And it probably isn’t the reason you think.

I’m currently temping at a Business Which Shall Not Be Named (Mostly Because It Isn’t Relevant) and they’re nice enough to have a couple of big-screen TVs scattered throughout the building, mainly because the work doesn’t actually engage the brain beyond the simple motor reflexes, and my particular duty stations me right next to one. This means I wind up watching CNN for the better part of eight hours each day while I work. (This may explain why the posts on my own blog have become somewhat more political lately. Sorry, but hearing Governor Walker explain why he raided the pension fund for Wisconsin’s teachers and gave it to his rich buddies, and why this means that he has to take away their right to negotiate contracts…it kinda gets to ya after a while.)

But that’s not what actually depresses me. (Actually, the Egypt stuff was pretty uplifting; it’s sort of how you imagine revolutions happening in the movies, with almost nobody getting hurt and the noble resistance triumphing simply through being Right and having Stick-To-It-Ive-Ness. At any moment, you expected Mubarak to suddenly remember, “Hey, I’ve got guns and tanks and shit!” And he never did.) Certainly, I’m not fond of CNN’s style of reporting, but it’s not so much that I feel like they’ve got a bias as it is that they seem so desperate to prove they don’t have a bias that they never challenge anyone on anything, ever. A CNN interview with Charles Manson would go something like this:

CNN Reporter: “Mr. Manson, your followers murdered seven people, including a woman who was almost nine months pregnant, and planned to murder others. Do you think that maybe this is something you should apologize for?”

Manson: “No.”

CNN Reporter: “I see. Now, regarding your relationship with Brian Wilson…”

But none of that is what depresses me. No, what depresses me are the ads. I’m not sure whether CNN just has unbelievably low standards, or whether the various advertisers have targeted CNN’s demographics with razor-sharp precision and realized that 99% of the people watching CNN at 1 in the afternoon are either gullible elderly folks or people out on workman’s comp, but watching the ads on CNN all day is like a non-stop bath in human misery. Easily half the ads feel like borderline scams (overpriced insurance, dubious financial advice, lawyers explaining to you how you can sue/outwit the IRS/get a free scooter, the occasional right-wing screed) and the rest drop the “borderline” part. One in particular, which apparently warns of the “END OF AMERICA” that this financial genius predicted, feels like it’s the work of someone about two steps ahead of the law.

And what’s most depressing is that all this is showing on a news network. In theory, at least, these people are devoted to the ideals of honesty. They have cultivated a reputation for trustworthiness, and these ads cloak themselves in that reputation in order to seem like they, too, can be trusted. But they so patently and obviously can’t that you find yourself pitying the poor soul who really does believe that they need term life insurance, or that they can make money by investing in gold, or that the Health Care Reform Bill is unconstitutional and Mike Huckabee really needs their help in repealing it before it’s Too Late. Because you know there are people like that out there, people who believe these ads because they’re on CNN and CNN wouldn’t lie to them. And that, my friends, is why I get depressed watching CNN.

Well, that and trying to imagine how inadequate Wolf Blitzer must feel that he needs to name his news show, “THE SITUATION ROOM”.

The movie “The Legend of Bagger Vance” popped into my head this morning. (And you think you have problems…) Thinking about it reminded me about how back when it came out, there was a big debate ovSer the movie’s use of the “magical negro” stereotype. I remember agreeing with the people who pointed this out, but not without some reservations…after all, I pointed out, if George Lucas had cast Sidney Poitier as Obi-Wan Kenobi instead of Sir Alec Guinness, would he have automatically become a magical negro even though the script hadn’t changed?

Which, in turn, reminded me of “women in refrigerators”. The list is well-known by now among comics fans, as are some of the excuses different writers have come up with for its existence. But the fact is, the most common one (“Hey, it’s not like men have it easy either!”) is actually sorta kinda true…Steve Trevor bit the big one a couple of times, the Vision was gruesomely dismembered and revived as a pale imitation of himself in order to put a little conflict into the Scarlet Witch’s story arc, the first couple of guys who even thought about dating Ms Marvel bit it, and let’s not even get into the whole Terry Long thing. (Husband and son both bit it there…)

But that’s the thing: Only an idiot would actually try to use these as arguments against the prevalence of racism and sexism in popular culture. Even though you can say, legitimately, that the “magical negro” is simply a mentor archetype that happens to be black, and even though you can say, legitimately, that a “woman in (a) refrigerator” is simply a supporting character that gets bumped off in order to provide a little drama for the main character who happens to be female, we can all recognize that there’s still something skeezy about it all. (Well, most of us can. I know all the enlightened, wise readers here can.) So what is it? Why is it not okay?

The answer is that there are so few other roles for these characters to take that the supporting roles become disproportionate representations of the characters in popular culture. Or, to put that a little less fancy, it’s not that there are lots of black “wise mentor” characters, it’s that there are so few black heroes getting mentored. It’s not that there are so many women in comics who die, it’s that there are so few who get to go off and avenge the deaths. These things are symptoms of a far deeper, more fundamental problem in pop culture, namely a dearth of protagonists who aren’t white guys. Nobody thinks to cast a black guy in the Luke Skywalker role; he’s relegated to the Obi-Wan (or more accurately, Mace Windu) part. We’ve reached a plateau in bringing diversity into our cult fiction, where characters outside the white male “standard” are included, but almost never in a leading role. Until that changes, you’ll continue to see the same stereotypes. Because they’re not stereotypes, they’re archetypes….but they’re the only archetypes women and minorities are allowed to inhabit.

You’ll be forgiven if you’ve not heard of An American Carol, David Zucker’s follow-up to Scary Movie 3 and Scary Movie 4, set to precede Scary Movie 5 (seriously, there are five of those fucking things). There’s no trailer, and the movie doesn’t even have an official web page. But, oh, you’re missing out on some surefire train wreck gold if you haven’t been keeping up with the project.

An American Carol is basically a Scary Movie-style spoof of American liberal politics, starring every famous conservative entertainer. Which is pretty much just, um, Kelsey Grammar, Jon Voight, James Woods, and Dennis Hopper. Oh, and Kevin Sorbo. Clint Eastwood, apparently, still wanted to be able to look himself in the mirror afterwards. The cast is rounded out with conservative commentators and country music stars like Bill O’Reilly and Trace Adkins. And basically they seem to have just made a movie where they all run around saying liberals are stupid! for an hour and a half. We’ll see how that turns out for them.

The movie stars Chris Farley’s little brother (Larry the Cable Guy was busy, seriously, not a joke) as "Michael Malone", a hefty anti-American documentary filmmaker out to ban the pledge of allegiance, with the help of the dastardly movealong.org. He gets visited by the ghosts of George Washington (Jon Voight), John F Kennedy (some soap star named Chriss Anglin), and General Patton (totally Kelsey Grammar, I’m not even kidding), and they show him the error of his ways. Hence the "Carol" part of the title, I guess. Michael Moore is Scrooge.

See, it’s clever because the names are almost the same as the people they’re parodying, so you don’t have to waste time that could otherwise be spent rollicking in the funny trying to figure out exactly who each of their targets is supposed to be. They’re doing the work for you! Also, Michael Malone lets out a roaring fart within ten minutes of the film opening or I will paypal you £100.

Apparently a writer for The Weekly Standard went out to the set to rally the troops for their Hollywood Takes On The Left cover story. I will no ruin some of the film’s jokes, because it’s surely going to be funnier to read about them than to actually watch. Um, spoilers, I guess.

Dennis Hopper makes an appearance as a judge who defends his courthouse by gunning down ACLU lawyers trying to take down the Ten Commandments.
Because apparently his copy of the Ten Commandments was missing thou shall not kill, or something. See, it’s funny because it’s stupid to have to win arguments when you have guns!

David Alan Grier plays a slave in a scene designed to show Malone what might have happened if the United States had not fought the Civil War. As Patton explains to a dumbfounded Malone that the plantation they are visiting is his own, Grier thanks the documentarian for being such a humane owner. As they leave, another slave, played by Gary Coleman, finishes polishing a car and yells "Hey, Barack!" before tossing the sponge to someone off-camera.
Wait, this movie has Gary Coleman in it? Playing a slave? And Obama jokes? I take it back, this does sound edgy and hilarious. I like to hope that the scene ends with Chuck Norris kicking Barack’s head off.

In the film, a rotund comedian named Rosie O’Connell makes an appearance on The O’Reilly Factor to promote her documentary, The Truth About Radical Christians. O’Reilly shows a clip, which opens with a pair of priests walking through an airport–as seen from pre-hijacking surveillance video–before boarding the airplane. Once onboard, they storm the cockpit using crucifixes as their weapon of choice. Get it, because Christians would never do anything violent. All those abortion doctors just blew up spontaneously.

And finally, if you were wondering the philosophy governing Zucker’s entire career, it’s summed up succinctly in the article:

"Why be original?" Zucker asks. "I’ve done that. It doesn’t work, like BASEketball."

I’m sure this’ll be a gem. Watch for a huge push from nuttier conservative groups to drive it to the top of the weekend box office, so they can prove that America really loves this stuff, and then for it to flop harder than Battlefield: Earth. At which point they’ll blame the puny man-animal liberals for stifling their expression.

(cross-posted to dansolomon.com)

A Moroccan-born Muslim woman, married to a French man, living in the east of Paris, with three French children, lost her appeal for citizenship on the grounds that she has adopted a radical practice of her religion, incompatible with essential values of the French community, particularly the principle of equality of the sexes. And, I mean, she does wear a burqa, and the balance of gender roles in her home sounds like it’s fucked-up. But if France is going to start declaring that it’s unFrench to act in opposition to the principle of equality of the sexes, there are an awful lot of citizenships they’ll need to revoke.

You could start with pretty much every major political figure who endorsed Nicolas Sarkozy over Segolene Royal in 2007 because she was too inexperienced, despite having almost the exact same resume- three ministerial posts, having served as a deputy to the National Assembly, and a former head of a regional government. That includes members of her own party who endorsed the male candidate over her. It’d definitely include the fellow Socialist senator who chose to endorse a right-wing dude because, while Royale may be pretty, the presidential election is not a beauty contest. And there’s no question that you’d have to deport the UMP minister who explained that her best chance of winning would come if her looks could help hide the fact that she’s a bitch.

You might have to start plucking random French citizens and inquiring why only 18% of the parliament is made up of women- behind such noted stalwarts of the principle of equality of the sexes as the United Arab Emirates and Afghanistan. You could inquire as to why 60% of the unemployed in France are women, and 75% of part-time workers. Why, there are all sorts of things that might need to be cleared up if upholding the principle of equality of the sexes is now one of the major determinants in defining Frenchness.

Over and over again, people assert that they haven’t got a problem with Muslims at all, no, that’s not it- it’s just that they’re so unenlightened toward women! It’s a classic attempt to do some rhetorical judo- instead of saying we just don’t want those people here and looking like bigots, instead they get to play the grand feminists. And if they’re so concerned about women’s rights that they’ll, you know, deny them citizenship for wearing a burqa, then surely we can forgive them if they haven’t quite overcome the whole problem with equal pay, dismissing female politicians as unserious, keeping them at under 20% of business executives (or should it be "exec-cute-ives"?), dropping those power words like bitch whenever threatened, and so on… At least they’re paying lip service to invented obstacles toward an equal society, after all.

And I don’t mean to pick on the French. I like them! But you’ll see this attitude throughout the Western world. You’ll see it in new London mayor Boris Johnson, decrying the way women are treated in Afghanistan on one hand, while his chief of staff defends the fact that he fired the five top-ranked women in city hall on the grounds that women just aren’t as qualified. You’ll see it in every American preacher who weeps for women’s rights in the Muslim world but thinks that their American counterparts are baby factories. And if it bums you out and you’re hoping to find a place to get away from it, don’t count on the pony rides and free health care of France as a safe haven.

(cross-posted to dansolomon.com)