It wasn't a White Christmas.

I've long been a fan of Betty White. I've enjoyed her roles on television series and even her role in The Proposal, alongside Sandra Bullock, Ryan Reynolds, Mary Steenburgen and Craig T. Nelson.

So, of course, I did something I had not done in decades—I turned on Saturday Night Live because she was guest hosting. You will remember that some fans started a Facebook page to encourage the television show to give White a spot as host. Over 500,000 people joined the page.

The show gave White the spot. But they seemed quite reluctant to do so. I wondered why. But watching the show last night I immediately knew why. The writers of the show were clueless when it came to White. The material they wrote was crap.

I missed the first couple of minutes but tuned in for White's monologue which was a series of "see-I'm-old" jokes. There is nothing wrong with such jokes but a whole string of them can be tedious. And these were tedious. But I stayed tuned.

Next there came a string of skits based on SNL's "McGruber" character. One such skit might have some amusement but repeating the same joke over and over, with slightly different circumstances is not amusing. It shows a lack of imagination on the part of the writers. But I stay tuned.

Then we got a skit where the same punchline, "She's a lesbian" was repeated over and over by White. Once again the writers came up with one thing and then milked it until the cow was dry. But I stay tuned.

Then we had an endless skit relying on White talking about muffins, where the audience is supposed to think vagina. It too went on far longer than necessary, and far longer than was good for the skit. But I stay tuned.

At this point the show brought on some rap artist, Jay-Z. He started his routine and I changed channels. I didn't tune back.

Apparently a lot of people tuned into the show to see White, as SNL had the best ratings it has had in a long time. No doubt some were like myself, old fans of SNL who hadn't watched the show in years. But what I saw last night confirmed that I hadn't been missing anything.

A comedy show relies upon a combination of acting talent and good writing. White has the personality that allows her to make use of good material. But the writers at SNL didn't give her good material. Betty White might be 88 years old but it was the writing at SNL that was old and tired. It just wasn't funny. I won't be bothering with that show again. And I hope the writers apologize to White for the garbage they wrote and then research and practice seppuku. If they did it live on Saturday it might be enough to get me to tune in again, at least until they pull out the next rap artist as their "music."

Here's a I'm-so-old joke for the writers of SNL: I'm so old I remember when Betty White was young and Saturday Night Live was funny.

Photo: Betty White taking care of the writing problem at SNL.

In defense of television.

It was my intention, for sometime now, to post some comments in defense of modern television. But this blog tends to be a slave to the news. So Climategate got my attention, even though I preferred to look elsewhere.

One of the laments of cultural conservatives is that the popular culture is on some sort of perpetual downward trend. I suspect that they thought from the first day they couldn’t stone fornicators anymore.

Of course, by nature, a conservative is someone who inherently thinks the best is behind us; in the future they see only ruin. The natural state of the conservative is pessimism.

To the conservative mind, change is inherently evil. This applies pretty much across the board. It takes conservatives an entire generation to accept change, but only the change that already took place before they were born. The conservatives of yesteryear were adamantly opposed to the civil rights movement. The conservatives of today have their peace with it and wouldn’t think of changing it. But the conservative only makes peace with the change of the past, never the change of the present day.

And, of course, they apply this attitude to television as well. You will hear them lament the state of television. They will tell us how wonderful television used to be. And I confess having had such thoughts myself. But, what cured me of the idea that television was better in the past, was not the television of today, as much as rewatching the television of the past. It was awful.

This is not to say that every show of previous decades is inferior to every show of today. That is not the case. But, on a whole, previous generations of television were pathetic. I felt a twinge of sadness when Soupy Sales died, I felt a big twinge of sadness when I watched one of his old shows as well. It was awful.

There is a lot of talk about television dumbing people down. Just watch the old shows for examples. What is dumber than My Mother the Car? And if you want shows that appeal to the intellect, you won’t find many of them in the past. Even shows with some timelessness, such as The Honeymooners, or The Andy Griffith Show never dealt with issues of great importance or seriousness. Thinking was divisive and the old American networks didn’t want to court controversy. They played it safe and boring. Rob and Laura, or Lucy and Desi, may have had children by some miracle that went unstated, but they never shared the same bed. That was controversial.

In the wonderful film adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron they show Harrison, in a world of complete equality, learning television programming. He is taught to keep everything to the lowest common denominator, least anyone be offended. A clever line could only be clever enough to entertain the dullards on their couches so that all would enjoy it equally.

The clips of “approved” television shows you see in Harrison Bergeron are eerily like what you might expect from the 1950s or 1960s. (You can currently watch this excellent film here.)

Yes, today’s shows stir up controversy. But what is controversy? Something is controversial when it challenges what people accept. Controversy challenges the status quo. It stimulates debate and new thinking. It encourages contemplation and argumentation. It leads to new ideas.

But again conservatism tends to fear new ideas because new ideas lead to change. Hayek wrote: “Conservatives feel instinctively that it is new ideas more than anything that cause change.” But, to cling to old ideas means no stimulation of the mind. It leads to mindless entertainment.

This is not to say that every show today stimulates thinking. They do not. There are some that are so mind-numbing that even the most fearful conservative can could enjoy it. But there are others, which you couldn’t have seen 30 or 40 years ago.

Consider the crime show Bones. FBI agent Seely Booth is no intellectual. Yet the team of forensic anthropologists he has to work with are highly intelligent. Booth calls them “squints,” partially out of being intimidated by their intellects.

His counterpart is Dr. Temperance Brennan. Brennan is Spock on steroids, a confirmed rationalist who uses historical analysis and science to inspire her views on most of life. This contrast inspires much of the dialogue between the two main characters. Booth and Brennan regularly disagree about sexual morality, the existence of a deity and such matters. It is the only show I know of where the main character is an open atheist who defends her position. What is fascinating is that this is one of the top-rated show on Fox.

Current television isn’t better simply because it has higher production values—though it clearly does. Just compare the production qualities of a show like Torchwood to one like Lost in Space or even the original Star Trek series. Scripts are also better. Dialogue is more interesting. Characters have more dimension and complexity. Real moral dilemmas are tackled, not the rather lame issues that the shows of the past used to discuss

The film Pleasantville captures a great deal of what I mean. Brother and sister characters, David (Toby Maguire) and Jennifer (Reese Witherspoon) mysteriously are transported from the life they lead into the reruns of an old black and white sitcom called Pleasantville, a Leave-It-To-Beaver kind of place. Nothing controversial happens in Pleasantville. Life revolves around exciting things like a cat stuck in a tree. The world is black and white; there is no change. There are no new ideas; even the books have blank pages. It is a conservative utopia.

The two time migrants turn the entire world of Pleasantville upside-down. The sameness disappears, individualism emerges, conflicts appear and the town is plunged into debate. Passions arise, abilities develop, people purse their own happiness. People begin to think, to actually think. Real drama emerges.

Modern television had done something similar. It didn’t just move from black and white to color. It moved from a dull sameness to one of abundant choice, where issues are dramatized and thus debated. From a purely entertainment perspective things have improved vastly. But from an intellectual perspective the changes have been even more profound. And I think it should be applauded.

Facts: Here are some facts showing how television has evolved and how various issues are debated openly which previously had been hidden from view.

The first show focusing on the moral conflict of abortion was Maude in 1972. The first use of the word condom was in a 1987 episode of The Hogan Family. The first made-for-television film about a gay character was That Certain Summer in 1972 while the first recurring gay character on a televison show Jodie Dallas (Billy Crystal) in Soap, 1977.

Inaccuracy in Media

There is a conservative group which mislabels itself Accuracy in Media. There major justification for existing is to correct the "liberal bias" of the media. By "liberal" they don't mean liberal at all, but socialist. For them unbiased means conservative lies in lieu of socialist lies.

They recently ran an article, very late in the game apparently, reviewing the film V for Vendetta. And their description of it is inaccurate and sometimes funny, albeit unintentionally so.

The most absurd line in the whole piece is this: "I detest an expanding federal government as much as the next conservative or libertarian." First, please don't say libertarian in the same breath as conservative. Libertarians are not another brand of conservative as much in common with Kincaid and his ilk as they do with Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro. Libertarianism is neither Left nor Right, but a repudiation of both. Second, if Kincaid detests an "expanding federal government as much as the next conservative" that means he doesn't detest at all. The biggest expansion of the federal government, the most vicious assault on the Bill of Rights in decades, is the work of the current conservative regime.

In fact, Kincaid's little piece on the film is really an attack on "liberal Hollywood" and a justification for expanding the federal government. He whines that "it is only the federal government that can protect us against foreign threats. That is the one thing that the federal government is supposed to do—provide for a national defense." See, Bush is just "defending America," in spite of the fact that the lion's share of government expansion was outside the military budget and in social welfare. The Republicans, the conservatives, embraced big government with a fury not seen since FDR. And Kincaid is inaccurate to imply that it has anything to do with defense, when most the spending has been on social programs.

Let's look at some of Kincaid's other little lies. In the film television host Gordan Deitrich takes in the character Evey, who is on the run from the authorities. He has a copy of the Qu'ran in a class case in his basement. Not any copy you should know, but an ancient, illustrated edition that is a collector's piece. First, how Kincaid distorts the scene. " The Koran, the victim says, is a beautiful book filled with poetry. " Did he call the Qu'ran a "beautiful book" as Kincaid said "filled with poetry." Nope. Kincaid distorted the film intentionally. I say intentionally because he does it throughout his little diatribe. One can watch the film or read the novel (not the illustrated original but the one based on the film) which was written based on the film script. I recently read the novel and saw the film for the second time, so I know they are pretty much in sync with one another.

The Qu'ran in the film is from the 14th Century. And what Deitrich says is that he isn't a Muslim but "I don't have to be a Muslim to find the images beautiful or its poetry moving."
Notice he did not say the book itself was beautiful as Kincaid makes up. He says the images in this ancient illustrated edition are beautiful. The images, not the book. Nor did he say it was "filled with poetry." In fact he made no quantifiable statement at all about how much of it is poetic. He said that he found "its poetry moving" without once saying how much of it was poetry. For a group that calls itself Accuracy in Media, they aren't very accurate when it comes to the media. But the purpose of this is to bash Hollywood, and if need be, that may require distorting the facts.

I don't think Accuracy in Media exists to be accurate. They exist to tell conservatives what they want to hear and raise funds by doing that. Say what your donors want to hear and the money keeps rolling in.

Kincaid argues that the film "is worth watching only because it sheds some light on the mindset of Hollywood elites who fear Bush more than radical Islam. And it highlights the role of the media in brainwashing the population... If impressionable young people come away from this film thinking that Islamic terrorism is not a threat, then Hollywood will have accomplished its sinister objective." See it's a sinister plot to brainwash kids to hate Jesus W. Bush.

Fact is that the story, which he thinks is about Bush, was written and published as an illustrated novel between 1982 and 1985: long before the big government conservatives anointed Dubya their new messiah. Kincaid says the film is about "a conservative administration." If by conservative you mean fascist then he is correct. Of course, these days I can understand why he gets the two confused. The fascists in the film took over the government and V is fighting them. In fact, the original illustrated version of it was far more left-anarchistic and the film script toned that down considerably much to the displeasure of left anarchists.

I find it just wacko, conspiracist nonsense to say the film’s “sinister objective” was to get “young people” thinking “that Islamic terrorism is not a threat.” It is nonsense because the film is not about this world and current events. It is set in an alternative world to our own when history went in a different direction. It doesn’t deal with Islamic terrorism in the plot and, considering it is based on a story written 24 years ago, that is no surprise. But nutty conservatives love finding “sinister” plots and scapegoating people. So, the film had the “sinister objective” of whitewashing Islamic terrorists. What nonsense. But it is indicative of the mind set of Accuracy (sic) in Media.

At the end of the story people come out to protest the government, and as Kincaid describes it, “Government forces, confused about how to respond, do not fire their weapons.” A minor point perhaps but there is a good reason they are confused here. The government they live under is a dictatorship, which Kincaid equates with being a “conservative" administration—perhaps a Freudian slip. The dictator has died in a coup manipulated by V, but carried out by the head of the secret police. And the head of the secret police is killed by V. In a dictatorship the moment the head is severed the body doesn’t know how to react, until the power vacuum is filled. The soldiers surrounding parliament are waiting for orders. No one acts without orders, it's too dangerous. It’s a dictatorship. In dictatorships, if you want to survive, you follow orders and don't take the initiative. And, when no orders come, they do nothing. That is how dictatorships work.

Kincaid is obsessed with his fantasy that the film is really a defense of fundamentalist terrorism: “Its sounds like a fairy tale, and it is. It is a world in which the American people—and the populations of other Western democracies—have nothing to fear from the Muslims or anybody else. The only thing we have to fear, the film says, is our own government.” His obsession is borderline idiotic since it’s not about that at all.

No, Islamic terrorists are not part of this film. They aren’t part of Star Wars, The Browning Version, Gone with the Wind or thousands and thousands of other films. It’s not a conspiracy run by liberals, Jews, Masons, the Illuminati, homosexuals or anyone else. It’s a film with a plot, set in a future world with a history different from our own. The basic plot never mentions Islamic terrorism as the story was written long before that was an issue.

Now, many libertarians, liberals (classical and modern), and even some conservatives are concerned about the rise of authoritarianism under George Bush. The utter disregard for Constitutional freedoms, the centralisation of power in the Imperial presidency, the lies told to the American public regularly, all are very ominous signs about the state of freedom—something conservatives once said they were concerned about. But Kincaid says: “The real issue is not that the government has gone too far, but that it hasn’t gone far enough.”

Now, that fits into the comic book. Yes, that is precisely the sort of mentality that V for Vendetta was talking about, even though it was not about Islamic terrorism. It was about how fascism arises in a nation with a history of freedom. And, the way fascism replaces freedom is when individuals stand up and say that a government which has spit on the Constitution, has open contempt for the Bill of Rights, and which despises federalism or limited government, “hasn’t gone far enough.”

But, for nutty Kincaid and his fascist fantasies the film is “a justification for Islamic Jihad.” Right.

V for Vendetta does warn us about how people can be terrified into surrendering freedom. And today, it is not Islamic terrorists who control America. Nor are they even likely to do so. The threat to American freedom, the real and potent threat to liberty, can not come from without but only from within. America is too powerful to be conquered, but no nation, no matter how strong, is immune from a cancer that rots it from within.

Bin Laden and the lunatic fundamentalists in Islam might periodically commit some atrocity. But they can’t destroy freedom. They might kill the body, but they can’t kill the libertarian spirit of the American Revolution. That sort of spiritual murder is always self-induced. The American system can’t be murdered, but it can commit suicide. And people like Cliff Kincaid are standing on the sidelines cheering on that suicide in the name of their “war on terror”.

Our illustration is from the original 1982 edition of V for Vendetta.

UPDATE: Given the mental hysteria rampant in the American conservative movement, I should have known that a piece as inaccurate as the Kincaid one would be spread around. Already two other websites for the brain-dead Right have reprinted it. Ann Coulter is all the evidence you need that the more dishonest and shrill a writer is, the more support they get from what passes itself off as modern conservatism. Poor Barry Goldwater is spinning in his grave.