Red Letter Media

[byuu]

Mike grouching about male characters being given the "notgays" to establish their heterosexuality seems like a particularly sour batch of grapes for him.

That's not really an LGBT point though. It's about condescending cynical movie makers that think the audience is so stupid that they will think everyone is gay and hate it if they don't make it completely obvious that they're hetero.

 

[Flexo]

That's not really an LGBT point though. It's about condescending cynical movie makers that think the audience is so stupid that they will think everyone is gay and hate it if they don't make it completely obvious that they're hetero.

Unfortunately the internet was invented and proved them right...

 

[Miller]

they're simps when it comes to feminism and LGBT stuff.

That makes sense since Beardfat is a literal faggot.

 

[Mola Ram]

I kind of flipflop on this. On one hand, I see his point; on the other, it's really not that unusual for a person to casually drop a reference to their family or significant others, and you'd expect them to usually be heterosexual.

I think the "notgays" kick in when the relationship comes across as contrived or serving zero story purpose. For me the biggest example is Abrams Star Trek, where Spock's relationship with Uhura makes absolutely no sense, as they have no chemistry, no reason to be together, and no relationship from the original series to echo. It feels egregious because nothing in fandom has the homoerotic overtones of Spock and Kirk; it's literally where the word "slash" as applied to gay fanfic came from.

 

[JonIrenicus]

The RLM guys through their genuine refusal to interact with other Youtubers or become in involved in drama have really made themselves pretty immune to cancelling.

They've so far presented themselves as blue collar centrist slobs and have only ever got hate from the usual breadtube crowd for occasionnally edgy humour.

Good on 'em

 

[Flexo]

I think the "notgays" kick in when the relationship comes across as contrived or serving zero story purpose. For me the biggest example is Abrams Star Trek, where Spock's relationship with Uhura makes absolutely no sense, as they have no chemistry, no reason to be together, and no relationship from the original series to echo. It feels egregious because nothing in fandom has the homoerotic overtones of Spock and Kirk; it's literally where the word "slash" as applied to gay fanfic came from.

Well there were some slight hints of Uhura and Spock in the show, but not much.

Nowadays Dean & Castiel can contend with Kirk & Spock for biggest source of fandom fuel.

 

[Mola Ram]

Well there were some slight hints of Uhura and Spock in the show, but not much.

Spock had more of a thing with Nurse Chapel, or at least she had something for him. I'm sure you're right about the hints with Uhura, I just don't remember them. I do remember Dr. McCoy chiding Chapel for carrying a torch for Spock in the most condescending, sexist way imaginable.

McCoy really is the worst aged of the TOS crew, which is probably why I adore him.

Nowadays Dean & Castiel can contend with Kirk & Spock for biggest source of fandom fuel.

I had to stop and think for a minute about who these guys are. Supernatural, right? I am proud of my ignorance here.

 

[Flexo]

Spock had more of a thing with Nurse Chapel, or at least she had something for him. I'm sure you're right about the hints with Uhura, I just don't remember them. I do remember Dr. McCoy chiding Chapel for carrying a torch for Spock in the most condescending, sexist way imaginable.

McCoy really is the worst aged of the TOS crew, which is probably why I adore him.

Yeah, they can be easy to miss in an era where emotions were played much more overt. Like Kirk literally grabbing a woman to kiss her. So it's like a question of scale. By the 60s over-the-top standard, Spock & Uhura were colleagues. By the current era method of underplaying things? They were all but making out on set.

I had to stop and think for a minute about who these guys are. Supernatural, right? I am proud of my ignorance here.

Yes, Supernatural. Be thankful for your ignorance. To give you an idea, I did a search for the common name of the pairing "Destiel" on archive of our own (3,435) and fanfiction.net (9,180). Kirk/Spock returned 753 and 784 respectively. (though of course I acknowledge K/S is insane because so much of it predates the internet- also their search functions on those sites suck pretty bad)

Hold on a second... What's this I see on archive of their own...

Oh thank goodness there's 0!

 

[Mola Ram]

Yeah, they can be easy to miss in an era where emotions were played much more overt. Like Kirk literally grabbing a woman to kiss her. So it's like a question of scale. By the 60s over-the-top standard, Spock & Uhura were colleagues. By the current era method of underplaying things? They were all but making out on set.

Keep in mind a lot of this was held back by the racial politics of the era. Famously, Kirk and Uhura had TV's first interracial kiss, with a lot of hedging -- they were mind controlled (or something, I forget the details), and Shatner and Nichols only pressed their cheeks together away from the camera, so the kiss itself was phony. Still, only a few years earlier, when Eartha Kitt replaced Julie Newmar as Catwoman on the Adam West Batman, all sexual tension between her and Batman abruptly ceased. Baby steps!

Hold on a second... What's this I see on archive of their own...

Oh thank goodness there's 0!

Somewhere out there is an Elrond / Picard slash fic, and it's just as horrifying (or, hilariou) as you might suspect.

 

[Flamenco]

Well I liked that they did their best to keep politics out of Borat 2 as best as they could. For the infamous Giuliani scene Jay just mentions he doesn't like Giuliani and some of the stuff he does is bad, but overall they spent most of the time showing that the entire interview could have been deceptively edited by Cohen to get the results he wanted. You learn a lot about editing in their examination of the scene, how characters speak with their heads turned to the camera so any line of dialogue can be inserted. Stuff that you might not have noticed at first, but your brain did.

Hell they even gave Trump and Pence a sort of pass by showing how they saw through Cohen's attempts at trolling them where Pence ignores him and has security escort Cohen out or how Trump just walked away when he saw Cohen was just trying to screw with him as Ali G. They tried to review it as a comedy instead of a documentary. I don't think I can fully agree with their take on Borat 2 but I like that they tried to examine the film through a comedy and film making lens instead of a political lens.

I get some of what they were going for in terms of the sort of social commentary in the first Borat, but have contention with how they viewed the dinner party scene. I think of all the things in the movie, that one was probably the most egregious. If a person from another country goes to the bathroom and comes back to the dinner table with a bag of feces, one might infer maybe he doesn't have those amenities and might need some instruction. The dinner party hosts are pretty patient with him to the point of him calling a prostitute to the house as the final straw and the sudden shift makes me think there was some of the same "movie magic" inbetween.

The Giuliani stuff was so edited and blatant that it would make Jim Jefferies blush, and I think that they glossed over it a too much, probably one of the worst takes from them.

 

[Flexo]

Keep in mind a lot of this was held back by the racial politics of the era. Famously, Kirk and Uhura had TV's first interracial kiss, with a lot of hedging -- they were mind controlled (or something, I forget the details), and Shatner and Nichols only pressed their cheeks together away from the camera, so the kiss itself was phony. Still, only a few years earlier, when Eartha Kitt replaced Julie Newmar as Catwoman on the Adam West Batman, all sexual tension between her and Batman abruptly ceased. Baby steps!

As I'm quite aware. They were mind controlled but oh they quite kissed on screen.

Ironically nowadays it would be controversial because of the rapey implications. Or controversial because a white man has more power than a black woman...

There is some interesting thought experiments of them taking baby steps with uhura and spock unless the interracial romance of human and non would have been even less tolerated. That's funny to think about a hick with a shotgun screaming: "I don't care she kissin' that white boy, as long as she ain't kissin' that green-blooded goblin! (Damn aliens probing all of our women...)"

The Giuliani stuff was so edited and blatant that it would make Jim Jefferies blush, and I think that they glossed over it a too much, probably one of the worst takes from them.

Viva Frei had quite the fun with that and pointed out an artifact that was left in the film.

 

[Dom Cruise]

Loved seeing Mike give a shoutout to The Others, that is a criminally underrated movie, I'll never forget the night I saw that movie in the theater with my mother and paternal grandmother, it was late at night and the theater was almost empty save for a group of rowdy teens who made a bunch of noise at times, including one guy yelling "WAZZZZZZZZZZZZUUUUUUUUUP!!!!!" during a scary scene because it was the early 2000s, that was annoying but in a weird way added to the making it a memorable experience, that movie scared the crap out of me.

I so wish I could introduce Mike to another criminally underrated ghost movie, 1977's The Haunting of Julia.

 

[The Penultimate Warrior]

Loved seeing Mike give a shoutout to The Others, that is a criminally underrated movie, I'll never forget the night I saw that movie in the theater with my mother and paternal grandmother, it was late at night and the theater was almost empty save for a group of rowdy teens who made a bunch of noise at times, including one guy yelling "WAZZZZZZZZZZZZUUUUUUUUUP!!!!!" during a scary scene because it was the early 2000s, that was annoying but in a weird way added to the making it a memorable experience, that movie scared the crap out of me.

I so wish I could introduce Mike to another criminally underrated ghost movie, 1977's The Haunting of Julia.

The Haunting (original, not the remake) is another great one in a similar vein as well

 

[OnMoTi]

Mike and Jay point out political correctness taken too far, but they're simps when it comes to feminism and LGBT stuff. Mike grouching about male characters being given the "notgays" to establish their heterosexuality seems like a particularly sour batch of grapes for him. They work in a creative field, so I suppose it's to be expected, but it's also surprising to not see them going full SJW on everything when others in their field have done so.

They're definitely inching leftward. I remember when Mike sperged out because of the only joke in the Predator remake/reboot/thing that actually got a laugh out of me.

Nettles: No, it had to be like government or some shit. Like a robot, or whatever.
Lynch: Nettles, are you fucking retarded, man?
Quinn McKenna: Use another word, would ya?
Nettles: Yeah, man. Show a little sensitivity. His son's retarded.

Edit: There's also the case of them chimping out in one of their audio commentary tracks, can't remember which and don't care to look it up, after the 2016 election with 'orange man bad' type shit.

 

[Mola Ram]

Jay is demonstrating a rare moment of saltiness over becoming a meme.

 

[Flexo]

They're definitely inching leftward. I remember when Mike sperged out because of the only joke in the Predator remake/reboot/thing that actually got a laugh out of me.

That did bug me a bit in the Borat discussion. Like why doesn't Borat go and talk to other communities in America?

If Mike & Jay are so horrified at the frat boys on the bus, they need to go read some chapters from Niggalations.

Jay is demonstrating a rare moment of saltiness over becoming a meme.

Actually it reads less like he's annoyed about the meme, and more about the people trying to "gatcha" him over the meme.

 

[DamageJoy]

The RLM guys through their genuine refusal to interact with other Youtubers or become in involved in drama have really made themselves pretty immune to cancelling.

They've so far presented themselves as blue collar centrist slobs and have only ever got hate from the usual breadtube crowd for occasionnally edgy humour.

Good on 'em

They certanly do it right, having internet friends in the form of other content creators bring a lot of drama and people who just want to profit for you until they kick you under the bus when they are big enough. They seem to take things more professionally, which is a welcome change compared to the average 'tuber who seems to live on Twitter.

 

[Idiotron]

The thing that helps them with the lack of internet drama is that they didn't grow up in the internet era.
Mike was already pushing 30 when he made the first Plinkett videos.
They would have plenty of drama if it was them from the Gorilla Uninterrupted times that were around right now but they got through their cringy phase in the late 90's and early 2000's, good for them.
Also, Mike is a workaholic (not my words, the other RLM guys called him that) so he doesn't waste time on bullshit drama and everyone else just follows his lead.

 

[Commander X]

Fucking nerds. How is this not extreme neurosis.

Wishin' my heckin' podcasterinos do a show where they say "this film is about capitalism bad" like I wanted them to.

 

[Dom Cruise]

I'm actually shocked to think of anyone soy infused liking RLM, not because they're explicitly political, but it just seems like something the soy infused wouldn't like, it's too funny and doesn't walk on eggshells too much with the jokes and just by virtue of the fact that they don't get real political is the shame as simply being right wing in the eyes of the soy.

Oh and they didn't like The Last Jedi.