layers

On my morning trip to the arboretum I decided to play the full Pink Friday album. The second track is…the appeal of it is not musical, I’ll say that. Eminem was the feature, and I didn’t realize till they were put in front of me side by side how similar they are. This is going to start sounding a bit like the Rick ‘n Morty “you need to have a very high IQ to even–” blah blah blah BUT, I do think there is a purposeful level of caricature and satire that people must be missing, given the way they are critiqued. “Eminem is corny” Yes! That’s the joke! That’s the character, the performance. Are you not entertained? To me he’s the kid at school who is on the tamer side of the spectrum, but enough that he still gets bullied by virtue of coming across as weird in a non-specific way. Tragically he thinks getting really good at his hyperfixation will gain him social cachet, but it only makes him more of a freak. At some point he realizes he will always be misunderstood by most people, and so he constructs a persona that plays into that expectation, while signaling to people who are paying attention that there is a self awareness behind it. 

Nicki strikes me as similar, and there’s an element of bucking gender expectations in the mix with her as well. With some of her songs, you could slap the label of comedy/parody on it and not change a single word. “Shitted on’m , put your number 2s in the air if you did it on’m”. ??????????¿¿¿¿¿?? Maybe this is a colder take than I think. I just remember the way people talked about Nicki when I was in high school, like she was a bimbo who got famous just for being over the top. I see it very differently now. 

Speaking of shit, my piece of shit brain used this as an excuse to resurrect the buried muse. The cartoonish lightbulb moment I had when I saw how that kind of intentional caricature could unlock a whole new level to Ned’s character….it kind of annoys me it didn’t occur to me sooner, because when I was making the room layout for young Ned in the last comic, I was thinking how Eminem would certainly have been a huge influence on him. 

Before we get into it, though, I’m just warning the universe: if fox szn makes an actual come back, and it’s obvious there’s been a superficial Ludwig ass yoink and twist of my ideas, boy —— you better get his spirit team casting evil eye wards off cooldown. There is one thing that would get me to fully and unapologetically commit to this delulu witch arc, and that’s the need to put the malocchies on a prince who is being a bum. 

I’m not sure if what is wrong with Ned is a broken brain or just his broken chromosome, but consider my theory that his beard is fake in cannon, and intentionally so — I’m imagining someone who’s having a bit of a midlife crisis, he has some time and money to dip his toes back into music again, but he knows he’s at an age where any attempt to be “cool” will be cringe. But…..what if the only way out is through? It’s a risky gambit because trying to be too in on the joke can itself be cringe, but he sees the potential to make a gen x bachelor type kind of endearing. He’s channeling the archetype of a heel in wrestling (which makes sense as a point of reference for someone his age). 

This also enables Ned to feel like a more grounded character, while still leaning into the comedy angle of the songs. You could play Ned as a fully comedic character, where the songs are sincere and funny by virtue of how out of touch they are, but I think it’s easier to make Ned a softer and more sympathetic character if he is intentionally exaggerating his persona. Ideally there would be a mix of both, because at the end of the day he is still a 45 year old man in actuality, not just in costume. There’s the potential for an exploration of aging, and navigating that transition out of young adulthood, particularly if you don’t have the “parent” role to step into. Maybe he attracts a younger audience then he thought he would, and at first he resents it, but the more he sees the impact he has on these kids the more genuinely fulfilling it becomes…. There’s a push and pull with how sappy and introspective vs satirical you wanna get with it, but are we seeing the layers? Are we seeing the vision? I certainly am. For what reason, I have no idea. Is fanfiction really the type of thing I need to be having woowoo aha moments about?