Deleted Scenes 07.16.09: (17) Days of Hypocrisy

Posted by Robert Sullivan on 07.16.2009

People can be so disappointing sometimes. Come on in.

Hey, everybody. I'm Rob, this is Deleted Scenes, welcome back to another edition. Before I launch into today's epic tirade against the plague of hypocrisy washing over the entertainment-section of people's brains lately, how's about I fuck you up with some truth -

The Plugs

http://www.twitter.com/411mania
http://www.twitter.com/411wrestling
http://www.twitter.com/411moviestv
http://www.twitter.com/411games
http://www.twitter.com/411music
http://www.twitter.com/411mma

And after you're done reading all those great 411 Twitter pages, why don't you make tha muthaship your official homepage, if ya weel?

*getting funky like a monkey, ready to make your liver quiver*

Okay, enough with that. Onto my real feelings about the last three weeks in pop culture, which might come across just a bit harshly.

But damn it, people, you've disappointed me. Not only once, but again and again, as the three-week timeframe would obviously imply! After one terrible example, the anger would ebb, and then would come another showing of ridiculous double standards!

After displaying such abhorrent behavior, I'm sure many readers out there now have their faux-innocent looks on their faces, pretending not even to know what's going on. Fine, if you must insist on getting specific here we go -







And for those already firing up their righteous indignation machines over using The Greatest Entertainer Who Ever Lived^TM's booking photo here, hey - I'm sure if ol' MJ was still alive, he'd be very excited to be placed squarely between Shia LeBeouf and Brock Lesnar.

*Wheeee-hooooooooo!*

Anyway.

Day (1)

People flood - flood - to go see Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Why? Wasn't rearranging their DVD shelves better entertainment than this? Does, in fact, America have a fetish for getting its intelligence insulted?

Honestly, I have no idea. But readers, the next time you hear someone start bitching that Hollywood only makes crap, that there's never anything good at movie theaters, that all movies just suck - well, you ask them one simple question.

"Did you see Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen?"

Now, keep in mind that people will probably lie. Just take the sputtered "what?" as tacit admission that they can be counted among the hundreds of millions of box office dollars that gigantic pile of shit has taken in thus far. Then ask them a follow-up question -

"Why'd you do it? Why did you make sure Michael Bay gets to keep on making movies? Why, for the love of God, did you give us four more years of Shia LeBeouf?"

Well, here's where the conversation gets frustrating. Do you know why, readers? Because, invariably, the response will be one of three things -

A) "Every movie doesn't have to be Citizen Kane/an Oscar contender, you know..."

B) "It was a popcorn flick!"

C) "Sometimes we neeeeeeed entertainment that lets us turn our brains off..."

Unsurprisingly, each and every one of these responses are horseshit.

A) is merely a shining example of disingenuous bullshit, suggesting that there is no in-between - there are Oscar contenders, and there is mindless garbage. However could one expect quality out of a movie that isn't trying to be nominated for Best Picture? What crap.

B) insists that the definition of a "popcorn flick" is in fact "mindless garbage." This cannot be further from the truth. What's a "popcorn flick," you might ask? Star Trek. Iron Man. How is it those "popcorn flicks" somehow don't insult the audience, don't piss their money away on a nonsensical plot and awful acting, et cetera and so forth?

C) You know what turning your brain off is? Sleep. You can do it anywhere and often for much less than $10 if you're lucky, excluding refreshments and parking. Try it.

Day (2)

Oh, the ever-loving carnival of hypocrites that was Michael Jackson keeling over. Whereas 24 hours previously, perhaps waiting in line for Michael Bay's latest cinematic abortion, you could've elbowed your friend in the ribs and said, "Hey, dude. Why did Michael Jackson call Boyz II Men?", on June 25th, you were suddenly Satan himself if you dared answer back "because he thought it was a delivery service" instead of "OH MY GOD YOU SON OF A BITCH HOW DARE YOU MAKE FUN OF THE GREATEST ENTERTAINER WHO EVER LIVED!"

It was a puzzling time, friends. Much like other earth-shattering events such as 9/11 and when the 2008 election was called for Barack Obama, we'll all be telling our grandkids where we were the day we realized that the entire country had turned into self-righteous douchebags who suddenly forgot how they treated the freakshow that was Michael Jackson. God be with those who will have to turn to those cherubic young faces and shamefully say, perhaps with a tear rolling down their cheek, "Oh, Billy, I - I - was one of those douchebags."

It's already happening. People are starting to come out of their Deification of Death comas and now beginning to pretend that they were the ones calling out others on their hypocritical actions concerning how we all mocked Michael Jackson's various predilections and never once gave a shit about his musical genius that will live on forever and ever and blah blah blah for the last 16 years at least.

Much like with my Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen questions, stand up against these people. Call them out. Dress down your born-in-1984 friend about his post-MJ-death exclamations of how Thriller changed his whole life when you sense he's starting to try pretending that he kept a level head throughout all this madness.

Usher weeping next to a casket when he wouldn't have pissed on Michael's gums if they were on fire? Bullshit. Reverend Al and Magic Johnson dubbing Michael Jackson a civil rights leader when the man had surgeons chop into his nose until there was almost nothing left specifically because of shame sadly placed in Michael's head by his father...not to mention the whole skin issue... - and because of a Goddamned music video? Ridiculous. And the normal coworkers and friends and family who all got on their high horses and started screaming "BUT HE WAS NEVER CONVICTED THOUGH!" when they wouldn't have been caught dead saying anything of the sort merely 24 hours previous?

Well, I can only think of this video -

Actually, these two videos -

[This is where the link would be to the video of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog outside the Michael Jackson trial, but apparently NBC has good people searching YouTube and the like and it's not there. Suffice to say, the point was that everybody laughed and mocked those outside the trial with their "MICHAEL JACKSON IS INNOCENT" banners and the like, only to become them six years later. America turned into the circus outside the Michael Jackson trial, and it sucked.]

[Thankfully, though, YouTube still has plenty of clips to the even funnier video, basically my opinion on the whole matter set to music...]

Jon LaJoie - "Michael Jackson is Dead"

Day (3)

A very sad event happened on this day. Sacha Baron Cohen decided to prove what a pussy he is by removing the LaToya Jackson interview scene from the film, plain and simple. A shock comedian who has made his name embarrassing and humiliating others - to much hilarity, of course - pussed out as soon as he was put to a real decision about his material. What, the dickhead frat boys in Borat don't get the same consideration because they're still alive? Lunatic nutball Ron Paul gets to have his calling Bruno a "queer" repeatedly in thousands of movie theaters every single day because he's never sung some pop songs?

Actually, Ron Paul singing pop songs would be awesome. But I digress.

Basically, people, I have no problem with Cohen's comedy. It's hysterical. "Respect for the dead" does not include whitewashing their life and going out of your way to sanctify them.

Day (17)

Brock Lesnar did nothing wrong at UFC 100. All he did was take UFC to new heights and make sure Dana White's pockets will be loaded for years to come. MMA dorks wetting their pants because Brock told Frank Mir "talk some shit now?" Double standard. What, Frank didn't talk a boatload of shit about Brock prior to getting his ass kicked? Booing him out of the building because he happened to make some money as a pro wrestler? Double standard. Brock was well within his rights to flip those booing hypocrites off and tell them exactly what he thought of them. Hell, I would've gone even further. I probably would've told them that next I was planning to go on Monday Night Raw and present the title belt personally to Vince McMahon.

He would've been showered in garbage then and the future buyrates only would've climbed higher.

Now, I can understand Dana White putting on a mean face publicly and telling Brock to pretend he's sorry on "SportsCenter," but I'm just putting this out there in case it was real - 1) as stated previously, Dana, Brock is already taking your company to heights never before attained, and 2) you act like a drunken fratboy yourself during interviews, who the fuck are you to criticize Brock turning heel on an arena full of assholes booing him for no other reason than the name "Vince McMahon" used to be at the bottom of his paychecks?

Just putting that out there. Personally, I think Dana and Brock had a big laugh about it backstage and Dana told him to do it again after he rips through another UFC heavyweight, but that's just me.

My problem with the hypocrisy here is with the aforementioned MMA dorks and sportswriters themselves who would mythologize Muhammad Ali and condemn Brock Lesnar for his actions last Saturday night. Who in the fuck are they fooling trying to whitewash Ali, just as ONE example of Ali's egregious behavior, calling Joe Frazier and George Foreman "Uncle Tom" and various other racial slurs in the run-up to their fights and say "Oooooh, Brock flipped off the fans and told them he was going to go fuck his wife, how dare he!" What's good for the boxing goose is good for the MMA gander, folks. Just because you grew up watching boxing and have a soft spot for it as it lies dying on life support doesn't mean the biggest legend in that entire sport acted any classier than Brock Lesnar did, point blank and period.

Until next time.