A "9/13 Republican" Explains How Liberals Think

Another one from dri. It's a 47 minute address, but dri says watch the first five minutes and you'll watnt to watch it all, which, so far, has turned out to be right in my case.

Evan Sayet is apparently a humorist but he's quite serious here. (PS, he seems to have formerly been a writer for Bill Maher.)

Hot Stuff: If you haven't watched it, you should know that the readers who have call it "riveting," inter alia. So it's not just the guy who liked The Wicker Man telling you to give it a chance.

Couple of thoughts. I like his whole idea of the childish utopian mindset. It reminds me of a remark by Harlan Ellison (who usually annoys me). He noted the childishness of some 1950's utopian science fiction, but also noted that later 1960's and 1970's dystopian fantasies were equally childish, and indeed impelled by the same juvenile mindset. The dystopian writers were basically juvenile-minded former utopians who'd become upset that utopia didn't seem possible, and hence ranted, in novel-length temper tantrums, against the reality that had so disappointed and emotionally wounded them. If utopia isn't possible, then everything is horrible and to be denigrated; they just don't have the more mature mindset that great courage and virtue and wisdom can exist in a world which also contains great cowardice, great evil, and great ignorance.

He really oughtn't have roped the sitcom Rules of Engagement in with the various anti-marriage shows he's targeting. I've only seen it once, but the married character, played by Patrick Warburton, seems satisfied enough by his marriage. They even have sex, which puts them well ahead of most married couples as Hollywood depicts them. Sure, he bitches and moans about the compromises of marriage and about the almost alien mindset of the female of the species (and vice versa, from the female point of view, but the show focuses more on the male characters), but that's not so much "anti-marriage" as pro-humor and, indeed, pro-reality.

The single character (played by David Spade) talks a good game about the supposed Endless Orgy of singlehood, but he's portrayed as a somewhat pathetic Quagmire-ish character. Overall the show seems relatively pro-marriage to me -- at least as pro-marriage as the concept, and the basics of comedy, will permit. (Perfect marriages -- or anything perfect, really -- doesn't make for good comedy. Or drama, for that matter).

Doesn't hurt that the wife and the fiancee on the show are pretty hot, which is itself a subliminal endorsement of the institution.

Really good stuff, though. I'm enjoying it all.

posted by Ace at 05:00 PM

| Access Comments