Tuesday June 09, 2009

LAUGH AND THE WORLD LAUGHS WITH YOU... How many conservatives does it take to appreciate a joke? Erin Manning, Rod Dreher's second-string scold, on an amusing Bud Light internet commercial in which a poor schlub trying to buy some porn with his beer gets mortified in front of a girl and on national TV:

You could certainly argue that this commercial doesn't exactly show porn purchasers in the best light...

But there's no question that the advertisers who created the campaign thought that people would find this really funny--and especially, that people who buy their product would not mind seeing it associated with a guy who attempts a casual purchase of some nasty porn--and that's trouble, according to some:

(Long quote from a Time thumbsucker)

Any causal observer of the culture has seen the attempted mainstreaming of pornography unfold over the last couple of decades... and now, apparently, it's okay to use porn to sell beer.

Whereas before they only used measured appeals to reason.

Yet as Cathy Rose of the Family Research Council points out, porn hurts real people...

In that light, is it really a good idea to use porn to sell beer -- even if the would-be porn buyer comes out looking really, really bad by the end of the commercial? Not if it makes light of the suffering and exploitation porn causes, and not if the takeaway is that all kinds of regular people think of porn as harmless entertainment.

If someone complained that a joke in which someone slipped on a banana peel made light of the suffering caused by household accidents, I bet Manning would rush to denounce the humorless PC scold.

In related news, David Letterman made a crack about Sarah Palin's "slutty flight attendant look" in a Top Ten bit. After explaining how not-outraged he is, comedy critic Say Anything, as you were probably expecting, loses his cool and barks, "I just wish liberals like Letterman has the cojones to go after Obama in the same way. They don’t. Because they’re intellectually dishonest." Come on, buddy, we laughed when you came in.

Allahpundit says, "You missed your calling as a writer for Playboy, Dave." "Is David Letterman deranged?" asks the understandably Lonely Conservative. "Letterman is such a spiteful, mean-spirited, liberal, Democrat hack," boldfaces-for-angry Freedom Eden. "Watch Conan O'Brien. He's liberal, of course, but he's not as angry and dishonorable as Letterman." Presumably she used a geiger counter to determine this -- but have a care, Comrade Eden, for comrade Fullosseous Flap has already condemned O'Brien Palin wrongjoke, and O'Brien has indulged laughtraitor Tina Fey!

"Letterman has officially crossed over from funny to mean," says Gateway Pundit, catching boldface fever. "This guy is a jerk... The list included Palin buying crack and keying cars..." Then:

More... Did Letterman just call Palin a hooker?

[Commenter] Elmo thinks so:

Actually ... now that I've looked at it...
"After a wink and a nod, ended up with a kilo of crack."

EQUALS

Turning a trick for a taste/rip. AKA a "strawberry" (in 80's parlance). Most any streetwalker of the period. Who cared not a whit for money. Simply and just the next dose of rock cocaine.

Certainly the feminists will be outraged when they hear about this.

Not if they've ever seen Rusty Warren. Knockers up, GP!

Our favorite, though we admit we haven't waded completely through the slush pile, is the lecture from Freedom - An American Blog, best imagined with a church organ playing softly in the background:

While the press is conveniently exempt from the sort of restrictive provisions that apply to charities, and can therefore mix in politics with news or comedy or whatever, it is generally reasonable to expect that entertainment and news should, in general, be fair and not be slanted so as to give one political party or candidate an unfair advantage. When a candidate is specifically targeted with patently false statements that are disguised as “comedy” it becomes transparently clear that the individuals involved are attempting to circumvent the election laws using a loophole which can then be used, through their media platform, to create a false impression of their party of choice’s opponents.

And to think, these guys used to worry about the Fairness Doctrine! But it's all good -- Captain Freedom loosens his spats and supplies his own Top Ten list, only about Letterman! A sample:

3. Recently found out that “Torah” is NOT a Nickelodeon show and that the Bible was not first written in 1980?
2. Angry that his makeup artist can’t make him look like a teenage mom?
1. Thinks the Bill of Rights were nothing more than a Top Ten List that isn’t funny?

He seems to have mixed up the Top Ten format with that of "Jeopardy!" But give him credit: at least he made an effort. Most of them seem to have decided that they will combat inappropriate laughter with throat-clearing explanations of why these outrages aren't funny. That's okay. There's always room in the show for Margaret Dumont.