Thursday, January 14, 2010

When Reality Parodies Comedy

Below is a clip from the 1979 Steve Martin movie The Jerk. Martin's response to a serial killer trying to kill him in this clip has for years come to mind as I have digested elitist and the media's responses to some of the problems we have encountered.

To set it up, Martin's character believed that a person was a nobody until his name was in the phone book. When he finally got a phone, the killer, who picked his victims randomly from the phone book, picked Martin's name and was trying to kill him.

Martin's response to what was happening was classic. After several misses, he concluded that the killer hated the cans and advised everyone to "stay away from the cans!". His response is eerily reminiscent of the elitist media type's responses to terrorism in particular, and almost all problems in general. But regardless, I am almost daily reminded of this little clip as I watch elites tell us why things happened and what our responses should be.



11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great clip, and great point!

Susan said...

Never saw the movie but you've made an excellent point, as always.
Susan

Joe said...

The elitist government goons are just like that shooter...they always miss.

Anonymous said...

The Jerk...that's what I think of everytime I saw a liberal politician shooting his/her mouth off and getting everything exactly bass ackwards.

- Steve Martin

...(no, not that one)

Freedomnow said...

The liberal desire to be loved by the world is as foolish as can be. It leads some to conclude that we are responsible for the hatred of irrational fanatics.

In all of history what successful country has ever been loved throughout the world? Everything we think is wrong on this subject.

The phrase "winning the hearts and minds" of the people is just stupid.

Great Britain didnt win the "hearts and minds" of the Malaysian people when they defeated the insurgency. They won respect by treating them properly, but forced relocations to remove civilians from areas under insurgent influence was not a strategy to win "hearts and minds".

In Iraq the Troop Surge was wildly successful, but the Iraqis dont love us for it.

Blaming America for terrorism is like blaming America for Nazism. There are serious people who do that.

Its logic based on desire, not factual information.

Timmy Jimmy said...

I love that scene! Great point!

Just a side note, I've been "somebody" for years now! :)

Danny Wright said...

Thanks for letting me know you stopped by everyone.

Freedom:

"The liberal desire to be loved by the world is as foolish as can be. It leads some to conclude that we are responsible for the hatred of irrational fanatics."

This is true and this clip demonstrates that this can be deadly dangerous. What is worse, it seems that many treat terrorism like taxes in assuming that it will be the other guy who gets taken out.

Thanks for dropping by.

Good to see you around these parts Timmy Jimmy.

Fredd said...

Good point, Dan: if you are constantly springing to action based on what the media urges you to do, your existence will be one of great misery.

So remember: go out and get your swine flu shot or you'll die.

Danny Wright said...

Fred

I'm too broke now Fred, to pay for the shot. I went out and spent all my money on "green" things to try to head off the coming GW doom.

Fredd said...

Glad to help you out, Dan. Here's what you do: put all that 'green' crap you bought up for sale on eBay, it'll sell for sure, what with all the tree huggers out there clamouring for it.

Then take the proceeds, buy a bunch of sand bags, order a dump truck load of sand, build a dyke around your house on the cheap to protect yourself against the rising oceans as the ice caps melts (I hear all the northern ice is gone in 5 years, Algore said this a few weeks ago, it must be true).

You surely will have a few bucks left over for that shot, Dan.

You're welcome. My work here is done.

Danny Wright said...

I can live! And the answer was there all along!