This is why I don’t like Borat
Posted By Kathleen David on August 12, 2009
Recently across various parts of the Internet there has been a lot of talk about something that happened at Chicago Wizard World Convention. A man who goes by the Internet handle of “The Yellow Hat Guy,” because he wears a distinctive yellow hat at conventions, blogged about his ambush humor against Rob Liefeld and how he tried to get an apology from Liefeld for Heroes Reborn and when not getting the satisfaction that he sought, he gave Liefeld a copy of “How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way” with a rather off-putting inscription and high fived his buddies because he pwned Liefeld.
Liefeld had stated that he could barely understand what the guy was saying so he gave stock answers to what he thought he heard. The guy tossed the book on his table in a bag and ran. He gave the book to someone who had lost his copy in a house fire.
YHG is now finding himself in a rather uncomfortable position of being pointed at as the reason that pros rarely or don’t come to conventions. So if a comic book pro cancels an event for the next 6 months, YHG is going to be blamed for driving them off.
I have never liked ambush humor. It seems very mean spirited and at least one of the participants has no say in the matter. And for the record, I wasn’t a fan of candid camera either but at least they gave people the choice to be shown on national television after they had been gotten. Punk’d totally drove me up the tree and convinced me that Ashton Kutcher has a dark side that rather scary.
I was at a DragonCon a number of years ago. I was working tech at the time. I just happen to be passing when Cliff Stoll poured water on Harlan’s shoes after asking if the pitcher was half empty or half full and then dumped the water on Harlan’s rather nice and rather expensive Italian loafers informing him neither he just needed to look at the problem from another angle. Some people gasped in shock and others laughed and high fived. It was ambush humor that cost Harlan one of his favorite pairs of shoes.
Borat and Bruno are nothing but ambush humor. It is Sasha Baron Cohen’s humor signature. He says it is to shine a bright light on the hypocrisy of humanity but I find it mean spirited and crass and the participants aren’t given a choice or are down right lied to as to what is going to happen to them.
If I don’t like someone’s writing or art or acting or whatever, I don’t support it. I don’t buy their wares. I leave them alone at conventions or social functions. I don’t go about stalking them and telling them that they suck or make their lives uncomfortable in various other ways. I don’t ambush them, go high five my buddies on how I told them off, and then put the whole thing on the Internet for the world to see.
It’s just….well…tacky.
I am grateful for polite people with good manners.
I’m pretty sure there’s some sort of ambush humor out there that I think is funny, but it would have to be of the non-mean-spirited variety. The level of just plain rudeness out there is a little mind-numbing.
I remember telling Len Wein years ago at Comic-Con that me getting into comics fandom was “all his fault” because my dad bought an issue of his Amazing Spider-Man when I was six. We had a brief but entertaining discussion about said issue, and I felt as though I both said my piece and hopefully lifted up his day a little.
Are there artists or writers I really don’t care for in comics? Absolutely, but I don’t see a need to walk up to them and tell them so. I think things like Yellow Hat Guy’s antics are just inexplicable.
Right now I’m thinking of Ðìçk Clark and EdMcMahon’s “Tv’s bloopers and practical Jokes” it seems pretty benign compared to more recent ambush humour. I’ve never seen “Totally hidden video”
Wow, Kathy, you’re the first to make that connection and it’s spot-on.
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BTW, how exactly did Cliff Stoll manage to leave that situation without one of Mr. Ellison’s ruined shoes protruding from from his ášš?
Bill-
Honestly it happened so fast I think everyone was a bit stunned. A couple of smart people took Cliff one way and Harlan the other so it was kind of short circuited for the reaction. I heard later about the shoes from one of the con committee.
I’m not active in any sort of Fan activity (even reading this blog is highly unusual for me), and I don’t know much about what any of these professionals are like in person, but even I know about Harlan Ellison’s legendary temper. I’m really surprised that guy survived. I don’t know who Cliff Stoll is. Is he an old friend of Harlan’s who can get away with teasing him the way Asimov did? (But all Isaac ever did was friendly verbal jabs.)
Anyway, I agree with you on all this stuff. I really detest mean-spirited humour aimed at unaware victims.