Salon Headline of the Day

The simultaneously funniest and saddest thing about Patton Oswalt's #SalonArticles trending topic game over the weekend, which sought to create the most ridiculous liberal outrage porn headline in the name of skewering Salon, is that in the end Salon will always show up everybody. That's the joke: Nobody can parody Salon better than Salon can parody itself.

Salon, I salute you.

Queer as Fake

For years now, Salon's stable of really silly female writers has been to me what Tom Friedman is to Matt Taibbi or what The Family Circus was to Timothy Olyphant's drug-dealer character in Go: an unhealthy obsession that I can't help but be transfixed by no matter how much it sucks. Yeah, I love my friend Mary Beth Williams and I typically enjoy Joan Walsh's stuff quite a bit, but dear God, the rest of it. You already know about Irin, and Katie, and Falguni -- and emeriti like Heather and Stephanie -- but only one name at Salon dares to take on a beat that I suppose I should enjoy -- and yet strangely never do -- almost exclusively, and that's Tracy Clark-Flory.

If you're unfamiliar with Clark-Flory's work, she writes about sex. And, yeah, that's pretty much it. She's got the sexually empowered New York City chick cliché down pat and she cranks out more click-bait than just about anybody else at Salon, whether it involves watching porn at work or just mining her own sexual exploits and experimentation for opportunities to tediously navel-gaze, if you're looking for a hipster-lit boner, Tracy's your girl.

Yesterday, Clark-Flory posted a short column over at Salon that takes issue with what she sees as the recent rash of jokes about gay love by "bro-medians." In other words, straight guys who, she figures, suddenly see it as okay to play homoeroticism for laughs because they do it without any ill-will or offense intended. What led her to write the piece? Two things that happened back-to-back: a sketch on Late Night from a couple of nights ago in which Jimmy Fallon and John Krasinski lip-synced songs to each other while getting a little too close for a couple of men who claim not to be gay, and then, the next day, the release of the new single and video from the Lonely Island.

The song, Spring Break Anthem, intercuts lyrics about -- and in the video, images of -- your standard debaucherous spring break douchebaggery with lines about meeting Mr. Right, then planning a wedding between two guys and eventually tying the knot. While the Fallon gag, like most of his stuff, really is pretty pedestrian -- it's harmless and good-hearted but the sight of two straight men gaying it up is in fact the joke -- Clark-Flory is completely missing the point of what the Lonely Island is up to.



Spring Break Anthem is a fucking brilliant piece of subversion. While you know from the minute you hear it that the intention of Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone is to mercilessly send up "bro" culture -- the hyper-masculine, ultra-sexist, and almost doubtlessly homophobic frat boy behavior that turns Lake Havasu into the world's biggest toilet every spring break -- you also know that the song would still be a huge hit with precisely the people it's making fun of. That's the meta joke we've all become used to: When parody is done well it's almost indistinguishable from whatever it's parodying; in this case, the very people the Lonely Island are mocking when they shout over an LMFAO-style beat "Who wanna do a shot?! WE DO! I'm gonna get fucked up! ME TOO!" would without question be singing right the fuck along when the track got cranked to 11 at the Hard Rock Vegas pool during the real spring break this year -- were it not for the fact that as the song goes on there are more and more lines like "Sex with a man! We'll be so happy, true love forever, two kids walking hand in hand! Promise to cherish, trust and respect him... marry a man!"

Obviously, by the time the song turns up at an actual, honest-to-God spring break event, everyone will know the joke and so you'll lose out on the glorious opportunity of watching the faces of the frat douches change from pumped, to confused, to probably horrified, but you've got to imagine that the average party school dickhead will have no idea what the hell to do with the lines about gay sex and marriage. And here's the thing: If by some chance that dickhead and all his dickhead friends actually do find it in their hearts to enjoy the entire song, who knows, maybe the cognitive dissonance will help teach them a little tolerance. It's a stretch, I know, but stranger things have happened.

The fact is, regardless, that the Lonely Island isn't just rolling out homosexuality as a punchline; the joke isn't as simple as a couple of straight guys singing about getting married. Tracy Clark-Flory's wrong to assume it is. She's also wrong when she ends her piece with this predictable and thoroughly condescending scold: "To all bro-medians: Please, put a hold on the gay sex jokes until you come up with a really good one."

I've got a better idea. To Tracy Clark-Flory, and really quite a few other self-proclaimed feminist writers over at Salon and elsewhere: How about putting a hold on lecturing legitimately funny people on how to be funny. Trust me, you're not qualified to do it.

Tweet of the Day

Quote of the Day

"Dear Salon: can you please create a simple primer that describes when it is acceptable to enjoy something, versus when something is too insensitive to racial, gender or sexual orientation standards? I'm finding it difficult to keep up with the rules. I've apparently been too busy just living my life and am not fully caught up on when I should be getting offended. Thank you."

-- "Wesley T." commenting on a piece currently running at Salon that bemoans the "white patriarchy" of The Walking Dead

Yup, a 4,000-word -- 4,000-word -- essay devoted to racial and gender politics in a show about zombies rising from the grave and eating the living. Here's the salient quote among all that indignant proselytizing and in-depth analysis of what kind of supposedly awful stereotypes the show promotes:

"For those of us who had hoped that season three of 'The Walking Dead' would move beyond the white patriarchy of the first two seasons, we have been disappointed. If anything, gender and race have become even more problematic in this past season than they were in seasons one and two."

Salon: official home of the outraged royal "we."

If it were anybody but them, I'd honestly think this was a really impressive April Fool's prank.

Adding:

If any of you were waiting for the actual words "white privilege" to enter the conversation from the author's end -- of course in the form of an accusation -- well, wait no longer.

Comment of the Day

In response to my Daily Banter piece on the dethroned Miss Delaware Teen USA Melissa King, which was cross-posted over at the Huffington Post: (Remember, the title of the column was "Today, We Are All Beauty Pageant Winners Who Did Amateur Porn.")

"No, we are not all beauty pageant winners or amateur porn performers.

Some of us are doctors, lawyers, scientists, chefs, teachers, physical therapists, veterinarians and pilots. Some of us chose to rely on our brains and skills to make our way in the world instead of trading on our youth and beauty and sexual appeal to horndog men. We knew better than to do porn for money.

Sorry, but anyone who does porn has no business in any role where girls are expected to look up to them or where they will be role models for girl children.

Men like you are behind the destruction of girls and women's lives, men like you who consume porn and who think that girls exist for your sexual arousal, titillation and gratification, men like you who want porn for masturbatory material, men like you who want prostitutes available to service you. Porn is prostitution, it is having sex for money. that is prostitution, and you are perfectly happy to turn our daughters into prostitutes because your heart and soul are too calicified and depraved to know that love and sex are sacred gifts not meant to be exploited by crass capitalism. Men like you reduce women to objects here to service men and their programed misogynistic and patriarchal sexual desires.

No, we women are not all beauty pageant winners or porn performers. But it is looking like most men are pornheads who view women as nothing but objects and body parts. Blame yourself."

Mere words can't express how much I love the HuffPost peanut gallery. It's where the ability to know a joke when you see one goes to die.

By the way, the screen-name of the commenter?

"Whalepeace."

Boo(b) Hoo

Seriously -- I give up.

"Seth MacFarlane has made millions off being an immature man-child. In fact, it was the success of his particular brand of gross-out offensive humor (served with a smile, of course) that got him the Oscar gig in the first place. So it came as little surprise, then, when base misogyny and racism dominated MacFarlane’s performance on Sunday. And while the musical opener 'We Saw Your Boobs' has been called immature (true) and sexist (also true) — it wasn’t just a harmless roundup of spicy movie scenes. Four of the films MacFarlane crooned about featured nudity during or immediately following violent depictions of rape and sexual assault, stripped of their context and played for laughs. Scarlett Johansson found herself on the list because of a real-life violation: Her nude photos were stolen from her phone and leaked online. Oh, your privacy was invaded and your breasts were splashed across the Internet against your will? That is hilarious!

-- Katie McDonough in a piece for Salon called "'We Saw Your Boobs' Celebrates Rape on Film"

I swear, at this point I think Salon is just trolling. No one can be this fucking stupid and still be able to write a series of complete sentences.

Irie-tated

From the "Political Correctness Is Awesome" file, here comes the latest example of people losing their shit over something that pretty much nobody should be losing their shit over.

First, take a look at this:



I know what you're thinking right now: "Those racists at Volkswagen! How dare they! A white guy doing a Jamaican accent for a Super Bowl ad -- unacceptable! I'm so offended that I'm taking to the streets in protest and ceremonially setting my wife's Jetta on fire! Bow before the incredible might of my easily rattled liberal sensibilities and complete lack of anything approaching a sense of humor! AAARRGGGHHH, HULK SMASH!"

Kids, say hello to the latest ridiculous non-controversy to give the perpetually aggrieved something to bitch about.

The Huffington Post: Volkswagen Super Bowl Ad Accused of Being Racist/1.29.13

Dear God are we a stupid, stupid country.

Kid Gloves

Can you find the babies in this story?

Here's a hint: They don't include the one being smashed against a window.

From the Huffington Post:

"A vacation rental company says it will remove an image of a baby doll smashing against a window from a Super Bowl ad after complaints that the ad was insensitive toward child abuse and injuries.

Homeaway.com Chief Executive Brian Sharples said Tuesday the Austin-based company would remove from its website versions of the ad that depict the doll getting 'smushed, smashed, or dropped.' Sharples said the Super Bowl ad wouldn't air again.

The ad Sunday night from the company that markets rental homes showed people trying to fit into a crowded hotel room in a testing lab, resulting in a 'test baby' being flung against a window.

Sharples apologized, saying the company 'failed to understand the reality' of families dealing with serious injuries to children."

At what point are we going to learn that there's always going to be someone offended? Aggrieved outrage and indignation is the new national pastime, and no matter how hard you try to make sure no one's delicate feelings are hurt and everybody's nice and comfortable, there are always going to be one or two people who just happen to have recently tossed their baby through a window, or had a relative eaten by a shark, or watched a documentary on Tibet -- and those people are going to freak the hell out.

Allow me to jump on the bandwagon and invoke the ubiquitous Founding Fathers by throwing out a quote from Ben Franklin:

"If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed."

Jesus, people -- it's a commercial.