Being unfunny is more offensive than being offensive

I haven't seen Mike Meyers' The Love Guru, and I really didn't have any plans to. The posters and ads didn't thrill me, not only because it looked like one of those "Last Samurai"-type movies where you drop a Neocolonial guy into a different culture and he proves that he can do their culture better than they can -- and proves that we only care about other places when we can watch a Neocolonial interacting with it -- but it looked like he was out to offend everyone he possibly. Mostly Vern Troyer (whom I actually came to love after his stint on The Surreal Life), but also various facets of Hinduism -- rather, a stereotype of Hinduism.

Back when Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan came out, I avoided it because I thought it would be so offensive I wouldn't be able to sit through it. Lacking HBO, I hadn't seen Da Ali G Show but I 'd seen Borat from his visit to 

the Oklahoma City Traffic Commission where he put out a very long rambling speech in which he apologized that our food made him create a terrible smell and said he wanted to make romance with one of the women in the room -- not by force, of course (and also made me very proud of my city officials for being so beyond-the-call-of-duty polite to him). When I heard he was an "equal-opportunity offender," I really didn't want to see it. "Equal-opportunity offenders" use humor like a blunt tool instead of a scalpel, whacking indiscriminately at anyone and everyone when they could be excising injustice and oppressive elements of society through satire.

I was wrong, Borat was very satirical and very good, and there was a moment where I almost cried because the offensive, awful, anti-Semitic character of Borat was the only one who treated a prostitute with respect. But he was also very very funny. Freakin' funny, actually. And funny makes up for offensiveness most of the time. I know that funny is very subjective, but it seems to me that when you're really funny, you make us laugh at ourselves, not other people, and you make us have sympathy with the clown who's pointing out our foibles, who also has sympathy with us. 

I don't know if Mike Meyers does that, but it doesn't seem like it. There's been a lot of uproar over The Love Guru (check out The Washington Post's On Faith blog's blogs on The Love Guru), but it seems like the controversy can't save it. The reviews are out, and it's just not funny. I'm not actually surprised, I think that Mike Meyers hit his high point with So I Married an Axe Murderer and the first Wayne's World movie. So I won't even get to see if it was offensive or stereotypical. It just doesn't seem worth the $5 to go decide.

If you want funny, go watch the Borat link above. That's pretty funny.

Beware of Son of HB 1804

As most Oklahomans should be aware, the state Legislature last session passed House Bill 1804, a bill that created what are called the most restrictive laws against people who are undocumented in the country. This measure makes it illegal "transport, harbor and conceal" undocumented people from "detection" and denies driver's licenses and publid aid to anyone who isn't in Oklahoma legally.

The author of the bill, state Rep. Randy Terrill, R-Moore, is planning "the son of HB 1804," in which U.S. citizenship is denied to children born in Oklahoma of undocumented parents getting rid of, "birthright citizenship" (then explain yours, Mr. Terrill, for did you not get your citizenship through your birth in the U.S.? Shall Oklahoma challenge the U.S. Constitution?). It also will deny taxpayer-funded prenatal care to pregnant women who are not documented, and creates "transparency in our public school systems."

Thankfully, HB 1804 is not receiving the support it once did, now that it's being fully enacted. Now that people are seeing its real human (and economic, sadly, this IS what gets people's attention) costs. And after all, now when you go to the DMV to renew your licence, you'll have to prove that you're a documented resident. People who never ever had to worry about having to prove their legal status are getting a little fed up with have to deal with a small slice of this bureaucratic and civil rights nightmare.

And some of the legislators who voted for HB 1804 are calling for more humanitarian, common-sensical changes. Folks, not only do we have to work to sweep out HB 1804, we also need to stop the Son of HB 1804 from getting its birthright citzenship in this state. Call, write, pester Rep. Terrill. Be courteous, but be firm.

Here's how to find him:
Capitol Address:
2300 Lincoln Blvd. Room 407
Oklahoma City, OK 73105
(405) 557-7346

District Address:
612 S. W. 12th Street
Moore, OK 73160

Email: randyterrill@okhouse.gov
Find story on HB 1804 at NewsOK here.
Cross-posted at Border Reflections.