In my favourite cinematic source of careers advice to young women everywhere, Pretty Woman – a film that warns viewers of the grave danger of working as a prostitute and how one could end up being condescended to by Richard Gere for the rest of eternity – there is one significant if oft-overlooked scene:
"We'll just veg out in front of the TV," suggests Vivian.
"Veg out?" asks Edward.
"Yeah. Be still like vegetables. Lay like broccoli," our etymologically adroit heroine responds.
It is interesting when one finds oneself having to explain a fairly basic human activity or emotion to someone else: one always ends up sounding slightly slow-witted, and the risk of recourse to bad analogies skyrockets like rockets in the sky.
And yet, this seems to be required in regards to anger. Anger is ever so fashionable at the moment. My dears, it's the emotion de la saison! In the US midterms, it became the new ignorant, which is like saying that harem trousers are the new skinny jeans: the evolution of a simply ridiculous look into something that makes one resemble a hysterical bed wetter.
Whereas Joe the Plumber was the right's political icon for the 2008 presidential election, in the 2010 midterms it was the equally improbable Howard Beale from the film Network, thanks to his "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more!" spiel.
True, as Ben McGrath pointed out in the New Yorker, Beale may have been a corporate loon as opposed to a defender of the common man, and referencing him is "a little like citing Lennie from Of Mice And Men on the issue of rabbit husbandry", but apparently this doesn't matter. With apologies to crushed puppies everywhere, the end result is irrelevant; it's the instant emotion that counts. Just as in the 2008 election ignorance was doublethought into being synonymous with nobility untainted by actual experience or education, so hysterical anger in the 2010 midterms was rebranded by, first, the political right and then a tail-chasing left as proof of one's honest connection to some hypothetical common man. Thus there have been candidates threatening to punch reporters or simply taking to the airwaves to call them "corrupt bastards", the latter strategy being championed by that Anna Wintour of American politics, the trendsetting Sarah Palin. Yes, whatever happens in this election, America can look back proudly at the 2010 midterms as the crossover point in a Venn diagram of CNN and World Wrestling Entertainment.
But as one is often forced to ask of harem trouser wearers, yes, I can see what you're trying to do, but have you really thought that tactic through? Because when Karl Rove starts complaining that certain particularly vocal, particularly angry Tea Partyists are looking a bit "nutty", as he recently did in the Daily Telegraph, it's hard not to suspect that a trend has, shall we say, peaked. (This does prompt the question: what former, shall we say, downer of a quality will be zhooshed up into a political plus in the 2012 elections: rudeness? A grating laugh? A tendency to forget to wash one's hands after going to the bathroom? But I digress.)
For example, certain British celebrities proved this weekend that they don't quite understand that a silent taking of one's leave is always more elegant than a huffy temper tantrum. Note to Stephen "the little boy who tweeted bye" Fry: announcing one is leaving Twitter, on Twitter, is the social media equivalent of announcing in Hello! that one is no longer talking to the press. Note to Elton John: when announcing that you are no longer to write pop music, the public might feel more of a pang of a regret if you didn't refer to yourself in the third person in your statement. Similarly, these loudly angry politicians seem not to understand that anger isn't an action, it's a reaction, and few of the Tea Partyists have come up with anything approaching a coherent or even non-contradictory course of post-election action. Most of all, campaigning on an emotion can all too easily become a bat with which voters come to beat the politician. One word: hope.
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Ah, just another week in the life of cheeky chappie Charlie Sheen: a date with a porn actor, a trashed hotel room, some unpleasantness about being found by the cops "naked and incoherent", filing for divorce from his third wife and now, Josef Fritzl, always the glace cherry on any gateau.
Wait – Fritzl? How very 2008. What is this unexpected intrusion upon the porn stars/allegations of violence/angry ex-wives merry-go-round that Sheen has been riding for the last 17 decades?
In an interview with German newspaper Bild, "das Inzest-Monster" says, "My favourite show is Two and a Half Men with Charlie Sheen", which as well as proving, once again, the banality of evil, also answers the question of how demented one has to be to like that show. According to Fritzl, Two and a Half Men is good for "the soul", providing a plug for the programme that would, at the very least, outshine "Two thumbs up!!!! – Local radio station you've never heard of."
There was never any question that Sheen's incident in a New York hotel room last week would affect his $1.88m-an-episode contract for Two and a Half Men. After all, Charlie's offscreen antics merely make his onscreen persona that little bit more enjoyably postmodern. But the thought of Fritzl chortling away to Charlie's onscreen antics ("[The show] relaxes me, I need to laugh," our man in the Austrian cell says) might not be quite so beneficial to its image. Fritzl – it's a comparatively small thing, but getting Two and a Half Men cancelled could be your first tiny step on the road to penitence.
