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Sunday, July 17, 2011

Straight to Video

Doop de doop, let's check in on Rupert Murdoch's American agitprop tabloid arm, and see how Precious' Triumph of the Shrill hagiography is doing:

"The Undefeated," a glowing look at failed vice-presidential candidate and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has already sold out a show in Grapevine, Texas (population 46,000), according to the distributor Cinedigm.

Grapevine isn't exactly a teeming metropolis but the film is set to roll out across Tea Party country in 10 AMC theaters.

In addition to Grapevine, the documentary by conservative filmmaker Stephen K. Bannon will expand to Indianapolis, Ind.; Independence, Mo.; Kennesaw, Ga.; Houston, Texas; Orlando, Fla.; Oklahoma City, Okla.; Highlands Ranch, Colo.; Phoenix, Ariz.; and Orange, Calif.

Packed house, folks -- though oddly, no actual number provided. Funny, that. Usually phat numbers is the first thing a PR flack sets on, like flies on shit.

Unless, of course, "theater 8 at AMC Barrett Commons 24" has roughly the capacity of an airport Sbarro's. Naw, that couldn't be the case. There were millions, kajillions even. It's Palin Nation, people, you just live in it. Suck on that, faggy librul!

Oh, the hilarity, she ensues, in this blurb from the Houston screening, further down the page.

"The Undefeated", the new documentary that showcases Sarah Palin's rise in Alaska politics, has arrived in Houston.

The movie is only open in a handful of theaters across the country, including the AMC Gulf Pointe 30 off the South Sam Houston Parkway East.

The lines were for Harry Potter, but the costumes on Friday night are for Sarah Palin and the movie about her.

Faithful fans arrived early. Donna Galloway drove all the way from Beaumont for the debut.

"Undefeated is about having losses but coming back for victories," said Galloway.

[squinting eyes, pinching nose in pained expression]

Kee-rist. Let's take these in reverse order:
  • This word "undefeated" -- I don't think it means what you assholes think it means. She was defeated, along with her addled, dyspeptic running mate, not in small part because every time she opened her piehole, a team of political Superfund environmental hygiene experts had to hit the scene to quickly shovel shit. But regardless, they lost. Badly. Perhaps y'all heard, it was in the papers and everything. I'm pretty sure it was even on Faux News, to the benefit of their ratings since.
  • Gawrsh, all the way from Beaumont to Houston, Aunt Bea? Quite the feckin' pilgrimage to Mecca there. I mean, considering they're only showing this train-wreck in ten theaters in the entire country, I'm gonna go out on a limb and suggest that many of the faithful would have to travel at least 100 miles if they're going to see this thing. Maybe there's tailgate parties out in the parking lots of the theaters, where these old bastards competition-guzzle cans of Ensure and char some round steak until it's really well-done, then sneak some Metamucil into the theater, thus thwarting The Man once again.
  • Finally: costumes? Seriously? It's bad enough when Star Wars/Harry Potter nerds pull this crap, but at least they have an excuse -- most of them are in seventh grade. Then again, at least intellectually, so are these bozos. You get to a point where you stop asking "what's wrong with these people", and decide it's simpler to just ask if anything at all is right with them. Driving two hours, or going in costume, to a two-hour informercial for a person who, despite being in her late forties, having a college degree and a family and some measure of political success, still cannot reliably complete a sentence that wasn't previously rehearsed to maximize borscht-belt timing for reckless calumniations.

And of course in the end it turns out to be somewhat selective bunkum, as most things Palin are in the end: in the conservatard enclave of Orange, CA the only person to attend the midnight premiere screening was the reviewer.

(A increasingly frequent defensive meme, which you'll see down in the comments in the Atlantic piece, is that at least Saint Sarah never said there were 57 states. Perhaps not, but the difference is, even people who hate him know that Obama simply misspoke. They know, whether they'll admit it or not, that Obama does not actually think there are 57 states. It is not generally that obvious with Palin, as she managed to irretrievably botch even the bowdlerized Paul Revere legend that most 'murkins learn by fourth grade, during her Magical History bus tour, which sought to highlight important places and events in American history by spending more time with Donald Trump than at Gettysburg.)

At this point, Palin-watching as a spectator sport is merely an extended exercise in schadenfreude, waiting for the next inevitable failure, both on her part and on the part of all the PMS (Palin Messiah Syndrome) followers. They are going to be disappointed, on many levels -- their hoped-for Passion of the Kee-rist turnout is never going to materialize, and their wampeter, content to earn pelf spinning ever more burbling foma, will not run, not in any genuine earnest anyway, perhaps only enough to give them another richly-deserved fleecing.

But what she serves as most of all is a barometer of this country's limbic urgency to follow failure with more failure, ridiculous stupidity with even more ridiculous and inarticulate stupidity. It is a doubling-down of id, the man who loses his car on a spin at the roulette wheel, then proposes to get it back by betting his house, then proposes to get it all back by stealing the deed to his neighbor's house and betting that.

I'm sure the next inevitable reality show to emanate from this cultural sphincter will be worth its weight in comedic gold.

1 comment:

Texas Editor said...

Just a respectful FYI... Grapevine, Texas is the home of Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. It's part of a massive Edge City, not some isolated hamlet.

Thanks, Dr. Floyd.