Has Occupy Wall Street Jumped the Pop Culture Shark?
by Christian TotoThe stars of two recent films mirroring elements of the Occupy Wall Street movement, “In Time” and “Tower Heist,” couldn’t be happier to throw their arms around the alleged 99 percent.
“The movie is a comment on the inequalities that are crushing 99 percent of the people in our society,” “in Time” co-star Olivia Wilde told Fox411.
Something else is in play of late, a sign that the nascent movement may not have pop culture on its side after all. This week featured three OWS slams, one from a not so unlikely source but two that took entertainment consumers by surprise.
It was only a matter of time before the “South Park” gang took on OWS, and the results pulled no punches. But who would have expected a liberal like Stephen Colbert to use his comic pulpit to mock the movement?
The latest OWS insult comes courtesy of “A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas,” and it’s the harshest one yet. The film depicts Harold (John Cho) as a Wall Street executive forced to dodge angry protesters outside his office building. The protesters are a surly lot, angry and unfocused, and they hurl eggs at Harold’s hapless assistant who endures the barrage to protect his boss.
Those “mostly peaceful” protesters weren’t done yet.
They followed Harold to his car, surrounding the vehicle and pounding it as he cowered inside. Later, one protester smeared feces on the car window.
Can you imagine a movie making Tea Party protesters act in such vile fashion? You can’t because it would be utterly detached from reality, and even Hollywood knows it can’t make some things up out of whole cloth.
Celebrities will continue to speak out in favor of OWS while cashing their sizable checks and ignoring their own hypocritical lifestyles. But some entertainment scribes are coming around to the fact that there’s gold to be mined from a movement as unhinged, and radical, as OWS.
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"But some entertainment scribes are coming around to the fact that there’s gold to be mined from a movement as unhinged, and radical, as OWS."
It provided fertile ground for Triumph the Insult Comic Dog to poop on during his return to "Conan." Funny stuff.
Ok now… you're getting BH!!!
Did you put this in the movie review!? See! They got an agenda, we got an agenda, they don't pussyfoot around, we gotta stop pussyfooting around and fight the good fight.
My point being, a review of a film, in and of itself, here on BH, is somewhat dull and dolting… I come here for fire and brimstone! Well… conservative, social, tea party, aware of the agenda angst cultural warfare!
I wanna know how these flicks are attempting to undermine our Conservative Values!!!
Gosh? A movie about a Wall Street bad guy appears right on cue. Collusion? Nah. Can't happen. Must be coincidence ;-}
Now that "Occupy" is a mega-disaster for Obumbler & the Dems, down the MSM 'memory-hole' it will go.
Olivia Wilde (Cockburn – Not making it up) is a socialist beotch. This Marxixt maggot who dolls herself and struts her A$$ around to collect millions that I'm sure she's donating half to the poor unfortunates, is the last person to tell us how bad it is for the "little people". This POS IS the 1%!
Wilde is the example of the overpaid celebrity hypocrite. All looks, and when she opens her mouth, no substance, as she cashes her multi-million dollar checks while spouting these anti-the rich talking points.
She was enjoyable in Tron Legacy: The Dude Is Not In (Because He's in the Grid, Man) with her skin tight leather outfit, all due to the outfit really.
I thought movies were filmed and canned months before release. Was this prescient? I'm just a layperson, but BH has taught me a little about the long and arduous trek from script to release! Seems maybe they already knew how ugly their own kind would get.
Yeah, can't stand her. She's one of these annoying gnats who comes along and you just can't get to leave your table. I think she's done alright because of who she's surrounded by in the movies, but I don't think she can open a picture on her own. I won't see it, in any case.
Now, another commie actress that I kind of like is Sarah Polley. She's a cute little thing. Maybe I'd dislike her the same if she was always in the press spouting off, but she isn't really given airtime in America.
The Biehn! I don't know why that guy doesn't get more screen time. He's like Michael Pare if Pare's awesomeness hadn't burned out so quick.
I was thinking the same thing. It's not like this is SNL.
I remember this bimbo making that stupid MoveOn commercial in 2008 about the future if the GOP won. Although it looked more like any environment that had liberal rule (Oakland, Chicago, NYC, Detroit, etc.)
She looks great but she's such an annoying Commie (because her parents are commies and it obviously runs in the family)
She was in Sam Adams (Polley)? Her beliefs are kinda the antithesis of that show.
I'm not sure. I just know her from Dawn of the Dead (remake) and there was some other movie where she looked fetching. Maybe she's grown up, but she apparently was an anarchist when she was a kid (a riot cop apparently knocked out her back tooth with his billy club).
What I like about Wilde is I can say, "See, I'm deep. If I was shallow, I'd like her for her looks, but I can't stand her because of her views!"
Edit: I looked it up, and she was in *John* Adams. Sam Adams is what you must have been drinking.
I saw that commercial and had never heard of her before. I read her bio and found out that she comes from a long line of Socialists. That was enough for me not to help her get rich off my hard work.
Excuse me, I was thinking about this evening.
You mean Polley or Wilde? I don't have a problem with shunning both. I've only seen her movies on TV, so no money from me, either (I didn't see Tron because of Wilde, especially after her moveon.org ad).
Wilde. If someone's a Democrat, I don't care. But when they're an obnoxious POS, as she is, she could do nudes and it would have as much effect as if it were Roseanne Barr. I guess what I'm saying is that their views make them very unattractive.
It just goes to show that the best comedy is rooted in the truth!
(That's why Saturday Night LIve, when doing political sketches, isn't funny. It's just propaganda.)
Yeah, that commercial. Ugh. And then she comes on in a breast cancer ad. You can't have it both ways, in my opinion. Don't knock me upside the head for being conservative and then beg me for money. At least when Rush does his yearly fundraiser, it's on his own show to his own audience, but I remember when he quietly gave a lot of money to Elizabeth Glaser's pediatric AIDS charity and Glaser had to give it back because of heat from her caring liberal donors. Don't hire stridently liberal celebs to ask me for money. Doesn't work.
You're getting it backwards. The spontaneous demonstrations were planned months ago. They and the film's release were planned to have a cosmic convergence.
When they came into existence, they had already jumped the shark. If they do "jump the shark" it can only be into relevance, and I don't see that happening any time soon.
The only thing "In Time" showed was that Timberlake should stick to singing. Isn't Olivia Wilde the actress who comes from a family of mega-wealthy socialists (irony alert!), and who married a prince?
Dear Olivia: the 1% is you.
OWS jumped the shark as soon as everyone knew it was happening.
"At least when Rush does his yearly fundraiser, it's on his own show to his own audience, but I remember when he quietly gave a lot of money to Elizabeth Glaser's pediatric AIDS charity and Glaser had to give it back because of heat from her caring liberal donors"
Jesus. What a bunch of petty, childish @$$holes. I guess that explains the charity gap between conservatives and liberals. Lefties say they want to help people but then see someone with a different political view doing it and they're like "Eeeeewwww. I'm not gonna do that if that right-wing extremist teabagger did that."
Savage and Rossiter were right. It really is a mental illness.
I would put "singing" in quotations.
Jeri Ryan looked better in a skin-tight outfit.
EWE HAZ WEEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Loved her in "Go" and "Dawn of the Dead". Didn't know about her commie tendencies, but hey she's Canadian, so not that surprising.
The only people to legitimize the OWS movement is the commie Mainstream Media.
Everyone else knows its a crock of sh*t.
Olivia Wilde not only can't act, but she's an idiot.
I found an old Wall Street Journal article (from 1992!) that mentioned this in pasing, but they got their facts wrong. They said that Glaser rejected the donation, but that is incorrect. Limbaugh was emphatic that she not only gratefully accepted his donation, but that she said she would stand by his contribution regardless of the consequences from the angry liberals. He told her her work was too important to be politicized, so he withdrew his money. According to a 2010 story, he continues to contribute to her organization. I guess since it's an established thing at this point, it's less risky than when it started out.
"Any girl can look glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid." — Hedy Lamarr
The point of outrage remains though. These left-wing douchebags were actualy intending to withold money from a charity just because Rush Limbaugh gave to it. What kind of ass-backwards logic is that? Maybe Rush should write a check to the DNC to get Hollywood to stop doing so. Worth a shot, don'tcha think?
Meanwhile, out here in flyover country, the rest of us grow increasingly disgusted and tired of this fabricated OWS "happening" in all the usual places allegedly springing up from the emotions of the masses.
They seem to have no clue how fed up we are with theater, both among the OWS types and every time O speaks.
Were we governed by a competent executive, he would be doing something productive to get the economy moving again instead of trying to jawbone his way free of responsibility.
She really isn't even that attractive. She has pretty eyes, but she is so ultra thin you wonder if she eats anything at all. It's like she's allergic to having real world curves…
I'm a Christian so bear with me with that in mind, skip if you don't want to hear Christian stuff. —-
Instead of thinking of OWS as a thing that was done or something that just happened, I think of it as a clarification of something that was already there. They aren't going away because its not like they just showed up. This is the price you pay for hanging out on the slippery slope, culturally and spiritually speaking.
Now there's two ways of looking at it. Once upon a time Christianity was welcome in America. You didn't have to be a Christian BUT it was cool to be one. The Bible was sacred before the Universities got too powerful. Essentially, for a time God had free reign in this country. As happens in an individual life, the good life makes you soft and America got fat. So we felt proud and pushed God away, traded in our inheritance to go party like the prodigal son, etc. You can literally trace the decline of Christian values with the culture wars, secular humanism and the rise of liberal socialism. You can read it about Israel, too. The Old Testament is half-full of this same scenario with Israel, over and over, screwing up and repenting. It's a lesson for our individual lives and America.
America needs to drastically shift back to respecting the institution of family and being comfortable with the name 'Jesus'. Then we'd watch how the prosperity and safety would start to happen again…except we all know it would take a drastic event or a once-in-a-lifetime kind of leader to catalyze a change like that. The other way is what we're all sort of resigned to – when you slowly compromise yourself into the pit you have to slowly dig yourself out with good decisions one at a time, very slowly. Does America have time to do that?
Anyway my point is that imho the Occupy movement isn't a bunch of people who are less-than, nor is it a sudden onset of insanity for no reason. The OWS movement is a spirit rearing its ugly head in the people who've been worshipping and feeding it. Start worshipping and feeding the right spirit if you really want prosperity and justice again, because all the hate and ugliness we pour out on the OWS protesters and liberals in general? – that only feeds the wrong one even more.
* Read this about one minute after this post.
"Angry that one police officer wouldn’t let them in to videotape the police closing their camp, the Occupy Wall Street livestreamer shouted: “We are Legion! You will not hide, Officer…"
Wilde's grandfather was Claud Cockburn, not really wealthy per se but definitely Communist royalty
Her mother was well-off and a producer for–what else–CBS News, as well as Frontline
I like the Harold and Kumar movies and will check this one out, I like comedy that will go after anyone and everyone, H&K, South Park etc.
I agree!
Lefties are lefties first, compassionate second or third or further down the list.
You are correct.
You're right. This movie was shot long before OWS began. Any "commentary" it offers is strictly coincidental.
I was torn on whether to include this in the review – I felt it was too much of a tangent, but I thought writing it up in a separate post would allow me to cover it all the same.
So, you're saying they wrote the film, produced it, marketed it and got into theatres in just the last few weeks? No, of course that isnt what you're saying because that would be ridiculous.
Still gotta say, D*ck in a Box was pretty damn funny.
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