Althouse: "Saturday Night Live" is "incredibly brilliant activism, I think and I'm for that, it's using humor again as terrorism like the Yippies did..."

April 29, 2017

"Saturday Night Live" is "incredibly brilliant activism, I think and I'm for that, it's using humor again as terrorism like the Yippies did..."

"... to make fun of the enemy until they squirm in embarrassment and that's fair, that's good terrorism to me. You have to make each other laugh. If you just go out there and are preaching, no one's going to listen. You know, I'm not a separatist, I'm friends with some people who voted for Trump, not many. Nobody has the nerve to tell me, but a few have."

Said John Waters, who seems to have a lot of friends. I enjoyed his use of the term "separatist."

Oh, that reminds me of something I wanted to show you, this Heineken ad. It's anti-separationist:

46 comments:

BarrySanders20 said...: A beer summit. Not original.
Need to put a Berkeley antifa and a free speech advocate together to build some bridges. They can film that and see who moves to the enlightened view. But just to be safe, better make sure the antifa gets a can or a plastic cup.; 4/29/17, 7:31 AM
southcentralpa said...: In other John Waters news, he's running a summer camp for adults (?!) http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/john-waters-will-host-summer-camp-adults-180963027/

I, for one, am calculating minimum safe distance from Conn. that weekend, but YMMV; 4/29/17, 7:32 AM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: So he admits that SNL is Air America for late night TV.; 4/29/17, 7:48 AM
Bob Ellison said...: tl;dw; 4/29/17, 7:53 AM
MadisonMan said...: SNL doesn't spend enough time ripping on Democrats -- and that's a problem, especially obvious these days.

Laugh all you want at politicians, but don't limit your scorn to one side of the aisle. When was the last time SNL ripped Feinstein for funneling all that money / govt work to her husband's companies for example? Or tweaked Indian Warren?; 4/29/17, 8:01 AM
MadisonMan said...: ...and let me add, also, that 'incredibly brilliant' is a phrase that should be avoided. If it's brilliant, is it ever not incredibly brilliant?

Adverbs to avoid: Incredibly.; 4/29/17, 8:03 AM
Crimso said...: "Nobody has the nerve to tell me"

I guess that's one way to look at it...; 4/29/17, 8:05 AM
David Begley said...: SNL is no longer funny. It hasn't been for years. The only thing worth watching is Kate McKinnon doing Hillary.

Bashing Trump only goes so far. We get enough of that on CNN.; 4/29/17, 8:06 AM
Paco Wové said...: A 266-second ad? For a beer I still won't drink? Excessive.; 4/29/17, 8:09 AM
exhelodrvr1 said...: Activism? definitely!! "incredibly brilliant"? Not so much.; 4/29/17, 8:13 AM
Otto said...: No reason ,deductive thinking, standards or hierarchy. Pure bastardized tikkun olam. Result: totalitarianism and hedonism.
Note: our anti-separatist Ann just retired from one of the most leftist law schools in the country with a great pension. No separatist she.; 4/29/17, 8:15 AM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Who is John Waters?

And I doubt a beer commercial which tries to normalize transgenders will not be appealing to beer drinkers.; 4/29/17, 8:18 AM
Chuck said...: MadisonMan said...
...and let me add, also, that 'incredibly brilliant' is a phrase that should be avoided. If it's brilliant, is it ever not incredibly brilliant?

Adverbs to avoid: Incredibly.

I have been saying that since the Trump campaign began. Of course, it has all along been my view that indeed Donald Trump is incredible.

In any event, I agree that a four and a half-minute documentary sketch isn't what I think of as an "advertisement." Perhaps it is I, who must change my notion of what an advertisement is.; 4/29/17, 8:30 AM
sinz52 said...: SNL hasn't been all that funny in recent years.

But Mr. Waters' basic point is well taken: To make a political point, humor, satire, and mockery work much better than red-faced rage.

The Left had Stewart and Colbert to reach the young generation. The Right didn't have anybody.

Since it first started, Mad Magazine has had no trouble skewering both liberal and conservative politicians with humor.

http://www.madmagazine.com/blog/2016/11/07/hillarys-new-monopoly-card

Why conservatives can't do the same thing, I dunno. Maybe conservatives lack wit and a sense of humor.

Or maybe the very act of mocking someone requires that you have the attitude of being superior to that person. And smug superiority is something the Left has in abundance, but not the Right.; 4/29/17, 8:31 AM
Sebastian said...: "Nobody has the nerve to tell me." Now why is that, Mr. Waters?; 4/29/17, 8:39 AM
madAsHell said...: There's a good reason why commercials aren't 4 minutes long.

Yes, I failed to watch the whole thing.; 4/29/17, 9:02 AM
William said...: There is no better makeshift weapon in a bar brawl than a beer bottle. Long neck bottles are especially useful. Epidemiologists claim that up to ten thousand lives a year could be saved simply by reconfiguring the shape of beer bottles.; 4/29/17, 9:06 AM
William said...: Get drunk with a trannie. No better way to widen your horizons and become a better person.; 4/29/17, 9:09 AM
Fernandinande said...: madAsHell said...
Yes, I failed to watch the whole thing.

You may have missed some important philosophical ideas. Sad.; 4/29/17, 9:17 AM
mockturtle said...: It won't work. The breach is irrevocable.; 4/29/17, 9:20 AM
Darrell said...: I'd put Ritmo with a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Work it out, fellas.; 4/29/17, 9:27 AM
M Jordan said...: Libs now love presidential satire again. Let's think back to the great moments if presidential satire during the Obama years.

...

Okay, that was fun. I do recall the rodeo clown in Missouri who dared to wear an Obama mask. Claire McCaskill got involved and he lost his clown license.; 4/29/17, 9:53 AM
Ryan said...: Thats a well done ad.; 4/29/17, 10:18 AM
Professional lady said...: SNL hasn't been humorous for a long time. 95% of it is excruciatingly sophomoric and gross. I can't sit through it to get to the increasingly rare funny/witty stuff. I have better things to do.; 4/29/17, 10:19 AM
bagoh20 said...: It seems to me that one set of views in the commercial only advocates tearing things down, and the other is basically just leave me and it alone.; 4/29/17, 10:21 AM
glenn said...: But: Why drink Heineken when there's good beer available everywhere.; 4/29/17, 10:36 AM
tcrosse said...: Back in the day, SNL did some devastating take-offs on Bill Clinton and Al Gore, done by the late Phil Hartman and Darrell Hammond. One skit about the first Gore-Bush debate was so spot-on that Gore's campaign people made him watch it to see how ridiculous he looked.; 4/29/17, 10:37 AM
Robert Cook said...: "...smug superiority is something the Left has in abundance, but not the Right."

The Right lives in an eternal state of peevish resentment, fueled by an ineradicable belief they are oppressed and that the game is rigged against them...even when they are in power in Washington, even when the Democrats--when in power in Washington-- govern as Republicans-lite.; 4/29/17, 12:13 PM
mockturtle said...: I think you've got your parties confused, Cookie.; 4/29/17, 12:17 PM
Robert Cook said...: "Back in the day, SNL did some devastating take-offs on Bill Clinton and Al Gore, done by the late Phil Hartman and Darrell Hammond. One skit about the first Gore-Bush debate was so spot-on that Gore's campaign people made him watch it to see how ridiculous he looked."

Yes, and what little I've seen of Kate McKinnon's Hillary seems too self-regarding and not nearly vicious enough. It shows that, aside from some pesky personality issues, they basically like Hillary Clinton. (Similarly, they never even tried, as far as I know, to really use a knife's edge when depicting Obama.); 4/29/17, 12:21 PM
Robert Cook said...: @mockturtle:

Nope.; 4/29/17, 12:22 PM
Robert Cook said...: @mockturtle:

To follow up on my one-word reply: the comment I quoted, that the Left has smug superiority in abundance, sums up the Democrats. Smug superiority is the opposite of feeling resentful at being "oppressed." The Dems always assume they are the cool kids, while the Republicans always smart at feeling like perpetual not-cool nerds.; 4/29/17, 12:27 PM
walter said...: If this is actually real, imagine the recruitment/audition process and who was dumped.
It would have been funny if one of them held up a beer and asked "Got anything stronger?"; 4/29/17, 12:31 PM
walter said...: Dunno Cookie.. I think the oppression bit depends on who has the bigger gavel.
However, the Dems have their harder left folks inventing new forms of feeling oppressed and inventing labels in an attempt to mainstream them.; 4/29/17, 12:37 PM
Darrell said...: Incredibly brilliant or sickeningly stupid. You decide.; 4/29/17, 1:04 PM
Bilwick said...: If the commercial were more philosophically accurate, the leftists would conmfiscate the other guys' beer, in the name of "Beer equality" or some such/; 4/29/17, 1:33 PM
dreams said...: I think it's just a conventional commercial, I didn't watch all of it. I don't think there was anything original about it. At the end, did they drink a beer and agree to agree about world peace?; 4/29/17, 1:35 PM
walter said...: Or..you could just watch the damn thing...; 4/29/17, 1:48 PM
mockturtle said...: If the commercial were more philosophically accurate, the leftists would conmfiscate the other guys' beer, in the name of "Beer equality" or some such

Or, more politically accurate, a diatribe about appropriation of Dutch culture.; 4/29/17, 2:15 PM
eddie willers said...: Yes, I failed to watch the whole thing.

I was fatigued and waved my mouse over the screen. Saw I was only half way!

Give me the Pepsi commercial any day.; 4/29/17, 2:29 PM
Liesl said...: ...except that the ad is still skewed by angles. Where's the woman who doesn't buy into the "smash the patriarchy" rhetoric? Where's the moment of understanding by the left leaning person that the right leaner is not his forefathers, but is just a dude who lives here, now? I'm thinking of the parallax of the modern day feminist who has talked herself into believing she's fighting the same old shit, and the modern day man who is all too aware that she is not. The modern day feminist is denying the progress and the gains made to ensure her equality of opportunity, which she has no idea what it's like to live without. It's never been about equality of opportunity for her, though, or even equality of outcome. It's about dominance. It's moving backward, in a different direction.; 4/29/17, 2:32 PM
Quaestor said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 4/29/17, 6:02 PM
Quaestor said...: One takes note of the self-descriptive adjectives uniformly chosen by the leftie participants — words that in context were remote from reality and heavily laced with self-approbation. Are all leftwingers such megalomaniacs, or were these examples screened for folie de grandeur?

The ad is interesting but will fail to satisfy the investors. Controversial ballyhoo will not transform Heineken from disgusting swill into ambrosia.; 4/29/17, 6:03 PM
Quaestor said...: Robert Cook wrote: The Dems always assume they are the cool kids, while the Republicans always smart at feeling like perpetual not-cool nerds.

I doubt whether you have even one finger on the pulse of reality. I seldom read your comments, though when I do I often experience a surge of smug superiority.; 4/29/17, 6:16 PM
LilyBart said...: I couldn't watch the ad - I tried, but they lost me at the introduction of the 3rd set of people. It might have ended interestingly, but it was too tedious beginning - so I'll never know!; 4/30/17, 1:19 PM
John said...: The thing I noticed mostly in the commercial - and in real life - is that one-on-one with nearly everyone, you can find common ground or at least have a respectful conversation. The problem I see is that the left more commonly loves to congregate in groups - to protest or feel safe - leaving no room for discussion. Hear us, agree with us, or get out of our way.; 4/30/17, 1:58 PM