 |
NOT NEWS | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Details
|
When Jokes Die... Part Four - Politics Again - Obama's Big Black Dick Jokes
“Last week Vice President Cheney implemented the controversial new procedure of stopping assassination attempts proactively. Over the next sixteen months, Cheney will visit every able-bodied man on the continental United States and shoot him in the chest with buckshot. Those in the highest tax bracket will be given the option of buckshot or rock salt.” The above joke can be found in the Topical Runoff section as a ‘joke’ but here it is posted simply as an example of the subject of this article. Dick Cheney shot his friend in a run-of-the-mill hunting accident on February 11th. Almost two weeks have passed. In that time, the victim has had a minor heart attack, Cheney has talked to the press through Fox News, the rift between the President and Vice President’s staff has become more apparent, and countless comedians, comedy writers and internet humorists have found their jobs to be slightly less difficult for the time being. Busy, busy, busy. But now, as we
all turn our attention back to global warming, the majesty of the Winter
Olympics, and ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy, one can’t help but wonder if one of
the greatest gifts god has recently bestowed upon the house of chuckles
has already worn out it’s welcome. A pro-military, draft-dodging
administration with little interest in gun control had a hunting accident
on its hands. And while the actual importance of the event is quite paltry
when compared to the current affairs of the United States, it sure was
easy to laugh at. And maybe too easy. Maybe we’re all laughed out.
Is the reaction to the joke above an eye roll and half-hearted grin because ‘I’ve heard this one before’? (I’m trying to ignore the actual quality of the joke) How long can you pound topical jokes into people before they just don’t care anymore? Does it have a definite shelf life of, say, a week? Do certain topics just have better mileage than others? (see jokes on President Clinton’s sex life) Are the life spans of the humor found in these events inversely proportional to the amount of jokes told concerning them? If we decide that the final posit is the most suitable, certainly this shooting accident should be dead in the water. A week straight of late-night comedy cracks (‘Dick Cheney is the Weapon of Mass Destruction’, ‘it’s the solution to social security…’). You can buy t-shirts online that begin with, ‘I went hunting with the Vice President…’. There’s a humorous collage picture being sent through email titled ‘Ten Ways Dick Cheney can kill you’, with various television appearance photos of Cheney making benign yet ambiguous gestures with captions below such as ‘Karate Chop’, ‘Head-butt’, and ‘Telekinesis’. With such an easy target (sorry, really sorry), you know that material of this nature will constantly dribble out of various mediums for a long time to come. It will just get a cooler and cooler response by the public with each additional day…until the end of 2006, when it will be shown ad nauseum in everyone’s ‘best of the year’ clips. The 'problem' with the above possibility is that this event so wonderfully encapsulates the publicly assumed demeanor of Dick Cheney. A tough, stubborn, you-can-all-go-to-hell type attitude mingled with the occasional carpet bombing and photo-op. Just like Bill Clinton’s smooth talking, laid back, uber-intelligent Southern boy persona was complimented beautifully with him being an ol’ horndog from Arkansas as far Letterman and Leno are concerned, Cheney may have to accept that this mark on his record will dog him until he shuffles out of office. Just like his running mate has the reputation of a lazy imbecile (at this rate, heaven help the next president if he or she has a corpulent mother). (continued below table)
While a single joke ages and dies quickly, the situations from which they emerge can occur at such a frequency that they define the person on a one-dimensional level. Then the tables are turned and there is no single joke. This definition of the person becomes a running joke. Cheney’s hunting accident didn’t change anyone’s perception of him. It was just another notch on the bedpost. Although some jokes were made of shooting alone, most incorporated Cheney’s supposed demeanor (“The real question now is, is this a one-time thing, or will the Vice-President try to kill again” – David Letterman). I believe it’s a healthy assumption that if Bush was the shooter, a great majority of the jokes would play up the incompetence factor instead (and if it was Clinton, well, he was just trying new ways to pick up women).
As the information available to all of us increases exponentially, and what passes as common knowledge is reduced to simple factoids, what can be laughed at by everyone becomes a much narrower field. In many cases, you can see the joke coming a mile away. If you hear the buzzwords, ‘President Bush’ and ‘free trade agreement’, it’s a safe bet that the joke will be about the president not understanding the math or thinking they’re referring to baseball cards. Now I’m not suggesting we are losing out on golden comedy moments because there’s no audience for a complex economic joke, but if – as is often reported – that many people get their political news from comedy quips, what does it say about the place of politics in our daily life if we can reduce these important figures to a single word? (and rarely a complimentary one at that) But that’s not the point of comedy. It’s not here to instruct us, but to have us reflect. And if what is being reflected is always the same, repetitive jokes should not be our first concern. In the end, perhaps it’s more accurate to say that these jokes don’t die at all. They are simply rehashed for the next applicable situation. Today a Clinton sex joke is like a fine wine in a comedy monologue. And old classic dusted off, to which the audience responds with a wealth of applause, obviously thinking back to time when they were subject to ten identical cracks a night. And while it’s hard to tell now if that far down the line Cheney will live on in topical humor history or simply go the way of the dodo (hunted to extinction, by the way), you have to admit that at first, it was pretty damn funny.
What’s the difference between Tom Cruise and the Mad Hatter? A hat. Why can’t Paris
Hilton water ski? She always lies down when her crotch get wet.
Did you hear that Israel finally agreed to a ceasefire in the fight against Lebanon? They are now planning to regroup and attack Mel Gibson.
Tom Cruise, Paris Hilton, and now Mel Gibson. What celebrities are you shitting on this week? It probably depends on how much time you have before your opening monologue begins (‘we’ve got ten minutes and need two other jokes. Who’s fat and in the news?’), and how much confidence you have in the pre-planned segment you introduce when you get behind your desk (‘is it too weird? We may have to throw them a Mr. Britney Spears joke’). Easy targets with short-term memories. You can rake Paris Hilton across the coals and claim that mack trucks full of dicks run in and out of her vagina hourly, but if she’s got a CD or home video coming out, she’ll appear on your show to plug it if you lay off the cracks for a couple days beforehand. Much like politics, in the world of show business the past truly is history, and history can be cut, gutted, stuffed or just completely ignored, depending on who’s telling it and what the present has to gain.
Fat jokes? Sex jokes? Jumping on Oprah’s couch
jokes? When it comes to taste in mainstream comedy, better make it a Big
Mac. Everyone recognizes it, what it’s going to be, and how it ends. You
aren’t going to find a tomato or obscure reference to Naked Lunch
at all. A Big Mac won’t surprise you, but if you wanted a surprise, you
wouldn’t have asked for one. Sure, not everyone loves Big Mac’s, but
everyone knows what it is, and that is what makes all the difference.
And celebrities fit this McDonald’s analogy perfectly. More people voted for one episode of American Idol than for President Bush in the 2004 presidential election. You can reach so much more people when you knock someone in Hollywood than in Washington, and not just because political jokes can divide your audience. Only the most superficial aspects of politics are considered mainstream. The filibuster issue earlier this year went over the heads of most Americans, but you didn’t have to watch a single episode of Newlywed’s to know everything about what led to the breakup of Nick and Jessica (see? We don’t even need to use last names, while some of you probably had to check ‘filibuster’ on wikipedia). While jokes about politicians can have their party’s policies and current events mixed in with the general tabloid ‘dirt’ about the particular figure’s demeanor, the celebrity joke is just ‘dirt’. Is this proof of the dumbing-down of popular culture? Not really. In the course of human civilization only small pockets of people had any real access to politics, anyway. Most people were content to till their land and see the occasional wandering minstrel show. The only real time politics and government truly became ‘democratic’ is during times of severe oppression or starvation, when all the proles march to the capital and look to remove the heads of their inefficient leaders and place them on spikes (sure, it didn’t stop the hunger, but it probably felt really cathartic). Okay, we’ve gone off topic slightly to define the human condition as mainly indifferent to the world at large, but that an excellent link to the next point, which is that the best jokes are personal and can only be appreciated by small groups of people. This is why the mocking of a celebrity is essentially an absurd situation. It is as if the personal foibles of your pal is magnified and spread across the country. Types of jokes that are usual reserved for your cluster of friends (you make fun of the idiot, the bimbo/mimbo, the jerk in the group accordingly) become fodder for the nation. Now, it’s not really a problem making these jokes between your friends, about your friends. You know these people well. You know their likes, dislikes, and nuances. They are complex human beings, with unique thoughts, hopes and dreams. The jerk is more than just a jerk, or otherwise you wouldn’t be hanging out with them (unless you’re all jerks, which would render the jerk jokes moot). Now celebrities get the brunt of these jokes without the advantage of people knowing much more about them. Oh sure, there are interviews in magazines and on television and maybe even a blog or two on a personal website, but that’s a small sliver of that person’s actual personality, and interviews themselves can be pretty damn unnatural*. People judge celebrities on these grossly simplified (and completely misguided and inaccurate) personality traits. Now don’t get us wrong, some of these labels are right on the money (if Paris Hilton isn’t an untalented bimbo (awful in House of Wax, has Britney Spears' singing ability with none of the dances moves, and three – count ‘em, three – sex videos), she’s a incredible actress for convincing us all that she is), but that doesn’t mean it’s fair. We are objectifying these people, and we clearly try to justify making these jokes by claiming that those who hear them understand that they are ‘just’ jokes. We don’t honestly think that Tom Cruise is ‘just’ a crazy scientologist, or that Tara Reid is ‘just’ a drunken party animal, or that Britney Spears is ‘just’ lip-syncing trailer-trash. No, we’re all too smart to fall for that. We know they’re much deeper than these superficial labels (or at least as deep as the average person). Or do we? * - think about what interviews are. A writer asking questions to a celebrity who knows that this person is here solely to write an article about them. It is the writer’s job to turn this forced, pre-arranged discussion into a cohesive article that is easily digestible for the masses with a single underlying focus or theme. Of course the interviewee in question is going to put their best foot forward. Even if it’s a fake foot.
Before this question/essay becomes a First Amendment
issue, let us return to celebrity because they are once again an anomaly
for this particular query. Are jokes that make fun of minorities,
handicaps, and women appropriate? This question is colored by the fact
that these groups have suffered because of what they are. Celebrities
don’t have this. Celebrities live much, much better than the average
person, so the sympathy card is a weak one, making them easy targets.
While this doesn’t justify making these jokes, it certainly makes it
difficult to find people who would outright denounce them (although
Michael Jackson fans protesting the
See, the more and more mediocre the recent seasonal fare, the better the classics seem. So right off the bat I’ll admit that I’m guilty of getting nostalgic, of looking back on the ‘good old days’ with a smile and a sigh. Maybe the newer episodes are better than I give them credit for, but it doesn’t change the fact that The Simpsons don’t do to me what they used to. The humour feels forced, and that’s the worst position to put someone in when they are trying to laugh. And this is a great shame, because no television program or entertainment source in any other medium has influenced me and my sense of humour as much as The Simpsons has. And not just me, but a whole generation of young adults (For millions, the term ‘Dental Plan’ will forever be associated with ‘Lisa needs braces!’). Most of us began watching at an early age (it’s a cartoon, for Christ’s sakes), so this is what introduced us to parody, sarcasm, dry wit, slapstick, and more obscure seventies product references then we’ll ever fully understand. Somehow The Simpsons was able to walk the incredibly fine line of incorporating both satire and realism, without falling into too much of either. Homer’s Triple Bypass from season four is about as heart wrenching as prime time television can get: Homer giving us a moment of genuine emotion when saying goodbye to Bart and Lisa was set up by producer James Brooks, who seemed to have taken a page directly out of his film, Terms of Endearment. At the same time, the episode is also one of the most ridiculous: Life insurance man: Okay, on this form here under heart attacks, you crossed out ‘four’ and put ‘zero’. Homer: Oh, I thought that said brain haemorrhages. Life insurance man: I see. And do you drink? Homer: I do enjoy a snifter of port around the holidays. In the end, Dr. Nick Rivera does the operation with the gloves that came free with his toilet brush. He also uttered what is probably the last thing anyone going under the knife wants to hear before the gas kicks in: ‘What the hell is that?’
And these aren’t meaningless, hanging-in-thin-air jokes, they’re just additional jokes that compliment – but never corrupt – the base material. They never hammer you over the head. They are subtle. They are rewards for the attentive. They are group in-jokes, secret dispatches from the writer’s room for the people who grin at the same shit they do. Recent seasons, however, have seen the show shoot this beloved subtlety in the face. Is it a reaction to the series Family Guy, which has taken The Simpsons subtlety and esoteric references to a ridiculous extreme? By season sixteen, we are reduced to Bart and Homer discussing reality TV shows in the following manner:
Bart: Is this one of those
reality deals where a guy gets a million bucks for marrying Aunt Patty but
they have to honeymoon in a box full of snakes? At first jokes about the quality of the FOX network were few and far between (which made them funny and appreciated). Now it’s become a constant thing, mainly because The Simpsons are overloading episodes with ‘meta’ jokes. That is, jokes about The Simpsons as a television program. At one point Homer draws himself on paper as if an animator was, and notes that his band squiggle and ear create an MG, a not-so-subtle nod to creator Matt Groening (who went on to do a cameo in the series). Finally: Homer: (attempting to pie Mr. Burns) I've run out of pie-related puns! And it’s not just the jokes but the stories and setups themselves are suffering, too. Suddenly the writer’s are treating the audience as if they are as stupid as Homer. In the episode where Homer drives Marge crazy by turning their backyard into an RV park (Mobile Homer), he tells her she can’t do anything about it, and then Marge looks down at a power card and says the completely redundant line, ‘nothing I can do about it, eh? We’ll see about that.’ See, the shot of Marge looking down at the power cord essentially makes her line tautological. Just Marge looking at the outlet is enough for the viewer to know what she’s thinking. The tension is shot to pieces. Am I quibbling over a minor matter? Certainly. But it’s these minor matters that The Simpsons has been able to avoid, gloss over, or laugh at for the first ten seasons. In another sitcom, it’s just a regular line to keep the plot chugging, but in The Simpsons it is glaring abscess that just makes one shake their head sadly: ‘Has it come to this? Why do these new episodes have the comedic setup and pace of a run of the mill sitcom? Why don’t I just watch Two and a Half Men?’
Dick: Let's walk and talk. I, uh, I have some wonderful stories about other famous people that include me in some way. Homer: Er, can't, I gotta go distract bulls at a rodeo Dick: Hey, me too. We can go together. Homer: Um...no, I'm going a different way than you, Dick. Dick: Heh heh, your...churlish attitude reminds me of a time I was having dinner with Groucho and -- Homer: Look, you're going to be having dinner with Groucho tonight if you don't beat it. But now celebrity means someone recently in the news going on The Simpsons and making a couple smartass wisecracks and then walking off (see Blink 182, Britney Spears, 50 Cent, etc. And at least earlier guest stars were rather competent when it came to the vocal performance (even the baseball players), meanwhile watching recent guest Carmen Electra was awful simply because she is such a poor actress). Yet maybe a couple funny lines is exactly what a cameo is and should be. But for some reason in the older episodes it never came across so indulgent and self-serving. Even when Johnny Carson lifted a buick skylark over his head, it didn’t seem preposterous in season four. And perhaps that’s what really might be wrong with The Simpsons. Nothing at all but old age. Also known as: Family Guy Syndrome -is family guy
funnier than the the Simpsons, master Yoda?
The Simpsons are dead. Long live The Simpsons.
Part Four - Politics Again - Obama's Big Black Dick Jokes In response to
the ridiculous flap over a New Yorker magazine cover and the ensuing New
York Times article where late night comedy show writers were commenting
how difficult it is to crack wise about Obama, we have provided a series
of lowest common denominator jokes about the one tireless, incontestable
advantage black men have over white counterparts.
-If Obama’s dick ran on gasoline, the price of oil would be $170 per barrel. -White women aren't voting for Obama because they fear him, but because they're pissed that he never makes personal calls when their husbands aren't home. -Obama never has to raise his hand in the senate. He just thinks about Tyra Banks mud wrestling Jessica Alba. -Former Senator Larry Craig was hoping against hope that the guy in the stall next to him in the Minneapolis Airport was Barack Obama (and was doing jaw exercises in preparation). -23% of people who meet Barack in a crowd think they are shaking his hand but are actually giving him a quick tease of a handjob. -Most of Obama’s secret service detail is actually there to protect podiums for when the senator approaches them. -Every morning Obama stirs the coffees of all the people involved in his campaign... while he's still in bed. -If elected, one lucky personal assistant will be titled, ‘Chief of the Staff’ -When flying commercial, Obama’s dick is considered a piece of additional luggage, and is subject to the $15.00 fee
How big is Obama’s dick? -Barack’s dick is so big you can only buy a model firework of it in three states for Memorial Day -Barack’s dick is so big that when he’s at home in Chicago, the wang needs the weather report for Gary, Indiana -Barack Obama’s dick is so big the Oscar Meyer weinermobile rides in him. -Barack’s dick is so big, that if elected, it will get its own presidential seal -Barack’s dick is so big it was even considered for the vice presidential position, but there were fears it would overshadow the presidential nominee (plus, no one wants back to back dicks as VP) -Barack’s dick is so big he has pushed through earmarks that pay for its maintenance -Barack’s dick is so big it was what made Michelle Obama finally proud to be an American
A classic joke modified for this particular occasion Barack Obama walks into a tavern after a hard day of campaigning and sees a jarful of cash on the bar. Knowing he could always use another campaign ad in a swing state, he asks the bartender what the jar of cash is for and the bartender says, “If you can make my horse laugh, you win the money.” So, Obama walks around back of the tavern, whispers in the horse’s ear and the horse starts laughing and snorting and stomping his hooves. The presidential nominee walks back into the tavern, takes the jar of cash, orders a martini and proceeds to drink it down. A few weeks later Obama’s in same town and after giving the same stump speech he walks into the same tavern and sees another jar of cash on the bar. He asks the bartender what the jar of cash is for now and the bartender says, “My horse hasn’t stopped laughing since you were in here last and if you can make my horse stop laughing you win the money.” So Obama walks around the back of the tavern and soon everyone hears the loudest sobbing and crying coming from the horse. The senator walks up to the bar and reaches for the jar of cash. “Hold on a minute”, says the bartender, “I’ve gotta know what you said to that horse.” “Well,” says Obama, “the first time I came in, I told him that my dick was bigger than his.” “And the second time?” Asked the bartender. “I showed him.”
said Barack. Political Cartoon (we are well aware that describing a political cartoon defeats the purpose of a calling it a cartoon, but with our drawing skills being what they are, you’ll have to deal with it. Maybe Luckovich will see this idea up and pick up our slack) A slutty lady liberty eagerly hopping out of GWB's bed (with a small blanket tent where his crotch is) and into Obama's (with a much larger blanket tent)
All photo sources found in the public domain. If they're yours and you don't like 'em here, send us a legal jargon filled email and we'll remove them. We're good and spineless like that. Part One Photo Sources: NRA/Rife - Daily Kos; Ten Ways - CollegeHumour.com; Clinton - Fark.com; Bush - Atrios; White House - unknown. Part Two Photo Sources: Tom Cruise - www.tallarmeniantale.com; Paris Hilton - Rotten Library; Mel Gibson - Hoover Library: Hollywood Cowboys; Lindsay Lohan - tshirtwatch.com
|
squealing like a pig, buzzing like a fridge that has been pulled out of the aircraft | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
We
use that excuse (they’re ‘just’ jokes, everybody! Don’t take it so
seriously!) not only for cracks at celebrities but any joke or gag that
someone construes as offensive or controversial. Something degrading to
women? The defense becomes: Ah, anyone who watches that bit knows that’s
not how you should behave! And while that may be a reasonable assumption,
it’s still just an assumption. What can the comedians and comedy writers
expect from their audience? Or better yet, what should the
comedians and comedy writers expect from their audience? Andrew Dice Clay
knew his act was mocking crude alpha male stereotypes, but what did the
crude alpha males sitting around having a beer think? (‘Ha, ha! Big
titties! How marvelously ironic!’) Must we banish all forms of
entertainment that have the possibility of objectifying or stereotyping
the subject matter to the audience? And if so, how can we possibly enforce
such a subjective definition?
singer’s current media image do come to mind). It’s not so much a ‘these
stars are getting what they deserve’ attitude as much as it is an unspoken
trade for becoming a star. Your privacy and public dignity in exchange for
having your-name-before-the-move-title and being able to vacation annually
in St. Barts (as well as easy access to sex, drugs, and free swag).
Suddenly we are placing the blame on the stars themselves. They chose a
lifestyle that takes place in the public eye, and this is what they get.
Or are we just rationalizing our guilt and responsibility for the skewered
perspective out of the equation? Maybe so, but it still doesn’t mean all
the jokes should be so damn stupid or clichéd. So remember, a celebrity is
more than a series of one dimensional jokes. Not necessarily much more,
but certainly at least a little bit. Hell, Tom Cruise can’t be so crazy
when he’s sleeping, right? (Unless Scientologists have removed the need
for that, too…)
Oh god, can it not
just die? How much more do we have to take? And by that, I mean how much
more am I going to have to ignore? How many more seasons am I going to
have to say I know nothing about? I used to have my Simpsons knowledge
down like a geeky pro. When it got syndicated in 1994 and started airing
five times a day for the first time, I watched every one. And this was
when the weekly new episode was also a classic in the making. Nowadays,
the last remotely brilliant episode I can recall is when Homer opens a
daycare in his house while recuperating from a knee injury (Artie Pie: ‘I
can’t see through metal, Kent!’), and that was over a half decade ago.
And
all these jokes work within the episode. Each episode was a natural
progression, a light wandering pace that carries the narrative but allows
a bit of time to just push the odd bizarre joke just far enough (an
example of this from Homer’s Triple Bypass is the opening Bad Cops
sequence. And even that shows the writers had the good sense to put
something so ridiculous within the context of a television show Homer is
watching). And then there are the countless, silent visual gags that can be
completely missed upon the first viewing (The Simpson Archive
website categorizes this as ‘freeze frame fun’). A Trailer Park with the
sign: ‘4 days without a tornado’. Whenever an event is advertised on a
civic centre billboard, the event for the following day is typically
‘Closed for roach spraying’. The slogan for the 1984-like Re-Neducation
centre in Treehouse of Horror V is ‘Where the elite meet to have
their spirits broken’. At the first Kwik-E-Mart in India, a sign behind
the CEO/guru is ‘master knows all except combination to safe’.
Another
matter of discussion: The guest stars. The word ‘round the campfire is
that the show is getting better and better guests and that is what is
overshadowing the actual content of the episodes, but it’s more of how
they use these guests. If The Simpsons is/was biting satire, celebrity had
to be a legitimate target, too. And in the first eight years or so, it
definitely was. In season four’s Last Exit to Springfield, Dr.
Joyce Brothers was the sole guest, and she had one line, which she said
when she appeared as one of the panelists on Brockman’s Smartline: ‘I
brought my own mike!’. Or witness Dick Cavett’s appearance in Homie the
Clown, trying to befriend Homer dressed as Krusty: 
First there was The
Simpsons. Then Family Guy, The Simpsons on crack. A stupider father
(having recently been diagnosed as mentally challenged), more esoteric
jokes (a parade theme was ‘the episode of Who’s the Boss where Tony saw
Angela in the shower’), and stranger plotlines (the family’s house becomes
it’s own country). As mentioned earlier about The Simpsons going
meta-fictional, Family Guy actually has characters discussing the
animation budget. While claiming any reverse influence at all will forever
be unverified, something happened to The Simpsons after the debut of this
show in 1999. At this point, The Simpsons began to move away from a middle
class family dealing with slightly skewered regular problems. Suddenly
Homer became a missionary in the South Pacific to hide out from PBS. Marge
is put in an insane asylum (and Homer was retuned to one recently as
well), Krusty gets elected to congress, the apocalypse occurs, and more
and more episodes are divided into three mini-stories based on themes
ranging from the bible to Shakespeare. Complex characters were replaced
with broad brush strokes of personality traits. Homer's just an asshole
now. Where Family Guy’s Peter Griffin was once a Homer Simpson clone, now
Homer Simpson is a Peter Griffin clone. Once, Homer was real. Even when he
was accusing grandpa of withholding information after not winning the
lottery ('well why didn't you tell the rest of us? (knocks over TV tray)
WHY'D YOU KEEP IT A SECRET?!'), or cheerfully selling revitalizing tonic
with the line, 'hello, sir. You look like a man who has trouble satisfying
his wife', he was believable. Sure he was dumb, but his stupidity just
seemed like a part of his personality, not the whole of it. 
And
now there’s a movie. Matt Groening and the producers have promised us
something special, not a glorified, back-to-back-to-back patchwork of
episodes. I’ve only seen the trailers – with Homer whipping the sled dogs,
Homer being swung around on a wrecking ball – so it looks like it would
fit comfortably with the last couple years of the show. That’s not to say
I won’t see it, and I’ll even try to lower my expectations so in some
twisted way I might actually like it, but like Norman Mailer’s book
version of the Itchy & Scratchy Movie, ‘it’s just not the same’.