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QOTD 10: Metatextually speaking...

Hola Otters! Thanks in part to our very own Mike Mears giving me a little razzing for my question about your favorite Nuances,  I got to thinking about Metatextuality.

Seriously.


While it has a lot of meanings, I tend to view it as a piece of media's ability to either reference itself, or a piece of media's ability to create something new through homage to very specific and obvious sources. Glacier debuting looking like a warmed over Sub Zero? Metatextual.Kurt Vonnegut injecting himself into the narrative of 'Breakfast with Champions'? Metatextual. Triple H consistently referring to "This Business" and John Cena making a joke about a 'heel turn'? Metatextual. When Scrubs did that 'three camera sitcom' episode and when they made Dr. Cox act just like Dr. House (whom many thought was a rip-off of Dr. Cox in the first place)? Metatextual. Seinfeld featuring an arc about making a show just like Seinfeld? Metatextual

Eugene? Metatextual.

Essentially it's a more obscure form of satire, if I'm reading into it correctly. 

It can be really inside baseball-y and if you don't pick up on the references you can find yourself confused, annoyed, or concerned about the esoteric nature of a given joke or premise or novel, but when you do get a metatextual reference, you instantly feel smart and well rounded and validated. 

What are your favorite Metatextual References? Little moments in a book, TV show, Wrestling Match, or movie that reference prior happenings or otherwise obscure elements that require you to be 'in the know' to really appreciate. 


One of my favorite movies is almost entirely a metatextual reference. 'Enter The Void' is a 3 hour long acid-trip mind fuck of a flick that makes Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas feel like Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. Its heavily influenced by the Tibetan Book of The Dead and serves to illustrate that book's theories, ideas, and beliefs visually through the acts of an American man living in Japan.  I really don't want to write too much about it at this point because the movie is such a trip that anything I tell you about it will certainly ruin a lot of the expierence.

It's a HARD NC-17 rated movie, but absolutely worth watching if you've never seen a high-budget independent film that's free from any sort of constraints - it's great if you're a casual movie watcher who wants to see something a little more expiremental than you're used too, but kind of shy away from folks like Jean Luc Godard and Jan Å vankmajer.

It's really really tough to watch at some points, and a little long in others, but if you endeavor to sit through it I strongly feel you'll be better for it, ultimately lamenting that there will never be another movie like it. There's georgous visuals: long, steady, tracking shots, free-floating camera movements that literally make you feel like a ghost, and if you look into it just a bit, you can even start to ponder the nature of conception, namely, what do you call the instant before a light turns on, or a match catches flame, or consciousness is created or sizes to exist. It's currently on Netflix Instant, and if you're a little bored after Raw, I'd give it a watch. But you absolutely need to pay attention to it. Do not watch it while doing something else, or having a conversation, or playing a game. It demands your attention, and will reward it.


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Blog Otter Award: wnyxmcneal for his Norm McDonald love. His award, spelled B-O-R-E-D can be found here

1. Grand Theft Auto V is out tonight. Anyone else doing Midnight releases / planning to play it all night? Or am I the only one who's still mentally 12 and kind of happy about it? Gamertag: Notmeekin

2. I really can't say enough about 'Enter The Void' - seriously check it out. If you have seen it, feel free to talk about it in the comments but try to avoid spoilers. If you haven't seen it, post if you're going to be watching it and maybe we'll make tomorrow's QOTD an official spoiler discussion.


 

Comments

  1. davidbonzaisaldanamontgomerySeptember 16, 2013 at 12:46 PM

    I'm definitely looking forward to losing a lot of sleep this week to GTAV.

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  2. I'm going to go with Buffy's "Normal Again" where they tease she's just a crazy girl and looks at all of the supernatural stuff from another perspective. Also, the show Supernatural has done a couple episodes where they reference how viewers might see them.


    OR we can just go with Community...almost the entire series.

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  3. Batista.


    OH, sorry. I thought you said "metrosexual."

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  4. So your saying you liked "enter the void?"

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  5. For sure. Castle does a great job of it too. For halloween he dressed up as a 'Space Cowboy', but my favorite episode is when they hit up a sci-con and Castle quips something like "I just don't get why so many fans would be obsessed with a silly sci-fi show that ran one season?" It's just filled with that sort of thing. The best part? The episode is directed by Will Riker himself, Jonathan Frakes.

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  6. When wrestling website owners think wrestlers get named after them. Or that might just be plain crazy.

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  7. I just went to the game stop in Horton plaza and pre ordered/per paid for GTA v and I'm planning on just working late and staying downtown for dinner to kill time and get the game. As an aside the lady working behind the counter just annoyed the fuck out of me. I tried to make some friendly chit chat by asking how long the games had been in the store for and she got all panicky and immediately said "oh I can't talk about that" like its some kind of fucking state secret. Then I just playfully said "oh come on they've probably been in since Friday. You know your already playing it." She got all pissy and said "I just told you its not to be discussed and I'd rather keep my job." I politely thanked her for ringing up the transaction and asked her-the best time to arrive tonight and she said if I wanted to make sure I got copy tonight (keep in mind I already paid the full price) I had to get there by 11 pm to "finalize" the transaction. I asked why what I just did wasn't finalizing it and therefore why can't I just come in at midnight and get a copy? She got way pissy and said I had only paid for it, and not finalized, but couldn't articulate what it meant. I was polite as possible because I didn't want her going back into the fucking register and voiding my transaction but seriously what a bitch. I was just annoyed that she rudely blew off my game related small talk and then couldn't explain what she meant properly. Although I suppose if she had communications skill she wouldn't be working some dog shit job.

    Its my fault, in soco most every menial job is worked by Mexicans so anytime you see a white person working a job like that you should know they probably just got of jail or a mental institution. I just got caught up in the GTA excitement

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  8. Bought GTA V last week, not sure when it is supposed to come. I barely have time to play video games anymore but GTA is too hard to pass up.

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  9. On The Sopranos in the episode "Where's Johnny" Uncle Junior, in his dementia, sees an episode of Curb You Enthusiasm (a show which revolved around meta humor) and believed Larry David and Jeff

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  10. Caught Enter the Void on Netflix about two years ago. Guy gets shot in a restroom stall, his spirit floats around and time travels, damn near had an incestuous relationship with his sister, spirit enters the womb of a woman, and GAHHHHHHHHH...*head explodes*

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  11. So "YOU'RE a scrub who flips burgers" is grammatically correct as opposed to "YOUR a freak who creates blogs to comment on other blogs?" Think I got it now.

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  12. I'm sorry. I just read the part about avoiding spoilers. Oh well. I just wanted GAHHHHHHH. *head explodes*

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  13. Gotta be when zack morris called a time out, everyone froze, and then he'd have a nice chat with the audience.

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  14. There it is ladies and gents, Bucky's contribution of the day. He should be so proud. He can list this accomplishment along side his other great contributions to humanity like his douchebag beard, posting at NPP his favorite anti-smark stories and his video about how to drive a stick shift. Truly, there are only a handful of people on planet earth that could swoop in and correct a typo. What a gift.

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  15. Any Zach Morris or Mr Belding references get an upvote.

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  16. I have a book of haikus that I wrote about eating alone in cold, sterile break rooms.

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  17. Oh man, you have me pegged. I need to retire now.

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  18. He's a sensitive artist capturing his hip open minded life on a blog and he's a wrestling blog troll. Ladies and gentlemen, this is truly a Renaissance man.

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  19. I loved that. That entire show deserves a QOTD.

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  20. I am Hera's gift to all. Praise me and you too shall feel her glory...hole.

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  21. Didnt someone say he flips burgers? Where can I see this stick shift vid?

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  22. hahaha If you give it another Watch it's about 60 times better, you pick up on all these little things. Notice what sorts of images appear at the center of the frame when he moves around various locations.

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  23. I'm glad a grammatical correction could have so much influence on how much I am hated. >:)

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  24. http://buckdiddy.tumblr.com/


    I mean, look at this guy, they should raise a shrine to him and all his douchebaggery. Future douchebags can kneel at his altar.

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  25. You're a wrestling board troll. Your blog sucks.

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  26. http://buckdiddy.wordpress.com/

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  27. I don't hate you. I just find you incredibly pathetic.

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  28. The whole thing with Gamestop is funny. They're like the middle managers of entertainment. They can boss around devs and demand they provide all sorts of 'exclusive' pre-order content to drive up their sales, but when a big company like Rockstar is releasing a game they essentially NEED to bend to their every whim because they know Rock Star absolutely doesn't need them at all. I wouldn't be surprised if she was told that she isn't allowed to say it's in the back, or the game is there, or that she's even seen it.

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  29. Perfect story to re-post at NPP. You know you can't help yourself. ;-)

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  30. My theory is you only come here because your bitter people read a blog about wrestling and the only people who ever look at your blog are doing it ironically.

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  31. Again, because I spell correctly and my viewpoint is different does not make me a troll.
    Also, I hope it sucks toads.

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  32. I believe that is a sentence fragment Buck.

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  33. That's orirsis. If I ever have an autistic kid I'll be sure to let you know so and your internet friends can joke about it.

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  34. Well, I mean, I do have a hipster beard. What do you expect to do? Like this genuinely? Get out of town mister sister.

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  35. That still never happened. Kudos on trying to make a lie reality though!

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  36. I think you meant to put pathetically incredible.

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  37. I was just congratulating him on an excellent tale! Not sure how that fits into the format.

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  38. "What do you expect to do?" I believe you forgot a word here, didn't you?


    Also, I'm sure when you tell the people of Mongolia how you spend your time trolling a wrestling blog, they are just brimming with proud feelings of the things you've accomplished in your life.

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  39. Don't tell me, tell your other user accounts.

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  40. No, they just chopped me to death...on the butt.

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  41. You are one of my other user accounts. You've gone rogue!

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  42. Yeah, well I'm fixing to try and watch Holy Motors soon. I've had to brush up on my Allegory-by-way-of-Mindfuck. I've heard about this one. I just love a challenge.

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  43. Hey and he tells jokes. That's the kind of cutting edge alternative comedy humor that goes over my head.

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  44. I like Enter the Void the most for this sort of thing because it's the most traditional in a sense. it's not so out there that its unacceptable, but not so common place that you don't bother trying to understand it. It's sort of like how 'Drive' was loved by movie fans who wanted something more, and hated by movie critics who've seen it all before.

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  45. Metatext (not sure if I'm using the right meta here, but really they're all kind of the same) in wrestling can be great or terrible. The Pipebomb promo and the Who's Daniel Bryan? promo (from) NXT because they played with the boundaries of the script and entertained the notion of what might happen if a personality gave way to a person (like Andy Kauffman's Fridays shoot sketch). On the other hand you have the Matt Hardy The Kane Angle was Fake but this is Real promo which sacrifices the entire promotion's premise for the sake of a single midcard feud. Experimenting with wrestling's artifice can yield thrilling results but a delicate tread is required.

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  46. *drops mic, trips over mic, touches a girl's butt, apologizes, gets shamed by a horde of feminists, get his butt touched, falls in puddle, dick gets wet, drops another mic*

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  47. The end scene in the Scientology South park where hes yelling "sue me!"

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  48. Exactly! Plus it gave us The Showster, which is literally something I laughed at for several minutes.

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  49. I expect you to do lots of things. Stalk women, live-with your parents, be broke, smell bad, drive a used car, write about boring shit on a blog no one has ever read, cut your wrists for attention.. all kinds of stuff, but no, I don't expect you to like anything here.

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  50. The opening credits of any of Gaspar Noé's films are great.

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  51. Do people still say silly things like PWNED on the internetz? Because, that's exactly what you posted just was.

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  52. Jobber that hit a little too close to home for some of us. Just saying.

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  53. Yea, coulda gone either way

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  54. Showster was amazing! As was Gilberg. I was talking with a lapsed wrestling fan recently about all the great comedic moments from the attitude era. When they did it right, they used to nail it. The only recent hilarity of note was the Daniel Bryan/Kane anger management sessions. It's a shame they don't have competition worth commenting on anymore, wrestling has completely lost its satirical element (unless you count commenting on pop-culture at a 5 year delay).

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  55. Vince-Angle-Austin. Best WWE comedy ever.

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  56. Then we had 'The Juice' in WCW, which was pretty stupid.

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  57. Ugh, and Oklahoma. The parodies weren't without their ugliness. I can go either way on the Huckster and the Nacho man.

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  58. Rock/Hurricane was up there.

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  59. Once I stopped trying to swallow my tongue I learned to appreciate them.

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  60. I actually took a couple of TV classes from 'Oklahoma', and am friends with him on FB, I've avoided bugging him about wrestling things until I had a really good reason to do so, but he's a really cool guy.

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  61. Mike Awesome's "Fat Chick Thrilla" was so terrible, it crossed the line to being funny again.

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  62. Ah I'm pleased to see it already made it to the board! And just for the record npp lurkers they don't really have basements out here.

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  63. 'Eugene? Metatextual.'


    he was based on an actual fan, a son of someone who was associated with studio wrestling in pittsburgh back in the day

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  64. zappas entire corpus is metatextual


    conceptual contunuity ftw

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  65. Seriously, someone posted that over there?


    Excuse me: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!



    a-hem, I feel better now. What level of losers are we dealing with here? Just, wow.

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  66. i do love me some breaking of the 4th wall:


    fresh prince of bel air


    ferris beuler's day off


    a scene in trading places when the brothers said something obvious to eddie murphy but treated it as profound and they cut to a shot of him just looking at the camera with a "really" look on this face


    when real becky came back to roseanne, she walked in and roseanne said, 'where the hell have you been?' and then at some point fake becky (before she came back full time) was at their door as someone else and said something about how she'd love to be a part of their family


    spaceballs

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  67. Yeah, that owning a used car thing was a vicious thrashing.

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  68. The best was when something odd would happen on Magnum PI and he would look directly into the camera. And when Groucho Marx had a strange interlude during Animal Crackers.

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  69. Malcolm in the middle.

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  70. Defending your comrade? Do you defend all NPP posters, even the ones that make fun of autistic children?

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  71. And Boston Legal.

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  72. Dude, you just declared a pwning because the guy said he drives a used car.

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  73. I think you got that mixed up, bucky got his ass handed to him by jobber.

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  74. Roddy Piper chasing down Goldust in a white Bronco.
    It was even two years too late at that point.
    It was meta-something.

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  75. For owning a used car. I'll go on record, I own a used car. I PWN3D myself!

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  76. I loved that too. Every now and then Vince has a silly idea that may not be 'good' but certainly memorable.

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  77. Arrested Development.

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  78. You can't possibly be this illiterate, or can you?

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  79. The term is illuminate.

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  80. Defending that I own a used car? How noble of Dougie.

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  81. Calvin & Hobbes wins at everything.

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  82. the score is oogie to boogie

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  83. I've never owned any GTA games but it seems like every single time in however many years that I've been somewhere and someone was playing it, they were doing nothing more than causing as much shit as possible and avoid the cops as long as possible.
    Is there an actual story element to the game, or is that the whole point?

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  84. Pretty sure Quantum Leap did this kind of thing all the time, but I just can't think of any examples off the top of my head. Can anyone help a brotha out here?

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  85. Only until you get stuck in the boomerang zone.

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  86. but i sang the so sorry song

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  87. GTA has actually been on the forefront of progressive story telling for quite some time. GTA San Andreas told a pretty decent if not over the top story about ghetto life but went a bit off the rails, but GTA IV was near masterful in the way it would let you interact with a lot of the NPCs in new and interesting ways. Hold on I can link you to a piece I wrote about how profound it really was.

    GTA V looks to be doing a really cool thing where you'll be playing as three different characters who have their own arcs that will intersect and cause chaos within one another. All the games are really well acted and pretty well nuanced, too - just keep in mind that there's no way that a 40 hour game is going to be as compact and exciting and of as high quality as a 2 hour movie.

    This is old and not really something I'm super proud of, but you can find it here: http://www.enterprisenews.com/blogs/meekin/x973073149/The-best-feature-of-Grand-Theft-Auto-IV-is

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  88. Watching Enter The Void, and totally doing the midnight release of GTA 5. Thanks for the movie recommendation - it's awesome.

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  89. You've definitely pwned your self. And whatever piece of shit car you drive has very little to do with it.

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  90. I drive a Bentley.

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  91. Those Castle examples are breaking the 5th wall.


    The 4th wall is the boundary between the audience and the characters, the 5th wall is the boundary between the characters and the other roles portrayed by the actor. A small but significant difference, IMO.

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  92. And that was your failure right there.
    That last wicket marked pernicious poem place.

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  93. Hrm, I"m not a huge fan of breaking kayfabe/the 4th wall. The only examples that are alright to me is if they're justified somehow in the story. Like thought being presented as a monologue or somebody writing a letter or diary or being crazy. And comedy can pretty much break any rule because suspension of disbelief is not essential for comedies to work because there are no stakes (usually).


    In wrestling, I'm fine with CM Punk calling himself Phillip Brooks because obviously CM Punk is not his actual government name, actually, most of what Punk did in his "shoots" are alright because the reality presented did not destroy the illusion of wrestling. Having management favor certain athletes makes sense because "legit" organizations do the exact same shit.


    On the other hand, "He doesn't follow the script" is just indescribably stupid.


    So, as to my favorite "reality bending" moments? Blazing Saddles is a good one. For more dramatic works lets go with Neil Gaiman. Sure his stories about stories within stories about stories can get a little pretentious, he has managed to play around with the constraints of fiction in pretty clever ways.

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  94. Still metatextual though!

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  95. I loved how 30 Rock was an comedy show on NBC about producing a comedy show on NBC. So Meta.
    One of the best meta moments was Liz and Matt Damon's character talking about "Invictus" and wondering "who played the white guy?" (Matt Damon).


    The last episode of The Office was us the audience watching the characters watching themselves on TV like we had been doing for six years.


    Of course, there's Being John Malkovich.....

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  96. One that I've been liking lately was recently on Breaking Bad. (I suppose when talking Bad you always have to say Spoiler Alert because so many people watch it later): when Hank had Jesse in his house, ready to use him as bait to get Walt and leaving him in a completely bad position, Jesse was thumbing through a Ronald Reagan biography called Dutch. "Dutch booking" is an economic term meaning a deal that is completely unbalanced and favors only one side, ie how Hank was screwing Jesse over.

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  97. I really sincerely don't want to know if that's about me. I don't read what those dirtbags have to say but that's the kind of low that makes me want to start executing people.

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  98. Yes. I just wanted to bring out my lit crit glasses and educate people.


    All those hours wasted have to be good for something, right?

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  99. Don't bother. Being a snarky commentator about a snarky pro wrestling blog is already a fate worse then death. They just do that weird "be shockingly mean on the internet" gimmick. Basically they are on par with YouTube comments, the old ESPN comments, and twitter eggs. Its their only outlet to lash out.

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  100. Not wasted. You should give Macklemore's Ten Thousand Hours a listen. You'll feel better!

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  101. Classic. Mick doing the lap of the ring while Rock shakes his head and smiles is one of my favorite wrestling moments ever.

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  102. It was even sweeter if you had read foley is good and understood how frustrated foley was with rocky for being such a jerk in character all the time

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  103. Listening to Macklemore will not make me feel better...ever.


    He is not talented.

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  104. I like that song and a couple of others. I think he's creative and a pretty positive fellah, but I agree he is a little weak when up against folks like eminem, dre, nas, and fiddy. That said I do like how his message is very different from typical gangster rap and for that I appreciate, if not enjoy, some of his music. I just dig that ten thousand hours song a lot

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  105. http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail118.html

    This'n

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  106. I really separate people and their art. I'm a big fan of Megadeth, and Dave Mustaine is a total asshole.


    My main problem with Macklemore has always been his complete lack of actual rhyming talent. Yeah he has a positive message, but I feel that the primary reason people like him is because he's not black and is therefore "safe" to enjoy.


    P.S. Diddy and Dre in best rappers? Dre is my favorite producer but I'd never call him a great rapper.

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  107. fiddy meaning 50 cent. It's weird because if you look at his lyrics he's a genius, but when you listen to him I can barely understand.

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  108. Sorry, I totally read that as Diddy. 50 Cent I've always found to be kind of underrated. Sure his material was repetitive, but he has good flow and some clever lines in there.


    Worst rapper working currently has to be somebody from the south though. Tyga or Wokka Flocka or Gucci Mane.

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