Quentin Tarantino: Dumb as a post or incredibly dishonest? Both?

The “pornographer of violence” (Chuck Scarborough’s term) takes umbrage when asked about the impact of violent films and TV on society. “Obviously, I don't think one has to do with the other,” he once sputtered when pressed on the issue. “Obviously, the issue is gun control and mental health.”

It's fine for a biological man to self-identify as a woman, but as a conservative? That's taking things a bit too far for liberal outlets. Add the New York Times to the long list of those offended by the right-leaning politics of the former Bruce Jenner, who now identifies as a female Caitlyn. The Times' activism has trickled down in heavy-handed fashion to the Artsbeat section, which is running recaps of the episodes of Jenner's reality show, "I Am Cait," dominated by left-wing trans-activist Casey Plett's disapproval of Jenner's "infuriatingly heartless" views, daring to suggest that welfare payments shouldn't be the first option for transsexual youth looking for work.

One year ago, a British newspaper published a list of President Obama’s ten favorite television shows (the top three, in reverse order: Breaking Bad, The Wire, and M*A*S*H). Not on the list was The Daily Show, on which Obama guested yet again this past Tuesday, but Penn State's Sophia McClennen thinks that if Obama had been more of a TDS fan, he long ago would have realized how irrational his conservative opposition was.

In a Friday article for Salon, McClennen asserted that Stewart and Stephen Colbert “had insight into U.S. politics Obama never seemed to understand. ‘The Daily Show’ and ‘The Colbert Report’ were one of the main sources of truth telling about U.S. politics and the nature of the Republican Party before and during the Obama presidency.” Those programs, wrote McClennen, illuminated “the twisted thinking, hubris, disdain for large segments of society, and closed-mindedness that forms the common, core mind-set of Fox viewers.”

The Miracle on Ice and Hoosiers aside, the underdog usually loses, and Penn State's Sophia McClennen speculates that it’s happened again: Jon Stewart is leaving The Daily Show because he’s “exhausted” and "dejected" from battling Roger Ailes and the Fox News juggernaut. “Could Stewart really be giving up his show due to Fox News fatigue?” wondered McClennen in a Wednesday article for Salon. “It’s time to take seriously the idea that Fox News killed the greatest satire show of our nation’s history.”

Amid mounting evidence of Bill Cosby’s depraved behavior, many have changed their minds about Cosby the person. Should they also reconsider, for very different reasons, their affection for his megahit sitcom, The Cosby Show? Lefty writer Chauncey DeVega thinks so. In a Sunday article for Salon, DeVega opined that the series “lied to its white viewers about the nature of racism, white supremacy, and white privilege” and “enable[d] the colorblind white racist fiction and delusion that anti-black racism is a thing of the past.”

The Huxtables, claimed DeVega, were “an African-American version of the model-minority myth, one of the favorite deflections and rejoinders of white racists in the post-civil rights era, where there are ‘exceptional’ minorities and the rest are failures because they do not work hard, are lazy, and complain too much about white racism. While unintentional, ‘The Cosby Show’ enabled some of the ugliest Reagan-era fantasies.”