Another sharp and accurate criticism of Maher. I watched him religiously from the 90s until about ten years ago. And what made me stop watching just as much as his regressive and dumb views on many issues was that he’d become so damn boring and predictable. Just another boring boomer fed up with the kids today.
So you’re engaging in your hobby of poking the bear cute puppy again. 
OK, I’ll bite.
So someone named Nicole Hemmer apparently thinks Bill Maher is now irrelevant. Maher probably thinks Hemmer is irrelevant. So who wins? In the real world, the one who has a national TV show, not the one who whines about it.
I have no further comment on the book as I haven’t got very far into it. It’s something I wanted to have to casually browse from time to time, not for voracious reading.
Among the many things Hemmer doesn’t seem to understand is that the title of the book is supposed to be comical and ironic. It’s a collection of observations from many years of New Rules segments. There’s no actual intent to “shock”, and if Hemmer is perturbed that “his cranky nostalgia is too familiar and routine” she apparently missed the fact that the material has been culled from over ten years of commentary. So no, aside from some expanded comments, it’s not new material, and no one ever claimed it was. Some of it is over ten years old. Everyone knew that except apparently Hemmer.
And the bit about how Maher’s show would fit on Fox News is just the most ludicrous statement I’ve ever heard anyone make about it, and whatever credibility Hemmer may have had completely vanished at that point. Fox News caters to one party and to one party only, to one ideology only, and is dedicated to relentlessly promoting both against the best interests of their country. Bill Maher is mostly the exact opposite. AFAIK the only time he was openly partisan was when he donated $1 million to the Obama campaign.
In all honesty, my defense of Maher isn’t based on any particular great wisdom he offers but on the fact that I still find his show entertaining and that it engenders interesting conversations. And I enjoy the New Rules segment, again, not because of any great insights it might convey (although sometimes it does) but more because of the humourous ways he and his writers frame the issues.
I’d agree with this.
For anyone keeping score, an average segment on FOX News today is suggesting that Biden tried to assassinate Trump. Preying on the ignorance of the audience about FBI guidelines, and just not giving a sht how many of their audience might take to arms on the basis of this disinformation.
That’s not to necessarily defend Maher; if the book really is full of “hot takes” about music and pronouns then that’s pretty pathetic.
But suggesting it’s like a FOX news segment makes Hemmer seem equally out of touch.
Even in joking, it’s weird to act like people posting something about Maher are in any way poking you.
I don’t know about Fox News the TV channel, but that doesn’t seem to be the average on their website. It does still seem to be culture war stuff.
But even if that has changed, I don’t think not being completely up-to-date with how bad Fox News has gotten actually affects the criticism. Even being “the average Fox News segment of 2021” is still quite bad.
As I’ve said upthread, I did see a segment that could have been a Tucker Carlson rant back when Carlson was still on the air. It was the typical anger-bait anti-woke story with omitted details, and comparing it to an actual totalitarian government, with a quick attack on trans people at the end.
Seriously. @wolfpup, do you and Bill talk a lot? Is he in the room right now?
It’s ridiculous to suggest that Maher is enough of a political ideologue to be a FoxNews talking head. He’s got his own set of positions that don’t neatly align with a particular political party.
The problem is that those positions - and his whole shtick - are basically “pot-addled edgelord”. Being a “freethinker” (however one defines the term) does not automatically make one right, nor does pretending you’re just “speaking truth to power” when you’re really just trolling. As I said earlier, Maher was sometimes right and sometimes wrong but always a smug asshole.
Assholes together strong.
What can I say – there’s a lot of corruption in this world and the cost of living is high. A pup’s gotta make a living!
Regards,
Wolfpup
Social Media Influencer Who Will Say Anything for the Right Price
(email Wolfpup at BillMaher dot com for price list!)
P.S.–
There’s that weird descent into argumentum ad populum fallacy again. Who is this unknown critic presuming to say unkind things about Bill, who is idolized by so many?
Try reading for comprehension. What she said was not in reference to the show itself, but that Maher’s constant gripes on subjects like popular music and Those Kids Today would fit in an average Fox News segment.
Uh-oh.
Do you also lap up Joe Rogan’s shows?
Throw out the promotion of destructive craziness, and they could be viewed as “interesting” and “entertaining”.
Might as well include Alex Jones and David Icke in that category.
And that makes Maher a perfect candidate for the long list of token ‘’‘’‘liberals’‘’‘’ that FoxNews, literally, use as foils to make the rightwing talking points.
FoxNews Talking Head: So Bill, even you admit the Democrats suck!
Maher: Yes, but the Republ…
FoxNews Talking Head: On to our next topic!
Yep, right wing sites love to use Maher for comments and soundbites to justify their views. When he rails against the left, they love it and run with it.
Since you’ve admitted it I am curious about one thing.
Do you go from the top to the bottom or the bottom to the top when you wash Bill’s balls?
Between him and Musk I do get that impression.
In a way they do serve as a useful reminder that the edgelords in the comment section are NOT ALL moms-basement-dwellers or trailer kings or drunk Uncle Morrie at Thanksgiving. A lot of them are people with jobs and money and educations who ostensibly “have a life” and who are fully convinced they have a serious point to make.
To be clear, the main attraction of Real Time With Bill Maher is the ability of the show to attract interesting guests and Maher’s ability to evoke (or “provoke”, if you prefer) interesting conversation. The current season isn’t even halfway through and already we’ve had guests like (just to name a random few) Gavin Newsom, Michael Eric Dyson, Eric Schlosser, Jon Meacham, Mark Esper, Jonathan Haidt, Beto O’Rourke, Eric Holder, Van Jones, Chris Sununu, Adam Schiff, Seth MacFarlane, and many other important influencers with important ideas.
When Maher is on his own (the opening monologue or the “New Rules” segment at the end) I generally enjoy those, too, because I think he and his writers can be pretty funny, but opinions on that may differ. And, yes, once in a while one of his guests will be a crackpot. I suppose the idea is that it makes the show “edgy”. Opinions on that may differ, too. But there’s no denying the stature and informative value of most of his guests.
Is there any other show on television that can attract such a diverse lineup of influential people and engage them in pretty much unrestricted conversation? It’s no surprise to me that Real Time has been renewed for a 23rd and 24th season.
How much does it pay, working at HBO? Must be some good money.
I agree with this (or at least it was true back when I watched), except that I’ve always found Maher to derail the already interesting conversations, not provoke them. The show often puts together diverse guests who carry on the conversation and then Maher snipes it with some attempted witticism. It’s the main reason I stopped watching.
This is what happened when I tried to watch the show way back when. That kind of thing stopped me cold. Why do I want to watch a show with a host who derails all the interesting conversation to preen?
I have the opposite impression. To the extent that this may sometimes happen, though, I think it would be because if one subtracts the time for the opening monologue, the one-on-one interview, and the “New Rules” segment at the end, the time left for the panel discussion is barely 30 minutes if that. Maher always has a whole bunch of topics he wants to cover that are scribbled on those blue cards in front of him.
Still, the only time I recall him actually cutting a conversation short was when David Frum and Anthony Scaramucci got into an argument on a really stupid side issue that no one cared about, and Frum – who apparently really hates Scaramucci – was uncharacteristically harping on it and wouldn’t let it go.
While browsing the CNN site recently, I accidentally came across two short videos that are pertinent to this discussion. I don’t expect either of them to change anyone’s views, but hey, more information is good, right?
The first is just three minutes long. It’s Fareed Zakaria interviewing Bill Maher and directly asking him about the accusations that were just recently made upthread here, that he’s a cranky old man who criticizes “kids these days”:
The second video is really quite shocking. This one is just a bit over five minutes. You might want to watch it if you think that shoplifting crime in the San Francisco area and elsewhere is “not a problem”. According to CNN, these particular police takedowns were not actually in San Francisco, but in nearby Santa Clara county, which is just southeast of SF on the southern tip of San Francisco Bay. The scale of this criminal activity is just mind-boggling.