Hacker Cinema
The Cable Guy
1996 · Film · 96 min
Directed by Ben Stiller
When recently single Steven moves into his new apartment, cable guy Chip comes to hook him up—and doesn't let go. Initially, Chip is just overzealous in his desire to be Steven's pal, but when Steven tries to end the 'friendship', Chip shows his dark side. He begins stalking Steven, who's left to fend for himself because no one else can believe Chip's capable of such behaviour.
2 positive3 neutralfrom 5 commenters
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5 comments on Hacker News
> I also hate just about all Jim Carrey films (except maybe the Truman Show) but many other people seem to love them. Perhaps Sora just isn't for me.
What do you think about Cable Guy? It is essentially a somewhat social realist movie about the total nightmare of having a typical Jim Carrey character in your life. You might like it.
Could even practice by watching The Cable Guy
I don't say this to make a false equivalence, mainly in jest - I recognize TV is fairly mild and internet is a firehose by comparison.
Yet, we keep ignoring parents... and really, personal responsibility and simply the environment/impact that has. He raised himself like many of us do today.
This movie was a bit of a warning, then - decades ago. Except now we have phones, schools are even closer to day care/prison, and so on.
I miss the cheesy but wholesome comedies and parodies of the 1990s and 2000s: Anger Management, Rush Hour, The Cable Guy, American Pie, Scary Movie, Bruce Almighty, Eurotrip, Tropic Thunder, Hot Shots, Borat, Idiocracy, How High, White Chicks, etc.
We can't have any like those in this age because someone on Twitter will claim to be offended. Good thing to back-up those old gems as well before they get cancelled/edited to comply with modern sensibilities.
Have you ever seen "The Cable Guy?" The movie with Jim Carrey and Matthew Broderick from the 90s?
Jim Carrey's character is one of these dudes who is constantly quoting tv shows and seems to have absorbed his whole worldview from mass media and advertising. The character is taken to an extreme, but this "dude who can only talk in TV references" was a sort of personality type back then out in the real world. They were annoying enough to most "normies" that it was relatable to make a comedy-horror movie about it. There was also a decent bit of "television is rotting people's brains" worry at the time as well driven largely by people's interactions with guys like this.
I think all times and places have this sort of personality type that just doesn't have much of a personality of their own (or the courage to really express one) and consequently just take on the style or posture of whatever popular mass media they're consuming instead. Since it's mass media and popular, surely they too will be popular if they mimic its affect right? TV isn't how taste and culture is made anymore, TikTok and general social media influenceriness is. So this same baseline personality type just ends up expressing itself differently based on the conditions of the present day.
> Marshall McLuhan said that when one medium makes another obsolete, it frees up that previous medium to become an art form — which is what happened with the internet eclipsing TV. Around the early 2000s you had the Sopranos and other long-form TV programming emerge, shows which could genuinely be considered art. Recently there’s a new Soprano’s show based on Tony Soprano’s early life, The Many Saints of Newark. If they announced that next month the Muppets were doing a Soprano’s variant, I wouldn’t be surprised. As I said, everything goes on forever these days, sprawling out into seasons of episodes and spawning relentless new iterations. Kurt knew how to make an exit.
This year's Super Bowl featured an updated Soprano's intro with Meadow and A.J. in order to sell a truck. Other ads also brought back Dr. Evil and the villains of Austin Powers, an aged Jim Carrey reprising his role as Cable Guy, Guy Fieri, and Lindsay Lohan.
Coupland's onto something.