Gore Vidal and Family Guy
Jun 16th, 2008 by Micah Tillman | 11 Comments |
As you may know, Family Guy is a favorite of mine. It’s rarely as intelligent as the Simpsons, but there it is.
One person the show has portrayed (once) as a kind of true moral authority is Gore Vidal.
After reading this interview with Vidal, I’d like to ask my friends/family to make sure I don’t turn into him in my old age. (h/t Ponnuru)
That’s the kind of guy Family Guy writers respect, eh?
UPDATE Speaking of people who believe loony things, check out Alicia Keys.
So what about him don’t you like?
Did you read the interview? *grin* He appears to be what we down South call not only “snooty” and “crotchety” (or “cantankerous”), but a bit “off” (or as the Brits say, “daft,” or as the PC say, “fringe”) as well.
An old, bitter self-important weirdo is not something I want to become — and I was so looking forward to learning about him after he got such a glowing portrayal as a high-class intellectual on my beloved Family Guy.
*sigh*
This is the best part, however:
Reminds one of those, “I hate haters” kind of statements. :-)
I’d actually read the interview before; I was just curious why specifically you don’t fancy the fellow. After all, politically & spiritually, you guys are fairly far afield from each other. As an aging progressive leftist, Vidal has a lot to be angry about when surveying the contemporary political landscape, but all apologies aside, do delve into his oeuvre. He wields one of the sharpest quills in contemporary American literature.
I also think “cantankerous” and “daft” get a bad rap. (Besides, if you want real cranks & nutballs, have you picked up any Norman Mailer? Hunter S. Thompson?)
As for Buckley, I’m on Vidal’s side: Buckley was a homophobic anti-semite who detested the poor and whose reputation as a leading intellectual hardly befits a man whose stock rebuttal was “I’ll sock you in the face.”
Funny: this is one of the very few times it appears I’m on the same wavelength as Seth McFarlane.
“. . . wields one of the sharpest quills in contemporary American literature.” Love it!
*laugh* No, I haven’t read any Mailer or Thompson. Not for any particular reason, however. When I think about Mailer, I think about the Rocky and Bullwinkle episode when they go to college, and a bunch of their fellow students decline to get involved in any “collegiate hijinks” (or some such) because they’re going “to the student union to protest Norman Mailer.”
Really? We’re talking about the Buckley “joked that he would rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the Harvard faculty“?
Well, I hope he learned to get over his fear of the same, at least. Phobias are rarely helpful.
Oh, and on that “punch you in the face line,” I believe that was his response to being called a “crypto-Nazi.” The link you provided was him making fun of himself for losing his temper.
McFarlane is a progressive, isn’t he? Are you on a different wavelength from a lot of progressives, or is McFarlane a special case?
A different wavelength? Man, I’m on a different spectrum.
Honestly, McFarlane’s politics appear to be pretty sympathetic to mine, but I just can’t stand Family Guy.
The Buckley clip was picked because it happened to involve both aforementioned parties. There are plenty of other clips of Buckley offering a knuckle sandwich to Chomsky, Hitchens, etc. His wit was quick, but he praised Franco and opposed the Civil Rights Act, for crying out loud. He was basically Bill O’Reilly with a posh education & something resembling a sense of humour.
Oh, and do read Thompson. That’ll squeegee your third eye sumthin’ fierce.
RE: Alicia Keys…
Man, Goldberg is on point, yo! That was an above-the-fold story on MTVNews.com, like, only four months ago!
Golly, a celebrity who believes in questionable theories? *Yawn* Fancy a cuppa tea, then?
On Buckley/Civil Rights: Which Civil Rights Act? There were several.
On Buckley/Franco: Should we go into how many progressives were enamored with Fascists, Stalin, etc.? And for what did he praise Franco? Grooming? Oratorical skills? Ability to lead?
On Thompson: Don’t know what a third eye is, other than that Third Eye Blind is an annoying band. Not sure I want to get involved in that ;-)
On celebrities: :-)
That Buckley was a hired spook in the ’50s is symptomatic of what his principles are and why I found him despicable. He was a vicious anti-Communist, which led him to support not only Francisco Franco, but Joe McCarthy, Efrain Rios Montt, and Henry Kissinger. Of course, I understand that dogmatic adherence to certain ideals leads to seduction by strange bedfellows. While I’m certainly not going to defend or apologize for any misguided progressive’s abstract infatuation with fascism, dare I remind you that you just employed the, shall we call it, Kaine-Pawlenty debate strategy you reviled in your post on Skepticism?
The specific Civil Rights Act Buckley opposed, by the way, was the one of 1964, prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. To his credit, he later admitted his error in once writing op-eds that proclaimed “the White Community… is the advanced race,” but… come on. No extra credit for stuff he should have done in the first place.
On Third Eye Blind: agreed. Unspeakably horrible. Avoid at all costs.
*grin*
Re name calling: Um . . . .
Re the Kaine/Pawlenty approach: Perhaps. I thought I was making the point that people I thought you would probably forgive (old school progressives) did things I took you to be claiming were reasons for disowning Buckley (e.g., liking some bad guy or other).
If Person A can like Person B in spite of Person B’s property x, it’s hard for me to take seriously Person A’s claim that I should dislike Person C for that same property x. It’s not impossible — with a little explanation of why what is ignorable in one case isn’t in the other — but it’s hard.
Re tone: I’d rather not turn my blog into a place where I go to get stressed. So forgive me if I suddenly go silent now and again (in the future) instead of responding to some response or other. :-)
Re music: Sweet common ground.
On the Kaine-Pawlenty Strategy: I certainly see why you’d assume I was making the classic mistake of “It’s OK If People I Like Do It.” That does happen way too often. But, being the cantankerous, daft bugger that I am (heh), I wouldn’t be a part of any club that would have me, and always bear in mind Orwell’s maxim, “Beware of the true believers.”
On the tone: Very sorry if I was testing the Didactic Crank Threshold of your blog. It’s never my intention to scare anyone out of the conversation, let alone on their home turf. Have a cup of tea, kick your feet up, think of nebulae for a bit. Peace.
*laugh*
*pause*
*laugh*
[...] that reminded me of something Seb said — in the political context that is this blog — a little while back about celebrities [...]