Levi Johnston and the Middle-American Minstrel Show

Levi Johnston’s shameless exploitation by the liberal media is more than just a convenient cudgel for bashing Sarah Palin.  It’s a modern minstrel show, with “Middle American” substituted for “African-American” as Levi capers for his condescending media “friends” wearing figurative blackface. And just as the minstrel shows of the past were tools to reinforce prejudice, the Levi Johnston show is meant to reinforce the prejudices and smug sense of superiority of its elitist liberal audience.

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Levi is the Kevin Federline of American politics, a good-looking, not-too-bright guy catching a break by impregnating a rising star, or at least one’s daughter, then basking in the reflected glow.  When things went south with Bristol Palin, he found, in a mainstream media eager for anything that might derail the Sarah Palin express, an opportunity to go farther than he ever thought he could.  Movies, modeling, memoirs – anything was possible, they assured him.  Just tell us what we want to hear, Levi – the good stuff, the juicy stuff, the stuff too good to fact check.  Oh, and hand over your dignity while you’re at it. (more…)

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Tags: Bristol Palin, cbs, Celebrity Dysfunction Complex, GQ, Iraqi Freedom
Posted Oct 14th 2009 at 5:05 am in Featured Story, Politics | 24560295 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/kschlichter/2009/10/14/levi-johnston-and-the-middle-american-minstrel-show/Levi+Johnston+and+the+Middle-American+Minstrel+Show2009-10-14+12%3A05%3A45Kurt+Schlichter

‘jOker’: ‘Art is What You Can Get Away With’

In 1987, Andres Serrano submerged a small plastic crucifix in a glass jar of his own urine and called it Piss Christ. Not to be outdone, Chris Ofili daubed elephant dung on a painting of the Virgin Mary.

While some narrow-minded philistines complained, the artistic establishment heaped praise (and money) on these and works like them. The National Endowment for the Arts was so impressed with Serrano’s work they granted him $15,000 courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer. For his effort, Ofili was awarded the Turner Prize, Britain’s most prestigious art award.

Other recent Turner Prize honorees include Damien Hirst, whose works feature livestock suspended in formaldehyde, and Tracy Elmin, whose nominated work was an unmade bed. The Turner Prize is named in honor of J. M. W. Turner (1775-1851), renowned as the original “painter of light” (pace Thomas Kinkade). (One of the Stuckists, a group of anti-conceptual figurative painters who demonstrate annually against the Prize, puckishly said, “The only artist who wouldn’t be in danger of winning the Turner Prize is Turner.”)

Art and Popular Culture defines “transgressive art” as: “art forms that aim to transgress; i.e., to outrage or violate basic mores and sensibilities.” (more…)

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Tags: bush, LA Weekly, noose, Obama, Obama-Joker
Posted Aug 6th 2009 at 5:03 am in Art, Culture, Featured Story, Politics | 19963098 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/aleigh/2009/08/06/what-you-can-get-away-with/%27jOker%27%3A+%27Art+is+What+You+Can+Get+Away+With%272009-08-06+12%3A03%3A27Andrew+Leigh

Daily Gut: Joker Poster Boosts Obama’s Coolness

So posters of President Obama made up as Heath Ledger’s Joker with ‘Socialism’ written below it have been showing up around L.A – and it’s being greeted with the usual outrage you’d expect from people who get outraged. Some are calling it racist, others are calling it “mean spirited and dangerous,” while I call it boring, boring, and oh yeah: boring.

The website Newsbusters points out the silliness behind the outrage – after all, President Bush has been depicted as far worse – he’s been portrayed as everything from a bloodsucking vampire in the Village Voice, to the Joker in Vanity Fair, to God forbid, a Republican- everywhere else. No one seemed to mind then. And while people like Bill Maher point out that Obama has been only at this job for six months (whereas Bush earned the bile over eight years) and therefore any criticism is unfair – that’s pure batpoop. Hatred for Bu$hitler began the moment he took office, and the vile lefties only knew Sarah Palin for a few weeks before they were wearing t-shirts with her face and a vulgar word (begins with ‘C’ and rhymes with bunt) beneath it. (more…)

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Tags: anti-heroes, batman, Bill Maher, Bu$hitler, Christian Bale
Posted Aug 4th 2009 at 3:41 pm in Daily Gut, Featured Story, News, Politics | 199626151 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ggutfeld/2009/08/04/daily-gut-joker-poster-elevates-obama%e2%80%99s-hip-persona/Daily+Gut%3A+Joker+Poster+Boosts+Obama%27s+Coolness++2009-08-04+22%3A41%3A58Greg+Gutfeld

Sammy Davis Jr. — Black and White On the Silver Screen?

The life story of a Black star in a White world, a man who arguably was the world’s greatest entertainer, will not be coming to a theater near you anytime soon. If ever.

During a recent interview on my radio program “The Andrea Shea King Show”, Hollywood conservative Burt Boyar, longtime friend and biographer of the late great Sammy Davis, Jr., said he’s concerned that the true story about the talented entertainer who fought and broke through racial barriers will never be seen on the silver screen. Two years ago, Boyar had negotiated a deal to sell his two biographies to filmmakers who were all set to tell the story on celluloid.

Reflection: Sammy Davis Jr. snaps a photo of himself and Jerry Lewis posing in the reflection of a mirror.

What entanglements are keeping the former member of the Rat Pack’s compelling life from being made into a movie?  A life studded with Tinseltown’s glittering constellation of stars whose orbits intersected his?   Luminaries like Sinatra, Peter Lawford, Joey Bishop, Dean Martin, Tony Curtis, Jerry Lewis, Liz and Burton, Paul Newman, Berle, Bacall, Bennett, Damone… when Hollywood was at its most glamorous?

Who is Burt Boyar? And why does he care?

(more…)

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Tags: Al Jolson, Bacall, Bennett, Berle, broadway
Posted Jun 14th 2009 at 7:04 am in Entertainment, Featured Story | 1584142 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/asking/2009/06/14/sammy-davis-jr-black-and-white-on-the-silver-screen-2/Sammy+Davis+Jr.+%E2%80%94+Black+and+White+On+the+Silver+Screen%3F2009-06-14+14%3A04%3A43Andrea+Shea+King

The Pop Underground Strikes Back

Few shows illustrate how low the state of popular music has fallen than “American Idol.”  While AI regularly finds singers of talent, the songs they feature are mostly chestnuts.  The show also encourages the type of singing that is more at home on Broadway than in small smoky clubs.  The judges put an inordinate amount of focus on vocal pyrotechnics encouraging contestants to test the outer limits of their ranges.  The most exciting news to come out of the most recent season is the possibility that Adam Lambert might join Queen, replacing the ill-considered Paul Rogers.

I would love to see Adam Lambert join Queen.  I already know all the songs.  And that’s a problem.  Singer/songwriters have been moving off-grid since the nineties.  With the demise of the major music conglomerates, innovative talent understands it’s up to them to record and release their own material.  The internet makes this possible.  No one knows the extent of the effect downloading has had on the music industry, but if we are to judge from the reaction, it has been devastating.  The Recording Institute Association of America has brought suits against parents whose children illegally download songs. (more…)

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Tags: "American People", Adam Lambert, Andy Morten, Bat for Lashes, Big Music
Posted Jun 2nd 2009 at 6:40 am in Music | 1479662 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/mbaron/2009/06/02/the-pop-underground-strikes-back/The+Pop+Underground+Strikes+Back2009-06-02+13%3A40%3A04Mike+Baron

Daily Gut: Eminem

So in Eminem’s comeback video, there’s a scene featuring him in bed with a Sarah Palin clone, post-coital presumably – but here’s the real cool part: he breaks wind.

How edgy.

How in your face.

Way to speak truth to power – even if it came out your ass.

Seriously, this is not bad for a white, balding rapper quickly approaching forty and desperately clinging to a shred of relevance – not unlike his white, balding fans already over forty desperately clinging to jobs in telemarketing. I mean, is it any wonder he’s resorting to material reused and reheated from a year old episode of Bill Maher’s Real Time – which wasn’t even funny back then. (more…)

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Tags: Eminem, Henry Rollins, michelle obama, Real Time with Bill Maher, sarah palin
Posted Apr 7th 2009 at 6:39 pm in Celebrity News, Daily Gut, Entertainment | 10002279 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ggutfeld/2009/04/07/daily-gut-eminem/Daily+Gut%3A+Eminem2009-04-08+01%3A39%3A39Greg+Gutfeld