#lestbartman

1) No one is telling people they cannot create certain art, just that certain art causes harm. People have the creative freedom to create whatever they want, but as with any art, it invites critique and creators are not free from the consequences of their creations.You’re free to create art that harms and oppresses people, but you don’t get to say it’s not harmful and oppressive when it objectively is. No artistic freedoms are being infringed upon by asserting this long held truth

T: It’s fun to hate people, it’s downright cool.. NC: *exasperated* no... T: Come on, you know you want to hate me, NC: I don’t want to hate you. I don’t want to hate anybody!

Enough of a symmetry of real life as it stands as it is, but then comes the guy’s next line: “Come on, I’ve done every possible thing to piss you off.....I’ve ruined lives, hurt your friends, destroyed jobs...so why don’t you hate me?”

Hate is a strong word, sure. The guy who’s gonna be in charge for a while [I sincerely hope less than four years], and the red congress really want to see others bleed to death as long as it’s not on a government budget. Then, after the angsty-teen character asks “what conceivable reason could you have not to hate me?” Comes from the long stretch of words from the Critic, Mr. Walker, himself:

“Because it’s too easy! It’s the easiest thing in the world to do! Any imbecile can hate, it’s lazy! You wanna know what takes effort? Being nice. It is so hard to be nice to some people. But what am I supposed to do, call you a jerk over and over and over and hope one day you’ll go ‘I’m cured. God, the first million times didn’t work, but the million and one, that was the magic number!’ ? How likely is that gonna happen?  And don’t get me wrong, there’s times when we need to be angry, we need to fight, if not we’d be goose-stepping to work right now. But it should be one of the last options, not always the first. Because when you get angry, you don’t think straight and people take advantage of that. And maybe you disagree with me, okay, fine. You know what? I’ll listen. I’ll listen to what we have to share. And even though so much of what you say feels wrong, I’ll still keep it in my mind that you could possibly be right. Because if I’m not willing to change for you, how can I expect you to change for me? I want to be patient enough to see more how we’re similar rather than fear how we’re different. And you know what, it’s gonna be hard. It’s gonna be so hard I’m gonna fail a lot, hell I’ve failed a lot already. But this is the one thing I’m certain, the more I do it, the better I can get at it. I may be a screw-up, but I’m tired of being lazy.”

If I could sum up how I interpret this, relating to the immediate future, we’re both moving in the right direction, but also detouring further away. We’re detouring in the sense that so many people, for whatever erroneous reason, think certain genders [or gender identities], certain races, even certain religions deserve hate for unfounded reasons, or reasons they’d be blind to if related to their own case/situation. And in the same way some people will curse out the oppressed, the scolding goes both ways. I’ve never believed in yelling at others. Even when I’m arguing against biggots in my head, I give logical arguments and reasons. 

Why I bolded the sentence with “there’s times when we need to be angry” is because we shouldn’t remain complacent, and why I feel we’re moving in a much better direction. Patients benefiting from Obamacare are speaking out to congressmen, like the cancer patient did at a Paul Ryan town hall, because they don’t want to lose their guaranteed coverage, especially under preexisting conditions. They’re speaking out because the don’t want a reputable organization such as Planned Parenthood to lose important funding because of what is quite literally “gender politics”. Our ‘getting angry’ should be standing up for what we believe in and better understanding, not piss-poor jokes and, emphasizing the “when you get angry, you don’t think straight”, scolding people who are parodying you for your outlandish stances that belittle others. Comedy is some of the better ways we can, in a sense, “fact check” politicians, and I’m glad that even if it’s people like The Daily Show or just someone who isn’t bound by media, that people still feel safe in getting angry at the right times. 

And besides, a quote related to the guy who’s being just as evil as he was a year ago:  “if I’m not willing to change for you, how can I expect you to change for me?” We’re not gonna submit to the same “person” who not only bashed Obama for each one of his 8 years, but has offended so many others and expects everyone to love him.

Let me add in the final line of the episode, a quote from the Critic that I posted when the episode first came on youtube:

“Nobody knows what the future holds, but there’s two things that are guaranteed: there’s gonna be a lot of anger, and there’s gonna be a lot of love. Use them wisely.”