Prime Time Worries

Spoiler Alerts for The Boys.

I’ve arrived at that stage of life where I feel totally justified with my decisions about my entertainment. No longer do I feel the need to watch every movie or TV show because it was critically acclaimed. I used to, because wanted to be in on the conversation and didn’t want to appear unsophisticated for having not seen it the latest award-winning item. So Nomadland, about people who live on the outer boundaries of society because they have lost almost everything? No thanks. I Care a Lot, about a woman who scams the elderly? Pass. I wanted to be entertained, to unwind; they don’t call it the Boob Tube for nothing.

Lately I’ve been regressing to my childhood with shows based on comic book characters or graphic novels. I just finished the second season of The Boys. Ostensibly, it’s a dark comedy about a group of superheroes — The Seven (even though there seem to be more popping in and out, depending on their misdeeds) — as a corporate entity, complete with Q-ratings, merchandising, theme restaurants, etc.

The head of the group is Homelander, a Captain America-type who spouts patriotic sound bites while at the same time creating a continuing need for the “supes’ by, among other things, causing a plane full of passengers to crash so he can blame it on terrorists. The rest of his comrades either go along or are ignorant of his foul deed.

That was in the first season. In the second, we are introduced to a new character, Stormfront, who seems like a breath of fresh air as she dismisses the pollyannaish goals of the group and speaks her mind. But as the episodes moved on… wait a minute, this storyline takes a decidedly familiar — and unwelcome — turn.

Stormfront isn’t what she appears to be. Not only does she hide the fact that she more than 100 years old, but she’s a … wait for it … Nazi! She married the German scientist who invented the compound that can transform mere mortals into ubermenschen. She convinces Homelander that “the others” are the cause of the country’s problems and they should be contained at the very least, but eliminating them would be even better. She becomes the spokesperson for The Seven at rallies as she tries to stir up the (white) crowd against outsiders. Sound familiar? This article from ScreenRant does a better job of describing than I care to.

“Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker” [the penultimate episode] begins with a jarring cold open that reveals the effect of Stormfront’s media blitz on a ground level. The sequence introduces a regular guy – a fan of Stormfront, with posters all over his bedroom. This lonely young man goes about his everyday life while TV and radio personalities speak of super-terrorists “invading America” and “illegal immigrants pouring into this country.” The student kisses his mother goodbye, goes to class, visits the same store with the same clerk, and repeats the cycle ad nauseam until, one day, he starts to suspect the store worker is a supe terrorist. Driven by Stormfront’s call to action, the young misfit visits his store and guns down the same friendly clerk who served him every morning, firmly in the belief that he was doing his country a service.

Really? This is the kind of stuff I have been trying to get away from. If I want conspiracy theories, I’ll watch FOX News (just kidding, of course I won’t). But they suckered me in, getting me too invested in the series to give up with just one episode to go. Damn you, Boys!

Maybe I’ll just watch The Muppets. That should be carefree.

Wait, what?

Cancel THIS

Sick and tired of Republicans who basically make stuff up. Like Ted “Bruisin’ for a” Cruz who claimed stimulus payments would go to “murders, rapists, and child molesters incarcerated in prison — GOP-speak for undocumented immigrants — which, of course, is false, as per the clip below from Seth Myers on the latest “A Closer Look.”

No one is trying to “cancel” The Muppets or Dr. Seuss. For the former, there are just some “disclaimers” about specific episodes, not unlike the warnings that come on before shows containing language, violence, or adult themes.

And for the latter, it’s the publishers who decided to pull a handful of titles from further printing, not liberals. I guess they understand that there’s not enough profit in those books.

In addition, the Turner Classic Movie channel has decided to take a look at a number of “problematic” films in a new series. This doesn’t mean anyone is “cancelling” classics like Gone with the Wind. It just means they are looking at them in a new light. There’s no denying that attitudes have changed over the generations. IMO, that’s a reason those live one-off “reboots” of shows like All in the Family and The Jeffersons did so poorly. Modern audiences look at them and ask, “this was funny back in the seventies?”

From a recent AP story:

Loving classic films can be a fraught pastime. Just consider the cultural firestorm over “Gone With the Wind” this past summer. No one knows this better than the film lovers at Turner Classic Movies who daily are confronted with the complicated reality that many of old Hollywood’s most celebrated films are also often a kitchen sink of stereotypes. This summer, amid the Black Lives Matter protests, the channel’s programmers and hosts decided to do something about it.

The result is a new series, “ Reframed Classics,” which promises wide-ranging discussions about 18 culturally significant films from the 1920s through the 1960s that also have problematic aspects, from “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and Mickey Rooney’s performance as Mr. Yunioshi to Fred Astaire’s blackface routine in “Swing Time.”

Reframed Classics begins Thursday, March 11, at 8 p.m. ET with, appropriately enough, a screening of GWTW.

But that is what the Republicans seem to focus on as none of them voted for the pandemic relief bill.

As per “A Closer Look” (at about the 3:20 mark):

“This is what our two major political factions have decided to spend their time on:

One’s trying to deliver a massively popular relief bill that includes direct payments, expanded child and unemployment benefits, and funding for vaccinations and another is holding storytime for ghost children in a library of the damned, overturning an election, and trying to prevent people from voting in the next one.”

I was really hoping that once Trump was out of office my blood pressure would return to normal. No such luck.

My turn for “What about…?”

I’m a firm believer in “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.” So when I read “Neera Tanden: First Cabinet-Level Casualty of the Twitter Age?” in The New York Times, I thought, okay, fair is fair.

But then my better nature took over.

The level of hypocrisy many Republicans exhibit know no bounds.

Forget people like Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio — among many, many, many others — who opposed Trump before he won the presidency but have done nothing but kiss his ring since. Even when they chastise him, it’s only for a moment, as when Mitch McConnell condemned him for his responsibility for the Jan. 6 incursion and then proudly claimed he would totally support Trump if he ran for the office again.

So all this falderal about Tanden’s “nasty tweets” made me laugh.

This complaint comes from the same people who

“… mastered the Kabuki of ducking questions about [Trump’s] latest inflammatory tweet, usually by claiming they ‘didn’t see the tweet’ or were ‘not going to comment on every one of the president’s tweets’ or were ‘late for lunch, sorry, got to run.'”

I learned a long time ago in a psychology class about “selective attention, selective retention.” Nowhere is it more applicable than here. It seems that posting on social media has become the equivalent of using recreational drugs of a generation ago, with a number of office-seekers claiming, “I didn’t inhale.” Expressing an opinion can derail a career, especially if challenges the people who have might have control over your fortunes.

God help me if I ever decide to run for office.

Meet the Face

I get out of work on Sundays just in time to listen to Face the Nation on a local radio station. Then when I get home, it’s Meet the Press on the DVR. Time precludes me from watching the CNN or ABC Sunday news programs.

The shows are fairly similar and often infuriating.

I think they invite Republicans to weigh in on the topics of the week in the name of “fairness.” I wonder if the same could be said for the conservative media. I can only watch FOX for a few minutes at a time, mostly just to see what they’re presenting when CNN reports on something particularly damaging to the GOP. Recently while CNN was telling their audience about Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s expletive-laced telephone call with Trump during the Jan. 6 insurrection which seemed to prove the former president’s lack of concern for the horrific damages his followers were wrecking on the Capitol, the guy on FOX was complaining about how Biden’s travel restrictions would cost him money. Priorities.

One thing I have noticed is the problem many — not all — Republicans have in answering a direct question. This past Sunday, for example, Margaret Brennan, host of FtN, asked Governor Kristi Noem about the pandemic in her home state of South Dakota. Every time Brennan brought up how poorly things were going (high death rates per capita, for example), Noem would reply that South Dakota had “peaked early” and that things were now under control, contrary to the studies Brennan used in her research. Same thing when pressed about the Sturgess Biker Rally that was reported to have spread more than 250,000 cases to twelve states and whether she felt any personal responsibility. “We peaked early.” Then she fell back to the standard cry of Republican guests on these “liberal” programs: “What about (fill in the blank; in this case Gov. Mario Cuomo who is certainly having his share of difficulties these days)?”

The same processes can be seen on MtP. Get a question and repeat the same phrases two or three times. Makes you wonder why they bother to accept the invitations. Do they really think they’ll get the same softball questions they would from FOX and Friends?

It almost seems like the questions from Brennan and Chuck Todd, her MtP counterpart, are designed to make their guests defensive and reply with the company line thereby reinforcing the low opinions of them held by the audience, which I assume leans heavily Democratic. I guess they’re still playing to that “audience of one,” which is a phrase I hope is permanently banished from polite conversation along with others that were heavily used during the past four years; “double down” springs immediately to mind.

And by the way: Trump and allies who decry wearing masks or following other precautions as a threat to “individual liberties” love to say that Fauci was wrong. Of course he was, but he learned from those mistakes. That’s the sign of an educated person, not someone who just refuses to admit he was wrong as is evidenced in the clip below from Late Night with Seth Myers.

Since I don’t watch FOX, someone please tell me if they ask Democrats to appear on their respective Sunday morning shows, assuming they have them. And if they do, are they high-level spokespeople like Noem or Lindsey Graham or do they look for the radicals as representative of the Dems, as FOX would like to spin it?

I find it amazing and sad (amazingly sad?) that there are still so many out there who believe Trump when he says, well, anything. But especially that the election was stolen, that there was no insurrection (and if there was, he was blameless), and even that it was his administration that deserves credit for the vaccine rollout. Funny, since he never credited the previous administration for any of the positive situations he inherited.

Myers is my hero for his segment “A Closer Look,” which is spot on when it comes to deflating the Republicans. Last night’s feature focused on the CPAC gathering was particularly enjoyable yet maddening since it shows how a certain segment of society is so clueless as to allow itself to follow loonies like this.

Many thought that the late night talk shows would take a hit with Trump out of office. What could match him for amusement and fury? Nuh-uh. In a sense, it’s nice to have him and his base around to make fun of and feel superior to. But on the other hand, we found stuff to laugh about before they were all on the scene. I’m hoping we can return to those simpler times.