“Debate me, you coward” takes movie form in Adam Carolla’s abysmal No Safe Spaces
Film Reviews moviereview
“He comes from college and knowledge, I come from tomfoolery and sports.” That’s how Adam Carolla, of Loveline and The Man Show fame, describes his alliance with Dennis Prager, a conservative talk show host and commenter whose social views on nearly everything are reprehensible. No Safe Spaces, the duo’s new movie, refurbishes the Sundance-friendly cliché of the “unlikely friendship” for the purposes of propaganda against the SJWs and snowflakes making it impossible for conservative ideas to flourish on campus, thereby restricting Tim Allen’s right to speak comic truth to power. Prager, whose views regularly align with those of the religious right (Carolla’s basically a libertarian atheist), has experience with the matter. As he explains, one of his appearances was picketed with charges of homophobia, racism, anti-Semitism, and more. But because he’s Jewish, he’s able to chucklingly explain that the last charge didn’t stick—especially after he got a friend of his, “a well-known Jew” (great phrasing!), to vouch for him. With one charge dismissed, all the other descriptors must be equally invalid. (They aren’t.)
Before hitting the road in segments documenting a speaking tour they conducted to espouse the meaningless canard of “common sense values,” Carolla and Prager get flashback establishing stories. For Carolla, it’s goofy re-enactments of learning his mom was a welfare queen at an early age. (He was redpilled into common sense as an teenager—bait for the MRA crowd). Meanwhile, young Prager is shown in the USSR, singing cantors’ songs in his bugged apartment to confound the anti-Semitic police. Since Carolla knows welfare entitlement from the inside and Prager understands suppression of free speech, they’re a libertarian alliance that can synthesize those two POVs into larger conspiratorial mutterings. All this grounding in bizarre “humanizing” backstories is reminiscent of similar opening sequences in Dinesh D’Souza’s conservative documentary tetralogy; D’Souza’s frequent collaborator John D. Sullivan has a story credit here. Per current mainstream documentary practices, there are multiple arcs to be resolved at the end: Will Ben Shapiro get to speak at Berkeley? Will Prager get to serve as the guest conductor of the Santa Monica Orchestra at a fundraiser, or will protests deny him the opportunity?
Both Shapiro and Prager won out, undermining the narrative of the sinister suppression of conservative speech. But even broadly speaking, this is an exceedingly difficult case to credibly make when the president is tweeting out Breitbart links. With regards to colleges, the protest is that students are supposed to be intellectually challenged by ideas, objectionable and otherwise, they’d otherwise never encounter. Given that this stuff is everywhere, it’s a weak argument—the marketplace of ideas is sorting itself out, just not in the direction Prager and Carolla would like. In between “satirical” palate cleanser interludes (e.g. the opening credits for a fictional SJW superhero cartoon with the tagline “Get triggered!”), interviews are conducted with subjects who claim their free-speech was suppressed. These all fail to pass the smell test for various reasons, like omitting what would seem to be crucial specifics. Take a segment on a Berkeley student who abstained from voting on a student senate bill because of her “Christian values” and was subsequently disaffiliated from all her student groups. The film doesn’t mention what that bill was—a statement in favor of trans rights—keeping things deliberately vague lest that raise any viewer objection. Googling any of these interviewees demonstrates that they’ve raised their conservative media profiles since the incident that supposedly cancelled them, with talking-head appearances and speaking gigs following.
This is “debate me, you coward” in movie form, climaxing with Prager marching onto a black college campus, finding a group of young men and immediately grilling them about whether they support hate speech’s right to exist. They’re all polite and engage, until matters devolve into Prager asking whether they think racism still shapes their lives—the answer, unsurprisingly, is yes, which he doesn’t like. The scene is supposed to demonstrate one thing (free, vigorous, and mutually respectful dialogue) while showing something that’s actually entirely different: a belligerent white man demanding answers that sync with his own, barking at strangers in a way that only gets more ghastly and boorish the longer it goes along.
No Safe Spaces caters to its intended viewers’ least savory biases, making sure all student activists shown fit into particular categories—overweight, gay, or simply “angry and black”—that stoke the resentment of the target demographic. The structuring absence is Donald Trump, whose name is only dropped once. If, as a profile once speculated, Prager’s online video explainer outlet Prager University doesn’t explicitly endorse Trump, that’s probably in part to retain its nonprofit tax status. Here, going full MAGA might undermine the ostensible project of bipartisan defense of “free speech,” whose suppression is described as one of the most important issues in the United States today. Still, it’s hard to deny who the likely viewers are going to be, given the roster of those appearing (Allen, Shapiro, Charlie Kirk, Candace Owens)—and that’s before Alan Dershowitz shows up to declare “If you want to feel good, get a massage.” This isn’t an argument for free speech, it’s just paranoid whining, complete with a roundtable of comics sympathetically agreeing how sad and scary this all is, plus images of the Statue of Liberty with tape over its mouth.
463 Comments
But are there any girls jumping on trampolines?
Yes. Or maybe know.
It depends on which is worse.
This is one of those “no matter who wins, we all lose” situations.
No. Just two grumpy white guys who’ve had everything handed to them and it’s still not enough.
In another 10 years, that man is going to look exactly like Emperor Palpatine.
Why in God’s name would anyone click this
It’s an edited video making Prager say a bunch of silly things
Given that this stuff is everywhere, it’s a weak argument—the marketplace of ideas is sorting itself out, just not in the direction Prager and Carolla would like.Exactly. We’ve been to the marketplace of ideas and—guess what?—your ideas are cheap knockoffs of old retrograde ones, so no, I’m not stifling you…I just don’t want what you’re selling. You’re conservatives; you really should understand how the free market works!
There’s also the entire issue with bad faith arguments.We’re currently seeing that play out in epic scale in Washington – instead of defending Trump’s actions or advancing reasons as to why what he is doing is acceptable, they’re drowning the news cycle in waves of whataboutisms and attacks on the procedure.It’s Bad Debate Practices 101. If you can’t defend the point, attack anything and everything else until something sticks.
Yes. The vast majority of arguments I see/hear/read these days tend toward basic rhetorical fallacies we learned in college (Argumentation and Debate, 101). People that used these would routinely get their asses handed to them in a formal debate setting.
It’s just filtering down from the political world where it actually works. Rhetoric was designed to inflame the passions and overcome the reasoning faculties and it does that well when used by a skillful orator. Individually and in the online arena it’s nothing more than group identifier keywords and belief reinforcement. It is both amusing and frightening how many people think spouting catchphrases to the unconverted is a persuasive argument.
I have a friend who engages trolls only by pointing out what logical fallacy they used. It’s entertaining, but lost on them. The newest whataboutism is how Biden also used the term lynching, as if the Dems universally love the guy.
So many people are misusing fallacies as well though, or just using them as a magical gotcha without acknowledging the rest of the argument. If I had a dollar for every dweeb who can’t tell the difference between ad hominem and a simple insult, I’d be a millionaire.
Personal experience tells me these are often the same people making the disingenuous arguments.They picked up just enough to know “fallacy = wrong” and assume they can use it at any time they’re on the back foot.
I blame Reddit
Even worse, the thought-manglers who feel insulted by their errors being pointed out, which makes any correction an ad hominem in their minds.
YOUR FRIEND IS A TROLL TOO.KEEP BETTER FRIENDS
Why are you like this?
Biden apologized, though
Conservatives have learned the secret to debate, especially outside of a formal setting, which is that it’s not a means by which to arrive at truth, but a game where you win if more people believe that you won. In a formal setting at least, there are ostensibly rules by which you’re judged, which can reduce (but ultimately never solve) bias on the part of the judges. But in the Marketplace of Ideas™, you don’t have even those limited constraints.Someone who has historically been apolitical but has a vague sense that society is leaving them behind is not necessarily going to research every claim, say, Ben Shapiro makes at them. They’re not going to recognize a Gish gallop, or logical fallacies, or misused statistics, or blurred lines between stats and facts and myths and conjecture. If the narrative presented has enough cohesion for a particular person’s alarm bells not to ring, makes personal sense to that person, and is delivered with at least a veneer of intelligence and/or confidence, they can sway someone.The left is worried about being correct. The right is using the techniques of debate and debate’s immaturely vaunted position as the way civilized people prove they’re right to make people feel they’re correct. That’s why the right is always trying to challenge people to debates. They recognize it’s intellectual empty calories that can make idiots feel full.
This. I’m happy to engage in an honest argument of ideas. But as soon as I hear Venezuela in an argument against a policy supported by Bernie or AOC I’m fuckin out. No time for disingenuous bullshit.
I also have yet to see one conservative college known for personal and academic freedoms.
Do they burn down starbucks to shut down a person with opposing views speech on their campus?
Except we’re not talking about saying “I don’t want what you’re saying so I’m not buying it.” We’re talking about saying “I don’t want what you’re saying, so I don’t want you to be able to sell it to anyone else in my neighborhood.”Or, really “What you are selling is toxic, so stop trying to sell it and go consume it in your basement where it won’t hurt anyone else.” It’s not a free market of ideas so much as consumer protection.
Look, if Dennis Prager wasn’t allowed to speak on all of the campuses he actually, um, speaks on, how would anyone know about the fact that he thinks that marriage is between a man and a woman? HOW?
It’s also fitting that Carolla would pick the guy who called a black congresswoman a ghetto queen. That’s the person you want to hitch your wagon to?
And much like cheap knockoffs, these ideas are often characterised by obvious misspellings.
But won’t someone please think of poor Adam Carolla? It’s everyone else’s fault that his career (which is 90% grinning and quacking out “pussy” jokes) is in the dumpster.
I’m extremely hesitant to laud “the marketplace of ideas,” because it appears to have many of the same problems as the actual marketplace. A lot of people really, really like horrible, smelly dogshit. Others are easily fooled into buying stuff that they don’t need (at best.) Necrophiliacs abound, and opportunistic gravediggers are always at the ready. We still have people proudly defending philosophical arguments that got shredded *millennia* ago, because they make their idiotic core positions sound like they’re buttressed by something more sophisticated than “because I said so, bitch.”
We may literally destroy humanity’s only habitat because the marketplace of ideas worked a little too much like – and in tandem with, surprise, surprise – the actual marketplace.I don’t think anybody should be crowing about it too loudly.
I would not support you because you would require some sort of elite supervisors, or moderators to decide for the rest of us which ideas are OK to be in the marketplace and which one should not. I would like to decide that for myself, thank you.
Honest question that I’m too lazy to look up, does AV Club give Fs to anything but conservative propoganda pieces? I’m not saying they don’t deserve it, but it seems like that space between D and F is idealogical.
I’m fine with that
I’d be more fine with them not giving this horseshit any press at all.
Ignoring fascists doesn’t work
Ignoring movies that need exposure in order to make money does work, though.
They’ve got the PragerU machine behind them, publicity isn’t a problem for them.
Typical budding little fascist that you are.
Shut up snowflake, can’t you take a joke?
Oh, The Following got a baker’s dozen back in the day, and deserved every one of them.
Oh man I forgot that show. Everytime a commercial aired for it I got so bummed out. I was never so disappointed in how a show turned out. That was the bleakest, stupidest show I’ve ever tried to watch. And not bleak in a meaningful or poetic way like 21 Grams or something. Just a fucking miserable slog. Blech.
At least one non-conservative movie has gotten an F:
https://film.avclub.com/extremely-loud-and-incredibly-close-1798170983
This was the most recent prior F:
https://film.avclub.com/however-the-new-tarantino-turns-out-it-can-t-be-worse-1833843660
THAT movie got an F??? it wasnt THAT bad!!!
Disingenuous bullshit deserves an F only because there’s no lower grade.
Here’s a more complete answer: you can see all the AVClub’s reviews at Metacritic, sorted by score:
https://www.metacritic.com/publication/the-av-club?sort_options=critic_score&filter=movies&num_items=100&page=82Here are the F bombs: The Last Airbender, Sydney White, All About Steve, From Justin to Kelly, Monster-In-Law, Soul Men, October Baby, The Devil Inside, Bruce Almighty, Transylmania, Fired Up!, Nowhere Man, Hillary’s America, All the Queen’s Men, London Has Fallen, America: Imagine a World Without Her, Speed 2: Cruise Control, Witless Protection, Fathers’ Day, Mansome, Son of the Mask, I Hate Valentine’s Day, Baby Geniuses, Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2, Are We There Yet, Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, A Life Less Ordinary, The Mod Squad, Unplanned, Jonah Hex, The Nut Job, Date Movie, God’s Not Dead, Virus, Flipped, Fireproof, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, Norbit, 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag, Shark Night 3D, Holmes and Watson, Daddy Day Camp, Atlas Shrugged III: Who Is John Galt, Best Night Ever, Apollo 18, The Hottie and the Nottie, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, 8MM, Atlas Shrugged II: The Strike, Meet the Spartans, The Avengers, Chapter 27, The Other Sister, Battle of the Year, 200 Cigarettes, Epic Movie, The Haunting of Sharon Tate, Expelled: No Intelligene Allowed, Death of a Nation, Sorority Boys, The Human Centipede III (Final Sequence), A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III, 11 Minutes, The Darkest Hour, Simply Irresistible, An American Carol, AVPR: Aliens vs Predator – Requiem, Kung Pow: Enter the Fist, The Real Cancun, Contract to Kill, The Stepfather, You’ve Got Mail, The Ten Commandments.
So to answer your question, no.
Aw. 8 Heads in a Duffle Bag wasn’t THAT bad.
At the very least, the fantastic score should bump it up to a D-.
October Baby! Oh man, those were the days. Those comments are still absolute gold. SHE FOUGHT BACK!
Thank you! This is exactly what I was after.
Oh fuck October Baby. I’d forgotten that disaster.
Kung Pow: Enter the Fist is a masterpiece!!!
Kung Pow: Enter The Fist was robbed! I’ll go to bat for 8 Heads In A Duffel Bag, too.
kung pow was fucking hilarious.
Are those the same You’ve Got Mail, Darkest Hours and Ten Commandments I’m thinking? They all didn’t get remade when I wasn’t looking right?
I noticed ‘Avengers’ on the list, and I assume that’s the adaptation of the British TV series and not the MCU one.
Oh most certainly. The much hated 1999 film with Uma Thurman.
The Ten Commandments in question is this one, and the Darkest Hour appears to be a horror movie with Emile Hirsch as the lead, which should tell you everything you need to know. As for You’ve Got Mail, looks like Nabin was in a particularly ornery mood that day.
An animated version? Yeah I can buy that being garbage. You’ve got Mail is hardly Nora Ephrons best work but I don’t think its terrible.
Never saw it myself so I wouldn’t know.
“Norbit, 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag”.I blurred those two titles together at first and read ‘Norbit 8′, and was thinking, “When did that get seven sequels?”
Right after Leonard Part 6.
But “Norbit’s Head in a Duffel Bag” we would totally watch.
AMERICA NEEDS MORE NORBIT!
There’s still so much story to tell!
Aww, I actually like A Life Less Ordinary.
The Avengers got an F? Too bad the link is dead, I’d love to read how that movie is worth the same grade as Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore.
Not the superhero movie – the spy movie based on the 60s British TV show. Starred Ralph Fiennes, Uma Thurman, and Sean Connery, and was legendarily awful.
ah! OK, that makes sense! Thanks for the catch.Didn’t see it but the casting looked awful, almost perverse: Ralph Fiennes? When Hugh Grant is sitting right there…
It was baffling even to 12 year old me. Why is James Bond dressed as a furry?!?
Kung Pow an F? Y’all need to some more weed. Also, 200 Cigarettes is not THAT bad.
We need all the Descendants of American Grafitti and Nashville we can get, even of they’re subpar. It’s got fuckin Paul Rudd in it, for fuck’s sake! (Speaking of Rudd, now Dinner for Schmucks, that was a real F turd)
Apollo 18? But that was one of They Might Be Giants’ best albums!
Son of the Mask is a conservative propaganda piece? Or is this a level of sarcasm that im missing?
Did they give Fired Up an F for funny? Because it is.
Jesus some of those dont deserve F’s at all. A Life Less Ordinary? Seriously? That’s at worst a C- or D+
Allow me to humbly present my first F, capn_n_jack: https://tv.avclub.com/tommy-wiseau-s-neighbors-immediately-overstay-their-wel-1798183106
Thanks, I see from the snarky reactions that people are assuming I was being rude. Not my intention. I like your reviews and was honestly curious.
“see from the snarky reactions that people are assuming I was being rude.”
Wow, someone is UNBELIEVABLY sensitive, eh?
Not really. I just like the site and the reviewer and don’t want to seem like I was being combative when that wasn’t my intention.
You think this is our first time around the block with people like you? This “just asking questions” faux innocent bullshit is LITERALLY what this garbage doc being reviewed is about, you clown. Gtfo with this noise.
Heh, it’s not that big of a deal either way.
tHiS rEvIeW aIn’T yOuR sAfE sPaCe, CaPn!
Snowflake cries on internet.
I believe that Dowd has explained once that pure As and Fs should be extremely rare. An F means a total failure of a film. Not just bad (thats what Ds are for), but there is nothing redeemable/artistic/at all worth watching in it (Assume a D film must have a least one good scene/line/acting moment, or is in the so bad its good category). As someone posted, the A.V. Club has given Fs over the years to more than just conservative propaganda. But Conservative propaganda (especially D’Zousa) is just bad filmmaking. Note: at least some of the Extreme Christian films have gotten better than Fs.Hope this helps.
You asked a seemingly right-blinkered question that you could have researched for yourself in about 30 seconds. You got a lot less snark than I expected.
That’s not fair, have you tried to search for things on this site? The system’s totally fucked.
Agreed. The commenter who compiled a list of all of the F’s got it from Metacritic. That seems kind of sad when this is a pop culture website with a dedicated search function. When I want to catch up on TV reviews from a while back I have to use Google.
No, you were concern-trolling with an agenda.
To be fair, a few of those F’s went to Dinesh D’Souza and the Galt trilogy – I’m pretty sure if the scale accommodated a lower rating they’d have received them quite justifiably.
Dude “just asking questions” about anti-conservative bias cant’t spell ideology right. Yup. Checks out.
Yeah, I was typing pretty quickly when I wrote that. I sort of wanted to comb through your old comments and find some typos to make fun of. Low and behold I found one that just says ‘typos don’t make someone stupid’ which kind of says it all.
I just used the typo as an entry point for calling you an idiot.To be clear I think your argument is dumb. And laughed at your typo. I didn’t see your typo and call your argument dumb.Your argument was the dumb thing. Sorry I distracted an obviously easily distractable person with the typo thing,
Also, I feel like if I was really a conservative shill, I’d be less apt to admit straight up that this is an awful propoganda film.
Less feeling. More thinking.
They do not, but I would like to submit that this ‘F’ is applied incorrectly in terms of how it frequently means “so bad that it is worth watching merely to see the spectacular failure.” Any conservative hogwash should be given a ‘D-’ so we can delineate between “unwatchable” and “so bad it becomes watchable purely out of grotesque interest.”
“F” is for “fiasco”!That said, one can tell the difference between “unwatchably bad” and “this is so bad you must watch it” by actually reading the review. As ever, letter grades are much too coarse to be of any practical use.
I only have time to read a single letter per article. I only ever read one letter per comment too and just hope I get lucky in what I’m typingmonkey purple dishwasher
That’s why I dislike letter grades. They’re coarse, and rough, and irritating, and they get everywhere.
There needs to be a distinction between “Don’t bother watching” and “Don’t start watching the trainwreck or you won’t be able to stop”.
Hard disagree. Movies that are truly terrible deserve the lowest possible grade. Movies that are amazing because a passionate filmmaker with almost no technical knowledge makes something so crazy bad that people love them deserve an A
I think the real question is: “Does the AV Club give an “F” to all conservative propaganda pieces?” Signs point to “Yes.” It’s an interesting polemic puzzle. Do academics still evaluate Leni Riefenstahl while overlooking her politics? That always kinda bugged me.
It’s been a while, but I believe Bill Maher’s ‘Religulous’ got a D something. Granted, AV Club writers have often taken issue with Bill Maher’s positions on certain topics, but I doubt I’m going too far out on a limb to suspect that the same writers would tend to support his general sentiments on religion. Yet, as I recall, the particular reviewer of ‘Religulous’ found little of value in the presentation of its ideas and rated the film accordingly. That said, whatever your political inclinations, I think it’s a fair question to ask, so you shouldn’t feel apologetic for asking it. At the same time, despite the Thiel-pocalyse suffered previously by some of its sister sites, neither should AV Club feel the need to justify a political bias in its reviews, even if there is one. When I read reviews, all I want is a coherent argument, even if its one I don’t ultimately find persuasive. I can’t think of many right wing sites that even bother to justify their own biased reviews, nor can I think of many that present coherent arguments for those reviews.
Thanks for the reasoned response, I was just starting to feel depressed at some of the pretty genuinely hateful things people have been responding to me with. And no, I don’t fault their political leaning (it’s not that far from my own), I just like to know how much it affects their ability to serve as pop culture critics and, as you note, doesn’t seem to affect that much at all.
“Thanks for the reasoned response, I was just starting to feel depressed at some of the pretty genuinely hateful things people have been responding to me with.”Oh fuck them. If they calmed down and actually took the time to read your responses they’d realize you were being earnest and not trolling by “just asking questions.” I enjoy reading the reviews of right-wing trash getting deservedly slammed on here, and I was curious about the same thing with the grades as you (I think I’ve just noticed it more on political work because those tend to be the only F’s I ever read). You specifically said it’s not that you don’t think they deserve F’s. When somebody provided a list of all the F’s other movies got you thanked them, and you respectfully replied to the over the top responses to your post. If you have some hidden conservative agenda, you’re doing a shitty job of pushing it.
This really is appreciated. I’ve waisted a lot of time responding to people who are rude to me with anger, and I’m not going to do that anymore, but it means a lot to me when someone takes the time to read and understand. It’s odd to me that the people who are so anxious to claim the other side is being hateful are so fast to act hateful themselves (and this goes for both sides of the aisle). Politically, I’m very middle of the road, I just like my art criticism to not be too swayed by ideology which I think people pretty clearly proved her is not going on.
It’s always depressing when people start blindly attacking people on the internet.
What was annoying about Religulous was how much Maher focuses so much on people who take bible stories literally instead of the toxic culture of Christian Moral Superiority. Bill, no one these days is worried about people who actually believe Jonah got swallowed by a whale!! Well, outside of Alabama, I guess.
At this point, one has to suspect that somewhere in this media group exists a contractual ‘face/heel’ publicity relationship with the distributors of these small ‘RWer’ films.
*puts on taped together horn-rimmed glasses, sighs*Knowing how to spell the word ‘ideological’ might help you refrain from using it incorrectly.*gets punched; unsurprisingly*
Sadly Kinja doesn’t allow editing or this wouldn’t be an issue. But I think we’re all entitled to a typo here and there. I mean, you posted your comment twice and I’m not complaining.
It can be two things.
It does allow editing but there’s like a 15 minute limit. Assuming your buttons function, not a guarantee around here.
*slides taped together horn-rimmed glasses up his nose, sighs*Knowing how to spell the word ‘ideological’ might help you refrain from using it in this particular context.*gets punched, to nobody’s surprise*
It is something by PragerU.. known liars. So. I mean, it seems fitting?
I’m laughing at the handful of idiots who dove at your jugular for this comment.
So Adam Carolla flunked out
of junior college, is advising how to run Universities, He is pathetic!
For a different example, Roger Ebert only handed out zero stars to films that were not only failures as a movie, but also morally reprehensible to him as well.
It’s a real pity that there seems to be no way to search the review database for F’s.
fuck off
Better question, does Vadim review anything but conservative propaganda pieces? I looked through Vadim reviews and 90%+ are conservative pieces. Seems like Vadim is the defacto attack dog from AV Club against conservatives.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/12/17100496/political-correctness-data
All this means is far left only likes when certain people speech. Free Speech is not about the speech you like. Its about the speech you don’t like. Look up Noam Chomsky. Hes a liberal, a real one.
I’ve been teaching/TA-ing at the college level for the past 6 years, and I’ve received precisely one trigger-warning request (which was reasonable), zero demands to create a safe space, and zero complaints from conservative students who felt that their “free speech” was being stifled. And yes, I did have openly conservative students who felt perfectly comfortable sharing their viewpoints. But hey, might as well take another whack at that strawman.
Serious question: Do you mind sharing what college? Or if not, at least some identifying characteristics? Size, public/private, state or geographic region, etc.?I’m not asking because I doubt you at all. In fact I believe virtually all these conservative talking points about campus safe spaces, SJW snowflakes, etc. are utter BS. I’m just curious about variation among different schools.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/12/17100496/political-correctness-data
Large, urban, flagship state university.
I’ll throw my hat in this ring. Hopefully someone will un-grey me.I’ve taught composition and rhetoric classes full time at a large, state university for almost 15 years. Each semester I have 4 classes of 25 students. During that time, in addition to my full time gig, I’ve also been an adjunct at a small, prestigious private university, as well as a small, not very prestigious at all, private university. In my experience, all those talking points are absolutely nonsense. My classes discuss contentious subjects, and without question, they’ve handled themselves maturely and dealt with every subject I’ve thrown at them like adults, and in all that time I’ve had maybe three uncomfortable instances that I can remember. The first instance was with an anti-vaxxer whose parents ran the largest anti-vaccination group in town. I asked to see her in my office after she submitted an annotated bibliography for her research essay. She was writing an essay on anti-vaccination, and all the sources she submitted were from blogs and garbage websites. I gave her a list of more reputable, academic sources. She left, and the next office period she was waiting for me in tears. She said she’d read some of the sources, and they were the exact opposite of what her parents had taught her. She told me she was dropping the class because it was too stressful. The second instance was two semesters ago, when I had a Ben Shapiro acolyte in my class. He was a disruptive ass. He would interrupt people in the middle of conversations, and when I’d tell him to wait his turn and he could have the floor in a moment, he’d mutter things like “goddamn snowflakes” under his breath. He ended up dropping at mid-term because his grade was in the teens because he refused to turn things in on time.The last instance was this semester on the first day of classes. After class ended, a student shyly came up to me as I was packing my things up for the next class. She sheepishly asked if it was okay if I called her by a name that wasn’t on the official roster. I told her of course, and jokingly admonished her for not telling me as I called roll. I got my roster out to make a note, and I asked her name. The name on the official roster was male, and she, obviously, wanted to be called by a name that reflected who she actually was as a person, and I immediately felt like an jerk for even joking with her about it. I made the change on my roster, and I gave her the info for how to contact the registrar and add a “preferred name” in her student info so she wouldn’t have to be nervous at the beginning of class again. And that’s it. In 15, almost 16 years of full time teaching at large, small, private, and state universities. It’s all bullshit. It’s a made-up narrative just like “The WAR on Christmas.”
It’s all bullshit the Internet. It’s a made-up narrative just like “The WAR on Christmas.” Fixed it for you 🙂
Yeah because this stuff isn’t all over Fox News or the National Review or Rush Limbaugh or the New York Post or Last fucking Man Standing. Idiot.
Hey! Thank you for illustrating my point!
Am I supposed to pretend you completely ignored mine?
One time I had a TA that was a lazy prick. So I guess that makes you one? I mean that’s the point of your post. NO ONE could have a different experience than you right?
Yes, that was EXACTLY the point of my post. Good on you for A-plus reading comprehension!
Um try watching any videos from Voltaire or reading about Antifa’s war on free speech. Or read about Bret Weinstein and that situation at Evergreens campus. Or read the articles on how college student play with stuffed animals. There’s also TP USA getting shut down at campuses. It’s not hard to find utter bias against conservative thought on college campuses
I see alot of Trigger/Content Warning captions amongst higher ed professionals in the facebook groups even for things I personally wouldn’t have thought to use them on, but it’s just a blip before a post. If people are this butthurt over trigger warnings then they really are the embodiment of privilege
The thing about trigger warnings is they exist primarily to facilitate engagement with controversial and troubling content. The whole point is that people who have experience with a particular type of trauma will be able to prepare themselves emotionally to deal with a depiction of that type of trauma, rather than being blindsided by it, so that they will be better able to engage with it. Whether trigger warnings are actually effective is one thing, but contrary to how they are depicted, the intent is not to coddle anyone by shielding them from objectionable content.
It also makes me wonder if these people complaining about all this stuff have ever been to college before?
That’s basically what I remember from college. I graduated in 2006, but despite the constant hand-wringing about social flux, I suspect the changes in university culture have mostly been technological rather than ideological. Most of the people in my LAS classes were liberals, a few of them were conservatives, and the TAs/professors generally fostered a respectful conversation that was salient to the actual coursework. And the shit we talked about was (surprise surprise) exactly the same shit that everyone talks about today. It drives me nuts when people talk about minority representation or regressive features of entertainment or rape culture as if those concepts just appeared out of nowhere in the last five years. Shoot, one of my English professors provided trigger warnings (that term just didn’t exist yet) so that any rape survivors in her class wouldn’t be blindsided by the subject matter of some of the texts. And that was 14 years ago.
I’ll chime in from the flip side: I’m a current grad student at a mid-sized public university in the Deep South. I’ve been asked twice in the past six months by an acquaintance of mine (a man who just so happens to exclusively get his news from OANN) how many times my professors have extolled the virtues of socialism to me. I was almost sorry to have to tell him (both times) that that has never ever happened in any of my courses ever! Even though I’m in a program that touches on politics pretty often! Conservatives’ strawman/fantasy of what college is like is equally hilarious and depressing to me.
i graduated from a big southern state university in the early 2010s and i don’t think i ever experienced any left-wing pearl-clutching the whole time i was there. on the other hand i can think of at least four times where obnoxious conservative white dudes defended their right to be dumb racists to a class of people trying to ignore them.the ‘trigger warning’ stuff was more for the off-campus, post-college education activist facebook groups and the like.
THE ONLY THING WORSE THAN A STRAWMAN IS ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE.YOU SHOULD KNOW THAT, BEING A “TEACHER” AND ALL, BUT I SUPPOSE THAT IS WHY YOU ARE GOING ON 7 YEARS OF BEING AN ASSISTANT.
Why are you like this?
But but but…Berkeley! Clearly it’s representative of all colleges!
In my Creative Arts degree I completed a couple of years ago, there was precisely one instance of someone requesting a trigger warning or something similar: it was after we, as a class, watched the documentary Capturing The Friedmans. The lecturer was genuinely apologetic and regretful that she had failed to consider the impact the film might have on some students, and promised to do better. Trigged Warnings and the like are a good thing, and they make life better and safer for everyone, so of course conservatives hate them: they don’t want anyone but themselves to feel safe.
I’m a bit old to have encountered trigger warnings at college, but I had plenty of lecturers who would warn us if a video was going to have upsetting content, and suggest that anyone who might be upset sit near the doors, so they could leave if they needed to. Which is the equivalent of a trigger warning, but no one got upset about basic courtesy back then.
I have done both college and university in a pretty liberal city. For the most part, classes do not have major conflict but there have been moments but there have been some moments where culture and politics have clashed.The student union in university was discussing making some bathrooms gendered neutral at certain locations at the school. A student who was not against the idea but had some concerns about how people from other cultures might not want share bathrooms with the other gender. They also brought up the fact that since women often tell stories of harassment/assault maybe they would not want to want to share a space that is used by students and the public (campus was in the middle of downtown) where security is not close by. This person was eventually called racist and apologized for raising the concerns. I had a journalism class during the 2016 elections where there was one very very very conservative student who would not stop interjecting headlines from fringe sites and just trying to antagonize everyone. The teacher did a good job by not going off on the student but eventuality the student stopped coming after having several meetings with the teacher before and after classes. I do not blame the teacher at all with how they handled things because the student just a jerk but I cannot imagine how hard it would be to teach a class where half the class or more was like that guy. I think the biggest thing I noticed was how often people argued over topics they agreed on. If a person said a word or something that was not exactly smooth while giving their opinion, the next person would focus so much time on how the person said something and not really address what was said. This would lead to a lot of wasted time where people get into arguments over words and not context.
I graduated from undergrad a few years ago and experienced a trigger warning from a Professor just once. It’s was a drama class and the play we were assigned to see had a scene depicting a sexual assault. The professor made that clear and said that students could seek an alternative play if they needed to, no questions asked.
This is a group of grifters that has turned tilting at windmills into a profession.
I’ve been teaching college for 15 years (Flagship state R1 University and two midsized urban state R2 Universities.) No safe space or trigger warning requests (though I do give a heads up about sensitive content if I’m teaching, say, Titus Andronicus). I have had a handful of female students who would meet me to say that reading something like Titus was personally difficult for them, but we talked out of concern rather than contentiousness. I did have one student make a formal complaint about my class because it included too many works that included acts of violence against women (not a lot you can do about that if you’re teaching Renaissance tragedy), and while I would get a visceral thrill out of siccing Corrola and Prager on this student, I think one in fifteen years shows how atypical these students are, and I’m happy to write it off as an aberration. I’ve never heard a complaint from a conservative student, even though I’m upfront about my lefty political leanings (I’m one who thinks acknowledging your political ideology is better than feigning neutral, so long as you emphasize that it has no impact on assignments or grades). One course I have no idea what conservatives say when I’m not around, and of course I don’t know the ideology of everyone I’ve ever taught, but at the risk of making a ‘my best friends are conservatives’ argument, my most openly conservative students tend to do things like stop by office hours to talk about stuff.Honestly I wish the people behind this movie would follow my class around for a year and see what students are really like–I teach mostly dead white dudes and talk alot about sex and socialism, so I should be a bright red target for the PC and anti-PC hordes. But I’ve never been (well, that one student, but even that was right after Trump got elected and no one was at their best). But students are actually mostly thoughtful about these issues–and, frankly, in my experience the students most like to roll their eyes about trigger warnings and safe spaces are the really liberal ones.
Are you able to diversify your syllabus at all?
With secondary sources, certainly.
…who the fuck needed this?
Prager’s ego
The Venn diagram between the audience for this and The Federalist is a circle.
The Fedora List
I think you left the word “jerk” off the end of your sentence.
People who need to be victims in order to ignore how abominable they are.Can’t have people thinking “Huh, maybe I’m a dick” and actually having empathy for anyone.
Fool! You’re duck-taping your own mouth when you don’t let this irate old man rant at you! How dare you avoid giving him an ear! Fight me, you coward! I will hurl you! My job as a dishwasher has given me incredible insight into the complex workings of the mind! I will hurl you! But just remember if you defend yourself from me attacking you, that’s just the left inciting more violence, somehow! Ben Gazi! Who was a nice guy, I’m sure!
Oh that’s rich coming from an ILLEGAL Decepticon immigrant. You’re the reason we need Space Force.
To be fair, these assholes aren’t whining because “life has a liberal bias”, but because higher education, like unions, do function as important progressive institutions. Conservatives have been hammering at them for decades now, because anything that helps liberals learn, get organized and fight back is an impediment to conservative dreams of a thousand year uninterrupted reign.
Ignoring for a moment the seemingly magical connection between learning more about how the world works and becoming more liberal, conservatives are under-represented on college campuses because their entire culture involves amassing a fuckton of personal wealth and power. Universities are (in theory) supposed to be about collective education for the betterment of society as well as giving people a space to explore their own esoteric thoughts and ideas, neither of which is your jam if you want to live in a golden tower or make The Handmaid’s Tale a reality.
Conservatives are hardly under-represented on college campuses, and as ForeverGreyGardens correctly mentioned to you, Ivy League/Top Tier schools are chock full of them and pump them out by the boatload. They aren’t against going to college and all, they just hate how they think Universities have become liberal indoctrination camps. They just want to revert college back to the way it was in 1919: white men only, studying what they consider “useful” degrees like STEM and Business, get rid of all the liberal arts/social science departments and degrees, and be able to get away with date rape at their frat parties.
I always love it when people say we should get rid of all the ‘useless’ subjects and go back to how university ‘used’ to be.OK then, we’ll ditch the sciences, engineering and technology courses that used to be considered too grubby and practical for University, and we’ll just teach Philosophy, Rhetoric and Greek. Is that what you mean?
NO I think he means things like “Lesbian Dance Studies”, “African Studies” “Transgender Studies” and the like.
I suspect that the more prestigious of a college you go to, the more liberal it gets, generally. I don’t think I knowingly met more than 5 conservatives the entire time I was in college. For instance, I entered in 2011, not having met a single person who would have supported gay marriage in my hometown, then I don’t think I ever met someone who opposed it. The Class of 2023 at Yale is only 9% “somewhat” and 3% “very conservative”, and I imagine those numbers will decrease as their time there goes on. http://features.yaledailynews.com/blog/2019/09/05/class-of-2023-by-the-numbers/
None of what you say changes my points. Look at the educations and degrees of every major and prominent Republican in every branch of government current and past and you’ll see Ivy League/Top Tier schools. Even dumbass Trump and his kids are all Ivy League/Top Tier school grads. As were the entire Bush family, Cruz, Cotton, Norquist, I can go on and on. Skull and Bones is still a thing at Yale as every major College/University and even Community Colleges too now have a College/Young Republicans club that the GOP actively supports and recruits from such as this: http://www.crnc.org/, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_Republicans as these clubs and groups intentionally and frequently troll their schools like how UC Berkeley’s Republican club invited Milos to speak on campus, or the UVA ones doing the that Tiki torch Nazi rally on campus. At my alma matter which is one the of most liberal out there, there was a Republican club and they did do their best to be trollish dicks, having pro-Israel rallies as the few that were in my class that I personally knew and met always would pick arguments and fights with people on purpose just to affirm their biases about “snowflake liberals.”Universities heavily leaning progressive/liberal doesn’t scare and deter them away from it, they just bear with it while complaining and whining about the things I mentioned: how they’ve become ““SJW” training centers” and how if it were up to them, they would revert college back to the “good ole days,” while trolling everyone on campus with publicity stunts like the ones I mentioned.
Obviously there are conservatives who go to top tier schools. If that’s what you’re saying then I agree. They’re just under-represented as compared to the general population (which I don’t think is a bad thing).
They aren’t all that under represented and that’s the point. Your poll tracks only the freshman class at one school. I bet if the entire school including the graduate school were polled, that percentage of conservative students would be higher to at least to 1/5th to 1/10th with centrist to conservative views. Especially when you have stats like this that say that conservative students sometimes pretend to be liberal in order to fit in: https://www.thecollegefix.com/poll-73-percent-of-republican-students-have-withheld-political-views-in-class-for-fear-their-grades-would-suffer/
So why should inviting Milo “trolling” Do you hear how ridiculous and biased you sound? Don’t you think that universities are places to ENCOURAGE a WIDE range of ideas, including Milo’s?. YOU should be encouraging a wide exploration of ideas for all students too and maybe expose YOURSELF to some of those conservative or unusual ideas instead of shutting them out a priori.
It probably is a mistake to admit you are a conservative to the YAae admissions committee. Conservative applicants get rejected out of hand by liberal/radical admission committees.
Ironically, liberal arts (classics, litertature, etc.) were probably a bigger part of the college experience in 1919 than they are now.
Yes but they were taught with an extremely white and male supremacist bent. As in Greek/Roman/Nordic/Germanic/English culture superior to everyone else’s as there was intersectionality between classics scholars and eugenicists and white supremacists.
from your lips to God’s ear!
exploring your esoteric ideas should also include thinking of the benefits in favor of A Handmaids Tale type of world.
“because higher education, like unions, do function as important progressive institutions”I’m saying this not to be a dick, but because I’ve been in academia for most of my adult life — you must not have a lot of experience with higher education. It’s not just the business schools, but universities are chock full of conservatives. Hell, I’m in a namby-pamby social science that’s always painted as far left and a guy in my department writes essays for Breitbart. Universities are not some great hive of progressivism.
None of what you wrote is incompatible with what I’ve said. Of course there’s plenty of conservatives in higher ed. And Universities don’t have to be “great hives”. At this point in 2019, pretty much anyone to the left of Trump is a commie symp who should be lined up against a wall. That’s justification enough.
Aanecdotal perhaps? Try bursting out of your condescending bubble of academics and rub elbows with some common serfs.
Reality has a liberal bias.
I remember Carolla as a schmuck intern on local radio. He evolved into schmuck cohost of a “relationship helpline show” on the station (Rest in obscurity, Poorman). I never thought it’d be possible to say this, in this or any other possible timeline…I’m starting to think Jimmy Kimmel is the better, more talented half of their decades long bromance.
Jimmy Kimmel is proof that despite a lot of data points saying otherwise, adult humans are capable of growth and an increase in empathy as they get older and more wealthy.
I did enjoy Carolla as Spanky Ham in Drawn Together. He was basically himself, but portrayed much less sympathetically.
By “local radio” you of course mean KROQ, right here in L.A. Hey, apparently Bean is retiring.
in 1998 I lived in a 8 by 8 apartment w/ my best pal in West LA and could not even afford cable. We’d literally sit around a radio at night and listen to LOVELINES w/ Dr. Drew and Adam and laugh our asses off (we were 19, 20 yrs old) and it was our sole source of free entertainment. Besides running into Kato Kaelin at Burger King or cutting Jeff Goldblum at Ralph’s Grocery, we had to find our own types of fun back then.I was extremely grateful to them back then to have our little few hours at night, which helped break the monotony of realizing how poor and miserable we were.I’ve since moved on, done better, and realized Adam Corolla is a major d-bag. Sadly. And Dr. Drew has tested my limits of respect and nostalgia, too, but not as strongly. So, thanks, guys, for that 8 month period in 1998. I appreciate it.
starting to? its been obvious a long time.
Friendly reminder that Prager and Prager U are misleading at best or at worst (and most likely) straight up lying about Section 230 regarding speech and websites.
Gotta love how, uh, liberally conservative shell orgs use the term “university”
You know what would’ve made this film an A instead of a F? If it starred Charlie Kaufman.
Alan Dershowitz shows up to declare “If you want to feel good, get a massage.”Hoooooly shit.
Dershowitz continued, “If you don’t believe me, ask Jeffrey.”
Adam Carolla already headlined another documentary about comedians railing against “PC Culture” and “Safe Spaces” called Can We Take A Joke?He is a grand example of the sort of comedian who cannot tell the difference between criticism and censorship. It does not surprise me that he would team up with an explicit right wing propagandist like Prager.
I used to like him and listened to his pod all the time. It slowly turned into right wing propaganda and old man yells at cloud/repeats the same 10 stories over and over again. It was like a light bulb went off one day and I realized I didn’t have to listen if I wasn’t enjoying it anymore.
I did actually enjoy listening to his audiobooks. After that, I listened to his podcast once and then bailed.
It’s kind of like he woke up one day and realized he was white and rich.
Exact same experience for me.
Fun fact: Not only is “Adam Carolla’s abysmal” a complete sentence, it’s also quite true.
If anyone wants to smash their computer to bits, just watch these asshats explain why white privilege is a crazy & stupid concept that doesn’t exist in the real world because Carolla had to work hard in some jobs he’s had.
I read through the comments on the Carolla video…why oh why did I do that….
Wait, you mean “there are black millionaires and I don’t have as much money so ipso fatso, white priviledge cannot exist” isn’t a compelling argument?
The worst part was that every single post was regurgitating the same illogical horseshit reasoning and patting each other on the back about it. It’s like watching a bunch of flat-earthers jerk each other off.
It’s like watching a bunch of flat-earthers jerk each other off.Pornhub executive: Hey, I just had an idea.
Other Pornhub executive who knows where this is going: No you didn’t.
First Pornhub executive: Are you sure? *unzips*
I think we have a whole new genre of PornHub videos: PornHub executive meetings gone wild!
You can’t spell “meta” without “meat”!
A good time is a flat circle jerk.
Sounds like the people who say racism doesn’t exist anymore because Obama.
Or the flip side, racism started under Obama… because he’s the real racist.
I used to like Carolla when he did the Loveline show years ans years ago with Dr. Drew, but since then, I really haven’t cared much for him, with his irritating voice—it’s like he just likes to hear himself talk and say things to tick people off, or whatever. Never heard of this flick, and apparently it’s just as well.
The extent to which some people insist on believing (or pretending to believe) that white privilege means “no white person has ever struggled before” is really something.
I’m a poor white person. I’ve experienced homelessness more than once.Some things I haven’t experienced:
Being asked to step out of my vehicle during a routine traffic stop (over a total of about 8 traffic stops if I’m remembering them all)
Having to explain to police or security why I am where I am or am doing what I’m doing
Being randomly drug tested for work, even at jobs that performed random drug testing
Working or studying in a place where I was the only person of my ethnicity & gender
Having my authority or expertise questioned on virtually any matterWhite privilege =/= economic privilege; that’s what the deniers don’t or won’t understand or acknowledge.EDIT to pre-empt: yeah, there are white males who have experienced those things. That doesn’t take away the fact that a big part of the reason I personally haven’t is because, as a white male, I am statistically less likely to experience them. I don’t have to be as lucky as others to avoid these kinds of things.
None of that is privilege; it’s just being treated fairly. You aren’t getting more than you deserve. Others who do experience those things are getting less. That’s bigotry and discrimination. Unless the idea is that everyone should experience said bigotry and discrimination, then privilege isn’t the issue.
“White Privilege” is a term—much like “Toxic Masculinity”–that people hear and assume they get what it’s all about just by the name. We’re kind of stuck with the terms, but I would be grateful if someone could come up with more euphemistic terms because I get really tired explaining over and over again how it doesn’t mean that white people can’t possibly have a hard life.
It wouldn’t help, they’d just find some other way to pretend to misunderstand it
It’s really hard for some people to think the way those terms require you to think. A lot of white people have never felt beholden to society, or their race because they have the structural freedom to not be. Whereas every black person is lumped in with every other black person, and the bad outweighs the good in every other group’s thoughts. So for someone who’s never had to worry about anything other than themselves to suddenly be asked to gain empathy for not only another person, but an entirely different race (a sociological group which they not only don’t identify with, but it’s unlikely they have had to *ever* identify with *any* sociological group), is an understandably tall order.
A good point well made. However, my real issue isn’t really with people who just find white privilege a hard concept to get their head around, it’s the one who refuse to try, who are openly resistant to the notion, who bristle at the very idea that they need to be open to any other viewpoint.
It’s ironic how many arguments against the existence of white privilege end up serving as evidence for it.
He’s still bitching about this fireman thing 20 years later? I should pop on his podcast so I can relish in his evergreen bitching of “right turn on red” and Mayor Villaraigosa.
So this is the horrible youtube ads I get for PragerU, but in movie form?
I had never heard of this movie until now. It probably would have been smarter to completely ignore it as all you’re doing is bringing awareness to its existence.
Yeah. As if any AV Club reader was considering seeing it anyway.
Well, now that I know it exists I have purchased $750 million worth of tickets to it. I wouldn’t have done so otherwise, and I place the blame squarely on The AV Club.
Hey, this stuff always outs a few terrible/crazy commenters and for that, I’m grateful.
I just appreciate seeing a Vadim Razov review – a terrible documentary about decrepit conservatism comes out, and they shine the Razov Signal. Seriously, look at the recommended articles – all the same byline. He has a niche.
One of my college roommates was a Bush II neo-con. We’d argue with him, and no matter what we said, his only response was “You’re not listening to me,” and then repeating the same shit, because he was doubling-down and projecting like all conservatives do. And it was clear he was only a Republican because his rich dad told him lies about taxes all his life.But we were listening, and we made it clear we hated him, and he was miserable. So, win.
For conservatives listening = agreeing.They assume the only reason everyone doesn’t agree with them on everything is merely because other people don’t understand. And if they explain it and we either start thinking correctly or stop being sheep or [fart noise] then we’ll agree with them.They literally can’t imagine that two reasonable people can have different opinions about the same topic.
It’s worse than thinking we don’t understand now. Now, they think it’s because of personal spite, although they’re doing their best to make that true.Also the disadvantage that a liberal will always have against a conservative is intellectual honesty. I am more likely to scrutinize my own information and seek further confirmation, whereas a Republican will invent some subjective bullshit and declare it true because there is no way a factual argument can refute it. Our knowledge can’t beat their ignorance. All you can do is vote ‘em out, there is no bridging the gap.
When my wife and I were dating in college, there was a guy in our dorm who took a knee-jerk anti-feminist position on any subject related to gender. One time as he was going on about something (I don’t remember details), my wife pointed out that his central point was actually feminist, and he was refuting himself with his anti-feminist arguments. They went back and forth for a few minutes, and then – to his credit – he realized she was right. His response was, “I can’t believe I just lost a debate to a girl.”What a treasure.
TODAY, THAT ROOMMATE IS WEALTHY AND MARRIED TO A HOT CHICK…MEANWHILE YOU ARE COMMENTING ON A BOARD FULL OF RETARDS WHILE YOUR CRUSTY SOCK WAITS AT HOME FOR YOU
Why are you like this?
Ugh, my sympathies. I grew up in Wheaton, Illinois and Wheaton College is one of the biggest seminary schools in the Midwest. If you knew anyone who went there, you got an earful of this all the damn time. Last time I was there the parking lot was filled with Sarah Palin bumper stickers.
It’s funny; I was kind of left-leaning libertarian when I lived there because I think I was trying to meet my surroundings halfway. Now I’m older and give less of a fuck so I’m full on “Be gay, do crimes.” I have no patience for these people anymore.
“Be gay, do crimes.”
Put this on a shirt, and I’ll buy one from you.
As he explains, one of his appearances was picketed with charges of homophobia, racism, anti-Semitism, and more. But because he’s Jewish, he’s able to chucklingly explain that the last charge didn’t stick—especially after he got a friend of his, “a well-known Jew” (great phrasing!), to vouch for him. With one charge dismissed, all the other descriptors must be equally invalid. (They aren’t.) Arabs are Semitic too.
This is one of the stupidest “well, actually”s I keep on hearing over and over again. Yes, Arabic is a Semitic language. Yes, Arabs are a Semitic people. However, the word ‘anti-Semitism’ was coined in 19th century Germany to refer exclusively to hatred of the Jewish people. That is the only sense in which the word has been used. Ever.
That’s not what anti-Semitism means though. From the link:
The root word Semite gives the false impression that antisemitism is directed against all Semitic People, e.g., including Arabs and Assyrians. The compound word Antisemitismus (“antisemitism”) was first used in print in Germany in 1879 as a scientific-sounding term for Judenhass (“Jew-hatred”), and this has been its common use since then.
“Literally” can now mean “virtually” because of how people use it, even though it’s not technically correct.2: in effect : VIRTUALLY —used in an exaggerated way to emphasize a statement or description that is not literally true or possiblewill literally turn the world upside down to combat cruelty or injustice— Norman Cousins
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literallySo that’s an opposite case, but still. Although the term now has wide currency, it is a misnomer, since it implies a discrimination against all Semites. Arabs and other peoples are also Semites, and yet they are not the targets of anti-Semitism as it is usually understood.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/anti-Semitism
“Literally” can mean “virtually” because that’s how people have begun using it and a word’s use is what determines its meaning. However, literally nobody (and I mean “literally” literally) uses “anti-Semitism” to mean anything other than ‘hatred of Jews’ unless they’re trying to be clever on the internet . . .
I hope the reviewer didn’t cut themselves on the edginess of this film.
Vadim now is now covered by an official deed because the film owned him.
‘plus images of the Statue of Liberty with tape over its mouth’The ultimate use of free speech: Ripping off 30-year-old Dead Kennedys albums.
AH THE GOOD OL DK’S. BACK WHEN PUNKS WERENT AFRIAD TO SPEAK TRUTH TO DEMOCRATS
Why are you like this?
(Corolla’s basically a libertarian atheist)
The preferred nomenclature is “Asshole”!
HE’S ATHEIST, NOT VEGAN
Why are you like this?
“[Specific religion] would be great if it weren’t for all those [adherents to said religion] lousing it up.”
Atheism/atheists work as well in those blanks as anything else.
Funny, you remind me of this GQ article from 2009 about Ayn Rand that featured a libertarian atheist named Michael Malice: “Does Michael Malice admit to being an unreconstructed 33-year-old Ayn Rand Asshole? He does not—he proclaims it. “My reviews were incredible,” he says of 2006’s Ego Hubris, the story of his life that Harvey Pekar of American Splendor fame told in graphic-novel form. “The Village Voice called me ‘the face of jackassery.’ Your magazine called me a ‘slacker genius.’ Did you know that? The Onion called me ‘a hateful blowhard who touts his genius-level intellect and dismisses most of the world as inferior, deluded, or hypocritical.’ They also called me a ‘human cockroach,’ because I’m indestructible. Which I am.”Later, he says to the interviewer “It’s funny you should call me an Ayn Rand Asshole, because I happen to own the domain name assholism.com.”
Well you can call bullshit on that Onion quote. Even if the Onion writers felt that way about the man, they would never have written a piece like that because it’s not what they do. And not coincidentally, searching The Onion for “Michael Malice” returns exactly zero hits.
Ego & Hubris: The Michael Malice StoryHoly SHIT, I wish I’d never read about this flaming asshole.
Is it significant that nobody knows who the fuck he is now?
And he read a book once.
What happened to his hair?!
The best part is you can see below the header image that on the movie poster they must have used a Carolla pic from like ten years ago.
FFFFFFFFFFFFF FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
The notorious Gamma review!
There’s a dude I know who has moved hard to the right in recent years who absolutely fetishises “debate” and endlessly tries to provoke shit on either a group chat we’re both in or on Twitter.On Twitter particularly you get people “dunking” on him to refuted whatever bullshit he’s spouting but it just feeds his trolling.The way to piss him off was simply not engage with him. Because it didn’t matter how many good points you make or whether what he said was total horseshit, debating him would achieve nothing in the slightest.
They tend not to understand that they aren’t owed a response.
Absolutely. And frankly, letting the bullshit go unanswered is a significantly better use of time than than wasting even a few minutes giving the fuckwit what he wants.
Pansy
You must be about 25.
Yeah, that was the whole thing with Ben Shapiro demanding that AOC debate him. Her reply was along the lines of: if you are my opponent in my congressional race, then I will happily debate you. Otherwise, go pound sand.
I run into this with my girlfriend, who fucking LOVES to debate, play devil’s advocate, etc. I’m game a lot of the time, but other times I just want to say “this guy sucks” without debating precisely why or trying to uncover what led him to being a shitty human being.
My son in law is an emotionally abusive piece of dog shit and it turns out, just instinctively from all my years of interneting, when he tried to use his same tactics on me recently on a visit to my daughter a few weeks ago, not engaging was also the best way to piss him off. (He’s also a right-wing fuck-wad, though that hasn’t come up yet. They live far away and I only talk to her normally.)
IRL or online, I agree, the best way to deal with people like that is to just disengage. (Bonus points irl when you get to see just *how much* it pisses them off. It’s like you can see their little gears turning in their pea brains going “does not compute, does not compute”.)
For whatever reason, I’ve never felt a particularly intense need to engage in argument/debate with people, even those that hate me for whatever specious/bigoted reason.Whereas one of my friends can’t help herself and just engages every time. Her reasoning is “But if any of the group people they’re talking about see it’s not rebutted then they’ll thing it’s ok that people say these things about them”.The only difference is that significantly fewer people would see them if she didn’t keep fucking quote retweeting them to have a pointless argument.
I think I’m more like your friend but without any principled reasons. I just enjoy conflict immensely. I don’t seek it out but if it comes to me I’m not letting that bone go until I crack it in half and suck out the marrow. After a certain point I don’t care who’s right or wrong. I just want to humiliate them.It’s a personal failing, I know. But I try to confine it to those who I think deserve it before I get angry. Afterwards my judgement may be suspect.
To paraphrase a point made by one of my fav YouTube channels, if Liberals took one-tenth of the energy currently being used arguing with people who are never going to be convinced their ideas are sh*t anyway, and used that energy to do real work on Progressive and Left-Wing causes, the world would transform without the need to convert the Nazis and White Nationalists.
It’s not pointless for her though—that’s the point. Just because you don’t care about debating anyone on anything, that certainly dosen’t mean her debates are worthless. They mean something to her. I like debating and getting into discussion with people myself—it matters to me. Nobody cares whether you care or not, anyway—it’s not about you.
I feel sorry for you that you talk to the whole world about the husband of your daughter in that way. Families should strive for unity and harmony and a modicum of respect. After all, he is important to your daughter and any children they may have now or in the future- YOUR grandchildren. For that reason alone he should be also important to you. You diminish your own dignity when you talk about your son in law in that manner.
“Debate” is a misnomer for what these guys want to do. Debates have rules, they have moderators, they have time limits, and they end. The winner is not declared by who has most successfully shouted the opposition into giving up. They don’t want a debate. They want a no-holds barred verbal cage match, in which their ignorance and logical fallacies are just as good as any well-put together and/or reasonably sourced argument. Engaging them is like trying to play chess with a pigeon. No matter how skilled a player you are, they will merely knock the pieces over, shit all over the board, and strut around victoriously. Like pitting the WOPR against itself at tic-tac-toe, the only winning move is to not play at all.
You mean like the Antifa thugs at Berkley?
Yawn.
Seriously? Funny how idiots like you who are so quick to call Antifa activists “thugs” which they are not, love demonizing the hell out of them more than you do the white nationalist thugs they are usually looking to start a fight with them.
I’ve always like this David Hume quote on that kind of person: “The only way, therefore, of converting an antagonist of this kind, is to leave him to himself. For, finding that nobody keeps up the controversy with him, it is probable he will, at last, of himself, from mere weariness, come over to the side of common sense and reason”
Never debate the “Debate me, coward” crowd. They aren’t interested in having an exchange of ideas. Everything you say is wrong, everything they say is correct. If you point out something they’ve contradicted, you’re “Putting words in my mouth. Don’t put words in my mouth, bro.” Goalposts will be moved at the speed of sound. They just want to bark. Don’t give them their fix.
I purged all trump scum from every aspect of my life. A couple have asked why we don’t talk anymore. I tell them straight up, “You’re a fucking racist”. They do not enjoy that.
You will have a very lonely life and even lonelier death, if you repel people that way.
Yep. Responding in the first place is losing because you’re conceding their ideas are worthy of debate.
In other words you recognize that you’re incapable of engaging him on a one to one basis without getting your pompous ignorant ass handed to you so you rationalize your abject cowardice by claiming that you’re “pissing him off”.Gotcha.
Wow I bailed 30 seconds into the trailer.
So this is basically the man show with Dennis Praeger instead if Jimmy Kimmel?
I wish one of Ben Shapiro’s kids would get cancer. The real bad kind. I’d bend down and tell it to his little face too.
AND THEN YOUD BEND DOWN A LITTLE MORE AND SUCK HIS DICK?MOST LEFTIST RETARDS LIKE YOU ENJOY PLAYING WITH SOMETHING BIGGER THAN WHATS BETWEEN YOUR OWN LEGS
Why are you like this?
““unlikely friendship””
Based on what I’ve seen of I can’t imagine how Adam Carolla and a conversative douche could be seen as an unlikely friendship.
Thank goodness there is this widely released movie, from a couple of millionaires with vast amounts of media coverage, on how conservative beliefs are being silenced and destroyed.
AND it was at least partially crowd-funded, because the millionaires need YOUR help (i.e. your money) to speak out about this horrible oppression!
Asking for handouts? What are they, a couple of welfare queens?
I’m sure they’re against people getting handouts for for any reason except when a couple of middle-aged and well-off white guys want to make a movie.
Lookup PragerU on YouTube if you want to see some Class A totally shitty people justify really horrible shit. Have you lost faith in humanity? Do you need to be reminded that you’re totally right? Lookup PragerU. Have you found hope for humanity? Want to be reminded we can still, to this day, think that white people telling black people their shit is no big deal? Lookup PragerU.Making you hate humanity a little more with each view.
The website that proudly once said British empire was great, skips over mentioning Ireland once.
India under British rule vs after British rule. Which would you prefer?
The one that featured less massacres.
For a dark time, Prager U ads were playing before every video I watched. I don’t know if Youtube thought I was an asshole or just wanted me to suffer.
Jebus, I know your pain. That was the only time I ever considered getting Youtube Premium or whatever, because even though I could skip the ad after 15 seconds, that 15 seconds made me want to throw a brick through my TV. Thankfully I haven’t seen one in a while, but I have been getting lots of Trump ads even though the only non-movie/video game related stuff I watch is all leftist/liberal leaning commentators or news.
Oh God. I remember those dark times.
The pre-roll post-roll videos on youtube are a massive problem that isn’t really being looked at. Because of where I live (purple state) and age, I get fed the same shit from Epoch Times and Prager every time I go on that godforsaken site. It’s really bad, bullshitty stuff that I have no doubt is extremely effective in moving the needle on anyone sitting on the fence or who is unsure about how things work or who thinks “all politicians suck.” It is worrisome.
It’s a feature, not a bug.
I live in Ohio which is leaning further right. The algorithm is terrible no matter what I’m watching. I could watch a video reviewing a Disney animated film and still get a Epoch ad.
The answer is both. I watch a lot of left YouTube and those ads followed me like the plague.
Examples please?
I am astonished by Rizov’s constitution for watching these things. The only way I could possibly watch five minutes of this, much less the whole thing, is if some berserk viking impaled me to the theater chair with a spear.
And you’d be thanking the viking for causing you so much pain that it distracted you from having to pay attention to the screen.
“…and that’s before Alan Dershowitz shows up to declare ‘If you want to feel good, get a massage.’”Get the fuck outta here… That’s seriously in the movie?
Carolla looks like he’s preparing for his role in an Al Franken biopic.
I HOPE WE GET TO SEE HIM PRACTICING SOME SEXUAL ASSAULTS
Why are you like this?
I look forward to watching this film.
“Hate Speech” must be as protected as free speech. If we cannot be
tolerant of differing points of view, then we are not truly tolerant.
“…plus images of the Statue of Liberty with tape over its mouth”Her mouth. The Statue is clearly female, an adaptation of the goddess of illumination Ishtar, who is also called the mother of whores (proof that sex work is actually work and should not be marginalized). Besides, the male light bringer is literally named Lucifer.
In a world where improper pronoun use can get your ass whipped by intolerant masked vigilantes, I want you to be safe.
Statues are inanimate objects and don’t have genders. This should be obvious to anyone.
I would personally like to see the statistics on “violent crimes perpetrated by masked vigilantes over pronoun use.” Also, the poster you’re replying to is clearly very, very strange. That third paragraph is like a digression nestled in a non-sequitur wrapped in a psychotic break.
I’m fairly confident that the statistic you’re asking about is roughly 0.00. And yeah, homey has a screw loose for sure.
Whenever Isee a post like that I wonder what the poster’s car looks like. I’m guessing a little bit of intact upholstery, a couple windows, and a whole lot of old newspapers.
The Trollbot 3000 is on the fritz again. Try rebooting it.
“Must protect hate speech. Must protect hate speech. Must protect hate speech.” “Damn it, this is the divide by zero bug I was telling you guys about.”“STATUE OF LIBERTY IS FEMALE LUCIFER!” “Actually, gentlemen, let’s see how this plays out.”
I had a psychology professor who wore a lot of makeup and got very mad if you didn’t call her Doctor but that’s the closest I’ve got.
It smells like tomato to me.
Look, if it’s got a hole the right size…
I mean, it doesn’t, partially because it’s full of stairs and such. But if it did, and such an inanimate orifice proportional, I’d be torn between being incredibly impressed and sad at the Cronenbergian body horror of whoever had to tote a tadger of such Brobdingnagian proportions.
I mean, it doesn’t, partially because it’s full of stairs and such. But
if it did, and such an inanimate orifice proportional, I’d be torn
between being incredibly impressed and sad at the Cronenbergian body
horror of whoever had to tote a tadger of such Brobdingnagian proportions.
It depends on the statue. David and Venus immediately come to mind.
So your argument is that the nickname of the Statue as “Lady Liberty” is not apropos. Tell the Statue of Liberty Gift Shop bc they must be enlightened as well.Next you’ll tell me that the Best Dam Gift Shop at Hoover Dam is using cursed words.
Thanks for the laugh.
Nah, dude, on the inside? HUUUUUGE bronze pussy.
Thank you for clearing that up. I’ve been all over google trying to answer that question. I can finally move on with my life.
“Her mouth. The Statue is clearly female”
The Statue is clearly a statue, not a person.
By that logic they don’t have mouths either.
How stupid. It’s the depiction of a person just as a photo or a painting would be. If you put tape over the mouth of a woman in a photo (inanimate object ) you would most appropriately and correctly say it was placed over “her” mouth.
I invoke Poe’s Law.
“Hate Speech” must be as protected as free speech. If we cannot be tolerant of differing points of view, then we are not truly tolerant.“Hate speech” isn’t a “differing point of view,” it’s intolerance of someone’s existence.
The problem with “hate speech” isn’t that supposed hate speech has any meaningful value, it’s who in the world can you trust to define hate speech? The second we say hate speech is not protected speech, the Blue Lives Matter folks will outlaw things like Ice T’s “Cop Killer” and other speech that goes “over the line.” Criticism of Israel will be deemed anti-Semitic by some. Where is the line and who do you trust to draw the line?
I wasn’t arguing the merit of protecting it or not. I took issue with describing “hate speech” as a “differing point of view.”The problem with discussing the value of “protecting” hate speech is that we’re not actually discussing not protecting hate speech. In a marketplace of ideas, people are free to say, “Hey this idea sucks” and a group of people are replying, “Whoa, we have the right to voice this idea.” We know. We’re saying that idea sucks. Saying this movie sucks and the ideas in this movie suck isn’t the same as proposing a ban against hate speech. There are already Blue Lives Matter folks who hate things like Ice T’s “Cop Killer.” There are already some pro-Israel folks who deem any Israel criticism anti-Semitic. And it’s okay for them to not like it; that’s free speech.FWIW and for better or for worse, we’ve let/trusted the Supreme Court to draw the line when it comes to what is and isn’t protected by the first amendment. Not everything is.
“FWIW and for better or for worse, we’ve let/trusted the Supreme Court to draw the line when it comes to what is and isn’t protected by the first amendment. Not everything is.”There are very few things that are not protected. That’s a good thing.
Piffle. You see in an instant how long and lavishly the termites have dined whilst taking note of the PC culture newspeak that is the “intolerance of someone else’s existence” which may otherwise be read thus: A transgression made by those straight up not agreeing w/nor caring for your notions about social justice, oppression or the progressive stack hereby perpetrate (with only their words) a form of violence. Political Correctness is America’s newest form of intolerance, while woke culture overlooks/tacitly approves of hatred and violence by those who dutifully call out the “Hate Speech”, violence and oppression stemming always and steadily from (lest we forget) A White Patriarchy.
It doesn’t matter. Let them make their voice heard for everyone to hear and then everyone will know what kind of person they are and will be smeared for the rest of their lives.
dang double post
Number one, look up the paradox of tolerance. You know not of which you speak.
Number two, omg guyzz, when is the last time we had such a pure, concentrated dose of crazy around here? It’s been a while, right? Just like old times. *nostalgic sigh*
I was reading some comments on an old article the other day and someone mentioned Mohd. Anyone remember Mohd? Man, that guy was pure uncut crazy, and he was on every article.
I hope he voluntarily left the site and isn’t locked up in a Malaysian prison. Not because of a crime, just because he wanted to check it out.
I never saw what the big problem was with him other than he liked anime a lot.
Hate speech is protected in the US, not that we “must” protect it. When has anyone had their “ass whipped” by “intolerant masked vigilantes” for “improper pronoun use”?
Incredible troll post, you had me until the last bit.
Oh fuck off.
If I may Peter Falk you, yes, you’re very smart. Shut up.
Do your parents know you’re using the computer without supervision?
Nobody is blocking others from watching this garbage, so there’s nothing to protect their speech from. Just admit you want to watch it, dude. Don’t try to pass it off as some principled thing. It’s disingenuous.
Allowing hate speech is not being tolerant of anything. It is simply empowering intolerance. “We should lock up all [insert margianalised group here]” is not a differing point of view, it’s an incitement towards bigotry.“Besides, the male light bringer is literally named Lucifer.” I’m going to generously assume you thought this sentence was in any way connected with the previous (stupid) point you were making, but for the life of me I can’t imagine how.
Hate speech is protected. The government can’t arrest you for it. But it doesn’t mean a civilian can’t kick you in the mouth for it.
Yeah, but also doesn’t mean that the assailant doesn’t get kicked back or shot in the process. Regardless, there still are government enforced consequences that might make you reconsider resorting to violence because your were offended. For example:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7606489/Antifa-protester-32-attacked-56-year-old-Trump-supporter-year-jailed-18-months.html
That literally has nothing to do with freedom of speech. Funny people like you don’t ever mention the Nazis or Proud Boys.
a statue is not a person you’re duuuuuumb
Looks like you’ve already built a nice, safe echo chamber in your head.
lol the persecuted right wing fascist! Oh woe is the world that chooses to acknowledge the humanity of a marginalized person over the feelings and emotions of the intolerant right wing shit bags! Woe I say, woe!!!!!
“improper pronoun use can get your ass whipped by intolerant masked vigilantes”Guys, we’re learning way too much about skc1701a’s fantasies than we wanted to know. And on that note, yet another Star Trek fan who missed the point of Star Trek.
Talk about a study in contrasts. Kimmel and Corrolla started off co-hosting the same, puerile show for Comedy Central, and Kimmel eventually moved onward and upward, and Corrolla, well…
Occasionally people on these comment boards begrudge Jimmy Kimmel his present-day calling as a healthcare advocate. I just want to point at The Guy From Loveline and say “would you rather have two of those?”
CORROLLA KEPT HIS SOUL.SMALL PRICE TO PAY
Why are you like this?
They didn’t “start off” there.Ironically, at the time Corolla was the more famous one cause he’d just come of a stint hosting the radio show Loveline and did a season of it on MTV.Also, The Man Show (pre Rogan and Stanhope) was hilarious, fight me irl.
Kümmel is a leftist and Hollywood likes leftists. Corolla isn’t a leftist. You don’t need to be a genius see the difference
Given how the timbre of Carolla’s voice is a sound you do not want to hear, like a goose that somehow learned to talk, it’d be easy to declare the other guy is the winner of their debate just to get away from that sound.
Shitty comedians tell jokes that’d get you booed off the stage at a longshoreman’s bar open mic night and then make comedy specials where the poster’s them yelling into a megaphone.
I think the bigger question is when Adam Carolla had enough plastic surgery to become Al Franken
This tendency for middle-aged white males to turn into fuck-faces when they hit their 50s is becoming like an epidemic. It’s like hardening of the arteries, they suddenly lose their ability to empathize with anyone’s circumstances but their own. They decide that any success they’ve had in life becomes all about what they did right instead of being grateful for the breaks they’ve gotten which were completely out of their control. Like being born white, male, American, in the 20th century, etc. If you’re shocked and afraid of the changes that are coming, with people who are not like you gaining a bigger voice, it’s a good chance that you’ve been benefiting from this imbalance of power all of your life without realizing it. Get used to it.
Have you ever heard about those devices that emit horrible sounds only young people can hear to keep them out of public spaces at night? Its like Fox News figured out the opposite of that, some kind of horrible signal that only attracts and makes sense to old brains losing their connection to reality.
I’m a straight white middle class man, currently in my mid-thirties, and this is really on my mind. I try to keep educating myself and being aware of my privilege, so I don’t see myself turning into a ranting conservative anytime soon, but then I’m sure no one does. I am, however, encouraged by my dad, who, while fairly old-fashioned, actually seems to have become less conservative with age.
I feel pretty confident that being worried about turning into a frothing right-wingnut as you age is probably a good sign that you’re not likely to do so.
I think as you grow older and accumulate wealth, you start becoming conservative on taxes.
Well, I’m doing very badly at accumulating wealth, so that might help.
I turned 45 this year. I live in fear of waking up some morning and finding myself saying “You wanna know what’s wrong with those people? I’ll tell ya…”
Yeah, it’s really an ongoing effort to make sure you don’t let yourself slip into that mode. The longer you go without checking yourself and exposing yourself to different points of view, the easier it can become to fall victim to an echo chamber that tells you to prioritize your own concerns over everyone else.
There is no white privilege.
It isn’t some sort of white male menopause; they’re being inculcated with it as teenagers. Most of the messaging involves things that teens are already stressed about. The key is that white males haven’t historically dealt with the kinds of constraints every other group has had to deal with, so presenting this messaging in a way that poses such constraints as new, looming threats gives these guys something to focus their pre-existing anxiety on.
I feel you. My parents became millionaires thanks to the UK housing market boom, buying up cheap property in the mid-90s, rent-gouging for 20 years and selling it for 4x the price.Of late they have convinced themselves that this money was acquired through hard work and thrift, and insist ‘lazy millennials’ could do the same if they just worked harder and gave up their safe spaces..It makes it difficult to have civil conversations with them in their parallel universe.
They sound like they weren’t good people to begin with, honestly.
Gee it must be so hard to be born into a filthy rich family and have an experience that so few people could ever dream about. I guess if you do not have to worry about health care, housing, or being homeless, you can navel gaze and whine about your parents.
Shame on you, there are starving children in Africa and all you can do is make snarky comments on the Internet.Check your privilege.
Point of privilege! Stop using abelist language like “starving”
i think your parents are wise. Don’t forget what your mumma said, you can be/do anything you dream about, it takes brains & wisdom & a whole lotta sarifice.
I respectfully disagree. Some white guys follow that pattern but others don’t. I have a lot of white male coworkers who are in their 30s and 40s and will be conservative assholes when they make more money in their 50s and 60s, but they are already conservative assholes now. Also I know of some who became more liberal in their 60s (one of them has a quote he likes to repeat: I didn’t leave the Republican party, it left me). White guys are a rich tapestry of assholes, ex-assholes, future assholes, and those of us trying not to be assholes.
Not sure you understand what the word “tendency” means
Something more common than not. I think if someone is an asshole in their 50s its much more likely that they’ve always been an asshole than that they’ve recently turned into one. It’s just my opinion, I’ve been wrong before.
Being in my mid-40’s, I hope someone puts me down if I should devolve so.
I’m 53 and have yet to turn into a raging, entitled asshole.
Honestly it seems like his former co-host Jimmy Kimmel got more enlightened as he got older. Seems like Carolla is just going to dig in while the world passes him by.
Your daughter getting cancer in our fucked medical system will do that to you.
I thought she had some sort of heart problem. But either way even before that happened he was moving away from his old Man Show stuff.
And yet Trump will likely win in 2020 👍🏻
The “changes” you speak of will hurt everyone but government employees at the highest levels.
Which is why I’m amazed my dad has remained liberal into his 60s and 70s. I really hate when people say I’ll turn conservative when I get older. Fuck it if I’m comfortable when I’m older I’ll be even more liberal, because I can afford to be!
What? Non of what you said makes sense. It’s neither about entitlement or “white” privilege! If the change you say is coming involves stifling of opinion and thought, then we should all be frightened by the so called change. The drivel about Prager being racist, bigoted, homophobic, etc. is literally pure nonsense and is getting old. I’m not a fan but there is nothing about the guy that is any of those things. It’s just another instance where the strange group thinking virtue signaled listen to each other’s lack of TRUE knowledge on a subject and run with it and feel that they can take the high ground, without really knowing or exploring any real thought or issue on their own. And, come to things with an open mind? Ha….those days are over! Sheep is the way of the world….sadly. Sorry, I mean angry sheep. They don’t really understand why they’re angry, but they’re sure taught that they should be.
AVClub…so this response above is still pending approval, even though it is from October? What does that tell us about the irony behind everything that particular movie tried to address? Seems you guys are proud to be a contributor to the perpetual one sided information and group think that you support. And it sadly continues….
That’s Adam Carolla in the top image? I thought it was Al Franken
I love that they used a picture in the poster from like twenty years ago so he doesn’t look like Alternate Universe Al Franken.
Ha, I did too. In fact, it’s the only reason I even clicked on the image. Well, now I know this thing exists.
When did Adam Carolla turn into Al Franken (referring to the top photo)?
Christ, Dershowitz continues to claim he isn’t a right wing personality, despite showing up in this crap. Seeing his reputation fall apart has been pretty satisfying, he was always a pompous ass.
Also a pedo
Allegedly at this point. Although frankly he is so extremely defensive and he was so close to… that guy, that I can see it being plausible.
Yeah he did it
How long did you spend sobbing like a woman that you weren’t able to keep this movie from getting made?
LIBERAL TEARS FILL MY CUP AND THIS FAGGOT HAS IT TO THE BRIM
Why are you like this?
The thing about this: man am I fucking tired of conservatives using colleges and college students as a bugaboo. Do college students say some stupid shit? Yes, and I thought the same when I was one (and I include myself). But the thing about college students, that which defines their very existence, is that they have no power in society. Currently conservatives hold the most power they have in a long time, including the highest position, and they’re failing miserably. The solution for conservatives? ‘Oh, let’s go after college students!’ There is kind of a meanness to it as well. It’s like, why don’t they go after high-school students too? The difference is negligible, so why not?
They have been going after high schools students too, if those students have the nerve to talk publicly about how they would prefer not to be shot to death in their schools. Hell, that environmental activist girl looks like she’s in middle school and they are totally willing to attack her. Remember, “conservatives” only care about you when you are a fetus, as soon as you pop out they don’t care if you have food, health care or education, and if you survive long enough to form opinions about how shitty they are they go from not caring about you to actively hating and attacking you.
Honestly, old people across the spectrum just really would rather hate young people than actually find out what they think.
Signed, someone who watched two 60-something white lesbian poets at a Q&A wonder sadly why young feminists won’t band together, while completely ignoring the young women in the audience who might have rebutted such a premise.
“Currently conservatives hold the most power they have in a long time, including the highest position, and they’re failing miserably.”I think you’re getting something wrong here. If they hold the most power they have in a long time then they’re not failing miserably. They’re doing very, very well. These shenanigans are WHY they’re doing very well. It may very well be that these shenanigans are reinforcing the walls and the barbarians are at the gate but for now things are just peachy.
Not sure “barbarians” is the best term of comparison here
I think assholes like these confuse “not allowing” conservative ideas with “discussing why bad ideas are bad.”
Some of these comedians need to realize they’re not being silenced, it’s just that their comedy is shitty and we don’t want to listen to it any more.
I don’t really know know much about Prager or exactly what kind of shit Prager spews, but I thought I read before that even a lot of the other Far Right clowns think he’s too crazy for them.
Don’t be so hard on Adam Carolla. It can’t be easy to go through life as the Andrew Ridgeley of “The Man Show.”
Super creepy that Dershowitz says to “get a massage,” considering he is currently implicated in the Jeffrey Epstein rape scandal… the scandal that alleges that Dershowitz, among many others, received ‘happy ending’ massages from trafficked, underage teenage girls and then would rape them. Cool, cool. Glad that makes Dershowitz feel good.
Corolla was not always conservative. I was listening to him right as he started on loveline in the mid 90s, and he was pretty socially liberal. In a blue collar middle america kind of way.
He was liberal in the 90s the way a lot of men in the 90s were: in a way that still let them tell women who and what they should be.
I absolutely LOVED listening to Loveline as a kid, not just for the puerile comedic reasons, but for the seeming educated care both Dr. Drew and Carolla seemed to have for their callers in real need. However, as I grew up, I realized a LOT of what they did was simply project some pet ideologies onto their callers and, being young and impressionable, their callers just ate it up, no matter how little it actually applied to them. The seams would appear when there were people strong enough not to be gaslit by them. Any time a woman with a high voice actually stood their ground and said “Uh, nope, wasn’t molested as a kid, I was calling to talk about birth control side effects” caused a good 10 minutes of disturbing-yet-boring radio as they essentially repeated different variations of “Are you SURE?” over and over again while working in concerned asides with whoever the guest was that night, subsequently ignoring the caller’s original question. At the time I thought they had a secret knowledge that was equal parts experience and savvy about the darker parts of human behavior, knowing their callers better than the callers knew themselves, but now I see it as men simply being confused when real humans didn’t fit their pre-existing ideas about the world and ultimately sneering at (or hanging up on) those who did not fit the mold instead of learning something new about the mold themselves.
I mean, I ALSO respect that there’s not a lot you can do for someone after a 30 second introduction over the phone. But the least you can do is listen, and I think after a while, both of them stopped. Every caller was just someone in a category of theirs, whose problems could be sanctimoniously and tactlessly explained away with the same cliched and broad brushstroke, often against the protests of the callers who might actually know a little something about themselves. It’s no wonder, then, that Carolla found a home in conservative pop culture, a home for ALL self-serving, lazy, and puerile explanations for human behavior that conveniently show why white men are the least messed up type of human somehow.
If you give someone a show/career where they’re promoted as having all the answers, sooner or later they’re gonna stop actually questioning their own bullshit like the rest of us with a modicum of humility try to do at least once every decade or so. Pretty sure this is the same process that created Donald Trump.
libertarians are often liberal on a number of social issues as long as it means the government has less say in how they live their life.
Libertarians are big on the whole “I should be allowed to do anything I want, but not those other people.”
Not at all true, but whatever
This is hilarious. You’re review pretty much validates everything this movie talks about. Did you get your degree at Buzzfeed U?
These people who mock so-called “outrage culture,” safe spaces, and “snowflakes,” are the same ones who lose their minds when the Target cashier says “Happy Holidays,” an athlete kneels during the national anthem, or a person wants to use a pronoun that doesn’t match the sex on their birth certificate, right? Asking for a friend.
Thanks for reviewing this, it definitely needed the press./s
This is bound to rake in several thousand dollars at the box office!
Tens of dollars!
At first I thought that was Al Franken in the picture and was wondering what the hell he had to do with Adam Carolla.
If anyone saw the Comedy Central Roast of Alec Baldwin, this isn’t a surprise. Carolla ranted and didn’t prepare any real jokes. It was uncomfortable. NBA star Blake Griffin was significantly better, if that gives any indication.
“Carolla ranted and didn’t prepare any real jokes”I feel like that summarizes the last twenty years of his career.
The part where he said ‘SJW’ and then followed it up with how comedians ‘safe spaces’ were, I dunno, comedy clubs where they could act like assholes was really something. As soon as anyone uses ‘social justice warrior’ seriously there is a greater than 95 percent chance they are not worth listening to.
ghastly and boorishPrager and Corolla in a nutty shell.
I was a loyal listener of Carolla’s podcast for the longest time from the very beginning. I’m a guy who can take jokes that can veer off the edge. I get it.
But slowly I noticed he was inching towards topics that made me think of a closeted racist (in the guise of an open minded atheist and affable ignorant).
Then I began noticing that some of his trademark rants felt like it was specifically targeting people like me. When I mean specifically, I meant my nationality, my birth country and tiny bits of who I am. That was the first clue. Later on stopped listening to him.
He can be funny, but it’s not worth the hate and ignorance. I see how his humor can target people and his listeners become unwitting bullies by laughing with him and passing along his jokes.
Seriously, what the hell happened to Adam Corolla?He used to be a pretty chill, funny, socially liberal dude. How the hell did he start drinking the coolaid and hanging out with the likes of Dennis fucking Prager?
Corolla is boring and old, but check the Jezebel interview from 2015 on what a more broadly appealing comedian thinks of safe spaces.
EDIT: The Tig Notaro interview. My bad.
Am I the only one who saw the image accompanying the rating and immediately thought the dude in the suit is the same guy Nathan got to impersonate Bill Gates?
Seriously, no one else?!
It’s been a real bummer watching Carolla slide from a quick-witted wiseacre to a conservative stooge. I was on board from Loveline through to his podcast, but bailed out a few years ago when it became clear that his at one time encouraging “pick yourself up by your bootstraps” ethos was devolving into curmudgeonly rightwing horseshit.
Please tell me we’re getting the Kevin Sorbo vs. Antifa movie reviewed this week
Can you at least proofread your article? You lose all creditbilty when yuou can’t even get the name of the person you are dicussing right. “He comes from college and knowledge, I come from tomfoolery and sports.” That’s how Adam Carolla, of Loveline…..Prager, whose views regularly align with those of the religious right (Corolla’s. basically a libertarian atheist), has experience with the matter. As he explains, one of his appearances
this should be a very smooth, calm, civil discussion now ensuing. Go on, AV Club, lets see how quick this blows up into a nuclear war…
Mostly just people dunking on Prager and Corolla. Nothing war-like so far
It’ll be fine as long as the trump scum stay away.
Ah, yes. The persecution of the white man continues to destroy this country. Whenever I see some conservative rail against welfare, I’m reminded of that rocket scientist Craig T. Nelson on Fox News and said: “I’ve been on food stamps and welfare. Anybody help me out? No. No. They gave me hope, and they gave me encouragement, and they gave me a vision. That came from my education.”
https://www.foxnews.com/story/craig-t-nelson-on-glenn-beck
By the looks of things, must be a fantastic film! If you guys are hatin’ on it, it must be too much truthiness for the lefties to handle. Haven’t wasted my $$ on anything Hollywood in years, but I can’t wait to see this film. Thanks fellas!!!!
Just browsed through the torturous list of movies you’ve subjected yourself to. Good god I hope you’re okay. PTSD is real, get help if you need it.
Mr. Rizov seems to have a very limited presence on this website, as his reviews going back 18 months consist of four total movies…All of which were conservatively biased. And all of which he gave an F. Seriously. I’m not being facetious. Four reviews, all conservative films, all Fs. Tough not to read into that.
a belligerent white man demanding answers that sync with his own, barking at strangers in a way that only gets more ghastly and boorish the longer it goes along.This is basically everything now.
Adam Carolla desperately needs to get run over by one of Kevin Hart’s cars.
This is an absurd take. The only thing more obvious than the writer’s bias, especially in regards to Prager, is that this review would’ve looked the same if written before watching the documentary.
Conservative film gets F on one of the sub-blogs of the decaying carcass of the former Gawker Media Group.What a surprise. I doubt the “reviewer” even watched the whole thing.
Of course the ignorant leftists here won’t like it. Unlike Michael Moore’s nonsense, this is actually logical and truthful. And the truth hurts.
Jonathan Haidt’s research on political/moral differences transformed my perceptions of conservatives. Do you feel his work is important?
A civilised healthy society needs both a conservative view & a liberal view to equal each other out. If we go too far either way (lawless or too many rules) we will become just another collapsed empire. With third world dog eat dog resoning. Btw adding your own agenda remarks is not true journalism.
Interesting to accuse Shapiro, Carolla and Prager of being MAGA guys; Shapiro in particular has been very critical of Trump (he takes shit from the right for being a “Never Trumper”) and the other two are at best lukewarm on him. Also interesting that the article didn’t mention guys like massive Trump fans Van Jones and Cornel West also being in it, but sure, the whole thing is just a MAGA hit piece.
This is what I was looking for, a pathetic review, by an equally pathetic reviewer. I’ll be sure to watch it, now. Funny, how those who are against free speech have Russian last names. You’re not in Moscow, comrade. You’re in America, and you’re a dumbass.
damn dude you seem triggered in this review. it’s just a movie, why do you have to be so mad?
—and that’s before Alan Dershowitz shows up to declare “If you want to feel good, get a massage.” Fun fact: That particular phrase was coined by Maurice “Pops” O’Malley when asked if he felt guilt over the (Never proven in court) allegations of homicide against him in the disappearance of Giuseppe Mancini.The place? Atlantic City. The year? 2004.
Which means that phrase is older than the girls Alan Dershowitz gets massages from…
What a stunning and brave review. WOKE.You’re literally about as smart as a football bat.
Uh, sorry, but deplatforming is not the “free market of ideas sorting itself out”. That’s akin to burning down your competitors business and then claiming it went out of business all on its own. The free market of ideas is if no one is interested in what Prager, Shapiro, Molyneux, etc. then no one shows up to hear them speak, and they fade away. What campus radicals, and liberals in general, are now engaged in is censorship and often backed up by violence and intimidation. There is no denying that conservative speakers are popular and hundreds, of not thousands, of people regularly show up to see them speak, and most of them, regardless of what the left’s narrative states, are young. The truth is you can’t compete in the free market of ideas and young men especially reject the left’s ideology of victimhood, open borders, feminism, transgenderism, etc. Not letting them be heard and then claiming no one wants to hear them is at the very least disingenuous.
I’m reading these comments and I’m astounded. You all live in a bubble! Try being a conservative who wears a maga hat on a college campus, or hell, even in public. There is a real threat for diversity of thought on campuses and anyone who denies that is delusional
Is there any non-fallacious reasoning to be found in this article? There’s not a single argument against Corolla on the merits of his position, just a bunch of snark and innuendo. I take this sort of rhetoric as evidence that precisely the opposite is true of what is being claimed.
1. Adam Carolla could play Al Franken. Lorne Michaels should take note.2. I have no idea what an SJW is. Does that make me a bad person?
We know Dershowitz loves massages, especially from Jeffrey Epstein’s underage girls.
By stating at the outset that one of the film makers is ‘a conservative talk show host and commenter (did you mean commentator?) whose social views on nearly everything are reprehensible’ you disqualify yourself as a film reviewer. When the reviewer puts themselves in the role of political thought leader espousing their own world view vs doing the job of reviewing the film-making craft they need to excuse themselves from their stated profession. Why squash meaningful discourse with a casual “F.” The grade itself discredits you, as it should only be reserved for the most disgraceful attempts at the craft, like Gigli or Battlefield Earth.
Probably one of the most partisan dribble of a critique I’ve ever seen. You complain about Trump being mention once as a doorway to then use that to complain about Trump. I thought critics were supposed to look a film without preconceived notions. Your biased is dripping all over this review.
Way to miss the point of this, but what can you do. I suppose an F rating by the AV club when it comes to free speech says it all.
It was funny to me to see this at the beginning of the comments after this review:“The following replies are approved. To see additional replies that are pending approval, click Show Pending. Warning: These may contain graphic material.”That’s what we call a trigger warning, folks. Then I clicked Show Pending and it told me this:“Warning: Replies that are pending approval may contain graphic material. Please proceed with caution.”That’s ANOTHER trigger warning. And there’s people here saying that there’s nothing holding back free speech. There’s literally a SAFE SPACE BUTTON on. this. page.
Jesus, it’s as if you were all trying to make the movie’s point. Save the $20 bucks, just ready these whining ass comments.
I would be curious to know your background, Vadim. If your family came from the former Soviet bloc then I would say that it is especially shameful that you fail to understand what is really going on in blue-state America today. Or, perhaps, you actually approve of re-trying the Soviet experiment in single Party Socialist domination. I have met young people who honestly admit this. But anyone who thinks they can do what no other Marxists have ever been able to do (that is, create a just and prosperous society) is simply showing their foolish pride and presumption.Marxism will never work because it is a fundamentally-flawed philosophy. It fails mainly because it fails to understand the universal corruption of the human race (so that “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”), as well as the truth about where morality and justice come from: the Creator God, not human wisdom. America’s founders were uniquely aware of both of these truths. This is why they were able to create a governmental system which produced the most free and prosperous nation ever, and one which has lasted for over 200 years: a democratically-elected Constitutional Republic, in which power is carefully separated and balanced and also safeguarded against tyrannies by democratic majorities by the idea that elected officials should rule according to what is right and just (based on a higher Law reflected in the Constitution), not just execute the will of those who elected them.I invite anyone interested in this perspective to check out https://christianityistrue.org and the book “The Meaning of the Universe” by Christopher Andrus.
Fat, Gay, or black. You just described 70% of the population. It would be more condescending to represent a plurality of skinny white heterosexual people. Really narrow and insipid review based only on the ideology of the writer. Not on content.