Perhaps bonghits will fix my social consciousness

[substitute]

I was talking to eyeteeth earlier who asked a pertinent question about the last heat-inspired rage festival I'd posted. The question (paraphrased) was: If you don't like pseudo-ironic bigotry, why do you like jerkcity, when it's all about gaybashing, misogyny, and similar tasteless crap?

Matters of taste are hard to dispute, and matters of bad taste doubly so, but I'll try.

I think Jerkcity appeals to me because the characters are weak, unhappy, embarrassed losers who keep saying and doing the wrong thing. They're all like Charlie Brown to me. As I think it was Pants once said, OH MY GOD THIS IS WAY TOO PERSONAL WHERE IS THE BACKSPACE?

Also, my objection to pseudo-ironic bullshit blaxploitation and midget shows is that the people who do this believe they're above actually being bigoted twits and that this is somehow an airy Post-Neo-Deconstructionist commentary. The Jerkcity guys just seem to be really high and later on to be terribly hung over and worried what happened, which is at once less mean and more realistic. T QUENTIN FECHEZ LA TEXTE I MEAN LA VACHE OH FUCK THOSE WERE MY GOOD DIAPERS

Watching some upper middle class kids wear fake afros and sing "Shaft" on stage or seeing the midget cohost on the extreme sports show feels to me like watching someone kick a dog and laugh. Reading Jerkcity makes me feel like watching someone who has had 8 shots of tequila and thinks he *is* his dog, and then later hearing him tell the story of that night.

Does this make sense? If not, please explain and/or clarify.

also: THE POO SHOULD BE SCARED

Comments

[brianenigma.livejournal.com]

T IGNATZ THE POO CHUTE SHOULD BE SACRED

[wabmart.livejournal.com]

Charlie Brown never resorted to misogyny or homophobia to make himself feel better. He just took life's anal rape like a boy.

I dunno

[rpkrajewski.livejournal.com]

I would cut Tarantino a little slack, if only for Jackie Brown. Pam Grier was a goddess in that movie, probably the best role she's ever had, and how often does a women over 35 get that in most American movies these days ? Jackie Brown is so unlike any QT-wanna-be-product that spewed out post-1995 that when my friend and I saw it, we were thinking, "Jeez, this is practically a chick flick !"

As far as Jerkcity goes, it's worth maybe one read for the bumper-car ride of quasi-transgression and abject despair. Like, yay !

The real theme underlying both Jerkcity and a lot of gangsta-and-after rap-influenced pop culture is that all hipsters are now supposed to be able to chuckle over the use of prison culture as the subject for humor, and a big part of that is male/male sex as a tool of domination. It's been mainstreamed to the point where people can say things like "so-and-so is my biatch" and not get much of a reproach.

Re: I dunno

[effluvia.livejournal.com]

I agree with you about Tarantino. I think he is genuinely in awe of the blaxploitation genre, its style and its characters. I see his stuff as more of a send up. Not ironic at all.

Also, I lovev Pam Grier so much and have ever since I saw Foxy Brown. Any filmmaker who casts her as the lead in a slick Hollywood movie is okay with me.

[flipzagging.livejournal.com]

Let's get back to the what irony is supposed to mean... not what Alanis Morisette thinks, but what Mrs. Veeblefiltzer said in 5th grade: to say one thing and mean another.

Jerkcity says "hey, we are gangsta / gay / satryicon-level decadent" but then main action is thwarted due to some basic failure to communicate or socialize or understand the world beyond computer geek things.

Not the same as the usual pseudo-irony our culture is awash in, where you say one offensive thing and pretend you didn't mean it.

If that beer commercial with the wrestling lesbians (http://www2.commercialcloset.org/cgi-bin/iowa/portrayals.html?record=1128) had been written by Jerkcity, the guys in the bar would have lost control of their fantasy, the fantasy-lesbians would have upset everyone in the restaurant by talking about their vaginal discharges, then one of the guys would have gotten furious at the other for screwing everything up again, loudly proclaim "UNFRIENDING YOU FROM MY LIVEJOURNAL FOREVER" and finally one of them would sheepishly admit he only gets into lesbian fantasies due to his penchant for being penetrated by dildos.

[stimps.livejournal.com]

That is seriously the best attempt at explaining Jerkcity that I have ever read. It's too hard to explain to anyone if they don't "get" it.

TOTALLY SIGNING YOUR GUESTBOOK HERE

[flipzagging.livejournal.com]

T STIMPS SPENT MUCH TIME CONFERRING WITH MASTER'S THESIS ADVISOR

OK ACTUALLY DICKLICKING

[frobisher.livejournal.com]

I've always felt that jerkcity was more surreal than ironic.

"I HAVE HAD A SEIZURE" "I THINK I WIN THEN"