Ann Issue Of Ethics

So, I've been banging on about doing a major art project for a while now … and this is it. I thought it was about time I stopped frigging around with scribbles and had a serious go at this left-handed-drawing experiment. I can't say I'm miserable over the results, although I'd probably be a damned sight happier if it hadn't taken up most of my free-time for the last couple of months. I feel like this is the kind of thing I used to whack out in a weekend. Actually, considering it's basically a direct copy of a photo, it really shouldn't have even taken that long. I suppose I'll get quicker with practise … at least, I bloody well hope I do.

Hover your mouse over the picture to see the original photo.

I'm guessing you're all familiar with Stephen Colbert; you know, the American comedian whose shtick was pretending to be an absurdly right-wing Republican. I never liked Colbert. His routine always felt too fake for me to suspend disbelief. It was like he never wanted anyone in the audience to forget for a second that he was an actor playing a part; but all that did was stop his act from being funny—in my eyes anyway. Enter Ann Coulter.

Ann's been around for a while, but I doubt she's high-profile enough for anyone here to have heard of her. Basically, she's Colbert done with such straight-faced sincerity that it's impossible to tell what she's up to unless you carefully parse the content of what she says. And I kind of love it.

I am however, in the minority. While it stands to reason that she often gets attacked by moderates and lefties who don't realise she's playing a character, she also cops a lot of stick from people who do get the joke. Largely, they protest her comedy as unethical because it further radicalises an idiot political fringe that doesn't realise she's mocking them. And there's probably some truth to that. She's so good at what she does, she's even managed to establish herself as a regular guest on a number of right-wing talk-shows—despite the fact that she robs them of all mainstream credibility and usually turns them into farcical clown-shows by spouting hilariously inaccurate "facts" and arguing for positions as ridiculous as shutting down the education system and banning women from voting.

Do I think some of her material strays into the realm of bad taste? Yes. But regardless of whether or not what she's doing is wrong, I still find a lot of her work really fuckin' funny. And while I'm certainly not in a large group, it seems I'm not completely alone either. Here's some extracts from some articles I found that were written by people who appear to share my sense of humour:

Ann Coulter: extreme satire

Back in 1729, Jonathan Swift was almost universally reviled when he suggested, in "A Modest Proposal," that the antidote to urban squalor was to eat the children of poor Irish immigrants and use their skin to make "admirable gloves for ladies and summer boots for fine gentlemen."

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Today, of course, "A Modest Proposal" is considered one of the greatest works of political satire in the English language. But isn't that always the way? Comedy is tragedy plus time, which may explain why Ann Coulter, the Cruella De Vil of blond, ectomorphic wonkdom, is getting such a beating by the liberal and (more important) tragically literal mainstream media. Such is the price of being in the cultural vanguard.

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The Coulter Hoax: How Ann Coulter Exposed the Intelligent Design Movement

Coulter has very cleverly written a fake criticism of evolution, much like the way NYU physicist Alan Sokal in 1996 published a fake physics article in a literary journal, an affair that has become known as the "Sokal hoax." A self-proclaimed "old unabashed leftist," Sokal was disturbed by the sloppily antiscientific, postmodernistic mentality that had started to replace reason and rationality within the academic left and ingeniously made his point by managing to get his nonsense article published by the very people he wished to expose.

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Let's all laugh at Ann Coulter, right-wing performance artist

Ann Coulter had found the perfect recipe: treating news spaces as comedy platforms where she could deliberately make ridiculous statements to infuriate liberals who would be too dense to notice what was going on. But her performance requires equal condescension to conservatives, without whom the Coulter brand would disappear. Coulter knows her performance hurts the right, and she clearly doesn't care.

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Coulter also knows that some readers are on to her. To toy with them, her books contain extensive absurd endnotes that read like a middle finger to thinking people.

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Coulter is often dismissed as a schoolyard bully, but the only thing that really separates her from any mainstream comedian is the platform. Perhaps this is why Coulter counts noted anti-conservative comedians Bill Maher and Joy Behar among her personal friends, appearing with them on-air numerous times over the years. All three are individuals who find large swaths of the American public stupid beyond repair and make a living out of taunting them. Highlighting absurdity by viciously lobbing it back at people is the heart of political comics' gold standard: George Carlin.

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Ann Coulter is among the best comedians working today. She has seemingly zero ideological skin in the game. Notice that no matter how exasperated or belligerent any panelist becomes with her, Coulter appears endlessly bemused. Also of note are the endless anecdotes from behind-the-scenes players who express head-scratching confusion at how a seemingly poised and kind backstage individual morphs into a maniac when approached with a live camera.

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Some might call Coulter's public game cynical, even malicious. But Coulter serves as a fantastic object lesson in media distortion and the ability to manufacture outrage. Perhaps if she does it long enough, people will actually start thinking. If not, I'll still be having a laugh."

If you wanna check out Coulter's work, her website's here. Her main outlet is her Twitter feed, which is embedded therein (I don't read it though, 'cause at the end of the day, it's still a fuckin' Twitter feed). At the moment she's in full election mode—vigorously supporting Donald Trump … of course. Her crowning achievement of this election cycle is winding up a professional talking-head who was supporting a rival Republican candidate to the point where he publicly asked her "Does Trump pay you more for anal?" Remember, these are the guys who bang on about family-values and biblical morality.

(As an aside, she's also infamous for wearing short skirts and "accidentally" flashing her crotch during television appearances.)

I've also listened to a couple of her audio-books, which weren't bad.

So, whadda youse mob reckon? Are there lines you shouldn't cross when it comes to this sorta comedy? And how d'ya know when someone's crossed 'em?