Napoleon Dynamite
Makes More Sense
Ever feel like you have woken up only to find that you are one of the extras in the movie Napoleon Dynamite?
In that movie everybody and everything is crazy. Saying and doing things that defy all logic. Being completely off the wall.
That’s what this week has seemed like.
Hoda Muthana, a 24-year-old American citizen who left the United States to join ISIS five years ago, now says she’s sorry and wants to come back home. Turns out the grass wasn’t greener over in that desert where they behead people just for shits and giggles.
Before she left for a life of wonderfulness wearing a flattering burkha, Ms. Muthana urged her fellow Muslims to randomly murder Americans, tweeting, “You have much to do while you live under our greatest enemy, enough of your sleeping! Go on drive-bys and spill all of their blood, or rent a big truck and drive all over them (on) Veterans, Patriot, Memorial Day parades. Kill them.”
Not exactly what the daughters of most Americans say when they go off to college or leave for a summer hitchhiking tour of Europe.
Muthana liked it enough over there in Syria to marry three Islamic state fighters who were killed one after another. Hey, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.
She even had time to have a son, now 18 months old, by one of the men. She was eventually captured by Kurdish forces and placed in a refugee camp. Apparently the refugee camp is short on creature comforts, because now she wants to come back home to the good ol’ USA. She’s from Alabama, so she’s ready for some Southern home cooking.
“Seeing how different a society could be compared to the beloved America I was born and raised into changed me,” says Muthana. “To say that I regret my past words, any pain that I caused my family and any concerns I would cause my country would be hard for me to really express properly.”
Muthana, here’s a suggestion on how to really express it properly: Don’t come back.
Then there’s actor Jussie Smollett. Holy shit, what an idiot.
Smollett claims he was attacked and beaten by white supremacists, who called him the n-word and the g-word, poured a chemical substance on him, and almost hung him with a rope. He couldn’t wait to go on Good Morning America to tell the world about his ordeal.
Of course, everybody went batshit crazy. Politicians and actors took to podiums and talk-show couches to express their outrage at those damn redneck supremacists. Actress Ellen Page went all teary-eyed on the Stephen Colbert Show, pretty much blaming Trump and Vice President Mike Pence for the Smollett attack. I knew they were guilty!
Now, according to investigators, it looks like the attackers were actually two black men who are good friends of Smollett and who planned the whole thing with the actor. Ooops.
Let me see if I have this straight, Mr. Smollett. You are a successful actor on a highly successful network series. You are photographed every week or so on a red carpet. You appear on talk shows and Entertainment Tonight. You are a sought after black actor in an industry that does not always favor or support minorities. You get a ridiculously high paycheck for pretending in front of a camera.
And that’s not enough?
You need more attention?
And worse, did you really think no one would find out?
If it turns out Smollett did indeed fabricate the entire thing, I don’t think he should serve a day in jail. Instead let’s put him in a room with a dozen young black men who have actually been attacked and maimed because of their race and let them patiently explain to Smollett why it’s not a good idea to make stuff like that up. Might be more interesting to watch than an episode of Empire.
One of the best dialogue exchanges in Napoleon Dynamite, goes like this:
Don: “Hey Napoleon. What did you do last summer again?”
Napoleon: “I told you! I spent it with my uncle in Alaska hunting wolverines!”
Don: “Did you shoot any?”
Napoleon: “Yes, like 50 of ’em! They kept trying to attack my cousins, what the heck would you do in a situation like that!”
Now that seems plausible to me.
More plausible than an Islamic terrorist expecting to be forgiven for encouraging innocent Americans to be slaughtered.
And more plausible than a young man who has everything risking everything for another 15 minutes of fame.
