TWITTERDUMP 02.19.08: SITCOM = GITCOM!
Feb. 19th, 2008 08:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
defrogMeanwhile, over on the Twitters:
defrog Movie of the year: Harold And Kumar Go Waterboarding. Gitmo say, "That's not funny." H&K say, "Whatever, losers." http://tinyurl.com/2vrvlb
defrog America: where life is on a 'need to know' basis. And we don't need to know where fucking Hungry is, okay? http://tinyurl.com/2txeth
defrog The Clinton/Obama healthcare plans: the same, only different. http://tinyurl.com/2zpdt4
defrog John McCain does not support torture. Unless the CIA does it, then it's cool. http://tinyurl.com/2amjmg
defrog Would Jesus let a woman referee men's basketball? Not in Kansas he wouldn't. http://tinyurl.com/27p8po
The Harold And Kumar thing is particularly interesting. It’s a classic case study of very VERY bad PR management. The Pentagon complains that everyone is unfairly jumping to conclusions about the “reality” of Gitmo, and yet by Gitmo’s very nature – as well as the current admin’s tendency to stage-manage everything it shows us and then be caught lying its collective ass off over and over and over again – the whole operation so secretive that they can’t show people what it’s really like.
This is what happens when you force people to fill in your blanks for you. Here you have the most powerful country in the world and an alleged champion of human rights and due process jailing hundreds of people who are supposedly too dangerous to let go free but somehow not guilty of anything they can actually be charged with, and the govt’s only rationale for this is, “Trust us, we know what we’re doing.”
What other conclusions did they expect the rest of us to draw?
By “us” I’m not including the Fox News camp, obviously.
DISCLAIMER: I’ve never seen Harold And Kumar Go To White Castle. I suspect it’s aimed at a younger demographic, but if any of you recommend it, I might chance it.
It’s about pot, right?
FUN FACT: I could go for a White Castle about now. Maybe they’ll open one here in the next 30 minutes.
Hip to be square,
This is dF
EDITED TO ADD [3 hours later]: After the initial post, I kept thinking about it some more, and it occurred to me that setting a Harold & Kumar movie in Gitmo tells us something about the state of American culture these days. I’m not sure what, exactly, but expressed in the form of a multiple choice question, it might look like this:
Something like that.
I dunno. I doubt the writer-directors are trying to make any political statement as such, but I’m sure when the movie comes out, some people will read too much into what is basically a stoner comedy, and others will complain that it’s making light of a really serious issue. But it’d definitely be a statement of some kind if this movie does more to cause serious debate about Gitmo in America than anything the mainstream news media has ever done about it.
defrog Movie of the year: Harold And Kumar Go Waterboarding. Gitmo say, "That's not funny." H&K say, "Whatever, losers." http://tinyurl.com/2vrvlb
defrog America: where life is on a 'need to know' basis. And we don't need to know where fucking Hungry is, okay? http://tinyurl.com/2txeth
defrog The Clinton/Obama healthcare plans: the same, only different. http://tinyurl.com/2zpdt4
defrog John McCain does not support torture. Unless the CIA does it, then it's cool. http://tinyurl.com/2amjmg
defrog Would Jesus let a woman referee men's basketball? Not in Kansas he wouldn't. http://tinyurl.com/27p8po
The Harold And Kumar thing is particularly interesting. It’s a classic case study of very VERY bad PR management. The Pentagon complains that everyone is unfairly jumping to conclusions about the “reality” of Gitmo, and yet by Gitmo’s very nature – as well as the current admin’s tendency to stage-manage everything it shows us and then be caught lying its collective ass off over and over and over again – the whole operation so secretive that they can’t show people what it’s really like.
This is what happens when you force people to fill in your blanks for you. Here you have the most powerful country in the world and an alleged champion of human rights and due process jailing hundreds of people who are supposedly too dangerous to let go free but somehow not guilty of anything they can actually be charged with, and the govt’s only rationale for this is, “Trust us, we know what we’re doing.”
What other conclusions did they expect the rest of us to draw?
By “us” I’m not including the Fox News camp, obviously.
DISCLAIMER: I’ve never seen Harold And Kumar Go To White Castle. I suspect it’s aimed at a younger demographic, but if any of you recommend it, I might chance it.
It’s about pot, right?
FUN FACT: I could go for a White Castle about now. Maybe they’ll open one here in the next 30 minutes.
Hip to be square,
This is dF
###########
EDITED TO ADD [3 hours later]: After the initial post, I kept thinking about it some more, and it occurred to me that setting a Harold & Kumar movie in Gitmo tells us something about the state of American culture these days. I’m not sure what, exactly, but expressed in the form of a multiple choice question, it might look like this:
A. Despite the efforts of the Bush Admin to suggest otherwise, we are smart enough to know a gulag when we see it.
B. Light comedy is the only way you can ever get us to even notice serious issues (which is why Jon Stewart is a more trusted source of news than real journalists)
C. The Gitmo issue is so trivial to us that you can make light entertainment out of it and we’ll think it’s funny because fuck it, it’s not like we know anyone imprisoned there.
D. Guantanamo Bay? That’s in Florida, right? So it’s like Alcatraz or something?
E. All of the above.
Something like that.
I dunno. I doubt the writer-directors are trying to make any political statement as such, but I’m sure when the movie comes out, some people will read too much into what is basically a stoner comedy, and others will complain that it’s making light of a really serious issue. But it’d definitely be a statement of some kind if this movie does more to cause serious debate about Gitmo in America than anything the mainstream news media has ever done about it.
