According to a number of people who I am shocked still have full heads of hair given that they spend a great majority of their time attempting to pull it out by the roots in fits of faux outrage, the writer, director and lead of HBO’s “hipster Sex and the City” comedrama, Girls, Lena Dunham thinks that all Republicans are Nazis and cannot understand for a second why anyone with half a brain would date one, especially one that happened to also be a minority.
Now, Hollywood does have this ignorant streak about them, and it sort of flows into every aspect of the entertainment operation, leading people within the little inner circle of A-listers to believe things that are otherwise obviously false to the normal human population: namely that Sarah Palin jokes are still funny five years later, and that Ben Affleck, as a director, can somehow compete with Katheryn Bigelow and Quentin Tarantino.
But people. People. Let’s think critically about this, shall we? Here’s what Lena Dunham actually said in her interview with the NYC mag, Vulture:
I want to start with the fourth scene of the entire season, which is you, topless …
… on top of Donald Glover.Having sex.
Yes.…
Why make him a Republican?
We liked the idea of a Republican entering their universe. And Hannah doesn’t really have a clear sense of why you shouldn’t date a Republican; it’s kind of just like the same reason why you shouldn’t date a Nazi: You just shouldn’t.Wait, so your position is that you shouldn’t date a Republican?
My personal position is that you should date anyone you want so long as they treat you respectfully and share your value system. So it might be hard for me to date someone who was against gay marriage and abortion rights — I don’t think I would be attracted to them — but I don’t have any personal problem with dating a Republican. I do think that Hannah has this reverse ignorance where she’s like, If they’re Republican, get them out of my airspace, and that was a fun thought to explore.
Okay, what I got from that exchange was that Lena Dunham thought it might be an interesting idea to explore a “reverse ignorance” that certain stereotypical single females have against the possibility of dating a Republican. To the character, the decision to date a Republican is as black and white as a potential decision to date a Nazi, it’s just not done. And here’s this guy, who she likes, who happens to be a Republican, and Girls is going to take the opportunity to explore an integral liberal bias.
Look, this wouldn’t be such a big deal if this weren’t demonstrative of the wrongheaded, knee-jerk conservative approach to culture. Is Lena Dunham’s show basically a kind of hipster fantasy where she creates characters who have the miserable lives that a bunch of urban trust-fund French Experimental Poetry grad students imagine they have, so that the resultant faux-ennui will further inform their parent-paid-for thesis, and quickly enough before the same family revokes the housing allowance for their 1500-square-foot Williamsburg artist loft? Sure. In her acceptance speech last night at the Golden Globes, Dunham, who is famously the daughter of a successful painter of “oversexualized pop art” and a well-known photographer who created “disquieting domestic tableaux” with dolls, repeatedly reiterated that her work is informed by a horrific childhood spent at expensive New York private schools and summer camps, where she struggled to maintain the integrity of her psyche amid the horrors of life as the kid of upper-middle-class urban artists. The whole thing is bizarre and self-fellating. But it’s also self-referential. The joke here isn’t that Donald Glover (who is adorable) is evil. But that Hannah, Dunham’s character, thinks he’s evil and has to handle the internal conflict.
Its shows like this and like Portlandia, a farce co-created by Fred Armisen poking fun at entrenched liberal hipster culture in Portland, which show a distinct chasm between the cultural approach by liberals and the cultural approach by conservatives. Liberals try to inject humor, self-parody and subtle themes into material that is, by itself, interesting, well-written and entertaining. Girls is really no exception. And the foment their hold on the audience by creating projects that have an independent appeal. Conservatives seem to spend their time handing the movement’s creative reins off to one of two groups: evangelical Christian musicians and filmmakers whose ham-fisted products are nothing short of horrendous, and sixty-year-old white men who spend their time writing essays about how Hollywood should just get off their damned lawn, even when the “liberally biased television program” they’re bemoaning takes a moment to explore a theme that they themselves visit time and again.
Conservatives and libertarians cannot avoid culture, nor can they afford to pounce on every perceived slight with church lady outrage. Making inroads into the collective consciousness means embracing trends and using them, having a sense of humor about ourselves and our approach, and taking to heart that the core value of entertainment is to entertain. Will conservatives ever be among the recognized and revered? Maybe not. But if the track record of tangentially conservative-focused enterprises (like, for example the Blue Collar Comedy Tour) has taught us anything, they will be rich. Which means they’ll be powerful.
I mean, take a second to think about it. Bretibart might reach a million visitors a month. TMZ does that in less than three days. And then you wonder why I spend my time watching reality television while everyone else is watching Bill O’Reilly pop a neck vein.
I’m glad you posted this for two reasons:
1. I fell into the trap of thinking she said that she called us Nazis because of repeated references on twitter, and because in all honesty, I’ve heard it said many times by other libs and it seem like something she could have said. thanks for posting the correct quotes.
2. Breitbart has devolved for the very reason you noted above. There are a couple contributors who frequently misinterpret, either out of ignorance or on purpose, similar statements made by liberal celebrities. I actually think they do it on purpose at times, just to whip up page views, etc. It’s dispiriting and undermines the legitimacy of our positions.
UMMM…..if you read the Breitbart article, entitled
For Lena Dunham’s ‘Girls’ Character, Dating Republicans Like Dating Nazis
it says that the character thinks this. It also goes on to quote what she said about personally dating Republicans. How did Breitbart News misinterpret the article? They just posted what she said.
Breitbart! You’re kidding, right? Breitbart-positions HAVE NO legitimacy. Right-wing hate crap, mindless ad-hominem atacks, distortion, outright lies. Be truthful: put up a confederate flag with crossed AR-15s.
Wow, nice ad-hominem attack.
Hey Jack, is your name a bastardized version of the name, Jack Off ?
You sound like an educated man, and you should know very well that the Democrat party was the home of slaveholders, the Confederacy, Jim Crow, segregation, et al.
You’ll dance to anything by The Communards.
No, I disagree. It’s just as bad reading the whole thing. She said what she said – that sleeping with a Republican is as bad, as offensive, as preposterous as sleeping with a Nazi. That’s how messed up this woman is.
You see what you want to see. That’s part of the problem.
No Ma’am, I read it in black and white.
The Jimmy Z Show, a writer describing what her character thinks is not a writer describing what she herself thinks. That would be like George Lucas saying, Darth Vader thinks that the universe should be ruled by force is the same as George Lucas saying that he himself wants to rule the universe by force. I know, it’s a ridiculous analogy, but your interpretation was ridiculous so I responded in kind.
Lena Dunham went on to say that her character who thinks this is ignorant and essentially prejudiced without any information.
Heck, I don’t even like “Girls,” but context is important. Dunham didn’t call Republicans “Nazis,” she was making a point about the character she plays on the show.
If you read her words, what she said was that her character doesn’t know WHAT SHE KNOWS, that being, dating a Republican is the same as dating a Nazi – you don’t do it.
No, she said that she wouldn’t dismiss a Republican out of hand, that she knows better than her character.
Hate to break it to you, but you are arguing over semantics. Comparing Republicans to Nazis is, for all intents and purposes, the same as calling them Nazis.
Disagree all you want.
Except that she wasn’t comparing Republicans to Nazis, she said that, like many people who have a “reverse ignorance,” her character would, in a situation where she was faced with liking a Republican, dismiss dating him out of hand, because it’s just something you don’t do. You could replace the word “Nazi” with the words “eating overripe fruit out of a Dumpster,” but the point is the ignorance, not a comparison.
Thank you. Thank you a million times over. You have really hit the nail on the head. If conservatives want to influence culture, then they need to get into real media with compelling narratives that are only tangentially political. Our nation isn’t getting more liberal because people watched Fahrenheit 9/11, it’s getting more liberal because people watch 30 Rock/The Office/Modern Family etc., etc.
Insightful and brilliantly written. Keep it up, Emily.
Can’t.
I wrote a long post on this below, but suffice to say that liberals and conservatives don’t share the same culture or values anymore. We are not working and living side by side, just with mildly different views; we have become two separate people.
Thus, no conservative is ever going to “influence culture” as it’s defined by the current cultural establishment. Anything a conservative might do artistically will come be viewed as irrelevant, because it doesn’t touch (for a lack of a better term) the cultural erogenous zones of the liberal; and the liberal is unable to find the similar cultural pleasure centers of the conservative.
I think (you tell me) that liberals think that we don’t engage with their media productions because we don’t understand them or are offended by them or something. It’s not that at all.
We find them boring.
Great post, Emily. This highlights one of the main problems the conservative movement has in today’s America: they overreact and make an unnecessary issue out of everything said about them in regards to pop culture. Normally, this is something you’d expect of a more liberal person, those who are often defined by emotions (something which conservatives are excused of not possessing).
As a libertarian, I share political views with both liberals and conservatives. I also share certain perspectives with both sides as it relates to common perceptions throughout the media; as in, conservatives are seen as uncool, stiff, and lacking a sense of humor. It would be better-suited for conservatives, and everyone in America if both sides would just learn to chill more often and not accept everything with personal offense.
There are plenty of examples of over-the-top bashing and mockery in the media which do need to be pointed out and condemned (typically, sexual jokes relating to Sarah Palin which are distasteful), but that’s almost an impossibility in today’s society because one side (media conservatives) takes offense with almost everything and the other side (media liberals) takes almost nothing seriously.
*Accused* not *excused*. Silly typo on my part.
So if the label of “Nazi’s” is implied by her and attributed to ALL Republicans then the opposite would be true that she and all Democrats are “Murderer’s” cause they ALL believe in abortion.
Bless you for your post.
Having a few liberal friends, I can assure you that they *DO* equate anyone not a flaming liberal, of like mind on every issue, to be either completely stupid, or evil incarnate. In other words, a “Nazi” (which is the term used by the left against Reagan).
It *would* be interesting to see someone lost inside of that liberal bubble world to actually encounter a real, live, educated, articulate conservative — and have their liberal world fall apart a bit.
And let’s face it — for many people, that is part of adult maturation. As Reagan said, “If you’re not a liberal when you’re young, you have no heart — and if you’re not a conservative when you’re old, you have no brain.” So yeah, this is an interesting plot development.
My only problem with this is — Who is Lena Dunham, and what is HBO? Wasn’t HBO like a Carter-era thing, when that was the only “movies with boobies” we could get outside of a xxx-rated theater? Is Lena just the latest “young skinny girl with boobs who won’t be able to get a job in 5 years and we won’t hear about her unless she goes to rehab”???
I have no love for Lena Dunham, but I think you might be wrong here. There are of course scads of good-looking, Hollywood starlets in their twenties who don’t have much going for them besides their boobies, and from whom we won’t hear much once they start to sag a bit (unless they happen to have in the meantime acquired the millions that it takes to keep ‘em up), but Lena Dunham’s not one of them. She ain’t particularly good looking, but she’s the creator, writer and star of a critcally-acclaimed, fairly-popular cable television show — at the ripe old age of 26. I think it’s likely that her fame and influence will significantly outlast her “looks”.
As a conservative in the arts, I can totally sympathize with this poster’s frustration. Mostly, our side has abandoned any field that has tilted too far liberal instead of doing the hard work of engaging the culture. That means you don’t walk in, make demands, expect the seas to part, and declare your work here done with a conservative win. It means you have to compromise while still setting standards and understand you can always find something to be offended about in everything.
We need to relax a little and understand the actual craft of writing and art, and knowing how it is constructed, we can then make better judgments about what should and what shouldn’t be given a pass. We as a group often don’t understand the process at all, and it shows. Subtle doesn’t play well with us, and everything is taken too literally. That doesn’t mean nothing can offend or should be given truck, it just means we need to evaluate it smarter and be willing to play the game so to speak. This is a marathon, not a sprint, and the best thing we can do besides get the needed training/expertise in the arts is expect hassles, trouble and to build endurance.
It isn’t easy, and we’re not always embraced, but that doesn’t mean that work shouldn’t be done.
As an arts-minded rightish libertarian with many artsy liberal friends and even bandmates, I applaud you and agree with everything you just posted 100%.
You can’t win the battles or the war that you’re not even showing up to fight, and too often, the right complains about the culture without doing a damned thing to get onto the field and start running some plays (overtly or covertly). It’s been that way for a long time – decades. The lefties scrimmage with each other rather than playing real rightie opponents, and they win by default.
Stop being so sensitive, stop eschewing media, the arts and academia as career options, and get some education on what your political opponents actually believe so that your can effectively respond to it (and even agree with it from time to time – you’d be surprised). On the issues where there’s a line in the sand, make sure you’re articulate enough to present your position without derping “COMMIE TRAITOR LIBRUL1@!!!!” every three seconds.
Life isn’t a talk radio monologue – get out there and get you hands dirty.
I think you have it exactly backwards. That’s not culture Dunham is droning on about, but really the lack thereof (in all honesty, when has delusional navel-gazing ever constituted “culture”). The ones trying to influence culture are the Hollywood and NYC libs who take every chance to introduce and cement the idea that “you shouldn’t date a Republican; it’s kind of just like the same reason why you shouldn’t date a Nazi: You just shouldn’t.” Well, that idea and its ilk.
Perhaps Dunham’s faux pas is innocent when looked at through the microscope. But in the grand context of things, it’s just one more log on the fire that seeks to destroy the idea of conservatives as being normal.
So when people such as yourself decry the outrage exhibited at place like Breitbart.com, you miss what’s really going on. In short, Republicans/conservatives/libertarians are fed up with being demonized in the media at every turn. It’s because of that broad and well-supported propaganda effort that many people truly believe that the reason we criticize Obama is because of the color of his skin, and that we don’t vote for him or support his policies because we all really do hate women, and so on. These sorts of myths make it perfectly OK to dismiss R/C/L’s and to treat them as something less than human.
Until that sort of demonization stops, Dunham’s hipster dreck will continue to illicit howls from the demonized, even if her intent was innocent.
See, this is where I think Republicans are stuck in the 1990s, when Ann Coulter and others patented the victim mentality conservatives seem to exhibit in spades now. Are conservatives villified? Of course they are. But that’s no excuse to “tackle” Hollywood merely by pointing out when someone is a dick. That’s part of it, to be sure, but there’s also something to be said for understanding and approaching culture with some sort of intellectual honesty, because when you fail, as many did here miserably, you serve to (1) substantiate the stereotypes and (2) fail to contribute meaningfully to changing the situation.
Bottom line? Conservatives need to stop whining, put on some big girl panties and actually do something for a chance. If this is what culture is, than I hate to break it to you, but you’re not going to change it by writing long-winded articles about how terrible it makes you feel. Hollywood doesn’t like you. Oh, you poor baby. Maybe if you had a sense of humor, and focused on getting the skills needed to compete in the real entertainment arenas – or better yet, convincing conservative donors to stop writing million dollar checks to useless advocacy groups and sponsor a couple of kids through J-school or USC – there would be a very different landscape out there now.
Lena Dunham’s ad, for all the conservative bellyaching, was incredibly successful. Why? Because that’s what the people in the target demographic consume. Want to reach them? Consume it. Understand it. Embrace it. And MAKE IT. Only make it your way.
Until conservatives take that initiative, the demonization will continue. If you want to combat a broad-scale propaganda effort, start one of your own. But know who you’re speaking to and meet them where they are. Because I can tell you, there are very few conservatives who know much about culture these days any more than they need to to complain about it.
I’m not sure how to address your response since it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with what I wrote. This is the only thing that comes close:
“Are conservatives villified? Of course they are. But that’s no excuse to “tackle” Hollywood merely by pointing out when someone is a dick.”
Really? It’s not? Why is that? Because in my life experience, if you don’t stand up for yourself, and call a bully a bully, nothing ever changes.
“That’s part of it, to be sure, but there’s also something to be said for understanding and approaching culture with some sort of intellectual honesty, because when you fail, as many did here miserably, you serve to (1) substantiate the stereotypes and (2) fail to contribute meaningfully to changing the situation.”
What exactly did I fail to understand? And what stereotype am I fulfilling (this should be terribly enlightening)? And, frankly, you have no idea what I have or have not contributed, but more incredibly, you chose a site started by a man who’s very aim was do what you recommend. Andrew Breitbart set out to change the rules, to confront liberal hypocrisy and media bias head-on, and to change the conversation.
Perhaps unwittingly, your comment presents the perfect example of why R/C/L’s get so perturbed when they point to demonization and they get dismissed as some sort of rabid racist for raising any fuss whatsoever: I addressed you specifically and you, in turn, ignored everything I wrote, addressing your comment instead to all those who apparently “failed miserably” in your eyes, accusing them (and I guess me) of being stereotypical. How can we address “culture” at all if our opinions are never addressed, and we simply relegated to strawman arguments made by the “stereotypical” bad guy?
If you really want a conversation, open your ears, shut your mouth, and take people at their word.
The other problem is that these days alot of conservatives spend considerable ink bashing any training that isn’t “practical,” so it’s a hard sell to even convince them that a degree in literature or the arts would be worth it. Some training can be gotten in other ways, informally, more directly, but it’s still seen too often as useless knowledge. Oftentimes, conservatives won’t support even artists on their side of the fence. The whole field is totally dismissed out of hand. You get bashed from both sides, which isn’t easy to deal with.
By all means get a degree in literature, with whatever emphasis strikes your fancy. Just don’t complain if the market is vastly over supplied with your specialization and you get dropped into the “no special skills, but colledge educated” bucket along with several million others. And don’t ask me to pay for your decision, (indirectly, of course).
Yes, she did liken republicans to nazis. Dunham didn’t explain this as her character’s thinking. If you want to rationalize the no talent sleazebag, do so to yourself, but don’t lie to justify your viewing habits. We’ve heard what the moronic thing thinks of conservatives and anyone who doesn’t conform to group think, so spare us.
Read the quote again. Hannah is the fictional character created (and played) by Dunham:
“Hannah doesn’t really have a clear sense [. . .] My personal position is that you should date anyone you want [. . .] I don’t have any personal problem with dating a Republican. I do think that Hannah has this reverse ignorance” about Republicans.
Jeez, it couldn’t be any plainer.
No she didn’t say Republicans were Nazis, she said that they were as bad as Nazis. I suddenly understand why our liberal elite think that they are elite. You gotta be real smart to see the difference here. Honeychild, you way outta my league.
Great points. I agree that conservatives need to deal with Hollywood on a completely different level. It may seem like it sometimes, but preachy, knee-jerk liberalism doesn’t sell all that well either. Most liberals understand that they need to create works that stand on their own merit as either entertainment, but then subtly communicate their message as well. You don’t get millions of eyeballs by slamming people over the head with your beliefs; you get them by drawing them in with compelling stories, good acting, sophisticated production, etc., and then you slip the message in while they’re not looking!
EXACTLY.
Amusing article. This is the quote that got my interest:
“Conservatives and libertarians cannot avoid culture, nor can they afford to pounce on every perceived slight with church lady outrage. ”
That’s two points, and begs the question of “what is culture?” Well, by juxtaposing culture and political views, we (sort of) expose a fallacy of conservative vs. liberal culture, which is that liberals and conservatives are people with world views that essentially coexist in the same space.
Well, we don’t. Conservatives are largely found in business, in suburbs, and in rural areas; Liberals in urban ones. This is self-selecting, I have personally found; I work with hundreds of people who live in the same megalopolis (not NY or DC, which are a bit unique), the vast majority are conservatives; they all live in the suburbs, and a reasonable amount of time is spent discussing the travails of commuting over beer.
If I come across a colleage that lives in the city, he or she is almost always liberal.
So, what do we conclude? Liberals prioritize access to social centers, and arts centers over access to parks, soccer fields, and nature. Liberals trade off access to child-oriented activities if they are present (in fact, the liberal birth rate in the US is at European levels, while conservatives birth rates are over replacement) while conservatives make lifestyle choices which emphasize the children over personal convience.
So, to conclude, we DON’T live side by side, and we DON’T choose the same lifestyles. Thus, the children of urban hipsters wlil follow in those footsteps. Thus Dunham, a person which is wholly unaquainted with any other way of thinking except for her own upbringing.
We all live in our own echo chambers, making faces at those on the other side of the wall, simply because we don’ t have any experience with them, and thus don’t understand them.
The question is one of “conversion,” if you can call it that. Yes, liberals make entertainment for liberals and conservatives for conservatives, but if the 2012 elections exposed anything about conservative operations, it was that a great majority of the easily procured “audience” for GOP tactics and beliefs is stagnant and aging. If the GOP does not take a look at the world around them and adapt, it will find itself on the losing end time and again simply because of a numbers game.
Conservatives want to reach out, and there’s a significant base of movers and shakers who are more libertarian, more tolerant, more social adaptable, and they have an ability to talk to their peers. Their example should be followed. Otherwise, we will talk to ourselves forever until we die out completely.
Khadijah illustrates my earlier point to some degree. There is a stereotype among conservatives that anyone who lives in the city and is in the arts, etc must by definition be liberal and so forth. No one asks or finds a way to confirm that opinion, they just assume based on whatever personal criteria they are sure all conservatives would select for themselves. Therefore, by definition, all artists MUST be liberals. Not that they are, mind you.
I have met a wide range of people in my area, too, and I’ve worked for some amazingly liberal/libertarian businessmen, and some of my supposedly conservative friends who think artists are too liberal watch the most liberal shows on TV that I would never bother with. It’s not a matter of experience, it’s a matter of labeling people without actually knowing what they think about anything.
While I think the author’s making a valid point, I think she’s giving Lena Dunham too much credit in this instance. In a behind the scenes interview, Dunham will of course give a very nuanced, moderate, “of-course-I-wouldn’t-say-that” response. But what will show up on the screen, and be seen by millions?
“Republicans are like Nazis!”
That’s the real problem.
I think it’s just wonderful that our nation has gone from a fascist regime to more liberal in just a few years. And all because of television comics.
I’m posting for a second time, because I’m not smart enough to think of everything I want to say at the same time.
This post brings up a good point about we conservatives in general of late, not just Hollywood. We’re prone to histrionics over EVERYTHING. It’s truly a siege mentality. Unfortunately, the left has figured this out, and aims to get us up-in-arms over every single issue. Then, the likes of John Stewart or Stephen Colbert can paint us as marginal hysterics.
The recent tax compromise is a good example. Conservatives nearly imploded because John Boehner, who had zero negotiating leverage (except a fiscal cliff for which the media was set to blame us), managed to forestall some, but not all of the Obama’s proposed taxes. As if he had any other option? Still, the Democrats were able to paint us as ideologues, hopelessly out of touch. All we did was end up turning on ourselves and help Obama lay the groundwork for a Democratically controlled House in 2014.
Then Obama nominates Hagel…and again, we implode. We freak out. As an alternative, we might want to keep our mouths shut and surprise the president with a “no” vote with little or no warning. But no, our congressmen/women and conservative pundits trip all over themselves to express outrage, not realizing they’re playing right into his hands. We’ll probably derail this nomination and Obama will nominate someone worse.
They’re laughing at and exploiting us…because we’ve become so utterly predictable.
Oh, I understand now…she didn’t CALL Republicans Nazis, she just COMPARED Republicans to Nazis. That silly old Breitbart site sure is misleading, huh?
Excellent post.
The full context makes it clear that she has a more enlightened view than that of the character she’s created. There’s nothing offensive about what she said.
Reading your article is like reading the cr*p out of a dog’s a§§h*le.
HEY! I’m *not* calling YOU and a§§h*le, nor your work cr*p…right?
Yeah. Right. Just keep on deluding yourself as to the real intent.
I am actually amused by most of the responses here. Emily you hit it right on the head.
My official take on Lena Dunham you ask? She has no bearing on my life one bit. I don’t even really know who she is, so why would I care.
Hyper-sensitivity should be left to the liberal left. Speak your beliefs and watch them freak out…its actually an exercise of pure enjoyment. Odds are, your everyday average beliefs are more in line with the everyday average American anyways.
If all else fails, quit supporting the Hollywood left that hates you. Every movie you attend, every show you watch on tv, every Netflix you rent continues to give the Lena Dunhams out there a bigger platform to spew stupidity….whatever the heck her intent was.
That right there is the problem with conservatives, we believe it in our heads, but not our pocketbooks.
Remember when Liberals twisted and contorted Mitt Romney’s words when he said “I like being able to fire people”, taking it off base and completely out of context?
Breitbart, Newsbusters, etc. are doing the same thing here.
Portlandia is a devastatingly hilarious satire of hipsters that even the targets can enjoy. By contrast, Girls un-ironically depicts people with the easiest lives possible acting as if they have the hardest; the problem is one gets the horrifying sense that we’re supposed to be sympathetic. She may not have called Republicans Nazis, but the fact that Lena Dunham even needs to examine why she lumps the two groups in the same dating category says much about her, not us. She should get a job in a factory, as it would help her more than any type of therapy.
Possibly the crappiest of the HBO series category. Enlightened is another. (talk about doublespeak) I usually like their fare, but I couldn’t get through 15 minutes of a single episode. These people are the ones who act like “Nazis” and yet don’t even realize it. “Progressive” socialists (ironically just like Hitlers Reich) are THE most intolerant group of people who have ever lived. So, who really cares what these spoiled little shits think?
It matters what the spoiled sh*ts think because you need to be able to persuade them, win hearts and minds, and that means assessing their position honestly so they can respect yours. They may not respect it anyway, but you don’t stand a chance if you can’t even hear what they are saying. Just writing everyone off doesn’t help the situation at all.
There is a huge difference between the way the right and the left see the simplistic shows and movies. I watch very little because I find the material so boring. There are a few comedy shows like the Big Bang and How I Met Your Mother that can be enjoyed because the characters are not tagged by content as liberal or conservative. When the writers start sending “messages” to the audience, I’m out of the audience. The first two times I’ll find myself laughing at the characters and not with them because I can’t identify with them. Then I’m gone. Many shows succeed because the viewers can identify with the characters on the screen. As the general public operates as a pretty simplistic liberal level, that’s why the shows succeed, not because they are crafted well.
[...] Emily Zanotti echoed Simon at her blog Naked DC: Conservatives and libertarians cannot avoid culture, nor can they afford to pounce on every perceived slight with church lady outrage. Making inroads into the collective consciousness means embracing trends and using them, having a sense of humor about ourselves and our approach, and taking to heart that the core value of entertainment is to entertain. Will conservatives ever be among the recognized and revered? Maybe not. But if the track record of tangentially conservative-focused enterprises (like, for example the Blue Collar Comedy Tour) has taught us anything, they will be rich. Which means they’ll be powerful. [...]
So now we’ve progressed from Republicans Must Become Democrats Lite To Survive to Stockholm syndrome.
This is why they’re going to win.
They fight to win.
She says something that could be from her characters thoughts…or her own.
When pressed on the issue, because she didn’t add anything until after the follow up was asked, she says that she, personally has no problems…
Reminds me of “One of my best friend’s is black!”
Yes, she did liken republicans to nazis. Dunham didn’t explain this as her character’s thinking. If you want to rationalize the no talent sleazebag, do so to yourself, but don’t lie to justify your viewing habits. We’ve heard what the moronic thing thinks of conservatives and anyone who doesn’t conform to group think, so spare us.
[...] Emily Zanotti echoed Simon at her blog Naked DC: [...]