There will be spoilers. However, if you wanted to watch this season of 24, you probably already have. If you haven’t seen it, have no fear — read on.
In a world of excellent television, it may be neither as shiny nor as mysterious as today’s cutting-edge, DVR-demanding serialized hits (Lost, Battlestar Galactica, Gossip Girl, Man Versus Food). Its season wrap-up wasn’t in the running for “best TV I’ve ever seen” (The Shield, The Wire, Ninja Warrior), but Jack Bauer and 24 still stand astride TV like a colossus — a hoarse, belligerent colossus that clasps men by the lapels and thrusts them floorward, but a colossus nonetheless.
If you missed this season, you missed Jack and what remains of the CTU crew confronting their most daunting enemy yet. No, not a ruthless African dictator with crack commando squats sloshing through the DC sewers — no, not John Voight or Methos from Highlander: The Series. In season seven of 24, Jack Bauer confronted the biggest threat to his existence yet:
President Barack Obama.
Hello, America.
Those of us you who are gainfully employed have probably noticed the special significance today, April 15th, the ides of April, holds. Yes, today is the day for which years of standardized test-taking have prepared each and every one of us. It is a day that encapsulates the very core of the American political soul – the great social equalizer. Today is the day where some modest but precious modicum of our meager salaries are joined together in great union, the ultimate confluence of national cohesion.
Today, we celebrated our Taxation Day.
We’re going look at taxes as viewed from both sides of the Atlantic, through the lens of pop music. Read on – but if you qualify for the Earned Income Credit (EIC), please make sure to first fill out the worksheet on page 15.
So I’m watching The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford the other day. It has a great cast which includes Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck, Sam Rockwell, and Clinton strategist and CNN commentator James Carville. The Ragin’ Cajun shows up 90 minutes into the two-and-a-half-hour-long movie as the Governor of Missouri, and he’s got two big scenes – one where he gives a toast at a fancy ball, and one where he sends Affleck’s character out to get Jesse James one way or another.
It’s official: the ascendancy of Barack Obama to the presidency and the departure of George W. Bush have brought about the End of Irony. The Daily Show is running out of jokes. Snark is at an all time low. Even Pabst Blue Ribbon is reporting its first quarterly loss since 2002.
However, we still have to deal with the untold amounts of irony-laden pop culture produced during eight years of Bush-induced cynicism and fear. Chief among these is the seminal 2004 film, Team America: World Police. Though the exact intent of the film is open to debate, it is abundantly clear that the Bush Administration and its errant foreign policy were key targets of its savage satire.
So in this New Golden Age of Pragmatism, Diplomacy, and Understanding, is Team America: World Police still relevant? The short answer is absolutely, yes: even though Bush is gone, Obama will soon be faced with many of the same problems that the World Police once confronted. Fortunately, though, the World Police also have the answers.
What’s our team up against?
Barack Obama.
We’ve seen him as a young co-ed. We’ve seen him without his shirt on. And, as of yesterday, we’ve seen him as the President of the United States of America.
But the same question is on everyone’s lips: where does Obama rank on a list of hot U.S. presidents?
Don’t worry. I have the answer.
Last year during Presidents’ Week, I started the tradition of ranking presidents and their first ladies in order of hotness. Before I reveal the top and bottom five of my list of hot presidents, let me first talk about my methodology. I wouldn’t want you–or, indeed, these lovely presidents–to think I’m not academically rigorous.
My rules:
- Judging is based off the hottest picture I can easily find of each president.
- The judge should make all attempts to be objective when measuring hotness, but will also be aware that complete objectivity is impossible.
- The judge will make all attempts not to be “time-ist.” In other words, just because almost everyone in the 50’s and 60’s had awful crewcuts and wore disgusting glasses does not mean all politicians from that era are necessarily unattractive. Conversely, just because a president from the late 1800s sports hot sideburns, it does not necessarily make him hot as a whole.
Presidents were rated based on the following scale, from most to least hot: Hot; Hot?; Okay; Ehh; and Not.
A final disclaimer: Yes, this post is written by the same person who wrote that article about feminism and how we should never judge female TV and film characters primarily by their appearances.
And now, the list…
WASHINGTON – Illinois Senator Barrack Obama accepted the Presidential Matrix of Leadership on Tuesday, bringing light to America’s darkest hour and vowing to transform the nation and the world.
The Matrix had previously belonged to human tractor trailer William Jefferson Clinton, who, after prevailing in battle against independent prosecutor Kenneth Star, slowly darkened and passed away, devastating America’s children.
At his bedside were Clinton’s long-time compatriot, then-Vice President Al Gore; his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton; Obama, then a young State Senator on a school field trip; and car-carrying super-robot Ultra Magnus, voiced by the late Robert Stack.
(Continued in politics section)
Look out, evil-doers: Spider-man swings to President Obama’s rescue in an upcoming Marvel comic book issue.
It’s not the first time an American President has appeared in a comic book (the article lists a few notable ones), but it’s definitely the first for Barack Obama, who may get his own comic book series if he can keep his cultish popularity up over the next 4-8 years.
Presumably, Spider-Man gives Obama some words of wisdom: “With great power, comes great responsibility to fix the enormous clusterf$@!k that America has gotten itself into,” followed by, of course:
“THWIPP“
On January 20, 2009, the presidency of George Walker Bush will come to an end, but his prevalence in the popular culture has been on the wane for quite some time already. Let’s examine his exit from the popular culture zeitgeist as measured by Google Trends.
Not surprisingly, both Barack Obama and John McCain had more Google search traffic than Bush for almost all of 2008.
But notice the small spike towards the end of 2008. Was George Bush making a comeback in the popular culture as Americans pondered his legacy?
Completely unrelated thought: is this title appropriate? It makes the movie sound like a romance, which it's so not.
At the end of Scent of a Woman, young Charlie Simms tells an obvious lie to the Headmaster of his boarding school, in front of all the students and teachers. He fully expects to be expelled. Instead, his new friend Colonel Frank Slade decides to get a few things off his chest. “If I were the man I were five years ago, I’d take a flamethrower to this place!” he thunders, moral outrage crackling out of his fingertips. (By the way, I always wondered whether he meant “five years ago, when I had more backbone and courage,” or “five years ago, when I could see what I was lighting on fire.”) When the dust settles after his five minute rant, the faculty board exonerates Charlie on the spot, the student body erupts into riotous applause, and (I assume) Headmaster Trask goes home to stick his head in a goddamn oven.
The speech probably has a lot to do with Pacino winning his only Oscar, and it’s a lot of fun. It’s so much fun, in fact, that it’s easy to miss two things:
- All this fuss is about a large balloon filled with white goo.
- It’s by no means clear that Charlie did the right thing.
Let me refresh your memory.
“Hey, wax on, wax off! Hey buddy, wax on, wax off!”
If I’d heard that all the time as a kid, I’d probably get pretty damned tired of it, too. Especially if I were hyper-aware that I was hearing it because I was an Asian kid. And not Japanese either, Goddammit! I’m not, but I sympathize.
There’s no question that Kensuke Miyagi occupies a special place in the pantheon of Asian-American stereotypes, and that he’s a locus of cultural antipathy, especially among Asian-Americans.
But that antipathy is unfortunate. Not just because it is born of pain, but also because Mr. Miyagi as he appears in The Karate Kid (and not as he appears in the larger cultural phantasmagoria, or for that matter, the latter Karate Kid sequels), is not nearly so narrow or offensive a caricature.
A defense of Miyagi, and more on why that defense is important, follows…
