Why We Clubbed 'Glee'

The liberal reactionaries are in full hissy-fit mode at Big Hollywood for its latest heresy, calling out Glee for its gratuitous – and worse, unfunny – slam on Sarah Palin as “stupid.” Apparently, pointing out hackneyed liberal sucker punches lurking within tiresome TV shows is yet another cruel assault upon the helpless Hollywood community of visionary artists who only seek to help enlighten and uplift us unedu-makated, tea-partying, gun n’ religion-clingers dwelling in that small, backward portion of America located east of I-5.

Big Hollywood hater Patrick Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times jumped right into full “gotta defend our pals in the Industry” effect with a hysterical (in both senses of the word) counterattack supporting Glee creator Ryan Murphy. The LAT, for those not residing here, is a small, local pamphlet of uncertain financial stability which recently reduced the physical size of its dead tree edition to about that of an Applebee’s menu. Its innovative marketing strategy of providing its dwindling readership with even less content for their money has somehow failed to halt its downward spiral toward Chapter 11.

Pat writes:

Poor Ryan Murphy. I guess it would’ve been oh-so-much simpler if he’d just had Jane Lynch tell the silly cheerleaders that they were the dumbest teens she’d ever seen. And that was saying something, since she’d once taught cheerleading to … Megan Fox. It would’ve gotten a nice knowing laugh without prompting any hysterical shrieks of angst from the right-wing blogosphere, which is so paranoid about Hollywood’s oppressive Marxist-Obamaism that it seems bent on getting worked up every time anyone in show business shows any signs of liberal bias.

Poor Ryan Murphy indeed! He insults the large portion of the American people who respect and support Sarah Palin – you know, the same Sarah Palin who the LAT reported had an approval rating within one point of the President’s – and those vicious monsters dare to respond! With shrieks of angst no less!

We hicks are getting downright uppity.

And, of course, it’s because we’re sexist, racist, and imperialist to boot! Pat links our anti-Glee agenda directly to our mindless hatred of the idea of tolerance:

“Glee” was already in hot water with the right wing, since the show’s creator, Ryan Murphy, had in previous episodes made fun of abstinence education and, as Newsbusters puts it, “tried to normalize teen homosexuality.” Apparently on the right, treating gay kids as regular folks, instead of as scary deviants, is cause for alarm.

Oops, sorry! Looks like I forgot “homophobic” – we’re so many awful things that I sometimes get mixed up and overlook some of our flaws. Yes, Pat, you’ve figured it out. We conservatives love being mocked to our faces by people who expect us to consume their products. That’s cool, but our real problem with Glee is not that it calls people we support – and by extension us – “stupid,” it’s that the show is insufficiently hateful to gay kids.

You caught us, Scoop. We’re so busted. Only a reporter of your keen skills could sniff out the clarion calls for more hassling of gay kids that dominate our Tea Party rallies/cross burnings. That’s the kind of ace reporting and deep insight that’s made the LAT into the unstoppable journalistic success story it is today. BTW Pat, can you yell across the room to the folks at the subscription phone bank and ask them to stop calling me during dinner to beg me to re-subscribe?

The fact is that Pat and those like him hate the idea of outsiders like us presuming to challenge the Hollywoodoids. He reasons that, “The conservatives rule talk radio and cable TV, the liberals rule Hollywood and that’s the way it goes.” Except we never got the memo relegating us to the nether regions of the AM radio spectrum plus one cable news network while granting Pat’s team sole title to the rest of the cultural playing field. Just like we never got the one dated January 20, 2009, making dissent unpatriotic again.

And our refusal to be satisfied with our assigned seat at the kids’ table in the back of the banquet hall is actually starting to drive them nuts. For example, Pat whines that we even dared question the deep thoughts of that guy from Bosom Buddies:

As you may recall, the righties were up in arms for weeks when Tom Hanks seemed to imply, while doing interviews promoting HBO’s “The Pacific” series, that there was some link between our war against Japan during World War II and the modern-day war on terrorism.

Pat, you’re the professional, government-licensed and approved journalist here. Surely you can see that Hanks didn’t imply anything. He said it. Your own article even repeated his quote:

Back in World War II,” he told Brinkley, “we viewed the Japanese as ‘yellow, slant-eyed dogs’ that believed in different gods. They were out to kill us because our way of living was different. We, in turn, wanted to annihilate them because they were different. Does that sound familiar, by any chance, to what’s going on today?

Well, maybe who said what about how we’re just as bad as the people we’re fighting just isn’t important to Pat – celebrities utter this sort of nonsense so regularly that it’s hard to keep which celebrity is making what numbskulled comment straight.

But Pat’s too busy posing as a lonely defender of Murphy’s right to speak freely to bother with things like facts. Now, it is refreshing to see a LAT writer taking a stand for free expression, in light of the LAT’s strong editorial stand against free speech for those it deems unworthy – us. But Pat isn’t really defending the concept of free speech, free inquiry or free anything except the notion that the liberal establishment should have free reign to treat popular culture as an undisputed free fire zone for slamming conservatives.

Welcome to the dispute, Pat. We’re the popular culture insurgency, and the day of the unchallenged, unanswered insult is over. Your unspoken assumption is that our place is to sit quietly as our betters instruct us on our myriad failings and to dully nod our slack-jawed noggins in agreement.

Not. Going. To. Happen.

Here’s our assumption – popular culture belongs to all of us and when your buddies say something obnoxious, insulting or just plain stupid, they are going to hear about it.

Ryan Murphy is no martyr to free speech. No one is saying Murphy shouldn’t write what he wants. We’re just saying that we can, and will, call him on it. Sure, people might not watch because we’ve exposed his agenda. We call that a “consequence.” If Murphy feels so strongly about the powerful, unprecedented, and brave artistic statement that is calling Sarah Palin “stupid” – the political comedy equivalent of a ten minute hack stand-up set on how airline food tastes bad – then he should say it and the Nielsen numbers be damned. This is a free country, no thanks to and despite the best efforts of modern liberals, and that’s Murphy’s right.

But we’re also free not to watch his stupid show. You know, Pat, just like you exercise your freedom not to listen to those dirty, nasty, mean old right-winger radio programs by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Big Hollywood’s own Stage Right. Although it goes against everything you’ve ever known or believed, we conservatives have the same right to choose what we watch as you lefties do. And we’re choosing. And there are a lot of us.

Pat, we sympathize. We understand that this new media-fueled change is having the effect of breaking your gang’s hold on the flow of information and control of the message. Change can be painful, but your loss of your coveted gatekeeper status is something that we can live with. And hey, here’s an idea for you. When the LAT goes under you can always get a new job where your distaste for conservatives and ability to ignore facts will be fully appreciated – working for the Obama administration like so many other liberal ex-journalists. Well, at least until January 2013. And unless you’ve paid your taxes.