The Bitter Cup

..but funny is a required component here at HumorFeed and Check, Please!, and with that in mind, allow me to nominate the five best comedy/satire movies of 2007 (links lead to reviews on RottenTomatoes.com):

Superbad
Juno
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
Charlie Wilson's War
The Simpsons Movie

In true awards season fashion, The Bitter Cup award for best comedy/satire movie of 2007 will be announced later this month! And stay tuned for other nominations for performers, TV shows, and books later this month...

I wonder how it happened?

Go to IMDB, and check out the list of movies this guy's done. It includes The Perfect Storm, The Aviator, The Hours, Dark Water, Magnolia, Boogie Nights, Gangs of New York, The Thin Red Line ... this guy's a serious ac-tor.

If you dig, you can find a hint of comedy in more than 15 years of movie work - a part in Never Been Kissed, another in Anger Management.

But something's happened over the last couple of years. Of his (currently scheduled) five movies coming out in 2008, three are comedies. He was, arguably, the funniest thing going in Talladega Nights (especially in comparison to warmed-over Will Ferrill).

And now, he's the star of one of 2007's most highly praised comedies, Walk Hard. That would be John C. Reilly, and if anyone's seen or read an interview that explains how or why he's moving so strongly into the business of making people laugh, I'd love to know about it.

Satire and fake news (interchangeable terms for most people, though they're not the same thing) have become increasingly popular forms of social commentary. Well-written stories trade on their plausibility - absurd enough to catch the eye, but plausible enough not to be dismissed out of hand. It may be a bad sign, however, when 'serious' media feel a need to preface surprising headlines with a "non-satire disclaimer". Uruknet.info, a site dedicated to news about 'occupied Iraq', reports a surprising decision by the Swedish courts determining that Iraq is not under armed conflict. The headline is preceded by a large "* * * NOT SATIRE * * *" notice. Have we done our job too well? Will other media outlets follow suit (or will they be uncertain whether they can make the claim)?

Labels: fake news, iraq, media commentary, satire

Satirical persona Stephen Colbert is unabashedly self-aggrandizing, mimicking the art of punditry so well that he makes the real articles look pale in comparison. It was, therefore (in hindsight) almost inevitable that the self-anointed great man would answer America's 'call for a hero' - a call which only his superior hearing can make out! - and run for President, at least on the South Carolina ballot.

Most people seem amused by the notion of a comedian entering the race for president, though most also seem to feel that he cannot possibly harm the dignity and sanctity of the process since it is already trailing along in the mud, on various levels. However what makes Colbert a dangerous candidate is the same thing that makes him a dangerous talk-show host: his utter lack of hypocrisy. He embraces the absurd, takes the most alarming doctrines of the right and pursues them to their 'logical' conclusions. Where most public figures gloss over inconsistencies in their positions or unpopular issues, Colbert charges forth, ostensibly blind to all but the beautiful music of his own drummer.

The Colbert Report is first-class satire in the truest sense of the term (as opposed to the amusing, but less trenchant parodies of The Daily Show) and it is a treat to see the man himself enter an already surreal ring at the peak of his powers. Whatever happens in South Carolina, it is sure to be interesting.

Labels: presidential election, satire, South Carolina, Stephen Colbert

It seems incredible, but New Zealand has actually voted to ban media outlets from using images of Parliament for satirical purposes. What's more, the vote was not even close (it was 111 to 6). Most New Zealanders apparently think this is a bad idea, and most journalists as well. It never bodes well when a government tries to take control over its public image to this extent; controlling satire is just a step towards controlling media coverage in general.

However despite the headlines screaming "Parliament bans satire!" it should be noted that the MPs here are talking about images being taken out of context, a favorite tactic of today's media in search of a better/more interesting reality. This isn't a ban on written expression (yet). However, it's a bad precedent, and one destined to be ineffectual to boot. One wonders just how many photoshopped images of New Zealand MPs will pop up on the internet in the coming weeks; they're just asking for it.

(Thanks to our comrades at Brainsnap for the tip.)

Labels: censorship, new zealand, parliament, satire

We have long cast a jaundiced eye at the mainstream media's tendency to fall for fake stories. A recent example of poor reporting has become even more complicated, thanks to a lawsuit.

In April, content omnivore Associated Content, which accepts contributions of all kinds, printed a story by Nicholas Plagman about a supposed "hate crime" involving Muslim students and a sandwich. The problem is, the spurious article cited a real school and a real school administrator, who got enormous amounts of flack after the ever-vigilant Fox News reported the story as fact. Now, the administrator is suing Fox News for the damage their reporting caused his reputation.

There's plenty of blame to hand around here. Fox News of course completely failed in its duty as a mainstream media outlet to double-check their story. But, although it is somewhat painful to admit, in this case the circumstances may have been somewhat mitigating. Plagman submitted his satire news story as a real news article to Associated Content, a site which disseminates both real and parodic material. Consequently the normal 'tells' indicating that a site may not be reliable (e.g., it is called Broken Newz or The Specious Report) weren't there. And the use of a specific school administrator suggests some malice on the part of Mr. Plagman.

Fox News is getting the lawsuit, because it has the deep pockets to pay up and because it has a higher standard to meet. But there are real questions about the role of AC, which has since engaged in a frenzy of self-reflection in an effort to understand what the fraudulent submission means for its generally friendly and devoted community. The strength of this site is its open submission policy, which works fine and dandy unless someone gets cute with the facts. The problem is that in appearance and focus, AC seems to emulate a legitimate news aggregator. It carries legitimate news. Unless it figures out a better way to sort through and present its original content, it will remain vulnerable to the whims of unscrupulous posters with the potential to do real damage to real people.

Labels: Associated Content, Fox News, lawsuit, satire

When Alaskan highschooler Joseph Frederick decided to garner a bit of notoreity with a banner declaring "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" during a school event, he was almost surely daring the principal to do something about it. Do something she did, and after a long and winding road, the Supreme Court has agreed with her, citing the inappropriate use of pro-drug language.

Is it a drug-related case? Chief Justice Roberts and the majority insisted that it was, but Justice Stevens allows the students a little more credit than this:

"Admittedly, some high school students (including those who use drugs) are dumb. Most students, however, do not shed their brains at the schoolhouse gate, and most students know dumb advocacy when they see it. The notion that the message on this banner would actually persuade either the average student or even the dumbest one to change his or her behavior is most implausible." (Morse v. Frederick (No. 06-278) Stevens, J., dissenting, slip op. at 12).

Stevens (like the ACLU, Center for Individual Rights, National Coalition Against Censorship, American Center for Law and Justice, and the Rutherford Institute) thinks this is a free speech issue, not a drug issue. The fact that many conservative Christian groups agree, fearing precedent for censorship of religious messages, would seem to support this. He points out that no reasonable high school student would interpret this nonsensical banner as a serious call to toke up. It is the mere presence of the word "bong," in point of fact, which underlies the entire crux of the school's case. It's alarming when any word is considered so dangerous that it's not acceptable to use it even in a humorous context. Frederick may have been poking fun at the school, but it's disheartening that the Supreme Court didn't get the joke.

Labels: Bong Hits 4 Jesus, free speech, Supreme Court