Oprah is a self-aggrandizing bore who falls for every soft-headed New Age trend and slick “spiritual” hustler out there. It’s hard for me to respect anyone who believes in psychics.
She also loses points for abetting the career of that atrociously overrated blowhard, Maya Angelou.
[QUOTE=rowrrbazzle]
The people of Eastern Europe, who actually knew what Communism was like, would disagree.
[/QUOTE]
Only if they give him the credit for defeating it; plenty of people don’t. And the ones who were also victims fo the Nazis might have been just a little irritated at his little speech in Bitburg equating the Nazi SS and Holocaust victims. And then there’s the friends and relatives of the people killed in places he had a hand in in places like El Salvador, and the torture victims there. And any number of other evils he committed.
I also despise Reagan and regarded him as scum, when he was in office and after. I regarded him as a major force behind the transformation of America from just another country into the sociopathically selfish, ignorance-admiring, amoral, religiously fanatic and insanely greedy culture it is today. There’s a reason Friedman referred to Bush II as Reagan squared.
And I also have certainly not noticed any great turning away from him, what with various things being named after him, people trying to name them after him and that attempt to put him on Mount Rushmore.
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
Oprah is a self-aggrandizing bore who falls for every soft-headed New Age trend and slick “spiritual” hustler out there.
[/QUOTE]
You’re not kidding - have you looked inside that book she was flogging - The Secret? It actually states, in black-and-white print, that rape victims were attacked because they wanted to be raped. Spokespeople for the franchise have repeated this statement at promotional events, including on public radio.
I am shocked that there hasn’t been any outcry over it yet.
[QUOTE=kung fu lola]
You’re not kidding - have you looked inside that book she was flogging - The Secret? It actually states, in black-and-white print, that rape victims were attacked because they wanted to be raped. Spokespeople for the franchise have repeated this statement at promotional events, including on public radio.
I am shocked that there hasn’t been any outcry over it yet.
[/QUOTE]
The authors of that book were on Larry King a couple of months ago. They were spouting the same crap about how everybody secretly wants whatever they get. Larry asked them if 9-year-old Jessica Lundsford “wanted” to be abducted, raped and buried alive in a trashbag. The authors said “There are no exceptions.” These guys are vile but anyone stupid enough to buy into this program (which panders to people’s most selfish and greedy motivations) deserves to get fleeced anyway.
[QUOTE=RikWriter]
He is by me. I don’t particularly give a fuck what liberals think of him.
[/QUOTE]
I pee on the man’s very grave, I do. I leave it to the likes of you to hose it off.
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
The authors of that book were on Larry King a couple of months ago. They were spouting the same crap about how everybody secretly wants whatever they get. Larry asked them if 9-year-old Jessica Lundsford “wanted” to be abducted, raped and buried alive in a trashbag. The authors said “There are no exceptions.” These guys are vile but anyone stupid enough to buy into this program (which panders to people’s most selfish and greedy motivations) deserves to get fleeced anyway.
[/QUOTE]
Disgusting. Do Oprah and her minions actually read these books before they sing their praises to everyone else?
[QUOTE=kung fu lola]
I am shocked that there hasn’t been any outcry over it yet.
[/QUOTE]
There have been a few threads here, and The Secret has been fodder for jokes on late-night talk shows. That’s not nearly enough outcry though. The DVD is #3 on Amazon’s best seller list, after Pan’s Labyrinth and The Earth.
I used to defend Oprah because of her philanthropy, but now even her “good works” make me gag. Isn’t charity supposed to be done quietly, without fanfare?
I’m glad I’m not the only one who doesn’t love Barney Fife and similar characters. It’s not so much that they’re dumb (that can’t be helped) but they’re also arrogant and unaware.
I always liked Tom better than Jerry. It seems to me that Tom was always portrayed as the bad guy, the one who would start shit. But sometimes he’d just be minding his own business and then comes out Jerry, trying to look all innocent and cute but being full of evil.
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
Oprah is a self-aggrandizing bore who falls for every soft-headed New Age trend and slick “spiritual” hustler out there.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah. Falls for every soft-headed New Age trend like a fox.
[QUOTE=Nzinga, Seated]
Yeah. Falls for every soft-headed New Age trend like a fox.
[/QUOTE]
Foxes are so gullible.
Cute though, so they get a pass.
Willow Rosenberg, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
My God, but that character was annoying. Her whiny, breathy baby voice. The way that everyone, male or female, was obligated to fall madly in love with her. The computer geekdom that somehow managed to morph into some sort of super genius that allowed her to grasp every aspect of science that could ever possibly come up. The godlike magical powers. Oh, yeah, and the magic crack. Let’s not forget the magic crack.
By the end of the show, the rest of the cast was completely superfluous, including the title character. Need to battle the original source of all evil, who has opened the Hellmouth? Have Willow do a spell! Angel misplaced his soul? Willow does a spell! Can’t find the car keys? Willow does a–you get the idea.
Hate, hate, hate. I’m sure she became so ragingly powerful and wonderful and perfect because of all of the little geek girls out there who thought they were just like Willow, and so of course writing her as more and more wondering was fanservice. Bah. Give me bitchy, flighty Cordelia any day.
[QUOTE=Nzinga, Seated]
Yeah. Falls for every soft-headed New Age trend like a fox.
[/QUOTE]
“Infidelity does not consist of believing, or disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what one does not believe. It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When man has so far prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.” Tom Paine, The Age Of Reason
Dr Gregory House.
Loveable crotchetty old grump, or irritating arrogant prick?
The latter, say I.
[QUOTE=GuanoLad]
Dr Gregory House.
Loveable crotchetty old grump, or irritating arrogant prick?
The latter, say I.
[/QUOTE]
Of course he’s an irritating arrogant prick. I don’t know any House fans who deny it. Doesn’t make his character any less compelling.
I nominate Holden Caulfield. I guess I was supposed to love Catcher In The Rye when I was his age, but I completely hated it. Holden was a whiny, self-centered, stupid asshole. The first emo kid, really. My best friend and I were the only two people in our 11th grade English class who hated Catcher In The Rye and loved Grapes of Wrath; everyone else was the reverse.
[QUOTE=H3Knuckles]
Erm… please tell me you know those stories weren’t made by Disney. You do realize they’re adaptations of historic folk tales, right?
[/QUOTE]
Of COURSE I know that. They drew their movie adaptations from a number of sources, some folk tales, some contemporary novels. However, since the animation “renaissance” in the late '80s-early '90s, the Disney female protagonists have become increasingly independent and un-spineless in spite of the source material.
For example, look at the character of Esmerelda from the Victor Hugo version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame: naive, infatuated with Phoebus from the beginning, too trusting in him, and he eventually abandons her. Never really sees Quasimodo’s “inner beauty”, although she is grateful to him for saving her. However, in the movie she is shown as being clever, street smart, and extremely wary of Phoebus’ motives when she finds him in the church. She also has a much more “enlightened” view of Quasimodo. So obviously, Disney did some major tweaking there. Princess Jasmine is also a much more fleshed out character than the original princess from the Aladdin folktale, who is relegated to background scenery for most of the story and foolishly sells the magic lamp to the evil sorcerer.
I know the original source material is mostly to blame, but as someone mentioned above, the passive heroine was the norm even as recently as 30-40 years ago, thus Disney has not until recently done much tweaking on the princess characters.
[QUOTE=Scissorjack]
And Snow White {the original, not the Disney version} was too fucking stupid to live:
“We’re going to work, Snow White. Now remember your evil stepmother has sworn to kill you, so don’t open the door to anyone until we get back.”
“Oh, I won’t, Seven Dwarves.”
“Hey lady, wanna buy a comb?”
“Oooh, shiny!”
{Lather, rinse, repeat}
[/quote]
Hell yes. I think I remember reading somewhere that the first two poisoned object sequences in Snow White were cut more for time than anything else (recall that this was the first feature-length animated film) However, as I saw someone point out, if the evil queen really wanted a disguise that would trick Snow White into eating the apple, why didn’t she turn herself into a sweet, rosy-cheek grandma instead of a scary-looking old witch? Would YOU eat an apple from someone who looks like that?
[QUOTE=sturmhauke]
Of course he’s an irritating arrogant prick. I don’t know any House fans who deny it. Doesn’t make his character any less compelling.
[/QUOTE]
I knew someone would say this. But the same reaction can be said of all the characters nominated here: “Of course they’re like this, that’s how they were deliberately written!” But that doesn’t make my dislike of the character any less legitimate.
[QUOTE=Sampiro]
I would say Scarlett. She’s a self-consumed bitch- hard working and pragmatic, I’ll give her that, but a terrible and unconcerned mother to her children. She takes her first husband from the girl who really does love him, won’t let him consummate the marriage for several nights, and then generally doesn’t give a damn when he dies and is furious that he left her pregnant. She steals her second husband from the sister who actually loves him (even if it is for a good reason) and then totally underappreciates and emasculates him, thinks her child with him is ugly and doesn’t understand his appreciation of the little girl, and ultimately gets him killed by doing something that was foolhardy and stupidly dangerous. Rhett gives her every excuse in the world to love him: he got her off the hook when her parents called her home, he risked his own life to save her’s and those of Melanie, the children, and Prissy, he adored her for years, gave her tons of money since he knew that at least she cared about that, tried to get her to be a mother to their child since for the first time she didn’t have to worry about money or survival, and she repays it by pining away for a married wuss.
[/QUOTE]
I see Scarlett as being practical and honest. When something has to get done, she finds a way to do it–delivering Melanie’s baby, getting to Tara by herself after Rhett deserts her to go fight a losing war, saving Tara and her family during the war and afterward. She recognizes her own inability to mother and refuses to have more children.
I don’t see Rhett as adoring Scarlett. He was stalking her, and even uses the line “I thought I could make you love me” even as he is deserting her. I think that after Rhett leaves at the end, he dies and she carries on after getting all his money. Probably goes back to Tara and lives as “crazy Aunt Scarlett” the rest of her life.
[QUOTE=Larry Borgia]
If Kramer was my neighbor, I’d murder him.
[/QUOTE]
Heh-heh…I’ve always said that if he wasn’t my neighbor, he’d be my roommate!
Tweety Pie…little yellow bastard
How I wish that good 'ol Sylvester would eat up that little poncy canary
When Tweety started out he was really obnoxious. He wasn’t yellow – he was a naked little pink baby bird who looked and taked cute but was really evil inside. Bob Clampett claimed he made him as a version of him as the Evil Widdle Kid. Later animators cuted him up and toned him down, though.