store acorns for the winter and now I am dead." Ha! It is funny because the squirrel gets dead.”
This is the humor of the fascists.
Hear you Gwen. Conservatives are yesterday's men & women and today's tribe - who have had a very high processed diet of US capitalism, nationalism, tabloidism and fear offered to them on a daily basis are a completely different tribe to understand and rationally engage. One now need be both linguist & anthropologist as well as psychologists, sociologist & ethical Sunday Sunday school teacher who speaks slowly.
Goodness, even the tenets of Christianity - that being grace, humility, empathy, love for the less fortunate and material & social contentment - is not just foreign, but regarded as socialism and weakness.
And to think that trillions $ have been spent all these years on external enemies at the expense of public education, national health care, aged care, child care, community services and essential public services & utilities for all US citizens, who at best now contend with a pseudo democracy within Pottersville Nth America.
And yet we are the ones promoting cancel culture. 🙄
Kelsey Grammer also ate in Money Plane (2020) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JETRh2rkLMc
Grammer also did drama as George Washington in a movie about Benedict Arnold. He was great. He has the advantage of being a good comedian, so I think he can take himself and politics not too seriously.
MAGA never tires of hearing any mockery about Democrats, liberals and LGBTQXYZ. To them, that's funny. They can't laugh at themselves, or their delusional obsession with Jesus and their Bible.
I read one or two of PJ O’Rourke’s books around 20 or 30 years ago. He was pretty funny. Credit where credit is due.
He had one really great line that I still use: “ too much of you, and not enough of me”.
PJ had an unforgettable line about the confusing Balkan wars in the 1990s: “It’s the Unspellables versus the Unpronounceables.”
I like that one. Too many consonants.
Hadn't thought of P. J. O'Rourke, though I remember his contributions to Car and Driver magazine fondly. He gives the impression of being at home with himself, a trait not shared with the typical conservative, and I think that one characteristic may be key to the whole business of either being funny or utterly NOT being funny.
That’s exactly what I meant in my longer comment about lacking the confidence of good acting or comedy.
You kidding? They can be funny as hell!
But not by intent, obviously. You are quite right.
How come conservatives can not be funny without being mean spirited?
THAT, as they say in the game show biz, is the $64,000 question.
Liberals are probably better at making fun of themselves than these folks. I’m still hoping for punk rock to reemerge where everyone was made fun of and critiqued.
Dead Kennedys and such
𝐴 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑤 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑜𝑤𝑠 𝑟𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡-𝑤𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑔𝑢𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑘 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑙𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑧𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑣𝑒𝑠 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑑 𝑎𝑛 𝑎𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒...
But is such a thing possible? The only right wing guests they could have that had any sort of draw have their politics so intertwined with their personalities that they can't just talk about their lives without the hate and anger spilling out.
Exactly this. A bunch of D-list has-beens complaining about cancel culture.
The ratings didn't hit him from behind, they gave him a hard slap across the face.
Christians. Forever taking secular concepts and screwing them up royally.
𝑀𝑒𝑡𝑎𝑥𝑎𝑠’𝑠 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑐 𝑏𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑒𝑎𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑜𝑛𝑙𝑦 𝑏𝑦 𝑖𝑡𝑠 𝑎𝑏𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒.
When you are that full of hate and anger, humor is not possible.
Just as Jesus intended his loyal servants to be. After all, they have to convince others to BELIEVE in their almighty, omniscient, omnipotent deity who created them and the world around them, and who controls everything that happens to everyone and everything.
Ziglag isn't a city of refuge for David. It's an enemy town. David, hero of Israel, has taken up the sword of Goliath and is now fighting for Gath as it's champion. Worse, David is raiding on behalf of the Philistine king of Gath. He attacks innocent neighboring towns, slaughters all of the inhabitants, and then lies to the king that he raided an Israelite town.
In other words, adult David has become the very Goliath serving the same enemy king that he destroyed as a young man.
It's a lesson about how those who seek to solve their problems with violence become the very thing they wanted to destroy.
There's some irony there.
Evangelicals aren't the heroes. They made themselves into the very enemies they imagined themselves fighting.
As I have said many times, quoting Stephen R Donaldson, corruption is becoming that which you hate..
Where did I put that white gold ring...?
Did you look in the volcano?
This is impossible to pass up. The spirit is willing, but the sarcasm is weak.
“ The bottom line is that when it comes to popular culture, Christians love to create cheap imitations that are never as good as the real thing.”
When it comes to spirituality and what religion is supposed to inculcate in its followers, Christians love to create cheap imitations that are never as good as the real thing.
When it comes to morality, love of others, and devotion to the betterment of mankind, Christians love to create cheap imitations that don’t even try to be as good as the real thing, although their press kits would disagree.
As with Christian rock, it doesn’t make Christianity better, it makes rock ‘n’ roll worse. When it comes to Christian morality, it doesn’t make Christianity better, it makes morality worse.
Where else can you find a huge number of people who are constantly trying to control other people for their own good, or so they claim, when they’re really trying to control people for the good of Christians? Where else can you find a huge number of people whose fecal bleating is constantly accusing others— INNOCENT OTHERS — of all kinds of perfidy which, it turns out, seems to be the special provenance of the feral bleaters, those ravening wolves unconvincingly dressed in sheep drag? And where else can you find someone who “Jesus saying “give away all that you have and follow me” when what they obviously mean is “give me all that you haven’t followed Jesus.”?
I watched about a minute of Metaxas. Quite apart from his jokes being fairly lame and not particularly funny, his body language oozed anything but confidence.
Well at least they’re spending money on TV programs few people are going to watch, rather than trying to make the world a better place.
“They were trying to create a universally beloved show rather than one where Republicans were always the butts of the jokes.”
Well, if the Republicans didn’t want to be the butt of jokes, then they shouldn’t be so fucking ridiculous. Jewish space lasers, hand jobs while vaping at Betelgeuse, they’re eating the cats and dogs, etc. the only problem with laughing so hard at these people is that we are distracted from the evil they are perpetrating enough to allow vulnerable people to be victimized by them.
The clip was so dumb and unfunny. “Yeah, Harrison Ford is old, dur hurr.” He still doing more for other people than Metaxis or the Republicans Party as a whole. Didn’t he save a kid in Yellowstone a while back, he was old then. (He is problematic regarding his relationship with Carrie Fisher during Star Wars) The Republicans have made it more likely scouts get harmed at our national parks.
Oh noes, Biden is old. Well gosh, so is your orange messiah. Biden still has grace and a capacity for independent thought, rather than the clearly demented sherbet pervert.
I think the problem is that Republican humor always punches down. Most of the time, it's so stupid that most people don't even recognize it as humor.
But I would like to thank the Guardian staffers who had to sit through FOUR HOURS OF THIS SHIT, I couldn't even watch a whole minute!
They do have a difficult time distinguishing between good natured ridicule and meanness.
Actually, I'm not certain that they have any sense of the difference at all, and that all by itself is an enormously telling point.
Tie them up and force them to watch Drag Queens burlesque shows. Maybe one good idea or two may pass through their thick skull.
A year and some back, my gal and I worked RuPaul's Drag Race, I THINK at the KeyBank State Theater. My primary recollection of the event was that IT WAS 𝗟𝗢𝗨𝗗, to the point where I and a lot of my fellow Red Coats were wearing hearing protection. I know that the crowd had a good time, but to be honest, for the large part, I really wasn't all that impressed.
Please understand, I got NOTHING against drag queens, and I genuinely dig the idea of Drag Queen Story Time. That one event, though, just wasn't the best.
Before they had heard of Drag Queen Story Time, they'd have had no problem with Mrs. Doubtfire reading to kids. It's no different than having the guy in the Santa suit reading them a story. Someone in a costume entertaining children and if we're lucky encouraging them to find other stories in books.
I am getting ever more sensitive to LOUD.
I hear you, and I'm here to tell you that THIS WAS RIDICULOUS. I mean loud to the point of being potentially hearing-damaging. Fifty years ago, I made my living with my ears, as an audio engineer for a private film and video production facility. For the last 45 years, I have been an enthusiastic audiophile with a considerable investment in my sound system.
I VALUE my hearing ... and that environment that night was seriously problematic for my ears.
My first introduction to a gay bar was one of my roommates was participating in a drag show at a bar in Roanoke Virginia in the early 80s, of all places.
It was wild and crazy and fun. And LOUD, too!
Or their skulls will explode. A win either way.
I found this comment to be both accurate and damning on a personal level. And is one of the main reasons I’m getting a divorce from my right-wing husband. Not only does he not know the difference, his whole family doesn’t know the difference, and he thinks he should get to gaslight about it. No, you don’t get to tell me and our daughters that we can’t perceive how you behave as mean.
Good for you!!
I'm not going to ask any personal questions, but do be careful and keep yourself and your daughters safe. Some of the things I've heard from right-wing menfolk are worrying, to put it mildly.
𝐼 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑘 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑏𝑙𝑒𝑚 𝑖𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑅𝑒𝑝𝑢𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑛 ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑜𝑟 𝑎𝑙𝑤𝑎𝑦𝑠 𝑝𝑢𝑛𝑐ℎ𝑒𝑠 𝑑𝑜𝑤𝑛.
EXACTAMUNDO!!!
My BIL has repeatedly told me that Greg Gutfeld is funny. And I always make the same reply, "No. He's not."
Greg is the worst of the worst. He laughs at his own jokes because no one else will.
I would put it as background noise while doing something else, that way I wouldn't lose my time and still catch up if they say something actually funny.
I’d like to say “this says a lot about their faith”, but even they can’t find enough about their faith to talk about it out.
"Think Letterman or Dick Cavett in tone: humor first, with no space for snark or ‘clapter"
There's your problem right there. Letterman was plenty snarky. So much so that I quit watching him for a while when I was more conservative. I got better.
Was it Cher who refused to be a guest on Letterman’s show for years and years? And when she finally agreed and he asked her why she had refused so many invites, replied “Cause you’re an asshole.”
Ouch. Il a payé cher.
I remember when she was on his old show and he was star-struck.
The religious right will learn nothing from this failure, and will go right on believing they can impose their religion on this country and everyone will passively submit. They know full-well Christianity is in decline and are desperate to find ways to turn the tide. Not the least of which are their continuous attempts to get government to backstop their religion.
When you demand the spotlight 24/7, you invite ridicule. If the right wingnuts would open their eyes, they would see that the late night hosts poke fun at whoever is in the white house or aspires to the white house. Trump has been relevant to that point for 10 years now. and before that he invited people poking at him with his racist 'birther' movement.
True, and no drama, Obama didn't give them much material.
“Sadly, much of late night over the past decade has shifted from being genuinely funny to becoming a vehicle for tribal signaling – even occasionally straying into messaging far beyond comedy. We believe the country deserves something better.”
This statement displays the real issue: the right-wing doesn't understand that 𝒊𝒕 𝒊𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒃𝒍𝒆𝒎, and the rest of us are just trying to survive until the issue can be addressed. Late night talk shows haven't changed, the right-wing has, and not for the better; these folks have become so deeply entrenched they can't even stand other white Americans. If late night talk shows aren't funny to you anymore, that means you're losing touch with reality, not that they aren't funny anymore; and it's time to take stock and find out where you got lost, not time to 'fix' the shows. To essentially demand that comedy shows stay in their comedy lane, then tell everyone else they have to tolerate 'more Jesus!' everywhere is telling.
Cats r cool...
https://scontent-ord5-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/560902669_1121976693451287_5082636653605238444_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_s720x720_tt6&_nc_cat=1&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=833d8c&_nc_ohc=QaF2vM_aJVQQ7kNvwGU62xD&_nc_oc=AdlLQ4kgLTn9Zux0IiPekEx-mANYT_tSYq0Tu4uQKdiu1Z_AaUj5ec5RLG0souOEglw&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-ord5-2.xx&_nc_gid=M4pr0XERhr9aZyWIRYPEYQ&oh=00_Afezse0xYP9mNpDGREojCUxetSgM6lA0qF1rKOB1CeJ4PQ&oe=68EDAED2
And dine on you after you're dead, and they can't find any food in the house. Not that there's anything wrong with that.😁I can't remember where but some country has asked for old pets to be donated for the carnivores. I'd be quite happy to have them eat me once I was dead. Luckily they're not that fussy eaters.
Last night my visiting nurse spent 30 minute pounding on my door. He finally called maintenance to let him in. As long as the VA pays him, I will not be eaten. I owe him a debt of gratitude because he spent weeks checking in on my cat during my recent hospitalization.
My cat kept hissing at him during my absence. Poor kitty thought he had "stolen" me. ETA Lovie has now forgiven him now that I am home.
You want a good laugh ? Fidèle once took all the customers of a grocery shop hostages. She refused to let them out before getting her "mommy" (DM) back.
Decades ago my father would take our border collie with him when he walked to the convenience store for coffee. Small town in Kansas. Pretty much every day. Matthew would sit by the door to the shop and wait. One day Dad had forgotten his wallet. He took the receipt, signed it, and gave it to the new clerk on her first day. She looked puzzled. She called out to the back of the shop to ask the owner if the shop extended credit. The owner hollered back, “Is there a black and white dog waiting at the door?” “Uh…, yes.”
“His credit is good!”
Assume Lovie forgave you immediately.
I had velcro kitty for weeks. She was curled up next to me, and followed me around. She would not leave me alone. After several weeks she is now comfortable finding a quiet space for naps.
My neighbours cat was pretty fun cat to be with.
This happened when I was still in high school decades ago. One day my friend and I were watching t.v and the cat goes upstairs. Next thing we knew we hear an errowwww. Then the cat came rolling down the stairs with a whole bunch of water. We rush upstairs to see where the water was coming from. It turns out that the cat had sharpen its claws on the parent’s KINGSIDE WATERBED. The floors of that room were hardwood floorboards which did warp and twist. Let’s just say the parents were not happy with the cat, whose name was LOKI.
I guess the cat was trying to live up to the Norse god of Mischief (Chaos).
I had a dog that I named Loki.
At my pooter chair, so no stopping me now. From the meme factory.
https://scontent-ord5-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/557611463_1282977663841252_7316756353801763112_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_p526x296_tt6&_nc_cat=1&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=JpxE_eq_BagQ7kNvwFgIN9l&_nc_oc=AdlgmBMFxtAxMT9DWqsqBsF_Uun1w0cogRaRr-9Dpd_Pfr2v1PSXXGwD7HXmSAq5wLA&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-ord5-2.xx&_nc_gid=UVVhMJoomuDTypxR6BplEA&oh=00_AfdyVTzqyz8EXA2d_s2Fxb6pDWlaspDnZLPNDeZx4xBYcw&oe=68EDBC8D
I’m embarrassed at how much this describes me these days.
When you see Christians producing parody versions of well known iconic logos for fast food, TV shows, movies, video games, etc. You know it's going to be bad, worthless, and tasteless no matter how amusing they look. No different than seeing creationists (especially Dumb Idiot Ken Ham) trying to set up and operate museums and theme parks as an alternative to secular museums and theme parks. They want to be part of the entertainment and educational world, but time and time again they prove themselves worthless, their shows, their materials, media, and displays boring, tasteless, unrealistic, baseless, made-up fantasy that's down-right slanderous, always one-sided, always toxic, attacking anyone or anything that objects, contradicts, and disagrees with them, always petty, always malicious, always sorrow or anger induced, etc. etc. etc.
Any time someone puts the political message ahead of plot and dialogue, it's generally going to fail. "Don't Look Up" is a great example of a similar failure on the left; great concept, but in beating you over the head with the political point, it became unfunny and stilted.
Art can be political and be good, if you put the art first. Politics framing itself as art is generally hamhanded, obvious, and not good. People are pretty good at recognizing a commercial.
“Don’t Look Up” was so bad I didn’t make it even halfway thru.