Comedians In Cars In Music Videos
Comedians In Cars In Music Videos
On rewatching a Weird Al video, the new Taylor Swift album, Lydia Tár, Star Wars TV, and more.
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I think I’ve probably seen Weird Al’s White and Nerdy video a good 12 times in my entire lifetime, and 10 of those views were in a week in 2006 when a friend from school showed it to me on their family’s PC. It blew my mind. A white guy was rapping and it was funny? Unheard of! All I knew of White Boy Rap was Eminem and even then, that was a little intense.
White and Nerdy, a parody of Chamillionaire’s Ridin’, opens with two ‘gangsters’ rolling up to a suburb in their low-rider. At age 8, I didn’t clock who the actors in the car were. At 24, I realised that they were none other than Keegan Michael-Key and Jordan Peele.
As someone who worships at the altar of Comedy Central’s Key & Peele, I was delighted at my own oversight. Weird Al’s nerdy alter-ego, for know we’ll call him STEMinem, mows his lawn as Key and Peele rock up to his cul-de-sac. Key and Peele immediately get the ick. The entire premise of the song is that STEMinem is not cool enough to roll with the gangsters, but is celebrating their nerdyness regardless.
I think this song should be hailed as the father of all White Boy Rap. It has all the elements; self-awareness, self-deprication, and the acceptance that they lack an inherent ‘coolness’ as outsiders to an artform that is not their own.
I also think the relationship to what we used to deem as ‘nerdy’ has become really—and you know I hate using this word, if you’ve been here a while—mainstream. Comic book movies have made ‘nerdiness’ accessible, and honestly, flat and boring. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a girlie that loves a good Daredevil/She-Hulk throwdown in the streets or in the sheets, but I think a lot of the passion that made things like White and Nerdy work has become so sullied by the way our conversations or ‘discourse’ around the media we consume have become so unproductive, at least in places like Twitter or TikTok, that being nerdy becomes this weird, fucked up little competition as opposed to really engaging and enjoying a piece of work with people that are just as passionate about it as you are.
We don’t see Key and Peele again for the rest of the video, but we do see a young Seth Green, semi-twerking to Weird Al’s collection of action figures. Not many Academy Award winners nor White House Correspondence Dinner attendees can say that they were in a Weird Al video, least of all the video where Weird Al rocks a fanny pack throughout.
I just think it’s really cool to see people you admire in early points of their career, doing interesting things that you never would’ve thought to see them in knowing who they are now. It’s interesting and almost hopeful as a nobody comedian now to just see your heroes’ humble beginnings. It’s cool.
On that note of Comedians in Music Videos, but not necessarily in Cars, Mike Birbiglia was in Taylor Swift’s Anti-Hero video alongside Mary Elizabeth Ellis and John Early. Mike Birbiglia being in a Taylor Swift video is a lot like Nick Kroll being in a film with Harry Styles. All we need now to round out the Georgetown Trifecta is if John Mulaney were to find himself opening a skit on a Dua Lipa album. I wonder what Trevor Noah will have to say about that.
Dylan on the Drums on the Beach
An update on my favourite song on The Riddler’s new album, Snow on the Beach (feat. Lana Del Rey), it turns out that Fake Gyllenhaal and Desus Nice affiliate Dylan O’Brien played the drums on that track!
According to Miss El Rata Alada Dot Com herself, as she shared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Dylan was just there at Jack Antonoff’s house when they were recording, and they hadn’t recorded the percussion yet, and if you’re familiar with Teen Wolf/Maze Runner lore, you’d know that Dylan is a drummer.
If you told 15-year-old me that Stiles from Teen Wolf is on drums for this Taylor Swift track featuring Lana del Rey, she would have pretended not to care because it’s actually a huge fucking thing for her. I just want to know what Desus Nice makes of this all, and whether or not he has met Taylor Swift via Dylan. Does Taylor Swift know Logan Lerman? That would be a big deal for me.
Dylan was also part of the crowd you can hear in Question…?, arguably the most Riddler-coded song on the album.
As for Midnights itself, I’m still not 100% sold but I have done a 180 on a lot of the songs that didn’t take with me upon first listen. I think my issue with Taylor has always been considering how prolific she is, she does struggle to curate what she chooses to include on her initial tracklist. I feel like there are so many songs on the 3am edition that should’ve been in the first thirteen tracks, but then again that could just be me being pro-Aaron Dessner.
I would be remiss not so share this absolutely shattering The Rehearsal fancam set to Mastermind. So true, bestie.
Naurrr, Táuuurrrrrr!
I saw Tár over the weekend with my friends and I had an absolute ball. I think that screening was the closest I’ll ever get to feeling what white guys felt when they saw Joker for the first time. Women can get cancelled too!
I think there’s a lot of nuance in Tár. Todd Field’s direction and Cate Blanchett’s performance executed this insane balancing act between the discomfort and severity of the accusations against Tár, the psycholocial thriller tropes and techniques, and these bizarre moments of levity that did have me in stitches laughing. Tár is actually really funny. My only gripe was probably the run time, but then again, I didn’t really see anything that was unnecessary in the film, everything felt super deliberate and thoughtful to the character study and her unraveling. I think it would make a stellar double bill with Triangle of Sadness (rich people doing insane things). On a tangent, Mark Strong’s wig in the film was wild enough to rival Mark Rylance’s in Don’t Look Up. I was actually howling when she shoved him off-stage.
Blanchett’s episode of Hot Ones came out today and it is absolutely delightful. I liked the bit where she said she didn’t understand leaf blowers or golf. I don’t understand the appeal of either as well, Auntie Cate (she’s my auntie because she’s Aussie).
Just Oscar Things
Oscar Isaac won a Saturn Award for Moon Knight and thinks he can say just about anything. And he can! And he should! Mad respect to him and his PR team for leaning into the barrage of horny internet fandomhood they must have to deal with (not like I’m making that any easier). It’s not as weird as when Harry Styles played up the whole spitting on Chris Pine thing, but it’s funny coming from Oscar Isaac simply because he has zero social media presence outside of pull quotes like this and photos on his wife’s instagram. You can’t just call Pedro Pascal a slut and expect people to forget you were in 2014’s A Most Violent Year! It’s time to BeReal, Oscar!
Succumbing to Star Wars Brainrot
I get Star Wars brainrot a couple times a year but I do wish I had it year round. Remember when this newsletter was just a Real Housewives of Tatooine (Book of Boba Fett) recap account? Those were the days. Whilst RHOT was a great disappointment to me personally (even thought I really liked it the first couple of episodes), the new lot of Star Wars shows have actually been fantastic.
I think letting Dave Filoni do whatever he wants, especially with the animated stuff, is a great move. Tales of the Jedi has actually been really fun. I wasn’t expecting how invested I’d be in Count Dooku’s life It’s kind of cool to see that he initially was just fed up with the status quo as they are and radicalised a little too far. It all makes me miss playing Force Unleashed all that much more.
Don’t even get me started on Andor. We are well out of Real Housewives territory. This is not Bravo, it’s HBO! I just think it’s super cool that we’re actually getting a strong genre AND character piece that doesn’t feel like we’re looking out for gratuitous Clone Wars easter eggs left, right and centre. Sorry to fellow Indonesian Babu Frik but they’re making some real television there! I enjoy a little nuance in my silly little space operas. I love that Adria Arjona is the third Triple Frontier (2019) cast member to do a Star Wars. Wouldn’t it be insane if they gave Ben Affleck a Star Wars? I would be seated, though.
A Personal Note
I have to let everyone know that I dyed my hair red. I’m a redhead now, like Bryce Dallas Howard playing Yaddle, Katie from MUNA, or if George Costanza took after his mother hair-wise instead of balding. I think it looks pretty sick.
That is all for this week, folks! I think we’re going to keep to the every-two-weeks schedule, it seems to be working for now. See you next time!