‘Selling Out is a Bad Thing’ and Other Absurd Cliches
by Cam Cannon“You made a movie about pimps and there ain’t no black people in it? I don’t know whether to slap you or kiss your face.”
Eddie Murphy said something like that to Ron Howard on SNL back when Howard was making the transition from Opie Cunningham to big-time Hollywood auteur. And now I know how Mr. Murphy feels: Fox has green-lit a sitcom called “Rednecks.”
When I saw the title, I winced, then thought, “I wish I could write for that show.” This illustrates the relationship I have with stereotypes and character-based clichés; I keep them at an arms length embrace. It thrilled me to see white trash characters north of the Mason-Dixon line in “Gone Baby Gone.” But you change the accents, swap Boston, MA for Austell, GA, and I’ll act offended while secretly admitting the portrayal is dead-on. “Rednecks” it turns out, is set in Buffalo, NY. Let the head-scratching ensue.
Stereotypes are to artists as idiots are to the Obama administration – i.e., they’re both useful. But both can bring down their respective masters. Here’s a bottom to top list of stereotypes and clichéd bullsh*t I’m ready to see retired.
5. The Angry Black Man: Once Ice Cube starred in a series of family movies, this cliché came to a screeching halt. Not that I think Ice Cube is a sell-out…on the contrary…
4. Selling Out: U2’s a sell-out, Sam Raimi’s a sell-out, Sean Penn’s a sell-out…good for them. I’d jump at the chance to sell-the-hell-out. All of these guys are doing what they’re doing so that wouldn’t have to work at a Dublin Brewery, or a Detroit assembly line, or…I dunno. A friend of mine said, “I used to like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but after ‘Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magik’, they sold out.” Funny. I knew folks in 1991 who thought the Chili Peppers were sell-outs BECAUSE of that album, and now it’s their defining album. And for what it’s worth, there’s nothing wrong with working at a Dublin brewery, a Detroit assembly line, or…I dunno.
3. The Left-Wing Documentary: Really, I thought the trailer for “Food, Inc.” was fascinating, right up to the part when an interviewee said, “They’ve made it illegal to…” and a picture of George W. Bush flashed up on screen. After that, all I heard was “blah, blah, blah.”
2. Getting Offended: I laughed at most of the anti-Bush propaganda. The closest I came to getting offended by any of it was when I saw a kid at Ivanhoe Elementary School in trendy Silver Lake/Los Feliz wearing a shirt that read “I hated Bush Before It was Cool.” And now, the jOker poster. I thought we were supposed to be the stodgy prudes, but no, the left has their panties in a twist. Suck it up, you panty-waists! I’m gonna pour sugar on your feet to keep the ants from eating up your candy asses.
1. The Bitter Ex-Jock: This one’s close to my heart. Nerds/geeks/dorks/dweebs have this fantasy that they will one day be rich, that the jocks who torment them will be stuck in [insert Podunk town here] lamenting the glory days. The nerd will move to L.A. or New York, and will return to [insert Podunk town here] to rub it in the jock’s face. The whole premise of the Ryan Reynolds smarm-fest “Just Friends” was based on this cliche. I was a nerd/geek/dork/dweeb. I moved from Powder Springs, Georgia to Los Angeles. Well a funny thing happened for me on the way to L.A., and that’s that I realized (a) the Podunk town ain’t so bad, and (b) the jocks were probably right to pick on me. We nerds/geeks/dorks/dweebs are often a bunch of intolerable know-it-alls, especially in packs (see, Nerdis Gras, also known as Comic-Con).
I remember a moment when me and a jock in my high school really connected, because he liked the Beastie Boys as much as I did. “What do you like about them?” I asked feverishly, without giving him a chance to answer, “I like that they take the hip hop culture and infuse it with the suburban punk rock aesthetic.” He said, “I like listening to it in my car while I have sex,” high fiving his friends on the way out the door. Undaunted, I countered, “You didn’t really answer my question!” He returned, gave me a swirly, a wet willy, and a wedgie, at which point I considered the conversation closed.
Don’t get me wrong, nerds/geeks/dorks/dweebs… I am you, and you are me. Sometimes jocks dig Star Wars too; they just don’t feel the need to pontificate about it while dressed like a Tatooine farm boy.
Doing that will and should get you slapped on any number of systems.
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83 Comments
Great insights Cam
I think there is a relatively new absurd stereotype that will soon be old and tired in the new teen movies. That is the cool "gay' guy who hangs out with the smart "nerds" (I guess 'cause neither one is supposed to get girls?-whatever) who is always wise in the ways of how to get women (sensilvity doncha know) who for some reason never seems to actually go out with gay guys or do anything "gay" because he's the cool "gay" guy and doesn't freak the mundanes.
I can't help imagining that this is not the reality.
I really think people who use the term "redneck" should research where it came from. Hint – West Virginia
I apologize for all the swirlys, wet willies, and a wedgies I have ever given.
Hint: Union Coal Miners
Apology refused, but don't take it personally. A full set of K-12 public school hell has built up a massive amount of nerd rage in me. I was at a community concert event last week when some fat geezer called me Harry Potter and I nearly clocked the jerk right there.
Luckily I had enough sense about me not to. I waited until later that night and then popped out from behind his car with a shovel.
Nice. So the Democrats, in essence, are trying to insult Southerners by calling them union members.
The movie "Broadcast News" has a great scene at the start where the nerdy overachiever (who grows up to be Albert Brooks' character) gets roughed up by two jocks after giving the valedictorian speech. Infuriated, he delivers the most devastating put-down he can come up with: "You…you…you're never going to make more than $17,000 a year!" As they walk away, one jock says to the other, "$17,000 a year, huh? That sounds pretty good." Heh. ..bruce..
Food Inc. is actually a proponent of Free Market Capitalism. (though they probably don't realize it) They even say in the trailer that the people have the power to change things because we decide what to buy and what not to buy.
Only a Free Market Capitalist system truly gives power to the people. The doc also blasts government subsidies. Big time. But again they probably didn't realize they were advocating the free market.
Zing.
While on the one hand as a Southerner I can sort-of take pleasure in the fact that the Last Acceptable Bigotry has been expanded north of the Mason-Dixon Line, I'm afraid that the nasty inverse is what's really going on: the Libscists are using the ugly old Hillbilly/KKK/toothless moron stereotype to demonize any and everyone who falls outside the coastal-urban lefty elite paradigm.. After all, it was John Murtha who called his own Penna constituents rednecks, and the Garofa-skank used the word against protestors in — Chicago.
You realize by apologizing you peg yourself as the Jock in "I love yiou Beth Cooper" who after being publicly accused of being mean becuase his father molested him becmes the "geeks" best friend and protector because "How Did he Know"
Oh yeah if your in the military and saw combat then when you come back you do meth and date high school chicks 'cause you have no life and evidently the military never does random drug tests.
There's no tact you can take that geeks that write movies can't turn on you. You gave them a swirly and now must pay.
But the leftist artists their the ones that *gag* "Keep it Real"
Did you then induct him into your Vampire Clan
Testing your nerd factor here………………..
My favorite new stereotype are the "Incompetent white criminals" featured so prominently in the Brinks (now Broadview!) Security commercials who are too stupid to wait for the occupants to leave the house before kicking in the front (!) door to gain entry. The Geico cavemen have been out of the trees longer than these slack-jawed yokels.
Justice will be served by a long-suffering, ever patient African American lady judge- my other favorite stereotype.
Real geeks who leave high school don't go back to their home town to find the jocks that called them names and show them up.
They are too worried how to keep thier businesses afloat while dealing with cap and trade.
Then again real loser jocks that stay in their home towns and become truck drivers are not trying to regain their glory days. They are too busy worrying about how to keep their jobs.
Hmmm………….. Obama is bringing people together after all!
I'm a cartoonist. Trust me- southerners, particularly of the religious variety, are the few remaining acceptable foils in humor. Most humorists are pussies. Even the "edgy" ones. ESPECIALLY the "edgy" ones.
First, I have to get this off my chest: I hate how in Star Wars they use "system" and "planet" interchangeably. You can be on a planet, but you are in a system, since that refers to the group consisting of the star and the planets around it. End rant.
The stereotype never worked for me, because I went to a Jesuit high school and was on the rowing team. Most of us were jock-nerds. We would discuss Star Wars, Greek mythology, or our Latin homework while putting our bodies through the sort of pain that those who only played games couldn't quite comprehend. There really weren't any cliques per se.
The Rednecks thing does confuse me a bit. If you travel about 20 minutes south of the city, you get into East Aurora/Elma and there are definitely people there who resemble the stereotype of rednecks. But once you get there, it's not really a suburb, but a small town just outside of Buffalo. I'll probably watch an episode or two just to see how much they don't get the area.
you raise an interesting point – selling out lite is essentially befriending or finding common interests with people who used to be incomprehensible to you. I buy that. But true selling out – taking money from people who still make your blood boil or who are still tormenting you. Now THAT'S selling out.
Stereotypes are great when they steal the show eg. teachers : Ben Stein (Ferris Bueller) and my favorite martian (Ridgemont High)
Those Brinks/Broadview commercials drive me crazy! The only one that makes any sense at all is the woman who comes home from a date and her stalker ex-boyfriend kicks in her door.
Good luck seeing the end of these steroetypes. Stereotypes make it very easy for untalented writers to communicate large amounts of information to audiences without having to actually find a way to give their characters any depth. You might as well ask a modern action flick director to forgo CGI and wire fights. . . take that away and the director just won't know what to do.
I think one stereotype that won't go away in Hollywood is that people who live in the suburbs are duped into living there and as such have their lives if not souls sucked away.
Actually the people who really needed the dose of reality were the jocks. I never knew a single geek or nerd (I'm considered both) who thought they were better than anyone else, but EVERY jock did. The ironic thing is that they were both wrong. The "average" geek is between Bill Gates and the average network engineer who makes six figures. The average jock in high school is now your local butt-crack-displaying plumber. And he's not even good at that.
I had one of the "future NFL star" types in PE. It didn't matter that was being courted by 23 universities after I took the SATs. I wasn't good enough at flag football. That was what mattered, and he told me so. Repeatedly. His favorite line was "you'll never make the NFL, ha ha ha." My favorite line was "neither will you." I also told him that years from then, he'd be working in a gas station, not playing football. I told him that the difference was, I could work out at and get better and stronger, but he'd NEVER be any smarter. He just laughed.
Three years later, I come home for vacation and pull into the Mobile station to fill up. I go inside to pay and there behind the counter is Mr. Flag Football himself. I laughed all the way home. Almost 20 years later, I'm still laughing.
I actually HAD done a lot of training. I had gone from 160 to almost 200 pounds at only 5'8", and none of it fat. I could run 10 miles, bench press more than my weight, and all that stuff. My buddy behind the counter was not the least bit more intelligent. Odd.
We of the brainy set certainly did NOT deserve what we got from the idiots in letter jackets, but they certainly deserved what THEY got when they found out that nobody gave a rat's ass about how they were so popular because they were Varsity Football in high school.
I totally think that one chick that all wet is cute.
I did not just write that. No.
Some etymologies suggest the term arose in Great Britain (http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/Redneck-%...
[...] get a new yankee stadium, cause the nyc Stankee fans keep on thowing trash on there … 'Selling Out is a Bad Thing' and Other Absurd ClichesI was a nerd/geek/dork/dweeb. I moved from Powder Springs, Georgia to Los Angeles. Well a funny [...]
[...] get a new yankee stadium, cause the nyc Stankee fans keep on thowing trash on there … 'Selling Out is a Bad Thing' and Other Absurd ClichesI was a nerd/geek/dork/dweeb. I moved from Powder Springs, Georgia to Los Angeles. Well a funny [...]
Like smoking a cigarette…no need to tell everybody he/she "did" it and why.
"Suburban Gothic" genre: puke. So overdone.
Since we are demythologizing stereotypes let me bring up a pertinent anecdote from 2 days ago.. GF'nds 15 year old son (who does nothing but play xbox and is flunking out of school) accuses GF'nds 13 year old son of "Kissing ass" because he cleaned up the kitchen without being told to. I thought long and hard about the tradition of the kiss ass and how i always hated them and was suddenly very happy to have one in my midst.. I came to the conclusion that there are not enough ass kissers in this country and we are on the brink of losing them altogether.. Then i formulated a saying (not quite polished yet I admit): The only thing I hate worse than an ass-kisser is a self kiss ass and then i immediately saw barbara boxer, pelosi, clinton, obummer and the rest in that very category.
Class dismissed. lol
Same principle, only on a slightly larger scale. When you see someone who looks and speaks like a stereotype, everyone in the audience knows everything they need to know about that person the moment they see them. Hence, there is no need to explain their background or why they are likely to say certain things or do certain things. It's a crutch for writers who don't want to develope real characters.
The mother of all cliché’s, liberals are smart.
Lighten up, Francis.
Don't know where I fit in, a cops kid, fistfights nearly daily through elementary, (had to stand up for a developmentally handicapped brother), yet an almost nerd because I was in the top 5 percent, an honor student.
I hung out with the nerds, because I liked them better, they were smarter and much more fun.
Kind of like Ogre,. a knuckle dragging nerd, not very many of us. I detested jocks, the snobbery, the "I'm untouchable." attitude. They learned to leave my friends alone,. it was … expensive.
Nothing to me is a lower life form, than a bully.. redneck?.. I ran with southerners while in the service, we just clicked,
must have been the low tolerance for big talking morons…
So if they are rednecks, I'd be proud to be among them, they're among the most openly honorable folks I ever knew.
Wow, someone's led a self-absorbed yet self-hating life…Other than telling you you would never make the NFL, what other terrible slight did this 16 y/o bully of the gridiron inflict upon you? I think secretly you truly wished you were better at football rather than algebra and would, in fact, make the NFL.
But alas, while he may not have led the life he wanted at 16 I will bet he neither cares about nor remembers you in the way you remember him. And that is what eats you up the most. The boy you secretly idolized barely remembers that you existed in the first place.
"Broadcast News" is a great film. It'll be on IFC soon…great scene too…
I saw a documentary on Florida a couple days ago. I found it interesting that much time was devoted to the supposed vast entrenchment of the Klan and the local redneck slaughter of Indians. Both patently false, but that has become the stereotype promoted by the Left.
I am TIRED of Christians being portrayed as variations on Carrie's mother.
TV is rife with dull, sell out tripe. I cannot fathom why people plug into sitcoms.
Apparently you do not work in the IT, science arena or in higher education. Believe me there is no lack of ego. Talking about your painful high school years? Did you not look down on those not in AP (when AP was actually AP)? I look at kids like Gator greats Tim Tebow and Danny Weurffel. Complete lack of overinflated ego.
YOU are being the stereotyper! How could you still care about that one guy? WHO CARES what ONE guy said to you in HS? How weird is it that you derived pleasure from considering yourself better than he was later in life.
Maybe, just maybe, you should ask yourself why you still have a clenched anus over that.
The angry black man is merely a cliché? That, itself, is the biggest cliché out there.
70% of blacks don’t have fathers, 90% in the inner cities. You think they don’t grow up pissed off?
What you are doing by trying to enforce political correctness with the claim that Blacks aren’t supposed to be portrayed as what they are is forcing everyone else on the earth, Whites, Chinese, Mexicans, et cetera to lie inside their own heads about what they witness and live through every day.
Why not listen to the I Had A Dream Speech for purely emotional content? All I get is a pissed off, threatening ass whom I don’t want anywhere near me, nor those who write the instructional ideological content of our civilization. I especially don’t need a national holiday.
Here in San Francisco, voice-overs in commercials are being taken over by Blacks, Gays, Brits and other foreign nationals. Almost always whenever a Black opens his mouth it’s all attitude – and I am supposed to accept it as normal, a mere cultural difference. No it isn’t. It’s a bossy prick acting out.
The problem isn’t merely the twisted hide and seek this lie about the reality of the Black world sets up insider of everyone’s brains, including Blacks, but the next logical leap, which is to also accept Black ideology as normal, when it is fraught with horror shows. Remember 90% of inner city Blacks don’t have fathers. They areas are rape factories.
Yet kids grow up often never learning how to reconcile the realities about Blacks that they began covering over at an earlier age with the politically correct lies. Ultimately those are the dupes who elect B. Hussein O. Jr..
Liberals, put your money where your mouth is. Move into inner Detroit or Harlem or the South Side of Chicago or Hunters Point in San Francsico with your White 9 to 15 year old daughter or niece and make her walk back and forth, at least 10 blocks, to school each day for at least two years.
Here's a stereotype I'm heartily sick of: whiny white right-wingers complaining constantly about 'the left'.
Or don't have time. If your writing an action movie, time forces you to sacrifice characterization for the action, otherwise it's a character drama in which case I would agree generalities are more of a crutch. But if you want to build character in an action setting, it's going to have to be in a novel or it's going to be a really long movie.
Geeks can have as much of egotistical superiority complexes as anyone esle. In the classroom they usually try to either show up the jocks or speak bad about them when they are not around. Acting superior usually comes from an inferiority complex. Jocks see themselves as strong and geeks see themselves as smart. In their own way they try to make themselves seem better than the other. I guess in essense the trick is to understand that what someone else can do or can't do does not effect what you can achieve. Once you acheive that you can thincked your own skin a little bit.
"Doing that will and should get you slapped on any number of systems."
LOL. Too close to home.
I'm personally thankful to the jock that asked me why I wore black "dinner socks" in PE. I had no clue up until that point.
Well then
I guess the left should quit being complete controlling Fascists and get the H$!! out of everyone's lives them
Thanks for Trolling
Here's a stereotype I'm heartily sick of: whiny, self-entitled libtards (both white & black) constantly complaining about 'the right'.
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Not just that, but they actively search affluent suburbs in broad daylight, looking for occupied homes.
The one with the couple in their first night at home where the guy runs into the bedroom to hide under the covers is particularly pathetic.
Thanks Name.
I'm sick of that stereotype too.
I prefer "Angry Conservatives"
Or "Patriotic Dissenters"
"Whiny white right-wingers" is too hard to say.
Try saying it five times fast.
“I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration somehow you’re not patriotic. We should stand up and say we are Americans and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration. “
Hillary Clinton
I'd like to add the "Cool Nerd" to the list of cliches I'd like to see retired. It's relatively new, and in some cases fun (i.e. Chuck), but unlike the stereotypical jocks and nerds, they don't exist in real life.
I guess it is kind of poserific to assume it's not good to be succesful. I remember an old Kids In The Hall sketch that joked '…don't say the KITH sold out, say the Kids In The Halls sold out for lots of money, and that's O.K.'
But man, it's weird seeing Ice Cube in these kids show. I used to listen to the predator album when I was a senior in High School. You go from 'You can run, but you can't hide from the westside…' to 'Our we there yet?'
*Blink* *Blink* *Blink*
Okay, seriously, that's the worst psycho-analyzation I've ever seen. And I've been to TVtropes…..
All the dude did is point out that, sometimes, the stereotype holds true – nerd goes to good college, jock pumps gas – and this offends you to the point that you make a personal attack on the guy? Please, show a little class.
See, I divide High School nerds into two categories – 'dorks', who devote themselves mainly to fictional universes that are, in retrospect, kinda lame; and 'preppies', who devote themselves to Success. Success. Success. Success!!!!! I was very much the dork, and none of the crap I got in HS came from the jocks – it came from the preppies. Sadly, I find that dorks don't really get the happy ending – the preppy gets to ride off to his white-collar job, and me and the jock sit around in the dying rust-belt town talking about Trek and Football.
The thing about nerds versus jocks is that it's all about time. When we're kids, the nerds take all the crap and the jocks get all the glory. But then us nerds go on to college and white collar jobs, and most jocks blow out their knees or don't make the cut and go nowhere, the muscle turns to fat, the good looks 'spread out' and become commonplace.
Many of them become very nice guys, and certainly contribute to society. But that's why I'm not a bitter ex-nerd. In school, the jocks were cooler and better-looking and more popular.
Now, I am.
Works for me. You can have the first 18 years, I'll take the last 60.
"2. Getting Offended: I laughed at most of the anti-Bush propaganda. The closest I came to getting offended by any of it was when I saw a kid at Ivanhoe Elementary School in trendy Silver Lake/Los Feliz wearing a shirt that read “I hated Bush Before It was Cool.” And now, the jOker poster. I thought we were supposed to be the stodgy prudes, but no, the left has their panties in a twist. Suck it up, you panty-waists! I’m gonna pour sugar on your feet to keep the ants from eating up your candy asses."
Obama painted on a cross in a jar of urine.
FUND IT!
Austin, Tx. is full of muscians that see getting *famous* as *selling out*. It's crazy…the few that escape and do "make it" seem embarrassed about it sometimes too…really, really wacky.
and of course, the juxtapostion; conservatives are *dumb*….
The Bitter Ex-Jock stereotype isn't really a stereotype, because it isn't true, nor is it based on any reality. Most of the ex-jocks I know are successful guys who own profitable small businesses or are executives in corporations. I was kind of an anti-jock in high school – typical longhair – but gained a healthy respect for them over the course of subsequent years, as I watched many of them succeed in life.
Turns out a nut-busting coach can instill a great work ethic. Who knew?
A more accurate stereotype would be the Bitter Ex-Artist or Bitter Ex-Musician. I know a lot of those.
Hmmm…bitter much?
Are you sure about that chief?
Here is Zach Levi (AKA Chuck) at his nerdiest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJ7KpNOu_DU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brNawDeodd4
And lastly but not least http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uTPm0-IHHk (Cast of Chuck vs. cast of Heroes)
Are you sure about that chief?
Here is Zach Levi (AKA Chuck) at his nerdiest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJ7KpNOu_DU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brNawDeodd4
And lastly but not least http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uTPm0-IHHk (Cast of Chuck vs. cast of Heroes)
The Ex-Jock is sort of an archetype, far more then it is reality. They're like "The Rich" in that they're a creation that's extremely easy to create and hate. They get all the glory, they get all the girls, they get the rallies, etc. Think of the stereotypes of the rich and why they're easy to hate. It's almost the same thing.
Artist & Musician? Just go to a community college sometime and you'll see them in droves.
He really needs to go back to doing "serious" action movies like Three Kings.
Ask my grandfather. Scouted by the NFL when he was in college, All American his freshmen year. Ends up becoming a teacher and later works for the FBI. It isn't whether you're a jock or a geek, but what you end up doing with the tools at your disposal.
I don't know, the black lady judge stereotype was used to good effect in an episode of King of the Hill.
"Mr. Hill, will you please just pay the $40?"
"No"
-at the end of the episode after Hank is declared innocent after given a big long speech about how he couldn't have rented the porn tape that the video store claimed he did-
"…And let the record show that Mr. Hill really knows his pornography."
"Thank you your honor!"
My experience in an enriched program within a 'regular' school meant our entire class was 'the nerd'. Unfortunately for the regular stream we also beat them every sport so they hated us with a passion. The one thing real jocks and real nerds share is dedication, a good work ethic and the drive to succeed. Everyone else just falls to the wayside.
Talent is dime a dozen; more often than not it's determination and hard work that wins out. A simple lesson but hard to put into practice and thus ignored by most.
I always thought the jock-nerd dichotomy was interesting because I rubbed elbows with both when I was in high-school. Both had there jerks, but I knew many of both who were nice good people. I actually had more negative encounters with the geeks then I did with the jocks. One geek got mad at me for making fun of him because of the condescending attitude that he always took when answering questions (or trying to stoke his ego by trying to prove the AP literature teacher she was wrong, or trying to prove to the AP US history teacher he was wrong about the Civil War). He told me, "Don't laugh @$$hole, you'll never make as much money as me." to which I responded "Nor will I ever hate myself as much as you will. Grow up."
My God, man. You need better nerd stories than that one if you want our sympathy. In high school P.E. class, I once had a guy knock me down, then sit on my face and rub his scrotum against my nose until I gave him the football.
It didn't take long.
You can say "Hell" here…
Nice…being an Army brat made me part of both crowds often. Overseas, we all liked (no I mean REALLY LIKED) Star Wars, D&D, and Hip-Hop music (Pre-"Walk this Way") which made us pretty much outcasts stateside. Except that we were also the Star QBs, Pitchers and Point-Guards on our sports teams too.
So we had to be COOL JOCKS as well. But stateside, I was the only Varsity Football player that many of my friends who shared common pop-cultural interest had ever spoken to in High-School.
Stereotypes have always fascinated me and confound me…trying to keep up with which ones are still relevant and which ones have gone by the wayside…
I guess the only ones that are still relevant are the ones that one can use to make themselves look or feel better about themselves….Like the white criminals in those ads someone pointed out makes Brinks (or at least their legal department) feel like they're not racist and how Professors actions can be excused because all white cops are motivated by race, right?
-M
The nerds/jocks stereotype is honestly only there to prop up disaffected unathletic white boys. Many jocks are into many of the same interests as nerds, and many of the more talented ones get scholarships to good colleges and land high paying jobs. Also, any school counselor who's worked with a variety of kids will tell you that many jocks are highly intelligent, particularly with regards to spatial intelligence. Mastering the finer details of basketball, for example, is not for the stupid.
I think your enemy is not so much related to those who participate in sports as much as those who would use their status to manipulate people. We got a few of thems in Congress, and they look like they'd be about as useful in sports as Stephen Hawking.
I'm pretty sure about it. How cool would people consider him if he wasn't a celebrity? I remember Bill Cosby remarking that girls wouldn't have fawned over Malcolm Jamal Warner the way they did if he wasn't famous (sorry, no link. It was in NBC's "The Cosby Show: A Look Back").
The one nerd on TV who acts so superior and just drives me up a wall is Lisa Simpson of The Simpsons. She is the epitome of the seemingly intelligent yet insufferably smug, self-righteous liberal – a feminist vegetarian environmentalist who espouses "social justice" yet regards her classmates and even her own family in deep disdain.
Again, like Lisa Simpson of "The Simpsons" and Brian, the family dog who's the smartest creature of the Griffin family on "Family Guy".
Seriously – soldiers in the US are now only rapists/murderers/drug users/pedophiles and ALL are severely screwed up mentally and emotionally. This stereotype, of course, has its roots in the anti-Vietnam hysteria the left promoted. Interestingly, it wasn't true then as well as now. I'd suggest "Stolen Valor" by Burkett who thoroughly destroys a lot of the "damaged soldier" myth.
the sinner,
Patrick
How 'bout the "everyone was secretly miserable in the 50's" cliche.
the sinner,
Patrick
Stephen King is really, really bad with that whole psychotic Christians thing. I wonder if there's something in his past he needs to get off his chest . . .
the sinner,
Patrick
You're obviously a Steely Dan fan so all is forgiven.
BTW, the only things I got of those were wedgies and wet willies. I pitty the poor guys who got swirlies.
hilarious-your entire post screams bitter ex-nerd. Get over yourself.
It was, actually, an attempt at parody. But thanks for playing.
It was, actually, an attempt at satire. But thanks for playing.
please, backtracking now makes it even funnier. And sad.
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