[lit-ideas] Re: T'AINT FUNNY, MCGEE

  • From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2006 08:41:10 -0800

Steve wrote, "Where does Lawrence stand on this?  We haven't heard from him
in awhile."

 

This requires two different responses: the second one first: I have been
working on a number of writing projects in the last few years (off and on,
obviously) and have resolved to attempt to publish something in 2007; which
requires that I abandon as much procrastination as possible.  I have
temporarily abandoned foreign affairs for literature -- read a bio of
Hawthorne and am reading one of Melville -- just to keep in the mood.

 

As to my stand on TV humor, I don't purposely watch any sitcoms.  I haven't
watched Seinfeld, Fawlty Towers or even the cartoon that everyone watches.
I would probably find them all funny but try not to get hooked.  The last
humorous series I got hooked on was "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," but quit
telling people the writing was clever and funny when they, typically, called
me "sick."  BTW, Buffy didn't have a laugh-track.

 

Lawrence

 

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Steve Chilson
Sent: Saturday, December 09, 2006 1:05 AM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: T'AINT FUNNY, MCGEE

 

On Sat, 9 Dec 2006 00:02:21 -0600, "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

said:

> 

> John Cleese, as Basil Fawlty, plays a bigoted, vicious, mean-spirited, 

> sexist, sycophant.  He hates his life, he hates his wife, he hates his 

> workers, he hates women, he hates his customers, he hates everyone and 

> everyone but himself and in every program he is brought low by his blind 

> ambitions, bigotries and human failures.

 

Does Fawlty Towers really have to be explained?  

 

Where does Lawrence stand on this?  We haven't heard from him in awhile.

 Is John Cleese a limp-wristed liberal and thus no matter what he does,

it isn't funny, but a sick pandering to terrorists?

 

  That is where the humor lies in 

> every program.  Everyone else in the show proves themselves much more 

> adroit, adept, and admirable than Basil Fawlty, but he, being Basil,

> never 

> recognizes that.  He is the joke brunt of every program and never knows

> it. 

> And we find it funny.  Why?  Well, I submit, because we all recognize

> parts 

> of ourselves in him.  Each and everyone of us has a Basil Fawlty inside

> us. 

> Hate him though we may, he is partly us.  What can you do then but laugh? 

> Even you, you say, do that.

> 

> 

> 

> > I assume by freewheeling judgments you think it's fine to hit ('spank')

> > children and it's someone's right to take drugs when pregnant and all
the

> > rest of it.

> 

> Your assumptions are wrong.  What have I ever said to suggest that?  Only 

> your freewheeling judgments could have posited such.  Pay attention.

> 

> 

> >  Personally, I can't figure out why it's domestic violence if

> > the wife gets hit but it's not domestic violence when a child gets hit.

> 

> Personally, I can't figure out why either is not considered assault and 

> battery.

> 

> Mike Geary

> 

> 

> 

> 

> 

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-- 

  Steve Chilson

  stevechilson@xxxxxxxxxxx

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