[LNH] Deja Dude / Master Blaster Special #12

[martinphipps2 at yahoo.com]

Tom Russell wrote:
>
> Not that I'm reading anything into your comments, but in my defense,
> the Master Blaster Special # 5-6 (and the upcoming 7) Return of
> Ven-Dorr/Pap Energy Drink arc is not about degrading women, but about
> about degrading women.  There's a difference. :-)

Well, sometimes a comment is only a comment.  I know when I commented
before about Speak by e-mail you took it personally (although you did
ask for my opinion) which is understandable because I was commenting
about what you wrote.  In this case, I was commenting about Clerks II
by Keven Smith.  I haven't seen the movie and, frankly, the odds are
against it ever being shown in the Philippines.  But I've seen
transcripts of some of the dialogue from the movie and, frankly, I
think it has to be considered the first R rated movie for five year
olds.  You know how young teens think it's cool to talk about sex and
make it sound gross?  Well, crank that up a lot and you have to
conclude that the characters in this movie are the mental equivalents
of five year olds.  Maybe that's the point: just as Archie Bunker made
racist comments and we knew him to be an idiot, these guys make
misogynistic comments and we're supposed to know that they're idiots
but, frankly, I don't think the average movie goer will pick up on that
and a lot of people will see them as role models.

The same thing can be said about Sarcastic Lad and Master Blaster.
Jamas even went so far as to say that Master Blaster is not a likable
character.  Well, when I write them anyway, I try to balance them out:
Master Blaster is an idiot but not a jerk whereas Sarcastic Lad is a
jerk but not an idiot.  Well, Master Blaster is a jerk with Wikiboy.
And you could argue that Master Blaster wanting to be with Cleopatra
just because she was Cleopatra, even though he wasn't attracted to her,
was being a jerk but he did feel bad about that afterwards.  It's a
fine line.  I don't think Keven Smith even tried to avoid having his
characters come across as misogynistic.

> >   "And he just walked out on Jerks II?!"
> ...
> >   "'I Dated a Neta.human'?"  Master Blaster shook his
> > head.  "Looks like a chick flick."
>
> I actually liked it better when MB & DD reviewed the actual movies,
> with their actual titles.  What happened?  You get a cease and desist
> letter from some studios? :-)

Well, the thing is, I was portraying an actual event, namely Joel
Siegal walking out on a screening of Clerks II.  I changed it to Joseph
Gale and Jerks II so that Deja Dude and Master Blaster can be there to
see him walk out and not just talk about it.  (I also wanted to get
Master Blaster's initial reaction to the incident before he had seen
the movie itself.)  I tend to imagine that when Deja Dude and Master
Blaster see movies that these are the real world movies that they've
somehow gotten a hold of, but that movies shown in the Looniverse would
be different.  That's why Deja Dude once did a review of Alien vs. Dorf
and not Alien vs. Predator. :)

I haven't seen My Super Ex-Girlfriend either by the way.  (Checks local
listings.)  It hasn't come out here yet.  It might not, which is okay,
no big deal.  It looks good enough to catch on video though.

Martin