I Guess It's "Or Die," Then

Celebrities, including funnyman Will Ferrell, have put together a Billionaires for Bush-style fake PSA defending health care executives in a way that I have not heard one single human being in the history of humankind defend health care executives. I made it through 38 seconds before concluding that it could not possibly get funny; maybe someone who watches more will be able to answer whether the actors acknowledge, however satirically, that health insurance executives have been helping craft Obama's plan.

UPDATE: Doesn't seem to want to load; link here.

Comments

[Pro Libertate]

You lie, Matt! You lie! Obama would never even talk to a corporation!

Why do you lie?

[dennis]

Fuck them!

[SugarFree]

Painfully unfunny. Maybe it's a bad idea to use a string of talking point memos as a script.

[Parents Rights / Marine Patrio]

Hollywood doubles down on the "demonization" bet. They ignore the true issue that drives America's objection to the public option: insurance companies are not great but government is WORSE.

Are these Hollywood types so dense they can't connect the dots between the money that funds their jobs and supports their lifestyles and "artistic" desires comes from profits? Comes from investments from places such as these dreaded insurance companies?
The stupidity on display is astounding. Keep mocking us, Hollywood, keep digging that hole.

[Xeones]

Why do you lie?

Racism, durr.

[Pro Libertate]

I happen to know that Obama has never even done business with a corporation. He hatesss them, yess he doesss, my precious!

[Johnny Longtorso]

I happen to know that Obama has never even done business with a corporation.

The Chosen One is virginally pure, unsullied by the wonton touch of filthy lucre (except for the money He made writing books about the most issue of our days - Himself).

[Big Racism]

"I happen to know that Obama has never even done business with a corporation."

Only because he has no business experience whatsoever.

[Parents Rights / Marine Patrio]

ROTFLOL - Pro Liberate, that is a good impression from the Hobbit! I'm a huge Hobbit fan and know when I see a quote from the movie!

Excuse me while I wipe the coffee I just spit all over the keybioard!

BTW - has anyone else noticed how Beck has been incorporating more Hobbit imagery into his show (particularly the scene when Gandalph fights the fire troll on the cave bridge? Something tells me he's a BIG FAN!

[Big Racism]

"Rule #7: A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag." - Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals

[T]

I happen to know that Obama has never even done business with a corporation.

Exactly! His book magically appeared in the hands of the chosen few with no corporations involved. Such is the power of the Obamessiah!

[Jonas]

I think it would have funny potential... if it weren't for the fact that literally almost EVERYTHING in the video is just a play on something that is being said elsewhere seriously. This type of humor is supposed to poke fun at other people's presuppositions (the presuppositions of health-care executives, in this instance). They end up just advertising their own presuppositions about health-care executives.

[Warren]

Celebrity... Will Ferrell, has put together a career. I made it through 38 seconds before concluding that it could not possibly get funny.

Same goes for:
Adam Sandler
Ben Stiller
Vince Vaughn

[Apple]

Comedy's hard.

[Tulpa]

Not sure if I'm allowed to say this due to their Relationship with reason, but I've never found Penn & Teller to be funny.

[Abdul]

The funny part is that the health care executives were bought off by the administration and therefore aren't opposing the Obamacare.

Who knew that Ferrel was capable of such subtle irony.

Or maybe he just took one cowbell too many to the head.

[prolefeed]

Why would anyone watch something that Matt says is so awful?

This post seems full of fail.

[Jimbo]

Sigh, the sad thing about this is that the opinions of Hollywood actors will have more of a real impact on the public than anything put out by other groups who have a much better understanding of the issues (like a group of economists, or hospital administrators).

What I don't get is how the actors can be so harsh on Big Pharma. After all, their industry is very similar to that of the drug companies.

? Both get better and better with progress (CGI effects, gene therapy)
? The first object produced costs the company making it millions, after that additional copies/pills cost virtually nothing
? Both rely on the government to protect their intellectual property via patents or copy right laws so they can recoup the cost of that first object. Both industries are also always pushing the government to expand this protection.
? Both make lots of $$$ by making people happy
? Both result in some employees making an astronomical amount of money for doing a job that seems easy to the outsider

Given all these similarities, don't you think actors could find some common ground? If I was making millions for appearing in films like Bewitched, I sure wouldn't be throwing stones at the glass houses of others for making too much money.

[Johnny Longtorso]

Not sure if I'm allowed to say this due to their Relationship with reason, but I've never found Penn & Teller to be funny.

Entertaining? Yes. 'Funny'? I'm not 100% sure that's specifically their goal.

"Not sure if I'm allowed to say this due to their Relationship with reason, but I've never found Penn & Teller to be funny."

Regardless, their Bullshit episode on hair, where we see a hot dark haired woman get her asshole waxed clean, is far better than anyone's comedy.

[hmm]

Only a racist would not find that funny.

[John]

I watched the whole thing, pity me, and nope, there was nothing funny in there the whole time, unless you count Will Ferrell white boy 'fro as funny.

[ellipsis]

Was this funded by the NEA too?

[JW]

Celebrities, including unfunnyman Will Ferrell....

FTFY.

His Pearl short was funny, but that's about it.

You just have to manage your expectations to avoid life's bitter disappointments.

[TrickyVic]

"""The funny part is that the health care executives were bought off by the administration and therefore aren't opposing the Obamacare."""

You don't need to buy off the health care execs to get them to approve of you making their services madatory by law.

[The Ghost of Rodney Dangerfiel]

Comedy's hard.

It's tough to be funny when you're coming off drugs.

[Sam Grove]

You don't need to buy off the health care execs to get them to approve of you making their services madatory by law.

That IS the buy off.

[mitch]

I can understand how ordinary people making less than 200K or whatever would want the vague reforms offered by Obama and crew; they think that the reforms will make their health care free or cheaper than it is. But why would Hollywood millionaires who already get great care be for it? Just Obama love? Or do they think their companies will be able to pass health care costs onto the taxpayers?

[Andrew D]

Ha, I only made it about 10 seconds in before closing it when I saw it earlier.

-Andrew

[Johnny Longtorso]

Artists are socialists because most of them are simply dumbasses who get thru life feeling instead of thinking.

[@]

I won't watch it, but I know enough about history to point out that most dictatorial regimes have benefited in the short-term by identifying and then persecuting a scapegoat.

[Tricky Prickears]

The part about the kid falling off his bike was so-so.

[Warren]

You guys have it backwards. The administration didn't buy off the health care executives. The health care industry bought off the administration.

[Xeones]

Not sure if I'm allowed to say this due to their Relationship with reason, but I've never found Penn & Teller to be funny.

BLASPHEMY! Also, racism, probably!

[Xeones]

Oops. Broke the tag.

[Warty]

Make sure to catch Will Ferrell as Will Ferrell in the outrageous new comedy, Will Ferrell.

[mediageek]

Will Ferrell hasn't been funny for the better part of a decade.

[MNG]

Co-starring Jessica Alba.

[MNG]

"Will Ferrell hasn't been funny for the better part of a decade."

Dudes, don't let your ideology blind you to ALL of reality. That guys funny.

[SugarFree]

"San Diego... which means 'A Whale's Vagina.'"

[MNG]

I mean, I'm a liberal but I'm totally willing to say that a talented conservative entertainer is, well, talented. For example that guy, you know, the guy that does the thing. That guy's a pretty funny conservative.

[M]

Technically it's not Will Ferrell that is funny, it's the person who writes the scripts for Will Ferrell. This explains why some of his movies are much funnier than others.

It drives me nuts when people think actors are funny. They just read the lines dudes. The writers or directors are funny.

[Walter Jameson]

Wait a second... Are they satirizing opponents to Obama's plan or retarded actors? It is kind of funny if you look at it as the latter.

[Pro Libertate]

SugarFree,

I thought it meant "red stick."

[Zeb]

"It drives me nuts when people think actors are funny. They just read the lines dudes."

Yup. That's why anyone who can read and memorize a few lines can go to Hollywood and make a successful comedy movie.

[Isaac Bartram]

Zeb

Even if a comic actor's delivery is impeccable, most of them are lost without good material.

Kind of like politicians.

[mediageek]

Dudes, don't let your ideology blind you to ALL of reality. That guys funny.

I suppose if you think that loudly spouting whatever random phrase pops into one's head passes for humor, then yes, Will Ferrell is a comedy genius.

Much the same way that stringing a bunch of barely-related and over-produced-yet-jittery-as-hell action sequences makes Michael Bay an action film genius.

[Matt Welch]

I think Will Ferrell is hilarious. Usually.

[Jim]

It pained me to see Tom Lennon and Ben Garant of "The State" fame in this.

Does anybody else hate it when they find out entertainers whose work they enjoy are idiots?

[Voros McCracken]

What I never got with regards to comedians and punk rockers is how their political views can often be so orthodox and homogeneous.

You would think by the nature of who they are and their careers, the contrary nature of what they do would cause them to tend to have quirky political beliefs. Not libertarian necessary, but not straight out of the Berkeley progressive mill.

It just seems to me that the Angry Samoans told people what they really thought while Bad Religion repeated things somebody else thought. Like the difference between Sam Kinison and Ferrell. Since their task wasn't really about politics, it didn't really matter whether you agreed with the Samoans or Kinison (in the case of the Samoans how could you), but at least you knew there was some sort of thought behind it all.

[MNG]

OK, I'm gonna have to call you guys on this, this is your ideology keeping you from enjoying this.

So it is funny with the beginning where it spoofs these over-serious PSA's ("something is happening"). And then the "insurance companies protect us from our own selfishness...'oh help my daughter is going to die, I need medication,'" the "he should have to pay it out of his allowance, how else is he going to learn?" and the "does a person with typos really deserve surgery" are good send ups of the mind set of "so these people are sick, life's not fair, you don't 'deserve' health insuruance, stop whining, fuck 'em" stuff we hear on H&R ALL THE TIME when debating this issue.

C'mon, I can admit when its funny when liberals are skewered, you guys need a thicker skin and a funny bone.

[faust]

yes, they need good material, but without impeccable delivery, good material is worthless.

anyway - to get where they are today, most of the good comics had to write their own stuff for standup. the great ones do it improvisationally. all of them with any longevity have an extraordinary talent for delivery.

[Voros McCracken]

Laughter is an involuntary reaction.

So after a minute and a half and not even one upturned lip, I clicked the "die" button and was treated to a guy being killed by a ninja. I immediately started giggling.

I'm assuming I was giggling not because my political beliefs revolve around death dealing ninja, but because the clip just struck me as funny.

I loved Gang of Four's first album (Entertainment!). Hated everything after. Each were unapologetically Marxist (the first even moreso), so clearly my preferences had little to nothing to do with their politics.

[BakedPenguin]

I think Will Ferrell is hilarious. Usually.

Srsly? Anchorman?

[BakedPenguin]

Voros, of course we have to put our politics on hold. How many (small l) libertarians entertainers are there?

Drew Carey
Penn and Teller
Dwight Yoakum
Frank Zappa (check out the interview he did for Playboy)
Kurt Russell (? I'd head this once.)
Rush (? They recently started playing "Working Man" at their shows)

I like at least some of the work of all of the above (more than anything I've seen by Farrell), but ignoring entertainers with politics I hate would make for many boring evenings.

Also, I was never a Gang of Four fan, but I was/am a pretty big Dead Kennedys fan, and Jello Biafra is (or pretends to be) a Chomskyite anarchist. About the only thing he wrote that's libertarian is "Police Truck". (Which is a good song to play to Balko threads).

And your point about the Angry Samoans vs. Bad Religion would make more sense if the Samoans ever wrote anything vaguely political. Or anything good, other than "Lights Out".

[Joe M]

Probably the insurance companies paid the actors off to make the short, because they WANT the "reform" to pass. They don't care what people think about them, as long as they get more money through forced participation. Aha! Reverse psychology, er, sorta.

[Joe M]

BP, don't forget Clint Eastwood.

[Voros McCracken]

I actually like early Bad Religion more than early Samoans (don't much like anything since from either), but the point was simply that Bad Religion was pretty much progressive boilerplate, while the Samoans were anti pretty much everything and everyone. The latter is a lot more what I expect out of people whose job it is to be contrary.

A Chomskyite anarchist is at least trying to be different. Repeating what you heard in "Social Justice 301" at Berkeley is not.

[Humphrey Haverstock]

I only recognized Ferrell and Lennon from the group of "celebrities"...and I can vouch for Ferrell and Lennon's ability to be funny.

Not here, sadly.

(I blame the Moveon.org people behind it. They have an uncanny knack for shitty, backfiring agitprop.)

[MattXIV]

MNG,

That PSA parody is HORRIBLE. It's way too long - even if the writing was sharp, which it isn't, it's over 4 times as long as the type of commerical spot it is parodying. It's trying to make fun of overly serious PSAs with daft celebrities in them and insurance companies at the same time, but insurance companies don't run overly serious PSAs with daft celebrities in them - it's the setup of a joke about PSAs with the punchline of a joke about insurance companies, which is just confusing. The dialog doesn't even sound like the kind of self serving things that insurance companies DO say about themselves. I could have done a better job with the same premise and I don't even agree with the politics.

[David]

I actually thought the video managed to be hilarious while simultaneously being scary and depressing. It's hilarious because these people don't seem to understand that they're actually working *for* what they think they're working against (profits of health care companies). It's scary and depressing because this position is taken seriously. Obama and the California nurses' union even made the point themselves! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsu_DRzNOFY

[BakedPenguin]

Joe M - I was unaware. I thought he was conservative.

Voros - I didn't mean to give you a hard time, I really just wanted to make fun of the Angry Samoans. And I think Jesse Walker had a point about Biafra wanting to come off as a Chomskyite, when his real politics were closer to "Minnesota soccer mom".

[Walter Jameson]

Voros , from what I've seen, there's a variety of political beliefs amongst punk rockers, just not a variety a political lyrics being song by them.

I play in an awesome melodic hard-punk band with two libertarians, a moderate liberal, a moderate conservative, and an apolitical singer/lyricist.

What I think happens is that bands feel anything they say that dissents the punk rock mainstream won't be welcomed, and their music will be rejected because of it. That is kind of hypocritically fucked up though.

[jtuf]

Crying against an "enemy" to drum up support while quietly working with said "enemy" is simply Orwellian.

[MNG]

It mocks the arguments that one hears against reform, ones I've heard quite a bit here as a matter of fact, that people don't "deserve" health care, that people who have troubles in this area are just stupid people who can't police their own contracts (hence the part about the typos on the claim, this is also a dig on the cruel technicalism that many see in insurance administration), that people should have to pay their way (hence the part about the kid having to pay out of his allowance) and that people who want help on this issue are whining (hence the part with the guy going "my kid is going to die if I don't medication"); ultimately it is a send up of that kind of goofy callousness that motivates a lot of the opposition to health care reform.

Hey, Matt Welch is a super good and cool writer, but when you watch a parody of a side you strongly agree with politically and can't enjoy it because it does not have "the actors acknowledge, however satirically, that health insurance executives have been helping craft Obama's plan" is an indicator that one's ideological anger is thwarting one's ability to laugh at something funny...

[MNG]

"Crying against an "enemy" to drum up support while quietly working with said "enemy" is simply Orwellian."

Well, any good libertarian should be able to agree that "the health care executives" are not some monolithic group. Maybe Obama works with some, opposes others, and vice versa.

[JB]

Will Ferrell just loves that Obama jizz. Drinks it by the dick-load.

How does it feel, Will Ferrell, to be a washed-up has-been loser AND a cock-sucking little bitch?

[Big Chief]

Wow, that was historically lame. It's beyond "or die" - it's moved to "funny or fully decomposed in some sort of CSI disgusting make-you-vomit-in-your-mouth manner".

[alan]

Hey, Matt Welch is a super good and cool writer, but when you watch a parody of a side you strongly agree with politically and can't enjoy it because it does not have "the actors acknowledge, however satirically, that health insurance executives have been helping craft Obama's plan" is an indicator that one's ideological anger is thwarting one's ability to laugh at something funny...

Okay, I gave the entire video a second look, can you point to the funny, MNG, because I missed it. I was really looking for that grassy knoll of humor but I guess my ideological blinders got in the way.

Was it the 'exotic animals petting zoo' bit?

Were you also the one who recommended that awful graphic novel, The Killing Joke? Batman giggles at one of the Joker's gags at the end, whoopdeefreakindoo.

[Joshua Ginsberg]

I've written up a thorough response to the PSA here:

http://starboard.flowtheory.net/blog/2009/09/22/hating-on-healthcare-executives/

[Michael Ejercito]

When oil prices were on the rise last year, Congress and the public blamed oil companies, not the auto insurance companies.

Why are people blaming the health insurance companies and not the doctors and hospitals who do the price gouging? If the doctors and hospitals did not do price gouging, people would not need insurance to afford health care.