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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   39205 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 15, 2024

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Wow. Trump Derangement Syndrome has killed Tenacious D. On stage in Australia yesterday, when asked to make a birthday wish, Kyle said "Don't miss trump next time."

Today, Jack Black cancelled their tour and appears to have killed the band.

I've found the reactions of intense disappointment that Trump wasn't murdered to be really disappointing but unsurprising. My parents (who I was with when it happened and I broke the news to them) immediately expressed disappointment that he was still alive. Watching people post these sentiments publicly online as if they are completely unaware that advocating for the assassination of your political opponents is really bad and completely unacceptable has left me amazed. How can people not realize that it's a bridge too far? They're literally saying that to preserve democracy, they need to assassinate the leading candidate, a level of cognitive dissonance beyond anything I've seen.

That said, I also find the current cancelations hilarious. The very people who are calling Trump "literally hitler" are now pearl clutching that it's not okay to try kill Hitler. The catastrophizing wasn't acceptable before either - maybe this snapped people out of their delusions?

I was surprised by my own reaction, too. I was a lot happier that he survived, and a lot more impressed with his immediate response than I expected to be. Trump grew in my esteem a lot.

I've always had the theory that Tenacious D started as a joke band, Jack Black's acting career took off but he felt an obligation to keep it going for Kyle and kind of always wanted to shut it down.

I'd always wondered how it stayed running so long.

My main guesses were:

  1. Jack Black actually liked the band and was having fun.
  2. Kyle was very good at guilting him into coming back.
  3. It was a way for Jack to stay in an active performance role between movies and to keep him sharp.

Jack cancelling the tour makes me wonder doubt the fun explanation and makes the other two explanations sound more likely.

Kyle always kinda confused me. It seemed like he just super lucked out being next to Jack Black early in his career and otherwise didn't have the talent to keep up. Any of their stuff together Kyle is just sort of a way for you to take a break from laughing at Jack.

For sure it's #1. One of his breakout movies was School of Rock, which made it pretty obvious that he dreams of being a rockstar. Tenacious D allowed him to live out that fantasy.

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