Roy, I think you will need to start doing background checks on your subscribers, because you may have crossed the line from making US laugh to giving THEM ideas, or at least actual *funny* ideas instead of the flat-footed bullshit they think up on their own.
“dress in Pepe LePew costumes for your next abortion clinic protest” had me screaming.
"I know we all look down on artists because most of them don’t make any money, but they’re only poor because they insist on making unpopular socialist art. When conservatives finally start making conservative art, it stands to reason we will get rich from it. Why should an art business be any different from a car dealership or a payday lender?"
I have to admit that I'm finding the Lola Bunny outrage particularly hilarious. Because NONE of those people professing outrage has ever seen the original cartoon, they're convinced that the anime-porn version of Lola Bunny is the original and the original is some kind of cancel-cultured de-sexified character.
But what can we expect from a group of people who proudly stood on street corners waving signs that said "Tea Bag Me!"
I’m the right age and yet I never saw Space Jam, and even if I had I don’t think I’d get bent out of shape about someone redesigning Lola Bunny 25 years later. The only people with rage boners about this must be really into sexy animated furries and... oh.
As I may have said, I was in a relationship with a guy who claimed to be a libertarian (of course, he was just a Log Cabin Republican with a taste for nose candy) and asked me “Why are so many artist against capitalism?”
I had to tell him I and too many artists i know had been ripped off or or poorly treated by some self described businessman...
As George Will recently wrote, "forbidding people to work for less than the government deems proper" (read: less than minimum wage) is of "dubious morality." And remember, he's one of the good conservatives!
When you get down to it, $15/ hour would be an improvement yet woefully low. You're talking $450-600/week for a full time job. Maybe the idea should be go big or don't go.
Frankly there should be no cap on what a body gets for its needs. Reciprocally, a body's got to know its limitations. Dirty Harry paraphrased without the sexist man-speak there. Bottom line is the wherewithal is available. Not saying everyone gets a Ferrari, although that would be a good dividing line. All those requesting one would be ground up into hamburger or something because honestly they have their priorities all screwed up and Santa doesn't really love them as much as they think. But seriously, folks, $30 per hour isn't overly much and it would certainly boost the economy, and as for all those crotchety businesspeople, the so-called "job creators" who have a problem with changing their pricing and business models, hell, I can help! I know how to do search and replace on their lousy little Word documents and whatnot when they revise their idiotic assumptive plans, no problem. I'll only charge them the anticipated going rate to help their sorry asses into the new utopia, by hook or by crook.
That $15 is woefully, pathetically insufficient is a big part of my opposition. It’s not a hill to die on. If such a hill is wanted, the 15 has to be increased and shut down the 30 hr/week loophole. That should be considered full time with full time benefits required. Employers should be paying for healthcare, not me through my tax $$. Any minimum wage increased should also have a COLA. You know, something of a living wage act. Now that would be a great deal to die on.
That's a very good point. For my part, I've long been convinced that actors tend to be leftish
0.) as a carry-over from centuries in which (as travellers not subject to easy sanction in the small-town world) they were distrusted and despised, in some place not allowed Christian burial but more so
1.) because they get continual education in the falsity of the Just World Hypothesis: meritocracy is not the rule in this life. Yes, actors at the top of the scale do tend to be much better than those at the bottom, but every honest actor knows that the rôle they got could easily have been done as well by a few others they know.
That is to say, they can't believe in a world in which success were morally normative, and I think that holds as well for other artists. (Saner,non-Randroid, libertarians don't claim this, they will allow as how the unconstrained Market would generally tend to reward competence and even virtue, but don't claim it would be hard-and-fast true.)
The dirty little secret is that as a rule, conservatives can't create anything of any quality to speak of. For example, there's the Great White Whale (pun not, no, it is, intended) of a conservative counterpart to SNL. Never happened, there doesn't even seem to be a major, funny conservative comedian out there. Forget an ensemble of them let alone a writer's room. Of course, arguably, the scandals based on bullshit, deliberate misreadings and characterizations of events is pretty much their maximum creativity but even that's, I dunno, proves the rule?
Anyway, I'm hopeful for the Ben Shapiro-produced Gina Carano/Kevin Sorbo/Scott Baio franchise. I mean, it'll surely be better than the Star Wars sequels. Or maybe, if Ben can't get the financing, they're settle for a remake of The Fountainhead. Of course, no gender swap, Sorbo will still be Roark and be the architect, but Carano will play his loyal wife who gladly and effectively kicks ass on his behalf.
And when Hasbro gets a clue, I will be there for the enhanced Potato Head set that includes all genitalia (and chest hair for Mr. PH) and, just to send the right message, guns, guns, guns. And MAGA caps. (Hasbro, you read here first so send me my payoff.)
This would sell all right. Of course it would sit unused in conservative households, forgotten and unloved behind a stack of Jon McNaughton prints, as a museum exhibit to their “values.” But the money would be well spent since they Owned The Libs.
Mmm... nnnno... I think I would use such a set for an Instagram feed. You can guess how tasteful. And now that you made me think about it, I want a Trump set so I can turn a bunch of potatoes into trumpy potato heads. Donnie, Melania, Jr. Mint and Vanky.
The problem with conservative art is that it has to scream conservative tropes. Jon McNaughton's stuff would be just kitsch if not for the ridiculous renderings of Trump as football hero, for example. It can't be taken seriously as art - it's just a form of advertising for the brand.
I love McNaughton’s technique but what he’s illustrating is completely stupid but fantasies that can’t stand up to facts. So as capital A art, it’s still a failure. That said, I suppose he’s as good as conservative artists get.
I find McNaughton to be kind of boring. Ben Garrison’s work, however, borders on wingnut genius at times. He creates a funhouse world that is way, way weirder and unintentionally funny, because like most con-com, he’s not making jokes, he’s angrily screaming at passerby.
He also drops Donny’s BMI a further 10 points than McNaughton, so props for that.
I’m trying to conjure an animal appropriate for a wing nut cartoon ( king cobra? Norwegian rat? slime mold?) but I can’t bear to saddle anything more sentient than a rabies virus with that identity. Behold, “The Adventures of Covidman - Winnowing the Weak.”
A turd can b of more societal value than nearly every GOP pol. The former can be used for fertilizer, maybe a fuel source. Otherwise, it's benign. Can't say that about any Republican.
I was watching the Mandalorian last night & marvelling at the wonders of libertarianism (not that it advocates such, but does a good job of showing them) -- but the thought struck me: do conserva-toadies & meatheads not remember that they are always fodder for the hero's prowess, the chumps to be despatched with flair.
The answer she suggests herself: these "conserva-toadies & meatheads" just think they haven't yethad the chance to show off their warrior's flair. And as soon as the boss is dead, they'll have their chance.
If I'm not mistaken, Little Black Sambo is in the public domain, which means we don't even have to worry about coming up with ideas. All we need is an artist or two willing to work for a flat fee (and exposure, which is obviously invaluable) and we can churn out these books through Regnery Publishing, which isn't going to put us through any kind of rigorous editorial process, even to check spelling errors. Not that you need to read words in a book, what are ya, a college professor?
When I ran the bookstore, (‘01-‘06) we had a contemporary reprinting/concept of Sambo as Tamil in an Indian setting: and the Nice White Ladies who’d ask seemingly hoping to be disappointed (‘cause Al Franken and Molly Ivans books were much in evidence) l Do you have ‘Little Black Sambo’.” Amd I’d smile and get it from “the Children’s Corner” and they would pout and say “well..its not the original!”
Amd they would be abashed when I suggested they look online..
I suppose there are and have been some artists who are/have been conservative, but in general artists and entertainers are liberal. Why? Because in order to make:
1. art, you have to want to deal honestly with emotions and human nature, and conservatives are attracted to conservatism precisely to avoid such matters, especially in themselves. Instead, they cede authority to religion and political dogma.
2. entertainment, you have to want your subject to be human nature as it precedes political ideology, and they can't do that. (Cf. no. 1.) You have to respect truth more than message, whereas their priorities are exactly the opposite.
3. political satire, again, you have to focus on actual human nature as it is deformed and perverted by ideology. But they start with ideology and end up manipulating stereotypes in the service of the "message." Their audiences laugh at and like the result because it confirms the cheap stereotypes they walked in with. Real satire reveals something. Conservative "satire" confirms everything. Conservative comedy is like Soviet physics.
I 👍this because it touches on a thing that gets overlooked imho: as popular media gets woker, straight white people see and hear more and more other people Not like them, and it's pissing them off, partly because our monkey brains want to see our reflection in the mirror, and partly because it's a concrete demonstration of a loss of privilege. They don't give a good goddamn about Seuss or Potato Heads, they see an imagined part of their imagined past being taken away from them in the media, and it's one more straw on the camel's back. At least when Govenor Schwartzenegger made a show of driving a Hummer and smoking cigars, he was in favor of something. These people are just whining about "losing" things they don't care about.
I've used the "slave owners fear a slave uprising" analogy before, but I truly believe it's not that thought out. Its Inchoate all the way down. I've talked to them about privilege (avoiding the w-word) and they are just confused: what privilege? Nobody does any favors for me. Trying to push on this just makes them uncomfortable, then angry. They really don't want to think about this stuff at all.
(Was about to offer Jose Carioca https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Carioca but (1) Disney and (2) "illegal immigrant".)
Try Jose's gun-wielding (until recently) pal Panchito Pistoles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panchito_Pistoles
Roy, I think you will need to start doing background checks on your subscribers, because you may have crossed the line from making US laugh to giving THEM ideas, or at least actual *funny* ideas instead of the flat-footed bullshit they think up on their own.
“dress in Pepe LePew costumes for your next abortion clinic protest” had me screaming.
"I know we all look down on artists because most of them don’t make any money, but they’re only poor because they insist on making unpopular socialist art. When conservatives finally start making conservative art, it stands to reason we will get rich from it. Why should an art business be any different from a car dealership or a payday lender?"
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Jeff Koons.
What?!?! Woody Woodpecker isn't good enough to make the lineup?!?!?! To quote the great Foghorn Leghorn, "I say, I say, what the fuck is this shit?"
I have to admit that I'm finding the Lola Bunny outrage particularly hilarious. Because NONE of those people professing outrage has ever seen the original cartoon, they're convinced that the anime-porn version of Lola Bunny is the original and the original is some kind of cancel-cultured de-sexified character.
But what can we expect from a group of people who proudly stood on street corners waving signs that said "Tea Bag Me!"
I’m the right age and yet I never saw Space Jam, and even if I had I don’t think I’d get bent out of shape about someone redesigning Lola Bunny 25 years later. The only people with rage boners about this must be really into sexy animated furries and... oh.
Excuse me while I go render myself unconscious.
Bags Bunny,
Keep your hands off Jessica Rabbit!
As I may have said, I was in a relationship with a guy who claimed to be a libertarian (of course, he was just a Log Cabin Republican with a taste for nose candy) and asked me “Why are so many artist against capitalism?”
I had to tell him I and too many artists i know had been ripped off or or poorly treated by some self described businessman...
Dont even get me started on the musicians..
“If you really love creating art, you’d be willing to do it for free.”
“Great. My next painting is a modern interpretation of The Death of Marat. I need a sitter. You free?”
As George Will recently wrote, "forbidding people to work for less than the government deems proper" (read: less than minimum wage) is of "dubious morality." And remember, he's one of the good conservatives!
A Defense of Slavery (Downstate George Will Edition)
When you get down to it, $15/ hour would be an improvement yet woefully low. You're talking $450-600/week for a full time job. Maybe the idea should be go big or don't go.
Frankly there should be no cap on what a body gets for its needs. Reciprocally, a body's got to know its limitations. Dirty Harry paraphrased without the sexist man-speak there. Bottom line is the wherewithal is available. Not saying everyone gets a Ferrari, although that would be a good dividing line. All those requesting one would be ground up into hamburger or something because honestly they have their priorities all screwed up and Santa doesn't really love them as much as they think. But seriously, folks, $30 per hour isn't overly much and it would certainly boost the economy, and as for all those crotchety businesspeople, the so-called "job creators" who have a problem with changing their pricing and business models, hell, I can help! I know how to do search and replace on their lousy little Word documents and whatnot when they revise their idiotic assumptive plans, no problem. I'll only charge them the anticipated going rate to help their sorry asses into the new utopia, by hook or by crook.
That $15 is woefully, pathetically insufficient is a big part of my opposition. It’s not a hill to die on. If such a hill is wanted, the 15 has to be increased and shut down the 30 hr/week loophole. That should be considered full time with full time benefits required. Employers should be paying for healthcare, not me through my tax $$. Any minimum wage increased should also have a COLA. You know, something of a living wage act. Now that would be a great deal to die on.
As the joke goes, Business person: “We can’t pay you but it’s great exposure.” Artist: “You can die of exposure!”
Interesting capitalist would be a rarity, an outlier hence little interest to an artist, no?
Diego Garcia might disagree...
That's a very good point. For my part, I've long been convinced that actors tend to be leftish
0.) as a carry-over from centuries in which (as travellers not subject to easy sanction in the small-town world) they were distrusted and despised, in some place not allowed Christian burial but more so
1.) because they get continual education in the falsity of the Just World Hypothesis: meritocracy is not the rule in this life. Yes, actors at the top of the scale do tend to be much better than those at the bottom, but every honest actor knows that the rôle they got could easily have been done as well by a few others they know.
That is to say, they can't believe in a world in which success were morally normative, and I think that holds as well for other artists. (Saner,non-Randroid, libertarians don't claim this, they will allow as how the unconstrained Market would generally tend to reward competence and even virtue, but don't claim it would be hard-and-fast true.)
The dirty little secret is that as a rule, conservatives can't create anything of any quality to speak of. For example, there's the Great White Whale (pun not, no, it is, intended) of a conservative counterpart to SNL. Never happened, there doesn't even seem to be a major, funny conservative comedian out there. Forget an ensemble of them let alone a writer's room. Of course, arguably, the scandals based on bullshit, deliberate misreadings and characterizations of events is pretty much their maximum creativity but even that's, I dunno, proves the rule?
Anyway, I'm hopeful for the Ben Shapiro-produced Gina Carano/Kevin Sorbo/Scott Baio franchise. I mean, it'll surely be better than the Star Wars sequels. Or maybe, if Ben can't get the financing, they're settle for a remake of The Fountainhead. Of course, no gender swap, Sorbo will still be Roark and be the architect, but Carano will play his loyal wife who gladly and effectively kicks ass on his behalf.
And when Hasbro gets a clue, I will be there for the enhanced Potato Head set that includes all genitalia (and chest hair for Mr. PH) and, just to send the right message, guns, guns, guns. And MAGA caps. (Hasbro, you read here first so send me my payoff.)
This would sell all right. Of course it would sit unused in conservative households, forgotten and unloved behind a stack of Jon McNaughton prints, as a museum exhibit to their “values.” But the money would be well spent since they Owned The Libs.
Mmm... nnnno... I think I would use such a set for an Instagram feed. You can guess how tasteful. And now that you made me think about it, I want a Trump set so I can turn a bunch of potatoes into trumpy potato heads. Donnie, Melania, Jr. Mint and Vanky.
The problem with conservative art is that it has to scream conservative tropes. Jon McNaughton's stuff would be just kitsch if not for the ridiculous renderings of Trump as football hero, for example. It can't be taken seriously as art - it's just a form of advertising for the brand.
I love McNaughton’s technique but what he’s illustrating is completely stupid but fantasies that can’t stand up to facts. So as capital A art, it’s still a failure. That said, I suppose he’s as good as conservative artists get.
I find McNaughton to be kind of boring. Ben Garrison’s work, however, borders on wingnut genius at times. He creates a funhouse world that is way, way weirder and unintentionally funny, because like most con-com, he’s not making jokes, he’s angrily screaming at passerby.
He also drops Donny’s BMI a further 10 points than McNaughton, so props for that.
Now that I think about, what I like besides his technique is that some of it can be looked at as parody.
I’m trying to conjure an animal appropriate for a wing nut cartoon ( king cobra? Norwegian rat? slime mold?) but I can’t bear to saddle anything more sentient than a rabies virus with that identity. Behold, “The Adventures of Covidman - Winnowing the Weak.”
I mean, they tried really hard to make the Zodiac Killer into a comic character you love to hate, but Ted Cruz just isn’t able to pull it off.
Ruben Bolling’s “Dinkle the Unlovable Loser” from Tom the Dancing Bug:
https://gocomics.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c5f3053ef01a511f21b6e970c-800wi
A turd can b of more societal value than nearly every GOP pol. The former can be used for fertilizer, maybe a fuel source. Otherwise, it's benign. Can't say that about any Republican.
This puts me in the mind of discontinued characters in the Itchy & Scratchy universe: Disgruntled Goat and Ku Kux Klam
Bivalve With Attitude
I was watching the Mandalorian last night & marvelling at the wonders of libertarianism (not that it advocates such, but does a good job of showing them) -- but the thought struck me: do conserva-toadies & meatheads not remember that they are always fodder for the hero's prowess, the chumps to be despatched with flair.
The answer she suggests herself: these "conserva-toadies & meatheads" just think they haven't yethad the chance to show off their warrior's flair. And as soon as the boss is dead, they'll have their chance.
I'll try to come up with a concept based on this slug
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/08/keep-your-head-the-self-decapitating-sea-slugs-that-regrow-their-bodies-hearts-and-all
"Andrew knew the answer. He wanted us to be ... artists"
Art is hard work. Not a good career choice for folks with basically one talent - shameless shit talk.
If I'm not mistaken, Little Black Sambo is in the public domain, which means we don't even have to worry about coming up with ideas. All we need is an artist or two willing to work for a flat fee (and exposure, which is obviously invaluable) and we can churn out these books through Regnery Publishing, which isn't going to put us through any kind of rigorous editorial process, even to check spelling errors. Not that you need to read words in a book, what are ya, a college professor?
You spelled perfesser wrong
Oh wow, I just had flashbacks to Glenn Reynolds. Is that stupid fuck still alive?
Well, there you go. Something for conservatives. Bonus: If it's in the public domain, it can't be cancelled.
When I ran the bookstore, (‘01-‘06) we had a contemporary reprinting/concept of Sambo as Tamil in an Indian setting: and the Nice White Ladies who’d ask seemingly hoping to be disappointed (‘cause Al Franken and Molly Ivans books were much in evidence) l Do you have ‘Little Black Sambo’.” Amd I’d smile and get it from “the Children’s Corner” and they would pout and say “well..its not the original!”
Amd they would be abashed when I suggested they look online..
I suppose there are and have been some artists who are/have been conservative, but in general artists and entertainers are liberal. Why? Because in order to make:
1. art, you have to want to deal honestly with emotions and human nature, and conservatives are attracted to conservatism precisely to avoid such matters, especially in themselves. Instead, they cede authority to religion and political dogma.
2. entertainment, you have to want your subject to be human nature as it precedes political ideology, and they can't do that. (Cf. no. 1.) You have to respect truth more than message, whereas their priorities are exactly the opposite.
3. political satire, again, you have to focus on actual human nature as it is deformed and perverted by ideology. But they start with ideology and end up manipulating stereotypes in the service of the "message." Their audiences laugh at and like the result because it confirms the cheap stereotypes they walked in with. Real satire reveals something. Conservative "satire" confirms everything. Conservative comedy is like Soviet physics.
Roy, this is another one you HAVE to make public. It's too funny for us to keep it to ourselves.
P.S. I just had to respond to this messterpiece of factual errors and bad faith. I'll let you know where it gets me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOnq4IwbJTg
I 👍this because it touches on a thing that gets overlooked imho: as popular media gets woker, straight white people see and hear more and more other people Not like them, and it's pissing them off, partly because our monkey brains want to see our reflection in the mirror, and partly because it's a concrete demonstration of a loss of privilege. They don't give a good goddamn about Seuss or Potato Heads, they see an imagined part of their imagined past being taken away from them in the media, and it's one more straw on the camel's back. At least when Govenor Schwartzenegger made a show of driving a Hummer and smoking cigars, he was in favor of something. These people are just whining about "losing" things they don't care about.
On a certain, likely inchoate level, they fear that when they become the minority, revenge will be taken and they know they would deserve it.
I've used the "slave owners fear a slave uprising" analogy before, but I truly believe it's not that thought out. Its Inchoate all the way down. I've talked to them about privilege (avoiding the w-word) and they are just confused: what privilege? Nobody does any favors for me. Trying to push on this just makes them uncomfortable, then angry. They really don't want to think about this stuff at all.