Last Sunday, Fox's animated show King of the Hill ran an episode called "Earthy Girls Are Easy." (You can watch the full episode here.)
I was excited when I heard about it. KotH is a brilliant show, the only one on television that pokes fun at low-income rural white people in a way that is both hilarious and affectionate. It really captures the rhythms of speech and social folkways of that milieu, and the man at the center, Hank, is a fundamentally decent guy who works hard and takes care of his family. It's a show with subtle wit and genuine heart -- a rare beast indeed.
Sad to say, the episode itself was a horrendous letdown. It was everything KotH is usually not: thuddingly obvious, inauthentic, mean-spirited, and most damning of all, not funny. Really. At all. Characters are forced to make long speeches that sound nothing like them. Everything is discussed in terms of flat-footed caricatures. The choices and dichotomies reflect a woefully poor understanding of the subject matter. And so on. It was as though someone co-opted the show to write a long, blustery, ill-informed blog post.
At the beginning, Hank finds out that the man he works for (at a propane store) has been dumping toxic chemicals in the nearby river, so he decides the store needs to "go green." For a while this means stuff like carpooling, keeping the air conditioner off, and turning out lights. As Hank says, fixing the boss's mistake "is not gonna be fun." Then Hank's boss discovers carbon offsets, which his friend Dale takes up selling. You can imagine the rest. This should give you a flavor of the subtlety involved:
Now, this is a ham-handed and confused conception of offsets, for reasons I won't get into yet again. But what really bugs me is the larger framing: The choice is between tedious, uncomfortable, time-consuming options that degrade your quality of life, or ... fraud. Real green is castor oil. Fake green is celebrated by "Hollywood" and gullible young environmentalists.
As distant as it is from my experience, from what I see every day moving through the large and nebulous world of "green," I must say this basic view of things seems to be extremely common, not just among right-wingers but among a certain brand of self-described tough-minded dudes who seem to fear, above all else, being taken in by some fuzzy-headed idealist. The notion that smarter use of energy and resources might improve our health, happiness, and quality of life ... that's nowhere in pop culture.
As a final note, this reinforces yet again my growing conviction that green is utterly resistant to art and humor. I've yet to see a pop culture manifestation of green that doesn't make me cringe. Anybody got a counterexample?
Top 25 reasons to give a damn about climate change
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Biodiversivist Posted 5:42 am
12 Oct 2008
The writing for long-lived shows like this tends to degrade with time, possibly because much of the writing is being delegated by the creators. The Simpsons wasn't worth watching for years.
An animated sitcom is not the best place to broach a complex subject like carbon offsets.
Just watched Martin Sheen in an ad telling us not to vote for the Death with Dignity initiative. He makes a living pretending to be someone he isn't. Why would anyone care what TV celebrities (animated or otherwise) think about any given subject?
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Russ Posted 5:56 am
12 Oct 2008
As for the shows I do (or did) watch, The Simpsons visited enviro issues a few times, disparagingly so each time.
(Although, those episodes weren't among what I consider the real Simpsons, but rather were part of the transition to what I call the anti-Simpsons, where the show was turned over to a different "creative" team around the turn of the decade and quickly got really bad. I stopped watching it years ago. Indeed, one of the things that got bad about it was precisely that it got more topical. I get enough "topics" over the course of the day; when I watch TV I just want escapism.)
South Park, beyond the sex and scatological humor, is basically a right-wing show when it visits topics, and is especially sneering toward environmentalism. One gets the sense that everything is just a joke to jackasses like that, that they have no sense of the difference between some stupid culture-war issue and the issue of human and planetary health.
(I don't follow comedy, but I've heard that lots of comedians make similar armpit noises where it comes to ecology and energy.)
Futurama had an interesting episode (the penguins on Pluto) which did take eco-issues seriously, but came to a rather bleak conclusion about what man can do, so that doesn't qualify either.
Not long ago I watched Ghostbusters for the first time in god knows how many years, and it was funny seeing that EPA guy again. For kids watching it, or anyone watching from a light-hearted point of view, he's supposed to be a total jerk, a bad guy; but if you think about it, would you want those wackos with all their crazy machines and dubious fuels and wastes operating without strict oversight? It's just a silly comedy, but it's funny how you look at it differently once you've developed a certain philosophical consciousness.
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Smaug Posted 7:38 am
12 Oct 2008
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Smaug Posted 7:39 am
12 Oct 2008
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Sam Wells Posted 1:15 pm
12 Oct 2008
Many Hollywood and strange Austin cartoonists who publish using Korean graphics treat the enviro movement as off limits anyway, and if they do, get it wrong on purpose ... in order to make you THINK.
The message is that we're just not funny people. We're worse than a pack of uber-conservative fundamentalist neo-cons in the laughter department. At least Bush would joke about Karl Robe as being called "turd blossom," the funniest thing I've heard since SNL. Our feeble attempts at humor are mainly about "denialists" who are so crazy they sound like a crack-head freak in a bad part of Brooklyn. How sad, how disappointing.
Grist, I take you to task. It is time for some humor, hilarity, and fun.
Onward through the fog
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EdieFrederick Posted 1:22 pm
12 Oct 2008
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Gar Lipow Posted 2:10 pm
12 Oct 2008
Old stuff: Erin Brockovich, Karen Silkwood - both good films with a fair amount of humor.
Novelists Kim Stanley Robinson, Bruce Sterling. Comic books: The Swamp Thing. (Their was a movie some time ago based on it that was pure schlock, but did have some very funny lines in it.
Swamp Thing: Me? Your Boyfriend?
Abby Arcane: Why not?
Swamp Thing: You said it yourself: I'm a plant.
Abby Arcane: That's okay, I'm a vegetarian.
I think pop culture handles environmental issues best when it is simply part of the story rather than propaganda.
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amazingdrx Posted 9:21 pm
12 Oct 2008
Almost everyone believes it will be necessary to turn this crisis around (even those who still deny it?). Even if it is only to convert some conspicuous consumption into personal savings.
Carbon offsets and cap and trade seem to many of us to be nothing more than a dodge from this necessary sacrifice. Another call from the top, to "go out and shop!", like the Bush solution to the 9/11 economic effect.
Sacrifice quantity of consumption, boost quality of life. What we are countering with is pragmatic idealism.
For instance, biking to work once sacrifices convenience in favor of energy savings and a healthier happier life. Is that really a sacrifice?
Driving a less powerful, lighter, more utilitarian american car, and helping revive the US manufacturing sector and our economy. Would that be a sacrifice? I guess it would in terms of quashing "free" market industry business as usual.
That's the sort of sacrifice that saved civilization just 60 years ago. Are we too jaded to join up and sacrifice again? Maybe so. That's hard to make funny.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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karbonkenny Posted 12:04 am
13 Oct 2008
http://www.freecarbonoffsets.com
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dannychivers Posted 2:11 am
13 Oct 2008
This is me attempting to use humour (along with cheesy rhymes, sarcasm and pop culture references) to communicate environmental issues:
http://www.myspace.com/dannychivers
Be interested to know what you all think - and whether other Grist readers have favourite jokes, videos, comedians etc. on a green theme that they'd like to share.
Danny x
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Delay And Deny Posted 2:16 am
13 Oct 2008
Back in the mid 1970s, every other bad guy on the innumerable cop shows (McCloud, Columbo, Snoop Sisters) was an evil businessman who murdered someone to cover up that he was dumping toxic chemicals into the lake|stream|sister's backyard.
The peak of this eco-kitsch was a show called "Apple's Way" -- a sort of Walton Family of eco-do-gooders. Each weeks sappy sanctimonious plot was probably the reason kids rejected the EPA and became investment bankers during the yuppie era.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYVn2KU5b1E
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atreyger Posted 5:22 am
13 Oct 2008
Or how about the occasional reference on 30 Rock? There have been a few passing 'greeny' remark.
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jimbeyer Posted 1:08 am
14 Oct 2008
Why isn't more said about insulating homes? That's probably about the best single thing someone could do.
Also, I think the self-reliance aspect of green living could be emphasized. I think that might play better with larger parts of the country.
Finally, given what's happened with Wall St. and those sub-prime loans, it would be extremely naive to think the carbon trades will not end up being some sham to benefit traders and not effect real change. It is so easy for them to create a fake offset (like a factory that is closing anyway) and then sell the credits to other companies that we end up paying for.
I guess from the reporting side, stop promoting crap! Like the wood veneer computer from Dell. How much of a difference will that really make? (Compare that to simply using the old shell with a newer motherboard. Oh, darn, that's not new looking and sexy...) Why don't you people see how much most "green" companies are simply exploiting the green movement as another sales tactic? At least if you do bring up this stuff, ridicule it mercilessly. That way, you can still produce copy and make deadlines, if you need to.
Build plugin hybrids that run on renewable methane. That's all that's needed.
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KarenLOrr Posted 2:14 am
14 Oct 2008
Florida leftneck Grant Peeples sings about the environmental wreckage that is Florida
San Franciscan Roy Zimmerman sings about the disasters that befall him after hugging a tree.
They're all funny. Have a go ~
Come On Down To The Sunshine State
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDgHSVYiq4M
To Be A Liberal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3qgiNPVpSM
'Dexter'on Showtime
http://www.sho.com/site/dexter/home.do
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Biodiversivist Posted 2:46 am
14 Oct 2008
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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jimbeyer Posted 3:56 am
14 Oct 2008
Build plugin hybrids that run on renewable methane. That's all that's needed.
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