damning the dead
I suppose it’s not worthwhile to try to take some kind of side in …
Bill Maher slams down Stan Lee!
I suppose we can draw up a list of “comic book movies”.  Road to Perdition, Ghost World, American Splendor…
Josie and the Pussycats.
I’m bailing as I go ahead and look up a list on google and find this…
“America is in mourning. Deep, deep mourning for a man who inspired millions to, I don’t know, watch a movie, I guess,” Maher wrote about the cultural icon responsible for many of Marvel’s most popular superheroes in comic books and movies. Lee’s team at POW! Entertainment quickly fired back at the late-night host, calling his words about man “frankly disgusting.”
Bill Maher going a faux high-brow route, and he will end up having a point. Except a bit misplaced — unless he really hates the influx of comic book movies (he claims not to) and / or really is hearing a lot more than I heard on eulogies to Stan Lee. One bit of fascination is that we see comic books themselves become subservient to the Hollywood productions, Stan Lee is thought of here in terms of the movies.
I’m agnostic on Stan Lee,” Maher said. “I don’t read comic books, I didn’t read them as a child. What I was saying is, a culture that thinks that comic books and comic book movies are profound meditations on the human condition is a dumb (explicit) culture. And for people to get mad at that just proves my point.”
When first I heard Bill Maher had some snotty things to say about Stan Lee, I was thinking “Oh, so he’s siding with Ditko and Kirby”, but it’s clearly not.
Marvel interjects that “He taught kids how to read and…” hm… them flawed human nature? Oh, within bounds, I suppose.
Curious as to whether Maher said anything about the recently deceased Bush, I don’t see anything right off the bat, but I do see the “post Trump whitewashing” effect — coming together most forcefully in a post-dated claim that if he knew what was to come next, he’d have supported Romney in 2012 — so… this does suggest a retrofitting of… I suppose all past presidents.