I thought real women had curves, and the scrawny chicks were the ones we were supposed to make fun of. Or am I a decade behind there, and we’re back to making fun of fat chicks? Whatever; I have a hard time keeping up with these sorts of things. But if there are any notions of fashion or beauty that deny that Christina Hendricks was a complete knockout in that dress, they’re wrong.
I can’t say as I too much care what the Telegraph says in its list of 100 most influential conservatives and liberal, but this paragraph about the insuffable and decidedly unfunny Wanda Sykes make me squirm only because it’s completely true:
Took her chance at the White House Correspondents Dinner to accuse conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh of treason and said she hoped his kidneys failed – prompting laughter among many liberals and a grin from Obama. That performance catapulted her into getting her own show on Fox TV.
I’m sure there are others, both conservative and liberal, who made their way onto the list through unsavory means, but that is a uniquely unflattering paragraph. Unflattering to Sykes, unflattering to Obama, unflattering to Fox. Unflattering to America.
Apollo posted this at 2:27 AM EST on Tuesday, January 12th, 2010 as Pop Culture Is Filth
Perhaps I’m behind on the times here, or perhaps I’m satisfied not havinig that many discussions on the internet, but I didn’t know that Amazon is now, instead of just a place to buy stuff, a place to have random discussions with random people. Amazon is so proud of this feature that they now provide links to discussions at the bottom of product pages. But whatever algorithm they’re using to determine what discussions to link me to, they’re way off. Here are the results it fed me when I was looking at a closet dehumidifier:
Why oppose health care reform? So that I can post about it on Amazon, that’s why.
Apollo posted this at 9:55 PM EST on Sunday, December 20th, 2009 as Pop Culture Is Filth
The Economist has a remarkably good take on Palin, her book, and her appeal:
ONE day in January last year, Sarah Palin was watching her son graduate from boot camp. As she gazed at the ranks of “tall and strong and serious” young men marching in perfect unison, all of them “ready to sacrifice all in a fight for freedom”, she recalled something Senator John Kerry once told students in California. If you study hard, he said, “you can do well. And if you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.” “What a loon,” thought Governor Palin. “What an elitist loon.”
This vignette captures rather well the secret of Mrs Palin’s appeal. John Kerry, of course, was a war hero, but these days he is the kind of senator who really annoys Mrs Palin’s fans. She, like most military mothers, thinks her son went to Iraq because he is brave and honourable. Mr Kerry implies that he went because he was too lazy or stupid to do anything else. Many Americans find this attitude condescending. These coastal liberals, some heartlanders grumble, think we all are brainless hicks—even the soldiers who defend them.
…
Some women think her feminism is fake. But others are inspired by the way she has juggled five kids and a career. When she first joined the Wasilla city council, she found it full of patronising old men. But she took her baby daughter to meetings, breastfed her while recording radio spots and “didn’t care too much what the good ol’ boys said about it.” She made enemies the right way—by shaking up the corrupt culture of her own party. And when she was elected the first female governor of America’s most lopsidedly male state, she worked well with Democrats, largely avoiding divisive social issues in favour of practical ones, such as oil and gas. At one point she was America’s most popular governor, in that nearly 90% of Alaskans approved of her. But all that changed when Senator John McCain thrust her into the national spotlight.
The backlash
She had a few days to cram for a hazing most candidates spend years preparing for. She flunked, badly. Two-thirds of Americans now say she is unqualified to be president. A YouGov poll for The Economist this week found that 52% disapprove of her, of whom 40% do so strongly. And some of her critics express themselves rather forcefully. Naomi Wolf, a feminist, calls her “a stalking horse [for] the coming police state”. Al Gore’s TV channel calls her a “gun-ho”. Mrs Palin recalls her young daughter looking out of a car window and seeing people wearing T-shirts that said, simply: “Sarah Palin is a cunt”. Such rudeness outrages Mrs Palin’s supporters—and makes them love her more.
As I’ve said before, Sarah Palin has an almost unrivaled ability to make otherwise sane people crazy, and crazy people even crazier. This isn’t surprising when one considers that she stands at the nexus of controversies over sex, politics, and religion or that she enjoys throwing punches and that she’s incredibly attractive. I’ve exactly zero interest in her as a candidate at this point but, I’d be liar to say I can’t see the appeal.
I vote for the latter. Volvo’s shtick is safety, and if there’s one group of people who ought not care about safety, it’s vampires. Even if a vampire wants to keep his emergency food girlfriend safe, getting a Volvo lady’s SUV seems a little over the top for an immortal. And even if that made sense, what portion of Twighlight’s target audience is in the market for a new car? Or can drive? And what parent is going to take car-buying advice from their 12 year-old daughter? I just don’t get it. “But I want you to buy the car the nice vampires drive!”
Apollo posted this at 2:25 AM EST on Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 as Pop Culture Is Filth
I’m strangely enthralled by the death of Michael Jackson. It’s an instructive moment in the history of celebrity; Jackson’s only notable achievement in the last 15 years is getting acquitted of child molestation charges, but his death is still the biggest news in the world. In an age where anyone can be a celebrity if they’re just willing to embarass themself, Jackson was the biggest celebrity on the planet because of music released 20 years ago. True, enduring celebrity is still based on greatness. May it always be the case.
A few stray thoughts
So this is what it takes for MTV to play music videos again. Jackson’s music is still good, and his dance moves still cool. I might watch MTV occaisionally if they’d occaisionally play his stuff. And not play mind-numbing ads geared toward moronic teenagers.
Speaking of MTV, the “MTVNews” “anchor,” in describing Jackson’s death, said that Jackson was driven to the hospital in an “AMM–byu–LANCE.” I’m not sure I’ve ever heard someone on tv speak with a truer black southern accent.
People are mentioning the recent deaths of Farah Fawcett and Ed McMahon in the same breath as Jackson. Inappropriate. McMahon was, at best, a D list celebrity, Fawcett a definite B-lister. Putting Michael Jackson on the A-list is like putting Michael Jordan on the All-Star team: I guess it’s the best you can do, but he’s bigger than anyone else there.
Today’s winner is Mark Sanford. Admittedly, it would have been better for him had he announced his affair today, but it’s hard to be luckier than to have the worst event of your life overshadowed by the death of the world’s biggest celebrity.
The hottest teacher I ever had was named Billie Jean Somethingorother. It was 8th grade. I’d let you imagine the number of “Billie Jean is not my lover” references there were in that class, except for the fact that you cannot possibly imagine it.
Apollo posted this at 7:43 PM EDT on Thursday, June 25th, 2009 as Pop Culture Is Filth
After the Palins’ over-the-top reaction to Letterman’s joke, Letterman apologizes. I’m no fan of canned outrage, but since canned outrage isn’t going away anytime soon, I’m pleased to see it work in favor of a conservative. One can hope that this is the beginning of the end of the utterly meritless and shameless treatment that Sarah Palin and her family have received.
But let me also say that Letterman’s apology is one of the most sincere sounding that I’ve read in a very long time. And it comes a full week after his bad joke, when he could have let the whole incident slide on into the oblivion of television’s memory.
In an age where “I’m-sorry-that-you-were-offended” apologies are par for the course, it’s pleasing to see someone apologize by actually admitting that he was at fault, and by stating that he will try to mend his ways. In an ideal world, this wouldn’t be noteworthy; people would routinely accept the blame for their wrongs, and say that they will try to do better in the future. In that ideal world, we wouldn’t congratulate people on apologizing correctly. Indeed, only in a world turned upside down would we congratulate Letterman on describing exactly how classless and bad his joke was. But we live in that world turned upside down, and we should applaud the better to help guide others toward the best, and, perhaps, to eventually right the place.
How do we do that without encouraging more bad behavior? It’s a difficult question; I wouldn’t have applauded as his audience did, but I suspect my standards of behavior are different from the average late night show audience member’s.
So by now we’ve all heard of the kerfuffle over David Letterman’s tasteless joke about Bristol Palin. I’m not going to link to it here because, besides behing a pretty bad joke, I also find it extremely slimly for him to go after a young woman who made a mistake.
As one might expect, an attack on Saint Sarah of Wasilla has caused much of the right-wing blogosphere to go completelybatshit insane. Now let me be clear, this was a terrible joke made in very poor taste and Letterman should not have made it.
But, rape? Are you kidding me? Anyone with any sense of humor would understand that this joke was a reference to Bristol Palin – still a joke in poor taste, but there is no way Letterman would joke about a 14 year old having sex with a 30 year old. Oh HEY he said so himself.
I’ve been seeing Kathryn Lopez link to this list of books that some people think “all” high schoolers should read before graduating. I’m definately with JohnDerbyshire on this. Back in high school I somehow got it into my head that I needed to read a bunch of Great Books in order to be smart. I read most of the stuff on that list (though I didn’t know of the list’s existence until a couple of days ago), as well as a few dozen books not on the list. I read a lot, honestly.
Then about half way through Anna Karenina, it dawned on me that virtually everything I was reading was a crashing bore. In the ten years since that reading spree, the only fiction I’ve read that wasn’t assigned to me in a class was Tolkien. Turning reading into something I had to do completely killed my desire to read. I think forcing any 16 year-old to read Virgil would have a similar effect; it’s simply more fun to watch television.
The negative consequences of forcing teenagers to read aside, I looked at the list, and I would actually advise against high schoolers reading most of what’s on there. Read the rest of this entry »
I tried watching the Daily Show last night. During the Bush years, I remember people defending Jon Stewart’s partisanship as a result of “oh, Republicans are in power, so they’re the people to attack.” Forget the fact that Republicans have only been partly in power since the 2006 elections, but whatever.
So now that Democrats are unquestionably in power, I thought I’d tune in to see if Stewert had become watchable. He hasn’t. A Democrat president with large Democrat majorties in Congress proposes a budget with World War II level deficit spending, and Stewert spends his section of the show making fun of those who criticize it? And not even making fun of them in a good way, but simply piecing together a dozen small clips from different people, each getting to say two or three words. Ha ha ha! We got Charles Krauthammer saying “Chinese numbers.” And then Stewert will say “Chinese numbers,” and then it will all be very funny because . . .
If your montage makes Charles Krauthammer look stupid, it’s a pretty good sign that you’ve made a dishonest montage. That’s forgivable for a comedian, except Stewert’s montage wasn’t funny. You’d think that if you were just going to piece together two or three random words from a dozen people you disliked, anyone could make a funny montage. But you’d be wrong.
Apollo posted this at 12:44 PM EST on Friday, March 6th, 2009 as Pop Culture Is Filth
