I get the feeling that the producer was sitting in his Valley living room, thinking that he should finally make that Gay Sex Farce he’d been planning to make for years and said to himself (or herself I didn’t check) that they should forget about using twinks and go straight for middle aged actors. When they couldn’t get real middle aged porn actors to star in their Gay Sex Farce, they decided to call in some Scilon help and cast John Travolta.
One 70s star doesn’t really make a great Gay Sex Farce, so they decided to cast another actor who had (under duress) looked for comfort in the arms of another man. That way they would have at least one Camp actor and one “Butch” actor in the bunch. Then they hired a nerd and a black guy to round out the cast.
So, with a cast in place an a loose plot involving a road trip for middle aged motorcycle enthusiasts escaping their wives for the week and discovering their intimate feelings ROAD HOGS, the Gayest Gay joke ever was in production. Except the title was changed to Wild Hogs so it would not be so obviously Gay.
The whole movie seems to be one long Gay Joke, I’d have taken it for a Gay Sex Farce if it wasn’t for the fact that the Gay part is treated as if it is poisonous radioactive waste, instead of a campy joke. If I remember correctly this film-opus to the Carry-On films was number one in the box office when it was released. It was only pushed out of the top spot by “300” where shirtless Spartans opiled up and beat an army sensless with their pecs for a couple of hours.
I have to admit that I had a couple genuine laughs during this, much as I did during “Norbit” but this really was a fairly crappy, homophobic pile of crap. I think that one might have to take leave of their senses to spend money on this one. Avoid, watch the Carry On films instead, at least the Camp Sex Farces are kind of funny.
A web Poll made me curse
Published by NiteMayr on July 4, 2008The Money Quote about the Poll results:
When I read the poll results (without first reading the above paragraph) I was nearly apoplectic that someone described as a muslim Televangelist was rated higher than Richard Dawkins, and that Al Gore was on it at all… phew. I was up in arms over it, at least emotionally.
This is one of those times when one has to examine their personal prejudices and determine if your reaction is to the “Islam” or to the “Religious” part of it. Did I react badly because the top ten are foreign and unknown to me or because they are overwhelmingly Muslim? This is a troubling line of questioning, isn’t it? I guess if you are conservative and wrong, the answers are easy here, but when you are a thinking liberal who has to examine the whole list and determine what you think of it, the answers aren’t as easy.
It seems that the top ten list is made up of religious personalities, akin to the list being full of American Televangelists and the Pope. This kind of framing, in my mind, puts to rest any queasiness I have about the list and of course the fact that it was made via open public gaming of the poll makes it even less troubling. Imagine if Free Republic and Stormfront had come out in force to vote on the list? I imagine that personal politics would color it there too.
So, in the end. Am I being racist in my reaction to this list. Most likely, there is certainly a strong xenophobic bent in my initial reaction that can’t be passed of as me immediately noting the religious trappings of the top ten, but I went on and read the list and tried to gain a better understanding of how it came about and used reason over emotion to judge it. I think that is the best we can hope for, that reason is our fallback plan when we think our emotions are overwhelming us.
Also, Stephen Colbert is the “write in” winner. I think we can put this list to bed as “typical web poll garbage” and sleep easier for it, or at least congratulate the voting public for having their voice heard.