Omniculture

‘South Park,’ Blasphemy, and the Ghost of Theo Van Gogh

April 23, 2010
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‘South Park,’ Blasphemy, and the Ghost of Theo Van Gogh

In the face of threats and intimidation from religious zealots, do you submit or do you speak up? Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of “South Park,” speak up — often hilariously and crudely. Comedy Central, the network that broadcasts “South Park,” decided this week it would be better to submit. The decision to censor an episode lampooning the fear and hysteria surrounding depictions of Islam’s prophet, Muhammad, sets a very bad precedent. The Associated Press reports Friday: Producers of “South Park” said Thursday that Comedy Central removed a speech about intimidation and fear from their show after a radical Muslim group warned that they could be killed for insulting the Prophet Muhammad. It came during about 35 seconds of dialogue between the cartoon characters of Kyle, Jesus Christ and Santa Claus that was bleeped out. “It wasn’t some meta-joke on our part,” producers Trey Parker and Matt Stone said. Comedy Central declined to comment. I haven’t watched the latest episode of South Park yet, and evidently I won’t be able to either until it appears on DVD or Comedy Central relents and allows the episode to rerun. Episode 201 was scheduled to air again Thursday night, but Comedy Central subbed in the episode from April 8.

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Lady Gaga Goes It Alone

April 14, 2010
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Lady Gaga Goes It Alone

I’m not sure that we need to know this, and I am well aware that not too long ago such a thing would be the norm instead of a surprise, but the rock-disco singer Lady Gaga has announced that she is celibate (at present). What’s more, she is advising young people to follow her example, MTV reports: Forget that ride on the disco stick … at least for now. That’s the message Lady Gaga is sending to her fans, telling them that they should follow her example and live a celibate lifestyle. . . . “I can’t believe I’m saying this — don’t have sex. I’m single right now and I’ve chosen to be single because I don’t have the time to get to know anybody,” she said while visiting England to help promote MAC’s Viva Glam campaign, which supports global HIV and AIDS projects. “So it’s OK not to have sex, it’s OK to get to know people. I’m celibate, celibacy’s fine.” Gaga said her celibacy is something she wants to “celebrate” with her fans, extending her oft-repeated message to her “little monsters” that they should be secure in their own skin and not shy away from being different. “It’s OK

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Attend a Tea Party, Support the Arts

April 6, 2010
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Attend a Tea Party, Support the Arts

Bill Whittle is a clever, erudite and indefatigable proponent ofliberty and limited government. His latest PJTV video, entitled “Support Your Local Tea Party: Vigilance & The Siren Song of the State,” is a must-see, especially if you’re on the fence about attending a Tax Day Tea Party near you. Whittle’s video and the political movement it endorses are incredibly important. At the 2 minute 30 second mark, however, note his list of fields “the enemies of freedom have … taken over.” “Things have gotten this bad because we’ve allowed them to get this bad. We’ve been busy minding our own business for forty years, while the enemies of freedom have slowly and surely taken over academia, newspapers, movie studios, comedy, music, and politics. Now a huge slice of our own people long to escape the responsibilities brought on by the freedoms our forefathers gave their lives for. We can’t let that happen.” As usual, Whittle’s analysis is spot on, but one of those fields doesn’t quite jive with the rest. Everything that Whittle ticks off in his list influences that final item. Politics is a lagging indicator to these cultural influence professions. You can’t change Washington DC and

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Cultural Kommisar Attacks Filmmaker Reitman

April 5, 2010
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Cultural Kommisar Attacks Filmmaker Reitman

One indicator of how far statism has progressed in American society and culture is the tendency to view everything through a political lens. Feminists used to argue that “the personal is the political,” and this attitude has become commonplace on both sides of the political spectrum. A recent essay by Slate columnist Dennis Lim slagging Jason Reitman, director of the Academy Award-nominated film Up in the Air, exemplifies this baleful phenomenon. Lim criticizes Reitman for a failure to convey a progressive political vision, expressing open astonishment that the screenwriter-director has not been blacklisted by Hollywood’s allegedly liberal-minded industry self-censors: t is hard to fathom his success in the supposedly liberal bastion of Hollywood: His politics lean right when they are at all legible, and yet he’s embraced as an insightful social satirist, the second coming of Billy Wilder. Lim goes on to provide what he sees as the answer to this riddle: Reitman is a fiendishly brilliant manipulator on the order of Fu Manchu or, well, President Obama: On a deeper level, though, this disconnect makes perfect sense: It speaks to the brazen hucksterism that is so much a part of Reitman’s method. He’s a mediocre filmmaker but a world-class

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‘I Am Proud to Be a Heterosexual Man’

March 30, 2010
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‘I Am Proud to Be a Heterosexual Man’

I am proud to be a heterosexual man. This is something worth celebrating. Allowing myself to be seduced by fear and insecurity became a self-fulfilling prophecy of sabotage. Today I take full responsibility for my decisions and my actions. To keep this a secret from my public, as I did up until today, would be to indirectly diminish the glow that my kids were born with. These years in silence and reflection made me stronger and reminded me that acceptance has to come from within and that this kind of truth gives me the power to conquer emotions I didn’t even know existed. Just thought you’d like to know. This sort of thing is news, evidently.

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Jack Bauer Is Dead. . . .

March 27, 2010
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Jack Bauer Is Dead. . . .

… at least on Fox come May after the conclusion of it’s eighth “day,” otherwise known as a season. From The Hollywood Reporter: Tick, tick, tick … and done. After eight seasons, Fox’s “24” is coming to an end. The groundbreaking action drama will air its final real-time episode in May, the victim of a confluence of circumstances: a swelling budget, declining ratings and creative fatigue. BOOOOO!!!!! Apparently, due to the fact that salaries spiral upward dramatically the longer a show is on television (especially after the fifth season), Fox was paying an incredible $5 million an episode for this year’s installments. Let’s see … 5 million times 24 episode equals …. A LOT! But Jack Bauer himself, as he’s proven countless times on “24″ is hard to kill: Yet for fans of Jack Bauer, there remains hope. Studio 20th TV is developing a theatrical film that takes Bauer to Europe, and showrunner and executive producer Howard Gordon says other possibilities are being explored as well. “There are other possible iterations of Jack Bauer and his world,” Gordon said. The producers of “24″ have long begged off shifting Jack Bauer to the big screen because it would screw up the

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Buckley Critique Misses Point

February 24, 2010
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S. T. Karnick writes about Christopher Buckley and the Mount Vernon Statement on Pajamas Media. Full essay here.

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The Mount Vernon Statement – Well-intentioned but Short-Sighted

February 19, 2010
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The Mount Vernon Statement – Well-intentioned but Short-Sighted

Conservative leaders got together and decided, “What we need to do now is pretty much what we’ve been doing since 1955.” These leaders seem to have declared that what happens in Washington DC will be their raison d’être for another 60+ years. The US Marines have an unofficial motto when facing dire circumstances, “Improvise, adapt and overcome.” If only the conservative movement would take this saying to heart. The Mount Vernon Statement is a document by conservative leaders to “recommit to the ideas of the American Founding.” It is a well-intentioned assertion that what we need is “a restatement of Constitutional conservatism grounded in the priceless principle of ordered liberty articulated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.” With all due respect to the smart folks who put this document together, haven’t conservatives been articulating these “priceless principles” since William F. Buckley Jr. created National Review in 1955 and Young Americans for Freedom put out the “Sharon Statement” in 1960? What, exactly, will change if they continue down this path for another six decades? The problem with the Mount Vernon Statement is not the reform it seeks. The document’s authors are spot on when they write, “The change

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A Horror Comic About an Aborted Child Deftly Avoids Propaganda

February 18, 2010
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A Horror Comic About an Aborted Child Deftly Avoids Propaganda

A work about abortion easily lends itself to propaganda, either for or against this controversial subject. Matthew Lickona deftly avoids simplistic moralizing around this polarizing issue in his self-published horror comic Alphonse. Lickona understands that “good horror stories are moral anxiety writ large” and “that there is moral anxiety about abortion.” He would like to claim that this is what inspired Alphonse. Lickona sees these truths in his work only when he thinks about it in hindsight, which is always 20-20. In “Why I Did It: How I Came to Write a Comic Book About an Aborted Fetus,” Lickona recognizes the moral anxiety over abortion. I think abortion is “heart-wrenching” because something dies in an abortion—something that, ordinarily, would eventually grow into what everybody agrees is a human person. Some people think this “something” is a human person from the moment of conception. Others think it is a human person only after it leaves its mother’s body. Many others fall somewhere in between, and believe that abortion should be legal, but restricted in this or that way. Why do they fall somewhere in between? I don’t think it’s absurd to suggest that it’s because they’re uncertain. Yes, they affirm a

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That Fascist Green Police Ad is Stuck in My Head

February 10, 2010
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That Fascist Green Police Ad is Stuck in My Head

And that’s the point, I guess. Watch this ad for a “clean diesel” car by Audi, and good luck getting this slightly modified version of the Cheap Trick classic “Dream Police” out of your head. I couldn’t get it out with a lobotomy. It’s been playing off and on in my brain since it first aired during the Super Bowl. But beyond the ditty, I also can’t get the vision of a fascist “green” future out of my head — even if it’s portrayed with a heavy dollop of of “Reno: 911“-style cop-show parody. Good comedy has to have a grain of truth in it to work, and this spot has plenty. It’s not just a peek at a ridiculous future, but a look at our “be green or else” present. An overreaction? Tell that to the chief of America’s Green Police, San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom, who Tweeted: “Ok .. That ‘green police’ Audi commercial hits home..” And hits home hard. San Francisco, which proudly considers itself the greenest city in America, has mandated composting for all residents and businesses. Failure to comply results in an escalating scale of fines. No word on whether Newsom was proud or embarrassed

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Interview with the Creative Minds Behind “Grand Theft Audio”

February 8, 2010
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Comedian and Big Hollywood contributor Carl Kozlowski, “cyclone of information” and aspiring voice over artist Brant Thoman, and comedian, stage actor and “general rabble-rouser” Jake Belcher are taking internet radio by storm with  Grand Theft Audio, a wild mix of entertainment, pop culture, politics, and just about anything else that strikes their fancy. In this interview these media entrepreneurs discuss, among other topics, how they came together, what makes their show different, and the uneasy relationship some conservatives have with pop culture. For those who have never heard Grand Theft Audio, how would you describe it? CARL KOZLOWSKI: Uncensored in the best sense of the word. We’re definitely a freewheeling and funny show that refuses to be censored on matters of politics and our vast and deep opposition to Obama, his cronies and their policies. We’re proud and excited about the fact that we’ve had at least one major comedy, music-world or media-mogul guest, including Andrew Breitbart, Big Hollywood editor John Nolte, and conservative comedy icon Evan Sayet – on our shows. It’s a big party with great discussions that bring issues to fun life. BRANT THOMAN: In short, three friends giving their honest opinions and personal take on all

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Networks Raising the Bar on TV Sex

January 26, 2010
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Networks Raising the Bar on TV Sex

The woman in the Monty Python sketch was right when she said she’s against sex on the television because she keeps falling off. As an informative article from USA Today makes clear, once the medium gets started down that road, there’s no stopping halfway, and the consequences become unavoidable for the unwary viewer: Critics such as the Parents Television Council decry the mushrooming sexual content. “It’s become downright ubiquitous,” says council president Tim Winter. “Families are under siege, teenage girls are under siege. You don’t know what the cultural impact will be down the road.” Programmers seem less enthused about this greater freedom than anti-Hollywood conspiracy theorists might expect. The USA Today story quotes several making that point: Says Doug Herzog, president of MTV Networks entertainment group: “The line moves every day, so you got to move with it. You can’t put the genie back in the bottle. . . .” “When advertising dollars are down you have to cut through—you have to get attention,” says JD Roth, producer of NBC reality hit The Biggest Loser. . . . “You can definitely see an arms race,” says FX programming chief John Landgraf, whose groundbreaking series such as Rescue Me and

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"Culture is the expression of the guiding philosophy of the day."—Murray Rothbard
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