“Welcome, O infamy! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of my experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the final impetus for full replay.”
Gary Coleman, Scandal Shrapnel, and The Vanilla Ice Syndrome
Within minutes after the news of Gary Coleman’s death broke, the Intertubes rattled with one unfunny joke after another. It made me briefly happy that I’ve never become famous. Otherwise, random strangers might think that me dying at a criminally young age from head trauma was hilarious.
Of course, Gary Coleman wasn’t a walking punchline simply because he was once famous. There’s a lot of ex-stars who fit this bill–MC Hammer springs to mind. But the cruel, twisted anti-fame Coleman suffered from was a special kind, the kind that can only be inflicted on that most reviled form of ex-fame: child stardom. Not even debutards like Nicole Richie or the Kardashians–who have contributed not one single positive thing to this earth–are mocked the way that former child stars are once they hit puberty.
Child stars are chewed up and spit out on both ends–by a fickle public, and by weird, sociopathic stage parents who drive them to succeed long before they can make decisions for themselves. Thanks to decades of unsavory examples, people expect the worst of former child stars, and even if they never go down the primrose path, they will be hounded by paparazzi and curiosity seekers who can’t believe that the Macauly Culkins of the world dared to grow up.
Coleman’s living purgatory was exacerbated by a congenital kidney ailment that stunted his growth. At least some child stars have a theoretical chance to move beyond their past. Gary Coleman was forced to look like like a child long after anyone had any use for his schtick.
He also had the misfortune of acting on a show that had two of the more fantastic ex-child star meltdowns in history. Dana Plato left Diff’rent Strokes to rob video stores, act in porn, and OD on prescription painkillers. Todd Bridges became a drug addict and dealer with repeated run-ins with the law.
Gary Coleman got into some physical altercations with strangers, but much of that was provoked by people who wanted to fuck with him (granted, he also had some domestic disputes, and was charged as the aggressor in at least one of them). But his post-sitcom life was considered more sordid than sad because he caught the shrapnel of his ex-costars’ explosions. Bridges and Plato blew up, and Coleman was collateral damage.
Anything bad that happened to him was labeled another sick chapter in the “hilariously” awful Diff’rent Strokes saga. Like how he had to sue his parents because they mismanaged his assets and left him broke. That horrible circumstance was put on the same level, in the public’s mind, as Todd Bridges slinging crack, even though Bridges was a drug-dealing creep and Coleman was victimized by his mother and father.
Gary Coleman is one of the most egregious examples of what I call The Vanilla Ice Syndrome. Vanilla Ice’s debut album sold 11 million copies, but almost overnight he turned into a pop culture whipping boy. The savageness directed at Vanilla Ice was in direct proportion to how honestly popular he once was. Once people decided they were done with him, and realized he kinda sucked, they had to mock him to compensate for once liking him.
The Vanilla Ice Syndrome is especially vicious when the ex-star in question was beloved by children and/or teenyboppers. At that stage, most kids don’t really have much taste at all except liking what’s popular. Violently rejecting something you liked when you were 12 is a way of showing you’ve grown up. In other words, I fear for Miley Cyrus’ future.
In the late 70s/early 80s, Gary Coleman was one of the hugest stars in America. He was one of the most beloved and recognizable people in the country. Then, after eight seasons on the air, his act grew stale. But it wasn’t good enough for people to just not watch Diff’rent Strokes anymore. They had to shit all over the guy because they once loved what he did. It was a product of the collective embarrassment over making someone famous for saying “watchu talkin bout Willis”. He had to pay for the rest of us feeling so retroactively dumb.
So when he died, a lot of people couldn’t resist the temptation to make lame cracks, most of them using that catchphrase. I know this is a hard concept to grasp in the Internet Age, but not everything is a springboard for your savage wit. It’s okay to let something pass without making a snotty remark about it. It’s okay to not spit out the absolute first thing that pops in your head when you hear about someone’s death.
People made jokes after Dennis Hopper died, but at least Dennis Hopper lived a long life and was able to enjoy a second act of his career. Gary Coleman died at age 42, never got to live a non-shitty life after his heyday, and had troubles that were mostly not self-inflicted. No other details of his life make that even remotely funny. And if you think it is funny, pray no one’s laughing if you get hit by a bus tomorrow.
Suck Knows No Gender
Sex and the City 2 has now been unleashed upon the world. Judging from general public opinion (i.e., people I follow on Twitter and Facebook), the backlash against this movie is so enormous, I wonder if anyone is going to see it in either a non-ironic fashion or without the express purpose of pissing themselves off.
Personally, I have no plans to see it and, god willing, never will. Then again, I always swore I would go through life without seeing an episode of Two and a Half Men, but a flat tire and a Strauss Auto Parts waiting room conspired to break that vow. But even with this willful ignorance, I’m sure that all of the negative reviews/reactions are completely on the mark. Particularly this hilarious, Haterade-drenched review in The Stranger.
It’s not the woman-y-ness of the SATC franchise that bugs me. I object more to the City part of the title, because the New York on the show resembles no reality known by 99.9% of New Yorkers. It’s the perfect Giuliani-era show, because like Rudy’s administration, it has no use for anyone who makes less than seven figures a year (or anyone of color, either). In SATC, New York is a glittery playground full of cosmotinis and obscenely priced shoes and gourmet cupcakes, where the non-rich only exist at the peripheries as nannies, waiters, and fuck-toys.
(I also don’t understand why the show has such a huge gay following when all of its gay characters are outdated, flamboyant, queeny stereotypes. But that’s not really my battle to fight.)
However, as Julie Klausner points out here, I’m clearly not the market for this entertainment. It’s meant for lady-types, and I’m not a lady-type. I can criticize it all I want, but I’m not sure doing so is useful in any way. It’s almost as pointless as going to a restaurant and judging the steak served to the guy at the next table.
And is SATC really any worse than most popular culture, which is overwhelmingly aimed at guys? Truth be told, the Dudertainment out there is every bit as lame and infuriating. Just look at this small list of phallocentric glop and tell me it’s any worse than SATC. Go ahead, I dares ya.
Entourage: I have seen no more than 15 cumulative minutes of this show, almost all of it in YouTube clips. Nevertheless, I feel qualified to say this: It is one of the worst things human beings have ever made, right behind the hole in the ozone layer and the BP oil spill. I can’t fully divulge what I want to do to everyone associated with this show, because it might be considered prosecutable hate speech.
The stakes for this show could not be lower or more homicide-inspiring. Rich, famous assholes want to get richer and more famous. There is not a single person on this show that I would cross the street to piss on if they were on fire. The fact that Entourage is exclusively aimed at men is perhaps the biggest argument against penises ever made.
THERE’S A GUY NAMED TURTLE ON THIS SHOW! I DON’T KNOW WHY THAT PISSES ME OFF, BUT GOOD LORD, IT PISSES ME OFF!
Just look at this. Look at what these people did with cameras and lights and bajillions of dollars. Look at this and tell me these people don’t deserve to be waterboarded.
Transformers: I don’t know what’s worse: the movies themselves, or people who complain that their suckitude has somehow retroactively ruined their childhood. Transformers was never any good, you guys. It was just on TV when you were a kid. Don’t confuse nostalgia for quality. Most of the things you liked when you were 8 are not any good. That’s why you don’t have fluffernutter sandwiches for lunch everyday anymore. At least I hope you don’t.
Comic Book Movies: Yes, there are many lady-types who like comic books. But the recent spate of movie adaptations are clearly aimed at the BOOM! POW! Dude Audience. This trend has resulted in one masterpiece (The Dark Knight) and two entertaining movies (the first two Spider-Man flicks). All the rest of these movies are thoroughly expendable. You could have not made any of them and the world would have kept on spinning just fine. They either eschew any kind of story so stuff can get blowed up real good, or they try to cram way too much back story and exposition/origin tale in a vain
effort to woo the Nerds (who will hate it anyway).
Like how The Avengers movie has been setup/teased in the last slew of films based on Marvel comics. A large chunk of Iron Man 2 involves Nick Fury trying to woo Tony Stark into The Avengers. And by the end of the movie, he’s still thinking about it! It’s okay to stretch out resolution across five or six issues of a comic book. It’s NOT okay to do that in a movie. That’s like if George Lucas devoted huge portions of the Star Wars prequels to discussions of trade tarriffs. Oh, wait…
Ultimate Fighting: Take boxing, add kicking, subtract the troublesome rules and sense of fair play, and voila! All sports are, in one sense or another, a form of combat. Ideally, they are a sublimated form of combat, where man’s desire to kill and maim is channeled through a proxy (the team you root for). They shouldn’t be televised bar fights, which is what ultimate fighting, for all intents and purposes, is.
So before you take a big dude-dump all over Sex and the City 2 (which it probably deserves, mind you), just think of all the Pure Garbage aimed at your own nutsack.