Milk Milk Lemonade: The Church of Schumer

Schumer is god.

Ms. Schumer is a breath of fresh air. In a society that has become overloaded with young girls well late 20's - early 30's that take themselves wayyyy too seriously (talking to you, Gerwig and Dunham), it's refreshing to see a woman on TV who is totally blunt, completely unapologetic and viciously fearless. Her medium of choice is comedy and currently rules the landscape. The shooting in in Lafayette during her film Trainwreck showed us a very serious side of the comedy icon, when she allied with her uncle, Senator Chuck Schumer to take a stand against gun violence and the second amendment which just goes to show how incredible of a person that she is. 

But I'd like to talk about Schumer the comic if I may. We were first introduced to her as the sweet-looking, baby-doll dress wearing comic on every deus at a Comedy Central Roast who shocked everyone considering she looked so sweet, but what subsequently would come out of her mouth was the best foul comedy we've heard in years. During her meteoric rise, she has shut down critics and haters, saying 'I'm 160 pounds and I can catch a dick whenever I want', and acknowledging that yes it's hard for female comics, I mean duhhhh. It's a man's world, but she has machete'd the status quo with her brazen material to show that she's just as good if not better in her outrageousness. She's almost like the female Chris Farley. She came out of the box with the whole 'I own this' attitude, and not afraid of anything or any body.

Never afraid to say what we're all thinking.

What I particularly love about her is that she's not one-note. Usually people that do sketch  comedy aren't great at stand up, or the other way around. She's been able to nail both with her show Inside Amy Schumer (great pun bdtubs) as well as her stand-up special 'Cutting'. She's not afraid to be self-effacing either. This is usually a cop-out, but it works brilliantly for her; 'you'd sleep with me, but you wouldn't blog about it'. Bless her. She is also tackling some serious issues that women face today. Her 'Girl You Don't Need Make Up' song sketch is a brilliant satire of the whole 'you're beautiful just the way you are...as long as you're still conventionally beautiful' sentiment that seems so popular right now. When you're watching comedy and your first thought is 'I can't believe they're showing this on television' that's always a good sign. There are no limits with her. The whole 'you can't say that on television' has dissipated. I still remember when Jimmy Fallon asked her; 'what is your opinion on teeth?' and her response without even thinking about it was; 'I've been told to use less' The world would never be the same. She's brought her male comic counterparts to tears, showing that she's in fact not only just as good but superior.

From one of her funniest sketches about feminism.

In a society where women are really extreme in either being overly glamorized like Miley Cyrus to completely anti-glamour protest like Lena Dunham, Schumer has bulldozed those ideals and leveled the playing field. She comes out in heels and a designer dress and makes fun of the fact that we have to wear 'stilts' as she calls them and 'string in between our butt cheeks' to catch the attention of the opposite sex. She honestly doesn't give a shit, and that's very refreshing. Not only that, she's just really very funny. Genuinely so, because she does what she wants, on her own terms, and has turned the comedy cannon on its head. It's no longer the boy's club. She's proven that women can be just as provocative, incendiary, and shocking without getting on a soap box about it. 

Not afraid to make fun of her vices.

Her rise has been based on her ability to be classy while acting ridiculously, and being crass but smart. She's a highly intelligent individual who has honed her particular comedic ability into brilliance. She's created her own comedy cannon, and shows no signs of calming down any time soon. She doesn't show any signs of slowing down or calming down any time soon and her career is blossoming. She has become a mouth piece for all of us girls who have things that they are too afraid to say out loud, in all respects, and that takes some serious balls. For that, and for everything else, I bow down at the alter of Schumer. 

Below, some of my favorite Schumer moments and sketches. 

'This is what you think is hot?'

'These are just metaphors girl, but they are about your face'

Is Schumer a feminist? Absolutely. She points out the hypocrisies on both sides 

Amy on Jon Stewart. 

Body-image issues are something she tackles brilliantly in her comedy.

Justin Timberlake: Actor, Singer, Dancer, Comedian, Sex God

My friend once told me right after The Social Network (2010) was released that Justin Timberlake was the greatest post-modern actor at this time, and though I didn’t exactly get what he was talking about and how that was true, I totally do now. But there’s another word I would use to describe him; Renaissance man.

He is like an old-timey singer/dancer under contract to MGM. He’s Gene Kelly with looser pants and killer swagger. We knew him as that slightly annoying girly-sounding, awful white-boy fro 1/5 of pop titans ‘N Sync, and now he’s an institution unto himself.

Lorne Michaels caught on to his comedic talents early on when 'N Sync first appeared in a sketch back in 2003 when they played an offshoot of themselves, and when he decided to ditch the back up singers and fly solo, writing from the depths of his heart about his break up with pop princess Britney Spears in the juggernaut song ‘Cry Me a River’, it was cemented; Timberlake had arrived. 

JT in his signature three piece suit on the cover of GQ

He also knew how to utilize style. Considering how influenced he was by hip hop, it would have been ridiculous if he came on stage in baggy pants, a Hilfiger puff jacket and a sideways cap being all ‘yo yo yo, Timberlake in the house!’, not that that’s how all hip hop artists are, I’m just making a point. He trademarked the three-piece suit and fedora dressing like a 30’s gangster and dancing like Fred Astaire, Michael Jackson, and Michael Kidd had a baby. And if you don’t know who Michael Kidd is well then you suck.

With perhaps the most ill-fitting named album ever ‘Future Sex/Love Sounds’ dominating the charts, Lorne Michaels invites Timberlake back to host his own episodes of SNL and last week he became a card carrying member of the 5-times host club, and he’s only 32 people. He found a stellar bromance with repertory player Andy Samberg and together they created some of the most memorable digital shorts of SNL’s entire history. You know them all so it’s redundant to list them one by one.

Justin Timberlake in one of his funniest sketches on SNL, playing Beyonce's back up dancer for her video 'Single Ladies'.

Then what happens? He tackles the only other industry left for him to dominate; the film industry, and boy does he. Yes of course it’s expected of him to be almost effortless in feather light romantic comedies, like an edgier Rock Hudson, but it was when The Social Network came out that we really got to see what he was made of. And one only has to ask, what’s next for JT? The man who can basically do everything? I say he hosts next year’s Academy Awards, or perhaps even gets nominated. He’s slated to star opposite Ben Affleck and Gemma Arterton in Runner Runner (2013) coming out next year, and after that he’s going to play an alcoholic in The Last Drop (2013), perhaps proving to us all that the effeminate soprano from a 90’s fad boy-band has grown leaps and bounds into a pop-culture institution that we can all appreciate. 

As Sean Parker in The Social Network (2010)

PS His new album (released today) is fucking awesome. I guess that was the whole point of this post. 

 PPS, all of his best footage i posted to my Filth Screen facebook page so it's again redundant to give you any more visual pleasure. You can find them here. Filth Screen on Facebook. 

So I'll just leave you with his video for 'Suit and Tie' complete with his Target commercial. Enjoy! 

My Favorite Woody Allen Films

Let's cut to the chase. Woody Allen is filthy. Woody Allen is prolific. Woody Allen is funny. Woody Allen averages a film a year. I'm watching the documentary about his illustrious and incomparable career and I'm going to make not a comprehensive list of my favorite films of his, but my top 10. In order. Here it is.PS this might be my shortest blog post ever.

1. Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)

2. Love & Death (1975)

3. Match Point (2005)

4. Annie Hall (1977)

5. Sleeper (1973)

6. Bananas (1971)

7. Deconstructing Harry (1997)

8. Manhattan (1979)

9. Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)

10. Vicky Christina Barcelona (2008)

Below some favorite parts from the aforementioned films.

Did I Miss The Memo On How Rape Is Funny? Apparently.

Although crass and immature, and someone who definitely has their douchy moments, I wouldn't label Tosh as completely and utterly disgusting and depraved. I would label him disgusting and depraved at times. 

Unless you're living in a cave or you know...the valley, you've heard about the recent controversy regarding Daniel Tosh making insensitive and offensive rape jokes at a heckler at The Laugh Factory on July 10th which has the country up in arms and raising all kinds of eye-brows. Has history taught us nothing? Nothing good happens at The Laugh Factory. Didn't we learn our lesson with Michael Richards back in 2006? If you heckle a comedian there, he will in fact make racial epithets or say something equally degrading right back at you. I live like 5 minutes away from there and I still haven't set foot in it.

I have always been a huge fan of Daniel Tosh and have all of his specials on my iphone, but when one of them came up on my shuffle picks as I was going hard on the elliptical (have I humblebragged enough in that last sentence?) I was apprehensive as to whether or not I should listen to it or press the shuffle button again. 

If you have listened to his previous work, you'll know this is nothing new to his repertoire. Tosh has never passed himself off as a 'clean' comedian. He's about as filthy as they come, and always, always pushes the envelope. Would I say too far? Yes. But no one has ever complained before. In fact, he made a very similar joke in his Happy Thoughts (2011) special. It goes something like; 'My sister and I love to play practical jokes on each other. So I replaced my sister's pepper spray with silly string...anyway that night she got raped, and the next day she was like- You son of a bitch! You got me so good.' he followed this by saying another tasteless and crude joke after which he sarcastically quipped; 'is this the joke that's too far? just making sure. Everyone was ok with my sister being raped right?'. 

Now, let's make this perfectly clear. I am not at all condoning what he said, nor am I ok with dirty comedians hiding behind the 'everything is comedy' perspective much like hate mongers hide behind the first amendment, but I would say it's rather hypocritical of us to condemn Tosh for a tasteless joke he made in a long line of tasteless jokes that we before accepted with open arms because he implied it to a specific person rather than an abstract and unlikely scenario. 

But quite honestly I'm at a loss, Jezebel and the like have been pointing the finger at Tosh basically being upset with the tonality and lack of substance to his joke rather than the content itself citing inexplicably other jokes regarding rape that are 'perfectly appropriate' such as Louis CK's quip which goes; 'obviously you should never rape anybody, unless you have a good reason like you want to have sex with someone and they won't let you'. And while Tosh is nowhere near being as nuanced and detrimentally snide as CK, his particular style has never been anything but offensive. That's specifically what he has cultivated over his career, and to condemn him now for something that was indeed a senseless and impulsive verbal diarrhea jag, it would be pretty late in the game considering how long we've tolerated and actually embraced those kind of jokes from the same source. 

We as a culture, have always fed like crazed vultures on the sensationalized, vulgar, and obscene. That's why we still watch The Real Housewives of... franchise, and Robert Blake is being interviewed on Piers Morgan Tonight this week to record ratings. But of course, there is a thin red line you tow when you choose to capitalize on that like Tosh has. What he said was indeed callous, and completely offensive to not only that girl at The Laugh Factory, but to women on the whole. Especially when our rights are constantly being threatened by the likes of Mitt Romney practically every day in his presidential campaign. One could say that this is the last thing we need, and they would be right. Given all of that, I think I'll eventually forgive Tosh's poor judgement, though it might be a bit hard to do so. 

Below is that joke that I referenced earlier. 

Louis CK, no stranger to the rape joke, went on twitter to defend Daniel Tosh. And while his particular brand of, I'm so sorry to say this, but apparently there's a term for it now and it's called 'rape-joke' is arguably more finessed, and less (for lack of a better word) douchy, they are still pretty dang sexist. 

Seductress Pick: Busy Phillips

Current house-on-fire on Cougar Town and BFF to boring beyond boring Michelle Williams, Busy Phillips has the world wrapped around her long claw-like fingers. When I was in my 'teen rebel' phase, I was meandering the rows of Hollywood Video and one VHS tape caught my eye. On the cover right next to Dominique Swain, with bright red volleyball socks and a white plait skirt, mouth half open as if to say 'what do you want from me bitch?' was Busy Phillips. It was her first 'major film role' which is laughable considering that film barely attained straight-to-video distribution. It was called The Smokers (2000) Busy was 21, I was 16, and I answered 'bitch I want to rent you'. And then she kind of disappeared off the radar until reappearing as Courtney Cox's slutballs hedonistic assistant on Cougar Town with a mouth on her the size of drunk trucker and the rack of two ripe cantaloupes from the farmer's market. 

But not to worry, constricting clothes and platform pumps do not hinder one's comic ability, and Busy slowly transitioned into what we in the soft sciences refer to as the Jenny McCarthy territory. Hot and funny at the same time? Only comes around once a millennium...well apparently not. You want to laugh at her jokes and then throw her on the couch and have your dirty way with her which she would totally be in to until she texts you that it's over and tweets your reaction to all of your followers. How can any man resist?

Soon enough, no matter how the characters on the show have nothing but disdain for her character Laurie, one by one, they are taken in by her wit, charm, and huge boobs. You could argue that she is not a lady, but I would counter that with saying that she actually is. She has respect for her elders, is always dressed impeccably, and will always make sure you get the orgasm that you wanted all along. Sounds pretty lady-like to me. The Downton Abbey sisters should be taking some notes. 

We are all glad the Busy back in the spotlight and acting pretty normal considering on her current show she does everything from sharking a car to beating a woman to a pulp with an umbrella. Busy, if you're listening, be my BFF. I don't have a drinking limit and only wear heels, and I love a guy with a cool tribal tattoo.

Another thing, gotta give props where props are due. We all know our girl Busy is no size 2, and we don't give a shit. She looks fabulous as a tall voluptuous, vixen and I can't get enough of her, especially her crazy horse teeth. I even love those.

Some clips below.

Louis CK - Filth Poet

Louis CK is a Filth profet. He's the Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart of Filth. His jokes are so deliciously and profoundly filthy that it boggles the mind as to how I've not written about him sooner. My favorite stand-up comedian for going on 3 years now, with a show about his newly single life which premiered last year on FX (Louie), Louis CK is completely unhinged, cynical, and just fucking dirty! 

His attitudes towards the opposite sex, romance, fucking, and other depressing aspects of life give new meaning to the term 'dirty jokes'. The thing is, his jokes are so organic and sincere that the humor just flows inadvertently out of them because of the visceral imagery he paints with an unmistakable filthy candidacy. And even though on his show he's obviously censored for television and has to take it easy on his choice of words, and yet he still manages to cram plenty of filth into everyday situations and I can do nothing but commend him for it and bow at the alter that is Louis CK. 

Here is a clip from his stand-up that illustrates the brilliance of his filth. While you're at it, Netflix is streaming one of his stand up acts Chewed Up and the first season of Louie. Bravo sir. Bravo. 

Saddest Hand-Job In America

Thank You For Coming

Experience John Waters in his own words. The full version of 'This Filthy World' here, with an embedded youtube review. You're welcome. 

This Filthy World Full Film

Spotlight On: Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)

'One day, in the late mid 80's, i was in my early late 20's, i had just been dismissed from university after delivering a brilliant lecture on the aggressive influence of German philosophy on rock and roll entitled: You, Kant. Always Get What You Want. At 26, my academic career was over, I had never kissed a boy, and I was still sleeping with mom...'

I was completely in love with this film since I saw it when i was 16-ish when it first came out, to now, and think I'll always be. Unlike most films I was obsessed with at 16 and have since developed a more intellectual taste (Aronofsky, Tarantino, the wrong Scorsese) this film has always been in my file of absolute adoration (as trite as that sounds). Director John Cameron Mitchell first made this musical opus into a rock-opera that appeared in tiny off off off-broadway theaters that started with an audience of about 40 or so people and grew to be a bionafied cult hit in New York City. This gave him confidence to adapt his unique vision into a film. Sure, rock operas had gasped their last breath early in the 80's after the fiasco that was the film adaptation of Hair (1980) and as Rob Marshall expressed fear about  the following year, that no one was buying the idea of people randomly breaking into song, when he tackled the adaptation of Chicago (2002) for the screen, but this did not deter the petite, soft-spoken genius from San Antonio, Texas.

He created the character of Hedwig Schmidt, which he played himself, from spending nights assimilating himself into the vibrant gay scene in Manhattan's West Village (Christopher St. to be exact). He envisioned a character from East Berlin who's love for rock and roll propels him to write American music, and his love for a man gets him to the states, the only catch being he had to submit to a back-alley sex change operation which left him with neither man nor lady parts, but a small piece of flesh about an angry inch long. He forms a band and travels mid-level themed restaurants and cafe's performing his adversity-inspired songs, bitter about the break up between him and his one time muse Tommy Gnosis (Michael Pitt), who not only broke his heart, but stole his material, subsequently becoming immensely successful because of it.

Hedwig sees himself as female even though he has neither identification biologically. His snide sarcasm and witty cynicism drives the comedic art in this tragicomedy-musical-rock opera-bio-opus. There is little plot, but instead a visionary look into the tribulations of a beautiful and poignant story of a person who is very much an original, accented by primitive yet lyrical illustrations.

an illustration during the 'Origin of Love' number reminds the idea Plato wrote about regarding all of us being two halves of a whole searching tirelessly all of our lives for the other half to complete us. 

John Cameron Mitchell's arc as a filmmaker is sadly overshadowed by other independents who are wrongly percieved as 'visionary' and 'genius' because his work is largely cult. Hedwig was for a time performed Rocky Horror Picture Show style with a shadow cast at midnight on Saturday's at the IFC Center on 6th Avenue (quick shout out to my SVA comrade Ian who was in one of the shadow casts back when I saw it in 2005).

The aesthetic look of Hedwig is very original in its own right as to not fall into that trap of 'drag films' that were popularized by Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, TransAmerica, and Too Wong Foo...It is a film with universal themes, and represents them through music. Hedwig Schmidt is not just a film that we see so that we can marvel at how well actors we know as men perform as women, that would dictate farce. Hedwig is not this in the least. Humorous and tragic, it is a masterpiece among a veritable sea of farcical mediocrity.

Perhaps it is because it was made by a gay man rather than a straight man doing research on gay men. And for all it's sincerity, it might be the most heartbreaking account of sexual ineptitude caused by a botched surgery in an effort to please his lover and subsequent loss of self that leads to a redemption in discovering owns complete uniqueness.

JC-M's follow-up to Hedwig was the un-simulated sex fatwa titled Shortbus (2006) which explored these themes in a much more literal sense, and somehow mastered integrating the graphic with the romantic for film. The idea that people categorize his films are 'cult' or 'gay' is incorrect, because his particular style of storytelling functions on universal narrative and visual principles which work as visionary interpretations of sexuality, humanity, and struggle. I made everyone I know watch it when it first came out, and now I'm telling those of you who haven't seen it, please do. If nothing else, you'll fall absolutely in love with the music. The soundtrack (all original and written by John Cameron Mitchell) is incredible and holds its own with those of the genre's greats like Andrew Lloyd Webber and Stephen Sondheim. I felt the number 'Wig in a Box' about half way through the film was speaking directly to me (again, i apologize for being trite) but in the case of this film, I can't help it. When JC-M came to introduce the film at the IFC, my excited 21-year-old self almost hyperventilated from knowing i was in the presence of a real cinema genius.

This is one of my favorite numbers from the film. the poignant and tragic 'Origin of Love'.

Seductress Pick: Sugarpuss O'Shea

If you are faced with the question of naming the sexiest women in cinema living or dead, the first few would be obvious…Monroe, Garbo, West, Turner etc…Barbara Stanwyck probably wouldn’t even make the initial list poor thing. This is rather ironic considering the number of times the girl has played a seductress. Manipulating the likes of Henry Fonda, Gary Cooper, and Fred MacMurray, Stanwyck was someone who could drive anyone’s husband to infidelity and murder. But in my opinion, her most poignant role as seductress was in the screwball “Ball of Fire” directed by Howard Hawks, where Babs gets to show that her sexuality is more than just her lady parts. In the 1940’s, this character of Sugarpuss O’Shea (probably the most ridiculously hinting name ever) was definitely considered a big step for womankind, whether it was backward or forward is a valid argument, and if you’ll humor me, I of course want to take a minute to argue the latter. Babs was one hell of a fish out of water in the 1940’s. While everyone else was playing the war wife, she was still in sequins and boa’s with a perverted joke or two that we only pick up on after a few views.

According to Molly Haskell, the women in the films of the 1940’s were always seen as secondary to the roles of the men. It was not their intentions or desires that came to light, and they seemed to always be objectified through the male gaze of the actor playing opposite them, the director, and subsequently the viewer. It would appear that women’s roles in films of the 1940’s were leverage and/or motivation for the male protagonist, with whom the plot moved. It seems as though women were always secondary to the plot itself, and were sometimes only an afterthought. The most prominent role for a woman in a film from the 1940’s was that of the femme fatale; a heartless, cunning seductress who manipulates the protagonist into doing what she wants, and then in the end is forced to pay for leading the man astray. There was always a very distinct difference between the role of the man and the role of the woman in terms of morality, goals, and intentions. Haskell argues that Hawks not only acknowledged this gap, but mended the tension between gender roles, and subsequently gave women a more prominent position in the narrative.

Concerning gender roles, it is important to look at Hawksian women through different lenses including psychoanalytical. We must consider the role of the woman in film of the time, and thereby consider Hawks as a masculine director of women. His portrayal of women was unique in that it gave them power as the controller of the look, and the subject of the male gaze. He gave created women through objectification, but simultaneously awarded them a uniqueness and strength that would even the imbalance of gender roles in Hollywood.

 Hawksian women are varied in the roles they play in society, but seem to have certain similarities between them whether they be journalists, spoiled poor-little-rich-girls, or nightclub singers. There seems to be a cohesive thread that connects them through personality, desire, and motivation. They are allowed to be both the pursuer and the object of desire simultaneously, and are constructed not just to perpetuate the plot but are given an arc of their own with which they can establish themselves as just important elements to the narrative as the male protagonists. This does not go to say that all Hawksian women are feminist archetypes, nor does that mean that they have lost feminine qualities because of the strength and independence they are given. Hawksian women reach a kind of synthesis between traditional masculine and feminine qualities. They are seductive yet independent, witty but firm in their convictions, unpredictable yet consistent. The Hawksian woman is in effect a new bread of character that can be explored with one significant examplel Barbara Stanwyck’s character Sugarpuss O’Shea in “Ball of Fire”. 
   

If we examine each character in Haskell’s terms, we can deduce that Stawyck’s Sugarpuss O’Shea is the perfect model of the “superfemale”. She is as Haskell describes “a woman who, while exceedingly “feminine” and flirtatious, is too ambitious and intelligent for the docile role society has decreed she play”. She has her own intentions from the very beginning of the film and refuses to be affected by opposition. She arrives at the house of the scholars on a rouse so that she can hide from the police. It may appear at first that she is without conscience, and is purely motivated by selfish concerns. She is witty and intelligent enough to get her own way using tactics available to her as a seductress. She remains dominant in her role as the female until the very end at which point she succumbs to her feelings for Gary Cooper's character (Potts), proving herself to be in her own unique way both feminist and feminine. More importantly, it is her character
 that carries the narrative, and everything that happens in the film is an effect of her actions. Sugarpuss O’Shea has no trouble mastering herself in a man’s world, and not only functioning in it, but dominating it. Not only does she hold dominion over the shy and awkward Potts, but she also stands up firmly to the mob boss that she has been romantically tied with (Dana Andrews). 
    It is interesting to watch how Stanwyck’s character is able to outwit a group of intellectuals and scholars, not maliciously, but for her own amusement. Her ability to hold her own against not only intellectuals, but mobster, proves her as not only the wittier, but the stronger character. She thus becomes the protagonist and thereby is able to make the film move according to her actions, not the actions of the Gary Cooper character. 
   

We must also consider Stanwyck’s power as a seductress, which is also attributable to her label as a “superfemale”. Potts is a typical Hawks protagonist in the way that he has been “avoiding women…he doth protest too much”. Sugarpuss is not only able to veer him away from his studies but consequentially make him fall in love with her. Her role as a seductress is not a negative one, as it usually is in films of the 1940’s with a femme fatale character. Her intentions are selfish at first, but become secondary to her ability to transform Potts into a better man.

Then there is the all to familiar Mulvey thesis regarding the woman as threat of castration. Sugarpuss O’Shea can be observed as such a threat, but uniquely transforms herself as one who elevates the male protagonist rather than emasculates him. She teaches him how to be a ‘real man’. An example of this is when en route to rescue her from the shogun wedding, he is reviewing a book on boxing. He is forced to prove himself to her as a man so that he can fix the imbalance she has created with her presence in terms of masculine vs. feminine. Babs gives this role a whole different spin. Unlike her predecessors including Mae West or Theda Bera, Stanwyck seems almost androgynous with her small frame and strict haircut. And yet, she seems far too experienced for anyone in the house, and completely and totally seductive. Sugarpuss exudes her sexual energy verbally rather than physically, keeping the boys in check with her wit as well as her legs. 

Just a side note, please see 'Baby Face' for early Stanwyck seducing lessons. She is just absolutely amazing. This film is now in the 'Forbidden Hollywood Series', which are films that were made right before the Haze self-censorship code went into effect.