Popular Culture

Thoughts and Musings While Re-Watching “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World”

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

There were three distinct stages in my consideration of the sui generis Cinerama feature from 1963, “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World.” The movie’s gimmick was that it collected more comedians and comic actors in a single Hollywood production than has ever been featured before, which meant, naturally, that it had to be the funniest movie ever….or so we were told.

I first saw IAMMMMW at Boston’s Cinerama Theater when I was 12. It was the first of the new, improved, seamless Cinerama features, which meant it was inferior to the original format, which wrapped around the audience. There were few effects in the movie that took advantage of the giant screen, either. But like all boys under 20 or so, I thought IAMMMMW was very amusing and a lot of fun. Girls didn’t get it, for the most part, and that has never changed. It’s physical comedy and slapstick throughout, and often cruel slapstick. This is a real male-female divide that appears to be timeless.

I was also, even back then, an omnivore of popular culture. Seeing so many familiar comedy icons of the era (and the previous one) in one movie was a thrill; of course, that was one of the main goals of the film. Sid Caeser, Milton Berle, Jimmy Durante, Jonathan Winters, Phil Silvers, Buddy Hackett, Mickey Rooney and more, with well-conceived cameos by the likes of Jack Benny, Jerry Lewis and Don Knotts—in the waning period of Hollywood all-star cast spectaculars, the idea of doing one with comedians was irresistible.

I saw the movie a second time in my thirties, and was shocked how different my reaction to it was. To be fair, I recalled many of the sequences that would have been funnier as a surprise, but the film seemed over-long, abrasive and, most surprisingly, sad. The subplot in which Spencer Tracy plays an aging police captain who becomes disillusioned with his professional and family life to the extent that he tries to steal the money that has set off an insane race among the assorted loonies is more tragedy than comedy, and, oddly, Tracy didn’t play any of his role for laughs. Grace, my wife, hated the movie in 1963 and hated it just as much when I made her watch it again with me.

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The Last “Snow White” Post (I Promise)

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Why is the Cognitive Dissonance Scale the graphic I chose for the final word on Disney’s “live-action” remake of Walt’s biggest and most important hit, 1937’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”? (For some perspective, realize that we have the same relationship on the timeline to that film that it had to the Presidency of Millard Fillmore.) It is clear that this cultural ethics train wreck, which EA has been dutifully covering (here, here, here, here here, and here), is now stuck inextricably in cognitive dissonance territory. For most viewers, what they think about the movie will be influenced far more by their biases and what they associate with the movie than the movie itself.

That’s how the scale works, as I keep explaining ad nauseam. If Disney is generally a plus-5 on a ticket-buyer’s scale (once upon a time, Disney would have been a plus-10 or higher on everyone’s scale) and the movie in a vacuum would be at “Meh”-level Zero, Disney would pull the film into positive territory. If Disney is in negative territory already for a different viewer, the film begins with an anchor chained to its metaphorical ankles.

Thus it is hardly surprising to see this as the early returns on the film (which doesn’t officially open in theaters until tomorrow):

Now that’s polarization!

What’s going on here? Well, a lot…

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They Make Such a Nice Couple! Ethics Dunce: Texas A&M University; Ethics Hero: The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE)

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

Texas A&M students started holding “Draggieland” (“drag” mixed with “Aggieland,” get it?) at the campus theater complex in 2020. Five years later, however, the tradition was slapped down as the school’s Board of Regents voted to ban all drag events on the 11 Texas A&M campuses.The board’s resolution reads in part,

“The board finds that it is inconsistent with the system’s mission and core values of its universities, including the value of respect for others, to allow special event venues of the universities to be used for drag shows [which are] offensive  [and] likely to create or contribute to a hostile environment for women.”

I’d guess a pre-law student with a closed head injury could correctly explain what’s wrong with that silliness, but luckily the student body at Texas A&M will have a better champion than that, The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, aka FIRE. FIRE moved in to fill the breach when the ACLU decided to be woke rather than defend free speech and expression regardless of which side of the partisan divide was attacking them, and this low-hanging fruitcake edict prompted the organization to file a federal lawsuit. It backs the Queer Empowerment Council, a coalition of student organizations at Texas A&M University-College Station and the organizers of the fifth annual “Draggieland” event that was scheduled to be held on campus on March 27, and aims at blocking the policy as a clear violation of the First Amendment. Which it is. FIRE asked a court in the Southern District of Texas to halt Texas A&M officials from enforcing the ban.

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About the “Appearance of Impropriety,” the Limits of “Deny, Deny, Deny,” and the Foolishness of Defying the Lessons of Michael Clayton

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Yes, ProPublica is generally a one-way-only ethics watchdog, but that way is still worth watching.

It is reporting that Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), had a romantic relationship with a legislative affairs official for the Navy. According to two sources with knowledge of an inspector general’s nvestigation, this was not the GOP combat veteran’s only inappropriate relationship with military personnel. Earlier this year, the Air Force revealed that Maj. Gen. Christopher Finerty, who oversaw its lobbying before Congress, had inappropriate romantic relationships with five women, including three who worked on Capitol Hill. One of those, though the names in the report were redacted, was allegedly Ernst. Because the Senator is an influential voice in Congress regarding the Pentagon and she sits on the Senate’s Armed Services Committee which has a crucial role in setting its annual budget, these are troubling accounts.

ProPublica says that neither Ernst nor the two military officers were married at the time. Current Senate rules do not bar lawmakers from entering into romantic relationships with lobbyists or other legislative advocates, although why I don’t know. Nonetheless, government employees and officials, like judges, are supposed to avoid appearances of impropriety.” “Ethics experts say such relationships can create a conflict of interest,” ProPublica tells us. “A former legislative affairs official for the military” tells ProPublica that “From an ethics standpoint, [these relationships] are severely problematic.”

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Now THIS Guy Might Have a Good Reason to Try “The Pazuzu Excuse”…

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

I couldn’t pass up posting on this story.

As regular EA readers know, individuals, especially celebrities and elected officials, are found guilty here of resorting to the Pazuzu Excuse, named after that potty-mouthed demon who possessed poor Regan (Linda Blair) in “The Exorcist,” when they attempt to avoid accountability for their own words or behavior by saying, usually in a groveled apology, “That wasn’t the real me! I’ve never believed in saying/doing such horrible things!”

The incident of interest occurred on November 21, 2024. As he participated in a tour of the relic of St. Jude’s at the Queen of Apostles parish in Joliet, Illinois, Catholic priest Carlos Martins, the co-host of “The Exorcist Files” podcast, began behaving…. strangely. Father Martins “grabbed the hair” of a 13-year-old girl, placed it “in his mouth” and used it in a “flossing motion,” according to the criminal complaint. Then he sat behind the teenager girl and started “growling.” That’s Father Martins with his friends above.

His conduct prompted the immediate suspension of the tour, and police were summoned. The Diocese of Joliet staff confronted the priest and told him that “he must depart from our parish and out of our Diocese.” “In an abundance of caution, the veneration of the relic and evening mass were canceled,” the diocese said in a release.

That seems prudent.

Martins was processed by the Joliet Police Department, arraigned, and released awaiting his pretrial hearing. The Companions of the Cross, the religious order that Treasures of the Church is affiliates with, said Martins has agreed to withdraw from his pastoral duties in the wake of the allegations against him.

“He remains entitled to due process, as is any accused,” the church said. “The Companions of the Cross look upon allegations of misconduct as an urgent matter that requires serious attention. We pray for all those who are affected by this painful situation.” The Archdiocese of Detroit now lists Father Martins as “Ministry revoked.”

To be fair, Martins’ associates said that he has always been obsessive about flossing. All right, I made that part up. Sorry.

The attorney representing Martins, Marcella Burke, denied the accusations against her client, telling reporters, “Your mothers suck cocks in Hell!” and adding, “Why you do this to me, Dimmy?”

Okay, I was just kidding about those quotes too. What she really said was,”He did not put anyone’s hair in his mouth, let alone ‘floss’ with a student’s hair or ‘growl’ among other completely false and repulsive accusations. This remains a takedown of a good priest and an attempted shakedown of the Church.”

What’s going on here? I have absolutely no idea. I will opine that it must violate some code of ethics for an exorcist to growl at a teenage girl in church.

A Nelson For Disney and “Snow White”

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

“The Nelson,” the Ethics Alarms designation for very special episodes of swell-earned schadenfreude, was introduced in 2023 in a post about…Disney’s live-action reboot of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” the 1937 animated film that began building the Disney entertainment empire. Thus it is nicely symmetrical for Nelson to give his trademark “Ha ha!” to the trailer of this slow-motion disaster, which has set what is believed to be a YouTube record with, as of yesterday, 40,383 “likes” and 1,012,299 “dislikes.” The film is hitting theaters in March. Ethics Alarms warned Disney about what was bound to happen if and when this botched project ever got out of the cutting room. I wrote in part,

The ethics value defied here is competence, and what we are seeing is the classic sunk costs fallacy in its classic form. The Vietnam War was the most painful example of this breach of life competence and common sense, which holds that devoting a lot of time and/or resources to a failed project argues for devoting more of the same, lest those “sunk costs” go to waste. In reality however, what is being missed is that fact that whether or not one has invested a great deal in a lost cause, its status as a project that has proven itself unworthy of investment is unaltered. Doing what Disney is doing with the “Snow White” project is called “throwing good money after bad.” It is bad business—incompetent, wasteful, and irresponsible.

First, Disney woke fanatics thought it made sense to cast a Snow White-of-Color, which makes no sense since the story makes such a big deal about how “fair” the heroine is. Then, because a single au courant little person actor complained about the dwarfs in the classic fairy tail, Disney eliminated them in favor of these dorks…

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Is “The Three Amigos” Really Racist, or Have I Just Been Brainwashed?

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

I am proud to say that I thought “The Three Amigos” was a largely unfunny and lousy movie when I saw it the first time…this, despite the fact that I generally admire John Landis as a director of comedies (he will always have a place dear in my heart for directing “Animal House”), and although I generally appreciate the talents of the movie’s stars, Steve Martin and Martin Short (Chevy Chase not so much). For some reason it has been showing repeatedly on MGM+ of late, and upon re-watching the thing after my sock drawer was in order, I found another reason to hate it other than its annoying tone and its predictable gags. This time around, the film seemed egregiously racist.

Oh no! Have 40 years of relentless bludgeoning by political correctness, hyper-sensitivity and wokism taken over my brain? When I first viewed the film (which Wikipedia tells me was ranked 79th on Bravo’s list of the “100 Funniest Movies,” a factoid that only reaffirms my long-standing belief that Bravo is useless), that thought never occurred to me for a second.

One of many films that borrows heavily from the Western classic (and ethics movie) “The Magnificent Seven,”—others include “A Bug’s Life” and “Battle Beyond the Stars” along with a pretty bad remake, with Denzel Washington standing in for Yul Brenner—“The Three Amigos” (the film’s score is by the same composer who scored “The Magnificent Seven”) tells the tale of three incredibly white silent movie stars who end up rescuing a town of substantially helpless and poor Mexicans. The town’s tormenter is “El Guapo,” the evil leader of the most ugly, stupid, dirty and brutal band of Mexican bandits in silver screen history. All right, maybe the Mexicans in “The Wild Bunch” are worse, but the white guys in that bloody film are hardly what you’d like to see your daughter bring home to meet the family either. Naturally the three white guys prevail, despite their collective IQ of about 210, for an average of 70 each (it actually breaks down to 85 for Martin’s character, with Short at 70 and Chase at 65).

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Comment of the Day: “Justice for the Nicholas Brothers” [UPDATED]

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

This was another dreary Saturday (almost all Saturdays have been dreary since Grace died, to be honest) until Ethics Alarms provided a triple treat. A new commenter debuted with a Comment of the Day, and I always love that. Better yet, the comment arrived on an old post, one from July of 2012. I also love that, as it shows that these poor rhetorical exercises with too many typos don’t always vanish like random pebbles thrown into the surf, but sometimes provide amusement and perspective to readers months and even years later, giving hope that my existence has some meaning after all.

Best of all, however, is that Kevin Hall’s Comment of the Day focuses much deserved attention on the amazing Nicholas Brothers, probably the greatest tap dancers who ever lived, whose memory is tragically faint because of the racism that restricted their careers. That number above, from a film that was seen almost exclusively by black audiences when it was released, is perhaps the most famous film performance by Harold and Fayard Nicholas, and it is certainly characteristic of their amazing style, but there are others. There is also a website dedicated to their lives and artistry. I feel about the Nicholas Brothers a bit like King Arthur does about the legend of Camelot as he expresses it in the final song in that Lerner and Lowe musical…

Ask every person if he’s heard the story
And tell it strong and clear if he has not…

Here is Kevin Hall’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Justice for the Nicholas Brothers.” I can’t resist some brief comments at the end…

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Cultural Literacy Note: “Drinking the Kool-Aid”

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

The Daily Mail headline is beyond stupid—-“People are only just realizing the dark origin of ‘drinking the Kool-Aid’ phrase”—-but sharp-eyed commenter Other Bill was quite astute to draw it to my attention (Thanks, OB) with an email this morning.

Apparently several historically and culturally illiterate whipper-snappers on social media expressed surprise at the “dark origin” of the common phrase “he (or she) drank the Kool-Aid” to describe someone who has been gulled into believing something false or dangerous. Yet this gap in the younger generations’ knowledge shouldn’t be surprising. Oh, there was a movie about the horrible incident and it is one of the best examples of the dangers of cults. But the Jonestown mass suicide of the 918 American followers of cult leader Jim Jones in Guyana occurred almost 50 years ago, in 1978. As unusual and shocking as it was, the poisoned powered drink massacre is not the kind of event likely to be covered in history courses: schools barely cover World War I. How would someone under the age of 50 come to know about the event?

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Who Had “Trump Turning Into James K. Polk” On Their 2025 Bingo Card? [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

This is the kind of thing that even die-hard Trump true believers should find, if nothing else, odd.

Although it was barely discussed during the campaign, President-Elect Trump is sparking head-explosions and headlines by talking about expanding American geography and territories. He says he wants to take the Panama Canal back; he says he wants Denmark to hand over Greenland, and he also wants to make Canada a state.

The U.S. hasn’t added any significant geography to its dominion since the Spanish American War, and gave up the Canal Zone to Panama during the Carter Administration. James K. Polk, the Democratic President who came into office as the herald of “Manifest Destiny,” had well-publicized designs on the Oregon territory as well as Mexican holdings from the start of his administration, and was threatening both Great Britain and Mexico to get his way. In the end, Polk got most of the Oregon territory in a compromise deal the English, and although it took a war with Mexico to do it, snatched California and the New Mexico territory. Then Polk retired and promptly died, his mission complete. Whether one ranks him as one of our most successful Presidents depends on how one feels about American imperialism, or perhaps whether one believes that, upon reflection, acquiring California was a mistake.

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