Here's a rare out-of-character video from Stephen Colbert for the It Gets Better project. In it, he tells a story about how a friend of his stood up to bullies in school by re-claiming the language they were using to hurt him. It's a touching message, and one that hopefully kids currently being made miserable by bullies will see.
You may be familiar with Dan Savage's It Gets Better project at this point, but if not, you should check it out. In it, hundreds of LBGT adults have made videos for teens who are being harassed for who they are, telling them to hang in there, because life will get better for them. It's being done in response to the recent wave of suicides by gay teens who have been literally bullied to death.
Hundreds of people have made videos, ranging from celebrities to politicians to clergymen to normal everyday people. And now the gay community at NYC's UCB Theatre has gotten together to make a video for [...]
The It Gets Better campaign has been amazing, with thousands of LBGT adults from all walks of life making videos assuring teenagers going through high school hell that yes, life does get better. But none of those videos have been quite like comedian/actor/director Rebecca Drysdale's (sister of Eric! Funny family, eh?) insane and amazing music video (produced by Kay Cannon). Sure, it's got a serious and heartfelt message, but it also includes lines such as "Someday you'll look back and you won't give a fuck/when you're swimming through your pussy vault like Scrooge Fuckin' McDuck."
Patton Oswalt wrote a response to the It Gets Better video project on his, uh, MySpace blog today. In it, he talks about how he avoided being tormented by bullies by siding with the bullies, helping them torment other kids. He doesn't feel great about it! By the time middle school started, I had the Victim Kit firmly sewed on. Cystic acne, headgear and braces, man-tits and a stupid haircut. Sixth and seventh grade were no fucking fun for me. Summer camp was torture, swimming pools were humiliation ponds, sports were a whirling wall of razors I didn’t dare approach.
By the time eighth grade rolled around, I’d [...]
The Daily Show's It Gets Worse John McCain parody was a high point in political comedy for the week. Heck, maybe it's the high point for the year. But it's far from the only It Gets Better parody out there. What you'd think would be a sensitive topic for comedians to handle has in fact spawned its own mini-genre of spoof. These parody responses have (mostly) respected the premise of Dan Savage's original project. That's pretty remarkable: the speakers in the original videos are almost never mocked. Instead, comedians are joining forces with them to spread the word. The response videos can be just about evenly broken into [...]
Here's a great response to the thousands of It Gets Better videos, one from the other side of the bullying divide. Of course, this bro's message is a little more discouraging than all those.
