Sunday, September 17, 2006

Today's Political Stridency

In response to some recent political-type postings here, Christopher Cook sent me a message that included the following sentence: "Now if we can only get Bush fanny smoochers like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh to take off their rose-colored glasses as well."

That would be nice but I think it's a waste of perfectly good hope. If an act makes you rich and famous — and all prominent pundits are to some extent doing an act — you don't change it. I hear people ask, "Why does Ann Coulter say such things?" Answer: Because saying such things has made her a ton of money. She says what she says and she sells books, she gets on TV shows to plug those books, she gets talked about (which sells more books) and her speaking fees go way up. Moreover, when she gives those speeches, a certain kind of person packs the place and cheers her on and tells her she's the salvation of capital-D Democracy.

So why should she change? What exactly is her incentive to not demonize Liberals?

She may even believe some or most of what she says. Years ago, I produced a TV special with a bunch of professional wrestlers — Roddy Piper, Hulk Hogan, Cap'n Lou Albano — and I learned a number of interesting things about their line of work. One was that while the blood feuds and personal hatreds may have been scripted, there was a tendency for them to become real. Roddy Piper (a very smart man, by the way) told me how the "scenario" would designate that his ring character had a particular hate on for a certain wrestler. It was phony at the start but after weeks of living the scenario and playing it and having arenas full of fans cheer him for beating the crap out of that certain wrestler, it was hard not to really hate the guy. Or maybe he said it was just easier to find reasons to really hate him.

I don't think the problem in our national discourse is really Rush or Sean or Ann or even anyone of the opposite stripe who gets as shrill and devoid of facts as they do. I think the problem is the tabloid nature of cable news and talk radio, glorifying anger and extremism, faulting no one for occasionally distorting the truth. There's fame and money in it and maybe even a certain feeling of power. You may feel that in the same situation, you'd retain your sense of balance and fairness and be able to admit when your side is wrong, as all sides occasionally are. But I think it helps to acknowledge that not everyone can or would. Hannity and Limbaugh will stop smooching Bush fanny if and when they decide it no longer bolsters their careers...and not a minute before.

• Posted at 3:58 PM · LINK

Recommended Reading

Former G.O.P.-Congressman-turned-annoying-MSNBC-host Joe Scarborough suggests that Republican candidates who are running this year run as fast and as far as they can from George W. Bush.

Also in The Washington Post is this news story by Rajiv Chandrasekaran which says (basically) that one of the reasons the Iraq War has gone so poorly for us is that the Bush administration picked its officials based on blind loyalty to Bush rather than on, say, competence. Stories like this are why Scarborough may be right.

• Posted at 10:13 AM · LINK

P.S.

Perhaps because I'm hungover — yeah, that's a good excuse — I neglected to mention that Jerry Beck is the co-brewmaster of the must-visit animation website, Cartoon Brew. I often think of something I should post here about cartoons. Then I see that Jerry and his partner, Amid Amidi, have beaten me to it...so I don't.

Amid has two new publications out that I would wholeheartedly recommend to anyone interested in cartooning. Cartoon Modern is a new book that spotlights, with wonderful examples, the UPA/modern/retro (call it what you will) style that many dabbled in during the fifties. Animation was moving away from the ornate Disney look and hadn't yet encountered the spartan, very-little-moves era of Hanna-Barbera or of runaway productions done in Mexico for twenty pesos. During that time, some amazing work was done with, as I think I mentioned in the obit on Ed Benedict here, artists getting more expression out of simpler drawings. Great to look at, great to learn from. You can order a copy of Cartoon Modern from the Amazon empire by clicking here.

Amid also sent me the new issue of Animation Blast, which is his magazine of 'toon history and wonderment. There are many fine articles in this one and you can preview them on this page or just trust me and order a copy by clicking here. While you're at it, check out the remaining back issues. Not all are available and the ones that are won't be for long.

I mean all this even though I am still a bit loopy. In fact, as I sit here at my computer, I'm still afraid that the police will pull me over and arrest me on a B.W.L. — blogging while loopy — and toss me in a cell with Mel Gibson and Paris Hilton.

• Posted at 2:42 AM · LINK

Comin' At Ya!

Lemme tell you about Jerry Beck and why we need one. We need one because people who run film studios usually can't see very far...usually not past this year's budget and what they have to do to costs down. They can't see into the past either, often being shamefully unaware of their studio's heritage. They are incapable of imagining that people would pay good money to see some of that stuff...that is, assuming the negative hasn't rotted or been lost because some previous studio head didn't want to spend sufficient money on preservation. In the area of animation, it is often necessary to call in someone like Jerry Beck and ask them, "What do we own?" and even, in this era of home video, "What can we do with it?" Sometimes, Jerry also has to help them track down viewable copies. We all get to see a lot of classic animation these days, in theaters and on DVD, because of Jerry.

Yesterday afternoon, he pulled together a minor miracle...a major one if you love 3-D animation. He arranged at this year's 3-D Film Fest in Hollywood, a screening of all (I think all) of the 3-D animated theatrical shorts. For technical and contractual reasons, this has never before been possible and it may never be possible again. A sell-out crowd of cartoon buffs packed the Egyptian Theater, put on the funny glasses and watched the two 3-D cartoons Disney made, the two from Paramount, the one from Warner Brothers, the one Woody Woodpecker, etc. It was about ninety minutes total and included some surprises such as a bizarre, inexplicable thing called The Adventures of Sam Space that starred stop-motion puppets that all had voices by Paul Frees.

It was all fascinating and expertly presented, with Dan Symmes and Jerry hosting and the two projectors necessary running flawlessly in sync. (Did you know it takes two projectors to run one 3-D movie? I didn't.) Oh, the Casper cartoon — Boo Moon — was kind of lame...but hey, it was in 3-D. They say the best cartoons appeal to audiences on different levels. Well, 3-D cartoons all have different levels. If you don't like what's happening in the foreground, you can always look at the background or just sit there and wait for something to fly off the screen and into your face.

So was there anything that didn't work for me? Yes! The 3-D didn't work for me. It made me loopy and more than a little sleepy and I probably didn't see the depth effects as well as I should have. I've been blessed with excellent vision but I found out yesterday it's somehow incompatible with 3-D motion pictures...or at least it is now. These were the first ones I'd seen in over 25 years if you don't count the MuppetVision presentation at Disney World in Florida. That worked for me and the 3-D epics I viewed a quarter-century ago worked for me...but the parade of shorts at the Egyptian literally put me to sleep twice and made me identify with the title of the Woody Woodpecker short they ran, which was called Hypnotic Hick. That was me. At intermission, I was staggering about like Otis the Town Drunk and when I got home, following a lovely post-screening dinner across the street at the Musso & Frank Grill, I fell into bed and slept four hours. I'm not sure but I think in my dreams, people kept throwing things at me.

I enjoyed the afternoon tremendously, especially the delight of the local animation community gathering together for such a historic event, and I'm glad I was there. But earlier in the day, I spoke with Alice Maltin (wife of Leonard) and she told me they'd sat through four 3-D movies at the festival and the next morning, she woke up with a hangover. Never having imbibed, I don't know quite what a hangover feels like but I wouldn't be surprised if it feels a lot like I do right now.

• Posted at 2:16 AM · LINK

Recommended Reading

Here are the first two paragraphs from Frank Rich's weekend column for The New York Times...

Rarely has a television network presented a more perfectly matched double feature. President Bush's 9/11 address on Monday night interrupted ABC's Path to 9/11 so seamlessly that a single network disclaimer served them both: For dramatic and narrative purposes, the movie contains fictionalized scenes, composite and representative characters and dialogue, as well as time compression.

No kidding: The Path to 9/11 was false from the opening scene, when it put Mohamed Atta both in the wrong airport (Boston instead of Portland, Me.) and on the wrong airline (American instead of USAirways). It took Mr. Bush but a few paragraphs to warm up to his first fictionalization for dramatic purposes: his renewed pledge that we would not distinguish between the terrorists and those who harbor or support them. Only days earlier, the White House sat idly by while our ally Pakistan surrendered to Islamic militants in its northwest frontier, signing a truce and releasing Al Qaeda prisoners. Not only will Pakistan continue to harbor terrorists, Osama bin Laden probably among them, but it will do so without a peep from Mr. Bush.

The entire column can be read here if you're a subscriber to TimesSelect. If not, you're either out of luck or you'll have to find one of the many websites that repost Rich's columns in full.

• Posted at 1:28 AM · LINK