A Note to Lindy West: You’re Not Helping

Poor Lindy West.

No, no. It’s just that as much as I sympathize with feminist issues, her whine—along with the rest of society’s apparent shock and horror—about Seth MacFarlane’s performance as host of the Oscars just doesn’t sit right.

West’s rant at Jezebel, titled, “Sexism Fatigue: When Seth MacFarlane Is a Complete Ass and You Don’t Even Notice”, is the sort of thing that really doesn’t help anyone or anything:

A strange thing happened on Sunday night when I watched Seth MacFarlane joke that Zero Dark Thirty is a movie about how bitches be naggin’, and listened to him croon about how lovely Jodie Foster’s naked boobs looked mid-simulated-gang-rape. I felt…nothing. Just nothing. Nothing beyond exhaustion and an extreme desire for wine, anyway. I wasn’t happy about it, but compared to what I was expecting from MacFarlane, it was a yawn. Compared to the sheer volume of hate and misogyny I filter every day for my job, it was a sneeze.

So I wrote happy jokes about other stuff instead. I bowed out, essentially. And I was thrilled to read and disseminate smart takedowns of MacFarlane’s primetime misogyny on Monday morning, letting other people do the heavy lifting that I was too fatigued to engage with. Because this fatigue—it’s really something.

My struggle as a feminist and a critic isn’t to contain my outrage—it’s to remind myself to feel anything at all.

This fatigue is self-induced. There’s no other way to put it: You’re doing it to yourself, Lindy!

Apparently Renny Harlin was busy?

In the largest deal ever made to shit out a movie, Warner Bros. and director Michael Bay announced a landmark $50 million agreement this week to monumentally fuck up ThunderCats.

“I couldn’t be more excited to completely fuck this up,” said Bay, who plans to begin production on destroying the live-action adaptation next month. “ThunderCats has a great story, endearing characters, action, adventure, space-travel, and fantasy. It will be an honor to run it into the ground.”

“I’ll use every directorial tool I have to suck the very life and charm out of this beloved cartoon,” added Bay, claiming that the film could turn out to be the most colossal piece of shit he’s ever worked on. “I won’t rest until I get every last scene exactly wrong.”

According to executives, Warner Bros. settled on Bay after a 12-month search of Hollywood’s most reviled directors, including Joel Schumacher, Roland Emmerich, and Brett Ratner. In the end, the studio decided only Bay could be relied upon to deliver a 220-minute cinematic clusterfuck with enough tedious performances, overblown cinematography, and CGI explosions to make even the most casual fan want to scratch their eyes out.

Via The Onion, of course.

What? I just wanted to make a Renny Harlin joke.

Joe the Plumber used to be satire

If you haven’t seen this one, you’re even farther out of the loop than I am.

LIMA, OH — Roy Shybinski, an uneducated 33-year-old forklift operator from Lima, is making final preparations for his national radio address tomorrow on The Rush Limbaugh Show. Shybinski, who has been “waiting a long time to speak my mind” … will speak to an expected audience of 32 million when he calls Limbaugh’s radio program shortly after 1 p.m. EST.

Now, if you’re wondering what that means—

—that was from 1993.

National disaster

Just a little sad humor for those still looking with hopeful eyes to November and January:

Hold on, America. We’re almost there. And I hope we’ve learned our lesson this time.

What? One can dream, right?

(Thanks of course to the good folks at The Onion, and a tip of the hat to Kelly O. at Slog.)