This is absolutely hilarious! It amazes me how this flew over people's heads. My husband said, "That William Shatner is nasty! He went on a 20-minute profanity-laced rant about FISH FARMS!" Then I actually watched it, and laughed all the way through it.
Shatner's my hero, and has been for a very long time. He's 92 years old, for God's sake, and if he can still get up and rant about anything, more power to him. I never miss his mystery series The UnXplained, nor is it lost on me that he has been a superb horseman and horse breeder all his life. Being a horsey person myself, I appreciate that.
But this is prime Shatnerian satire/parody, and like all good satire it has a very sharp point. He's not just randomly ranting, as is made plain by all the other people chiming in. And yet, as obvious as it seems, a lot of people are't getting it! I notice how seriously the news outlets are treating it, calling it a nasty rant when it's really a superb slice of prime Shatnerian satire.
Shatner has always had a sense of humor about himself, as in his "singing" career in which he was good-natured about it as people held their ears and howled. He has played parodies of himself on TV many times, and seems to enjoy it. With a 75-year acting career in stage, screen and TV behind you, I guess you can get away with it, no?
According to some people, no.
And according to the bitter, sour, dour folks in Canadian media, apparently not. BUT THAT'S JUST HIS POINT! Canadians are afraid to speak out, afraid to be passionate about anything, so he's breaking all those old taboos in getting up and ranting about fish. But Canadians don't seem to get it. And news outlets only clipped out a few seconds here and there without giving it any context at all.
It's both funny and dismaying to me how my husband was just incensed with this, and said it was utterly disgraceful and even nonsensical for him to unleash a "20-minute rant laced with profanity", when if you actually watch it, it's set up as brilliantly as anything SCTV ever did. And he even changes his accent and re-instates the "hoose and aboot" of Canadian speech, even though his speech was thoroughly Americanized decades ago.
Anyway, hey, don't diss the Shat-man (or is that the Shaman?) - he has a point to make, and it's typical of him that he would use humor to make that point. It's just possible somebody hired him to make this speech, even possible he was reading from a script, but this makes it no less delicious to watch.
BUT EVERYBODY IS GETTING IT WRONG! Has the culture lost its sense of humor completely? Can't we laugh at anything anymore? Come on, Canada. WAKE UP. One of your famous sons is trying to tell you something - and not just about fish farms. Your total misinterpretation of this brilliant comic bit are only proving his point.
It's both funny and dismaying to me how my husband was just incensed with this, and said it was utterly disgraceful and even nonsensical for him to unleash a "20-minute rant laced with profanity", when if you actually watch it, it's set up as brilliantly as anything SCTV ever did. And he even changes his accent and re-instates the "hoose and aboot" of Canadian speech, even though his speech was thoroughly Americanized decades ago.
Anyway, hey, don't diss the Shat-man (or is that the Shaman?) - he has a point to make, and it's typical of him that he would use humor to make that point. It's just possible somebody hired him to make this speech, even possible he was reading from a script, but this makes it no less delicious to watch.
BUT EVERYBODY IS GETTING IT WRONG! Has the culture lost its sense of humor completely? Can't we laugh at anything anymore? Come on, Canada. WAKE UP. One of your famous sons is trying to tell you something - and not just about fish farms. Your total misinterpretation of this brilliant comic bit are only proving his point.
