Make Gibbons Laugh #10
It’s June. Which means it’s officially Pride Month. Which means, if nothing else, there’ll be some hilariously tone-deaf commercials from such classic queer allies as the NFL, Exxon Mobil, and Chick-fil-A, I’m sure.
I don’t particularly want to go down that rabbit hole. So, instead, I went down another rabbit hole, right next door: Meg Stalter (parody queen, satire savant, and most recently a comet on HBO’s Hacks whenever she does appear in flashes as a charming lunatic) here inhabiting Conservative Corporation During Pride.
Like with Steven Castillo’s Russell Westbrook meltdown, I wanted to do a similar play-by-play diary to document my happy hysteria watching this for about the 37th time. (Editor’s note: a year ago, my good pal, Mads, hired Meg Stalter to read a congratulatory script on Cameo when I *defended* my thesis. She committed SO hard for this anonymous dweeb’s private video. She went SO big with every choice for a three-minute performance that would be seen by approximately four people — like a tipsy mom going rogue during a community theater show, with the assuredness of Meryl Streep and the dramatic flair and enunciation of Kristen Wiig’s Secret Word Lady. She was SO generous with her time and energy that she’s been immortal to me ever since then. Immortal, but wait which one, Will? Mads or Meg? Yes.).
0:00 - 0:03: “Hi, gay. Happy Proud Month.” Annnnnnnd we’re off!
0:03: It’s so little but so revealing. And it destroys me: how she starts moving her eyes, back and forth, up and down, between different *cameras.* Not her body at all, really. Mostly just her eyes. We’re not quite at Hostage Reading An Ultimatum unrest, but there’s a squirminesss, beneath the surface, that wasn’t there to begin with (the jolliness of “Hi, gay” seems like ancient history.).
0:06: There it is, the business behind this allied advertisement: THE BUTTER SHOP. Ah, yes, hence the churn casually resting in the background. What a touch.
0:08: That BLINK. I mean, it’s definitely NOT a conscious wink at the audience from Mrs. Butter Shop herself. It’s definitely NOT a Halpert-ian breaking-the-fourth-wall and acknowledging— winking— that she’s in on the joke. It definitely IS an involuntary twitch from Mrs. Butter Shop, in character, from clenching so hard playing straight, so to speak. Remarkable.
0:09 - 0:11: “If you can prove that you’re queer,” on its own is so outrageous and so funny. But you also just know Lindsey Graham or Steve Bannon has actually bribed someone like this: “if you can prove that you’re NOT queer, these AK-47s are on the house!”
0:13 - 0:17: Meg Statler didn’t just attend The Kyle Mooney Comedy School For Artful Bumbling. She was VALEDICTORIAN, people!!
0:18 - 0:20: I said this during the grand, cheeky finale of the Steven Castillo video:
When a doctor taps your knee, you kick your leg out. When Steven Castillo yanks off his rip-away sweats, I laugh. It’s an involuntary reaction. It just happens. Every time.
Replace “Steven Castillo yanks off his rip-away sweats” with “Mrs. Butter Shop says, ‘and if you do mouth stuff.’” I can’t not laugh. Every time.
0:20 - 0:22: “WE LOVE GAY” soars into the stratosphere. “And it’s awesome” comes back down to earth. Also, the eyeliner of it all can’t possibly be overstated when her eyes are dancing like they are.
:27 - :28: It seems like one connected motion: she winds up her neck and turns her head as she says, “wouldn’t a candle be nice for gay stuff?” and as she’s settling her head, her eyes flutter-blink in a way I’ve truly never seen before. It’s like sped-up, cartoon eye-flirting.
:29 - :30: Mrs. Butter Shop’s inner monologue: you know, if you have both braids in the back, you’re a gay.
:30 - :34: If the eyes are the window into the soul, then this window has too many moths and flies covering it (eye flutters) to really see inside.
:34 - 39: (see :13 - :17).
:39 : Mrs. Butter Shop’s inner monologue: you know, if you have one braid in the front, you’re a gay.
:39 - :41: It is BEYOND me what she just said. Something like, “from the original old males made to him”? It sounds like, “from the original old males may tome.” Either way, sign me up for some of this Not Margarine.
:46: The louder the fEYErworks, the more unsettled she is. Here, her right eye basically freezes, just as she’s divulging that they’ve been accepting of ALL folks for four whole months.
:48 - :55: This last hurrah might be the most delightfully incoherent mess in the whole commercial. There’s “gagging” for starters, which is fun. And I guess the store’s now owned by Cecily, which is her, which we’re just finding out now. And it’s even CALLED, “Cecily’s Butter Chop... at Cecily’s Butter Shop.” Which, I dunno, feels like burying the lede. Did you not want to associate your name with the gay, Cecily? Or did you just forget the name of your own shop?
:55: - 1:00: In these corporate Proud Month commercials, I think you’re legally required to include a “my aunt is gay” or a “my friend’s mom might be gay” in a somber tone.
1:00 - 1:01: That smile. I can just feel the serotonin splashin’ around.
1:01: “WE THINK IT’S COOL.”
TEXT 69 TO 1-8OO-GAY TO VOTE FOR “WE THINK IT’S COOL” AS THE NEW SLOGAN FOR CECILY’S BUTTER SHOP.
TEXT 96 TO 1-800-GAY TO VOTE FOR “WE LOVE GAY” AS THE NEW SLOGAN FOR CECILY’S BUTTER SHOP.
1:05: “Turn it off, Willard.”