Did anyone see this movie?


Ick.

In late October, Dennis Prager and Adam Corolla, intellectual heavyweights in the sense that their crania are denser than lead, released No Safe Spaces, an entire movie whining about how comedians can’t make gay jokes any more and how conservatives are being “cancelled” everywhere. It did not appear at any theater near me, and seemed to sink without a trace.

I did find a Fox News headline bragging about it, ‘No Safe Spaces’ sees massive box office haul, praise that was qualified by the next few words, on just 1 screen. Yeah, it was shown at one theater in Phoenix, Arizona, and presumably they bussed in a bunch of Fox News watching retirees to see it so they’d have a blockbuster weekend with a whole $45,000 in revenue. It also means most of the reviews on IMDB are good — it got 8.6 stars out of 10.

It features a lot of interviews with the usual third-rate conservative faces, like Dave Rubin and Jordan Peterson, and of course the fourth-rate wackaloons, Prager and Corolla. Despite the low wattage and volunteer contributions of the “stars”, I doubt that this movie broke even. Dennis Prager might think he’s a charismatic box office draw, sitting in an easy chair and puffing on a cigar, and Corolla might imagine he’s still in his glory days of the 90s when MTV would pay him to be crude and sexist, but the sight of either of them would tell me to skip the movie, it’s not even going to be fun to mock.

It also got me thinking, though. The Right preaches the gospel of capitalism and the profit motive, yet to persuade the public that their cause is just, they rely on shadowy sugar daddies to pay for their loss-leading movies and think tanks; the Invisible Hand is constantly slapping them down and telling the world how much they suck. Meanwhile, the Left knows that few billionaires are going to prop up their propaganda, and they have to rely on popular support to defy the absence of Big Money support they can get. Isn’t this backwards? In a truly capitalist society, shouldn’t this dreck just die of starvation?

Comments

  1. Snarki, child of Loki says

    File it next to “Atlas Shrugged: the public shruggening”

    I, for one, applaud the RWNJs lighting their cash on fire making these “movies”. If the fire is big enough, they might have to have it in a dumpster also, too.

  2. Akira MacKenzie says

    Isn’t this backwards? In a truly capitalist society, shouldn’t this dreck just die of starvation?

    To the conservative, be they of the religious or secular variety, their beliefs and “values” are like gravity or strong nuclear force: They are vital and inarguable components of reality that only the insane or the depraved would argue against. However, the insanities and false promises of the Left are seductive and can easily sway the impressionable and “emotional” (e.g. youths, women, non-whites, LGBTQ, and other irrational folks who don’t subscribe to David Smalley). Systemic racial and sexual chauvinism, and an cut-throat economic system that throws the less-fortunate to the wolves while a spoiled few live in care-free opulence are just too important to leave to the marketplace of ideas without support. Without all that Dark Money, America would descend into a miscegenated, culturally relative, non-binary, socialist Hell that will drag humanity into barbarism!

    So keep those checks to Prager U coming! Your very life may depend on it!

  3. Russell Glasser says

    “It Is No Longer Possible To Make Great Comedy,” Laments Former Host Of “The Man Show”

  4. Akira MacKenzie says

    Snarki @ 1

    Not only that, celluloid slime like this will keep the guys over at God Awful Movies in material until Noah is absorbed and replaced by his impending lung tumor, Heath drinks himself to death for the fourth time, and Eli has to take to a country without an extradition treaty with the US.

  5. says

    Oh, the saga of Atlas Shrugged trilogy was a joy to behold as each movie flopped and they had to keep recasting and in the end resort to some decidedly un-Randian begging to get funding to keep making them.

  6. Akira MacKenzie says

    Russel Glasser @ 4

    And what is “Great Comedy” to these goons? Swilling beer, burping, farting, lewd innuendo, and punching down at anyone who isn’t a straight, white, grunting, libertarian, hyper-macho, mouth-breather. It’s the same low “humor” that amused the bullies who used smack me around in grade school. Their comedic ethos is essentially “THIS IS WHAT IS FUNNY AND IF YOU DON’T LAUGH, YOU’RE A HUMORLESS PRUDE OUT TO SILENCE ME!!!”

    steve1 @ 6

    Adam is hoping this movie will make women jumping on trampolines funny again.

    The fact that anyone found that hilarious (or even arousing) is speaks volumes about our society. “Yes, it’s an attractive, voluptuous, young woman on a trampoline. Yes, I can see her breasts jiggling as she jumps, but why is that funny? Hell, it’s not even sexy. Can we change the channel, please?”

  7. jrkrideau says

    @ 7 Tabby Lavalamp
    Someone tried to make not one but three Atlas Shrugged movies?

    I think I tried reading the book when I was a teenager and tossed it after about page 35.

  8. Kip Williams says

    “…tossed it after about page 35.”
    Just to be clear, was that page 35 of the novel, or page 35 of the goddamn patronizing monologue?

    Incidentally, they show ATLAS SHRUGGED on one of the streaming services I see on my Roku, and its shills have managed to give it nine stars or so. This is useful information, inasmuch as I no longer place any credence whatever in ratings on those things, if they’re that easy for a small group to game.

  9. unclefrogy says

    I also find it kind of odd that they need the shadowy support while proclaiming the truth of the market place. Kind of like how the republicans talk about voter fraud while at the same time spend considerable effort on voter suppression .
    uncle frogy

  10. brucegee1962 says

    @13 Or how the impeachment hearing are illegitimate because the witnesses are all second hand, and also, no first-hand witnesses should be permitted to testify.

  11. pocketnerd says

    Adam Corolla

    Who?
    :googles:
    Oh, that guy. Sorry, Adam, but if your career is flagging, it’s not due to bias against conservatives; it’s because fart jokes and prank calls might fly with the 14-year-old viewer demo when you seem young and hip, but it’s just kinda embarrassing when you’re visibly old enough to be their dad.

  12. lucifersbike says

    @jkrideau. Me, too, except I was about 11. The cover fooled me into thinking it was an SF novel. After the first few pages I realised that the writing was appalling and the characters more wooden than Sherwood Forest. It is utterly baffling that any adult human can read Rand’s outpourings with a straight face.

  13. bryanfeir says

    Honestly, my favourite comment on Atlas Shrugged is still the one from a 2010 blog post: Stupid Things Libertarians Say, Part II: Simplicity Itself

    The most egregious example of this comes in that pile of pap that Glenn Beck shucks like the Bible’s smarter, prettier sister: Atlas Shrugged. I have desire to go into a list of why that book is a pile of shit, at least not right now. But there is a moment in it that so completely sums up everything that is wrong with the Tea Party/Randite/Libertarian worldview that it is breathtaking in its elegant stupidity. It is when Dagny Taggart finally gets to Galt’s Gulch, and it is a breathtaking panorama of loveliness with fertile fields and little houses, and people fishing and etc. It’s para-fucking-dise. And John Galt himself leads Dagny around showing her all the wonderful things they’ve done. And there are oil pipes in the mountains, and fields full of…stuff (She’s not much for details, our Ayn.) And it’s the most hilarious moment in the book, because you realize, at that moment, that Ayn Rand has no clue how the world works.
    See, I grew up on a farm. And I’m familiar with the sheer, bloody amount of work it takes to run a farm. Notice, I am not saying build a farm. Building a farm from scratch is an almost impossible undertaking. (Which is why *gasp* the pioneers did it all together in groups. No payment expected, just help out when its their turn. Buncha commies.)
    Certainly, a few years after this project got started, they would still be on the frontier edge of starvation, desperately going hungry in the winter so they wouldn’t have to touch their seed corn for the next year, anxiously scanning the skies for clouds. Living in one room cabins. Of course, Rand handwaves this by essentially giving them cold fusion, but even so, it Doesn’t. Work. Like. That.
    It is at that moment that you realize Rand probably never did a day of real work in her life.

  14. Ishikiri says

    Adam Corolla can go suck eggs, along with every other entertainer who blames the audience for not liking their act.

  15. says

    My dad had a copy each of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. I was 13 or 14 when I picked up one of them, I think The Fountainhead, but I can’t really say for sure. It was a great turning point in my life. I read less than 10 pages, decided that if my dad considered that a good book he couldn’t possibly be right about everything, and then moved on to more realistic and less sexist divertissements, like super hero comics.

  16. blf says

    From the Common Sense Media review:

    […]
    Is it any good?
    Though this film tries to make the case that free speech suppression is one of the most important issues facing our country today, ultimately it’s long-winded, obnoxious, and unconvincing. The crux of No Safe Spaces‘ logical hole is that although Carolla and Prager work really hard to convince us that curtailing free speech is tantamount to fascism, they’re making their points on a stage, to an audience, with microphones — freely. If free speech is truly in such terrible danger, where are the protestors and police to stop this not-so-dynamic duo?

    The filmmakers further attempt to prove their points by interviewing people whose experiences have been free-speech flashpoints: alt-right poster boy Ben Shapiro, attorney Alan Dershowitz, and Evergreen State University professor Bret Weinstein. But, again, as the interviewees expound, again, quite freely on what happened to them and why it matters, it’s increasingly difficult to buy their victimhood. As an animated satire of Schoolhouse Rock’s “I’m Just a Bill” says during No Safe Spaces, You sure have to be careful what you say nowadays, or people will get offended! Well, yeah. That First Amendment that Prager and Carolla seem to admire so much says nothing about offense. It promises that Congress will make no law abridging free speech — not that speaking your mind won’t earn you blowback. So while No Safe Spaces may feel comforting to some who feel vaguely victimized but aren’t sure why, it’s unlikely to win converts to its cause — which was surely the whole point.

    Talk to your kids about
    ● Families can talk about the various goals of documentary filmmaking: to inform, to entertain, to persuade. What’s the primary purpose of No Safe Spaces? How do you know? Why is it important to understand the filmmakers’ purpose?

    ● What are the differences between fact and speculation or opinion? What tools do we have to help us determine which is which?

    ● Do you think the film’s interviewees are objective? Why do you think the director didn’t include any views that were different from his own? Are documentaries required to be objective? Why or why not?

    […]

  17. isochron says

    It’s taken $236,619 to date, according to Box Office Mojo and Wikipedia. They might make their budget (couldn’t find any estimate for that figure) back yet.

    Incidentally in a single 100 seat cinema, at 95 minutes in length and at 15 bucks a ticket, they would need to show to full houses continuously (30 shows) to gross $45,000 in 48 hours (Friday night-Sunday night). That’s some dedicated viewers!

  18. Kip Williams says

    I wouldn’t be surprised to see a budget item from something like the Heritage Foundation that is only a thousand dollars or so less than the amount the movie took in, under a header like “community outreach” or “publicity.”

  19. Porivil Sorrens says

    Arrested? Nah. Fuck the cops. Hate speech is a problem you solve with milkshakes and bike locks.