One can only hope this was produced for some sort of “make a parody of a YouTube hit with a Christian message” competition. And not because these people thought “hey, you know what the world needs – a Christian version of the Bed Intruder song”…
That’s the danger of parodies. It’s really hard to interpret them in context if none is provided. But enough people thought this was a good idea that they volunteered to be part of it…
Via Scotteriology.
I’m a Mac. I was a PC. But then I got cooler and poorer, and I’ve had no regrets (in fact, a little parcel containing an iPad 2 should be jetting its way to me this week).
From a site called Hunch (where you can see it bigger). I don’t like the bit about being more likely to be a vegetarian.
Love this. Mostly because it’s banjo. Partly because it’s Mario.
See also The Cleverlys playing some Beyonce.
Sure. This might be a lotto advert. But it’s a grand lotto advert.
Dear Seven, Seven2, Nine, Ten, 11, ABC, SBS, Mate, Go, Gem, 1HD, and anybody I’ve missed,
I don’t care about the royal wedding. I’m sure there are thousands, nay, millions of other men and women out there in the Australian populace who feel the same way. On a scale of one to “I really don’t care about this stupid wedding” I’m about a 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. I would rather have my eyelids removed with a potato-peeler than keep them peeled to your stupid coverage featuring irrelevancies like Ita Buttrose, and Dame Edna, who you’ve dragged out of the closet to cover the circus. Only it’s not a circus. There are no monkeys. Actual monkeys I could tolerate. I could even tolerate the Arctic Monkeys – and they are British.
The royal family are, always have been, and always will be, an anachronism. Foisted on us by history. Irrelevant except that they adorn our currency, provide us with an annual public holiday for the Queen’s Birthday, and open the Commonwealth Games. Which are like the Olympics, only we win.
Please stop. Resume normal coverage. Stop blabbering on about dresses. British etiquette. Telemovies about the lovely romance of two boring English people. Don’t take me through the empty house that Kate once lived in as though it is news and not just some PR consultant’s attempt to jack up the price of British realty. And stop interviewing the bogans who went to England for the wedding as though they are normal Australians. They are freaks.
I would prefer a bunch of Biggest Loser outtakes, Eddie Macguire game show pilots, anything with Sam Newman, or whatever non-ratings dregs you can drag up to fill the air – even endless repeats of old seasons of NCIS – and I’m sure I’m not alone. This charade has gone too far. I’m calling it what it is. Television for the lowest common denominator, by the lowest common denominator.
If we were to score some sort of public holiday from this process I’m sure we could come to some sort of agreement.
That is all.
P.S – Seriously. Channel 10, I know you think you’re really clever juxtaposing the “food is fuel, not pleasure” mantra of the Biggest Loser with the “we need more butter and amazingly decadent desserts” mantra of MasterChef – but surely some crossover episodes could have been arranged where the contestants from the former learn to eat healthy, but tasty food, and those from the latter learn to cook the same…
That is really all. Seriously.
I think cider might occasionally be in order though… but I do like the way this beer ad thinks.
Via 22 Words.
There are three certainties in this life. Death. Taxes. And horrible Christian art. And for some reason, thanks to evangelical superheroes like Stephen Baldwin and Kirk Cameron, Christian crossover movies are going to keep happening. So strap yourselves in for the ride…
Salon ponders just why they’re so bad. In response to the release of a Christian movie you may not have heard of called “Soul Surfer”…
“But do Christian-themed movies really have to be so bad? I won’t even pretend that “Soul Surfer” is the worst film I’ll see this month, since it lacks the overarching, high-concept horribleness of something like “Your Highness.” But it’s a trite, sentimental puddle of sub-Hollywood mush, with mediocre photography, weak special effects and an utterly formulaic script that somehow required seven (!) credited writers. Believe me, I have learned, over and over again, that ordinary moviegoers, a lot of the time, want to see a story that’s positive, predictable and not all that challenging, but even measured on that yardstick this one is pretty awful.”
He makes an interesting assumption about the motives behind the Christian movie industry, essentially that they’re preaching to the choir – trying to reflect Christian values to a Christian audience. Which is doubtless part of the problem.
If evangelical Christians want to see their life and faith and values reflected on-screen, I guess that’s understandable. But movies are not mirrors, and the mass audiences that went to see “The King’s Speech” or “Black Swan” or “The Social Network” didn’t necessarily identify with the characters or their lifestyles.
But that’s not really it. I don’t think. I don’t think Christian movies are preaching to the choir, I think they’re trying to preach to the outsider as well. Which is great – especially if you’re a quality, C.S Lewis style, engager with culture. But typical Christian movies are using the tools of a culture they despise to present a message and a world view. And they do it with no subtlety. Just with a blunt instrument and lots of force. There’s none of the subtlety or nuance that makes cinema compelling.
A letter writer to Salon agrees.
Christian films suck because by and large, the evangelical audience doesn’t want challenging, complex characters or art. They want the same pabulum spoon-fed to them over and over: God has a plan, accept Jesus and be saved, secularists bad, blah blah blah. There’s no shading or nuance or dark ambiguity in Christian cinema; just God and Satan duking it out. That’s why the films are as thudding, leaden and dull as those tracts the Jehovah’s Witnesses try to shove in your face every weekend while you’re trying to watch what you Tivo’d Friday night.
TV Tropes has an article dedicated to the “moral” response to new art forms. Readers of my series of posts on Backwards Masking Unmasked will recognise the work of the “Moral Guardians” and the eventual development of the Contemporary Christian Music industry.
“Sometimes even Moral Guardians have to accept that The New Rock And Roll isn’t going away. They can’t stop people from watching/reading/playing/listening to it, and even if they succeed in instituting a Censorship Bureau, it’s still not up to their standards.
Well, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. If those works aren’t up to their standards, they will make works that are. And they can even throw in a message about their beliefs and views in these works. Thus they make The Moral Substitute.
Most of the time, this runs into the same problem as a Clueless Aesop. The creators put so much emphasis on the moral message that they forget what actually made the movie, book, music, or game good. Things like quality writing, acting, plot, directing, production values, design, gameplay, and quality control are, at best, a distant second. Expect in most cases (both in fictional depictions and, often, in Truth in Television) the resulting product to be a bland imitation infused with an overwhelming sense of smug, Holier Than Thou self-righteousness and / or a moralistic determination to Anviliciously beat you over the head with whatever message they’re trying to get you to conform to.”
Findo posted this quote from a HuffPo interview with Christian musician Derek Webb that explains much of what is wrong with contemporary Christian art.
“the job of any artist is to look at the world and tell you what they see. Every artist, whether they acknowledge it or know it, has a grid through which they view the world and make sense of what they see. Even if it’s a grid of unbelief — that you don’t think there is anything orchestrating the world and that everything is completely random — that is a grid through which you make sense of the world.
A lot of “Christian art” is about the lens they’re looking through, rather than the world they see through it. I’m not going to criticize anybody for doing that, but I would rather look at the world through the grid of following Jesus and tell you what I see. But that doesn’t presume that all the art I’m going to make will be about following Jesus.”
This is why Christian art that is designed as either a cultural apologetic for the Christian life, or a sales pitch, is bad, well, one of the reasons. We’re not just making art that responds to the world as we see it – like Bach did – we’re making art that reflects how we want other people to see the world. Without subtlety, nuance, or appeal. It’s bad art. And it’s a bad sales pitch. And I hate it.
That is all.
This is the future. According to google, and the internet users of the world. And it’s yet another reason that you should read XKCD.
This is kind of clever, but at this stage only has a few sites up. Keep your eyes peeled (well, not literally). Back of a web page.
Twitter
Flickr
YouTube
A couple more there. Now, if you did the back of the back of a webpage tumblr that would be a bit too meta, and the internet would break.
My sister and my brother-in-law are locked in a continuous debate about which of the two of them is funnier. My sister maintains that her humour is “art humour” – creative, spontaneous, quick and witty. My brother-in-law is more a science man. He understands how humour works and sets up jokes five lines in advance in normal conversation. They have created an “art funny” and “science funny” dichotomy.
Which made this Wired story about a group of academics studying the nature of humour a pretty interesting read for me – and one that anybody who gets up and does public speaking where they attempt to be funny should take note.
This Venn Diagram could be the secret to understanding what makes funny funny.
There may be many types of humor, maybe as many kinds as there are variations in laughter, guffaws, hoots, and chortles. But [researcher, Peter] McGraw doesn’t think so. He has devised a simple, Grand Unified Theory of humor—in his words, “a parsimonious account of what makes things funny.” McGraw calls it the benign violation theory, and he insists that it can explain the function of every imaginable type of humor. And not just what makes things funny, but why certain things aren’t funny. “My theory also explains nervous laughter, racist or sexist jokes, and toilet humor,” he told his fellow humor researchers.
Coming up with an essential description of comedy isn’t just an intellectual exercise. If the BVT actually is an unerring predictor of what’s funny, it could be invaluable. It could have warned Groupon that its Super Bowl ad making light of Tibetan injustices would bomb. The Love Guru could’ve been axed before production began. Podium banter at the Oscars could be less excruciating. If someone could crack the humor code, they could get very rich. Or at least tenure.
And dare I say there may be less awkward pauses for laughter in sermons (even if I use humour in a sermon I never pause – just because there’s nothing worse than a pause and no laugh (it just beats out a laugh with no pause).
McGraw and Caleb Warren, a doctoral student, presented their elegantly simple formulation in the August 2010 issue of the journal Psychological Science. Their paper, “Benign Violations: Making Immoral Behavior Funny,” cited scores of philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists (as well as Mel Brooks and Carol Burnett).
Their theory is that the results of humour – laughter and amusement – come as a result of violations that are simultaneously seen as benign. Examples of “violations” include breaches of personal dignity, linguistic norms, social norms, and even moral norms. These violations must not pose a threat to the audience or their worldview.
I like this little sketch that went with the article too:
What do you think – is there any humour that falls outside of the “benign” category? I guess the outer limits of black humour might. Which may explain why some people don’t find it funny – benign is relative.
Check this out. Waste at least a day of your time. You can even contribute your own level design (I haven’t. Yet).
Each of the squares on this page is a playable, and connected, level.
I love this story. Partly because it’s about zombies. I haven’t written about zombies for a long time. Partly because it’s one of those advertising placement stories that is almost too good to be true.
A billboard ad for a zombie TV show, The Walking Dead, was placed on the external wall of a funeral parlour.
“An advertising firm has apologised for placing a billboard for a TV show called The Walking Dead on the side of a funeral parlour.
The unintended, “unfortunate juxtaposition” caused raised eyebrows in Consett, County Durham.
The roadside advert for the Channel 5 post-apocalyptic drama has since been removed from the exterior wall of the Co-operative Funeralcare premises.”
So here’s how it goes these days. Pop Chart Labs make a chart of something cool, and I blog it.
Via Pop Chart Labs, of course.
Replete with oblique references to Christianity. Beautiful. Looking forward to a new album sometime in the next decade.
There are a couple more new songs floating around YouTube too – and by “new” I mean “not on the first album”…
