For those that may have missed it, I am posting a clip from Saturday’s season opener of SNL with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler performing a hilarious skit about Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton.
As most of us predicted, Tina Fey’s impression of Palin was dead on. I would love to see a remix with video of the “real” Sarah Palin alternating with Tina Fey’s version. And, I would also like people to consider that Tina Fey may be just as qualified to be V.P. as Palin. Let’s look at Tina’s stats:
1) She is from Pennsylvania, a key swing state.
2) She has a degree from the University of Virginia, not only a great education, but also in a key state.
3) She has “executive” experience having created and executive produced a television show for a major network, and oversees almost as many employees as contained in the Alaskan government.
4) She mastered the “old boys club” by becoming the first woman head writer in the history of SNL.
5) Fey was chosen as one of the “100 People Who Shape Our World” by Time magazine. I may have missed Sarah Palin’s name on that list. Also, Rolling Stone called her “the thinking-man’s sex symbol”.
6) She has traveled to more foreign countries than Sarah Palin.
7) She has known John McCain longer than Sarah Palin (picture from 2004):
She is an environmentalist, drives a hybrid, and understands global warming.
9) She is a mother.
10) She can see the Statue of Liberty from her home.
Since the politicians supposedly took a day off from politics in order to commemorate September 11th, I did as well. However, I am back and in full outrage mode — I hope Obama is as well. It is time to take off the gloves and start hammering some of the issues home. I would love to see a debate this week where the candidates get to ask each other questions. Although I would like them to primarily discuss the issues, I think the air should be cleared first, and my proposed opening questions from Obama for McCain would be:
1) Do you really believe I called Sarah Palin a pig?
2) Do you really believe that I proposed comprehensive sex education for kindergarteners?
3) Do you really think I am a sexist?
4) Do you stand behind your ads that made those accusations? And if not, if you can’t run your own campaign, how in the heck do you think you can run this country?
Since the press won’t do it, someone has to hold McCain accountable for his own actions and the campaign commercials being put out in his name. If McCain prefers this debate in a Town Hall format, where he seems much more comfortable, fine by me. But these questions need to be asked and honest answers are certainly deserved.
That said, I have seen some great remixes over the past few days, and I am going to try and highlight as many as possible.
The first is from our friend Joe Sabia. He was kind enough to make this amazing remix for Remix America. It is a remix of Sarah Palin’s convention speech, but amazingly enough, it is basically what I really heard when I listened to her deliver the speech.
The next is from Jed Lewison over at The Jed Report. Thank goodness John McCain was there to help Sarah Palin out of an incredibly awkward moment!
The last one is not a remix, it is a cartoon from Current TV. However, it is one of the best messages about 9/11 I have heard.
I can’t recall a political figure bursting onto the scene as quickly and powerfully as Sarah Palin has. And with a new face in politics comes new impersonators. Saturday Night Live premieres tomorrow night (Guest host: Michael Phelps) and reportedly they’re scrambling for a good Palin. Hey, if they were able to impersonate Obama for a year with no black cast member, maybe they can just dress Andy Samberg in drag. The buzz on the Internet is about whether Tina Fey, the widely noted Palin glasses-alike, will step in to do a guest impersonation. Kelligirl68 provides the documentary evidence of their resemblance:
Incidentally, it has been confirmed that Obama will be in the SNL opener, presumably playing John McCain.
Meanwhile, Gina Gershon has thrown her hat in the ring with a pretty dead-on impression courtesy of funnyordie.com:
One factual accuracy note for this video: While I’m not comparing their educational chops, Obama did transfer from Occidental College to Columbia, bringing his total up to two colleges. Or maybe this is the filmmakers’ subtle dig at Palin’s inaccurate statements on the campaign trail…I’d like to think so…
Hardly seems it, but it’s been less than two weeks since most of us heard the name “Sarah Palin.”
In these past two weeks, not only have Palin and Obama made history, we’ve made history! In the past two weeks, you’ve uploaded 30 original remixes, and at no other time have so many political remixes been crafted.
These videos are amazing examples of the Remixer’s Art – they are funny, outrageous, passionate and compelling. They’re made of equal parts politics, pop culture, and historical documents.
In the coming weeks, we’ll be remixing the political ads and speeches that seem to have quickly sunk right into the mud – a perfect place for remixers to start mashing them up! We’ll cover the debates and the campaign, and try to shed a little light on this Election’s propaganda.
Follow our blog for running commentary on new remixes, or you can find ALL of the great remixes under “favorite remixes.”
Over the past two weeks, we’ve been working hard to connect the dots around remixers and resources. We have a few private resources available and a few public ones. We would love to share them with you. Join the conversation at [ http://groups.google.com/group/videoremix ]
Team Remix,
Norman, Fred, Erika, Noel, Marshal, & Ali
I would like to call Ali’s anti-media outrage and raise her ten or twenty. So, according to what the media has been reporting for the past 7 days, John McCain selected Sarah Palin and gave a convention speech with certain words and ideas (”We went to Washington to change it, but Washington changed us”), and Presto! McCain is now a viable alternative “agent of change” to Obama, and has thus killed Obama’s “change” argument in one fell swoop. Never mind that everyone in the media fully acknowledges that McCain’s policies would be a continuation of the past eight years of his party, and that these policies have created the problems we face. These journalists claim they are merely reflecting what the voters see.
But No! It’s so absurd! These voters are seeing their reports that McCain has become about “change.” Can so many thousands of reporters and journalists really allow a national presidential campaign to pivot its entire message in plain sight using a completely untrue premise, and then report it as though it were a valid argument and news-worthy? As Obama said in response to all this at the end of last week’s insanity, “Words mean something, people! Come on!” But alas, we all know that a candidate’s griping will not get them anywhere. Apparently if you’re a Democrat, you just a have to take it on the chin until you’ve lost 7 of the last 10 presidential elections.
The Daily Show is still the place to go if you want to see the absurdities of presidential politics unmasked (even though they are owned by Viacom). Last week, the Best F***ing Political News Team Ever put together an alternative biography video to play before McCain’s acceptance speech. I don’t think it has an official title, but you can call it, “Maverick Reformer/Reformed Maverick.” It has quickly become one of my favorite remixes of all time.
Who is Torie Clark, you ask? Gee, she is John McCain’s former press secretary. And, I guess she is also sexist for using that phrase in the title of her book. I could also post different instances of politicians using the phrase, most notably McCain using it to describe Hillary’s health care plan, but I think we all know it is a common phrase.
Instead, I will share a bizarre video I found when I typed “lipstick on a pig” into Google. I have no clue what it means, or what it was for, but if I have to have a ridiculous song stuck in my head, so should you.
I hereby request that you start doing your jobs. This consists of four things:
1) Stop headlining stupid issues. This includes ignoring just about every press release currently coming from the McCain campaign. I know this will be difficult for you, but please put them on notice that unless they are willing to address the actual issues facing our country today, you will not be giving them any more press.
2) When you know that a candidate is telling an outright, bald-faced lie, please call them on it. I know you have the video proving that many of the statements Pailin and McCain are making are simply not the truth. That point needs to be hammered over and over again. Politicians should not be permitted to lie to the American people and it is your JOB to stop them. Believe me, you will feel better about yourselves in the end. Being an enabler is not noble, nor is it helpful.
3) Recognize that you are not the story. Rather than focusing on how you feel about the issues, and talking about it for hours, how about doing some actual reporting and getting off your overpaid butts and going out of the studio to interview real people. We know how you feel about McCain and his seven houses — now I would like to know how people who lost their houses to foreclosure feel about McCain. If I have to see one more so-called “expert” panel jabbering on and on about their “interpretation” of what has been said by the candidates, I will pull out my hair. You are not the story, and many of you are no more qualified to talk about the issues than my butcher. If you must interview each other, please ask Bill O’Reilly why he said that Jamie Lynn Spears’ parents were “pinheads” and completely to blame for her pregnancy, yet Sarah Palin got a free pass from him.
4) Stop cutting this campaign into ten second sound bites. As a nation, we are smart enough to watch a clip of a candidate that lasts a bit longer — particularly when the meaning of the sound bite changes when you hear the entire statement in context.
Thank you.
The following is a parody commercial called “The Mainstream Media” created by comedian Jon Lajoie.
Again, I am having a hard time addressing the candidacy of Sarah Palin. I think I am still angry enough about the inherent reverse sexism that resulted in her selection, that each time sexist accusations are made against the press and the Democrats about her, I just get angrier. So, until I get this anger (some might say madness) under control, I think I will let the fabulous remixers out there do my speaking for me. They are free to point out the incredible lies, yes I said the actual l-word, that Palin and McCain have been spreading, seemingly without letting personal anger get the best of them. Bless them for that.
The only actual fact I will throw into the mix comes from Jed Lewison over at The Jed Report:
From the New York Times: WASHINGTON, Nov. 16 - Congressional Republicans decided Wednesday to take a legislative wrecking ball to two Alaskan bridge projects that had demolished the party’s reputation for fiscal austerity.
For the record? This article was printed two years before Palin ever came out against the Bridge. Such an easily proven lie of hers. Why? Why? Why? This is why I can’t write about her yet, because I end up sounding like a cross between Nancy Kerrigan after she got clubbed and Sally Field in the funeral scene of Steel Magnolias.
The first remix was created by writer/director Michael Seitzman.
The next is from great friends to Remix America Wreck and Salvage. I know I am biased about these guys, but let’s face it — they are geniuses and keep coming up with amazing remixes week after week.
I was taking my daily stroll through the wonderful world of the web in order to find some laughs in an increasingly frustrating election, and I came across a new favorite to add to my daily “must visit” list. The folks over at Lunatics and Liars, whose motto is “Hound them with humor” have some doozies posted. I am only going to post a few, but I fully encourage one and all to pop by their site. They have a fresh voice, and they are funny as hell.
RemixAmerica.org is a multi-partisan, non-profit website that uses the web to give everyone the chance to own the words, the music, the images and sounds of America in digital form; to remix those expressions and ideas with their own; and to send the products of our community's creativity out to the world.
She is an environmentalist, drives a hybrid, and understands global warming.
