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On Heckler, Hecklers, and Critics

I was watching Jamie Kennedy’s movie Heckler last night, something I still think is a brilliant response to the savage critiques he received after Malibu’s Most Wanted and Son of the Mask. I think it’s a great bit of revenge to, in the face of cruel and inhuman criticism, show a comedian (and interview many others) ingesting said criticism, wincing at personal slights, and looking hurt at the extent of the savagery.

And, yes, I absolutely agree that, if you don’t like a movie or comedy show, you should just leave. Change the channel. I let Carlos Mencia be Carlos Mencia, and I just go have a cocktail at the bar. Done.

It was when the documentary got into savaging critics and bloggers that I (predictably) began to lose some of my sympathy for the characters. I concede that I also yearn for the days of serious film/dramatic criticism (where are today’s Dorothy Parkers, who are knowledgeable and empathetic enough to the performers and writers to know just how to slice them up, without actually breaking them down?). Gene Shalit, Leonard Maltin, the staff of the NY Times these days…feh. And, yes, I think they should all be replaced by people who actually make movies for a living, much as the book reviews that are always the most spot-on and interesting are essayed by fellow writers.

And yet…well, the thing is…I couldn’t help but think of that line from Godfather II: “This is the business [you've] chosen.” It’s not like you made this movie, then released it, only to find that the entire world of film criticism had changed from an erudite circle of polite former screenwriters, into a gaggle of snarling beasts. And, in order to put up with said snarling beasts, you got paid. Well. Better than said snarling beasts, and sure as shit better than most of the country.

And, as far as mean “fans” go, while I think it’s rude that people go up to celebrities and tell them their movies suck when the poor people are just trying to enjoy a meal, I also think it’s enormously arrogant to think that people will never have unfavorable opinions about your work, and will instead just sit in slack-jawed wonderment at the talking pictures proferred for their enjoyment. Unfortunately, it’s a fact that the most likely response you will get will be the most negative, with the most positive following behind. It’s just how our psyches work; many studies have confirmed that we humans like to bitch about things we hate more than admire things we love.

As for the blogosphere: Yes, the internet is home to the meannest of the mean, in both senses of the word. However, it is written by the general public, and these are all people who, unlike “real critics,” paid to see your movie. If you don’t want to listen to their opinions, fine: Don’t log on and Google yourself. But don’t bitch because they have opinions that are contrary to your own, and say so.

As far as the language of online reviews goes, it has indeed gotten more and more violent and crude, especially when writing reviews of things and/or celebrities. Why, you wonder, the animosity? The answer is: It has nothing to do with animosity, and everything to do with anonymity. The internet is huge, and the blogosphere is chock-a-block with people who like to write their opinions. In order to differentiate yourself, you have to make something in your headline or tags stand out. For whatever reason, I’ve noticed that any headline of mine that includes cursing and/or references to various sorts of perversions gets TONS of hits; those that are more thoughtful get almost none.

I don’t blame readers for this. There are myriad ways to get news and information these days, and civil discourses can get lost in the shuffle. Take the awesome postings at synthesis: They are well-thought-out, highly intellectual, and, above all, well-written. That blog, along with other similar ones, consistently gets rated among the top of the internet. And yet, I will bet all my savings that Gawker beats them in page hits and ad sales. So, there’s that: Blame human nature and its love of watching brutality, but don’t blame the people trying to be heard.

And, while I’m on the subject, there is absolutely no difference between a blogger cruelly mocking a movie, and said movie star saying that the blogger is some basement-dwelling fatass who’s never held a job or gotten laid. Except the amount of people who get to see/hear the movie star say that, versus the small number of people who read the snarky blog. That balances out the comparative anonymity (and security) bloggers feel, yes? And when they lose said anonymity (like Andrew Sullivan, or others), they get well compensated for it. Just like other public figures. So they can buy bigger pillows to cushion the blows of public criticism.

So, in conclusion, here’s my advice to Jamie Kennedy:

1. Just as you say to hecklers in comedy clubs: If you don’t like what you read on the Internet about yourself, don’t look.
2. Buck up, buttercup. Those meanies out there don’t really hate you; they just love colorful language and page views.
3. Go take a look around your nice house, cuddle up to your pretty girlfriend, and remind yourself that you’re doing alright, regardless.

Thus endeth the lesson. Dick jokes soon!

Maybe The Coolest Thing I’ve Ever Seen

I think…no, wait, I’m fairly sure this clip is so goddamned awesome that I am sexually aroused.

(courtesy of this awesome blog)

National Review Guy Cold Refuses To Say Sotomayor’s Name The Way “THEY” WANT US TO. For Freedom.

Oh, Happy Friday to me!!! Wonkette has once again proven why I go there to get teh happeez with a post about why grammar nerds are the coolest nerds ever. And also columnists at the National Review are crazy.

It Sticks in My Craw [Mark Krikorian] [Ed. note: This should be the title of every wingnut blog ever.]

Most e-mailers were with me on the post on the pronunciation of Judge Sotomayor’s name (and a couple griped about the whole Latina/Latino thing — English dropped gender in nouns, what, 1,000 years ago?). But a couple said we should just pronounce it the way the bearer of the name prefers, including one who pronounces her name “freed” even though it’s spelled “fried,” like fried rice. (I think Cathy Seipp of blessed memory did the reverse — “sipe” instead of “seep.”) Deferring to people’s own pronunciation of their names should obviously be our first inclination, but there ought to be limits. Putting the emphasis on the final syllable of Sotomayor is unnatural in English (which is why the president stopped doing it after the first time at his press conference), unlike my correspondent’s simple preference for a monophthong over a diphthong, and insisting on an unnatural pronunciation is something we shouldn’t be giving in to.

Right-o! There are literally no words in the English language that veritably FORCE you to put some kind of unnatural emphasis on the final syllable, which is why there is no such thing as an iamb or any such nonsense in our grammatical history.

So, yes, Virginia: Shakespeare was a French Nazi, and his sonnets were communist propaganda bullshit that were meant to make your mouth gay with their sodomite rhythms.

NY Times Doesn’t Want Any Part Of Geffen’s Communist Bullpucky

So, last week David Geffen was outed as having perhaps the best idea ever to save the newspapaer industry, starting with the the NY Times. In a fashion that makes transparent the reasons they are so publicly f(l)ailing, Times editor Bill Keller has countered with the worst idea ever.

A “meter system,” in which the reader can roam freely on the Web site until hitting a predetermined limit of word-count or pageviews, after which a meter will start running and the reader is charged for movement on the site thereafter.

Yup, you read that right: They want to charge internet readers by the word. What better way to counteract the nefarious insurgence of communism (i.e. “non-profit” *shudder*) than to profit off the free-est part of your precious free market?

Oh, and he had another idea too:

Mr. Keller described the second proposal as a “membership” system…Mr. Keller described the second proposal as a “membership” system.

That one sounds suspiciously like PBS, no?

I say it’s time the Sulzbergers give up their stranglehold on media beholden to advertising lords and masters already. They have enough money to last for generations’ worth of loquacious scallawagging through the Upper East Side as is, and a city about to rescind terms limits for the highest-bidding mayor (hint: Bloomberg) could use a reliable news source (besides…well, Bloomberg).

It’s The Economy, Faggot

Let’s hope the Obama administration really does, as is rumored, read Andrew Sullivan. His column on Obama’s gay rights bullshit no-stances is powerful stuff, and everyone should read it. Which is why I’m going to post it in its entirety:

The Fierce Urgency Of Whenever

I lived through eight years of the Clintons and then eight years of Bush. Through it all, gay people were treated at the federal level like embarrassments or impediments. With Clinton, we were the means to raise money. With Bush, we were the means to leverage votes by exploiting bigotry. Obama seemed in the campaign to promise something else. I listened to him in the early days and found him sincere about ending discrimination by the government; and I came to respect, while vehemently disagreeing with, his position on federal civil unions. He seemed genuinely distressed that gay servicemembers should be treated with contempt and persecution by their commander-in-chief, that gay couples should have to fight for basic human treatment – like entry to hospital rooms, or being able to stay in the same apartment as their late spouse, or forced into cruel separation by immigration laws that treat gay couples as threats, rather than assets, or if you had the temerity to survive HIV, being treated at the US border the way Jesse Helms always wanted people with HIV to be treated – like perverts and pariahs and threats.

It is quite something to have a government stamp in your passport, as I do, that will tell any immigration or police officer with a connection to a government database that I have HIV, that I am therefore a threat and can be arrested and detained and deported at the border if necessary. I’m a big boy with money and a robust self-esteem as an HIV-positive survivor, but I think of thousands of others far less powerful and wealthy than I am who are afraid to enter or leave the US because their HIV status renders them criminals. I think of how the US is the only developed country – and one of only a handful of undeveloped countries – that still tells the world that people with HIV are dangerous pariahs, who need policing at borders and deporting if discovered. And yet this is the current policy of the Obama administration on global HIV and AIDS.

And it’s tedious to whine and jump up and down and complain when a wand isn’t waved and everything is made right by the first candidate who really seemed to get it, who was even able to address black church congregations about homophobia. And obviously patience is necessary; and legislative work takes time; and there are real challenges on so many fronts, especially the economy and the legacy of war crimes and the permanently restive Iraqi and Afghan regions we are constantly in the process of liberating from themselves. No one expects a president to be grappling with all this early on, or, God help us, actually leading on civil rights. That’s our job, not his.

But I have a sickeningly familiar feeling in my stomach, and the feeling deepens with every interaction with the Obama team on these issues. They want them to go away. They want us to go away.

Here we are, in the summer of 2009, with gay servicemembers still being fired for the fact of their orientation. Here we are, with marriage rights spreading through the country and world and a president who cannot bring himself even to acknowledge these breakthroughs in civil rights, and having no plan in any distant future to do anything about it at a federal level. Here I am, facing a looming deadline to be forced to leave my American husband for good, and relocate abroad because the HIV travel and immigration ban remains in force and I have slowly run out of options (unlike most non-Americans with HIV who have no options at all).

And what is Obama doing about any of these things? What is he even intending at some point to do about these things? So far as I can read the administration, the answer is: nada. We’re firing Arab linguists? So sorry. We won’t recognize in any way a tiny minority of legally married couples in several states because they’re, ugh, gay? We had no idea. There’s a ban on HIV-positive tourists and immigrants? Really? Thanks for letting us know. Would you like to join Joe Solmonese and John Berry for cocktails? The inside of the White House is fabulous these days.

Yesterday, Robert Gibbs gave non-answer after non-answer on civil unions and Obama’s clear campaign pledge to grant equal federal rights for gay couples; non-answer after non-answer on the military’s remaining ban on honest servicemembers. What was once a categorical pledge is now – well let’s call it the toilet paper that it is. I spent yesterday trying to get a better idea of what’s intended on all fronts, and the overwhelming sense – apart from a terror of saying anything about gay people on the record – is that we are in the same spot as in every Democratic administration: the well-paid leaders of the established groups get jobs and invites, and that’s about it. Worse: we will get a purely symbolic, practically useless hate crimes bill that they will then wave in our faces to prove they need do nothing more.

As for the HIV ban, legislatively lifted by overwhelming numbers of Republicans and Democrats almost a year ago, this is the state of play from an Obama HHS spokesman:

“The Department of Health and Human Services has submitted for OMB review a notice of proposed rule-making to implement this change.”

Translation: we’re doing the bare minimum to make us look no worse than Bush, but we have no real interest in this and are letting the bureaucracy handle it, and we guarantee nothing. On gay servicemembers, the president is writing personal notes to those he has fired and intends to continue firing. Will he write some personal notes to the people with HIV he deports? Will he write personal notes to the gay spouses suddenly without a home or their late spouse’s savings or forced by his administration to relocate abroad because he has no intention of actually fulfilling his promises?

I recall my old, now dead, friend Bob Hattoy, who toiled in the Clinton administration. He was going to write a memoir of working with people who thought of homosexual rights as wonderful things to say you support (especially if you’re fundraising or at a Hollywood dinner party) but far, far too controversial to ever do anything about, let alone risk anything for. In the end, of course, the Clintons enacted a slew of brutally anti-gay measures – passing DOMA, doubling the rate of gay discharges from the military, signing the ban on HIV-positive tourists and immigrants – and expected standing ovations as pioneers of civil rights. The pathetic gay rights leaders gave it to them, so delighted were they to have their checks cashed. The proposed title of Bob’s book was a summary of the priorities of the Clinton years:

It’s The Economy, Faggot.

I have a feeling he died laughing. What else are you gonna do?

I agree 100%. Gay rights are civil rights. Period. Using a community’s desperation to only be partially marginalized and discriminated against (as opposed to forcibly extricated from “polite society”) in order to get elected is disgusting. Especially for beneficiaries of the movement. And I’m not just talking Obama here: Women, Jews, Catholics, all minorities, and sometimes majorities…we all benefit together, or perish alone.

David Geffen Is A Big Fat Newspaper Communist

David Geffen is, pretty loudly, trying his darndest to acquire the New York Times, which has been (just as loudly) struggling as of late. This, of course, has caused the journalists, sanitation staff, and execs to all freak the hell out about whether or not they’ll still have jobs, coffee, Formula 401, and the like. Turns out he’s got a really interesting idea about what the grey lady should be: a non-profit.

The Geffen sources NEWSWEEK spoke to are knowledgeable about his investment decisions and specifically about his overture to acquire a Times stake, but they declined to be identified. “The New York Times is a very special institution,” said one of the persons. “It’s essential to be preserved. And David believes the correct model to preserve it is nonprofit.”
…
The Geffen sources told NEWSWEEK that he envisions himself as the next Nelson Poynter, the late proprietor of the St. Petersburg Times and a legend in journalistic circles for his fierce independence. The Florida newspaper (where this reporter began his career) is the widely recognized prototype of the nonprofit structure that is now generating growing interest in some quarters of an industry facing an existential crisis…
One of the nation’s great daily reports, it snared two Pulitzer Prizes last month.

Notice I’m not snarking on this, and I shan’t (in spite of Geffen’s responsibility for popularizing The Eagles, a blight on the cultural landscape for which I have BARELY forgiven him). Why no snark? I actually think this may be a seriously awesome idea.

The newspapers all over the country are hemorrhaging money anyway. The nonprofit structure not only worked at the St. Petersburg Times, the freedom it allots does great things for PBS. Imagine a news industry that owed nothing to advertisers. It sounds like it would be a new kind of independent journalism, and one desperately needed in this Era of the Punditocracy/Blogosphere.

Of course, now we’ll have to withstand the inevitable fund drives, but, hey, that’s what fish markets were made for, right?

Thank You, BestWeekEver.com!

Just as I thought my rage at Ben Nelson would never abate, I see this gem:

And, better yet:

Thank you, BestWeekEver.com for making my weekend less filled with whisky and rage.

4Chan Pwns Time

First, these guys infiltrate beloved institutions like “America’s Next Top Model”, and now this? What next? Hacking into a Disney site and making Mickey do things to Goofy that are illegal in 48 states (like get married)???

To tell the truth, I’m a bit ambivalent about what 4chan’s many, many minions have done to Time’s new poll on “The Most Influential People In The World”. On the one hand, it’s a stupid poll set up by an obsolete news source (which is, in the words of Jon Stewart, for people who like USA Today but wish it were shinier), so it might as well be these guys that fuck with it as Colbert fans. Plus, the reference to “marble cake” made me spit coffee onto my keyboard.

On the other, ol’ Chris Poole disseminating his influence into mainstream channels can only help our poor aging population come to grips with the fact that they don’t matter anymore. Come on, moot, they have so little left already (teeth, bladder control, calcium, naturally-occurring erections).

Side note: Li’l Wayne was in the running?

Sharing Ain’t Just For Caring Anymore

So let’s talk the internets.

When the internet first started blowing up, I remember being terrified of the consequences. The constant reminders that, “Your kids could have friends they’ve never even met,” just made it worse. Specifically, I was afraid that, because of the lack of necessity for us to leave our houses, it would make us a generation of mole people. And, while my pallor may perhaps be a result of my lerve of the online, I somehow think this here series of tubes has been more a positive influence on society than a negative.

The usual arguments, some of which I myself make, still apply: It makes people intellectually lazy (why memorize anything when it’s merely a Google search away?); it divorces people from the society around them and makes them more “active” electronically instead (why get the blisters from marching against something in reality, when you can just sign up for a Facebook group?); it makes people slaves to its will (I’m sure I’m not the only one who gets clammy palms from a temporary glitch in my connection). Still, the collaborative nature of the internet is what I think is the overall positive, and here’s why.

I’m actually kind of a purist when it comes to all things paper. I cherish newspaper-printed fingers and my boxes and boxes of books. And, while I am saddened that most people aren’t likewise emotionally linked to their wood pulp collections (meaning numerous journalistic institutions and publishing houses are being torpedoed by…well, people like me), I find the nature of the blogosphere fascinating and highly positive on the writing community, in that it’s a serious community effort.

What I mean is that, in order to get anyone to read your blog in the first place, you have to read other blogs. There is no existence within a vacuum in the online community; there is no take without give. I know that it should be the same way in the literary community in general, but I’ve found the bubble-creating nature of academia to be counterproductive to this. Once friends of mine who’ve entered the academic pursuit of studying literature did so, they had to specialize, to work at their craft, and to therefore somewhat abandon the explorative nature of the beast. While studying writing, you are (naturally) encouraged to write; while studying literature, you are encouraged to read. However, there is no rule that says that, before you have anyone at the magazine to which you’re applying read your stuff, you must read that magazine (and others), give criticisms/insight to them, and see if they respond. Don’t get me wrong: It’s a damned good idea to do so, but it’s not a necessity.

Yes, this encourages amateurs to get in the game. And, sure, there are talentless hacks (*cough cough*) that invade the process, but they exist everywhere in the literary community (hellooo, Nora Roberts!). I’m sticking to my guns, though: I believe bloggers will be an unexpected benefit to the literary community at large.

Plus, hey, free movies. Beat that with a stick.