THE PLANK MAY 11, 2009
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Ah, the Weekly Standard parody, quintessence of comedy:
President Barack Obama has announced that June will be officially designated Gay Awareness Month in the White House.... "Our fellow LGBT citizens have traveled a long and difficult road," said President Obama, in a statement, "but let it never be said that the struggle for equality and dignity, in the bedroom as well as the workplace--or in the bathhouse, or both--can ever truly be considered to be over."
Festivities will begin on Monday, June 22, with an inter-faith/intra-species prayer service to mark the 40th anniversary of the death of entertainer Judy Garland. Pastor Ted Haggard and the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire, will jointly preside over the service, and there will be performances by k.d. lang and diver Greg Louganis in the White House pool....
These discussions will begin with a selection of readings from [A Separate Peace] by novelist Edmund White, followed by an interpretive dance, created by diet guru Richard Simmons, based on the death of Finny.
What struck me most about this was not that it was offensive, or stupid, or unfunny, though it was all of those things. It was that whoever wrote it--the parodies are anonymous, for obvious reasons--has barely reloaded his (or her) stock of anti-gay stereotypes for well over a decade. Judy Garland? Richard Simmons? C'mon, guys. Culture, like politics, moves on, and a successful bigot has to stay current.
Update: Fixed typo. That was, of course, "bathhouse," not "bathouse."
--Christopher Orr
22 comments
What? No appearances by Larry Craig or Mark Foley?
- cspencef
May 11, 2009 at 2:29pm
For Republicans, it is always their great wish to live forever in a 1983 Conservative Frat house.
Calling that a parody does injustice to the word. That is just freakin sad.
- blackton
May 11, 2009 at 2:35pm
Reverence for all cultural "icons" from the age of Reagen. WWRD?
- jemerk
May 11, 2009 at 2:43pm
Did Dick Cheney write that? He's the only person I can think of who is old enough and lame enough to be that unfunny.
- phatkarp
May 11, 2009 at 2:44pm
I'm going to quibble very slightly with Christopher about his use of the word "offensive." The only thing offensive about the content of the "parody" itself was the inclusion of the word "intraspecies." Equating homosexuality with bestiality is offensive on its face, and in all circumstances, simply because animals are incapable of giving consent to a human sexual partner, making that practice always a form of rape. Calling an entire class of people rapists is necessarily offensive. But that's it as far as actual content-based offensiveness goes. The rest of the piece is offensive only as a result of its stupidity -- because of its execution, not its content.
I mean, really, Greg Louganis? Yeah, the man's gay. But he also won four gold medals for the United States in two Olympic Games, including a pair he won after competing through a serious concussion in the preliminaries. I'm acquainted well enough with the staff of TWS to know for a certainty that whichever of the junior staffers wrote this has never done as much for the glory and honor of his country as Greg Louganis has. So the offensiveness comes both in terms of some Kirchickian pipsqueak wrapping himself in the flag of traditional values to denigrate a fellow citizen who's done more than has the writer to uphold traditional notions of patriotism, and in terms of assuming that we, the readers, are so stupid that we'd find this funny. I understand that committed adherence to movement conservatism requires a degree of diminished mental capacity, but even by the lessened intellectual standards inherent in contemporary conservatism, this piece insults the audience's intelligence.
- rhubarbs
May 11, 2009 at 2:58pm
I think that PJ O'Rourke wrote that, directly from his 1983 Conservative Frat House-themed den.
- wildboy
May 11, 2009 at 2:59pm
Didn't John Knowles write "A Separate Peace?" Am I missing something? Is there a joke here? Are we sure this is supposed to be comedy and not some sort of experimental alternate realty fiction?
- ratnerstar
May 11, 2009 at 3:01pm
I thought Ted Haggard had been cured of his gayness.
- mghogwild
May 11, 2009 at 3:08pm
Oh, I get it ... Edmund White will be DOING the reading. Now it all makes sense! Except it's still not funny.
- ratnerstar
May 11, 2009 at 3:12pm
I've wondered about conservative "humor" for some time, in the wake of the Half Hour Comedy Hour and other like-minded dreck. As best I can determine, the entire formula for comedy in the conservative mind is as follows:
Democrats/Liberals/Environmentalists/Minorities/Elites = Ugly/Stupid/Lazy/Gay/Snobbish/Unpatriotic leads to Uncontrolled Hilarity.
That's it. That's all they've got.
- Brent
May 11, 2009 at 3:48pm
Given that interpretive dances are of ancient origin and feature (and sometimes very significantly) in most world cultures, why does the author believe they have anything particularly to do with homosexuality?
- ironyroad
May 11, 2009 at 3:52pm
Most world cultures are gay, irony. If they were hetero, they'd be American cultures, right?
- ratnerstar
May 11, 2009 at 3:58pm
Richard Simmons is gay? Shocked, shocked.
Well, Madonna is the new Garland, and Judy had already been supplanted, first by Babs the Nose and then the great Bette by 1983, so I think that the vintage of the writer - or the writer's inspiration - is even less recent than that. I mean, Liza had already surpassed her mother as a gay icon when Cabaret came out. This is a pipsqueak who was raised by his grandfather in a dank basement, no doubt wanking off to soiled 1950s Playboys he found in the back of the closet.
And, "intraspecies"? WTF? I mean, I know Republicans regularly fuck the dog when it comes to ethics and probity and stuff, but "intraspecies"?
- icarusr
May 11, 2009 at 4:40pm
Dudes, seriously? I feel the same way about this "parody" that I felt about that wretched film "White Chicks" that came out a few years ago. About a third of the way into creating it, someone just needed to step back, say "Nope, this is just not working out" and pull the plug. Because that? Is just sad.
- drdannyu
May 11, 2009 at 5:13pm
Ratty, the impeccability of your logic is both aesthetically invigorating and philosophically akin to pouring a glass of chilled Moet Chandon over my tonsils on a balcony overlooking the harbor in Marseilles on a warm summer's evening.
- ironyroad
May 11, 2009 at 5:16pm
Irony: I always suspected that you were a closet Frenchman. Or, a pieds noires. (Marseilles? Really?)
I prefer Ruinart; far less gay than Moet.
- icarusr
May 11, 2009 at 5:38pm
"Ratty, the impeccability of your logic is both aesthetically invigorating and philosophically akin to pouring a glass of chilled Moet Chandon over my tonsils on a balcony overlooking the harbor in Marseilles on a warm summer's evening."
george:
Don't be alarmed fellow Planksters, this is just Irony's comedic take on Jay Leno impersonating Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonating Bill Crystal impersonating Rush Limbaugh impersonating himself.
And liberals will always be comforted by the fact that merely mentioning "The Weekly Standard" elicits howls of laughter from 10 out of 9 American citizens.
gw
- iambiguous
May 11, 2009 at 5:53pm
They should hire Amy "I-don't-mean-gay-like-homosexual-I-mean-gay-like-retarded" Silverman. At least a 20% chance of funny in any given riff.
- gwolfjr
May 11, 2009 at 5:57pm
Ratty -- I have to confess, not overlooking the harbor. Poetic license. More like, a block or two from Bd. d'Athène and a good ten minutes walk from the harbor. But I live in TN.
Ruinart? Less gay, eh. Really? The company's introductory statement
"During many generations, the Ruinart house has cultivated excellence as a lifestyle."
begs to differ.
- ironyroad
May 11, 2009 at 6:21pm
Oh sorry ick -- I just realized that was you above, and not ratty.
- ironyroad
May 11, 2009 at 9:29pm
Irony - to be mistaken for Ratty is a compliment.
As for Ruinart vs. Moët ... I pose this line from the Moët "Advertising Campaign": "Moët and Chaondon has been the symbol of fabulous celebrations for two hundred and sixty years ... the Champange of fabulous celebrations of romance ...."
Not just one but TWO "fabulous celebrations". I mean, the only thing with more "gay tendencies" than this is Lindsey Graham. In a pink tutu.
- icarusr
May 11, 2009 at 10:46pm
Firstly, ick, my feeling is that we should leave Lindsey out of this. If you're thinking of that particular evening, he wasn't feeling well and I'm sure he regrets the way he spoke to you. To be honest, I think you need to move on. Secondly, as far as Moët goes, just because one has an 'ë' in one's name, one should not be the target of groundless rumors.
- ironyroad
May 12, 2009 at 12:43am