posted by Mike Madison at 5:48 PM /
Spotted at the brand-new Lebo-based blog "Suburbia Calling" ("After a decade of city living, I've moved back home to the suburbs to raise my daughter. So how does a SMBC, liberal, secular humanist, bereaved mom, full-time mom to a living child, and full-time professional handle coming back home to suburbia?"), this YouTube-based submission to the Mt. Lebanon HS Film Festival.
Mt. Lebanon high school students face a common choice: deal with alien attackers, or break down for the first time and leave the Lebo bubble! Reality? Or satire?
Mt. Lebanon high school students face a common choice: deal with alien attackers, or break down for the first time and leave the Lebo bubble! Reality? Or satire?
Labels: bubble
3 Comments:
Cute. The tires flying off the exploded car was a nice touch.
Could have done without the derogatory reference to "black people." They were obviously lampooning their (our) own parochial attitudes, so its okay. But just okay. Better would have been to find another way to say the same thing.
Still, it made me laff.
Along the same lines has anyone else noticed how the use of the term "retarded" has become a "hip" way to insult someone? I've heard everyone from kids, teens, adults, co-workers, grocery clerks, people on tv, disc jockeys and on and on use this. At what point did this become accepted? I'm not really faulting the video makers either because it's use has become so widespread and by adults. I've heard a former teacher/football coach (not local) use it.
Love the video though...can anyone id the streets? What shopping area are they in front of in the beginning scene?
Well, the word "retarded" does have a broader meaning outside its (former) use in child development. Though I suppose not all current colloquial uses translate to "slowed down in progress or development." I assume you're not upset when an auto mechanic says your spark timing is retarded.
My understanding was that it was no longer acceptable to use the term "retarded" to refer to developmentally challenged kids, because in common usage word had become a synonym for "stupid". If the developmental/special-ed community has disavowed the term, then I'm sure that makes it fair game in many people's minds. Too bad, because "retarded" in the developmental sense seems a far more precise description than many of the euphamisms that replaced it.
The problem with euphamisms is that as soon as their meaning is widely understood, they stop being euphamisms anymore, and they simply come to mean the same thing as the word they were used to replace.
People, especially kids, are really good at figuring out the real meanings of the words that are used to dress things up or make people feel better. It's also become pretty common for people to refer to someone as "special" -- usually accompanied by finger-quotes or a soft inflection -- when they just mean dumb.
Or, in a slightly different context, from the The Incredibles:
Mrs. Parr: Everyone's special, Dash.
Dash: That's just another way of saying no one is!
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