Jimmy Kimmel is back on television by less than popular demand. Kimmel’s ratings are hardly robust (Kimmel pulls in 1.85 million in comparison to Gutfeld! at 3.2 million). Still, his suspension for spreading disinformation about the killer of Charlie Kirk became a cause celebre on the left. Kimmel continues to air nightly screeds against Trump and conservatives. Of course, he is hardly unique in appealing to an echo-chambered audience. However, this week Kimmel showed children being read Eric Trump’s book by a drag queen. What was most disturbing was not the use of the children to echo talking points on how great drag queens are, but showing them throwing Trump’s book into a wood chipper. It appears that nothing is funnier for the modern left than a good book burning or chipping.
Trixie Mattel led the “Drag Queen Storytime” with a group of kids in the satiric treatment of Trump’s book. Mattel asked the kids questions like “Do I scare any of you?” eliciting a response: “You just look amazing. Why would that be scary?”
The children are given choices to read like Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich.
It may be the most bizarre element of the skit, even bordering on the ironically humorous. After all, Mattel was portraying the Trump Administration as Nazis, but was about to show the children how to destroy books that have views that they do not like. That may not bring back memories of collectible Nazi spoons, but it does bring back memories of Nazi book burning.
The audience delights as one child says that she would “kick” Donald Trump “in the…” before the show bleeped out the rest of her response.
Mattel then shows the kids how to “make excellent confetti” out of a book that they do not like with a giant wood chipper outside of the studio. It is the type of comedic styling that would have had Joseph Goebbels rolling on the ground laughing.
For the free-speech community, there are few more disgraceful images as the burning or destruction of books because you do not agree with the author’s viewpoints. To see children participating in such an exercise is even more troubling.
It is easy to dismiss this as simply another bizarre skit on a show struggling for ratings. However, some of us have been raising concerns for years about the embrace of the American left in effective (or even actual) book burning. Some on the right have also embraced book burning.
Cancel campaigns of conservative speakers were not enough for many on the left. They have pressured companies not to publish books by conservatives, including figures like Justice Amy Coney Barrett. It is far easier (and environmentally sound) to ban opposing books than to physically burn them. However, the sentiment is the same. Rather than responding to those who oppose you, you fight to silence them and prevent others from reading them.
Books by JK Rowling have been burned because of her opposition to certain transgender policies that she views as undermining women’s rights.
That is why the image of children happily tossing books into a wood chipper is so disturbing for many in the free speech community. This is not just satire but reality as many push to destroy books with opposing views.
None of this means that there is any crime in this comedic sketch. Even book burning is protected speech. Yet, the humor is missed by many of us who have been objecting to the rise of a new generation of self-righteous book burners in America.
Nothing screams “No Kings” like burning books
Jimmy is like Hamas. Jimmy will not disarm.
“. . . Kimmel showed children being read . . .”
There is a special place in hell for those who use children as political props.
Beneath that place is for those who groom children to be the next generation of Antifa.
Sam, how do you feel about politicians who pose their children holding semiautomatic rifles around the family Christmas tree for their Christmas cards? Peace, Love, and Death.
Anon, how do you feel about those who tap you on the shoulder to distract you, so they can pick your pocket?
Delusion, is it strictly a human phenomena or do other living things delude themselves that, for instance, there isn’t a huge lion bearing down on a lone antelope? How can half of this nation not see that the very ideology of the prog/left is built on nothing but delusion against the very facts and nature of life?
Book burning, the very first act of tyrants (recorded even as early as the Qin Shi Huang the founder of the Qin dynasty and the first emperor of China, and as recently as islamists and communists restricting access to information in order to protect their grasp on power. And let us not forget the irony of seeing pictures of Nazis burning books all the while accusing Republicans of being Nazis. (their hypocrisy is astounding I must admit).
When needing to deal with crazed cult members harassing and threatening civilizations in the past, governments were forced to deal with these irrationals with forces of varying methodology but nearly always resulting to force when the realization hit that logical discussions no longer proved workable when dealing with crazed zealots.
As a degreed student of history for the past half century, I can see these parallels and wonder just how the globe will deal with this recurring problem now that we are so interconnected at almost the speed of light. It was one thing to mandate an Albigensian Crusade or an Inquisition against threats to civilization but today’s intertwined crazies are supported globally by a cabal that sees the capture of power in the ensuing chaos.
This is far more than Kimmel or Bad Bunnie, this is a global war between what millennia has taught us as to how to exist as humans and an experiment in a societal ideology cooked up in faculty lounges/think tanks and abetted by funds from those who would gain power.
Utopia has always been the easy dream to encourage followers and it has been proffered many a time in our earth’s history, but the calm sanity of concepts tried and used time and again i orderly societies has always been found to offer the most stability. I am not sure that sanity will overcome the money and ideology this time.
WhimsicalMama,
Great comment!
whimsicalmama,
Almost all books go into the garbage; a few are sent back to the publishers who use them to heat their factories. Book burning, as you describe, is the rounding up of books from other people, people who would like to keep those books. This was taking a book that was not liked and they didn’t want to keep, and disposing of it. Are you of the opinion that book owners should not be allowed to do what they want with the books they own? Wait until you see what happens to most books that libraries take from the shelves due to damage or lack of interest in checking them out.
what a meaningless and stupid retort. Provocateur should be your user name here.
I can’t believe ABC/Disney will tolerate this. Let’s see.
The modern Democrats is little different than Germany National Socialists of the 1930’s!
They exhibit the SAME traits, Except the Germans didn’t HATE their own country like today’s Democrat do!
The only explanation I can think of is book burning (and censorship) is OK when done by righteous leftists to PROTECT from fascists but not OK if done by anyone else. Of course, a “fascist” is anyone with whom leftists do not agree.
S@@tlibs please help me with this one. Is there another explanation? What did I miss?
antonio
This is hilarious! It’s satire. But Professor Turley is trying his darnest to make this more ominous than it is. Kimmel didn’t spread disinformation about Kirk’s killer. He just pointed out the fact that MAGA was going crazy on anything denigrating about Kirk.
Inadvertently the Trump administration in its attempt to silence Kimmel made him into a martyr for free speech.
Turley being concerned about books thrown into shredders and children watching seems disingenuous when he remained silent when Republicans were banning books from school libraries and public libraries.
Kimmel’s satirical skit was just that, a skit. Professor Turley seems more interested in clutching his pearls and letting everyone know that they should too. Hilarious!
X
Inadvertently the Trump administration in its attempt to silence Kimmel made him into a martyr for free speech.
Lying again george.
How is that a lie? Trump’s FCC did threaten broadcasters with consequences if they didn’t do anything about Kimmel. Turley was strangely obscurely silent about that. The right really didn’t want Kimmel to become a martyr for free speech and Trump did it in the most spectacular way.
X concluded with “Hilarious!”, reminding me of a common accompaniment to the ravings of the insane. Maniacal laughing may be useful in communicating mania in hospital or creating terror in films, but in justifying warped reasoning it’s just pathetic.
What the Professor wrote may be hilarious to you (which Prof Turley acknowledged the so-called humor in Kimmel’s skit). However, to advocate or normalize book burning just because one disagreed with other’s point of view is nothing funny.
How odd. Are you saying that destroying property you own should not be allowed because it is some item you, yourself, value? That your beliefs override the rights of others?
Compare to the typical image of book burning, where books are taken from public libraries or private collections, stolen from other people, and destroyed.
This screed seems like a Jihadist call for a fatwa as was done for Charlie Hebdo.
Was there a similar outcry from Turley when people were shooting cans of beer or setting sneakers on fire?
The sad fact of the lives of books is the vast majority will be put into landfills. Even among new books, when the sales figures drop off the covers are removed and the books sent back. One publisher used the returned books for heating the factory.
This is another chapter in “The Right to Rage: How the Billionaires Pay the Millionaires to Convince the Middle and Lower Class to be Minions.” by manufacturing a false comparison of chucking one’s own garbage into a shredder with the right to write and publish that garbage.
When the wiseoldlawyer does get around to Fahrenheit 451, note that they are taking books from people who love the books and destroying the books, not buying books and after reading them, as most books end up, putting them in the garbage. Also note that the conservatives are the ones destroying the books and the liberals are the ones trying to save them.
Yes, “Farenheit 451”.
The Jimmy Kimmel show has no entertainment value but he’s making a good buck, so maybe the executives at his network should be fired? From Steve Allen to Jay Leno late night offered true entertainment, thereafter it all went downhill.
Did any of the writers even take a moment to maybe think their little, tasteless, skit just might be compared to Nazi era book burning?
I like the idea you’ve brought up , the changing face of “celebrity”. Something to consider and the iconography within art also as the holy grail to Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s soup, the Virginia Mary to Marilyn Monroe.
Yea, I saw Jeff Bridges was on his show. Good actor but just another Hollyweird burnout. Yeah, the dude abides, a perfect parallelism of liberalism!
“None of this means that there is any crime in this comedic sketch.” Professor, this is mostly a legal blog, no? In that vain, you forgot the word “allegedly” before ‘comedic’.
I viewed the skit and thought it was in very bad taste and unnecessary, even to make a point Kimmel wanted to make, perhaps humorously. That said, Jonathan, I wish you would refrain from lumping this behavior, and Jimmy Kimmel for that matter, as the “left.” It’s counterproductive. Call out the behavior for what you see it as, and leave it at that. Otherwise, you become part of the problem, sadly, and your wisdom, which I admire, is muted by the subtle rage (ok, contempt, maybe) implied in your writing.
sorry a BROADCASTING license isn’t protected by First Amendment!
grooming kids to become trans…is a CRIME!
TAKE AWAY THEIR Broadcasting license…as they are 100% Political!
” BROADCASTING license isn’t protected by First Amendment!”
Neither is there any provision in the Constitution authorizing the Federal government to manage the electromagnetic spectrum (any more than there is for monopolizing print media) to decide who can, and who cannot utilize it. I hate groomers and despise idiots like Kimmel, but I also tire of people who want to be narrowly selective about observing the Constitution.
I fail to understand your objection to ascribing Kimmel’s content to the political left. Transgenderism which includes exposing, indoctrinating, grooming and physically modifying underage children is a policy of the left which is represented by the Democrat Party. It was an executive order by Barack Obama that opened this new front in the culture wars. Censorship and cancellation in the last 20 years has been promoted and practiced most visibly by the left. I see very few in the Democrat Party, Turley being an exception, taking a public stand against these policies. it is unfortunate that you take offense at the observation that the extremism on display in every quarter of the public sphere is originating from the left but that is the obvious truth.
Turley’s rewarded for stoking the rage. At the least he gets to plug his book on Fox News and The Hill, among other outlets.
This is truly a demented story! My biggest issue, I have many, but his worst offense was using children in the skit! Yes, it’s protected speech, but it doesn’t have to be tolerated! We need a large movement organized and dedicated to getting Kimmel off the air permanently!
What Kimmel’s viewers know and know with certainty is that he will not violate their trust. He will never utter a word in favor of Trump or Christianity. He will never deviate an inch from leftist orthodoxy. Kimmel has created a “comfort ministry” for his fans, a place where no doubt is challenged and no fear is mentioned.
Kimmel is a computer algorithm. His skits are written by computer programs.
I’ve identified a new mental condition or retardation. Human brain algorithms naturally occur and take the form of common sense. Computer algorithms have changed the basic structure of the brain. It’s one reason human computer retardation refers to themselves binary, non binary. Computer algorithms have replaced human algorithms or fused with them.
No kings day is obviously an error because human common sense understands DJT was elected for a finite time.
Older people are less likely to be affected because of well established human common sense. This doesn’t mean some older people aren’t just stupid and have always been illogical, or greedy, power seekers etc.
TDS is computer sponsored. One goal of the new computer algorithms is to delete Judaism. Christianity doesn’t exist without Judaism. It’s all snowballing downhill. Televisions are computers. Radios are digitized.
The right can’t be trusted as they also have fallen as prey. I avoided the inane no kings day meme screeching. Right wing radio wouldn’t allow the avoidance and covered it. If it wasn’t seen on the left the right didn’t allow escape.
Have a computer free day!
I have to go back and read “Farenheit 451” again.
It’s surprising to me just how we tolerate historically illiteracy. Prior to World War I, “celebrities” were mostly aristocrats. It was in the aftermath of that useless bloodbath that the contemporary version of celebrities was born. In America, the rapid spread of recorded and recording media made actors and sports figures into “celebrities” alongside of the politicians, bankers, and industrial pioneers. Today, we are so overwhelmed by “media” access that there is no need for ANY LONG TERM ACCOMPLISHMENT at all to be a (albeit, momentary usually) celebrity. The clowns who used to keep the audience engaged between acts are now the main acts. As a sidebar: I think that HRH, Prince William of Wales, is a throwback, who may be the last celebrity aristocrat, and who reminds us of a time when celebrity meant something.
“just how we tolerate historically illiteracy.”
You pretty much whacked yourself with your opening line…