Tag Archives: satire

Shame Day: Your Fave Is Problematic

Writing “Shame Days” is harder than it looks. You gotta find a subject that’s extensive enough to merit an entire post of ranting without it being so reprehensible as to leave you speechless (Scott Lively, you satanic **********er, I’m looking at you). With that in mind, and as it’s rapidly approaching 9:00 PM as I write these words, we’re going to revisit an old subject that I personally don’t think got the lashing they deserve.

So who’s being drawn and quartered today?

It was in the title of this piece, so I guess the question’s pretty dang redundant.

“Your Fave is Problematic” is a Tumblr blog devoted, much like these Shame Day posts, to calling out celebrities and artists who the authors view as having committed bigotry in some form or another. Evan and I have both briefly touched on these guys, with us generally concluding that while noble in intent, they tend to be a bit extreme in their measures of what is and isn’t acceptable. Evan specifically stated that “I truly believe that Your Fave Is Problematic is doing a good thing”, however, after myself digging through their blog a bit more, I really just can’t say the same.

These guys are *******es.

Let me break it down here. Continue reading

Fame Day: Kroll Show

goodjobkrollI’ve just started watching Kroll Show (named for its star and creator, comedian Nick Kroll) recently but it’s already risen to the top of my list in terms of TV- so much so that I’ll be taking this Fame Day to recommend it to you.

Now in concept alone, Kroll Show isn’t anything new. Each episode is comprised of skits (interspersed lightly with commentary from Kroll and his comic co-stars) riffing on television, with reality TV taking the brunt of the riffs. You’ve probably seen this done before in less successful enterprises or recognize it as roughly 50-85% of all Seth McFarlane jokes.

Continue reading

Steve Taylor (Is Coming Back)

Since joining the blog in June of 2012 (yes, it’s been over a year now and yes, the romance is dead), I’ve often made reference to a mysterious musical figure by the name of “Steve Taylor”.

With the end of Year 2 fast approaching, I figure it’s about time I actually explain who this guy was.

Other than a man with impeccable taste in clothing…

Continue reading

CWR’s Halloween Movie Recommendations

I don’t usually celebrate Halloween readers. Honestly, I don’t celebrate any holiday, if I can help it, May Day being the sole exception.

Nevertheless, we’re always trying to expand our horizons here at Culture War Reporters, and hope that you might be trying the same. To help us both get into the psychotically commercialized spirit of the season (baby steps, people, baby steps), here’s our recommendations for your scary viewing pleasure.

The Mothman Prophecies

I’d honestly be surprised if you had heard of this one. 2002’s The Mothman Prophecies wasn’t a big enough hit or a bad enough flop to gain either fame or notoriety. Regardless of it’s mediocre performance at the box office, I think The Mothman Prophecies is probably one of the most underrated horror/thriller flicks out there. The story follows a journalist John Klein (played by Richard Gere), who in the wake of car accident in which his wife is injured and eventually dies, alternatively hunts and is haunted by a strange, otherworldly presence acting as a harbinger of doom. In a refreshing break from your run of the mill guts-and-gore flick, The Mothman Prophecies forgoes violence in favor of a tense, surreal atmosphere far more disturbing than anything that could actually be shown. If you’re a Twin Peaks or X-Files fan, you’ll probably get a kick out of this one. Continue reading

“The Sincerity Wars” or “Hitler Did Nothing Wrong”

Not too long ago, Evan did a Shame Day about 4chan’s semi-joking attempt to wreck a Taylor Swift radio contest by getting some random 39-year-old voted rated as Swifts “biggest fan”. The original post declaring 4Chan’s intentions stated that “Charles Z.” was only in it for a chance to “sniff Swift’s hair” (I can’t speculate on whether or not that’s meant to be a joke) and that it was a chance to crush the dreams of thousands of “whiny teeny boppers.” The campaign was overwhelmingly successful. Charles Z. shot to the first place with a mile-wide margin and the radio station wound up cancelling the whole event.

In spite of Evan’s comments that this was generally a lousy move and a tacit endorsement of sexual harassment, I’m going to have to disagree with him. Firstly, I’m not taking the whole “hair-sniffing” thing as being all that serious, and secondly, I don’t think this really had much of anything to do with Charles Z. or even Taylor Swift for that matter.

It was about sincerity. Continue reading

Shame Day: Todd Kincannon

There’s an old supposedly Scottish proverb that goes,

“The only reason some people are alive is because is because it is illegal to kill them.”

toddkincannon

This is perhaps truer of no one than former South Carolina Republican Party
executive director Todd Kincannon.

Now you’re probably all saying “Whoa there! Ain’t that more than a little harsh?

To which I respond: no.

This is a guy so twisted I feel perfectly comfortable with slapping the label “evil” on him and not losing a moment’s peace of mind. Let me break it down for you.

This guy makes Rush Limbaugh (the guy who came out in support of the genocidal, child-rapist “Lord’s Resistance Army” terrorist group in the Congo) look like Gandhi by comparison. Here’s what Kincannon posted regarding Trayvon Martin during the Superbowl:

And just to be sure there was no confusion as to his meaning, Kincannon continued on to post this:

Yeah, I’m going to give you all a moment to try to wrap your head around just how vile of a thing that was.

Ready?

Well, we’re moving on anyways.

Now I could spend the entire post breaking down Kincannon’s assumption that some high school kid gunned down by a gung-ho neighborhood watchman was a “thug” or that had he grown up, he inevitably would’ve resorted to “sucking dick” for “drug money,” but there’s oh so much more still to see!

Kincannon’s spent the past few days attacking Iraq war veteran Mike Prysner for his views on recently deceased Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, offering such reasonable and level-headed comments as:

https://twitter.com/ToddKincannon/status/315693128914989056

And:

https://twitter.com/ToddKincannon/status/315697254180728832

Again, it’s kind of hard for me to feel guilty about my statement above when it has to compete with even the mildest of things this guy has to say.

https://twitter.com/ToddKincannon/status/315571885620473856

https://twitter.com/ToddKincannon/status/315673713553059841

https://twitter.com/ToddKincannon/status/315677582668468225

https://twitter.com/ToddKincannon/status/316410543760084992

What makes it all worse is that when this guy is confronted over his statements, he resorts to “free speech” arguments to evade any responsibility. He is correct in that he has the freedom to say whatever he so chooses, just as I have the freedom to stick forks in my own eyes or kick a grizzly bear- just because I have the right to do something doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do. As far as trying to play off his statements.

In one interview, Kincannon out rightly stated that “If you say something that’s borderline offensive or if it is offensive, the people that attack you and say just the awfulest [sic] things about you, they do the very thing that they accuse you of.”

Evan does try to keep the blog relatively profanity-free, but this was really the only gif I could find that quite captured the feeling…

For anyone wondering, that’s the equivalent of punching a guy and calling him a hypocrite when he punches you back. But there’s more to it than just that.

Even if Kincannon truly does believe he’s nothing more than a witty prankster, he does have a following and his statements do get reactions out of people, including such gems as:

https://twitter.com/lrindl/status/315698741858426881

So we’ve effectively jumped from “This vet deserves to have died for holding political views I disagree with” to “every soldier who has come back alive is a coward and a disgrace to the fatherland.”

Again, if this is all some elaborate prank being played by Kincannon, we can’t ignore that it’s not being taken to lightly by his followers. I don’t think J.D. Salinger should be blamed because a nutcases took Catcher in the Rye to be code for “Kill John Lennon,” but when most everyone reading your work is coming away with homophobic, racist, sexist, and generally reprehensible messages, it’s time to rethink your medium.

https://twitter.com/BlakeHarllee/status/316427102201184257

If Kincannon’s playing some prank. Between you and me, I don’t think this is all that funny:

https://twitter.com/ToddKincannon/status/316410079152857089

What’s there left to say?

Todd Kincannon, you are an evil human being. Shame on you.

Evan, if there was ever a time to break Culture War Reporter’s no-profanity rule, it is now