I seem to be becoming more and more aware of a certain brand of humor that is more invested in making its audience squirm than it is in entertaining them. I don't suppose this is a new tactic-- I mean, sure, there are shows like The Office that have become hugely popular lately... but then, isn't this also a little of what Andy Kaufman was doing back in the '70s? And I'm sure he wasn't the first... but, truth be told, my frame of reference here is full of holes. I haven't made any sort of historical study into who invented cringe-inducing comedy... all I did was watch Sarah Silverman's Jesus Is Magic, and this thing certainly fits the bill.
After having felt like SS stole the show in The Aristocrats, I imagined that her feature-length stand-up/musical/pseudo-documentary would be worth watching. But here's the thing: I can't, for the life of me, figure out who she's making fun of!
If you make a lotta jokes that make you seem racist, are you a) making fun of racists, or b) making fun of your PC audience members who are likely to be made uncomfortable by such jokes? Probably both, right? So, really, then, I don't know quite how to feel about that -- other than feeling, somehow, implicated in some sort of social mis-step just because I'm pretty likely to find myself smack in the middle of the latter group. And because Sarah Silverman's act is simultaneously navel-gazing and lacking self-awareness, it's as though her curious arrangement of assorted self-involvements are then indicative of larger, more general social ills. Her personal and political issues are so conflated with each other that they begin,likewise, to conflate with MY issues!
My experience of watching it then becomes one in which I'm doing nothing but parsing out the parts of it that I think are funny from the parts just make my skin crawl... and then trying to figure out why I'm having all these confusing reactions to it. And I can't simply laugh at it because, really, my bleeding heart doesn't think it's all that funny. And I'm loathe to condemn it as un-funny because I think she's provocative in this way that's making me question all my bleeding-heart-related biases. And then I think I'm totally self-involved for thinking that this is a movie about me. And then I think that SHE'S totally self-involved for writing a movie that's all about her personal hang-ups... And then I come back to feeling like I'm totally self-involved for writing a blog that's not really about this movie but, rather, about me watching the movie. And I can't figure out who's to blame for my discomfort in watching it... Me? Her? American Culture? Me? Women? Men? Black people? Jews? Me? The KKK? Nazis? Anne Frank? ...me? Who, dammit!? Who???
Ok, so that's an exaggeration of my great big tizzy. But there was, indeed, a little tizzy going on in my head.
And she doesn't just deal with issues of race... she touches on so many stigmatized groups that I can't even remember them all. And she talks about buttholes and vaginas a lot. She's a fan of orifices. Well, and boy parts, too. And, as one might ascertain from previous blogs, I'm interested in these things as well.
But do I enjoy sitting through this sort of thing? No, not so much. Does that make it a bad movie? No, not so much. After all, we've got Epic Movie on our theatrical horizon, and I doubt there's much out there that could overtake that thing, that very puddle that Tinsel Town puked up, which is enjoying its sovereignty over Bad Moviedom, no doubt.
Showing posts with label Epic Movie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Epic Movie. Show all posts
Friday, January 26, 2007
On Misnomers
The American Heritage Dictionary defines the word "epic" thusly:
ep·ic (ěp'ĭk)
n.
An extended narrative poem in elevated or dignified language, celebrating the feats of a legendary or traditional hero.
A literary or dramatic composition that resembles an extended narrative poem celebrating heroic feats.
A series of events considered appropriate to an epic: the epic of the Old West.
adj.
Of, constituting, having to do with, or suggestive of a literary epic: an epic poem.
Surpassing the usual or ordinary, particularly in scope or size: "A vast musical panorama . . . it requires an epic musical understanding to do it justice" (Tim Page).
Heroic and impressive in quality: "Here in the courtroom . . . there was more of that epic atmosphere, the extra amperage of a special moment" (Scott Turow).
And yet, somehow, I've been seeing ads all over TV for a movie called Epic Movie that (poorly, in a completely un-funny manner) parodies the likes of Legally Blonde, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and the greatest non-epic of them all, Nacho Libre. Now, I'm aware that this movie is simply the most recent in a series of vapidly parodic peices of big-studio schlock (a series that includes the genius of the Scary Movie franchise and the astonishingly incisive Date Movie franchise), but you'd think (or, rather, I'd think) that some fresh-outta-high-school studio drone in charge of fact-checking would have looked up the word "epic" before putting it in the title of a movie that lamely makes fun of Motherfucking Snakes on a Motherfucking Plane.
Seriously, folks! The English language: it's fun for all ages! How's about we all learn to speak it?
And by "how's about we all learn to speak it," I didn't mean to imply that I support any of those goofy "English is the official language of racism" propositions. I simply mean that, for those of us for whom English is our purported mother tongue, we seem to be able to communicate more effectively if we, for general conversational purposes, use the right word at the right time. I propose, as a more apt title for this movie, "Big-Budget, Hollywood, Mindless, Piece-of-Poo, Waste-of-My-Time-and-$8 Movie." Any objections?
ep·ic (ěp'ĭk)
n.
An extended narrative poem in elevated or dignified language, celebrating the feats of a legendary or traditional hero.
A literary or dramatic composition that resembles an extended narrative poem celebrating heroic feats.
A series of events considered appropriate to an epic: the epic of the Old West.
adj.
Of, constituting, having to do with, or suggestive of a literary epic: an epic poem.
Surpassing the usual or ordinary, particularly in scope or size: "A vast musical panorama . . . it requires an epic musical understanding to do it justice" (Tim Page).
Heroic and impressive in quality: "Here in the courtroom . . . there was more of that epic atmosphere, the extra amperage of a special moment" (Scott Turow).
And yet, somehow, I've been seeing ads all over TV for a movie called Epic Movie that (poorly, in a completely un-funny manner) parodies the likes of Legally Blonde, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and the greatest non-epic of them all, Nacho Libre. Now, I'm aware that this movie is simply the most recent in a series of vapidly parodic peices of big-studio schlock (a series that includes the genius of the Scary Movie franchise and the astonishingly incisive Date Movie franchise), but you'd think (or, rather, I'd think) that some fresh-outta-high-school studio drone in charge of fact-checking would have looked up the word "epic" before putting it in the title of a movie that lamely makes fun of Motherfucking Snakes on a Motherfucking Plane.
Seriously, folks! The English language: it's fun for all ages! How's about we all learn to speak it?
And by "how's about we all learn to speak it," I didn't mean to imply that I support any of those goofy "English is the official language of racism" propositions. I simply mean that, for those of us for whom English is our purported mother tongue, we seem to be able to communicate more effectively if we, for general conversational purposes, use the right word at the right time. I propose, as a more apt title for this movie, "Big-Budget, Hollywood, Mindless, Piece-of-Poo, Waste-of-My-Time-and-$8 Movie." Any objections?
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