In the eyes of Fox Fans, the supply of whipping boys and scapegoats they desire can't fill a Colosseum as large as Fox's and so they have invented and exploited domestic "Liberals" and "elitists" and have tailored cardboard images of foreigners as liberal elitist fodder for
Fox, the primary cheerleader for every dubious battle and misbegotten military enterprise needs cardboard cowards and so we have the Fox French and the Fox Canadians to pillory along with any other "surrender Monkeys" who doubted the long disproved reasons for our Iraq war.
The Canadians are easy targets for Greg Gutfeld and his creepy chorus. They're almost French after all. To those who don't know that the Canadians are in fact fighting in Afghanistan, Gutfeld and his monkey house mob must be as funny as a chimpanzee ripping off someones face. But of course the Canadians are there and have lost well over a hundred soldiers. In fact on March 17th, as Gutfeld was calling Canada "a ridiculous country" and another of his "comedians" was saying
"I didn't even know they were in the war. I thought that's where you go when you don't want to fight. Go chill in Canada"4 more of Canada's brave youth were being brought home in boxes. It's funny - so very funny.
As funny as a bunch of apes sitting on a comfortable couch pretending to be mighty warriors and mocking the brave and the dead.
Of course it caught up with Gutfeld as these things so often do. Of course he gave a sneering "apology" and said, as people like him usually do, that he'd been "misunderstood" which is no apology at all, but an attempt to tell us that the people who misunderstood him need more of his mockery.
Of course Red Eye is a failure in progress. It isn't funny as much as it is creepy, embarrassing and to those with some awareness of reality, infuriating. If there is any humor in it at all, it's only the low and inadvertent humor involved in watching people grasping and gasping and drowning in ignorance and failure and too damned stupid to realize it.
See for yourself:
Aw shucks, Zoners. The problem with Red Eye is that they’re looking for humor in all the wrong places when it lies right under their runny noses.
ReplyDeleteImagine, for a moment, a guest appearance by our favorite barbarian.
Or Rushbo at a piano singing, “My Mouth’s Too Big.”
Or Ann Coulter’s most quotable line, “I’m melting!”
Or Bobby Jindal sporting mouse ears and whiskers.
Problem is, those Fox folks take themselves too seriously.
Capt. Fogg,
ReplyDeleteI think your analysis is right -- the basis of right-wing humor seems to be cruelty grounded in deep-seated feelings of inferiority and humiliation; it is by no means a generous kind of humor. I suppose it would be fair to say, too, that some "lefty" humor is unattractive for its self-cultivated alienation, its inability to accept common passions or to take part in common undertakings. Always gotta be smarter and better than others....
I particularly despise the conservative mockery of the French that became fashionable for a while when they were tagged as disloyal for their questioning of the Iraq War. Sure, the French sometimes come off as a bit "superior"--they are justly proud of their language and culture. But they are among America's oldest and most honest friends, and anyone who "misunderestimates" or dismisses them doesn't have the sense God gave a billygoat.
Finally, what about William F. Buckley, Jr.'s wit? I usually disagreed with his views strongly, but it doesn't bother me to fess up that I sometimes enjoyed his witty rejoinders and skill in wielding the elements of an argument. Much of his appeal came down to personal charm (diffident charisma?) combined with genuine felicity of expression.
Bloggingdino: Sure, the French sometimes come off as a bit "superior"--they are justly proud of their language and culture.
ReplyDeleteHaving lived in France in the 1990s, I have a profound respect for French culture and affirm Bloggingdino's comment. True, true, true!
What lies beneath French skepticism of our misadventure in Iraq is Chirac's personal experience as a young soldier during the Algerian war for independence ... and the absolute determination of a people within the context of Islamic culture to win independence.
Drawing upon his memories of the Algerian experience, Chirac tried his damnest to talk Bush out of the Iraq misadventure ... to no avail.
What I have learned in my travels ... a person, a government, a nation cannot grow in intellectual and spiritual terms without humility ... something the Bush/Cheney administration never understood.
Pommes frites, s'il vous plait.
"that some "lefty" humor is unattractive"
ReplyDeleteSome of any humor is unattractive and to them that alone makes it "lefty." In fact it's their favorite Tu Quoque rejoinder.
Equivalencies, require equivalence if they're not to be false and so far I think there are more Foxes in the henhouse than hens in the foxhouse.
"that some "lefty" humor is unattractive"
ReplyDeleteWell, yes, okay, we do it too. But there is a difference ... we do it with STYLE and PANACHE ... and a liberal bias you just don't find in the Foxhouse.
My point was not about who does what to whom, as in "Mommy, Mommy, he/she started it!"
My point is about a lost opportunity. Red Eye has a treasure trove of material right under their right wing nostrils, and they are not using it ...
... like Mike Huckabee doing a Gomer Pyle impression.
... like Fred Thompson singing "Daisy, Daisy" in the voice of HAL, the computer.
ReplyDeleteNothing can beat "let the Eagle Soar" by Ashcroft. Of course it's also another example of the innate humorlessness of such people - and tastelessness, of course.
ReplyDeleteThe best example of lack of right wing humor is Mallard Fillmore. But it does show that there is a good living to be made by telling right wingers what they want to hear.
ReplyDeletePeople do love to be part of a crowd or a movement. It makes them feel more comfortable with their anger.
ReplyDeleteOf course we're all a bit like that.