Why Dane Cook is a Huge Bag of Douche
By now, pretty much everyone knows Dane Cook is a huge douche.
But how many people have explained exactly why is Dane Cook a huge bag of douche?
That is the question.
Here is a media concocted pseudo-comedian with less talent than a stuttering Screech and whiter teeth than Tony Robbins bursting onto the scene in one giant toxic swirl of unfunny. Then, in no time, amplifying from 0 to 60 up the multimedia stratus of accomplishment in a blazing hail of lame frat jokes and physical hand gestures.
Headlining tour. HBO special. Late night appearances. Each media outlet carefully built to feed off the others, package together, and launch “Dane Cook” into the mass consciousness as the next “comedy superstar.”
We were told we liked him. We were told other people liked him. Which meant we must like him, too. Because they liked him. And they are we.
Only unlike the organic and legit accomplishment of, say, the talented Steve Carrell, who actually earned his place at the top by being funny, Cook’s force-fed limelight down all of our collective throats has caused the collective regurgitating response. The clarion call to focus all this noise around something, anything real: A begging we are all making of his sorry, generic ass: DO SOMETHING REAL.
Say something authentic. Express a genuine emotion. Have an opinion. Offer a joke that actually might piss someone off.
Because simply being unfunny isn’t enough of an offense by Cook. If simply being “unfunny “meant you were a douche, mid 1990s Robin Williams would’ve grown a rubber bag out of his ass and cleansed women’s private hoohoos from here to Bangledesh.
Which, come to think of it, may have actually happened.
No, what makes Dane Cook a huge douche is his carefully softened “injury free” safe ride of genericism. His media constructed “regular guy” persona. His genericized jokes of pure pablum, meant to vaguely invoke nostalgic memories of your drunk college best friend while carefully designed to offend absolutely no one.
Cook is the sackless tamper-proof Hollywood creation of genericized un-humor sold as pseudo-humor and operating as placebo effect. An opinion-free puddle of blandified “good looks” carefully designed and set up to sell across multiple medium platforms. Dane Cook isn’t a human being, he’s a focus tested brand. A career built soft-drink. Selling out every ounce of originality in the hope of suckling from the mass processed cookie cutter rewards offered by the 24/7 media age.
I’m not saying every comedian has to take on the edge of genius that the late, great Bill Hicks and brilliant Mitch Hedberg brought on stage with them. Jerry Seinfeld isn’t exactly cutting edge, but no one’s calling Jerry Seinfeld a huge douche.
Because Seinfeld was who he was.
Dane Cook wouldn’t know what he was if you asked him to look for it. The self has no place when the image transcends all, and the rewards justify the vacuity.
Dane Cook is a focus tested girl scout cookie. A packaged “best friend drinking buddy” for guys, “sweet former boyfriend who listens and cares” for girls. He has one and only one role in his theater of the self — ingratiate all, offend none. The “superfinger” his carefully constructed “naughty” bit to extend just to the margins of PG-13 ratings. Just enough to earn his “cred,” before Cook runs off to above-the-title the next Jessica Simpson uncomedy.
For that, and those stupid-ass hairdos, you, Dane Cook, are elevated into the pantheon of celebridouche.
Now get off the stage, assface.
