Where do bad ideas come from? Here’s one:
In the mid-90s this seemingly harmless film would make the rotation on cable channels often enough that I saw this on a handful of occasions. It appeared to be a relatively harmless confection, overly saccharine and sweet, a little bit corny, a fantasy idea of how the world works, a modern retelling of the Prince and the Pauper fairy tale.
In other words, the perfect concoction to deliver some toxic material.
In this case, the toxic material comes in a scene near the end of act 2, as the pauper “Dave” in the guise of the prince gets to work doing a line-by-line review of budget items.
Any resemblance to current events is purely coincidental.
What the movie suggested is that something as complex as the budget of a modern nation-state can be managed at this level, that that’s all it would take. A complete fantasy.
But this is the sort of meme that grows and spreads, and ends up becoming embedded in out culture. And toxic memes are very, very hard to dislodge once they get to that state.
Coming in May this year, we’re going to do a deep dive into where bad ideas come from, how they spread, and how they get embedded in the zeitgeist. We’ve got a few themes locked up for our Bad Ideas series already:
- The Worst Movie in the World: Bad Movies
- Is This a Joke to You?: Bad Comedy
- Dank Memes
- (and perhaps one or two surprises)
Why May? Well, we have a four episode block on cyberspace coming up next on the podcast, followed by an Andor Season 1 vibe recap which should wrap just in time for Season 2, at which point we’ll dig into this Bad Idea Theater.
Stay tuned!