Classic RITS- Mary's Musings: Ladies in Comedy/Take That, Horatio Sanz

Hey dudes! I've decided to "recycle" (or wait, let's call it "upcycle"; nothing obnoxious about that word) some classic Rip it To Shreds posts. I enjoy rereading them from time to time, and perhaps you will too! Now, a post about Comedy from 2008.

I started to read this Vanity Fair profile of Tina "The New American Sweetheart" Fey, and like three-quarters of the way through it, I realized it was entirely, entirely about the way she looks. She used to be 150 pounds! Ohmygod, so fat! And by "fat', we mean normal but of course that's unacceptable and she'll never be on the cover of VF half-nude! That scar! We have to know! But now she wears low-cut tops and Seven jeans and looks "like a really pretty graduate student!" Not old, guys! Kind of hot! She and Sarah Palin are both "hot librarian" types! Guys, she's smart and funny and PRETTY, did you hear? Inititally she was told she wasn't hot enough to be on SNL, haha! Keep in mind that's a show that featured Horatio Sanz! Then she went to Weight Watchers! Steve Martin used to ignore her but hit on her after she lost weight! That's fun and flattering, right? Not gross that an accomplished, talented writer and comedian can only get attention for being hot, right?

(By the way, Rachael Dratch was supposed to play Jane Krakowski's role on 30 Rock, but was nixed for not being hot enough. Also, whatever happened to Cheri Oteri? Also, is Jimmy Fallon really getting a late night talk show? Really? Is he going to start cracking up at his own weak delivery? Maybe bust out the acoustic guitar and forget some lines? Oooh, I hope Horatio Sanz will be involved. Have we heard from him since that movie with Cuba Gooding Jr. where he pretended to be gay on a cruise ship? Snow Dogs?)

At first, I was like, "Obviously a dude wrote this," but of course it was actually Maureen Dowd, who is one of those weird writers like Camille Paglia who are labeled as feminists but have dubious cred and kind of seem to hate women- Dowd, of course, once accused Al Gore of being so feminine (because he cared about the environment!) that he was "practically lactating." And, of course, Vanity Fair is a totally obnoxious, sexist magazine that I have always hated, long before I actually read the editor's letter about women not being funny. Which I did read, and not that many people seemed to concerned about at the time.

It barely needs to be said that funny women are rarely represented in comedy. Mostly they are the sexy girlfriends who roll their eyes at their hilarious manchild of a boyfriend (hey second coming of Seth Rogan's career), or, if they are in a romantic comedy, or tween comedy, they are the sexy but prat-fall prone hapless moppet, someone charmingly clumsy but with perfect hair. And then, the real female comedians are few and far between, and can rarely match the success of their male counterparts. And, of course, if they do, they are constantly subjected to an in-depth examination of their looks and/or massive amounts of airbrushing.

Anyway, I could go on about how I hate Sarah Silverman's ditzy "I am five years old" delivery (hey, even if you're making a "funny" pose, you're still just posing in Maxim in your underwear) or how we are sadly lacking the salty, older-woman comedy stylings of such luminaries as Phyllis Diller (up there in the yellow) and Joan Rivers, but what I'm really, really trying to say is that Amy Sedaris should be more famous, not only because she is hilarious and unique, but because she is one of the few comedians who actually challenges what it means to be a woman in comedy, and does not rely on being cute or airbrushed to make her point. And, unlike other female comedians who still try to hard to entice their male (and female) fans, she actually makes an effort to fearlessly gross people out, which seems to be one of the number one of- limits topics for female comedians, because it shows that you are more than your boobs and/or your potential hotness. At the same time, Amy does not deny that she is a woman and women are funny; she just celebrates ballsy, overlooked female archetypes in a way that distances her own looks from her characters, at the same time illustrating that women can be just as loud, campy, revolting, sexual, and funny as any other comedian.

PS: If you're not familiar with Amy Sedaris, I'd like to recommend both her TV show, Strangers With Candy, and her book, I Like You, which is a take-off on retro household hints types books. Speaking of which, I am obsessed with retro household hints-type books and will be doing a post on them soon!

Merely a Coincidence????

I guess all this art is inspired by the Marc Ryden school, but as, Hot Topic-y as Marc Ryden's art is, he also seems to be squeezing in some funny references and social commentary amongst the bobble-headed nymphets:

I don't know, it's not like I have a problem with campy or decorative art, and I can appreciate the big-eyed Margaret Keane style homage, but it is just annoying to see all these women making this cookie-cutter, naughty little girl with a twee baby fox stuff. As I mentioned in my post on child actor/models, it seems like we place quite a lot of value on an idealized, barely pubescent body as the perfect canvas for any situation. And also, the heads, they are so big, like those Steve Madden ads or Bratz dolls or every endless copy. We have reached the limits of what big heads can show us, you know? Bring on the tiny heads and huge bodies.

Space Is the Place

How I love the 70's and early 80's space aesthetic: the far-out, alien fortress architecture with its narrow black slices of windows, the colorful pod-like electronics, the laser-y, glowing, jewel-colored geometric interiors of spaceships in sci-fi movies....of course, all the home goods associated with this era are ultra collectible and really expensive. If only the future had really turned out to look like this, instead of really ugly, like it's turning out.

I Have a Dream

Uh, I was planning on putting this MLK Day Google logo up on MLK day this year, but didn't. Just a little reminder from Google of the post-racial society we are now blessed to live in. Let's give ourselves a pat on the back.

Mary's Musings: Ten-year old Steve Martin fans, RomComs are for Losers, etc.

As a kid, I loved comedy. My main favorites were Bill Murray and Steve Martin, whose dry wit I both related to and adored. I was also a fan of John Candy, another comedian I felt I grew up with. I loved The Three Amigos (something tells me this movie would be significantly less watchable as an adult) Ghostbusters, Wayne's World, the non-corny parts of Father of the Bride 1 & 2 and L.A. Story, Twins starring Danny Devito and Arnold Scwarzenagger (I also have my doubts about that one holding up) and the work of Leslie Nielsen. Many of these movie were copied for me from video-store tapes to VHS tapes, and when the FBI warning would flash on the screen I would be terrified, anticipating a team of FBI agents breaking into my home and seizing my copy of Joe Vs. The Volcano as I watched it for the twenty-second time.

The Naked Gun series, as well as Hot Shots 1 & 2 were movies I rushed to see in theaters. My family saw Naked Gun 33 and 1/3 while traveling through Europe. We first chose to see it in England, but the British wouldn't let me see it as a ten year old, though I was with my parents. (Maybe because of the scathing Queen Elizabeth parodies such as this one?) We ended up seeing it in the formerly communist city of Prague, Czechoslovakia, in an extremely Soviet-style, all-cement movie theater. The theater creepily echoed the cement apartment we were staying in, where the lights would shut off if you didn't make it fast enough down the hallway, and at the end of the hallway, we were rewarded with an always ajar-door with red stuff on it leading to the apartment next to ours, where Czech people had violent domestic arguments. These terrifying settings did not spoil my enjoyment of the movie, which I loved. And Anna Nicole was in it, and I thought she was so beautiful. I also selected it as a film to watch at the very last birthday party I remember having, age ten or eleven, a sleepover where I felt alternately embarrassed at the crassness of my selection and annoyance that people weren't watching it.

I also remember when Wayne's World came out. It was really exciting. I was eight, and my mother and I went to see it, but we got there really late and missed the first half, so we stayed in the theater to re-watch it. I later received free or cheap copies of both Wayne's World and the equally excellent Addams Family on VHS from McDonalds as a pack. What a combo!

On a more 90's note, I enjoyed Tommy Boy and the works of Adam Sandler. I loved Ace Ventura, Pet Detective. Saturday Night Live as one and a half hours of pure enjoyment. At the end, when the cast waves goodbye and the credits roll, I would feel a great loss. It seemed extra sad because of the dramatic farewell, and I wished I was up there on that stage with my fellow hilarious castmates, signing off at the end of another great show. I didn't have cable, so there were no reruns. In vain, I would stay up, hoping something good would be on. I usually ended up watching the beginning of Showtime at The Apollo, which didn't really satisfy, just as Soul Train or Professional Wrestling would come on after cartoons and I'd watch it much more out of desperation that enjoyment.

Some of these movies have certainly held up- Bill Murray's Groundhog Day (besides Andy McDowell)/Ghostbusters 1 & 2/What About Bob? type movies are light years better than all his stupid mopey Wes Anderson/Jim Jarmusch/Sofia Coppolla roles. Dumb and Dumber is another I will not hesitate to watch if it happens to be on TV, and obviously the aforementioned Wayne's World and The Addams Family are some of the Greatest Films Ever Made. I still like Seinfeld, a middle-school age obsession neatly fitting in with my other dorky passions.

I think most comedy is really age-appropriate only for a precocious nine-year-old, whereas now the retard tingles you get after watching Michael Cera stammer his way through the same movie for the eighteenth time tend to overwhelm any "funny" aspects the movie promises to contain. Luckily, the trend of wacky sports movie died (Thank god the one starring Andy Samburg bombed) but looking at the comedies still set to be released in 2010, it doesn't look pretty. More romcoms starring Kristen Bell, and then more movies starring Steve Carrell and Paul Rudd as a duo, and then Owen Wilson is the live-action Marmaduke movie. Looks like the studios are taking some crazy, creative chances yet again!

Most comedies are geared toward men. Comedies geared towards women are called "romantic comedies," but they're not really comedies. Romantic comedies are not funny. I'm tired of women on feminist blogs being like, "We have to stop criticizing romantic comedies because they're for and about women. There's no shame in loving romantic comedy. Why aren't people ashamed of action movies instead?" Romantic comedies are insulting to women, that's why. The very format of a pathetic fairy-tale romance combined with the forced wacky hijinks of polite society makes me want to kill myself. They are simultaneously boring and embarrassing. They are almost always about women feeling stupid/ugly/single/uncool/bad about themselves. The women are never crass and funny. I think Tina Fey can be very funny, but to me 30 Rock is just like a romantic comedy- it's about hating herself (Like Chelsea Handler, I often get the feeling Tina Fey actually hates all women.)

The last time I regularly watched romantic comedies was in middle school, when friends would take me to see them. Even then, I cringed. I thought about selecting the The Wedding Singer as a movie to see for my birthday party, but after the final scene, wherein Adam Sandler sings a song called "I Want to Grow Old With You" to a very non-80's looking Drew Barrymore, I was glad I hadn't. It made me uncomfortable to watch such such treacle, and it still does.

Sure, action movies are retarded too, but they are exciting and exhilarating, and not always based on some series of horrible, cutesy, faux pas. I don't know how you can compare an entire yacht blowing up or someone getting stabbed in the face with some girl worrying whether she is too fat for her date with Hugh Grant. Only one of these scenarios should be fulfilling some kind of primal urge.

A lot of these modern, "I Love You, Man" style comedies kind of blur the line between romantic comedies and wacky retard comedies, both because the men in them appear to be in long-term, committed relationships with their male friends, and because they also have to resolve a problem with their nagging but inexplicably hot wives or girlfriends. Plus, they are always talking about their feelings. So many women seem to have embraced these kind of comedies, even laboring under the delusion that the men who star in them are attractive and sexually appealing due to their "comedic" "talents." I recently heard a young woman say she would have sex with Jonah Hill if he asked her to. Do you think, fifteen years ago, a lot of guys would be like, "Hey, she's such a great comedian, I'd have sex with Roseanne, wouldn't you?" Talk about a double standard.I mean, it would be cool if a guy said that in a way the opposite would never, ever be cool.

Also, I know I've been ranting a long time now, but I also am so sick of the faux-documentary style format I want to puke. It had already been perfected with the British The Office, some Christopher Guest movies, and Arrested Development, but, instead of thinking of something new, everyone just jumped on the bandwagon to play out a bunch of third-rate versions until it looks really dated and everyone hates it. I feel like I am the only person on earth to hate Steve Carrel and the U.S. The Office. The last commercial I saw for it promised Jim and Pam or whatever their names are having a baby and they were having a baby special episode! Way to stay true to the dry, realistic, melancholy spirit of the original, American colonialist TV producers!

Needless to say, I also hate Judd Apatow and think he directed all the most sexist, trite parts of Freaks and Geeks, which he wrongfully gets credit for and is the greatest show ever.

In conclusion, it's really hard to find funny comedies, and if you want to get high and watch a retarded comedy you haven't seen, please check out Spring Breakdown, starring Amy Poehler, Rachael Dratch, and Parker Posey, which manages to be feminist without being patronizing (alright, I can't recommend the scenes with Amer Tamblyn, but still, the movie is good.) If you are like, "Why is Jonah Hill in all these movies but these famous, established female comedians can't get their much funnier comedy released?", obviously the answer is the patriarchy, and I guess that is also the answer to the question about why I never watched any female-driven comedies or remember liking an female comedians, but we all know that.

The Future is Here

I'm so tired of this idea (often presented on Jezebel, among other places) that because plastic surgery is a CHOICE women make about their bodies, it therefore is equal to abortion or something and therefore one cannot denigrate it, and to denigrate it is to tell women what to do with their bodies/criticizing their bodies, and therefore patriarchal. Well, isn't anorexia a choice? Isn't hating yourself a choice? Isn't abusing yourself and holding yourself up to a horrifying standard a choice? As Gaby so eloquently put it, "Feminism isn't about choices! No one ever said feminism was about choice!" Choices like these are not made in a vacuum. They are reflective of disturbing, patriarchal cultural practices in our society, which contribute to an eerily futuristic and homogenized idea of beauty, marketability, femininity, and value. It is women caving into these demands, and it's fucking scary and horrifying.

I understand that some cosmetic surgery is supposed to be more culturally acceptable- ie, having a nose job if you have a prominent nose, but we have to understand these surgeries also do not spring from nowhere. We must remember it was our culture that made you feel bad about your nose, not the nose itself. Before there were mirrors, people barely had any idea what they looked like.

How ridiculous that Jessica Simpson has that TV show "The Price of Beauty" where she is supposed to be pointing out how twisted and weird the world's beauty practices are, when she and others spend their time having massive amounts of unnecessary surgery, having plastic balloons and rubber pieces inserted in their bodies, having flesh carved or sucked out of them, having skin pulled back and sewn back into another place, and being injected with fluids and chemicals? Like, take a step back, people! It's not okay, it's not a stylistic choice like your haircut or anything like the choice to have an abortion, and it isn't equivalent to what plastic surgery was designed for, which is for people with actual deformities/disabilities/etc. We shouldn't encourage a society where this is the standard. It is wrong. Period.