Monday, September 14, 2009

Not a Comedienne, Either

The invaluable Instaputz brought back joyous memories by posting this brief but compelling video of former Saturday Night Live performer Victoria Jackson on Fox before the election.



Lest we forget, the right was calling Obama a communist even before the election.

Victoria's whole schpiel is elegant but particularly this segment of her run-on sentence:

"I don't see why people are afraid to say the word Communist and I've done a lot of research and I've read the book 1984 by George Orwell twice ... "

Ahem. I presume she considered 1984 a cautionary tale, which is why it's assigned to pre-teens. But Orwell was certainly a socialist (Does Jackson know the difference?), another epithet hurled at the President.

Ah, memories. I recall Victoria Jackson, in her pre-Saturday Night Live days, as a kooky performer on late-night talk shows, particularly Johnny Carson. Her act, as I recall, was reciting poetry in her Betty Boop voice (or possibly singing a quite dopey song and playing ukulele) while doing a poor junior high school gymnastics pose.

That was her act.

Initially I assumed this was faux Dada or intended ironically. (What hath Andy Kaufman wrought?) After a few interviews it was apparent she was serious -- and therefore seriously un-self-aware, untalented, and vapid. Somehow she she extended her show biz career by getting the gig on SNL, left that and did a few tv and movie appearances, and finally disappeared until she ended up Tourretting rightwing non-sequitors on Fox News. Quite a sad career arc, even for second-tier SNL alums (though not quite as pathetic as poor Charles Rocket).

Now I see that she "writes" for Breitbart's "Rightwingers trashing Hollywood in hopes of getting jobs in Hollywood" site Big Hollywood. Scroll around there a bit in amazement: it's even worse than this blog.

The sad thing is, there were sixty or so thousand people on Capitol Mall this weekend talking like Victoria Jackson, sometimes with a lagniappe of casual racism.

No comments:

Web Analytics