The Four Color Media Monitor: It looks like the SDCC's succumbing to politics

The Simpsons creator Matt Groening has brought leftist politics to the fore at the ComicCon in SanDiego, where he exploited the opportunity to attack Donald Trump (Hat tip: Breitbart):

"Lock him up!"

That was the surprising chant heard coming from Ballroom 20 on Saturday at San Diego Comic-Con.

It was none other than Simpsons creator Matt Groening, who kicked things off when the discussion at the show's Comic-Con panel turned to, naturally, President Donald Trump. After opening with a clip of animated Trump from this past season, the conversation turned to politics when Groening revealed that they had been asked by parent company 21st Century Fox to take it easy on Fox News after a joke that dubbed Fox News "not racist, but No. 1 with racists."

"Then Bill O'Reilly called us pinheads and look what happened," Groening added with a laugh of the now-ousted anchor. It was then that Groening asked fans to start chanting the phrase, a new take on the "Lock her up" chant that conservatives used in reference to Hillary Clinton.

The Simpsons repeatedly made headlines over the past year for not only predicting Trump's presidency several seasons prior but also for how it tackled his eventful time in office thus far. "Our show holds up a Springfield mirror to society, so that never fails to inspire us," exec producer Matt Selman said.

Unfortunately, it does, no matter how successful their predictions, because they're so negative to conservatives now. That may not have been the case in its 90s heyday (although they still had some degrading jokes at times even then), but as of recent, they've gotten worse. And what do they mean by "natural"? Until recently, I can't say I heard much about the SDCC becoming political, but now that it has, that's hardly what I'd call natural if they'd remained apolitical before. I'll admit that O'Reilly was crappy as they come, and Shepard Smith was a bad lot too, but Groening's attitude towards Trump is not altruistic and he shouldn't be politicizing the convention panels.

Besides the Simpsons long sinking into ultra-leftism, the convention also saw Frank Miller make one of his reverted-to-leftism statements (also via Breitbart) where he attacked Donald Trump, calling him a "buffoon":

DEADLINE: We’ve got our first Twitter president. How will the nasty time we’re living in this instantaneous digital world filter into superhero comics and movies?

MILLER: Well, it’s very hard to predict. It’s a fool’s errand to try to compete with a medium that’s better than you at certain things. It’s best to rely on the things you’re better at. That is, play to strengths which have to do with our roots in cartooning, illustration, and literature. In the comics, we can never achieve the spectacles that Hollywood can. Planet Krypton blowing up on a comic book page can never match the screen. Superman flying was never as breathtaking as when Chris Reeves took off. But that said, we can get inside people’s heads in ways that I think is going to change comic books profoundly and for the better because I think it’s going to lead us to our true identity. Let the big guys do what big guys do. We’re small and we’re clever and we can do things the big guy can’t. That’s where I’m eager to get on to the next Sin City because that’s a very internal series. As good as comics are at spectacle — and believe me with Xerxes I intend to get spectacular — I think that comics can really put you inside someone’s mental space. At any occasion, Sin City can be a very dark and scary place. As for Trump, he’s a buffoon.

Does that mean he plans to do his own slams on Trump in Xerxes in the future? In that case, what a disappointment he's returned to being a leftist as he was in the past. If he's not interested now in calling out the left for the grave errors they're making, then his misgivings about Trump bear even less weight. And to think just several years ago, I thought Miller, for one, had woken up and smelled the coffee.

I also take issue with his claim comics can't do as great a spectacle as movies can. If one knows where to look, they'll find illustrations from comicdom depicting whole worlds that even today's CGI in the movies cannot match. I remember reading an artist telling Cinefantastique that for comics, they have an unlimited budget. In a manner of speaking yes, if only because it costs less to produce artwork than it does to develop all those special effects clogging the films today, more often at the expense of everything else like character interactions, drama and such. So I disagree with Miller that movie "magic" is inherently better.

That said, it's a terrible shame he's reverted back to liberalism, as though it's going to persuade every ultra-leftist to accept him again.

Labels: animation, conventions, moonbat artists, moonbat writers

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Posted by TC | 8:29 AM

When anti-Trump protesters chant, "Lock him up," someone needs to ask them, "On what charge?"

Because he supplied weapons to Mexican drug cartels? Because he supplied weapons and money to Muslim terrorists? Because he used the IRS to harass his political opponents?

All of that was Obama.

Or, because Trump sold 20% of American uranium to a Russian company? And then took $145 million from that company?

Or because Trump took donations for Haitian disaster relief, then spent the money on his daughter's wedding?

Or because Trump jeopardized national security by using an unsecured private device for classified transmissions?

All of that was Clinton.

You don't have to be left of centre to think that Trump is a buffoon. He works at it; it is part of his public persona, down-home guy who says the crude things that respectable people are too polite to say. The schoolyard insults, the bragging, are all a very deliberate part of that.

Less than two in five Americans approve of the job he is doing as president. Not all of the others are on the left.

Posted by Anonymous | 8:11 AM

It's minor, but...

"[Ronald] Moore said that Battlestar Galactica was a product of its time, debuting shortly after the 9/11 attacks. “We wrote the show and made it at a very specific time in the country’s history and the world. We were reflecting things that were going on around us and watching things through science-fiction prisms.” He said that if done today, they could not possibly ignore the current events and divisive political climate that dominates headlines. “You would have to take into account this world that we live in now and find a way to not just mock it, but try to find some way to talk about it in a way that was different,” he said. “One of the things we did successfully on the show was to look at issues from different points of view that weren’t the obvious parallel for what was going on.”

"[David] Eick joked that if done today, Galactica would have a “crazy, unqualified captain” and themes about colluding with the enemy — which elicited laughter and applause from the audience."

http://www.cbr.com/battlestar-galactica-reunion-panel-sdcc/

Now I'm wondering how many other SDCC panels sneaked in a swipe or two at Trump. I'll address the Simpsons one when I have more time, but it's not good, no.

Posted by Killer Moth | 2:14 PM

It's true. Not all of Trump's opponents are on the left. The country club conservatives, like the limousine liberals, are angry because reasonable, common sense immigration reform would cut off their supply of cheap labor.

Posted by Anonymous | 1:36 PM