![]() There’s so much joy in your impression of Ursula the Sea Witch from The Little Mermaid. Okay, dads are done.” It is a gross exaggeration to say that America’s dads would get together and do that, but it does feel that way. Good guys, they’re going to sound like baseball players. Are we going to do some voice-overs? Make the bad guys sound like drag queens. I know more about them than I know about actual Greek mythological characters.įor a while, part of the bit was about the Council of America’s Dads, as if all American dads got together and were like, “All right, we got this dude toy cartoon engine from Japan. They’re almost like minor deities in a religion that I have. Transformers was like probably the most important thing from the age of 5 to 8. I was the generation that cried when Optimus Prime died in The Transformers: The Movie. Or somewhere between homage and lazy, which is what a trope is. ![]() I think there’s very little actual malice it was mostly laziness. A lot of it’s done just because no one’s gonna argue with you - until recently. A lot of it’s done as an homage to some earlier gay villain. If there’s a gay character, he’s got ulterior motives, and he’s treacherous. And then you look back on it and you’re like, Why is that story always being told to me? If there’s an effeminate character, he’s trying to devour a child. Kaa I believe is that classic Disney actor Sterling Holloway. I can watch The Jungle Book on an airplane and cry and laugh and sing along with it. How do you feel when The Jungle Book comes on now, and you see Kaa the python? He didn’t make the cut for the album, but he was in an early version.” Scar from the Lion King too. People would always be like, “What about Jafar in Aladdin?” I’m like, “I know he’s one. You have to examine then, movie to movie, book to book, TV show to TV show, story to story: What are you telling us are “good guy” characteristics, and what are you telling us are “bad guy” characteristics? There are straight and/or masculine bad guys, but there are almost no feminine and/or gay male good guys.Īnd there’s so many examples that were tried out at early versions of the joke. I liked this character, and later on realized like, What was this thing that I was responding to? What is it when you hold up a character as a hero with certain traits, telling children and telling other adults, Be like this hero. That’s up there with Die Hard and Galaxy Quest. Watching with friends, stoned, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves with the iconic Alan Rickman as Sheriff of Nottingham. When did you start making these connections? Your affection for all of these characters is apparent in the bit. Download the episode from Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Read a short excerpt from the conversation or listen below. Along the way, he talks about why the Autobots mean more to him than Hercules and Hera, and why a gay sex scene between Daniel Craig and Javier Bardem would have made Skyfall a much better movie. In this episode of Good One, Vulture’s podcast about jokes and the people who tell them, Adomian revisits his gay villains bit and the impetus for telling it in the first place. In examining everything from the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood movies to bad guys in Transformers and Masters of the Universe cartoons, Adomian ties together lazy depictions of enraged, effeminate men who groom their facial hair, threaten masculine heroes, and tie these heroes’ love interests to railroad tracks. For example, his debut album, Low Hangin’ Fruit, featured an extended bit about a trope hiding in plain sight: the gay villain. Behind the big performances, however, his cultural critiques are thoughtful, nuanced, and incisive. His best-known impressions - Jesse Ventura, Bernie Sanders, Sebastian Gorka - are blustery, over-the-top, and play with hypermasculine stereotypes. Be it on Comedy Bang! Bang!, Historical Roasts With Jeff Ross, or his new podcast The Underculture, James Adomian is not understated.
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