MadCap's Mad Rantings - "Shut the Hell Up, Bill Maher 2: Electric Bugaloo"

Because, y'know...sometimes, people just can't leave well enough alone. After all, why bother, right? It's not as if Stan Lee isn't around to defend the legacy of his work or anything- OH WAIT!
Yep. It's Bill Maher again. I know you missed him just as much as I didn't. Last November, he decided to piss on Stan Lee's grave some five days after it happened. Because class is apparently something that completely confounds him. But, apparently just not having it in him to shut up and leave well enough alone...he's come back to do it again!

And then take on all the fans of said work, painting them all with that broad brush the media likes to paint fans of comic books with. He even devoted a segment of his show to addressing people's concerns. I thought, perhaps, he might elaborate on his points or perhaps give an apologize for taking a spray shit of a blog post the legacy of Stan Lee. But nope! He not only shows absolutely no remorse for writing off Stan Lee's (and comics entirely) work off as childish drivel, but then proceeds to double down on the "Old Man Screaming At Cloud" meme.

Not only that, but in the tone of a condescending jackass who is trying to make us seem like we're a bunch of jackasses. His argument, he says, is that he was speaking to the seeming adults who cling to their childhood and never grow up. Well, Bill, if you were upset about that...why even attack comics at all? Outrage clicks? Sheer bad taste? Malevolence? Stupidity?

But something occurred to me, as I watched the clip available on his Twitter of the incident in question. He doesn't believe that he's attacking Stan Lee, because Bill Maher has no sort of empathy toward anyone with a legacy. Why? Because he doesn't have one. I'll go ahead and quote my previous ranting on this:

Stan Lee is one of the most beloved people in comics. As I said before, his passing was tragic even if it was inevitable given his age. In a way, though, he lives on. Stan Lee continues to amaze, continues to bring joy, and continues to inspire hope and courage through his work. Work that is, by the way, still being read even to this day. In a hundred years, people will most likely still be reading those works.

But Bill Maher? A comedian turned pundit with his head so firmly up his ass that his fecal matter apparently made the decision to hit "post" for that blog entry?

Yeah, I don't think so many people will be sad when his time comes.

Yep. Those are the words that I wrote.

And that's Bill Maher in a nutshell. The attitude makes it even worse, but he can't really understand why people are upset because he has no concept of having a legacy. He has his show...and being on the board at PETA. Neither of which are worthy of much praise at all, and both can be done by other people. What Stan Lee did, setting the groundwork for the comics industry as it exists today up to and including the incredibly lucrative film franchise? Yeah, that kind of makes everything you've ever done in your life look pathetic, doesn't it, Bill?

He also, again, shows absolutely no knowledge of the superhero world - be it in comics or the films. Why? Because he, again, goes for broad generalizations that many do. All superhero movies are exactly the same, he says. All of them have people who don't have powers, getting powers, and then going after a glowy thing.

Y'know, like in Iron Man 3. A film that you were in, Bill! Remember that?

(He doesn't mention that in his little rant, by the way. Must be he's ashamed of it.)

But let's take his words at face value. Childish comic book fans...who he proceeds to attack with the most generic, stereotypes (such as mentioning things like themed bedsheets or manchildren throwing tantrums). No, comic books are childish and can never be anything else. I wonder if he's enjoying his time with his colon, since - as my quote says above - his head is shoved clearly up his ass.

Just like many books he mentions - including the Bible which is, he says, stupid (make of that what you will) - comic books have just as much potential to be good or bad as any other time of literature or entertainment. No, Bill, you're right. Comic book films aren't great cinema, but some of them can be very enjoyable. Some can speak to the human soul, just like their source material can.

For every twenty Youngblood comics, there's Neil Gaiman's The Sandman.

For every Holy Terror, there's a Watchmen.

For every Spider-Man: One More Day, there's a Kraven's Last Hunt.

No. Comic books are no great literature on the whole, but then that can be said of any medium anyway. Books, films, whatever have you, there is more that is either mediocre or outright bad than there is good...but the good is there and you can actually learn something from it. Just because it's not taught in some high level of academia doesn't mean it is without worth. I suppose, though, that it's just much easier to paint with a broad brush.

But let's go back to his point...that comic books are childish.

Bill quotes 1 Corinthians 13:11 -

"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things."

Well, I'd like to add something to that. It's a quote from an author you might have heard of by the name of C.S. Lewis. He had something to say on this very topic and, by your logic Bill, he must have some merit because he's never even touched a comic book, much less written one (which you swear there's nothing wrong with).

"Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." - C.S. Lewis

If I, and others like me, are childish...then so be it, Bill. I, and I know others like me, would rather get some enjoyment and glean something more important from comics than become a joyless, sanctimonious sack of venomous pus like you are. You could have just left it alone, could have just gone on your merry way, but no. No, you had to take that second piss once you got another fill up. Well, good on you!  You've managed to show yourself off, yet again, as being an out of touch, whiny, pretentious, and tasteless waste of space.

How dare people have a hobby that isn't doing you any harm! You should just round them all up and drown them in ammonia! There you go, Bill. That can be your legacy. Condemning an entire group of people who did nothing wrong to you, who would have been happy to go on ignoring you if you'd just kept your mouth shut and not pissed on the grave of a man who tried to bring entertainment and joy to the world.

Really, you're the victim here. I don't know how you live with it.

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