Maher makes fun of Bpat, I mean comic book fans

[Belsnickel]

(11-20-2018, 11:29 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: Early Shakespeare criticism focused on his poor use of classical languages, his juvenile themes, and said he wrote for the masses not the educated. Dickens contemporaries dismissed his writing as without any real depth, relying on creating these fantasy stories with shallow characters that lacks intelligence. 

Was hoping this would be stated. I'm not a big comics reader. I have read some graphic series such as Sandman, Preacher, and some others, often graphic adaptations from novels I read. I've never been a "capes and tights" reader, but I've always known that there was a greater literary value in them than many critics of the medium tend to see. This is absolutely something that is seen throughout the ages where contemporary literature is often undervalued at the time. Chaucer and Shakespeare were both criticized heavily in their time, yet they have played a huge role in shaping English. Granted, there wasn't the distinction between high and low culture at the time and I'm not saying comic books are on the same level as Shakespeare, but the point is that what we see as low-brow can definitely have a hefty literary value.

[Dill]

(11-19-2018, 04:46 PM)Au165 Wrote: The guy is kind of a self indulgent douche in general. He's a comedian which in itself is kind of a pointless profession isn't it? I mean people go listen to someone tell jokes but what does it actually accomplish? To act like one activity for killing free time is any more childish than another is simply trying to be a gate keeper of free time. It's the old guy "back in my day" argument that will continue on as long as man does. Somewhere when Bill was growing up there was an adult saying that when he was a kid they quit telling jokes at 14 and went to plow fields like real grown ups not trying to make a career out of being funny.

Side note: I have never read a comic in my life. I just hate the whole gate keeper mentality of people sometimes.

I love Bill Maher--and comics, or I did more so when I was  kid.

But he is not particularly good at social/historical commentary.  He is good at polical humor, heavy on the irony, which gives him a platform to speak about most everything. Being good at the latter may led him, mistakenly, to believe he is good at the former. 

That said, I think there is plenty critique about U.S. pop culture, including sports, but formulations like "comic books cause X" won't deliver much.

As one who remembers George Carlin, Redd Foxx, Richard Pryor and Lenny Bruce, and is a current fan of Dave Chapelle, I'd say Comedians can do serious "cultural" and political work. And so can comics. But as with comedians, it doesn't mean that ALL of them do.  

Maher is on to something when he complains about "adulting" and the connection between pop culture, Trump and immaturity, but someone writing about "otherness" in the Silver Surfer is much closer to figuring it out than Maher is.

[BmorePat87]

(11-20-2018, 12:05 PM)hollodero Wrote: I just consider it childish to even react in that manner.
Me, I like football and the Bengals. I would never consider calling anyone's opinion that football is stupid "disgusting" or "shocking" though. 

You consider it childish to react in a mature manner and addresses his points, makes counter claims, and offers a lesson in civility?

Quote:I wouldn't accuse said person of ignoring decades of tradition and epic battles. And so on.

Yea... again, they didn't even get into that. What do you hope to gain by being disingenuous?

[Dill]

(11-20-2018, 12:37 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Was hoping this would be stated. I'm not a big comics reader. I have read some graphic series such as Sandman, Preacher, and some others, often graphic adaptations from novels I read. I've never been a "capes and tights" reader, but I've always known that there was a greater literary value in them than many critics of the medium tend to see. This is absolutely something that is seen throughout the ages where contemporary literature is often undervalued at the time. Chaucer and Shakespeare were both criticized heavily in their time, yet they have played a huge role in shaping English. Granted, there wasn't the distinction between high and low culture at the time and I'm not saying comic books are on the same level as Shakespeare, but the point is that what we see as low-brow can definitely have a hefty literary value.

There is always a distinction between high and low culture in every civilization.  However, this distinction changes over time as modes of artistic production and audiences change. E.g. painting was not "high art" in 13th century; photography and film were not considered art in the first decade of the 20th century, now they can be, and very hight art at that.

In Shakespeare's time, the high culture in London was written and read in Latin, followed by "courtly" poetry in English.  Shakespeare's Sonnets appear to have been his attempt to gain repute as a writer. His plays were not in the running because they were, well, plays written in English for "entertainment," and to keep the pot boiling.  Low brow for Early 17th-century England.  Some of those plays became high culture in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, as both drama and publishing flourished for a now large middle class audience. Shakespeare, along with other figures like Cervantes, Dante and Rabelais became high culture for Western Europe in the early 19th century--"world literature" as literay scholars/critics at the time put it, even as the critics were complaining at how far downhill poetry had gone down hill when reviewing the upstart Wordsworth, Byron and Shelley.  When European countries began building modern universities and public school systems in the mid-19th century, each created a national canon of high brow literature in the vernacular to help bind the nation with a common culture.  That's why we still read a bit of Shakespeare in public schools.

[*michaelsean*]

(11-20-2018, 01:11 PM)Dill Wrote: I love Bill Maher--and comics, or I did more so when I was  kid.

But he is not particularly good at social/historical commentary.  He is good at polical humor, heavy on the irony, which gives him a platform to speak about most everything. Being good at the latter may led him, mistakenly, to believe he is good at the former.  

That said, I think there is plenty critique about U.S. pop culture, including sports, but formulations like "comic books cause X" won't deliver much.

As one who remembers George Carlin, Redd Foxx, Richard Pryor and Lenny Bruce, and is a current fan of Dave Chapelle, I'd say Comedians can do serious "cultural" and political work. And so can comics. But as with comedians, it doesn't mean that ALL of them do.  

Maher is on to something when he complains about "adulting" and the connection between pop culture, Trump and immaturity, but someone writing about "otherness" in the Silver Surfer is much closer to figuring it out than Maher is.

That sounds a lot like "He's good in areas where I agree with him."  

[BmorePat87]

Bill Maher is the guy who went as Steve Irwin with a bard through his chest a month after he was killed.

[Au165]

(11-20-2018, 01:11 PM)Dill Wrote: Maher is on to something when he complains about "adulting" and the connection between pop culture, Trump and immaturity, but someone writing about "otherness" in the Silver Surfer is much closer to figuring it out than Maher is.

The complaint about "adulting" is still the old guy screaming to get off his lawn. People have bitched that "being a grown up sucks" since the dawn of time but the difference is now people post it on social media instead of sitting around saying it in a living room with friends. Again, somehow drawing some sort of parallel between casual activities and "not wanting to grow up" is just maturity gate keeping. It is propped up by outdated cultural stereotypes of certain activities and the people who partake in them. 

I play video games, which means I don't want to grow up. I also bought a house at 23, got married, made it into a director role and carry no debt other than a mortgage, but damn it I apparently just can't handle growing up because of those pesky video games. The activities you choose to spend your free time doing don't mean anything in regards to your ability to be mature or to be an "adult". I know plenty of guys who sit around and read history books and watch PBS that can't figure out how to hold a job. Outdated stereotypes are just that....outdated. 

[hollodero]

(11-20-2018, 01:32 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: You consider it childish to react in a mature manner and addresses his points, makes counter claims, and offers a lesson in civility?

I don't think that's what they did. I find it not so mature to use words like "disgusting" to address it. I find it not so mature to react in any way, really. OK, one can see that differently, sure. But to call it a "lesson in civility" really takes it a notch too far for me. It's not "uncivil" to consider comics to be a bit dull.

(11-20-2018, 01:32 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: Yea... again, they didn't even get into that. What do you hope to gain by being disingenuous?

I chose my example fitting to my overall example "football". Sure they did not talk about Spiderman's epic battles like a football fan would talk about the epic battles of his team. They talked about valuable life lessons taught in comics, like that villains can have humanity and whatnot. Which I consider an equivalent to a football fan being excited about football.

What I hope to gain? Nothing. Maybe a rep point, but so far I gained nada :)

[Dill]

(11-20-2018, 11:29 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: Early Shakespeare criticism focused on his poor use of classical languages, his juvenile themes, and said he wrote for the masses not the educated. Dickens contemporaries dismissed his writing as without any real depth, relying on creating these fantasy stories with shallow characters that lacks intelligence. 

However, by Dickens' time, even those criticizing "juvenile themes" in Shakespeare generally granted he was the all time greatest poet/dramatist in English, which most students of lit still agree with today.  Not true that his writing was dismissed as "without depth." That would have been a fringe opinion.

In the U.S. Shakespeare was wildly popular throughout the 19th-century U.S., with acting companies traveling the nation putting on his plays. In New York audiences rioted over good/bad/different performances and actors. 

[Dill]

(11-20-2018, 01:35 PM)michaelsean Wrote: That sounds a lot like "He's good in areas where I agree with him."  

To me it sounds like "he is not good in the areas where he shows lack of knowledge and sound analysis."

[Dill]

(11-20-2018, 01:44 PM)Au165 Wrote: I play video games, which means I don't want to grow up. I also bought a house at 23, got married, made it into a director role and carry no debt other than a mortgage, but damn it I apparently just can't handle growing up because of those pesky video games. The activities you choose to spend your free time doing don't mean anything in regards to your ability to be mature or to be an "adult". I know plenty of guys who sit around and read history books and watch PBS that can't figure out how to hold a job. Outdated stereotypes are just that....outdated.

First I want to agree with most of your points here. That is why I critique social analysis, especially of pop culture, which takes the form of "comic books cause X."  Doesn't seem like we disagree there, though I don't see guys sitting around reading history books as wasting their lives.  

Where we begin to diverge is where you use the very small sample of yourself to make claims about the effect, or lack thereof, of "entertainment" on people's lives. How one chooses to spend one's free time may have very much to do with one's ability to "be an adult," especially in a consumer culture driven by marketing.

And I have more questions about the following--

(11-20-2018, 01:44 PM)Au165 Wrote: The complaint about "adulting" is still the old guy screaming to get off his lawn. People have bitched that "being a grown up sucks" since the dawn of time but the difference is now people post it on social media instead of sitting around saying it in a living room with friends. Again, somehow drawing some sort of parallel between casual activities and "not wanting to grow up" is just maturity gate keeping. It is propped up by outdated cultural stereotypes of certain activities and the people who partake in them.

It is not only "cultural stereotypes" that can be outdated, but also entire modes of social/economic organization upon which they are based. As a form, the distinction between adult/child, grown up and not, is intrinsic to every human society, but as content it is not.  People we now call children were once regularly married off at 13 and 14. "Maturity" had very different requirments back then than it does now, when children began working at very young ages and fewer hours of the week could be devoted to leisure.  The sociological concept of "childhood" itself, as opposed to "adult," only emerged in the 19th century with a sufficiently large and leisured middle class, and has undergone some major redefinitions since then.

What I am getting at is that the belief that complaints about the immaturity of the young are just part of some permanent eternal cycle, such that paying attention to them tells us nothing about what is going on now, is ill advised.  The advent of electronic culture/amusement, the extension of the market into homelife and family relations, the massive leisure, priviledge and overprotection masses of children in Western nations now grow up with can certainly have an effect on "maturity" as it was defined by, say, the WWII generation. Hence phrases like "30 is the new 21" have a certain resonance with oldsters like myself.

Maturity gate keeping is important. Most of my complaints about Trump--and some of yours too I think--easily fall under this rubric.

[Dill]

(11-20-2018, 10:45 AM)michaelsean Wrote: Why do I hate the term "open letter" so much?  I can't figure it out.  

I don't really think I would have bothered writing a letter to set a comedian straight.  He makes fun of people who believe in God, and I've yet to feel the urge to write him in an open or closed letter.  Who thought all the aforementioned authors were childish?

I think "open" means they want everyone else to see it,not just Maher, in hopes of maybe repairing some damage or at least getting a counter-view of comics in circulation to counter the cultural stereotype of comics as superficial.  a "closed" letter could not do that. I doubt they think they will set Maher straight; he might publicly apologize or, just as likely, publicly double down.  We are the letter's addressee more so than Maher. (lol looks like the strategy backfired in some cases. See post #18 above.)

[fredtoast]

Stan Lee has been quoted in a U S Supreme court decision. Bill Maher has not.

[BmorePat87]

(11-20-2018, 02:07 PM)Dill Wrote: However, by Dickens' time, even those criticizing "juvenile themes" in Shakespeare generally granted he was the all time greatest poet/dramatist in English, which most students of lit still agree with today.  Not true that his writing was dismissed as "without depth." That would have been a fringe opinion.

In the U.S. Shakespeare was wildly popular throughout the 19th-century U.S., with acting companies traveling the nation putting on his plays. In New York audiences rioted over good/bad/different performances and actors. 

This is in regards to criticism from their contemporaries, though. They had plenty of critics during their time (and praise) which now seem so bizarre given their legacy and the incredible mark we know they left. 

Dickens (Not Shakespeare) was criticized as lacking intellectual depth.

[BmorePat87]

(11-20-2018, 01:46 PM)hollodero Wrote: I don't think that's what they did. I find it not so mature to use words like "disgusting" to address it. I find it not so mature to react in any way, really. OK, one can see that differently, sure. But to call it a "lesson in civility" really takes it a notch too far for me. It's not "uncivil" to consider comics to be a bit dull.

Three posts in a row you have purposefully chosen to misrepresent what they said, outright making up an argument and attributing it to them. Why? I'm not sure. Personally, I consider behavior like this childish. 

[hollodero]

(11-20-2018, 03:40 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: Three posts in a row you have purposefully chosen to misrepresent what they said, outright making up an argument and attributing it to them. Why? I'm not sure. Personally, I consider behavior like this childish. 

Well, in this particular case you bolded I rather represented what Bill Maher said.

Why I even say stuff, that I do not know either. It seems I am annoying you. I'm sorry about that, put aside your fan affiliation you seem like a likeable guy, so I'd rather stop "contributing" to that topic. I'm not intending to bug you.

[BmorePat87]

(11-20-2018, 04:02 PM)hollodero Wrote: Well, in this particular case you bolded I rather represented what Bill Maher said.

Why I even say stuff, that I do not know either. It seems I am annoying you. I'm sorry about that, put aside your fan affiliation you seem like a likeable guy, so I'd rather stop "contributing" to that topic. I'm not intending to bug you.

You're not bugging me or annoying me, but even after I explained that you were misrepresenting their comments, you continued to misrepresent comments and I had no clue what the purpose is.

The incivility is Maher dismissing a recently deceased writer with decades of experience as "inspiring people to watch movies", not in his thinking comics are dull. The "disgusting" remark was used in response to that dismissal of someone who just died, not in response to his comments about comics being for kids. They explicitly stated that in the open letter. 

I'd rather we not just stop contributing but instead understand each other. It felt like you were purposefully choosing to continue using a misrepresentation for the sake of doing it. I apologize for saying your behavior was childish.

[samhain]

Comic books and their stories are part of American history IMO. They've come and gone in terms of popularity, rising back to the forefront of our culture when movie CGI finally became advanced enough to illustrate their stories without looking totally ridiculous in theaters.

I think it's shitty to criticize people for reading comics or liking the movies based on them.

All that said, I do think it's a tad strange to see grown-ups wearing Batman pajamas when they go to the grocery store. It strikes me as odd when I go to work and a dude comes in wearing a different superhero shirt daily. To be fair, I also think people that immerse themselves in video games so much that it becomes the key focus of their life have some problems, as do the ones that want to advertise their love of guns every chance they get either through t-shirts or discussion.

It's not that hobbies, frivolous or not, are inherently bad. I'll be at the theater for the first weekend of Avengers 4, guaranteed (I have a 6-year old), and I'm sure it'll be just as good as everything MCU puts out. It just seems like comics, video games, and guns have become things that overtake people's personalities. Their interests become who they think they are vs what people see them as/what they really are as an individual. People see themselves as weak, so they plaster crap and ads and symbols all over themselves to be something else. That's kind of crazy. These are the things that they want others to identify them with. It just seems to detract from people's actual personalities. It's another layer of phony crap for the insecure.

[Dill]

(11-20-2018, 03:38 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: This is in regards to criticism from their contemporaries, though. They had plenty of critics during their time (and praise) which now seem so bizarre given their legacy and the incredible mark we know they left. 

Dickens (Not Shakespeare) was criticized as lacking intellectual depth.

Yes, agree with the bolded.


And oops, sorry, I misread the pronoun reference.  Yeah, Dickens was popular in his time but not considered "deep", like that George Eliot guy.

[Dill]

(11-20-2018, 04:39 PM)samhain Wrote: It's not that hobbies, frivolous or not, are inherently bad.  I'll be at the theater for the first weekend of Avengers 4, guaranteed (I have a 6-year old), and I'm sure it'll be just as good as everything MCU puts out.  It just seems like comics, video games, and guns have become things that overtake people's personalities.  Their interests become who they think they are vs what people see them as/what they really are as an individual.  People see themselves as weak, so they plaster crap and ads and symbols all over themselves to be something else.  That's kind of crazy.  These are the things that they want others to identify them with.  It just seems to detract from people's actual personalities.  It's another layer of phony crap for the insecure.

Good insight here. (and you might throw in tattoos now as well.) That's why I think it very much worth looking into these kinds of pop cultural phenomenon, though I'd leave the moralizing as a final, not a first step. First is to figure out what's happening in the larger culture/economy to explain this change in identity formation.

The answer, however, will not likely be "guns/video games/comics cause X behavior" since addictive behavior towards these objects is for those involved (and as you have framed it) the solution to some other, larger problem.