In Britain, much of television consists of panels of comedians joking about some topic. From Jezebel:
Meanwhile, in the U.S., from Autoblog:
BBC Bans All-Male Panel Shows, But Will That Help Female Comedians?
Meanwhile, in the U.S., from Autoblog:
... funnyman Jerry Seinfeld hosts a web series called Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. As you might not know, white men have been the guests on 20 of the 24 episodes that have aired so far: Seinfeld has made the java run with female comedians Tina Fey and Sarah Silverman and black comedians Mario Joyner and Chris Rock. The question is: does it matter? And if it does matter, why?
During an interview on BuzzFeed Brews, host Peter Lauria asked Seinfeld about the predominance of white male guests on the show, having noted the Internet commentary about it and been asked by his Twitter followers to pose the question. Seinfeld responded first with a softball, "People think it's the census or something, that it's got to represent the actual pie chart of America - who cares? Funny is the world that I live in." Then he went further, saying, "I have no interest in gender or race or anything like that," and that he feels the positions of those who have watched his show and commented on the race and gender breakdown of his guests are "anti comedy" and "more about PC nonsense than 'Are you making us laugh or not?'"
I bring this up just to make the obvious point that Seinfeld and, even more so, Seinfeld co-creator Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm are, in identity politics terms, right of center shows. In today's world, where the biggest sin is Noticing Things, it's almost tautological that masters of "observational comedy" are going to be inveterate Noticers.
Seinfeld and David represent the center-right of American Jewish culture, while the much misinterpreted Sacha Baron Cohen brings some of the crude ferocity of Israel's increasingly right-trending culture to global humor. (He's British but his grandmother lives in Israel.)
Initially, Baron Cohen was of course assumed to be a nice liberal merely making fun of dumb Bush voters in 2006's Borat, but 2009's Bruno and 2012's The Dictator unsettled the commentariat. The Dictator was not well-received during a year of elite worries that "Islamophobia" might derail the re-election of Barack Hussein Obama.
Something I've only vaguely been aware of before is how much behind the scenes overlap there is between Seinfeld / Curb Your Enthusiasm and Baron Cohen's movies.
These scenes from a 2012 episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm are clearly a riff on Baron Cohen's gay Nazi Bruno in a pint-sized American child version. The message is the same, too: Fashion Is Flamingly Fascist. (There's a lot of historical evidence for that, by the way.)
One obvious connection is that the director of Bruno, as well as Borat and The Dictator, is Larry Charles, who was a major writer-producer during Seinfeld's formative years, and played a similar role on Curb.
Similarly, the team of Jeff Schaffer, David Mandel, and Alec Berg have written for Seinfeld and Curb, and co-wrote The Dictator with Baron Cohen, and Schaffer had a writing credit on Bruno. (Schaffer's sit-com The League about a fantasy football league is pretty funny, too.)
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103 comments:
"Fashion Is Fascist"
Well fascists certainly are more fashionable. NAZI, British, and US Marine Corps dress uniforms are definitely better looking than most. Too bad the Brits and Marines got rid of swagger sticks for their officers and senior NCOs. I guess they thought that eliminating a handy way to swat the plebs was more democratic or something.
Larry David is just fantastic.
I think you are giving Cohen too much credit here. Anthony lane made an excellent point in his review of Bruno where he pointed out that the end scene of the movie Bruno gets together all those major celebrities and gives them a change to be in on the joke. Whereas Paula Abdul, Ron Paul assorted little people etc. are left as the butts of the joke. Not just the butt of the joke but basically humiliated. Anthony lane's take away was that Cohen really does just enjoy picking on the little guy and had no subversive interest what so ever.
I don't watch Seinfeld but is it true that Patrick Warburton's character on Seinfeld was a born again Christian. From the one episode I saw with him in it he was portrayed as a kind of grounded and decent foil to the gangs whackiness. You don't see that much.
OT http://jezebel.com/bbc-bans-all-male-panel-shows-but-will-that-help-femal-1520212829
It's like they made this just for Steve.
I think a shift in the balance of power of identity politics is indicated by this phony controversy.
Hard for people younger than me to understand, but Jews were once second to blacks in the victim sweepstakes. Back in the 60s and 70s, the memory of the Holocaust was much more vivid than it is today.
A shift is occurring, and Jews are being pushed far down the ladder in the victim sweepstakes, behind blacks, gays, hispanics and even white women.
A Jewish guy is now just another relic of Old Dead White Male privilege.
Sounds like this is noticing the overlaps between various comedic shows, which on one level seems to tie in with the overlapping of people and patterns similar to what you wrote regarding the historical peoples a few days back.
Seriously, some of this "concern" regarding the guest composition on Seinfeld's new net show is partly a backlash of long standing grievances of white liberals; during Seinfeld's glory ratings days these questions were occasionally noticed by the right sort of people. "Ever notice now the show Seinfeld very rarely ever has any blacks on the show and only about one who is a recurring guest whatsoever?" (this latter point, adding a lawyerly Johnny Cochran was seen at the time to be pacifiying these very concerned people who now are taking up the cause again by posing the question, 'there's a lack of diversity going on around here!')
And in point of fact, very few blacks tended to watch the show Seinfeld. It was never in their top 50 of most watched shows. From their vantage point I can understand why and can't really blame them a bit.
But definitely a large part of this backlash vs Seinfeld's new show is merely pent up frustration that dates back to his 90s sit com. With the advent of social media, those very concerned people can now pose the question more directly.
"""In today's world, where the biggest sin is Noticing Things, it's almost tautological that masters of "observational comedy" are going to be inveterate Noticers.""""
Of course, if the right sort of people are noticing things then it's very perfectly acceptable.
Namely: "We notice that there simply aren't enough of a particular group represented on, at, or here---why is that???"
That type of noticing is apparently always welcome by the powers that be.
>>Shouting Thomas shouted:
"""A shift is occurring, and Jews are being pushed far down the ladder in the victim sweepstakes, behind blacks, gays, hispanics and even white women.
A Jewish guy is now just another relic of Old Dead White Male privilege."""
True, but don't underestimate Jews on reinventing. Aren't there Jewish entertainers who are women? Also, aren't there prominent Jews who are gay as well?
And voila! Still relevant.
I enjoy watching Seinfeld reruns because much of the biting commentary is so beautifully un-PC and "archaic" given the atmosphere in pop culture now. It's a breath of fresh air for us "old timers."
Then "Friends" came along and ruined all that.
There's quite a bit of historical truth to the Fabulous Fascist. Prominent Nazis weren't just obsessed with fashion, they also hated smoking, abstained from drinking, tried to ban hunting, were frequently vegetarians, engaged in endless interpersonal drama, and fretted about environmental protection. In other words typical traits found in girly men.
The traditional stoic manly Prussians were generally found in the Wehrmacht high command that were at best tepid to Hitler and his posse. The SS, SA, and the "political side" of the military were known for irrational temper tantrums, incompetent understanding of military affairs, and crazy demands made in the heat of hissy fits.
By the later years most of the old-school generals had enough of this crap. Most stopped following orders, and many even participated in various coup attempts. This wasn't out of any deep-seated moral objections, but simply because they were tired of being toyed around by a bunch of drama queens who thought of the war as some sort of fabulous pageant.
Steve, long time reader and former $ contributor. Your content is really fantastic, especially on fire as of late, and I wanted to let you know I will be making a donation tomorrow!
Back in the 60s and 70s, the memory of the Holocaust was much more vivid than it is today.
It's actually, funnily enough, the opposite. I am old enough to remember. In the 1960s, and most of the 1970s, the Holocaust was usually a side show when people remembered the war, if it was mentioned at all. The war was vivid enough to people alive that the combat with Germany and Japan was still the main story. The story of the war was generally told from the conquering victor's perspective - our veterans - not from a Jewish victim's perspective. The 1960s was the era of heroic war movies like Great Escape or Where Eagles Dare. The Nazi threat had been so thoroughly crushed that Nazis could be turned into punch lines in movies like The Producers or network comedies like Hogan's Heroes. The shift, at least in popular culture, probably began around the time of the Holocaust mini-series in the late 70s and has never let up.
"I don't watch Seinfeld but is it true that Patrick Warburton's character on Seinfeld was a born again Christian. From the one episode I saw with him in it he was portrayed as a kind of grounded and decent foil to the gangs whackiness. You don't see that much."
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"High Five, Jer."
________________________
Speaking as a settled, middle-aged woman, I'd like to say that Mr. Warburton is one fine specimen of a masculine American male. Great face, great body.
He doesn't shave the hair off his chest, (and I assume he doesn't shave off the hair of other areas either.
He looks like a REAL man, not the beta boys the last generation has been turning out.
I was waiting for that defensive end from U of Missouri to announce in his ESPN interview of the last day or so (previous to the NFL draft in a month or two) that he was a proud gay, black...and Jewish man, but damn, he left out the last adjective. Then, he would have had all his bases covered so that SOME team would take him higher than the 3rd or 4th round in which he's projected to go. (He's really more a hybrid outside linebacker, didn't do well in the Senior Bowl practices as a DE).
Still OT, but since I mentioned the Missouri gay NFL wannabe and his coming out, I want to correct what I said: before his interview he was projected as mid to LATE round prospect. Too small to play DE.
David's Curb takes on the noticing business better than anyone--the whole thing is one big riff on noticing what we're not supposed to, especially with regards to Jews--he's undoubtedly the heir to Roth pre-American Conspiracy mumbo jumbo. I think David's best season involved him interacting with Richard Lewis in need of a kidney. David, the Jew, does everything possible to get a kidney for Lewis, goes to bat with institutions and leverages all his connections, schemes brilliantly and often, without any principle or hesitation, but all for naught. Towards the end of the season, Larry discovers he's adopted and seeks out to discover his biological family, which turns out to be the most Gentile family imaginable. Quickly Larry discovers in himself the capacity to do handiwork, the capacity to be a good husband and an honorable friend, and finally the capacity to be selfless and self-sacrificing. He agrees to give Richard Lewis one of his kidneys. The punchline, of course, is his discovery while being wheeled away for surgery that he's not adopted. He's biologically who he thought he was. His screams and protests to avoid surgery are priceless.
Re: the absence of blacks on Seinfeld
I'm surprised I haven't seen a "where are the blacks" inquisition wrt The Big Bang Theory; maybe there has been an inquisition, and I just didn't read about it or the inevitable auto da fey afterward. The only blacks I recall with parts more than a few seconds long are the HR lady, the DMV lady, and the emergency room admittance lady. All behave as if Steve himself had written their lines.The only hispanics I recall are two Spanish-speaking maids.
Also: The show's main character males are in the hard sciences, the main character females who are scientists are in the life sciences. The Nebraska farm girl, while not book smart, often outwits the geniuses with her common sense. Sheldon's evangelical East Texas mom is not portrayed as an evil lunatic or a benighted (see what I did there, Steve Randy Waldman?) hillbilly. Indeed, she is by far the most sympathetically drawn of the four guys' parents.
Chuck Lorre's other show that I've watched, Two and a Half Men, also has some subversive elements-particularly in observations made by the Charlie Sheen character about women, marriage, divorce, etc. You're supposed to be shocked at his ignorance, but I suspect that Lorre and much of the audience agrees with Sheen.
Fashion Is Flamingly Fascist. (There's a lot of historical evidence for that, by the way.)
"The whole Nazi philosophy, the racism and all that, is hateful to me, but of course I drew them anyway—they had the sexiest uniforms!" --Touko Laaksonen
http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/2014/0210/Why-is-Facebook-s-Mark-Zuckerberg-the-top-US-philanthropist
Anon but that still leaves out straight Jewish guys.
"Get a life, Jews."
ROTFL.
Homos: aesthetics > morality.
Also, aren't there prominent Jews who are gay as well?
Oh, don't be silly. Harvey Milk had a wife and kids hidden away somewhere. It was all a ruse to trick the rest of us into buggery.
Next, you'll be telling us Steve Cokely made it all up .
Shouting Thomas: "A shift is occurring, and Jews are being pushed far down the ladder in the victim sweepstakes, behind blacks, gays, hispanics and even white women."
Below Hispanics? Has the time come? Can I have my job back?
I swear, controversy just ain't what it used to be.
The best, most acid-tongued and spontaneously witty BBC 'all-male' panel show was 'Have I got News For You' during its early '90s golden age in which public school boys Ian Hislop (the editor of Private Eye) and Angus Deayton did battle with smart grammar schoolboy Paul Merton whilst humiliating and mocking government ministers in the cruellest possible way at the same time.
It was a very male, very cruel and very English milieu in which the sharpest tongue and the cruellest puns and mockery were prized by the verbal warriors.
"Well fascists certainly are more fashionable. NAZI, British, and US Marine Corps dress uniforms are definitely better looking than most.”
Somewhere PJ O’Roarke wrote : “no one fantasizes about being tied down and spanked by someone dressed like a liberal"
That kid is not gay. That kid proves that at a very young age, hetero kids can mock gay kids.
"A shift is occurring, and Jews are being pushed far down the ladder in the victim sweepstakes"
There is no real shift, its more about one victim group wanting to take over the number one victim group ranking.
If Jews really were dropping in the victimhood rankings then one would come across things like talk about "Jewish priviledge" or affirmative action in Jewish dominated industries or depiction of Jewish villains, since clearly none of this is happening they remain at the number one spot.
The Jerry Springer comment on PC and comedy itself proves this, I doubt a white comedian could have said what Jerry Springer said and not gotten into trouble.
I don't remember anything about Warburton's character, David Puddy, being a born again Christian, but Wiki says he was. The only religious thing I remember about him was when he had his face painted in NJ Devils colors and scared the crap out of a Latin American priest.
Weren't there more blacks on Seinfeld than, say, Friends? In addition to Jackie Giles, George also had a black boss at one point (prompting him to pretend that his black exterminator was his friend); Elaine and Jerry had an African marathon runner friend; the owner of the coffee shop was black... and now I'm drawing a blank, but the only black character I remember on friends was a girlfriend Ross dated briefly.
I think people give Jerry crap because they can't attack Larry David, who had a whole family of blacks ("The Blacks") on a season of Curb.
The funny thing about Borat--and nobody remembers this, because it was mostly on British TV, but you can still see it on Youtube--is that he went after liberal groups such as feminists in his usual too-offensive-to-actually-be-stupid fashion. (He equates feminism with lesbianism to Naomi Wolf, and gets confused that miners are actually black because they're covered with coal dust.)
Problem was, he had to hit a moving target because after w while his character get known. Working and middle-class whites were less likely to have HBO, so they tended to wind up in Borat as the DC-NY-Boston axis got to like his show. But with Bruno he went after the fashion industry, as I recall...
Fashion Is Flamingly Fascist
I think this isn't that surprising - successful people of no particular intellect other than ambition and drive for self promotion tend towards the extremes of the right wing authoritarianism.
Fashion is more or less entirely where you find the gay extreme of that archetype.
Plus, these right wing authoritarian striver gays lack any of the normal focus on family and community that stops people with extreme right wing personalities being fantastically mad (as regards politics).
There's quite a bit of historical truth to the Fabulous Fascist. Prominent Nazis weren't just obsessed with fashion, they also hated smoking, abstained from drinking, tried to ban hunting, were frequently vegetarians, engaged in endless interpersonal drama, and fretted about environmental protection. In other words typical traits found in girly men.
Eh? Gays take drugs quite a bit more than straights, don't have any particular vegetarianism (worrying about their weight isn't the same thing) or any particular concern about the environment.
As we all know disparities equals discrimination equals racism equals nazism. So I guess Seinfeld is a nazi.
A shift is occurring, and Jews are being pushed far down the ladder in the victim sweepstakes, behind blacks, gays, hispanics and even white women.
This article does not support your contention, because -- in this article -- Seinfeld isn't Jewish; he's "white".
There was an episode of Seinfeld in which Elaine is basking in her adoration of Warburton as her boy friend: he's the perfect man. She finds herself attracted, specifically (though it's unstated) his goyish masculinity). Unfortunately, in an effort to suss out his politics, she steers a conversation toward abortion. I think she asks him what his thoughts were on some recent pro-abortion Supremem Court decision and Warburton's response devastates her: "One day we're gonna get enough judges on the Court to change that law."
http://www.city-journal.org/2014/eon0209hm.html
Hype World
Phantom Politics
Steve Sailor:"These scenes from a 2012 episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm are clearly a riff on Baron Cohen's gay Nazi Bruno in a pint-sized American child version. The message is the same, too: Fashion Is Flamingly Fascist. (There's a lot of historical evidence for that, by the way.)"
Yeah, perhaps the real reason why the Soviet Union was so drab and dreary, so unrelentingly unfashionable, was because communism simply does not not appeal to the Gay male mind. A very interesting idea.
We thought Obama was the messiah but he's just the baptist who'd been waiting for the anointed one: a football fruit.
Girly men who came within an ace of total victory over three or four imperial titans, their defeat requiring the mobilization of all global resources. Those Girly men?
We have forgotten the war and the Jews have learned nothing. I for one welcome our new Chinese overlords. Especially the size 0 Dragon Ladies.
TODD: For what's the sound of the world out there?
LOVETT: What, Mr. Todd?
What, Mr. Todd?
What is that sound?
TODD: Those crunching noises pervading the air!
LOVETT: Yes, Mr. Todd!
Yes, Mr. Todd!
Yes, all around!
TODD: It's the Left devouring the Left, my dear!
BOTH: And who are we to deny it in here?
When confronted with the mildest of politically correct pitchforks, Seinfeld simply responds: "I have no interest in gender or race or anything like that...".
That was the end of the discussion.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if all people and institutions, confronted with PC baloney, could respond similarly with the same effectiveness?
Reporter: "Hey, Navy, why are there are no women on subs?"
Navy: "I have no interest in gender or race or anything like that..."
We could call it the Seinfeld card.
Steve from Detroit
"If Jews really were dropping in the victimhood rankings then one would come across things like talk about "Jewish priviledge" or affirmative action in Jewish dominated industries or depiction of Jewish villains, since clearly none of this is happening they remain at the number one spot."
How about "Jew is a social construct".
http://ericmargolis.com/2014/02/f-europe/
"I'm surprised I haven't seen a "where are the blacks" inquisition wrt The Big Bang Theory; maybe there has been an inquisition, and I just didn't read about it or the inevitable auto da fey afterward. The only blacks I recall with parts more than a few seconds long are the HR lady, the DMV lady, and the emergency room admittance lady. All behave as if Steve himself had written their lines.The only hispanics I recall are two Spanish-speaking maids."
I only recently began watching the BBT in re-runs. Neil deGrasse Tyson appears in a cameo on one show. It appears to have been the writers way of saying, "Blacks can be scientists too."
They'd have a much harder (guffaw) time banning all male penile shows.
"Also: The show's main character males are in the hard sciences, the main character females who are scientists are in the life sciences. The Nebraska farm girl, while not book smart, often outwits the geniuses with her common sense. Sheldon's evangelical East Texas mom is not portrayed as an evil lunatic or a benighted (see what I did there, Steve Randy Waldman?) hillbilly. Indeed, she is by far the most sympathetically drawn of the four guys' parents."
Yes, Sheldon's mother is actually portrayed as a woman who solves every day problems of living with common sense, a kind of grown up, no-nonsense, compassionate Penny.
We never meet Howard's boorish Jewish mother, and it's just as well. UH, that voice!
"I don't remember anything about Warburton's character, David Puddy, being a born again Christian, but Wiki says he was. The only religious thing I remember about him was when he had his face painted in NJ Devils colors and scared the crap out of a Latin American priest.'
My memory is foggy on this, but there was an episode in which Elaine suggests she doesn't believe in hell (or maybe she asks him if he thinks hell is real) and he's very bothered by her doubt, telling her that if she rejects its existence, she IS indeed going to hell.
Something like that.
Michael Richards was depicted rather favorably in his episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. That must have upset some people who couldn't believe that Seinfeld dared to break the Embargo.
It's like what McCarthy's response would be if Bob Hope brought in Elia Kazan as a guest star: Bob Hope must be a commie, too.
When are whites and Jews going to start complaining about the lack of whites in rappers' posses in their rap videos?
Nobody seems to remember that fascists=gays was a pillar of Stalinist propaganda leading up to WWII. In fact, Stalin outlawed homosexuality about exactly when Hitler took power, labeling it a degenerate fascist practice.
This was the official Soviet stance for some 60 years, and the people still stand by it to some extent in the former Soviet states. Western behavior (might as well call it sexual imperialism) around the issue has only hardened this attitude in Russia.
Before Borat, Cohen was "Ali G", a gormless 'yoof' of indeterminate race, interviewing various politicians and celebs.
He was accused of being raaacist by some blacks but it didn't really harm him.
OT have you seen this, in Slate,
"Affirmative action: It's time for liberals to admit it isn';t working."
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/history/features/2014/the_liberal_failure_on_race/affirmative_action_it_s_time_for_liberals_to_admit_it_isn_t_working.html
Speaking of noticing things, I recall noticing that 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' episode in which Larry David pisses on a painting of Jesus Christ.
Did anyone else notice that episode?
Seems to be a pattern with these people.
But I suppose we're not supposed to notice it.
I'm surprised I haven't seen a "where are the blacks" inquisition wrt The Big Bang Theory; maybe there has been an inquisition, and I just didn't read about it or the inevitable auto da fey afterward. The only blacks I recall with parts more than a few seconds long are the HR lady, the DMV lady, and the emergency room admittance lady.
There was also Bernadette's ex, who was apparently some sort of hybrid astrophysicist-basketball player, and whose brief appearance in the show was used solely to scold Howard, the resident Jew, for having second thoughts about dating a girl who had dated a black man (whatever her father, who didn't much approve of the relatively inoffensive Howard, thought of his daughter consorting with this towering negro was never brought up).
Fashion may be fascist, up to a point (not that that's a bad thing), but "flamingly fascist"? I don't know about that.
Certainly the three primary designers associated with fascism I can recall off the top of my head were all straight: Emilio Pucci, Coco Chanel, and Hugo Boss. Perhaps you've heard of them?
The "gay Nazis" trope is just another example of Jewish defamation.
I have never watched 'Seinfeld' and certainly not 'Curb Your Enthusiasm'. But I do watch a comedy show religiously - 'The O'Reilly Factor'.
Johnny Carson used to showcase up and coming comics, Leno less so. The man who has traditionally presented the most comedians on the air recently is unquestionably Bill O'Reilly.
His daily news show has at least a half dozen comedians on each week. Count 'em up. The Comedy Channel has a couple comedians doing news parodies but O'Reilly applies the comedy sugar coating on the news just as heavily but with more art.
O'Reilly appears to have been deeply moved by Chayefsky's 'Network' and consciously tried to become Howard Beale. He is the master of the sizzle side of the news business. Beale had 'Sybil the Soothsayer'. O'Reilly until recently had his own soothsayer in the form of a facial gestures expert - who he must have picked up at some carnival side show.
Beale would work himself into a fit on air and collapse. O'Reilly does much the same. He likes to transform himself from just a modern talking head in an over lit studio into an Old Testament prophet hurling imprecations at the unholy from the mountain top. The unholy these days being mostly those who smoke dope
, but if gas prices rise he will thunder once again about 'speculators'.
So I never watched 'Seinfeld' because I never needed to - I have O'Reilly. Never miss his show.
Albertosaurus
"Blacks watch Seinfeld" sounds like a future viral video hit.
re Dave Pinsen's comment:
To me, the characterization of George's black boss on the Yankees shows that Seinfeld/David were hewing to the progressive narrative rather than departing from it. The guy was calm, rational, systematic, impatient with irrelevance. Nobody has ever worked with any black person who displays those qualities.
Laguna Beach Fogey:"Fashion may be fascist, up to a point (not that that's a bad thing), but "flamingly fascist"? I don't know about that.
Certainly the three primary designers associated with fascism I can recall off the top of my head were all straight: Emilio Pucci, Coco Chanel, and Hugo Boss. Perhaps you've heard of them?
The "gay Nazis" trope is just another example of Jewish defamation."
Well, dear boy, there was good old Ernst Rohm and his SA clique; they engaged in quite a bit of male on male action.
Also, you seem to have missed the main point, which has to do with the affinity between fascist aesthetics and gay male sensibilities. Gather a bunch of flamers together and have them compare, a la PROJECT RUNWAY, Soviet and Nazi uniforms. Nazi-style would win, overwhelmingly so.
Puddy tells Elaine she is going to hell:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE0nenGeW5A
Larry David pissed on the picture of Christ BY ACCIDENT and he was upset about it.
There was one episode (perhaps when he found out he was adopted and was really a gentile) where he goes to church and does (what city Jews) consider typical gentile things like fishing and duck hunting, and it is all played straight with respect for Christians.
Laguna Beach Fogey:"Speaking of noticing things, I recall noticing that 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' episode in which Larry David pisses on a painting of Jesus Christ.
Did anyone else notice that episode?
Seems to be a pattern with these people.
But I suppose we're not supposed to notice it."
MMMM, well there was also the episode of SEINFELD where Kramer burns and stomps on a Puerto Rican flag....
And there was that episode of LARRY DAVID where Larry earns the enmity of a Jewish man because Larry was whistling Wagner...
And there was that episode where Larry made an affirmative action joke about a Black doctor...
And there was also that episode of SEINFELD where George gets back at a Jewish girl who keeps kosher by tricking her into eating shellfish....
And there was that episode of THE LARRY DAVID SHOW where the Seder tradition of finding the afikomen is mocked....
And there was the Skiing episode of THE LARRY DAVID SHOW, which basically consisted of 30 minutes of non-stop mockery of Orthodox Jews...
And there was the Gina Gershon episode of THE LARRY DAVID SHOW, which basically painted Orthodox women as whores....
Elaine learns her "perfect" boyfriend believes in abortion:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lXjA7lxj_E
Blacks famously don't watch Seinfeld, but I've been in quite a few houses of young, lower-middle class, semi-assimilated Mexican-American families and a supermajority of them have the complete series of Seinfeld DVDs.
"The "gay Nazis" trope is just another example of Jewish defamation."
Well, dear boy, there was good old Ernst Rohm and his SA clique; they engaged in quite a bit of male on male action."
I wrote another post that I must have accidentally deleted. Along the lines that the Nazi party ranks actually did a lot of pretty sissy things. Many were vegetarians, most abstained from alcohol, almost all didn't smoke (which for the time was pretty sissy). They'd also fit right in with Greenpeace and were really concerned with animal welfare and environmental protection.
Contrast the girly man image with Arnold Schwarzenegger chomping a cigar, drinking a Bourbon on the rocks, muscles engorged from all the animal protein he eats, bulldozing some wetlands to build a mansion.
The Nazi party was also known for endless interpersonal drama that would fit right in at Project Runway. ("Omg! I cannot believe Strasser said that about me, I'm totally through with him!"). Plus Hitler would make insane demands of the Wehrmacht in the middle of hissy fits ("Ugghh! Just burn down Paris, I can't even take it anymore"). The portrayal of his temper tantrum in Downfall's pretty spot on.
There was an episode of Seinfeld where Kramer had a Black girlfriend, and in effort to tan turns himself into an ultra-Oompa Loompa to the disgust of the girlfriend's father. Then, Jackie Childs! is upset because Kramer looks too healthy to sue the tobacco companies.
As for the German military in WWII, the superb training and efficiency of the non-coms and officers including the general officers were countered by the absolute incompetence of the Nazi leadership (which was gay and hissy-fit prone) to comprehend the military's great weakness: lack of transport or experience in logistics.
The German squad was more than a match for any enemy, with superb and superior light and heavy machine guns (that featured swappable barrels) and superb artillery in support. Their problem was running out of ammo, food, gas, etc. constantly.
For example, Hitler got into an ego trap with Stalingrad. The sensible thing was to bypass the useless city and drive further into the Caucuses and destroy the Soviet Army in the field, where German tanks and artillery were superior. Instead, Hitler because the city was named after Stalin got all hissy-fit and ordered a useless fight for the city where all the German armor advantages were negated and neglected his flanks. The result? An entire Army Group surrenders in abject defeat and his psychological edge is broken.
Or North Africa. After American entry into WWII it was stupid and useless to fight there, Rommel though far superior to any British general did not have enough gas or food or ammo across the Med and would never get any more as time went on, rather less. It was only a matter of time before the Americans met the British on each side of the North African coast: West and East. The smart move would have been to withdraw all those troops and equipment and fight on more favorable terrain.
FWIW, Himmler and Goering were supposed to be gay. Hitler himself was often rumored to be gay.
"FWIW, Himmler and Goering were supposed to be gay. Hitler himself was often rumored to be gay."
By who? I suspect this is the old British tradition of spreading sexual rumors about your enemies (there's little evidence Hitler had only one ball, and Goebbels did indeed have enough to father several children). Not that I object, of course. ;)
Actually, if I remember, one of the reasons Hitler had Rohm killed (apart from being a rival) was to get rid of, essentially, the gay ring in the Nazi party--they were going for traditional values, after all.
Whiskey ~
It's funny how all those "gays" and "sissies" were somehow able to decimate your co-ethnics and were only stopped because basically the whole world stomped on them.
lolz
Quite apart from the use of an anachronistic use of the word "gay"... What are your sources on the homosexuality of Goering, Himmler and Hitler? If you go through 100 top NSDAP leaders I doubt you could come up with more than 5 proven homos.
The problem for Germany was the same problem that Iraq has. Landlocked. Barbarossa came within an ace of total victory. All else is speculation.
The Nazis seized power in part because Germans saw Queer liberal degenerates dominate Weimar, especially in Berlin.
See this:
Soviet Storm: War in The Caucuses
Type that in and watch the video.
Note the Tom of Finland Russian Marines. Every queer's fantasy.
If anything the German military looks like the US military from 1990 onward. After the aesthetic objections to the look of German uniforms were dropped designers could look at the practical brilliance of German uniform designs and imitate them. I'm surprised it took as long as it did for Americans to adopt the superior designs of things like Helmets and Tanks.
Exactly.
It wasn't the Brits.
Half of Britain probably was fascist sympathetic. Halifax certainly was. A good slice of the apolitical Daily Mail readers were.
The British fought so half heatedly in France, Belgium and Norway, then Greece that I honestly think they were politically sympathetic to Germany and could not figure out what they were fighting for. Danzig? Spill your guts for Danzig?
No wonder Dunkirk happened, not to mention Narvik and the evacuation of Greece.
Schwarzenegger sold naked pictures of himself to pay the rent. Probably to slimy Hollywood producers too. Not himself gay, but he's rented out his body to queers.
Laguna Beach Fogey:"It's funny how all those "gays" and "sissies" were somehow able to decimate your co-ethnics and were only stopped because basically the whole world stomped on them.
lolz"
MMMM, the ability to massacre civilian populations as proof of manhood?Seems a bit ... queer, dear boy.
Dan:"If anything the German military looks like the US military from 1990 onward. After the aesthetic objections to the look of German uniforms were dropped designers could look at the practical brilliance of German uniform designs and imitate them."
MMMM, how practical were German military designs? I seem to recall quite a few German soldiers complaining about how the Russian winter uniform, for all its ugliness, was functionally superior to the German , despite the German uniform looking better.
SFG:"Actually, if I remember, one of the reasons Hitler had Rohm killed (apart from being a rival) was to get rid of, essentially, the gay ring in the Nazi party--they were going for traditional values, after all."
But one also has to deal with Hitler's acceptance of Rohm's homosexuality for many years. It rather makes the whole gay charge seem highly political in nature...
"Speaking as a settled, middle-aged woman, I'd like to say that Mr. Warburton is one fine specimen of a masculine American male. Great face, great body.
He doesn't shave the hair off his chest, (and I assume he doesn't shave off the hair of other areas either.
He looks like a REAL man, not the beta boys the last generation has been turning out."
Apparently he was (is still perhaps) a practicing Catholic, married and father of 4 living in California as recently as 5 years or so ago. In one interview he laughed about his character and wondered what kept him and Elaine together (more or less). He figured it was fantastic sex.
"It's funny how all those "gays" and "sissies" were somehow able to decimate your co-ethnics and were only stopped because basically the whole world stomped on them."
That was pretty funny - I guess Komment Kontrol agrees!
Dan:"It wasn't the Brits.
Half of Britain probably was fascist sympathetic."
Any numbers to back that up, dear boy? Mosley and his British union of Fascists were distinctly a fringe movement, with little popular support.
Dan:" Halifax certainly was. A good slice of the apolitical Daily Mail readers were."
MMMM, how "apolitical" were they if they were, as you say, "fascist sympathetic?"
Dan:"The British fought so half heatedly in France, Belgium and Norway, then Greece that I honestly think they were politically sympathetic to Germany and could not figure out what they were fighting for. Danzig? Spill your guts for Danzig?"
MMM, more like spill your guts to prevent the Nazi domination of Europe.....As for the British being sympathetic to the Nazis while they were fighting them in France, Greece, etc, that is cloudcuckooland stuff.
Before WWI, Hitler himself was very much like a Williamsburg hipster today with a modest inheritance and hopes for a career as an artist. The early Nazis attracted a lot of bohemians and fringe folks. Hess, for example, came into the Nazi Party along with a bunch of other Oujia Board enthusiasts.
The notion that artsiness and leftism are inextricably intertwined was invented after the stock market crash of 1929. Without the Depression, the artistically inclined would have continued to to be mostly on the right.
German high culture before in the early 20th Century had a notable pederastic aspect related to its worship of Ancient Greece. An Italian lady in "Brideshead Revisited" noted that you saw these kind of "romantic friendships" among Germans and Brits, but not much among Italians (presumably they looked more toward Ancient Rome, which wasn't quite as pederastic as Socrates' circle).
"If anything the German military looks like the US military from 1990 onward. After the aesthetic objections to the look of German uniforms were dropped designers could look at the practical brilliance of German uniform designs and imitate them."
The only similarity that jumps out were the circa 1990 Kevlar helmets, which bulged out at the ear level and sloped back over the neck like a WWII Werhmacht helmet. The newer Kevlar helmets look a little similar, but have been shortened because I think the body armor would ride up against the older version when soldiers were in a prone position.
Other than that? Nothing comes to mind. Nazi German troops fought in their equivalent of a US Army Class A uniform, i.e., the sort of uniform an American soldier would wear if he was testifying before Congress.
"Hess, for example, came into the Nazi Party along with a bunch of other Oujia Board enthusiasts."
There's a great scene in Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow (a lot of which was inspired by bizarre but actual history) where Nazi Party members use a medium to communicate with the spirit of Walter Rathenau.
"The notion that artsiness and leftism are inextricably intertwined was invented after the stock market crash of 1929. Without the Depression, the artistically inclined would have continued to to be mostly on the right."
You mean, because of the WPA? And the previous association with the right was because patrons of the arts were on the right?
>The Nazis seized power in part because Germans saw Queer liberal degenerates dominate Weimar, especially in Berlin.<
Good point.
Let's consider intellectual fashion. Hitler and his posse used to be portrayed as the ultimate enemies of homosexuals. Pink triangles were all over the "Act Up" placards I saw in NYC in the 1980s. Another fashion ran to painting the Nazis as being on the DL themselves. "The Producers" has fun with this fashion. It had punch in the days when gayness was still seen as disreputable.
Given that our nation is now fighting WWG and WWT, though, suggesting that Hitler was gay is objectively pro-Nazi.
Fashions change. In the past two or three years we haven't heard so much about J. Edgar Hoover's allegedly wearing dresses. After all, in 2014 his alleged cross-dressing would make him a quixotic hero - a trans person suppressed by Old Testament believers. No one on the left has any interest in that, so J. Edgar, after enjoying a year or two of transphobic ridicule, is down the memory hole.
In the next few years, given WWs G & T, we will probably see less of the "fascinatin' fascism" stuff and more of the pink triangle stuff. Sure, among the sophisticates at Slate et al. a residue of "Hitler was a fag -snicker-" will remain, but to the plain people in flyover country, Putin/Hitler comparisons won't make sense unless both are presented as more or less reactionary machos. The alternative way to bet is that Putin will be presented as a secret homo, a hypocrite, but I don't think that will have traction.
Steve Sailer:"Before WWI, Hitler himself was very much like a Williamsburg hipster today with a modest inheritance and hopes for a career as an artist. The early Nazis attracted a lot of bohemians and fringe folks. Hess, for example, came into the Nazi Party along with a bunch of other Oujia Board enthusiasts.
The notion that artsiness and leftism are inextricably intertwined was invented after the stock market crash of 1929. Without the Depression, the artistically inclined would have continued to to be mostly on the right."
That's a good point, Steve. There was a very strong "hipster artist" element in Hitler's psychological makeup. Indeed, Thomas Mann actually wrote an essay where he talked about Hitler as "one of us," a bohemian artist, in contrast to, say, Lenin, whose mentality was religious/theological in nature.As I recall, Mann went into some detail about this bohemian artist side to Hitler: his fondness for late hours and sleeping in, his hatred of bureaucratic routine, etc.
David:"Given that our nation is now fighting WWG and WWT, though, suggesting that Hitler was gay is objectively pro-Nazi.
Fashions change. In the past two or three years we haven't heard so much about J. Edgar Hoover's allegedly wearing dresses. After all, in 2014 his alleged cross-dressing would make him a quixotic hero - a trans person suppressed by Old Testament believers. No one on the left has any interest in that, so J. Edgar, after enjoying a year or two of transphobic ridicule, is down the memory hole."
I'm not so sure about that. In the leftist circles that I travel in (I'm an academic in the humanities), nothing gets a bigger laugh than talking about the "closeted" nature of "bigots and homophobes." They love assuming that every person who makes anti-gay comments is secretly a "self-hating" homosexual.
Have you actually compared equipment? The MG42 and the M60 are closely related. The basic layout of the German tank is also imitated. The paratrooper smock and boot are imitated... And the helmet is called the fritz because of the obvious similar cut.
When I saw New Jersey State troopers first time I though it was an SS uniform btw.
The Germans had specialized arctic warfare units and uniforms.
They had planned to defeat Russia and occupy Moscow in the Autumn. The Russians proved to be surprisingly committed to Socialism and fought back hard in a way that the French, Belgians and Brits did not. Plans of mice and men and all that.
Compare the German arctic units with Gebirgjaeger with equivalent Russian units. You can also compare Finnish Ski troops with Soviet ski troops.
Without the Depression, the artistically inclined would have continued to to be mostly on the right.
D. H. Lawrence, Wyndam Lewis, Seven Pillars of Wisdom T. E. Lawrence [of Arabia], Brandywine school of American artists, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, H. L. Mencken, novelists S. Fitzgerald and E. Hemingway, Carl Jung, Ernst Junger, Otto Dix, Italian Furturists ...
. The basic layout of the German tank is also imitated.
The basic layout of the WWII German tank was the same as the that of the five man crew, front drive sprocket M4 Sherman. All German tanks of that era had gasoline engines, as did the US Army's Shermans. Who was imitating whom?
The paratrooper smock and boot are imitated...
No, it wasn't.
And the helmet is called the fritz because of the obvious similar cut.
The US mil. hasn't issued the Fritz hat in more than a decade.
So the shape and pattern of he helmet were infact imitated.
The Panzer IV design predates the Sherman. The Panzer IV more closely resembles the tanks like the Challenger, Leopard and Abrams than does the Sherman. You are making my argument for me. Once the aesthetic objections were overcome the German sense of design was closely imitated. Much of the tech was also imitated.
"D. H. Lawrence, Wyndam Lewis, Seven Pillars of Wisdom T. E. Lawrence [of Arabia], Brandywine school of American artists, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, H. L. Mencken, novelists S. Fitzgerald and E. Hemingway, Carl Jung, Ernst Junger, Otto Dix, Italian Furturists ..."
Hemingway was a lefty. But you could have added Yeats or (later life) John Dos Passos. And of course Paul Celine.
Also: The show's main character males are in the hard sciences, the main character females who are scientists are in the life sciences. The Nebraska farm girl, while not book smart, often outwits the geniuses with her common sense. Sheldon's evangelical East Texas mom is not portrayed as an evil lunatic or a benighted (see what I did there, Steve Randy Waldman?) hillbilly. Indeed, she is by far the most sympathetically drawn of the four guys' parents.
I hate evangelicals they have given us Bush and Perry cheap labor republicans. In fact they the evangelicals helped the neo-conservatives being pro-Israel. Belisarius you should say F the evangelicals since they hate history unless its the bible.
"An Italian lady in "Brideshead Revisited" noted that you saw these kind of "romantic friendships" among Germans and Brits, but not much among Italians (presumably they looked more toward Ancient Rome, which wasn't quite as pederastic as Socrates' circle)."
Well, it's useful to remember that an era or two ago, homosexuality was called "the French disease" in England, and called "the English disease" in France.
A culture sees what it wants. Gore Vidal seemed to find the pickings in Italy pretty lively.
Does the equipment resemble the Sherman and the old tin pot or does it resemble the German stuff?
The aesthetics are clearly more Wehrmacht than GI.
One thing about The Dictator, though, part of why it wasn't well received is that it wasn't very good.
Steve Sailer wrote: "German high culture before in the early 20th Century had a notable pederastic aspect related to its worship of Ancient Greece."
In connection with this it is worth pointing out that Germany was where the first organized movement to legitimize homosexuality was begun in the 1860s, by Karl Ulrichs. He and many of his followers appealed to classical antiquity as a period when homosexual behavior was not stigmatized at it came to be under Christianity, but rather was tolerated or even idealized, citing Plato's Symposium, the second eclogue of Virgil, etc., as illustrative.
The "worship of Ancient Greece" in Germany preceded this, going back at least to the time of Winckelmann - who was, not coincidentally, homosexual. At a time when knowledge of Latin and Greek was much more common among the educated than it is today, it is hardly surprising that homosexuals seized on such references in classical literature. Indeed, some of them (e.g., the Satiricon of Petronius, the twelfth volume of the Palatine Anthology, certain epigrams of Martial) have a substantially pornographic character or amount to "dirty jokes".
"The notion that artsiness and leftism are inextricably intertwined was invented after the stock market crash of 1929. Without the Depression, the artistically inclined would have continued to to be mostly on the right."
Not true, at least with the advent of modernism, but then even prior.
Beethoven loved Napoleon, at least until Napoleon got too crazy.
Wagner was a man of the left before turning conservative. He supported the 1848 revolution.
England's Romantic poets were generally liberals(of the time).
Walt Whitman was a progressive in his day. Mark Twain was a contrarian who upset conservatives mote than liberals. Many artists of the 19th century would seem conservative by today's standards but they were generally liberals of the period.
Hitler was a bohemian in lifestyle, true, but most bohemians in Austria were on the left or at least left-leaning.
Modernism had its right-wing element: Italian futurism, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Dali sort of, Stravinsky, Celine, Hamsun, etc.
But even they were embraced more by liberals than by conservatives who generally were not into arts and culture. Also, they weren't really comfortably on the right. Hamsun, for example, loathed European imperialism and sympathized with Indians. Some 'rightwing' artists were merely reacting to communism than really in love with the right. Celine was anti-Jewish but not a conventional rightist at all.
Hitler was interesting in being both bohemian and anti-bohemian. He had no use for artistic fashions of his day. He was in love with classicism and 19th century German romanticism. He loathed much of modernism. He felt alienated from his bourgeois father but his tastes were so very bourgeois.
Goebbels had some interest in German Expressionism and initially supported it until Hitler told him NO, and then Goebbels dutifully toed the line.
More than the Crash of 29, it was rise of Hitler that gave rightwing art a bad name, especially with the stupid war on 'degenerate art' which included most modern art. And while many talented artists remained in the USSR to take part in the revolution, most talented artists fled Nazi Germany even though they were promised with generous support. It wasn't just Jews but many Germans who could't stand Hitler.
And after WWII and the Holocaust, the right was smeared so badly that the idea of rightwing culture never recovered.
Granted, it depends on how one defines 'rightism'. If anti-communism is rightism, I suppose Orwell, Camus, and Koestler will qualify too.
"If anti-communism is rightism, I suppose Orwell... will qualify too."
On the subject of Orwell vis-à-vis the "artsy-fartsy," it is worth looking at the second part of his book "The Road to Wigan Pier." Orwell was a committed socialist, and feared that the bohemian, artsy-fartsy character of many upper and middle class English socialists would be off-putting to the ordinary working-class bloke. Excerpts convey the flavor:
"One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words ‘Socialism’ and ‘Communism’ draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, ‘Nature Cure’ quack, pacifist, and feminist in England."
This sort of person is still disproportionately represented on the left - Orwell is here giving us a foreshadowing of what is now summarized under the acronym SWPL.
He alludes with evident distaste to the homosexuality of some of these types in the following passage:
"One day this summer I was riding through Letchworth when the bus stopped and two dreadful-looking old men got on to it. They were both about sixty, both very short, pink, and chubby, and both hatless. One of them was
obscenely bald, the other had long grey hair bobbed in the Lloyd George style. They were dressed in pistachio-coloured shirts and khaki shorts into which their huge bottoms were crammed so tightly that you could study every
dimple. Their appearance created a mild stir of horror on top of the bus. The man next to me, a commercial traveller I should say, glanced at me, at them, and back again at me, and murmured 'Socialists', as who should say, 'Red Indians'. He was probably right--the I.L.P. were holding their summer school at Letchworth. ”
N.B. - Letchworth Garden City was a "new town," originally developed by Quakers, which attracted many members of the Arts & Crafts movement led by the romantic socialist William Morris. The I.L.P. was the Independent Labour Party, a socialist party founded in 1893, merged in 1906 with the regular Labour Party, then splitting from it in 1932.
Orwell also describes quite accurately the set of mind that has given rise to "political correctness":
"Sometimes when I listen to these people talking, and still more when I read their books, I get the impression that, to them, the whole Socialist movement is no more than a kind of exciting heresy-hunt — a leaping to and fro of frenzied witch-doctors to the beat of tom-toms and the tune of 'Fee fi, fo, fum, I smell the blood of a right-wing deviationist!'"
"The ordinary man may not flinch from a dictatorship of the proletariat, if you offer it tactfully; offer him a dictatorship of the prigs, and he gets ready to fight."
And what, today, does the left have to offer but a dictatorship of the prigs? We see it in action every day.
"Crawfurdmuir said...
""The ordinary man may not flinch from a dictatorship of the proletariat, if you offer it tactfully; offer him a dictatorship of the prigs, and he gets ready to fight.""
And what, today, does the left have to offer but a dictatorship of the prigs? We see it in action every day."
And that's because the proletariat is incapable of leading. If they were, they wouldn't be the proletariat. The left will always end up belonging to the prigs and/or their designated henchmen.
The trick in a bar fight is to not get involved, encourage the others to fight then abscond with their women and drinks.
Private Papers Sir Harry Paget Flashman
Dan:"The trick in a bar fight is to not get involved, encourage the others to fight then abscond with their women and drinks.
Private Papers Sir Harry Paget Flashman"
MMMM, what if flying glass from a broken bottle gets in your face and blinds you?
What if one of the men in the fight owes you money, and he gets killed?
What if the fight causes a fire to start, and the bar burns down while you are trapped inside?
What if they catch you absconding with the birds and the drinks and attack you?
It's all about the unforeseen, dear boy.
More than the Crash of 29, it was rise of Hitler that gave rightwing art a bad name
I agree with and second that claim.
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