The Giant Testicles Told Me
Jonathan Kay shares the, um, joys of fully intersectional Canadian television:
The taxpayer-funded media colossus known as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has unveiled a new show called Lido TV, in which a pair of talking tomatoes (they look like testicles, but apparently they’re supposed to be vegetables) deliver woke sermons to whoever is so unfortunate as to hit the play button… After video clips from this self-parodic mess went viral, it emerged that Lido’s production company has been bankrolled in the high-five figures (at least) by public funds. Your (Canadian) tax dollars at work.
Viewers of pallor will doubtless be entranced by 20-minute episodes titled Colonialism and Privilege, and stern lectures – delivered by the host, singer Lido Pimienta, and two giant, talking testicles – on just how bigoted and generally awful their collective ancestors were, and how this historical beastliness is, “like, affecting all of us, all of the time, on every level.” Likewise, viewers unpolluted by pallor will be empowered and destined to flourish, armed with the knowledge that any failure or shortcoming in their lives, almost any resentment, can be traced back to, and promptly blamed on, the aforementioned colonialism, privilege, and pale devilry.
The boggling awfulness of the project – applauded by Maclean’s as “subversive” and “surrealist political edutainment,” the work of a “polymath” – isn’t easy to convey in words. Happily, clips are available. And yes, an entire episode. If your idea of a good time includes pretentious displays of indigenous authenticity, rambling, barely relevant interviews, and excruciating sketches about land acknowledgement, this is the one for you.
Update, via the comments:
When performing onstage, Ms Pimienta is known for instructing her audiences to self-segregate by race in an implicit hierarchy of victimhood. Presumably, on grounds that random white people – the ones paying for tickets and good seats – should move to the back of the venue and be made to feel like the demon oppressors they are, if only in Ms Pimienta’s unsavoury imaginings. Those who would rather not are, inevitably, themselves accused of racism. Which may give some hint as to the values of Lido TV, and the kinds of moral instruction on offer.
Should any doubt remain as to Ms Pimienta’s charming disposition, let’s leave the last words to her:
Do you really think I care what white people think at this point?
Was the tailor not Eumenides?
Meh. I let my mother keep track of that stuff for me but even she surrendered at Fort Tensky.
Euripides the tailor?
Euripides the Phyrigian, a minor eunuch at the court of Penelope who always got a major third degree when he was mistaken for the Lydian eunuch Sanstesticles who claimed he was what these days would be called “trans”, but back then in Lydia, a Mixolydian.
And you can learn a lot from Lydia!
I haven’t even made coffee this morning. Can’t you folks stay out of trouble for five minutes at a time?
Thanks to Rick Beato, I even know (well, sort of) what Midlothian is. ( mixolydian. Thank you autocorrect. No one knows what a Midlothian is…)
[ Adds Acksiom to the list of people who don’t take me seriously. Surveys list. Sighs. Wonders if it’s too early to request the key to the upstairs hot tub. Face brightens upon realizing it’s late afternoon in the tub’s timezone. ]
pst, my high school French teacher was an irascible Czech. (Poor bastard, had to suffer through the teen years of four of the five Fourth siblings.) He made a scene at a faculty meeting by stating that the English faculty owed him part of their pay, since he had to teach us basic grammar before he could teach French or German.
The things I remember about the English faculty include 1) a Failure to realize that some words can be nouns or verbs, and 2) a Failure to realize that statutory rape was a crime. Expecting them to teach Greek or Latin pronunciation would have been a bridge too far. Probably a bridge on the moon.
I haven’t even made coffee this morning. Can’t you folks stay out of trouble for five minutes at a time?
he had to teach us basic grammar before he could teach French or German.
My supposedly upper-tier grade school did a rather mediocre job of teaching grammar, and only one of my high school English teachers taught it at all. My foreign language teachers filled in some of what the English teachers neglected.
I have wondered about the average intelligence and aptitude of English teachers and English majors. See my complaints above. See also the English majors I have personally known (not mentioned here) who failed to impress me with their intelligence.
he had to teach us basic grammar before he could teach French or German
I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, probably more than once, my long-suffering German teacher, who was astonished to discover that he had to spend almost half of every lesson teaching basic English grammar to his A-stream students before any German could be taught. He was a rather stern chap, quite forbidding, but in hindsight deserving of more respect than most of his peers.
A-stream students
As in A-level? As in top-tier students destined for university and Great Things?
I have sometimes speculated that the chief cause was that English teachers didn’t want to spend time teaching grammar because it was boring.
As in A-level? As in top-tier students destined for university and Great Things?
Yes. And who had little idea of what the components of their own language are called, or any formal knowledge of how those components generally fit together.
I have sometimes speculated that the chief cause was that English teachers didn’t want to spend time teaching grammar because it was boring.
Entirely possible. But in our case, it was also objected to – by educators – on grounds that such things were inegalitarian.
(Damn. Lost my long response in the Typepad swamp.)
Thanks to those who responded to my “a little sympathy” comment above. Living where I do, I’m faced with it daily. It’s helpful to get extra counterargument added to my arsenal.
Also, I have a spare dive suit. Never used, actually. Is there room in the cloakroom?
Also, I have a spare dive suit. Never used, actually. Is there room in the cloakroom?
Sure. Just don’t use it in the hot tub.
[ Returns from inspecting the hot tub. ]
On second thought, a dive suit might be prudent until David has it properly cleaned.
[ Frowns significantly in Fred’s direction. ]
And what’s with these bikini tops that were tossed in the corner?
Hey, those are ours!
Say please.
[ Nails bikinis above the bar. ]
[ Awaits aesthetic verdict from David. A tasteful embellishment, yes? ]
A tasteful embellishment, yes?
While driving past some farms on the outskirts of town, we did once see a bra nailed to a tree.
[ Rummages in phone’s photo archive. ]
There we go.
There we go.
Unless it was placed there as a warning to naked sunbathers, the way farmers would nail hawks to barn doors.
Unless it was placed there as a warning to naked sunbathers,
I do feel there must be some kind of story behind it.
A sordid story that appeals to our basest instincts.
Indulging one’s basest instincts is sinful. But that’s alright because, as Stephen Maturin says, “Without sin there can be no forgiveness.”
Most ski resorts, at least on this side of the pond though I think I saw one in Italy once, have a bra-tree under a lift heading to one of the blacker runs that also accumulates Mardis Gras beads and the occasional pair of panties.
—
Typepad is doing that annoying early timeout thing again…
There we go.
And for some reason the image is now gone.