.comment-link {margin-left:.6em;}
Miscellaneous thoughts and ramblings
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
 
"Tsunami, Holocaust, Trent Lott"
"Boston Legal" is well-written and well-acted, and having been introduced to it by my mother around Christmas, I added it to my TiVo season pass around the beginning of the year. It's humorous, with interesting characters, and generally less conducive to brain rot than other television.

But, the jabs at conservatives and the Republican party have had me wishy washy on whether or not I want to keep watching it. The most charismatic and eloquent character, played by James Spader, rarely misses a chance to pin the evil brand on the GOP and conservatives in general. Likewise, one of the firm's name partners, played by Candice Bergen.

Maybe it's because I'm new to the show, but the jabs seem to be getting progressively more vindictive and even hateful. I find myself, on any given night of viewing, wanting to appreciate the show for its plot and characters, but inevitably being unable to put the pointless antagonism out of my mind. I want to sympathise with Alan Shore's (Spader) fight of the night, but find myself pissed off with the character for tossing gratuitous grenades at my personal belief system. Shirley Schmidt (Bergen) is charming enough, but the bile she directs at people who differ from her philosophically manages to spew all over the camera lens and makes it hard to appreciate her.

Meanwhile, characters that are identified as conservatives are portrayed as vapid, greedy, petty and often imbecilic.

So, last night, I'm watching, and just when I thought the barbs couldn't get any worse, Bergen's character dashed across the line that separates the obnoxious from the sincerely hateful. A characteristically moronic Republican woman was in her office. This particular idiot had a laughing problem. Once she started to laugh, she often couldn't stop, unless something terribly sad was mentioned. Earlier in the episode, characters had used various thoughts to take her out of her glee, including "Bambi's mother was shot" and "Bill Buckner" (a reference to the Red Sox first baseman whose error cost the Red Sox the World Series championship in 1986).

So, Ms. Schmidt tries her hand with the hapless buffoon. In rapid succession:

TSUNAMI! (still laughing)

HOLOCAUST!! (still laughing)

TRENT LOTT!!!

Well, that did the trick. Great job! Boston Legal has just made the connection that the rest of us simpler folk had yet to catch. An even causing hundreds of thousands of deaths and unspeakable devastation, the most evil act Western civilization has ever witnessed, and Trent Lott - poster boy for the liberal's image of the quintessential Southern Republican. The subtext was, of course, that, by association, all of us black-hating, Jew-baiting Republicans are Trent Lotts by proxy. As such, we join Trent Lott in being not only equal to, but worse than two of the most hideous events of the past century. "Tsunami, Holocaust, Republicans."

I'm thinking that did the trick. As much as I generally appreciate the other aspects of the show, I found myself unable to look at Bergen the rest of the episode without wishing for the opportunity to fart in close quarters with her. Maybe Spike TV or VH1 has something good on Tuesday nights.
Comments:
It's Boston, it's lawyers, and it's written by Hollywood types. What do you expect?

In fact, have there been any popular shows with conservatives in a conservative milieu since Andy Taylor patrolled Mayberry?
 
How about Archie Bunker, oven? - All you Coffeehousers pale in comparison to Archie! He's the real deal and told it like it was.
 
Archie Bunker proves Oven's point. All In the Family was a groundbreaking liberal show. Bunker was the classic straw man: white middle aged conservative narrow minded bigot. He was acted so well that you had some empathy for him just because of his humanity, but on the issues the audience was supposed to side with the lefty daughter and son-in-law. It was written by whatshisface, the big liberal.
 
And another thing: b&c and I increasingly feel like we're martians. Everything we see on the media and hear from most people around us makes us think that most people (at least here) have totally different values and thinking than us. We like pesticides, guns, and science fiction. We hate taxes, islamofascism, and multiple piercings. We don't have too many friends.
 
bean: Come to the midwest. You can still move out west when you retire, spend your golden years complaining about how much more expensive it was when you lived there earlier. We need decent doctors in the midwest. And you can make the same money, and a $200,000 home is a big deal. Two excellent local synagogues in which I've attended weddings (both beautiful). And winter can be beautiful if you just avoid driving.
 
Bean (& b&c):

You're not Martians. Just "different", "odd" or "eccentric" (take your pick).

I don't think you really like pesticides. You just mind them less.
Guns are fun, every once in a while.
Science fiction is cool.
Nobody likes taxes, even us liberals.
Islamofascism sucks more and more, everyday.
Multiple piercings? Depends where.

Anything else?

I'm glad we're friends! Don't move to Iowa.
 
Og: I really appreciate it, and it's my fondest wish to visit and shake your hand one day, but I really love living here, even as a martian.

Wanderer: Don't worry. I'm not moving. I'm glad we're friends too.

No, we really like pesticides. The thing about pesticides that everyone forgets is they kill pests and that before pesticides crops would be destroyed and people would starve. We joke when we eat at people's houses who brag about being "organic" that we'll bring our own pesticides, but we're only half joking...
 
My mom used to work in the food-borne illness prevention field. Believe me - you don't wanna go anywhere near organic produce.

(Also, pesticides are good b/c they kill pests before they can kill humans. When they're allowed to be sprayed, of course.)

I tried to watch Boston Legal once cuz the cast seems so stellar. It was an episode where one of the lawyers had a brother who was killed in Iraq, and they were suing the Marines because he was supposed to have left but they made him stay or something. I quickly turned it off.

This kind of thing makes you look at A Few Good Men differently - maybe Nicholson was the good guy? More and more, I think it's true that we can't handle the truth when it comes to national security.

Liberals do like taxes, as long as they are on the "rich" - rich people like Los Angelenos who need to make $150K a year just to live moderately comfortably.

I mostly like Islamofascists with multiple piercings that were caused by guns. (See how I brought that all together?)
 
Nice summing up Ralphie.
 
Ralphie: you're a genius. Go over to Stacey's blog and tell her about your mom's experience. She and her pals are gushing over the fact that she just went "organic". b&c and I were the only dissenting voice.
 
The only "organic produce" that is safe is that you grow yourself.

Hundreds of thousands died in Africa because DDT was banned. Maybe even more. And no real evidence was ever put forth that it was a problem in any way.
 
Bean - I don't know the details well enough to get into it with the Crunchies. I eat some products (cereal mainly) that are "organic" but that fact that this word is on the label had nothing to do with my decision to buy (pro or con). I buy it cuz it's yummy and inexpensive.
 
Painfully, I have seen that movie, and I understand what you mean.
 
We like pesticides, guns, and science fiction

I like guns. 1 out of 3 ain't bad!

Oh, and I am beginning to wonder if you aren't martians, too.
 
Re: Pesticides

I posted a good article on the horrific death toll on Africans resulting from the DDT ban there a couple months ago.

Here it is.

It boggles my mind that the Left is okay with this.
 
Post a Comment



<< Home

Powered by Blogger