Can you hear the people sing?
September 12, 2008 2:14 PM   Subscribe

Les Misbarack. (Slyt? Yes. Awesome? Yes.)
posted by mothershock (39 comments total) 7 users marked this as a favorite
 
They're going to feel pretty dumb if he doesn't get elected 'cause they were slagging off.
posted by roue at 2:22 PM on September 12, 2008 [1 favorite]


This. Way to count the chickens, guys.
posted by longdaysjourney at 2:29 PM on September 12, 2008


Headquaters?

We're doomed.
posted by adamrice at 2:32 PM on September 12, 2008


And you say that the Democrats appear to be viewed as less manly then Palin and thus have problems combating her appeal in the South?

Although yes, awesome.
posted by jaduncan at 2:33 PM on September 12, 2008


Awesome? No.
posted by Chuffy at 2:36 PM on September 12, 2008 [2 favorites]


Also, slagging off? In the UK that means denigrating another person/thing. Do you mean slacking off, or does this have another usage in US English?
posted by jaduncan at 2:39 PM on September 12, 2008


I really suspect that show tune lip synching is not the way to win votes among independents and centrists.

Also, slagging off? In the UK that means denigrating another person/thing. Do you mean slacking off, or does this have another usage in US English?

I've never heard slagging as a substitute for slacking in the US. But maybe they speak differently in Minnesota.
posted by Caduceus at 2:44 PM on September 12, 2008


Once Javert bought hashish instead of snuff by mistake. So there he is, sitting in his room stoned off his ass, when someone knocks.

Javert raises his unseeing eyes to the door.

"Who's 'ere?" he mumbles.

"Javert, it is I," says Barack.

Javert sits there silently for a moment, then another, then another, and finally starts giggling.

"Naaaaaah, old man, you're crazy. Javert - it is I!"
posted by netbros at 2:44 PM on September 12, 2008


Yes, we can.

Oh, no, you didn't....
posted by elwoodwiles at 2:50 PM on September 12, 2008


This is nothing more than a transparent attempt to pander to the highly sought-after 'bachelor uncle' demographic.
posted by Atom Eyes at 2:50 PM on September 12, 2008 [8 favorites]


Theater Fags for Obama! Raise your jazzhands high!
posted by ColdChef at 2:56 PM on September 12, 2008 [2 favorites]


Get back to work.
posted by AloneOssifer at 2:58 PM on September 12, 2008


Not awesome. The setting doesn't really have any thematic relation to the song beyond the first line. (A couple of Obama staffers are in love but don't know if they'll ever see each other again? And a third has unrequited feelings for one of them? What does that have to do with the election? Why would anyone care?) And while Javert is the antagonist, he's still a rather sympathetic character--do they really want to be casting McCain in that role?
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 3:01 PM on September 12, 2008 [1 favorite]


The Palin is spot-on.
posted by ColdChef at 3:03 PM on September 12, 2008


Hey ColdChef, you're gonna get reprimanded for that f** word you're using there. That's a no-no!
posted by billysumday at 3:03 PM on September 12, 2008




Hey ColdChef, you're gonna get reprimanded for that f** word you're using there. That's a no-no!

Sorry. Trying to take the word back and all.
[Faux-mo-sexual]
posted by ColdChef at 3:09 PM on September 12, 2008


Awesome++, here.
Maybe it just works for me because Les Mis is the one musical I don't hate, and Obama is the one federal politican I don't despise. It's twice the Ugly Duckling for the price of one.
posted by regicide is good for you at 3:11 PM on September 12, 2008


I agree that it's awesome. And anyone who thinks that these folks will feel bad after the election if he doesn't win probably isn't familiar with the story...
posted by gteffertz at 3:16 PM on September 12, 2008


Maybe the UltimateImprov folks can follow up with the McCain campaign headquarters doing "Cats," featuring Karl Rove as The Magical Mister Mistoffeles...
posted by mothershock at 3:24 PM on September 12, 2008 [5 favorites]


I will quote my father, who two hours into Les Miz and an hour of waiting for Fantine to finally die, groaned "Jeeez. Lighten up, Jean." And he got up and headed to the theater bar. And each of us, about fifteen minutes apart, got up and joined him.
posted by tkchrist at 3:42 PM on September 12, 2008 [1 favorite]


Awesome? Not. I think someone got caught up in the admittedly stirring music.
posted by subgear at 3:43 PM on September 12, 2008


The earnest, young revolutionaries win in the end, right? Right?
posted by thewittyname at 3:48 PM on September 12, 2008 [6 favorites]


Should have rewritten the lyrics, I can't imagine it would have been that hard. Get the Barackula people to help.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 4:03 PM on September 12, 2008


I once wrote a fabulous parady of "Master of the House" about Newt Gingrich and his lesbian sister- this was back when he was, what else, Speaker of the House. Ah, middle school, good times.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 4:09 PM on September 12, 2008 [1 favorite]


COldchef, you made me pee a little from laughing.
posted by rtboo at 4:21 PM on September 12, 2008


It is the most enjoyment I've gotten out of Les Mis since I graduated high school. Still, I'd hate to see it mistaken for official, as it seems to be trying to pass itself off as such. (Not very convincingly, but still.)

This is as good a place as any to mention that I just found out that there was a video game of Les Miserables made in the '90s -- a Street Fighter clone. Javert did not have the Hadou-ken in the translation of Hugo that I read.
posted by Countess Elena at 4:28 PM on September 12, 2008 [3 favorites]


That was kinda fruity.

Not that there's anything wrong with that...
posted by Eekacat at 4:47 PM on September 12, 2008


When do we get to start guillotining counter-revolutionaries?
posted by empath at 5:20 PM on September 12, 2008 [1 favorite]


Why are McCain and Palin hanging out at Obama HQ the day before the election?
posted by robcorr at 5:43 PM on September 12, 2008


Not the Obama HQ. Everyone is way too well dressed.
posted by fancypants at 5:43 PM on September 12, 2008


Hey. I"LL decide what I think is awesome.

Okay, it's awesome.
posted by unSane at 5:46 PM on September 12, 2008


Another vote for not awesome. You want an awesome Les Mis mashup?

Star Wars The Musical: Use the Force
posted by EarBucket at 6:31 PM on September 12, 2008


Goddamn, Barry must really want the Log Cabin vote.
posted by trondant at 7:12 PM on September 12, 2008


empath: When do we get to start guillotining counter-revolutionaries?

Wrong revolution. Hell, the uprising of 1832 (the "revolution" in Les Misérables) doesn't really count as a revolution, at least by French standards (if the same events had happened in London, however, it would probably be referred to as the Ultimate Kerfuffle of Ultimate Destiny. For a group of people noted for their habit of understatement the British sure do go completely overboard when naming things... Great Britain being the obvious example, I suppose). The June 5th uprising (over on June 6th) was mostly directed against the incredibly unpopular Charles X. However, the book is rather obviously inspired by the 1848 revolution (I'm pretty sure Hugo said as much). What's interesting is that Hugo was a counter-revolutionary in 1848, at one point actually being on the other side of a barricade from Baudelaire, leading the forces of the republic against the rebels. Which isn't that strange considering he was a senator at the time. Anyway, he seems to have been wracked with guilt over not having taken the side of the rebels against the state. Especially since the 1848 revolution lead, ultimately, to the Louis Napoléon's coup of 1851 (Hugo hated Louis Napoleon, coining the pejorative nickname Napoléon le petit). It can be argued that Les Misérables was an extended act of repentance by Hugo. In some ways it's a collision between a modern novel and a hagiography (the "saint" being the very flawed Jean Valjean, who's not as sympathetic in the book as he's in the musical). Hugo was atoning for his counter-revolutionary fervor by mythologizing rebels against the French state (Hugo couldn't, of course, actually write a novel about a successful revolution, only tragedies produce true dramatic heroes). Les Misérables is a path not taken for the modern novel. It's the apotheosis of the 19th Century social novel. It's subject matter isn't really individual characters so much as human society as it is. The novel would turn towards exploring the inner, the mind, but Les Misérables points towards another trajectory, which sometimes has been taken up by later novelists (Roberto Bolaño's The Savage Detectives is a recent example, though it's not as mindbogglingly expansive as Les Misérables).

EarBucket: Star Wars The Musical: Use the Force

That may be the most geeky thing I've ever seen. And I've seen some horrendously geeky things... but that may just take the cake, eat the cake, vomit the cake up again and then sculpt the cake vomit into a life-sized sculpture of Han Solo encased in carbonite (but in a good way).

regicide is good for you [that internet handle speaks the truth]: Les Mis is the one musical I don't hate

I don't hate many musicals... don't really have the time, y'know. However, Les Misérables is the one musical I love. Some of it is purely sentimental, I saw it for the first time when I was 6, and Gavroche was played by the son of close friends of my parents, someone I'd known all my life (I bawled when Gavroche died and during the epilogue when he reappears). There's also it's unremitting Frenchness (having lived as a kid in France I'm something of a hopeless Francophile) coupled with the fact that because that the plot of the novel is so strong it's story is light-years removed from most narratives in musicals. And finally I really like the music. So yeah... I've totally been youtubing songs from the musical while writing this comment.
posted by Kattullus at 8:37 PM on September 12, 2008 [6 favorites]


Man if I see another three-second dissolve between reverse shots I'm going to punch someone in the neck.
posted by shakespeherian at 11:20 PM on September 12, 2008


There's been a trend recently of "hip" companies doing lip-sync productions in their offices. The One from Digg is actually pretty impressive.

And uh, since this wasn't actually filmed by the Obama campaign it's pretty ridiculous for people be criticizing him over it.
posted by delmoi at 12:01 AM on September 13, 2008 [1 favorite]


From the same Star Wars show: Millennium Falcon!
posted by EarBucket at 8:54 AM on September 13, 2008


Oh, and libretto here.
posted by EarBucket at 8:55 AM on September 13, 2008


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