Film Sessions: Perhaps Ben Shapiro Shouldn't Be Taken Seriously By Anyone About Anything from Some More News with Cody Johnson

 

Editor's note: as I explained in my last post, Facebook is being twitchy about my low-key anarchist page and I don't want to lose my weekly film sessions, so I'm transferring them here to Media Madness.

Today's post originally appeared on my Facebook Page on November 26th, 2020.

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So, you’re trapped in a capitalist hellhole currently experiencing the second wave of a global pandemic virtually nobody in government seems to be talking seriously, and to top it all off – it’s Thanksgiving but you’re probably stuck at home trying not to murder your aging relatives for some gravy and a Lions game. What exactly are you going to do with yourself here? The answer of course, is to spend just over an hour laughing at what a disingenuous vampire muppet Ben Shapiro is.

Today’s video comes to us from the always witty Cody Johnson (@drmistercody on Twitter) and his excellent Youtube series, Some More News. Typically I like to feature shorter, more digestible videos in this space but given that it’s apocalypse Thanksgiving, you could definitely use a good laugh and Johnson’s videos are always worth the time investment in my experience, I thought we’d make an exception for this seventy minute masterpiece. It also doesn’t hurt that this might be the single greatest takedown of Ben Shapiro’s nonsense and f*ckery ever created.

Of course, it could be argued that eviscerating Shapiro is an activity akin to plucking low hanging fruit; you point out that he’s a racist, a lackey propagandist for reactionary billionaires (most notably the Wilks brothers and the extended Koch donor network) and that he’s about as tall as a hobbit. And to be fair, Johnson does touch on these subjects, but what makes this episode of Some More News so interesting is that it actually engages Ben Shapiro on his own terms, or at least his own stated terms – “logic, facts and reason.” Starting from the simple question “is Ben Shapiro stupid, or a liar” and working his way through numerous clips of Ben’s public appearances and videos, Johnson repeatedly answers his own question without actually saying so; factually, Ben Shapiro isn’t stupid, but rather a brazen liar who thinks you’re stupid. 

Furthermore, the analysis in this video is surprisingly deep for a comedy presentation. Rather than settling for cataloguing the near-infinite number of times that Shapiro has been “wrong” about a culture-war, hot button issue important to American reactionaries, Cody’s analysis instead effectively demonstrates that Shapiro’s branded catch-phrase “facts don’t care about your feelings” is a staggering form of weaponized projection employed by a man who openly admits his own research begins with his feelings, and ends with searching up “facts” that confirm those feelings. Indeed, after watching the episode I found myself thinking a more accurate slogan for Shapiro might be “my feelings are facts and your facts are feelings, neener, neener, neener...” 

Naturally, Johnson also hammers Shapiro for his wanton abuse of ridiculous hypothetical scenarios hidden behind the seemingly reasonable conversational formulation of “let’s say that” and also takes the little sh*t-puppet to task for clowning on college kids because he’d get repeatedly owned by critical adult thinkers in the media – which as anyone whose seen the BBC’s Andrew Neil interview with Shapiro can attest is objectively true!

Perhaps in the final analysis it’s simply best to give the last word to Johnson himself, who notes that “Ben Shapiro is an extremely biased, emotional narcissist who pretends he’s a student of logic and debate but is actually just a talking head for conservatives and has used his popularity and personal bigotry and religious beliefs to stoke the fires of racism and political hatred for way too long and he shouldn’t be taken seriously.”

To check out Some More News: Perhaps Ben Shapiro Shouldn't Be Taken Seriously By Anyone About Anything, click on the link below and check out the comments section for additional sources and citations:

Perhaps Ben Shapiro Shouldn't Be Taken Seriously By Anyone About Anything

Additional Resources

Some More News Youtube Channel

Ben Shapiro: US commentator clashes with BBC's Andrew Neil

Ben Shapiro ‘Owns the Libs' But Who Owns Him?

Shadowy Right-Wing Network Behind Ben Shapiro’s Facebook Success 

- nina illingworth

Independent writer, critic and analyst with a left focus. Please help me fight corporate censorship by sharing my articles with your friends online!

You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

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