Comments on: 30 Rock is subversive — and I mean that as a good thing

By: ymarsakar

ymarsakar — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 00:37:01 +0000

Baldwin in the first minute on the npc website reminded me of the john edwards video book put up. The way his hair kept moving that is. And his attitude. Even though he was supposed to be talking about something serious like business negotiations, I can’t quite help but get the impression that his attitude was like an airhead one, talking about something of no consequence to him.

He even had to utter the dread word… capitalism.

By: Bookworm

Bookworm — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 21:57:16 +0000

I agree with you, Zhombre. If you enjoy reading histories about old Hollywood (as I do, being an old movie lover), you discover that these people always led tawdry lives, quite separate from the American mainstream. It’s only in the modern era that they’re allowed to broadcast their lives. Under the studio system, everything was kept under close cover. This means that, if you want to view anything out of Hollywood, you just have to hold your nose and pretend that the people your watching do good things with a good script weren’t, just the day before, making asses of themselves.

I’m also more lenient about watching TV, because I’m not a Nielson person, nor do I watch commercials, so my watching isn’t affecting their livelihood. I’m much more likely to refuse to see a movie with an actor whose mouth has been a bit too big, because I don’t want any percentage of my ticket price to go to that actor, nor do I want my presence in the theater counted towards the success of his film.

By: ymarsakar

ymarsakar — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 21:00:41 +0000

For some reason the opening of these shows aren’t funny to me.

Some amusing stuff, yes. The funny jokes are to ones that portray a sort of ironic or realistic situation which I believe to be true, and then does something strange with it.

I’d be curious to know what someone who thinks of racism one way, contrasted to Bookworm’s stance on it as delineated here, thinks of the joke. For example, is Mr. Bookworm laughing because he believes the same things true of racism as Book here?

That’s sort of like the question of is the color blue the same to one person as it is to another. Except with this, we actually have words to describe any possible differences.

By: Zhombre

Zhombre — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 20:37:04 +0000

I don’t care much for Baldwin as an actor - he’s rather cold and blustery and best at playing a bully or a parody of a bully — though he wasn’t bad in the one episode of 30 Rock I saw (for the aforesaid reasons). It’s all in the casting, the script and the direction. It’s a good idea to separate an actor or actress from their personal life or their political beliefs because most of them really have tawdry lives and second rate minds.

By: Marguerite

Marguerite — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 18:27:22 +0000

In my spare time I’d rather be reading or cooking, so I wouldn’t make it a point to watch 30 Rock. BUT, putting aside my disdain for Alec Baldwin, I took a look, Book, and was surprised at how genuinely and refreshingly funny these riffs were - there’s SOME level of truth to humor, right? I like that they poke fun at the right and left, and the sympathy is certainly more w/the left.

By: rockdalian

rockdalian — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 01:09:52 +0000

I just cannot watch Baldwin in anything because of his
“joke” about stoning then Rep. Hyde and his family. This was just too over the line.