probing buffoonery

Today Sacha Baron Cohen’s hotly anticipated Borat follow-up, Bruno, lands in American theaters, based on Baron Cohen’s gay Austrian fashionista character, originally conceived alongside Borat on Da Ali G Show.  Bruno feels like one of those films that’s been coming down the pipe for a good long while, largely due to the headlines and jumbo paydays it generated when first greenlit, and partly because – in making the film – Baron Cohen found his hidden-camera gags frequently splashed across newspapers across the country.  For better for worse, his popularity has become its own impediment: he no longer has the anonymity necessary to carry off these characters.  No matter, after this final of the three films, Baron Cohen plans to pack away his beloved trio of buffoons, reputedly forever.

Regardless, reviews for the film have been positive, for the most part.  I’m a huge fan of Da Ali G Show, and have been since seeing the bulk of the episodes on HBO.  Without question, I think the movie looks hysterical, and plan to see it.  Most of all, though, I find Sacha Baron Cohen to be a phenomenally talented comic actor, reminiscent of a young Peter Sellers.  I’ll be enormously curious to see what dynamic and exciting directions his career takes once he retires his trademark characters.

I preface the following comments with that heap of praise for good reason, though.  Watching trailers for Bruno, and following the slow burn of controversy that’s accompanied the film’s release, I can’t help but find a large amount of fascination in the undercurrents of confusion the film’s release has awoken.  There are so many layers of complex, overlapping, ever-changing cultural sensitivity in American society; it’s hard to know whether to laugh at the prancing gay stereotype, or be righteously and genuinely appalled by it. 

I suppose the fundamental question is this: are we so evolved now in our attitudes toward gays and lesbians that we can laugh at the jokes again?  More importantly, is Baron Cohen deconstructing old attitudes of sexual paranoia, or perpetuating them?  I really don’t know the answer.  I’m merely offering up the question.     

And yes, I get that Bruno’s supposed to be outrageous and outlandish.  I get that it’s designed to offend.  If I’m not horrified, they haven’t accomplished their purpose.  I get all of that.  Still, offending your audience isn’t hard, especially when dabbling in the lewd and scatological, and especially when trading in very old cultural jokes and archetypes.  That doesn’t mean that Bruno’s shtick is without value, though – quite the contrary.  Baron Cohen’s material is always funny.

But the Bruno character and the film’s all-but-inevitable huge opening weekend grosses demonstrate that – despite all their recent civil rights victories – gays remain a safe subject for mockery in our pop culture.  There’s stigma to it, but a meek, subtle, slow-developing one. 

So let’s shift context a little.  Imagine if Baron Cohen dressed in blackface and performed a minstrel show, chomping watermelons and dancing.  How would that be received?  Even with a veneer of satire, the stereotyping would be gross, unacceptable, right?

I guess that’s the part that gives me pause: the creators of the film employ these same dusty old gay jokes in the service of what’s often vindicated as being pure, even groundbreaking “satire.”  It’s this part that makes me bristle a bit.  Is Bruno really satire?  Was Borat?  The gag – for those that are in on it, which is the few, I think, rather than the bulk, which is part of my concern – is that Baron Cohen’s characters elicit bigoted reactions from ordinary everyday Americans, revealing our pent-up prejudice.  The problem is, when you watch the films, unlike the show, there’s very little of that going on.  The majority of the laughs come from the antics of the characters themselves. 

And when surrounding witnesses react, the effect ends up coming off something like this: we identify in some way with their reactions, because the characters confronting them – Bruno, Borat, Ali G – are breaching social mores in deeply transgressive ways, in ways sure to offend, regardless of prejudice.  Think of our hero lugging his bag of feces to the supper table in Borat.  Again, it’s funny as hell, but is it satire?  If the filmmakers have to stretch and strain in such ways, does this still qualify as deep, incisive, culturally revelatory stuff?  We don’t come out of the films reflecting on American culture and its xenophobias; we come out giggling about the eccentric, silly characters and their foul behavior.  Sure, Bruno is hilarious, and it pokes fun at our culture, but is it reaching for the level of commentary that satire requires?

I think that’s the nub of the issue for me.  Too often low-brow humor masquerades as satire, when it’s not, when the makers are trying to put an arty, urbane gloss on their feat.  By no means am I saying Bruno shouldn’t have been made, nor am I discouraging anyone from seeing it.  As I said before, I plan to see it myself.  But I do have a troubled feeling somehow, not a huge glacier of concern, just a small nagging sense.  If we call Bruno satire, we’re undermining the power of genuine satire, cheapening the word itself and the intent of such efforts, and given the swirl of controversy over gay marriage, Prop 8 and the like, perhaps doing it at our moment of greatest need.

jacko lives!

“No warmth, no breath shall testify thou livest;

The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade

To wanny ashes, thy eyes’ windows fall

Like death when he shuts up the day of life;

Each part, deprived of supple government,

Shall, stiff and stark and cold, appear like death.

And in this borrowed likeness of shrunk death

Thou shalt continue two-and-forty hours,

And then awake as from a pleasant sleep.”

                                                                   -Romeo & Juliet

                                                                     4.1.98-106

This morning at 8AM PST, Michael Jackson will be laid to rest in the Forest Lawn Cemetery in LA’s Hollywood Hills.  At 10AM the real extravaganza begins, complete with a massive media circus to commence at the Staples Center in downtown.  There 1.6 million fans have competed for 17,500 tickets to a glitzy, star-studded memorial service that will spill over into the nearby Nokia Center, and simulcast over two jumbotrons, and presumably to a sea of television networks and live cable feeds.  But after all the pomp and hoopla, the King of Pop’s epic journey will finally reach its end.

Or will it?

Don’t all these details – the strange death, the oh-so-perfect timing of it all – seem a little uncanny?  Why haven’t we seen more pictures of the body?  Why does Jacko’s family look so giddy and lightsome in their public appearances?  Why can’t anyone produce a consistent explanation of MJ’s demise?  Is it possible that…?

Yes.  Oh yes.

You heard us right, friends. 

If there’s anything we here at A Farther Room love, it’s putting you right smack at the fore of a brand spankin’ new conspiracy theory.  So don’t for a second believe that Michael is gone, cuz he’s very much alive.  What we’re witnessing here is the greatest hoax ever perpetuated on the American public.

And when I say Michael is alive, I don’t mean “alive in our hearts,” or some happy crappy like that.  I mean MJ is alive and kickin’, moonwalkin’ and breathing, laughing somewhere over the fact that he finally escaped the white-hot watchful eyes of his lifelong overlord, that ever cruel and sadistic mistress, Madam Media.

Consider the evidence:

Exhibit A: The Death Photo

We’ve all seen the infamous death shot, snapped by a conveniently-placed paparazzi as MJ was dragged from his LA rental on a paramedic’s stretcher.  The lucky photog made a handsome 500k for the shot, and it’s since graced web browsers and magazine covers all over the planet. 

But take a closer look at the photo.

Is that the Jacko we’ve seen in recent years?  To my eye, the skin’s… well, blacker, less bleached and hideously pale, the nose not quite as thin or surgically mutilated.  Is it possible we’re looking at a cunningly doctored old-school snapshot of Jackson?  The case turns curiouser and curiouser when you compare it to this classic pic of Michael in his beloved hyperbaric chamber, culled from the pages of People magazine more than a decade ago. 

The body on that stretcher in the first picture, the body loaded into the ambulance and swept away to UCLA Medical Center, it wasn’t MJ, if there even was a body.  That scandalous photo is a shoddy mock-up, based on an older shot.  Phase one of the death hoax.

Exhibit B: The Corpse Rises

After Jackson was pronounced dead in Westwood and grieving fans mobbed the hospital in an impenetrable ring, authorities decided to chopper out the pop star’s body for immediate inspection by the coroner.  But feast your peepers on this shocking video footage! 

Keep a close eye on the shrouded corpse in the background. 

As soon as they clear the roof, it sits up!!!  Did Michael or his post-mortem impersonator get antsy playing possum in the helicopter?

Exhibit C: Jacko the Prankster

Jackson was a well-known media agitator, a lifelong martyr to the fiercesome appetites of the public.  But he was also a renowned prankster, obsessed with Elvis and the swirling legendry of the King’s continuing underground life.  He often donned masks and ducked paparazzi, and bedecked his kids with silly disguises.

But don’t take my word for it.  Here’s Lou Ferrigno, he of Muscle Beach and The Incredible Hulk fame, waxing on about MJ the trickster to the hosts of Good Day LA.

Catch the part about how Michael used to dress a mannequin double of himself and load it into the back of ambulances to draw away paparazzi?  Would it be so far afield for him to stage his own death to deflect their interests now?  

Damning revelations straight from the mouth of a Jackson confidante!  Thanks, Lou!

Exhibit D: Theoretical or Heretical?

Jackson had evolved into a recluse in recent years, fostering in isolated seclusion his delusions of persecution at the hands of the public and the press.  We know he didn’t want to perform the sold-out string of shows at O2 Arena in London, but felt too deeply indebted to avoid it.  We know also that the promoters and hypsters at AEG had hired doctors and trainers for Michael, pumped the shows to within an inch of life.  We know they were willing to wring Jackson for profits at virtually any cost. 

In the dwindling weeks of life, Michael had, according to reports, expressed a lack of enthusiasm about returning to the stage, even going as far as to voice a fear that he might be murdered by debtors, creditors, and associated ruffians.  The MJ brand was big business, but Michael wanted out.  Still, he couldn’t voice that.  Why?  Because there’d be repercussions.

Is it so much to believe that the King of Pop, lover of magic and illusion, staged one final vanishing act?  Why did the doctor on the scene at his LA home, who tried to “revive” him, not call 9-1-1 but rather leave it to others?  Why did he flee the scene when Michael “died?”  Why did he then avoid authorities and contact an attorney? 

Why aren’t there more photos of the deceased Jackson?  And why did his family look so jaunty in the aftermath of the demise? 

Sure, we’ve seen his kids mourning publicly and seemingly realistically, but had we ever seen them without their masks and disguises before?  Who’s to say these little apple-cheeked tikes aren’t cleverly cast child actors, hired to play the role of MJ’s elusive, teary-eyed angels?

Exhibit the Last: Sightings

Michael Jackson has performed the impossible – escaped a mountain of debt and his own fading artistic zeal.  He’s wedged his way into the musical firmament of gone-too-soon giants like Elvis and Lennon, and in doing so, choreographed his own denouement.  Best of all, he’s cunningly earned himself a rest-of-life vacation, traveling the world with only whimsy and whim as his guide, recreating his physicality and persona in longed-for anonymity, far from the prying eyes of journalists and fans alike. 

Take it from these reports – he’s already been sighted fleeing to Mexico!    

Thanks to the sleuths over at MichaelJacksonHoaxDeath.com, as well as James St. James over at the Wow Report.  Don’t ever stop searching, fellas!

The King of Pop has taken to the wind.  Jacko lives!

here’s how I spared our planet for future generations

People of earth!  This very evening I took the first step toward saving our planet and ending humanity’s cruel epidemic of overconsumption! 

While performing a routine weekly grocery shopping errand at the local Von’s supermarket, I decided against joining my fellow mankind in its ruthless and wasteful campaign of environmental degradation by carrying into the supermarket my very own over-the-shoulder canvas grocery conveyance.  This allowed me to accomplish several purposes: 1) I spared the use of one landfill-clogging, climate-changing plastic and/or brown paper bag (possibly more, depending on my checker’s bagging skillz), and 2) I was able to peruse food items in the store with my handy, reusable, eco-friendly bag fully on display, amply demonstrating to fellow shoppers my affection for Mother Earth, and hence my inherent moral superiority. 

Do you still rely on earth-murdering plastic grocery bags?  I hope not.  Because if so… God, what’s the matter with you?  Don’t you care about anything other than yourself?!? 

In addition, I used my Von’s Club card, ensuring the maximum bang for my grocery-buying buck, because if there’s one thing I love as much as rescuing our environment, it’s great savings.

mislaid millions

Now… where did I put that million dollars cash? 

Right, right – the mattress.

Incredible story over at CNN, concerning a Tel Aviv woman – named in Israeli media only as Annat, presumably to protect her anonymity – who went shopping early Sunday morning, hoping to surprise her elderly mother with a new mattress.  She made the purchase, and on Monday, schlepped it home while the mother was out, dumping the old, ratty one they’d had for years in a downstairs dumpster. 

The elderly mother returned home Monday evening to behold the gift, and promptly unveiled a startling revelation.  For years she’d been stuffing the innards of her old mattress with cash for safekeeping.  At the time it was tossed the mattress contained her entire life savings: a million bucks cash.      

Annat rushed downstairs to discover a garbage truck had already carried off the prize.  She contacted the management of Tel Aviv’s two major dumps and notified them of the million-dollar mattress.  They dispatched their staffs to scour the landfills, but by Tuesday, the story had leaked to the media. 

Treasure hunters swarmed the dumps, some aiding Annat in her search, presumably anticipating a generous prize; others apparently hoping to claim the $1 million for themselves.  As of this writing, the mattress remains unrecovered, the cool mil moldering away in a heap of trash someplace.

And what’s Mom got to say about all this?  Amidst all the chaos and hustle, Annat alleges her mother, displaying that calm fortitude of old age, shrugged off the loss, saying only, “The heart is crying, but you know, we could have been in a car accident or had a terminal disease.  It’s a very, very sad story, but I’ve been through worse.”

semanticals: capital jay

“When times are serious, you make silly jokes.  And when times are silly, you make serious jokes.  But you always want to have jokes.”

    -Jay Leno, signing off as host of The Tonight Show, May 29, 2009

sole survivor

Yesterday morning, a 97 year-old British woman by the name of Millvina Dean died of pneumonia in a Southhampton nursing home.  She had lived a modest, quiet life as a resident in the nearby town of New Forest.  She never took a husband or bore children.  She attended secretarial school as a young woman and served as a mapmaker for the British Army during World War II.  Yet one fact ensured her place in the history books: at the time of her death yesterday, she was the last remaining survivor of the Titanic.

Dean’s mother carried eight week-old Millvina onto the decks of the doomed ocean liner on April 10, 1912.  Her mother Georgetta, aged 32, and father, Bertram, aged 27, boarded the ship as third-class passengers, bearing Millvina, and her brother, also Bertram, just shy of two years-old.  Dean’s young parents had recently sold their pub in London in hopes of venturing to New York, and from there traveling on to Kansas City to open a tobacco shop. 

In the dark hours after midnight on April 15, 1912, Betram was woken from his sleep by the impact of that fateful iceberg on the ship’s hull.  He hurried onto the vast upper deck of the Titanic, where he spied water gushing into the hull.  He rousted his wife and children, instructed them to dress warmly, and immediately delivered them to ship’s lifeboats.  They were separated from Millvina’s brother in the resulting chaos.  Per custom, Millvina’s father stayed aboard the Titanic.  He went down with the ship and perished in the icy waters of the North Atlantic.

Once aboard the rescue vessel, Carpathia, Georgetta finally located her young son in the crowd.  They sailed among the other survivors to New York, where the trio spent several weeks recovering in a hospital before returning to England aboard the Adriatic.  Georgetta took the young children to live with her parents for a time.  She suffered frequent and mysterious headaches for years after the wreck.

According to her own testimonials, Millvina grew up hearing tales of the sinking, of that terrifying night on the water.  Only late in the life, however, did she go public with the full details of what she’d been told.  In the 1990’s Millvina became a staple at historical gatherings and Titanic events.  In 1998, a wealthy Titanic enthusiast invited her to sail once again from South Hampton to New York.  Millvina arrived safely to the eastern US, and then traveled to Kansas City, where she visited the small house that was to have become her family’s new home in 1912.

In recent years, Dean fell into poor health.  She auctioned off her Titanic mementos to pay for medical care.  When she became seriously ill, actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, stars of the film Titanic, heard of her circumstances and donated generously to provide top-notch medical care.  Oscar-winning director James Cameron donated $32,000 to the Millvina Fund, designed to buy back the memorabilia she’d sold in recent years. 

Dean’s death yesterday, falling on the ninety-eighth anniversary of the Titanic’s first launching in 1911, made headlines around the world.

semanticals: swoony for cloooney

“At some point in our lifetime, gay marriage won’t be an issue, and everyone who stood against this civil right will look as outdated as George Wallace standing on the school steps, keeping James Wood from entering the University of Alabama because he was black.”

                                         -George Clooney, commenting on Prop. 8 

dollars and sense

Wow, what a news day yesterday.  Enough to keep your finger poised over that “refresh” button.  In the very early morning PST, Obama announced his first pick for the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor.  By ten AM, the state Supreme Court announced their split decision in the first – and likely last – major legal challenge to Prop 8, ruling that the 18,000 gay and lesbian couple who wed while it was legal to do so will have their marriages recognized, despite the court’s upholding the controversial proposition.

And somewhere in the mix, the state’s head-hanging economic quandary caught the attention of the NY Times’ Paul Krugman, whose column dissected the sorry fix of California’s finances, laying out what has become a now familiar recitation of our circumstances.  As Krugman points out, California’s revenue stream has been choked ever since the 1978 passage of Prop. 13, which froze property taxes and put a stranglehold on the state’s finances, forcing leaders to hike income taxes higher and higher, thus, according to many, creating an inhospitable climate for new business and general economic growth.  And because further tax increases in the legislature require a two-thirds vote – again, thanks to our broken proposition system – state Democrats and Republicans remain at perennial loggerheads over whether to increase tax rates or slash spending, neither of which the state’s voters finds palatable, but both of which – in the eyes of virtually every reasonable observer – are necessary to square up our finances.

And there’s a fascinating thread of intersection between all these stories.  Obama’s Sotomayor pick is an encouraging one: she’s an empathetic and progressive thinker, without being overtly ideological.  And yet the California state Supreme Court ruling demonstrates the limits of judicial power.  Without proper precedent, the argument of gay rights attorneys – that Prop. 8 represented a significant revision to the state Constitution, one that must be filtered first through the legislature before going to a popular vote – could not, in the eyes of the court, stand.

The major Prop. 8 proponents are religious organizations.  By even the most generous estimations, it’s virtually impossible to make a case against gay marriage without falling back on the circular logic of religious dogma.  So why not drag the issue out of the realm of philosophical discussion and focus instead on an important secondary facet: the simple dollars and cents of it?  We should legalize gay marriage for the tax revenue alone.  Think of all those marriage licenses, not to mention the secondary sources of stimulus – ceremony venues, restaurants and catering, clothing, and on and on. 

I’ve made this case before on this blog, but why are we suffocating a growth industry that could rack up millions, even lure a whole new strata of affluent taxpayers to the state?  This solution won’t generate the sort of sums needed to fix our spending gap, but what a windfall that whole equal rights gig might generate.  A little more cash in the bank makes for a win-win all around.

the cub in winter

Oh, this left me tickled.  From Bill Munutaglio’s Newsweek piece “The Afterlife of George W. Bush:”

Patrick Bibb, a 19-year old from Dallas, glanced at his cell phone.  He was in the middle of his economics class at Texas Christian University on a February morning.  His caller ID read WITHHELD.  He decided not to answer.  When class ended, he checked his message and found that George W. Bush had been trying to reach him.

The sophomore listened to the voicemail.  He heard the former President of the United States thank him at least four times.  Bush was happy that the teenager had been selling WELCOME HOME, GEORGE & LAURA signs for $20 to people all over Bush’s neighborhood in Texas.  ‘I hope this message is sufficient’ to show appreciation, Bibb heard Bush say.  Bibb dutifully listened, hung up and went to his other classes. 

Bibb, a budding entrepreneur, had decided to make and sell the signs after he learned that the former president would be moving close to his parents’ house.  The placards went up all around the exclusive Preston Hollow neighborhood in North Dallas, which is studded with homes worth $5 million to $20 million.  Bibb used some of the profits to pay his tuition and decided to donate the rest to a nearby elementary school. 

He settled into accounting class.  His phone rang again.  Bibb decided to pick up.  ‘Excuse me, I need to go talk to the president,’ Bibb wisecracked to his pal as he left the room.  It was Bush again. 

He began thanking Bibb, repeatedly, for making the signs.  Bibb listened patiently.  He didn’t mean to be rude, but he finally said: ’I'm really sorry, Mr. President.  I’m in the middle of class.’  He needed to get off the phone.  Bush replied: ‘No problem, that’s where you’re supposed to be.’        

Ahhh, poor ol Georgie.  Has he got a case of the post-presidential doldrums?  Remember when it seemed there would be such a buzz of activity once he left the White House?  Wasn’t he going to rack up gazillions traveling hither and yon to address any crowd that would cough up the dough?  And what about his purported literary endeavors?  Or can’t Tony Blair stop in for a cookout?  And what ever became of all that Crawford brush that so urgently needed clearing back he was wading our nation into war?   

Then again, maybe we should be thankful that Dubya’s relaxed into domestic anonymity.  After all, we’ve got the flip-side in Cheney, who’s tromping across the land, running his yap, peddling his dusty lies, disgracing the legacy of White House retirees, embarrassing himself by still hawking a debunked and retrograde agenda of thuggery.

Maybe we should thank our stars and garters for young Patrick Bibb.  At least he’s keeping one of these wackos occupied.

idle to idol

This evening the American Idol season finale arrives at last, airing live from Los Angeles’ new Nokia Center.  Part one took place last night, when the two remaining contestants, emo-glam rocker Adam Lambert squared off with Southern acoustic rock heart-throb Kris Allen.  The winner’s slated to be crowned tonight in a two hour-plus extravaganza.  You read that right.  Two hours.  The running time of the Idol finale is fast approaching Oscar night proportions.

Now I’m going to request we skip the part of the conversation where we all pretend we’re not American Idol fans.  Don’t worry, this is a safe zone .  You’re among friends.  Our interactions here are based on honesty, so c’mon, come clean now.  You’re a huge fan.  No need to look around in mock confusion, attesting to having never seen an episode of the show, much less one this season.  We’re skipping that entirely.  

You love American Idol, and you know you do.  You can name every Idol from season’s past.  You know this year’s contestants by heart and can probably dissertate at length about their best performances of the season.  

Don’t be ashamed any longer.  You watch Idol; I watch Idol; everyone in damn America watches Idol.  The country hasn’t had such a guilty pleasure like this since Perfect Strangers went off the air.

The reason I bring this up is because – as I’m CERTAIN you already know – the odds-on favorite for tonight is a little unique among the pantheon of Idol contestants.  Here’s the poorly kept secret: frontrunner Adam is gay.  

Now sure, there have been gay contestants before.  The difference with Adam is that he doesn’t appear to give a shit who knows about it.  Pictures of him – with past boyfriends, dressed in drag, frequenting gay clubs – have surfaced left and right – Lambert’s done nothing to stop it.  Still, the fact has remained unmentioned on the show thusfar.  But you better believe there’s been a messload of code being talked on that stage.  No doubt it’s got the Fox execs doing their share of worming and squirming.

All of which brings me around to my point.  Wouldn’t it great if, after winning tonight, Adam stands up there, streamers falling, lights blazing, crowd cheering, grins to the camera and declares, “Your new American Idol is gay!”

If ever there was a cultural moment for such a stunt, this is it.  Hell, even Iowa has legalized gay marriage.  Red-staters are ready to embrace gay America, a slow-to-develop fact reflected in the steady and inexorable creep of acceptance that’s increasingly trickling into opinion polling.  What young people could use now is the right kind of role model.  I don’t want to foist the task on Lambert, but in the end, there is no platform in media quite like American Idol.

C’mon, Adam, you’re destined for super-stardom no matter the controversy.  How about treating us to the biggest coming-out party in human history?