Overweening Generalist

Saturday, December 10, 2011

My Top 10 Rick Perry Ad Responses on You Tube

As of very early December 10, here are my Top 10. It appears a new response to Rick Perry's acutely stupid, homophobic and moronic christian fundamentalist idiotic TV ad - titled "Strong" and linked to below if you haven't seen it - (a new YT response) comes up every 15 minutes or so, most of them young people talking in their own homes (or bedrooms) about the ad.

Perry's ad was posted on You Tube sometime on December 6th. My colleague Annabel Lee had Perry nailed pretty well on her blog, Double Dip Politics, in a matter of hours, on December 7th.

But another form of rhetoric is the personal video response; it's difficult for me not to ponder the enormous implications of McLuhan's "the medium is the message" here, although I think Robert Anton Wilson hit on something when he wrote that McLuhan would've been more accurate to say "the medium shapes the message." At any rate, I think it completely marvelous that, via accelerated omniephemeralization of digital gadgets, anyone can make a "television" piece and, in effect, "converse" with TV and other media, both corporate and non. The potential in this, and the degree to which it might truly shape the electoral process, seems unknown. We will learn more as time goes on. Much has been written about social media and the Arab uprisings and the Occupy movement, but it still seems too early to see how powerful decentered, user-generated content can affect political change...

I'm a shade embarrassed I've spent so much time tonight watching this stuff, but I couldn't stop, it's so fascinating to see how democratic this sort of thing can be. And some of the responses are totally brilliant (also see below). I think this is the some of the best use of You Tube: talking back to power. I don't think I could do it - appear on camera and be witty or interesting - but I might be able to write some of the lines that had me laffing so much. (Watch as the list gets closer to my Numero Uno.)

There are all kinds of "remixes" and "mashups" but none of them seemed as acerbic or absurd or satirical or intelligent or godlessly irreverent as the ones I chose, which will necessarily reflect my esthetics. I heartily invite anyone to put a link in the comments to one or many Perry responses they think deserve to be seen.

My list favors the parodic over some really well-done and heartfelt and witty-intelligent personal reflections by hip young people. There's only one quasi-celebrity in my Top 10: a radio guy named Sam Seder. I just liked his style.

The Perry ad (which I link to first, so that we're all on the same page) has broken some sort of all-time You Tube record for the most "dislikes" ever, which I find comforting. (Hey, you have to enjoy the little things in dire days like these, eh?)


The original ad (31 secs)

Now (drumroll please), my Top 10:




#9: Sam Seder (5 mins)






#6: dinosaurs (22 secs)




#4 (36 secs)


#3 (35 secs)




#1: I want this one to go viral (1:03) (I catch myself hoping something like this could, on its own, make Perry go back to Texas forever.)


He's Rick Perry, and I don't give a crap if he would disapprove of ANY of this:

9 comments:

Annabel Lee said...

I needed a good laugh today. I've been do busy and down lately, it was well worth it. Love #1. That was hilarious.

Really surprised you didn't offer my assessment of his blatant bullshit as part of your post. Figured this was one time that I really hammered home a point that was timely.

Ironic note: I got my post up on my site before they started quacking about it on Hardball. Figured that I was in front of a story for a change, rather than chasing it.

michael said...

Oversight amended. You were very fast on that ad.

The very first thing he says, " I'm not afraid to admit I'm a christian," is the first of a classic right wing POS STRAW MAN attempt, and the ad's only 34 secs long. Obama's "war on religion"? That's so criminally idiotic I don't know where to begin. Obviously, this dippy little fascist is desperate to appeal to the Iowans; I wonder how dumb they really are? Will Perry gain in Iowa from ads like this? I know one of Perry's top campaign staffers saw the ad and was embarrassed by its stupidity. But I never really how how things will play in Des Moines, or Ames, or Peoria.

Sam Seder and the vituperative Aussie really call Perry out on this "I'm not afraid to admit I'm a a christian" bit. It's very refreshing to hear so many people talk back to such blatant bullshit. This "I'm a victim of the liberal's choke-hold on decent American values" line is so putrid to me; I've had to listen to it since Reagan got in. I never bought it, but we've had 30 years of hard-core think-tank driven right wing wall-to-wall talking point memes that I think there are actually a lot of morons out there who truly believe "the liberals" are making a "war on christmas."

Money in politics:making people stupider and stupider since at least 1968....

Annabel Lee said...

I honestly have no problem with someone being proud of their faith. I don't care if someone believes that a lamp post outside their house is their lord and savior. That's absolutely fine. I don't care. The line didn't bother me, though the context could have been questioned. I preferred to let it stand and attack the other aspects of the ad that were are more troubling in my eyes.

I really had no idea what he was talking about with the "war on religion" and the "liberal" statement really got me going. What set me off initially was the gay soldiers quip, and the inaccuracy of his Christmas/prayer statement. So many people make this claim, and I've written about the Christmas thing on several occasions. I've written about the prayer situation many times outside of DDP. I'm thinking it's time to do a post on that. Perhaps, that will be the 100th DDP article in a few days.

BrentQ said...

My personal favourite Ricke Perry Spoof:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqI0vjArbn8&feature=player_embedded

michael said...

@Satori Guy: That would've made my Top Two easily if I'd seen it.

Thanks for a great laff!

What was the source for that? It looks like mid-1970s 2-cel animation for a christian TV station.

Vagina! Vagina! Vagina!

Jesus was one helluva healer! That's what we need to get the economy rollin' again.

Cleveland Okie (Tom Jackson) said...

Commenters on Twitter have pointed out that Perry uses music from Aaron Copland, the prominent gay composer. (It sounds like Symphony No. 3 to me, but I can't quite confirm the Twitter folk. Do you recognize it?)

Cleveland Okie (Tom Jackson) said...

Music critic Alex Ross says it's not Copland, but deliberately sounds like him:

http://www.therestisnoise.com/2011/12/copland-and-the-republicans.html

michael said...

@Tom: I recognized the music vaguely, first time I heard it, but didn't think Copeland. Interesting. A friend who is in the news media in the Bay Area and is from Texas told me a couple years ago that it's a well-kept secret that Perry is gay. If so, this all competes with J.Edgar Hoover and Cohn for "self-hating gay" story, eh?

Lots of comments on YT about his "Brokeback" jacket.

Jeez...

Eric Wagner said...

I had never heard that rumor about Mr. Perry.