Posts Tagged ‘hypocrisy’
4 items.
Nov18
THERE ARE WORSE THINGS TO ALIGN YOURSELF WITH
November 18th, 2002 |
(10 votes, average: 7.80 out of 10)
Whenever I do a comic with social commentary, one might be inclined to believe that real-life events are what inspired them.
The above scenario isn’t something that has happened to me personally, but coming from Iowa, it wouldn’t surprise me if it did. Sometimes I resent that our country was founded by puritanical nutjobs. I resent it further that they all seem to camp out in my backyard.
Today’s comic is more of a response to the overzealous Christian parents who organized book burning in regard to the immense popularity of the Harry Potter book series (and, subsequently, the popular movie sequel debuting in theaters this weekend).
I think the swipe paints itself pretty clearly. It’s okay to saturate yourself with violence and gore, but fantasy and magic are no-no’s. Do these parents prevent their kids from watching David Copperfield specials? Do they refuse to have their picture taken out of fears that it may “steal their souls”. Personally, I find Steven Segal movies the greater offense to God.
Obviously the Harry Potter franchise has done a lot to get kids back into reading. How can that be a bad thing? In an era of diminished imaginations – where cable television, video games and the Internet eat away at brain cells, why would you want to punish a kid for reading? I don’t have kids, but if I did, I’d hand over the freakin’ Necronomicon if it meant having a child capable of stringing together a few sentences of cohesive thought down the road.
That’s probably enough ranting, but it’s good to get that out.
I did get a chance to see Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets this weekend – after trying three times!
I went on Friday night around 7:00 to try and secure tickets for the late showing at 10:30. The idea was to avoid having to sit through the film with a bunch of screeching 10 year-olds. The plan worked only too well when we learned ALL of that evenings shows were sold out.
We tried again Saturday afternoon in hopes of catching a matinee. But again, all afternoon shows were sold out. Cami had to work in the evening, so that option was out.
The stars finally aligned when I went to the theater AGAIN and purchased two tickets for a 7:15 showing. This time I had the foresight to go in and buy the tickets at noon. Geeze!
Although the film was long, I felt it was well worth the effort. I liked it better than the first movie because it got all of the clumsy introductions out of the way. I hope to have a review up sometime soon, but then again, I promised a review of Punch-Drunk Love a few weeks ago. These things tend to slip through my fingers.
As I mentioned in Friday’s blog, I bought Episode II on DVD last week – only to find that I purchased the full screen version and not the wide screen as the Gods command.
Fortunately, I had some luck sticking it to the man when I went to exchange it. Toys ‘R Us wasn’t the place where I made the trade, however. In fact, they were so useless, I wouldn’t wipe my ass with their customer service.
Where I struck gold was at Target of all places. I walk into the store with an OPEN copy of the DVD and tell them my whole sob story about how I didn’t know it was the full-screen version until I started watching it. Could I exchange it?
To my shock, the woman behind the counter said YES! At TARGET! The place my friend Nick gripes about having to hand over blood and urine samples when you want to make a return.
The woman told me to grab the version I wanted, and she would ring me up. The beauty of this situation is that I bought the full-screen version for $9.99 at Toys ‘R Us. The widescreen version at Target cost $15.99 – it would have been $22.99 if it weren’t on sale. I ended up making money on the deal!
Of course now I am constant fear of reprisal from the great, red bulls eye. They’re probably watching me right now. It’s most likely a grand mistake to admit my crimes in such a public forum. Let’s just say if I’m taking away by the retail tribunals, I won’t be surprised. If Wednesday’s comic is a bit late, like 5 to 10 years late, you’ll know why.
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Last week when I did a comic about The Hottie and The Nottie, I spoke about not wanting to give too much attention to the film based on it’s horrid premise and the fact that Paris Hilton was its star. But when I read this article with a box office recap for the weekend, I had to gloat a little bit.
I suppose I made it a little bit personal by taking shots at Hilton for her plastic surgery over the years, but she’s done such a terrible job lying about it in interviews, I found the irony delicious. How can someone like Hilton who is so ugly on the inside and who still looks like a drugged ostrich to this day make any commentary on what is or is not “hot.” It’s laughable.
I brought this up in the comments section of last Wednesday’s LiveJournal comic feed, in addition to being the “star” of the picture, Hilton was also executive producer. You get the sense that she thought this movie might improve the public’s perception of her. “Look, I’m helping out ugly people? Aren’t I great?!” while at the same time standing over co-star Christine Lakin in the make-up chair saying “More! More!” as they slathered on layer after layer of “ugly” make-up. Why Lakin agreed to the role is beyond me.
At any rate, that’s pretty much all I have to say about things. Again, I don’t want to lend to much credibility to the film. Just looking for an opportunity to take a cheap shot, I guess.
HEY! DO YOU LIKE PODCASTS?
Well, if so, be sure to tune into The Triple Feature live at 9:00 PM CST over at TalkShoe.com tonight! Last week Joe, Gordon and I decided to take the night off and recharge our batteries. This week we’re back with lots to talk about. So be sure to tun in live and participate in the show. Call in and speak to us in real time or chat to your heart’s content in the shows chat field! Tonight we’ll be talking about Fool’s Gold, In Bruges and more! See you there!
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Every once in a while the universe gives you an opportunity to correct a wrong. And – as unfortunate as the accident was – Morgan Freeman’s recent car crash in a weird way provided me the opportunity to make fun of myself after last week’s poorly received anti-Shia comic.
Again, however, I paint myself into the corner or “What if things had ended differently?!”Thankfully, as we all know by now, Mr. Freeman is in stable condition and expected to make a full recovery.
Interesting how fast the news spread on this one. People were sending me e-mails about it before I even had a chance to read the news. Of course, Mr. Freeman’s condition went from critical to stable and back and forth. I also find it odd how the news reports couldn’t seem to get it right regarding his injuries. I heard everything from broken arms and ribs to broken hands and feet.
We talked about this a little bit during Monday night’s Triple Feature podcast and I commented on how I thought it was cool that Freeman flipped a 1997 Nissan Maxima. In some way, I saw that as him "keeping it real." Turns out the car belonged to the passenger of the vehicle. I guess Freeman was driving her home. Who knows?
What matters is that everyone is recovering and doing well.
And that Morgan Freeman cannot be killed by conventional means.
Shifting gears for a moment, I’m in a bit of a situation.
If you happen to be one of my LiveJournal friends or Twitter followers, you know that I suffered a catastrophic failure last night in regards to my external hard drive. It’s a real problem. This hard drive contains every single Theater Hopper comic produced since 2003. Not to mention the work I was doing on Theater Hopper: Year Three and basically every other piece of art I’ve produced in relation to the site for the last five years
The drive also contains over 15,000 MP3 files, and all of our download photographs and videos. Henry walking, for example. Important stuff.
I don’t know what happened. The drive was working fine on Monday night. I tried firing it up on Tuesday to work on today’s comic and it wouldn’t connect. The light is on, so I know it’s getting power and the driver appears in the device manager so I know my desktop is at least aware of the external drive. But when it fires up, it clicks three times like it’s trying to turn over and then powers down.
I don’t know a lot about computers, but I know that clicking sound isn’t good.
I’m gathering consensus from around the internet and people are helping me troubleshoot it. Most everyone thinks that the drive has failed and I am screwed.
I’ve had a few suggestions like "Leave in the freezer for 8 hours, boot it up and then try to move the data over." Kind of sounds like a wives tale, but I’ve had at least two people suggest it. Problem is, even if it works, I don’t have enough storage anywhere else to move it to. More importantly, if an attempt is made, I cannot accept anything less than 100% recovery.
I really need your help with this. If you have any suggestions, please e-mail me at theaterhopper@hotmail.com. Even if it’s just suggesting a data recovery firm that you’ve worked with and had a good experience with. I’m completely directionless on this. I literally feel sick to my stomach.
Once I decide a course of action (which will probably be sending the drive to recovery) I’ll probably start some kind of fund raising drive or art auction. From what I’ve been told so far, data recovery doesn’t come cheap and I have no way to cover the costs right now. So, I guess keep an eye out for that in the future.
I appreciate your help and consideration. Have a great week and I’ll talk to you soon.
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This joke for The Ugly Truth is one I had in mind a couple weeks ago, BEFORE I turned my hand into hamburger with a router. So dusting it off this week makes it stale in my mind.
I know that’s not the case, though. Movies do exist in theaters for longer than one week. It’s hard to snap out of that mentality when I go to the work of making the comic timely.
Before we go any further, it would probably be advantageous if everyone were on the same page. So, embedded here is the clip in question. It is OBVIOUSLY not safe for work and probably not something you want to play around young children, either. You’ve been warned:
Now I had seen this clip maybe a month before The Ugly Truth was in theaters and I remember thinking at the time how hypocritical it was when considering Heigl’s comments back in 2007 to Vanity Fair that Knocked Up – the movie that pretty much opened the door to a successful career in film – was sexist.
Since the movie has come out, Heigl has been taking a lot of hits for those statements in contrast to the above scene. Sarah Ball from Newsweek published a particularly harsh article. Ken Levine, an Emmy-winning writer for Fraiser and Cheers also published a fairly articulate hate-piece on her.
Now Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen have gotten in on the act during an interview with Howard Stern last week.
Fans of Heigl cite a double-standard. That’s it’s okay for someone like Seth Rogen to run off at the mouth, but if someone like Heigl speaks her mind, she’s put back “in her place.”
I see both sides of the argument. But fundamentally I think Heigl’s problem is that she gives off an air of superiority that she hasn’t earned and it makes her unlikable. The sad thing is, I WANT to like Heigl. She’s funny, attractive and I appreciate anyone willing to speak their mind.
But career-wise, winning and Emmy and starring in a couple of romantic comedies aren’t much to hang your hat from. Her reputation and her performances don’t match up. She’s trying to be Sandra Bullock but comes off like Sandra Bernhard.
I don’t know how much of it is bad casting and how much of it is her choice. But I think before I would find Heigl more appealing if she were able to find (or develop) a character that plays toward her outspoken nature.
What do you think? Is there a sexist double-standard being applied to the outspoken Heigl? How aware are you of the statements she’s made to the press? Should it affect how we interpret her performances? Why do you think Heigl attracts these kind of strong feelings toward her? Leave your comments below!
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