I mean, I’m not a comic book fan and I still think his comments were imbecilic.
Even ignoring Lee’s impact on current pop culture, he’s been a driving force in the comic field for decades. If you’re of a certain age, (as many of us here are) this is like having Captain Kangaroo, Mister rogers and Jim Henson all die at once.
Not that I am defending Maher whatsoever, but Dr. Seuss also won a Pulitzer. Unless good children’s books qualify as “sophisticated literature” (which they very well may), I’d say that the awarding of a Pulitzer, on it’s own, isn’t necessarily proof of sophisticated literature.
Now while the Pulitzer was awarded to Seuss for his entire body of work as a contribution to children’s entertainment and education (rather than a specific book) I still think it qualifies as an instance of a Pulitzer prize being awarded for literature that doesn’t quite rise to the description of “sophisticated”.
ETA: Looking at your link, the book that earned the Pulitzer was a “graphic novel”, which is specifically distinct from “comic books”. So it may be bordering on slightly pendantic but no comic book has ever won a Pulitzer.
ETA II: But Maher is still an asshole.
Hmmm, I always thought all literature Pulitzer’s were for a body of work, not a specific book.
That’s the Nobel prize for literature.
And then he connects comic-books to Trump.
Yeah, I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that I’ll bet 80% of adult comic-book readers didn’t vote for Trump.
Maher is a trollish POS. This isn’t new news. Ostensibly on “the left,” but manages to piss off everyone. Piers Morgan is the same.
Damn kids and their Elvis and Perry Como.
I’m sorry but i won’t go that far and put him on the same level as Piers Morgan. At least Maher is capable of delivering humor at times. Piers Morgan is just awful in every way.
I guess there’s some “I used to like Bill” in this thread. That’s fair, I’ve never met anyone who actually liked Piers. We could deport him but every British person who has mentioned him has thanked us for taking him so it will be hard.
Despite Jeremy Clarkson’s faults, I don’t know anyone who disagrees with him socking Morgan.
My thoughts on the topic which agree and disagree with Maher:
- Comic books and their readership make up a really quite small percentage of the population. If no one every made a movie or TV show based on them you’d barely know about them.
I was a Silver Age DC fan. I grew up. Now that I have time and money I could read any comic I wanted. No interest. This is what usually happens. “Usually” means … “usually”. That’s all. Extrapolating to “should”/“normal”/etc. is maybe not such a good idea.
- Comic book-based movies and TV shows on the other hand … . Wow, just wow. A big part of the culture. A lot of people see them. Etc.
But they are part of a larger group of such material a lot of which don’t come from comic books.
There’s a ton and then some of mindless action movies out there. Due to the growing influence of the overseas markets the more mindless the better.
The last comic book-based movie that I thought was really well done was Batman Returns. I’ve seen fewer and fewer of them since the ones I’ve seen have been generally poor to really rotten. The Dark Knight was superbly idiotic and poorly produced. Gave up on that series, X-Men, Spiderman, etc.
I am not the least bit happy about the dumbing down of the culture with these being leading examples.
- Bread and Circuses. If you’re a Roman Emporer and want to distract the masses from all the problems you’ve caused: bread and circuses.
So, most of us have bread. The issue is circuses. Entertainment. Low level, action oriented, nothing highbrow like theater allowed.
And this is what we are getting at the movies. Good indie films rarely have a significant theatrical release now. You can watch them on Netflix, etc., but not very many people do. The masses just won’t even hear of them let alone watch them.
So you get the increasing complaints that the Oscars don’t go to movies that people have seen. The OTA networks hardly get a prime time Emmy any more.
Mass entertainment is dominated by crap. There’s good stuff out there, but most people don’t see it.
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The worst of the worst: So-called reality shows. Heavily stage and scripted shows that bring out the worst in people. Shouting, tears, etc. I have no idea why people watch this crap.
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Put it all together and you get Trump. A reality show star who understands bread and circuses and the dumbing down of people who gets elected President and ruins everything.
How can you not get pissed???
Yeah, he phrased it poorly. (Stan Lee hardly had anything to do with the consequences of the above.) Even worse he timed it poorly. But there is a point there.
It’s really not.
Miller’s right. They’re exactly the same thing.
Twenty, or thirty, or however many years ago, people started writing comic books that were sophisticated literature.
Whenever I see someone say something in public, and it’s a little outrageous, but not the end of the world, and people can get nice and frothy and post about it, I have to conclude that it is actually famous people and/or their agents who are contriving to appear on news aggregators the next day. It’s clickbait and it’s the cost of doing business for these people.
I believe this quote is appropriate…
*"When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” * ― C.S. Lewis
Thank you for my new signature.
Bill Maher is just as much of a shock jock asshole “comedian” as Gavin McInnes. I happen to find most of Maher’s ideas agreeable and McInnes’ repulsive, but they’re quite similar in terms of tone.
I confess sometimes watch Real Time for the reason that he frequently has interesting guests, although he doesn’t necessarily get the mileage out of those guests that he should. He frequently wants to be the smartest guy in the room and too often cuts people off before they finish their thoughts.
Keep in mind i prefaced that comment with an acknowledgement that my point was leaning in the direction of the pendantic. That being said, graphic novels are simply not “exactly the same” as comic books.
But this is not a hill worth dying on so I will say no more.
A quick perusal online shows that clearly some did.
Or, as the Fourth Doctor put it, “There’s no point in being grown up if you can’t be childish sometimes”.