Saturday, November 21, 2009

THE KULTURE VULTURE: Are There Any MANLY American Actors Around Anymore?


I just finished watching a DVD that I rented from Blockbuster called The Ugly Truth, with Katherine Heigl and Brit actor (actually a Scotsman) Gerard Butler.  Butler as you may recall was the studly Spartan leader King Leonidas in the CGI* hit movie 300. Butler in 300 displays muscular six-pack abs (but not the kind of abs that look like he drank a six pack of beer every night).

In The Ugly Truth, Butler plays a stereotypical male chauvinist pig (sorry about the 1970s lingo readers). The plot** is set in Sacramento, where the female lead, Abby Richter (Heigl) produces a morning news show that's about to be canceled because of poor ratings. To boost ratings, her boss hires Mike Chadway (Butler), a local cable access call-in host promoting the "ugly truth" that sex is the only glue in a relationship (Man, can I ever relate to that one!), that men can't change, and that men only respond to women's looks.


Mike initially offends Abby's sterotype of the ideal man because she--like most women--has a checklist about the perfect man. Through the mysterious hand of kismet, Abby believes that she's found him in her new neighbor, Colin (Eric Winter), an apparent Mr. Right and a heterosexual woman's perfect dream-- a doctor.  (Think "Dr. McDreamy" on Grey's Anatomy or Dr. Oz.) Mike offers to help her reel in Dr. Colin if she'll work with Mike on the show; she accepts the deal, ratings go up, and with Mike's help, so does Colin's interest in her.

Mike's advice basically parrots--with a little "hard to get" play thrown in--the old Dusty Springfield song by Ani DiFranco entitled Wishin' and Hopin' that goes like this:
Wishin', and hopin', and thinkin', and prayin',

Planning and dreamin' each night of his charms.
That won't get you into his arms


So if your're looking for love you can share
All you gotta to is hold him, and kiss him, and love him,
And show him that you care.


Show him that you care, just for him.
Do the things that he likes to do.
Wear your hair just for him, 'cause,
You won't get him, thinkin' and a prayin',
Wishin' and hopin'.

'Cause wishin', and hopin', and thinkin', and prayin',
Planning and dreamin' his kisses will start.
That won't get you into his heart!


So if you're thinking how great true love is
All you gotta to is hold him, and kiss him, and squeeze him, and love him.
Yeah, just do it!


And after you do, you will be his.


You gotta show him that you care just for him.
Do the things that he likes to do.
Wear your hair just for him, 'cause,
You won't get him, thinkin' and a prayin',
Wishin' and a hopin'.


'Cause wishin', and hopin', and thinkin', and prayin',
Planning and dreamin' his kisses will start.
That won't get you into his heart!

So if you're thinking how great true love is!
You gotta to is hold him, and kiss him, and squeeze him, and love him.
Yeah, just do it!
And after you do, you will be his.


You will be his.
You will be his!
The film in the end is a minor cop out in a way that I won't reveal because it would be a "spoiler" for those that haven't seen or heard about the film.  It's enough to say that two women wrote the screenplay.

This film is a loose variation of the Miles Standish or Cyrano de Bergerac plots with a bit of a twist in that the ideal man turns out  to be a male that was victimized by women. This character appeals to motherly women that like a bit of a rogue in their men, but not a total rake like a Bill Clinton or a John Edwards.  Women like guys that are manly, yet have a softer side that is revealed only under limited circumstances. For example, crying when a relative dies or when Bambi's Mother dies. (Rule Number One: Never cry in front of a woman unless it one of the two above-mentioned situations!)

So what does all this have to do with American actors? Well, based on what's currently popular in entertainment, women don't really like men that are like them, i.e.,  they don't really want feminized men.  (Doesn't the whiney-ass wussy voice of Tom Hanks really grate on your nerves?) It seems like women really want old fashioned guys from the 1950s and early 1960s.  How else would you explain the popularity of testosterone loaded TV shows like Mad Men, The Mentalist or the importation of traditionally masculine-like  English actors like Gerard Butler, Daniel Craig, and Clive Owen.  But for some reason men don't feel threatened by these guys.  In fact in The Ugly Truth, the Mike Chadway character expresses the sentiments of a lot of us regular guys that are tired of the SNAG*** male paradigm. So it seems that the current crop of feckless American actors leaves a lot to be desired by women and in a non-gay way, by men. Maybe life will imitate art for a change.  



 

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*    Computer Generated Imagery
**   The basic plot synopsis in the IMDb is by  J.Haily, jhailey@hotmail.com.
***  Sensitive New Age Guy

Thursday, November 19, 2009

The Gang that Couldn't (or Wouldn't ) Shoot Straight or Don't they have people to research these things?


In a speech to the Polish people, former US president Jimmy Carter attempted to express his affection for the Polish people in the Polish language.  Unfortunately, for Carter he said instead that he "lusted after" them.  This was not the only time Carter expressed his lusty inner thoughts.  As you might recall, there was the infamous Playboy interview in which Carter, in an off the cuff remark (but not off the record), admitted to two Playboy freelance writers that he had "looked on a lot of women with lust" and had "committed adultery in my heart many times."  It makes you wonder if these guys have competent people to research this stuff and advise the President or the Presidential candidate as to how to handle a sticky situation?

Gaffes are an integral part of political life.  But how the gaffe is portrayed by the Lame Stream Media and others in media often depends upon the political persuation of the gaffer.  Sometimes stuff happens that one may not have any control over.  Remember when George H.W. Bush threw-up on the Japanese Prime Minister?  This was parodied on Saturday Night Live and was the subject of comedians everywhere.  Bush's son, "W" was treated by the media as the King of Gaffes, e.g., the New York Times asked in a snarky way how George W. Bush would handle a State Dinner with the Queen of England. 


Of course the Lame Stream Media, e.g., Time Magazine, protects Lefties. Time was full of excuses when Michelle "Antoinette" Obama touched the Queen of England, which is verboten under royal protocol.  Well sorry, Time, but there is no excuse for the FLOTUS's familiarity with the Queen because it's the Queen's House and it's her rules.  You always respect someone else's house rules.  And no, Michelle Antoinette, you are not at liberty to make up your own rules of conduct in someone else's house.


In a related article, Time in cataloging Obama's gaffes also made very sure to to do some damage control.  For example, when Obama cracked a joke at the expense of Special Olympians about his bowling game with Jay Leno on national television, Time, made sure to cover Obama's posterior:

Obama called Special Olympics Chair Tim Shriver from Air Force One before his Leno interview even aired to apologize for the off-color joke. Shriver told ABC's Good Morning America the following day that the president "expressed his disappointment and he apologized, in a way that was very moving."
(Wow, just thank about it Doofus, you cain say the meanest gawldurn thangs, but if ya apologize real purty, all is fergivin.)  Tim Shriver, by the way, is the son of Sargent Shriver, 1972 Democrat candidate for Vice-President.  So I would expect a good (sic) Democrat like Shriver in that circumstance to cover Obama's backside.


The rest of Obama's gaffes that are cataloged by Time are mostly described in terms that either minimize them or are simply ad hominem attacks on people like "Joe the Plumber" to draw attention away from Obama's ineptitude.  Another example is the cheesy DVD collection given to British PM Gordon Brown that was recast by Time to state that "Obama allegedly gave Brown a 'special collector's box' of 25 classic American DVDs...[Emphasis added.]  Allegedly gave?  Bolshevik!  Obama probably sent Joe Biden to the local DC Walmart to pick up a gift.  Obama mistakenly thought that not even Biden could screw-up this simple errand.  But it could have been worse, Obama could have ended giving PM Brown an Obama Chia Pet and a case of those little car deodorant trees for the PM's Rolls Royce Limo.



The recent flap over Obama bow and handshake with Japanese Emperor Akihito has also brought some controversy.  Acording to one New York Times blogger the real breach of protocol was to shake hands and bow at the same time (i.e., he should have picked one or the other actions to do).  The blogger, David Sanger, also pointed that George Bush 41 bowed before the casket of the deceased Japanese Emperor and was criticized by some pundits for doing so.  It was the correct thing for Bush 41 to have done.  On the other hand, Obama didn't know what to do.  This begs the question as to whether Obama has anybody competent enough to research this stuff?  Probably no more than he has anyone to competently advise him on the economy, health care, or trying terrorists in the United States.


Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Never try to teach an edumacated Liberal Idiot how to think. It wastes your time and annoys the Liberal Idiot.



I love old cartoons, especially the ones from the 1930s and 40s.  I was looking at some old Popeye cartoons the other day and I recalled one of my alltime favorite Popeye lines, "I'm an edumacated (read educated) idiot."  I got to thinking about  how many people that I know might fit that description?


Surprisingly, I find that based upon my personal experience there are many people that do fit that description. Not surprisingly, most of them are of the Liberal political persuasion. Moreover, many of these college "edumacated idiots" cannot disagree without being disagreeable.  My Liberal acquaintances often bristle whenever I question the "factual basis" of their arguments.  First, I'll get the old "Well, studies show that... " argument.  Then when I ask them which studies show support for their position, I'll get the condescending "Well everybody knows that... " argument.  My point is that Liberals argue like ill-informed juveniles and often try to project their sophomoric weltanschauung on the rest of us.

The latest stupid argument put forth by Liberals is that the trial of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) should be held in New York City to prove the superiority of our values to the world.  What a crock of crap!  One illiterate Liberal fool commenting on a story about New York Governor Patterson not wanting the trial of KSM in New York City because of safety concerns wrote the following:
If this case is lost, it will not be because it was held in NYC. It was be (sic) because of all the “extreme interogation” (sic) tactics the former admin had used, Which (sic) goes against international laws and treatment of foreign combatants.
Yeah, and terrorists are the humanitarians of the world worthy of Geneva Convention protection. Terrorists always treat their captives well--almost as well as they treated Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.  Liberals also tend to forget the sins of the terrorists and concentrate on America's real or mostly imagined sins.

Liberals also sincerely believe that Bush is the personification of evil with no redeeming value whatsoever. To Libs, pornography has more redeeming moral and social value if only for the purpose of teaching one how to have sex with anything that moves, slinks, crawls, gallops, barks, oozes, or whatever.  Therefore, within the warped Liberal mind, not even a cowardly murdering terrorist is morally inferior to George W. Bush. And Liberals almost always invoke moral relativism in proportion to the the severity of the Liberal's Bush Derrangement Syndrome.  

Moral relativism is comparative guilt or--as I learned it in law school--is the Doctrine of Relative Filth.*  It is probably the most stupid argument that can be made when discussing issues of right and wrong.  Moral relativism arguments are generally made by people that are either morally inert or just plain stupid.  Wrong is wrong. The lesser of two evils is still evil.  But this doesn't matter to the "nuanced thinkers" of the Left.  Liberals strive to give moral passes to the truly worst of the worst because they hate America. And in their warped view, America IS evil.  As a result, terrorism is seldom cast by Liberals as an issue of right and wrong.  It always cast, as Obama's political Imam, Reverend Wright said, "America's chickens have come home to roost!"  or "G-dd***n America!" 

It's a pretty good guess that Obama and his Chicago political thugs are hoping that KSM will reveal how the evil Bush Adminstration chose to avoid the relatively mild Islamo-Fascist beheading or eye-gouging interrogation techniques in favor of the ever-so-cruel  waterboarding techniques. So finally!  "Evil" America will get its richly deserved comeuppance!  And as we all know that Islamo-Fascist terrorists are all honorable men and (in their own warped way) ardent Freedom Fighters.

But wait!  There's more to the mollycoddling of these terrorists by the Liberal "edumacated idiots"!  As described above, these terrorists are viewed by many Leftists as "Freedom Fighters" against American hegemony.  An "edumacated idiot" literature Professor  proclaimed as much at a "docufiction" reading that I attended a year ago at a local community college.  The Professor, who was at the time the head of a Graduate Program at the local State university argued in effect that the US is the cowardly evil force in the world because we bomb targets from high altitudes.  I pointed out to the good and learned Professor that a terrorist that could bomb innocent civilians after looking them in the eyes was a sadistic coward.  I further argued with the learned Professor that unlike terrorists, the US tried as best it could to avoid collateral damage by using so-called "smart bombs" (Precision Guided Munitions).  I told him that these "smart bombs" could be targeted to avoid civilian casualties. The Professor's "edumacted" response to me was to say that, "I don't believe you."  Bam!  I guess I was told off!  That'll teach me to disagree with a nuanced thinker of the Left.  I'd love to out this ignorant edumacated idiot Liberal bastard, but knowing the litigiousness of most Liberals I'd have to pay expensive legal fees to vindicate the truth that I'm writing about. Besides even if I won the countersuit and knowing what penurious bastards Liberals generally are, it would be hell to collect a judgment against any of them.

Not to digress but to amplify my point about Liberal "edumacated idiots," both Obama and his Attorney General Eric Holder are both "educated" lawyers.  They know very well that once KSM is in the Federal Court system, there is a good chance that much of the evidence gained during interrogation sessions might be suppressed and excluded from the trial under the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine.  The phrase "Fruit of the Poisonous Tree" is derived from the Gospel of Matthew.   Both of these guys are therefore, unqualified "edumacated idiots" because they are disregarding the safety of New Yorkers and Americans in general just to settle a grudge against a political enemy of their miniscule political base.  And as a Texas born and bred buddy of mine used to say, "That's dumber than owl s**t!"


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* The Doctrine of Relative Filth is a variation of the Doctrine of Clean Hands.  Simply put, the clean hands doctrine is where a person that has acted wrongly, either morally or legally, i.e., that has "unclean hands," will not be helped by a court when complaining about the actions of someone else. Relative Filth means, "I’m not so bad as long as others are worse," which a variant of moral relativisim.