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bill-maher.jpg

Hey, Bill Maher, Eat a Dick

By Mike Redmond | Politics | November 19, 2018 |

By Mike Redmond | Politics | November 19, 2018 |


bill-maher.jpg

Stan Lee has barely been dead a week. But when you’re a smug, contrarian cockhole who “tells it like it is,” you don’t let a little thing like death stop you from taking a spectacularly bullshit swipe at a man’s life’s work. So that’s exactly what Bill Maher did when he fired off a blog post that blames comic books for Donald Trump’s presidency, but not before showing how cool and edgy he is by mocking people who thanked an icon for bringing them joy and escapism in this cold, kick-in-the-teeth world where not everyone can sit around getting blazed in their Hollywood mansion with Woody Harrelson.

The guy who created Spider-Man and the Hulk has died, and America is in mourning. Deep, deep mourning for a man who inspired millions to, I don’t know, watch a movie, I guess. Someone on Reddit posted, “I’m so incredibly grateful I lived in a world that included Stan Lee.” Personally, I’m grateful I lived in a world that included oxygen and trees, but to each his own.

According to Maher, comic books are for kids, and back in his day, you grew up and moved on to “big-boy books without the pictures.” And if there’s anyone who should condescend other adults on how they spend their free time, it’s a 60-year-old man who still goes to pajama parties. While I’d love to get into the weeds about the literary and artistic merits of comics, I’d be wasting my time putting more thought into my words than Maher did. Because what he’s actually complaining about is that sometimes Americans take a two hour break from their daily grind to enjoy a Marvel movie, and apparently, that’s destroying us as a nation.

The average Joe is smarter in a lot of ways than he was in, say, the 1940s, when a big night out was a Three Stooges short and a Carmen Miranda musical. The problem is, we’re using our smarts on stupid stuff. I don’t think it’s a huge stretch to suggest that Donald Trump could only get elected in a country that thinks comic books are important.

Just so we’re all clear, Bill Maher was annoyed by millions of fans mourning Stan Lee’s death — which Neil Gaiman scathingly notes will never happen to Maher — so he decided to blame Lee for the worst president in American history because people like Marvel movies? That’s the level of hot take that earns Maher the big bucks. Excuse me while I scream “GODDAMMIT” into a pillow.

Again, I don’t want to spend more time than Maher did farting stupid words onto the internet because his argument is somehow more paper-thin than his weird, translucent skin. Seriously, the dude looks like Senator Kelly’s mutant form.

But I will highlight the extremely evident and easily Googled fact that the comics community is so jam-packed with smart, intelligent, progressive writers and artists that it sparked a backlash of fringe losers who want their superheroes to remain white, straight, and 90 percent cleavage. Or politically incorrect, one might say. Now, if Bill Maher wants to blame those motherf**kers for Trump, you’ll find #MAGA right in their profiles. Knock yourself out.

In the meantime, here’s a list of some things that are actually responsible for Trump, and you’ll notice that none of them are a deceased nonagenarian who left a lengthy paper trail of denouncing racism and bigotry a.k.a. every damn thing Trump stands for. Also, Bill Maher might want to pay close attention to several if not all of these items.

Some Things That Are Actually Responsible For Trump

- Racism.
- Islamophobia.
- Misogyny.
- Concern-trolling about “free speech” on college campuses.
- Criticizing “social justice warriors” for… *checks notes* … not tolerating rape.
- Giving Nazi-adjacent bigots like Milo Yiannopoulos a platform.
- Treating Steve Bannon like anything more than a Nazi pile of laundry.
- Not throwing salt at Ann Coulter thus returning her to the Skeleton Dimension.

If you’re thinking to yourself, “I bet every one of those links to Maher,” every one of those links to Maher. Of course, the primary reason Donald Trump is president is because the Republican Party is jam-packed with gun-loving racists and batshit crazy evangelicals who are completely oblivious to the Christian murderbox they’ve trapped us all in. However, those demographics are dwindling, but that still hasn’t stopped the Republican Party from winning elections thanks to some statistical wiggle room. And where does that wiggle room come from?

Contrarian assholes who get off on being “above the fray.”

Which I’m pretty sure doesn’t describe Stan Lee because I wrote it, and it’s about a smarmy prick named Bill Maher. Perhaps you recognize him from a little movie called Iron Man 3 based on the non-big-boy adventures of billionaire robot-guy Tony Stark.

Okay, that was a deleted scene. But you know what wasn’t deleted? The check Maher cashed from the house that Stan Lee built, so he can f**k right off.



Header Image Source: Getty