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The Point Radio: John McGinley – No Doctor Cox No More

You loved John McGinley in SCRUBS and now he’s part of the TBS comedy, GROUND FLOOR. John talks about his fairytale start in movies and why his GROUND FLOOR character couldn’t be more different that Doctor Cox on SCRUBS. Then, THE BLACKLIST is back for the second part of their sophomore season, and it kicks off with a choice time slot right after NBC’s broadcast of The Super Bowl. Star Megan Boone and EPs Jon Bokenkamp and John Eisendrath tell us why this is a great place to jump into the series.

On Friday, we celebrate the return of KING OF THE NERDS on TBS. They’ve really upped the game this year, and we’ll tell you what’s coming up.  Be sure to follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

REVIEW: Glee the Complete Fifth Season

Glee Season 5So, when did Glee go off the rails for you? I began tiring of the show in the third season, stuck around for one more and realized it couldn’t make up its mind about the type of series it wanted to be. Part of the blame goes to Ryan Murphy and Fox for falling so in love with their core characters that they wouldn’t let them grow up and leave high school. While a spinoff set in Manhattan had been considered and discarded, trying to have it all didn’t work either. After seeing the fitting tribute to Cory Monteith, I bid Finn Hudson and the rest of Lima High an overdue farewell.

When Glee the Complete Fifth Season arrived for review, it gave me a chance to see if I made the right decision or not. The series’ musical numbers remain strong as ever but it also remains maddening. On the other hand, the various social topics it had addressed makes the show wonderful drama but the rest of it is set in a world so divorced from the one we live in, it gets infuriating.

First, the cast is too largely, too spread and too unwieldy to properly focus on one set of characters. We have Rachel, Kurt, and Santana in New York, Mercedes in Los Angeles and everyone else in Lima, OH. But, we have the originals poised to graduate and the newcomers still looking to get themselves properly established in the hearts and minds of the audience.

You still have all the adults with their own issues from Mr. Schu and Emma starting a family to Sue deposing Principal Figgins and managing to somehow shut down Glee Club.

And while the students never seem to have any classes or homework or trouble juggling extracurriculars, homework, family obligations and the like, it beggars the imagination that not one but two of the cast are such geniuses that they fight over Valedictorian. It would have been nice to see the school wrestle with the arrival of the Common Core curriculum or the pressures of standardized testing on both faculty and students.

Rachel’s assent to Broadway is the stuff of legend and her dream come true (we could have satisfactorily ended the series when she debuted) but for her to actually give it away for television makes little sense along with the decision to use Santana as her publicist.

The show veers from one emotional note to another without a lot of proper foreshadowing or setup so character traits come and go, as do their romantic feelings. Of the newcomers, the most intriguing was Marley who is gone early on after revealing her heretofore unknown songwriting skills, which conveniently come into play when the club needs a song at Regionals. And then there’s the horrid unaired Christmas special, held over from 2013 and a sad way to end the first half of the season.

This season saw the show limp to its 100th episode which Murphy and Brad Falchuk used to trash the club and scatter everyone to the four winds. As centennial episodes go, it was above average but stung with unrealistic events. Eight episodes later, the friends find themselves in many unexpected places, leaving the viewer to wonder how the sixth and final season, now airing, would tie things up.

The high definition transfers on the six disc DVD set are fine although it is noteworthy Fox has not released this on Blu-ray. As usual, the set comes with its patented Glee Musical Jukebox, allowing viewers to go straight to the musical numbers.

The smaller than usual extras include Gleeful: Celebrating 100 Episodes of Glee (8:31) with Matthew Morrison (Will Shuester) and the cast members fondly looking back when they were a phenomenon that had not been anticipated. There’s also Glee in the City (13:34) where producer/director Ian Brennan and actors Kevin McHale, Darren Criss, Amber Riley, Chris Colfer, Chord Overstreet, Adam Lambert, and Lea Michele talk about the story possibilities by being set in the center of the universe.

Review: Citizens of Earth

Allow me to be blunt – if you’re a fan of old-school RPGs, cease all bodily functions not controlled by your autonomic nervous system and obtain a copy of Citizens of Earth.

If you played the Super Nintendo classic Earthbound, you’ll recognize its inspiration of this wacky little RPG, out today for PC, Nintendo 3DS, Wii U and PS Vita.  From the spacey soundtrack to the map design, even down to the lava-lamp graphics behind the baddies in the random battles, the game makes a comfortable home in the classic’s footprint.

This is what's known as "hanging a lampshade on it"

This is what’s known as “hanging a lampshade on it”

You play the newly-elected Vice-President of Earth, choosing to make a visit to your home town for a brief respite before your new career.  Alas, all is not well on the homestead – the town is surging with anti-you protesters, the manager of the local (and highly addictive) coffee shop has vanished, and more weirdness to come. The true threat that faces you and your compatriots remains hidden until well into the game, and it’s as out of left field as any surprise in any classic RPG.

You quickly begin recruiting local citizens to join your ragtag band of investigators, including your mother, brother, an odd-smelling conspiracy theorist, and the local donut chef.  Other recruits don’t unlock till later as more of the map is unlocked.  Their various powers and attacks provide a lot of ability to customize your combat strengths, as well as team bonuses for having certain members in your party. from changing the weather and time of day, to changing the difficulty from candy from a baby to what oldsters like me call “Nintendo-Hard.”

The game is funny; silly, even, with lots of wacky dialogue and throwaway gags as you read random signs and books. Lots of recorded dialogue by a strong cast, and a sound palette that keeps the old school feel while staying technically advanced.

The strength of the enemies jump up quickly once you make your way to the next  play area, leaving you to do some good old grinding. The enemies are as wacky  as they are difficult, from roving protesters to the punnish “Telefawn” and “Bubblebee,” there’s a constant variety of new monsters and foes to fight.

The game wears its throwback badge with pride, but can still hold its own with any of the recent RPGs we’ve seen recently, especially on the handhelds.  The game plays very well on the Vita, with the option to interact with the touchscreen as well as the keypads.

There’s not enough funny being put into games nowadays. Citizens of Earth is a welcome breath of fresh air.

Citizens of Earth is available for download on PC, Wii U, Nintendo 3DS, PS4 and PS Vita.

Mindy Newell Is Trekkin’

Have you heard Star Trek Continues? I happened to discover it just today, as I was surfing the web this morning. It is an award-winning …well, let me quote from the site itself:

“Star Trek Continues is a critically-acclaimed, award-winning, fan-produced webseries… the brainchild of long-time Star Trek: The Original Series fan – and producer, director, actor, voice-actor, musician – Vic Mignogna.

“Star Trek Continues is proud to be part of Trek history, aimed at completing

the final two years of the original five-year mission. After mounting a successful Kickstarter campaign, the show is already making waves and attracting guest stars such as Michael Forest, Jamie Bamber, Lou Ferrigno, and Erin Gray – as well as cameos by Star Trek alums like Marina Sirtis and Michael Dorn.”

It really is absolutely captivating. Mr. Mignogna is perfect – and I mean perfect! – William Shatner as Captain James Tiberius Kirk, down to body movements and personal tics. And Chris Doohan is the living embodiment of Lt. Commander Montgomery Scott, Chief Engineer and Second Officer of the Enterprise. Then again, he should be. Mr. Doohan is the son of the late James Doohan, who, just in case you don’t know, played Scotty in the original series. (Fun fact I discovered on the website: Chris Doohan first boarded the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC1701 in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and continues to do so, up to and including Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek Into Darkness, in which he appeared in a scene with Simon Pegg, a.k.a. the “new” Scotty.

Everyone is perfect in their roles, costuming, and make-up; except for, I have to say, Kim Stinger as Nichel Nichols as Lt. Nyota Uhura. Her 2014 hairdo and voice and physicality does absolutely nothing to remind me of Ms. Nichols or Lt. Uhura. She is the only one who takes me completely out of the spell, out of my “ suspension of disbelief.” She might as well be a new character.

Still, if you’re a Star Trek fan, you must check this website; all the music and sound effects of the original are incorporated into the series and even the special effects are so seamless and could easily “melt” into any of the episodes on your DVD set.

•     •     •     •     •

The reverberations of the attack on Charlie Hebdo continue to dominate the news cycle, even pushing the opening bell of the 2016 Presidential race here in the States to the second or third news story – yeah, here we go again – Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, and Mitt Romney (!!!) are all “exploring” the possibility of running – but as I read websites and newspapers and watch the news stations, I’m realizing that it’s about more than the right to free speech. It’s also about the rise of violence against Jews in France over the last decade, coinciding with the rise in the French Muslim population.

The history of French cooperation with the Nazis during World War II (aside from the Free French, who made valuable contributions) does not put that country of the list of “Righteous Gentiles“ at Yad Veshem, the Holocaust memorial in Israel. Historically, France has been the center of European Jewish learning and assimilation into the greater society; after the French Revolution Jews were emancipated, and Napoleon deconstructed the ghettos.

Today the Jewish community in France numbers between 500.000 and 600,000. But over the last few years there has been a huge exodus as increasing anti-Semitism fostered by the French Muslim population has become a palpable threat, with almost 8,000 occurrences since 2000, including one very large and violent event last July in which 200 Jews were trapped inside a synagogue while the demonstrators outside shouted obscenities and threatened death.

This is why the French police and security offices have been protecting Jewish neighborhoods and sites in Paris and around the country since the assault at Charlie Hebdo and the Hyper Cache kosher deli, including schools and synagogues.

*sigh* And the story of Cain and Abel, and Isaac and Ishmael, just keeps on trekkin’.

 

John Ostrander: Walking Tall On the Small Screen

I was not always a big fan of Westerns. My knowledge/memory of them were largely drawn from TV shows of my childhood – and not always the best ones. They were dominated by The Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry (although I was never a big Autry fan) and shows like them. Westerns dominated TV in those days in ways that I don’t think any genre dominates any more.

It was my late wife, Kimberly Yale, who really schooled me in movie Westerns and the difference between a John Ford Western, ones by Howard Hawks, and Budd Boetticher’s Westerns. I finally learned and grasped what powerful movies they were, Just a few years ago, I got to see John Ford’s masterpiece The Searchers on the big screen and it was only then that I really understood how powerful it was and why its star, John Wayne, was such an icon. In the close-ups, where Wayne’s face is two stories high, he seems like a figure off Mount Rushmore. And the famous final shot, where his character is framed by a closing door, is haunting. It’s also interesting to note that both here and in Howard Hawks’ Red River he plays something of a bastard.

It’s only been in recent years that I’ve returned to some of the Western TV shows and rediscovered them. What I discovered was some very good writing and acting, especially in the half hour shows. Have Gun, Will Travel, starring Richard Boone, featured him as a traveling gunslinger, Paladin, and a memorable and haunting title song. Wanted: Dead or Alive starred a young Steve McQueen right around the time that he broke out in films in The Magnificent Seven.

Of all of them, my favorite discovery has been The Rifleman starring Chuck Connors. Connors was a 6’6” former athlete, playing basketball for the Celtics and baseball for the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Chicago Cubs. In the show he played Lucas McCain, a homesteader who was fast with a special rapid fire Winchester. McCain was a widower although he had a son, played by Johnny Crawford. His best friend was the Marshall of the town of North Fork, Micah Torrance, played by Paul Fix. (Trivia note: Mary and I so liked the name “Micah” that we gave it to one of our cats.)

The show was also a proving ground for actors, writers, and directors who would later go on to other things. Sam Peckinpah directed several episodes and wrote a few, too. Budd Boetticher directed an episode, as did Ida Lupino. Richard Donner, who would later direct the first Superman movie with Christopher Reeve, directed seven episodes.

A number of famous (or to be famous later) actors also appeared – Agnes Moorehead did a turn, as did Martin Landau, Buddy Hackett, and Harry Dean Stanton. Sammy David Jr. acted in the series twice, once as a gunslinger. There was a time that I would have questioned the probability of that but my later researches into the history of the West revealed that there were a number of black gunslingers in the Wild West.

Connors was a better actor than I remembered and the stories were varied and almost always interesting. His Lucas McCain was a stern father but a loving one and usually reluctant to be drawn into a fight. The stories weren’t the simple good/bad confrontations I knew from shows like Roy Rogers. The characters were more complex which made the stories more interesting.

You can catch the shows on DVD and I would guess on Netflix or Hulu. They’re worth a shot. So to speak.

 

Marc Alan Fishman’s Toy Story

In front of me stands Kyle Rayner, Saint Walker, and Guy Gardner, each behind their impenetrable clamshell wall. Next to them, Alan Scott’s power battery. It doesn’t grant me the power of the Starheart, but when we lost power last week it provided enough ambient light to get me to the staircase. Beside that, a 6” Orion and a 10” Sandman.

To be honest, I sit here, in my man cave a veritable kid in a toy store. The entire Ultraforce sits to my right. Behind me, a cache of Nerf weaponry that would be illegal in ten out of ten office wars. And sitting over my TV, in front of my faux mantle, is my prized possession: the mini replica of Kyle Rayner’s power battery. How coveted is it? It’s out of box and totally played with.

It seemingly goes hand-in-hand with our shared brand of nerditry, does it not? This compulsion to collect. As a child, it started simply enough. He-Man begat the Transformers, the Transformers begat the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the Turtles begat Exo-Squad and a deluge of Legos. When I reached junior high and began my love affair with comic books, soon the toys of my youth gave way to the collectables attained at the comic shop. They were, of course, the same damned toys. But it mattered not. For a toy in the hands of a comic book aficionado (carefully kept in the packaging that held it) became an investment. Or so the counter-jockeys told us.

What is it about our love affair with pulp and ink that leads us to waste our disposable income on trinkets, props, and replicas? Why do we need to surround ourselves with the relics of our favorite heroes and villains? When we were children – and we all still are in one way or another – action figures and their ilk were there to coax our imagination. Perhaps I’ve grown up too much, but the figures that stand on the chair rail in front of me offer no inspiration. They were purchases on the compulsion to own one example of each of the DC cosmic color spectrum. And when I nabbed that coveted Atrocitus and Larfleeze… did I feel like a more complete human being? Did some icon appear over my head declare “Achievement Unlocked: Poorer Nerd +5”? No. The figures were purchased, put on display, and left for dead.

I admit in between bouts of writers block, or a bad-art-making day I might be tempted to slice open every last one of their plastic prisons and pose them in epic battle. But that thought is stamped out at the siren’s song of Netflix, my DVR, or my Xbox as they pull me away like a cartoon cat lured by window-sill pie.

Some might stick to their guns and cite the collector’s market, eBay, and the like as reason to surround themselves in the mélange of rare molded plastic. But to what end? It’s rare to hear of a collector living a life of leisure through the simple resale of mint-in-box bric-a-brac. Is it because so few of us can really avoid the temptation to create lavish dioramas? I doubt it. If I were to feign a more realistic guess, it would be that the mass manufactured toys released to Wal-Mart alongside the chase figures sold at twice the cost to your local comic shop are only specifically special to a segment of people that already own them in the first place. A snake eating its own tail is never really full, kiddos.

It leads me back to beginning. Why do we buy these hollow treasures? Is it any better, say, then those who buy NASCAR models, commemorative plates, or sports memorabilia? Ahh, that’s the ticket! The golden calves we fill our tombs with are simply extensions of self. I am Marc Alan Fishman, and within that name there are many footnotes. Aside from a loving father, a dedicated husband, a comic book creator, a graphic designer, and Diet Coke consumer, there is also a collection of aforementioned action figures, Nerf guns, and more DVDs than one needs to own – particularly in this day and age of streaming media. These are the items of my id. These are the tactile representations of my singularly unique fandom. As a whole, these relics resolve who I am, if only to myself.

And when I leave this mortal coil, I have complete faith that those I leave behind will take my mountain of useless crap, and donate it to the nearest nerd that will take it. In a perfect world, some snot-nosed punk will use his lightsaber to unearth my Batman: Brave and the Bold Green Arrow (with unusable bow) and place him at odds with a Stealth Mode Iron Man missing most of his extra snap-on armor. Perhaps he’ll have a few fleeting moments of glee before he’s booting up the Playstation X-5000. Maybe later in his life, he’ll remember those toys and seek out a digital copy of The Longbow Hunters or Demon in a Bottle. And when he does, I can only hope he’s old enough to afford that boxing glove arrow replica prop set awaiting him on Amazon.

 

The Law Is A Ass

Bob Ingersoll: The Law Is A Ass #341: COMMISSIONER GORDON WON’T BAIL ON US

batmaneternal2featuredimageI’ll let you in on a little secret: Batman Eternal isn’t. Eternal, that is. It won’t go on forever. Sometimes it just seems like it will.

Of course, if it did last an eternity and it continued to do things like the bail hearing found in Batman Eternal # 4, that wouldn’t be bad for me. It would mean an eternity of column material.

So, in Batman Eternal # 4, Commissioner Gordon appeared before a judge in a bail hearing after being charged with 162 counts of manslaughter. If you’re wondering how or why, you can find the answer in Batman Eternal # 1. Or you can read last week’s column, where I discussed exactly that. But don’t look here, because I’m not chewing that cud twice. Why not? Be cuds, that’s why.

The judge denied Gordon bail with the following reasoning, “All this destruction. All this death. This is your fault, James Gordon. Because of your negligence. One hundred sixty-two dead. Billions in damage. Critical Gotham infrastructure destroyed. And a major disruption to the lives of every citizen in Gotham. … I’m sorry … but the prosecution is correct that you are a flight risk. You’ve a longstanding willingness to align yourself with Gotham’s vigilante elements, so I’m afraid I have no choice. Your request for bail is denied. And you will be held in Blackgate Prison until your trial for manslaughter.”

A judge in a bail hearing wouldn’t say those things. Oh, he might say the “Your request for bail is denied,” part. He wouldn’t say the, “This is your fault,” part. Between newspapers, TV, blogs, and even live tweeting, other people, meaning probably all of Gotham City, would know that this judge – a respected person who the laity look up to as an expert on the law – said Gordon was guilty. Good luck finding an impartial jury after that little tirade.

As for bail, remember, I only said the judge might deny bail. Might being the key, and even italicized, word. I think it’s unlikely that the judge would deny Commissioner Gordon bail. Okay, more likely than a judge expressing his opinion that the defendant was guilty, but still not likely.

Bail is a pledge of money or property the defendant makes as a surety that he will return for trial if the court releases him before trial. The Eighth Amendment to the Constitution says all criminal defendants have a right to bail that is not excessive. And, while the Eighth Amendment doesn’t expressly grant a right to bail, Rule 7:4-1 of the New Jersey rules of court specifically does grant all defendants a right to bail.

The judge denied bail because he deemed Gordon was a flight risk. The factors which a judge is supposed to consider in order to determine whether a defendant is a flight risk are such things as the length of possible sentences, the strength of the evidence, the defendant’s family and community ties, the defendant’s financial resources, the defendant’s character, and the opportunity to flee.

I admit, the “strength of the evidence,” and “length of sentence” factors do weigh against Gordon. The evidence in against Gordon appeared to be strong. It probably will continue looking strong until Batman Eternal # 48 or so, when Batman finally stops treading water and starts investigating the case in earnest.

The maximum sentence for aggravated manslaughter in New Jersey is 30 years. If Gordon were convicted on all 162 counts and the judge imposed maximum, consecutive sentences on each count, that would be 4,860 years. Even I, who’s acting as devil’s advocate for Jim Gordon, admit that is more than just a little bit lengthy.

But while these facts alone might make Gordon seem a flight risk, those aren’t the only factors the judge should have considered. What about the other factors a judge is supposed to consider? What about, say family and community ties. Gordon has plenty.

Commissioner Gordon had a distinguished career in public service during which he rose from the rank of sargent to commissioner. In less than five years, if I read the revised continuity of the New 52 correctly. He has a daughter in Gotham City. He has many friends in Gotham City, including one of the leading citizens of the city, Bruce Wayne. In other words, Gordon has lots of family and community ties to the community. This factor weighs heavily against ruling Gordon a flight risk.

How about financial resources? Gordon doesn’t have a lot. He was a cop. An honest cop – one of the few honest cops in Gotham City, it seems. Cops don’t earn a lot of money. Honest cops earn even less. Okay, commissioners earn more than beat cops, but still, Gordon wouldn’t be rich. Certainly not rich enough that he could set up a new life for himself in, say Belize, were he to skip bail and flee Gotham.

Yes, Gordon does have rich friends, including one of the leading citizens – and the richest  citizen – in Gotham City, Bruce Wayne. Wayne could set up a new identity for Gordon, if Gordon choose to flee. And if Wayne decided to subvert the law in this way. But what evidence could the  the state introduce to prove that Bruce Wayne was likely to fund any plan Gordon had for fleeing the jurisdiction? Probably even less evidence than it could introduce to prove that Gordon planned to flee the jurisdiction. And it didn’t have any evidence that he was going to flee.

Defendant’s character. Remember what I said about Gordon being one of the few honest cops in Gotham? Kinda goes to his character, doesn’t it?

The only evidence that the state really had to prove that Gordon had a bad character is that he worked hand-in-hand with known vigilantes. This was the only reason the judge cited when he denied bail. But just because a man works with vigilantes, particularly vigilantes who are actually quite effective in bringing the criminal element to justice, doesn’t make him a person of bad character. Moreover, working with actual justice-helping vigilantes would dictate that a person was of a law-abiding character, not a bail-jumping character.

After weighing the factors in Gordon’s case, I don’t think there was enough evidence to justify denying Gordon his right to bail. To be sure, the judge could have set the bail very high. But I still think the judge would have granted bail.

So why didn’t the judge grant Gordon bail? I have a theory.

Remember what I said earlier about Gordon being one of the few honest cops in Gotham City? Same is true of its politicians. Mayor Sebastian Hady? Corrupt. Former police commissioner Gillian Loeb? Corrupt. The commissioners between Loeb and Gordon? Corrupt. Tammany Hall? Historically corrupt. But it’s historical corruption is only a fraction of the corruption that is shown every time a politician appears in a Batman story. So it wouldn’t be a stretch to conclude the judge in Gordon’s hearing? Corrupt.

Now someone is orchestrating this massive 52-issue plan to frame Commissioner Gordon. Is it so hard to believe that the judge would be adverse to accepting a little something, something from that “someone?” Or that the trial judge accepted a little more something, something to order that Gordon serve his time waiting trial in Blackgate Prison instead of the county jail, where most pre-trial detainees are held? I don’t think so.

Were this England, instead of Gotham City, you could say denying Gordon bail was a case of quids pro quo. It being Gotham City, I think it’s more a case of status quo.

The Point Radio: Reality Smackdown On WRESTLING WITH DEATH

We introduce you to The Latham Family. By day they run a successful mortuary business and by night they enter the squared circle of Mid South Championship Wrestling. This fascinating contrast is part of the new WGN AMERICA series, WRESTLING WITH DEATH and there are some great stories to tell here. Plus, HELIX returns tonight to SyFy with new secrets, new threats and a unique new way to tell the story. Stars Neil Napier and Billy Campbell explain it all.

On Monday, we welcome John C. McGinley who talks about the road from SCRUBS to GROUND FLOOR, plus Megan Boone from THE BLACKLIST previews the big episode that will air after the Super Bowl. Be sure to follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

Martha Thomases: What It All Means

crumbBy the time this column runs we may have some other, more fresh horror than the terrorist attack on the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo. Certainly, those of us who love comics will have read myriad opinions on What It All Means, and, perhaps, we will simply want to talk about something else.

Tough noogies. I’m going to talk about the Charlie Hebdo cartoons.

First of all, I want to be clear. I am totally in favor or freedom of expression. I support all kinds of anti-censorship organizations, including but not limited to the American Civil Liberties Union and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Nothing that I say should be interpreted to mean that the journalists, editors and cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo were in any way, shape or form responsible for the terrorist attack against them.

That should be obvious, but here in New York, respectable news media seem to accept police union boss Patrick Lynch’s contention that Bill de Blasio is responsible for the murder of two police officers because he stood next to Al Sharpton.

Neither do I want to argue about what is and isn’t funny. I have my ideas, and you have yours. While I might be able to persuade you that my point of view is reasonable (and vice versa), I can’t make you laugh when you are not amused.

Having said that, I want to talk about my perspective on what is funny. In general, I think the point of humor generally and satire specifically is to ridicule people in power. To me, pointing out that the emperor walks around with no clothes, that’s funny. Pointing out that the peasants walk around with no clothes is just mean.

(Obviously, that isn’t all that contributes to my personal sense of humor. It’s just what is relevant to this issue).

So, as you might guess, I didn’t find a lot of the “offensive” cartoons very funny. Part of it may be that I’m American. Part of it may be that I didn’t live in Paris in 1968, the era in which Charlie Hebdo was born. It isn’t shocking to me for someone to make fun of the Pope, or Israel, or Islam.

And I was bothered, somewhat, by the crudeness of the portrayals. Although there is a persuasive argument against my feelings, I still felt a racist undertone. Again, that could be a cultural difference between France and me.

I don’t want to use the word “should” when I talk about humor. “Should” is the antithesis of humor. And still, I may have to in order to make the points I want to make. Because I think a large part of the audience for those cartoons missed (what I consider to be) the point, and thought they were laughing at those ridiculous Muslims.

French Muslims don’t have a lot of power. It isn’t funny (to me) if they aren’t wearing any clothes. Drawing a caricature of the Prophet to rile them up is pretty much childish. Not worthy of a death sentence. Not worthy of any legal censure. But maybe worth a conversation, over coffee and/or brandy, about what the cartoonists wanted to say and what people perceived them to be saying.

Joe Sacco, in this comic, illustrates the issue for me. We are free to say/draw/publish/play whatever we want. A thoughtful adult tempers this freedom with some thought about how our free speech is understood.

Using stereotypes is a convenient shorthand for humor and other kinds of communication. I grew up with a father who told Polish jokes. I’ve sat around many a bar table listening to (and telling) blonde jokes. These are (comparatively) harmless. However, Muslims are not all the same. The shorthand of stereotype in this case works against not only Muslims, but all of us.

One of my favorite musicians, Billy Bragg, said on his Facebook page “Thus we extend the hand of friendship towards moderate Muslims only to slap them in the face in our determination to offend them in the name of free speech. In doing so, we legitimize the rantings of extremists who say that Muslims have no place in Europe. Radical Islamists are already declaring that this week’s cover of Charlie Hebdo is ‘an act of war.’

“If we genuinely want moderate Muslims to be part of our community, to stand beside us against the extremists, then we have to start a process of building trust that will involve listening to their concerns. That’s not ‘self censorship’, it’s respect – the very thing that civil society is based on.”

Free speech doesn’t mean we are not each responsible for what we say. It means we are more responsible, because we can’t blame our imprecise language or inarticulate ideas on anyone else.

 

Tweeks: Are Team Edward (Scissorhands that is)

edward-characterdesign-9c395-4866609The Tim Burton movie, Edward Scissorhands came out in 1990, so it’s totally possible that unless your parents sat you down to watch a “classic” this might not even be on your radar. Though we love Tim Burton and Johnny Depp (and our mom makes us watch a lot of old movies for our “own cultural good”) we hadn’t gotten to this one yet.  But thanks to IDW we are now fully Team Edward!  In our review of Issues 1-3, we let you know who Edward Scissorhands is and why he’s totally awesome.

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