Baby boomer humor’s big lie: “Ghostbusters” and “Caddyshack” really liberated Reagan and Wall Street

[KoKo]

Baby boomer humor’s big lie: “Ghostbusters” and “Caddyshack” really liberated Reagan and Wall Street
Harold Ramis was a master of subversive comedy. But the politics of "Caddyshack" and rude gestures have backfired

I am going to start with three beloved movies of my childhood, and end with a suggestion of why liberals will probably never be able to come to grips with what they winningly call “inequality.” The three movies I have in mind—”National Lampoon’s Animal House,” “Caddyshack,” and “Ghostbusters”–were all written or directed, in whole or in part, by the great Harold Ramis, who died last week, and whose work was eulogized by President Obama as follows:

When we watched his movies . . . we didn’t just laugh until it hurt. We questioned authority. We identified with the outsider. We rooted for the underdog. And, through it all, we never lost our faith in happy endings.

That seems about right, doesn’t it? Each of the films I mentioned features some prudish or strait-laced patriarch who is spectacularly humiliated by a band of slobs or misfits or smart alecks. With their dick jokes and cruel insults, these movies represented, collectively, the righteous rising-up of a generation determined to get justice for the little guy. That’s why a group of prominent Democrats showed up at Ramis’ funeral. It’s why articles about Ramis’ movies routinely speak of their liberating power.

So, the political equation is obvious, right? We of the left own the imagery of subversion and outsiderness. It’s ours. Every time a stupid old white guy gets humiliated in a TV commercial for choosing Brand X, we know it’s because the people at Brand Y secretly support universal health insurance and a nice little pop in the minimum wage. Right?

Well, no. And with that acknowledgement, let me advance to my bold hypothesis: The dick joke is not always what it seems to be. The dick joke is not always your friend.

*

Start with the first really great movie Ramis had a hand in writing, “National Lampoon’s Animal House.” Watching it again today, I didn’t think so much of righteous defiance, or underdogs and outsiders; I thought of Wall Street. This particular iteration of Ramis’ martinet vs. slob theme pits—as everyone knows—a prissy, militaristic college fraternity against a fraternity where the boys like pleasure, which is to say, where they drink beer and throw parties and actually enjoy getting laid. If this basic formula doesn’t strike you as particularly rebellious or even remarkable, that’s because it isn’t: in its simple anarchic assertion of appetite, it’s the philosophy of the people who rule us. Everyone is a fraud in this world; learning is a joke; sex objects are easily conned; Kennedy-style idealism is strictly for suckers; and in one telling moment, fratboy 1 remarks to fratboy 2, who is crying over the trashing of his borrowed automobile by fratboy 1 and company, “You fucked up. You trusted us.” What popped into my mind when I heard that line was that other great triumph of the boomer generation: the time-bomb investments of 2008; Goldman Sachs peddling its “shitty deals” to the naive and the credulous.


MORE AT:

http://www.salon.com/2014/03/02/baby_boomer_humors_big_lie_ghostbusters_and_caddyshack_really_liberated_reagan_and_wall_street/

[tularetom]

1. Yeah, and Bluto became a US Senator

But so what? They were kids. Shame on them for wanting to drink and get laid. When in life are you supposed to act like a kid? When you're 40 and have teenage kids?

Who doesn't enjoy seeing a bunch of stuffed shirts put in their place? Just because Greg and Doug and the other wimpy country club republicans were actually pretty ineffectual, doesnt mean the Deltas all turned out to be tea partiers.

Somebody is reading waaay too much into these movies.

[OnyxCollie]

2. No consequences.

Bluto smashes a guy's guitar.

"Sorry about that."

Here's what's left of your guitar, buddy. Ha ha ha! I took it from you and ruined it. Too fucking bad. Go buy another.