I love comedy and I'm about to have two psych degrees so what better book to read than about what makes us laugh and why? Commentary about Psychology of Humor: An Integrated Approach coming up as soon as I read the first couple of chapters.
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Be'tipul Vs. In Treatment: Differences in Israeli and American Culture
Great Analysis! (I stumbled on your In Treatment/Be'tipul analysis on youtube but it won't let me post a long response)
I am particularly interested in what you had to say about how the two TV shows reflect cultural differences as I have a masters degree in cross cultural psychology, have Jewish roots and grew up in the United States with Polish parents but have moved to Poland six years ago. I recently discovered In Treatment and have really gotten into the show. Your analysis really made me think and I was hoping you might explore some areas in detail as I'm guessing you oversimplified some issues and left out some confounding variables for the sake of the audience.
I don't know a whole lot about Israeli society so feel free to correct me, but I am curious if Israeli society is in fact a melting pot as you put it. It seems to me that aside from first and second generation Russian immigrants, there is a very small Ashkenazi elite which is represented on Be'tipul and I'm curious if these feelings of closeness that you mention reflect Israeli culture or of those that feel that they belong to a privileged club. I would guess that in some ways Israeli society mirrors some South American cultures, where a very small European population controls large sectors of the economy and they are represented in the media. The U.S. is different is the respect that whites are still a majority of the population so it is not as difficult to throw in some other races for the sake of "diversity".
Where I disagreed most with your analysis were your direct generalizations about both cultures based solely on the TV shows. It is relevant that HBO is a multi million dollar TV empire and the fact that the female patient was younger more beautiful and coquettish in her character strategy makes her more attractive to the viewer and more likely to garner high ratings for HBO which is an expensive premium channel that can't afford to take as many risks. HBO could afford to hire a gorgeous and talented actress who was able to play the part perfectly. The same can be said about the therapists office I think the shows budget was the main issue. I was surprised when you said status wasn't as important in Israel. I heard an anecdote that Israeli men when sitting at a table at restaurants all simultaneously pull out their car keys wallets and cell phones and put them on the table, to prove to others they have money, transportation and contacts and that it is essentially one big pissing contest.
It would also be interesting if you could go into more detail regarding differences between general upper middle class American and Jewish American cultures, as it has been historically a stereotype and many Jewish American comedians talk about their families "kvetching", all yelling at once, and families being very close. Since analysis is historically Jewish and is currently dominated by Jews, and HBO is a Jewish production company to a large degree I am willing to bet there must be at least some cultural influence.
Once again thanks for uploading your video and keep em coming! Can't wait to read your response - Matt
I am particularly interested in what you had to say about how the two TV shows reflect cultural differences as I have a masters degree in cross cultural psychology, have Jewish roots and grew up in the United States with Polish parents but have moved to Poland six years ago. I recently discovered In Treatment and have really gotten into the show. Your analysis really made me think and I was hoping you might explore some areas in detail as I'm guessing you oversimplified some issues and left out some confounding variables for the sake of the audience.
I don't know a whole lot about Israeli society so feel free to correct me, but I am curious if Israeli society is in fact a melting pot as you put it. It seems to me that aside from first and second generation Russian immigrants, there is a very small Ashkenazi elite which is represented on Be'tipul and I'm curious if these feelings of closeness that you mention reflect Israeli culture or of those that feel that they belong to a privileged club. I would guess that in some ways Israeli society mirrors some South American cultures, where a very small European population controls large sectors of the economy and they are represented in the media. The U.S. is different is the respect that whites are still a majority of the population so it is not as difficult to throw in some other races for the sake of "diversity".
Where I disagreed most with your analysis were your direct generalizations about both cultures based solely on the TV shows. It is relevant that HBO is a multi million dollar TV empire and the fact that the female patient was younger more beautiful and coquettish in her character strategy makes her more attractive to the viewer and more likely to garner high ratings for HBO which is an expensive premium channel that can't afford to take as many risks. HBO could afford to hire a gorgeous and talented actress who was able to play the part perfectly. The same can be said about the therapists office I think the shows budget was the main issue. I was surprised when you said status wasn't as important in Israel. I heard an anecdote that Israeli men when sitting at a table at restaurants all simultaneously pull out their car keys wallets and cell phones and put them on the table, to prove to others they have money, transportation and contacts and that it is essentially one big pissing contest.
It would also be interesting if you could go into more detail regarding differences between general upper middle class American and Jewish American cultures, as it has been historically a stereotype and many Jewish American comedians talk about their families "kvetching", all yelling at once, and families being very close. Since analysis is historically Jewish and is currently dominated by Jews, and HBO is a Jewish production company to a large degree I am willing to bet there must be at least some cultural influence.
Once again thanks for uploading your video and keep em coming! Can't wait to read your response - Matt
Cultural Psychology and Eminems Sucess
I went back over some old school Eminem songs and they made me think how they differ from other rap songs. Back when Eminem sold god knows how many millions of records a lot of people stopped and asked themselves how he managed to achieve such incredible fame. What made Eminem stand out, (obviously aside from being white) is that he was provocative and vulgar enough to appeal to the gangsta rap crowd, but despite all his controversial content his cultural values were really in line with those of mainstream America. The branch of social psychology known as cultural psychology postulates that cultures differ among themselves on several dimensions some of which include individualism/collectivism, power distance, and masculinity/femininity. The dimension on which African American culture and mainstream European American culture differ the most is that of individualism versus collectivism. Individualist cultures tend to very focused on self reliance, This is also the biggest difference between the lyrical content in Eminem's work in contrast to old school Dre, Snoop, and other Gangsta Rap artists that he is known to collaborate with.
The Gangsta Rap genre transformed hip hop and the music scene in the early nineties, and kids all over America had that indescribable feeling of bad assery when putting on their original Dre, Snoop or Warren G debut albums. But despite the solid foundation and marketing of African-American "cool", white kids just had an incredibly hard time relating to black collectivist mentality. Look at any one of the original east coast or west coast gangsta rap videos, and they almost always show the entire neighborhood either partying their asses off or at a picnic. Even the grandparents and the little kids are there all eating chicken wings and enjoying life. Think of such texts as Biggies "my whole crew is loungin", Even though they market and portray themselves as uncanny bad ass gangsters, The gangster mentality in all of these songs basically says life in the ghetto is insanely hard, but we're not going to dwell on that, it made us the silky smooth hard asses we are today
Contrast this with Eminems albums which basically sound like we're witnessing a therapy session with him, he's unhappy his father left at a very early age, he's mad at his mother, he's debating whether or not the highs and lows of drug abuse are worth it, he's not sure whether or not. There is really intense focus on himself and his emotions, thoughts, relflections. We hear about the frustrating and bad sides of success and what is he, this poor nobody from a trailer park to make of all this. Boo-hoo, these millions are just not "me". Instead of labelling him a whiny pussy we call him brave for opening up and sharing his true emotions with us, like he's laying it all out there "raw". Furthermore we call this the introspective "side" of his persona, because he can be the bad ass and obnoxious yet lovobale slim shady when he wants to be, but the introspective, vunerable and mature marshall mathers when he's feeling deep and setnimental. Think of someone like eazy-e, who talks about who he hangs with and talking about the different shades and sides of their personality. They would be labelled crazy, selfish
Eminem on the other hand wants everyone to fuck off, yet we commend him for being true, when others would label him as self absorbed and selfish. He rarely mentions his band D-12 in any of his solo albums. (All of a sudden I've got ninety some cousins...hey its me) in Marshal Mathers and "All of a sudden I've got ninety some cousins" "Do me a favor and do not come and speak to me if I'm eating or feeding my daugther)
The whole concept of life choices, which are incredibly important to individualist ideologies don't really exist in black culture. Think of Eazy-e's lyric in real motherfuckin' G's "I never met an OG who ever did shit wrong" and "How could a nigga go so quick from wearing lipstick to smoking chronic at picnics" proclaiming that there are no two ways to go about being a gangster, and what we might call experimenting with his image or his lifestyle choices is just Dr. Dre being a poser and a bitch. A bitch will always remain a bitch in the ghetto, there is no upward mobility or choice in the matter. Eminem frets over every single last choice he makes, and the jist of his songs is yeah maybe I fucked up maybe I didn't, these were my choices. I lost my temper and hit a bitch but she deserved it. I smoked weed
Its this meta analysis of everything that makes him so popular. A lot of teenagers are growing up, seeing that everything isn't so clear cut. Eminem i Eminem feeds off of individuality, choice, and freedom of speech.
In White America Eminem sings "I met Dre....and I lit a fire up
Under his ass, helped him get back to the top, every fan black that I got, was probably his in
Exchange for every white fan that he's got". Eminem emphasizes both his and Dre's individuality,
The Gangsta Rap genre transformed hip hop and the music scene in the early nineties, and kids all over America had that indescribable feeling of bad assery when putting on their original Dre, Snoop or Warren G debut albums. But despite the solid foundation and marketing of African-American "cool", white kids just had an incredibly hard time relating to black collectivist mentality. Look at any one of the original east coast or west coast gangsta rap videos, and they almost always show the entire neighborhood either partying their asses off or at a picnic. Even the grandparents and the little kids are there all eating chicken wings and enjoying life. Think of such texts as Biggies "my whole crew is loungin", Even though they market and portray themselves as uncanny bad ass gangsters, The gangster mentality in all of these songs basically says life in the ghetto is insanely hard, but we're not going to dwell on that, it made us the silky smooth hard asses we are today
Contrast this with Eminems albums which basically sound like we're witnessing a therapy session with him, he's unhappy his father left at a very early age, he's mad at his mother, he's debating whether or not the highs and lows of drug abuse are worth it, he's not sure whether or not. There is really intense focus on himself and his emotions, thoughts, relflections. We hear about the frustrating and bad sides of success and what is he, this poor nobody from a trailer park to make of all this. Boo-hoo, these millions are just not "me". Instead of labelling him a whiny pussy we call him brave for opening up and sharing his true emotions with us, like he's laying it all out there "raw". Furthermore we call this the introspective "side" of his persona, because he can be the bad ass and obnoxious yet lovobale slim shady when he wants to be, but the introspective, vunerable and mature marshall mathers when he's feeling deep and setnimental. Think of someone like eazy-e, who talks about who he hangs with and talking about the different shades and sides of their personality. They would be labelled crazy, selfish
Eminem on the other hand wants everyone to fuck off, yet we commend him for being true, when others would label him as self absorbed and selfish. He rarely mentions his band D-12 in any of his solo albums. (All of a sudden I've got ninety some cousins...hey its me) in Marshal Mathers and "All of a sudden I've got ninety some cousins" "Do me a favor and do not come and speak to me if I'm eating or feeding my daugther)
The whole concept of life choices, which are incredibly important to individualist ideologies don't really exist in black culture. Think of Eazy-e's lyric in real motherfuckin' G's "I never met an OG who ever did shit wrong" and "How could a nigga go so quick from wearing lipstick to smoking chronic at picnics" proclaiming that there are no two ways to go about being a gangster, and what we might call experimenting with his image or his lifestyle choices is just Dr. Dre being a poser and a bitch. A bitch will always remain a bitch in the ghetto, there is no upward mobility or choice in the matter. Eminem frets over every single last choice he makes, and the jist of his songs is yeah maybe I fucked up maybe I didn't, these were my choices. I lost my temper and hit a bitch but she deserved it. I smoked weed
Its this meta analysis of everything that makes him so popular. A lot of teenagers are growing up, seeing that everything isn't so clear cut. Eminem i Eminem feeds off of individuality, choice, and freedom of speech.
In White America Eminem sings "I met Dre....and I lit a fire up
Under his ass, helped him get back to the top, every fan black that I got, was probably his in
Exchange for every white fan that he's got". Eminem emphasizes both his and Dre's individuality,
Movie Review: Paris Texas
I've watched about half an hour and I don't think I can stomach much more. Yet another non-formulaicly formulaic pretentious piece of shit. Cannes Film festival winner my ass. What a bunch of assholes at the Cannes film festival anyway. Why does "deep" these days mean slow in pace, annoying and full exterior shots of shithole towns. A bunch of people talk amongst themselves colloqially and monosyllabically. How deep. Especially when a bunch of asshole Europeans have their own vision of the American Dream which translates into they film people driving around in big cars eating hamburgers.
The jist of the beginning of the movie is a guy with a beard who walks around the middle of the Mojave desert. Oh and he has one of those diseases where he doesn't remember anything. Then in true Indie fashion he recconects with his son after being gone for a long time. Oh and his brothers wife is from France. She kisses everyone everywhere all the time because shes french. Connections abound! He has a perpetual contemplative stare. The director tries to be slick by showing everyones feet shifting around nervously under the table before cutting to them sitting around the table while having dinner. How creative.
I bet the people that made this movie has some sort of amazing "vision" about connecting worlds and thought there was really cute irony in a shithole town in Texas having the same name as arguably the culturally most sophisticated city in the world and thought that by weaving this contrast into the plot they would be deep. Anyway, back to the movie
A silent home movie when the crazy dudes son was a couple years younger coupled with a soft melodic soundtrack. How touching, beautiful, dramatic and contemplative. I bet thats what Roger Eberts review will say when I read it. This is really putting me to sleep.
The jist of the beginning of the movie is a guy with a beard who walks around the middle of the Mojave desert. Oh and he has one of those diseases where he doesn't remember anything. Then in true Indie fashion he recconects with his son after being gone for a long time. Oh and his brothers wife is from France. She kisses everyone everywhere all the time because shes french. Connections abound! He has a perpetual contemplative stare. The director tries to be slick by showing everyones feet shifting around nervously under the table before cutting to them sitting around the table while having dinner. How creative.
I bet the people that made this movie has some sort of amazing "vision" about connecting worlds and thought there was really cute irony in a shithole town in Texas having the same name as arguably the culturally most sophisticated city in the world and thought that by weaving this contrast into the plot they would be deep. Anyway, back to the movie
A silent home movie when the crazy dudes son was a couple years younger coupled with a soft melodic soundtrack. How touching, beautiful, dramatic and contemplative. I bet thats what Roger Eberts review will say when I read it. This is really putting me to sleep.
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Audiobook Review: Adam Carollas Not Taco Bell Material
I have been a die hard Adam Carolla fan ever since I was randomly listening to my local Alternative station at ten P.M and I heard Loveline for the very first time.
Not Taco Bell material is not up to par in the Humor department.
Adam Carolla is extremely funny and makes it his signature brand of dark humor by as one critic put it "letting the wit kind of dribble out the side of his mouth" in a deadpan tone.
I wasn't clear who would get the two knives, wow I can't believe I hung out with these people
The stucco was hot enough on the side of the building to fry an egg (which by the way why would you want to do that, how desperate would you have to be, just get a fucking frying pan dude
Not Taco Bell material is not up to par in the Humor department.
Adam Carolla is extremely funny and makes it his signature brand of dark humor by as one critic put it "letting the wit kind of dribble out the side of his mouth" in a deadpan tone.
I wasn't clear who would get the two knives, wow I can't believe I hung out with these people
The stucco was hot enough on the side of the building to fry an egg (which by the way why would you want to do that, how desperate would you have to be, just get a fucking frying pan dude
Movie Review: Six Degrees of Separation
Really cool quirky interesting and fast paced, with tight editing and cool camera angles, especially for 1993. Very slick and refined performance for a young Will Smith, didn't know he had it in him. Great pastiche of the stuffy upper echelons of "sophisticated" NYC society. Just as intruiging as John Guarres other hit "Atlantic City". Even though it was about completely different mentalities, cities, social classes and activities there was a fascinating sort of unpredictability about it. Seem to me like this could have inspired what later became Roman Polanskis "Carnage".
Movie Review: Atlantic City
Wow. If more movies could be this intruiging and this brilliantly directed the first five minutes in. We get the sense that were thrown right in the action, with the camera twisting and turning and going around corners to make it seem shady, slick, seedy and chaotic, just like one would expect a gambling town to be. We immediately meet two sets of people, and their characters are immediately portrayed as they relate to other people. We meet a naive yet cunning scumbag conman who ran away with his wifes sisters and we see him take a package out of a phone booth. We immediately see that the package was meant for someone else, but he knew how to be at the right place at the right time. He emotionally uses and abuses his wife and verbally assaults her when he doesn't get his way, even though she is letting him and his wife spend the night at her place and The other couple we meet is an old woman that lays around in bed and demands a lot of an old "submissive" man, but it is later hinted at in conversation that.
By a strange turn of events the two couples become intertwined, and the movie becomes a juxtaposition of the old and the new.
Then it becomes an even crazier set of plot twists and turns. I especially loved this movie and it kept surprising me as it became more and more absurd with every minute. No bullshit soppy moralizing, just a lot of crazy things suddenly happening to two normal people in modern day Atlantic city, a woman from Moose Jaw Saskatchewan down and out on her luck and an old who gets bitched around by his missus and through a crazy turn of events runs into some money, then love, then trouble, and finally he gets delusional when he feels like a bad ass for killling two hoodlums, something he was never able to do in Atlantic Cities bootlegging glory days.
9/10
By a strange turn of events the two couples become intertwined, and the movie becomes a juxtaposition of the old and the new.
Then it becomes an even crazier set of plot twists and turns. I especially loved this movie and it kept surprising me as it became more and more absurd with every minute. No bullshit soppy moralizing, just a lot of crazy things suddenly happening to two normal people in modern day Atlantic city, a woman from Moose Jaw Saskatchewan down and out on her luck and an old who gets bitched around by his missus and through a crazy turn of events runs into some money, then love, then trouble, and finally he gets delusional when he feels like a bad ass for killling two hoodlums, something he was never able to do in Atlantic Cities bootlegging glory days.
9/10
Thursday, August 9, 2012
The Dictator
Holy shit Sacha Baron Cohen is a genius, I've been waiting in dire anticipation for this movie to come out for two years, thinking he would incorporate his off brand scathing satire to a topic that has been gripping the world recently, namely the Arab Spring and its aftermath.....
Holy shit was I let down...
Now I'm hanging out at a friends house where I'm forced to watch this movie for a second time...and to add insult to injury for some reason he's laughing his ass off.
To quote one of my favorite movie critics, this movie runs like one long stupid drawn out SNL skit. All sorts of retarded middle school level slapstick humor, extremely lame crude sexual and scatological jokes that normally Cohen pulls off amazingly, but here they just seemed infantile.
It's full of half ass one-liners, and thinly veiled racism, because we're technically laugh
What particularly pissed me off is Sacha Baron Cohen proclaiming "I'm not even Arab" even though he's an uppity aristocratic British Jew and the movie is full of references to Arab-Israeli relations, Waladeen played by Cohen even "recreates" the 1972 Munich Olympic massacre in a mock video game.
The only funny line in the movie was when Cohen says to an African coworker "Hey subsaharan, get me 50 child soldiers here by midnight" "I've picked up Yiddish, who picks up yiddish?' "I"m on my own spiritual journey like eat, pray, love.", and finally "are you having a boy, or an abortion."
What made The Ali G Show on HBO particularly funny was people were duped into thinking that the interviews were real and that Ali G, Bruno, and Borat were authentic characters. Cohen has an extremely quick and reflexive wit, and the art of playing dumb is not nearly as it seems, it takes a particularly bright person to play a funny stupid one. In an interview with Cohen I read that it was quite an elaborate setup, Cohen would pretend to be part of the crew that sets up the TV set, he would carry boxes and benches etc., and then "randomly" start talking to the celeb, who was duped to think that this was a "pre-interview"
Holy shit was I let down...
Now I'm hanging out at a friends house where I'm forced to watch this movie for a second time...and to add insult to injury for some reason he's laughing his ass off.
To quote one of my favorite movie critics, this movie runs like one long stupid drawn out SNL skit. All sorts of retarded middle school level slapstick humor, extremely lame crude sexual and scatological jokes that normally Cohen pulls off amazingly, but here they just seemed infantile.
It's full of half ass one-liners, and thinly veiled racism, because we're technically laugh
What particularly pissed me off is Sacha Baron Cohen proclaiming "I'm not even Arab" even though he's an uppity aristocratic British Jew and the movie is full of references to Arab-Israeli relations, Waladeen played by Cohen even "recreates" the 1972 Munich Olympic massacre in a mock video game.
The only funny line in the movie was when Cohen says to an African coworker "Hey subsaharan, get me 50 child soldiers here by midnight" "I've picked up Yiddish, who picks up yiddish?' "I"m on my own spiritual journey like eat, pray, love.", and finally "are you having a boy, or an abortion."
What made The Ali G Show on HBO particularly funny was people were duped into thinking that the interviews were real and that Ali G, Bruno, and Borat were authentic characters. Cohen has an extremely quick and reflexive wit, and the art of playing dumb is not nearly as it seems, it takes a particularly bright person to play a funny stupid one. In an interview with Cohen I read that it was quite an elaborate setup, Cohen would pretend to be part of the crew that sets up the TV set, he would carry boxes and benches etc., and then "randomly" start talking to the celeb, who was duped to think that this was a "pre-interview"
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