One potato, two potato
We went to see "The Matador" last night. It was far better than I expected from Volokh's article "Thumbs Down On The Matador".
After that, we watched American Idol. I thought that it was pretty
funny how eeriely similar Simon Cowell and Pierce Brosnan's character
in that movie seemed to be. I have to wonder what Simon is like after a
few drinks.
Speaking of Simon, perhaps as a British person he hasn't quite yet internalized the American political correctness to instinctively understand not to mock certain approved and designated victim groups, such as cross-dressers and the morbidly obese. Predictably, he is now under fire from gay rights and fat acceptance groups, the latter recycling their eternal talking point of fat being the "last acceptable prejudice". Talk about a self-centered worldview, but this is probably not surprising considering that we are talking about people who can't control their eating but demand that everyone else must fully control their negative attitudes towards them, never letting them show in any way in their real-world actions and revealed preferences.
Especially the fat girl at the end of yesterday's episode was pretty funny, with her narcissistic view of herself being beautiful and fabulous and a good singer, despite everything that the judges said. This is precisely why the Idol-type shows are so very necessary, in fact a strong positive force in our modern society. These shows are desperately needed to burst the massive bubble of narcissism and magical thinking and the common belief among young people that they are something special to be adored and admired by others. No wonder all these rejected contestants seem to cry so sadly and curse afterwards, as if they had been wronged, somebody daring to burst their massively inflated bubble of themselves.
(And since I am talking about narcissism, I really can't recommend enough the excellent article "Education as Magic: Harry Potter and the Culture of Narcissism". The article explains why Harry Potter books are so very popular, since these books are essentially one massive narcissistic fantasy. Not every Christian critique of Harry Potter is stupid, and if you edited out the few critical paragraphs about homosexuality, I doubt that the liberal side would find much to object in this article.)
The most hilarious Idol contestant this season was certainly that one guy who looked like a girl. I guess that now that homosexuals are becoming more accepted, it is time for all kinds of even more oppressed minorities to come forward to claim their place in the sun. (Homosexuals pretty much by definition accept the existence of sexes and sex differences, which makes them too conservative to be edgy enough for today's trailblazing leftism.) When this guy was "narrow-mindedly" rejected, of course, he immediately started complaining that America is "racist", even though he was himself lily-white.
This instinctive slip was actually very revealing. It's funny to see that the American leftists are gradually adopting the Finnish convention of using the word "racist" as a general pejorative to denote strong disapproval, so that for example, "age racist" is somebody who discriminates against old people. (I have yet to see the term "race racist", but I keep waiting for it.) Then again, the English language already has the handy general word "bigot", and I can't at least immediately think of a Finnish equivalent for this word, so perhaps this trend will not be as strong here as it is in Finnish.
Speaking of Simon, perhaps as a British person he hasn't quite yet internalized the American political correctness to instinctively understand not to mock certain approved and designated victim groups, such as cross-dressers and the morbidly obese. Predictably, he is now under fire from gay rights and fat acceptance groups, the latter recycling their eternal talking point of fat being the "last acceptable prejudice". Talk about a self-centered worldview, but this is probably not surprising considering that we are talking about people who can't control their eating but demand that everyone else must fully control their negative attitudes towards them, never letting them show in any way in their real-world actions and revealed preferences.
Especially the fat girl at the end of yesterday's episode was pretty funny, with her narcissistic view of herself being beautiful and fabulous and a good singer, despite everything that the judges said. This is precisely why the Idol-type shows are so very necessary, in fact a strong positive force in our modern society. These shows are desperately needed to burst the massive bubble of narcissism and magical thinking and the common belief among young people that they are something special to be adored and admired by others. No wonder all these rejected contestants seem to cry so sadly and curse afterwards, as if they had been wronged, somebody daring to burst their massively inflated bubble of themselves.
(And since I am talking about narcissism, I really can't recommend enough the excellent article "Education as Magic: Harry Potter and the Culture of Narcissism". The article explains why Harry Potter books are so very popular, since these books are essentially one massive narcissistic fantasy. Not every Christian critique of Harry Potter is stupid, and if you edited out the few critical paragraphs about homosexuality, I doubt that the liberal side would find much to object in this article.)
The most hilarious Idol contestant this season was certainly that one guy who looked like a girl. I guess that now that homosexuals are becoming more accepted, it is time for all kinds of even more oppressed minorities to come forward to claim their place in the sun. (Homosexuals pretty much by definition accept the existence of sexes and sex differences, which makes them too conservative to be edgy enough for today's trailblazing leftism.) When this guy was "narrow-mindedly" rejected, of course, he immediately started complaining that America is "racist", even though he was himself lily-white.
This instinctive slip was actually very revealing. It's funny to see that the American leftists are gradually adopting the Finnish convention of using the word "racist" as a general pejorative to denote strong disapproval, so that for example, "age racist" is somebody who discriminates against old people. (I have yet to see the term "race racist", but I keep waiting for it.) Then again, the English language already has the handy general word "bigot", and I can't at least immediately think of a Finnish equivalent for this word, so perhaps this trend will not be as strong here as it is in Finnish.
Just curious, have you ever come across the hilarious animated work by Don Hertzfeldt, Rejected?
Once again a cartoon to draw the line where humor makes a fork in the road for different people. A total blast.
Posted by Anonymous | 10:30 PM
I know what you mean. I once had an argument on Wikipedia with a guy who wanted to refer to a particular anti-monotheistic writer as a "religious racist".
Posted by Otto Kerner | 11:08 PM
Since you seem to be so interested about the obesity issue, I have to inform you the the Finnish version of 'The Biggest Loser' just began.
The biggest contestor was a man weighting 218kg and there were several females 100-140 kilos. It was quite amusing to see some of those guys wobling from sauna for a swim but naked. No any parts of body blurred.
Posted by Anonymous | 9:40 PM