Oh, Boy: Survey Finds That NFL's Core Audience Losing Interest

Okay, here's a mid-afternoon change-of-topic.

Men aged 18 to 49 are, or used to be, the NFL's core audience.

Four years ago, 75% of that demographic followed the NFL "closely."

And now?

Just 51%.

I'm not sure that 75% ever really followed the NFL "closely," but that stat reveals something anyway -- the NFL was deemed cool and manly so that even if you weren't "closely" following the NFL, as guy, you still felt that you should say you follow it closely.

About one-third of that previous 75% apparently no longer thinks the NFL is cool and manly and so no longer claims to be following it closely. (Plus, a sizable number who really did used to follow it closely really don't follow it closely any longer.)

BTW, yes, we will have a Super Bowl thread on Sunday. I don't think I'll be watching but I don't want to take my personal viewcott to the extreme of denying commenters a place to talk about the game.

If a cob is interested in doing a post, please do. If no one is, I'll put up a crappy one. I think tv-event threads are the ultimate case of "didn't read the post, went right to the comments."

Oh, might as well mention: I don't watch many movies any more, but I did catch one I thought was pretty good.

Mind you, when you don't watch many movies, the few movies you do watch end up seeming a lot better than they otherwise would -- now they're a novelty again, and the old cliches seem... well, they don't seem new, but they do seem to work.

Also, I'm a little biased here -- I think Charlie Day might be the greatest comic actor working today.

So anyway, Fist Fight -- basically a remake of the 80s classic Three O'Clock High, except with a bully adult challenging a meek adult to a fight at three o'clock after school, instead of a bully student challenging a meek student, is pretty decent.

It's not great, but I did laugh a number of times, and was generally amused even when I wasn't laughing.

My only real problem is the ending. As with the movie Bad Moms (also pretty good), the film sets up a bunch of difficult-to-solve problems through most of its length, and then at the end just says "All the problems are now solved, just because the movie is now over."

You might say "No one cares about that in a comedy," and I'd say, "Eh, people care less about that in a comedy, but if you like the movie and the characters, and are halfway interested in the light drama of the film (which, in most good comedies, you are), you do want a plausible resolution, not just have the film say that a magic wand was waved and everything's now fixed, even though no one actually worked on fixing anything during the movie."

But yeah, it's not that important.

Also, there's that joke that Hollywood now seems to think is super-funny -- little kids using profanity -- that really isn't very funny. That joke in this movie isn't as lame as it usually is, because part of the humor is Charlie Day being surprised by it and trying to go along with it (for reasons), but still, not really as funny as I'm thinking the writers and producers thought it was.

Also, there is of course some pointless pro-teacher agitation. I always wonder-- do they do that on purpose, knowing that there are a lot of teachers in America, and if they throw in some light NEA propaganda (Pay us more and pay us to buy the supplies necessary to do our jerbs!), they'll see a bit of boost to the box office?

But that's a pretty minor thing. It's mostly about a cowardly Charlie Day trying to weasel his way out of a fight with Ice Cube, and being understandably frustrated (to the point where his voice gets high pitched and fluttery) that Ice Cube doesn't seem to understand that adults just don't go around challenging other adults to parking-lot fist fights after school.

Also, Jillian Bell returns, almost, to the comedic heights she hit in Twenty-Two Jump Street playing, again, the role of Woman Who Says Terrible, Weird Things. She was kinda lame in the cute-but-not-great Office Christmas Party, but she has better lines here.

posted by Ace at 03:10 PM

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