It’s been a month but I keep thinking about how bad this Slate piece is at understanding both the Muppet Show (particularly its straight-faced parody of variety shows and vaudeville) and how obsessed kids are with all-stupid un-humor https://t.co/VWbBDj17VO

— Naomi Clark [暗悪直美] (@metasynthie) October 16, 2019

Yeah. It’s like watching Brooke Bolander comment on the Watchmen show. She obviously doesn’t understand it, its context, its meta-commentary on itself (or it’s meta-meta commentary on that), or what it’s trying to do, so it’s painful to read her takes on it. And I like Brooke’s writing but she does not comprehend that show in the least. She thinks for some reason it’s making straight, obvious points when in reality it’s attempting to say, “Here’s the point you thought we were going to make, and we did make it, but here’s why it didn’t mean what you thought it meant, because we already knew you were going to think that, and here’s how to think about that a little more deeply.” And on from that.

She only sees, “Here’s the point.” Done. I can’t understand how she’s missing all this, but most people, even very smart people, have extreme trouble dealing with anything that’s one level of commentary above where a work nominally operates. Something like The Leftovers or Watchmen which comment on their commenting on their own textuality, are completely beyond most people, so it’s a wonder any show like that ever gets made.

It’s mystifying that someone can view a show like Watchmen and not realize anything else is happening there. Just…how?