Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/Glenn Beck (2nd draft)
Glenn Beck [edit source]
Dare Devil 14:22, November 8, 2010 (UTC)
- I've started on this after an author request and will hopefully finish at some point today. In the meantime, why not have a go at reviewing someone else's article in return. --Black Flamingo 09:20, November 13, 2010 (UTC)
| Humour: | 7 | I should probably begin by saying that I before reading this I had absolutely no idea who Glenn Beck is. The name rung a bell, but I don't recognise him from any of his pictures. This is probably going to be both beneficial and detrimental to the review, because on one hand I can give you an "outsider's" perspective but on the other hand it's likely there are a few things here I'm simply missing.
The article is actually pretty good, there are some really funny things in here, and I'm confident that someone who actually knows who Beck is will find it even funnier than I did. I'm just going to take you through a few of the jokes I don't feel worked, which there are a few of, though nothing too serious. Ok, so the article opens with: "This is a rush transcript from “Glenn Beck”. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated". I'll be honest, I wasn't sure what to make of this. I assume it's some kind of parody of something Glenn Beck does. If it is, then fair enough, I don't really have much to say on it other than people who don't know Glenn Beck aren't going to get it. On the off-chance that it's actually a note from the author (ie. yourself) to indicate that the article is unfinished then I'd get rid of it. We do have work-in-progress templates of our own, but I wouldn't say this was anywhere near bad enough to warrant one. While your intro is well written and humorous, I don't think it does a very good job of establishing the central concept. You start off on an overlong tirade about Beck's schooldays, with references to him being poor and an alcoholic. It's the kind of introduction you'd expect to find in a life story rather than a political rant, such as this. Once you finally make the very noticeable jump to his politics, the core of the article, it leaves the first few paragraphs feeling a bit directionless and lacking flow. I think you have two options here; you can either cut the schooldays part down and get into the patriotism speech more quickly, establishing this as your concept right from the start - or alternatively - introduce yet another intro where you establish the show format (because he's a TV host, right?), saying something like "hi I'm Glenn Beck, welcome to my show. Tonight we're looking at (insert topic here)." The whole article is kind of set out like a TV show anyway, with Beck constantly drawing us over to visual aids (the blackboards), so it would probably help to establish this right at the start. The other good thing about it is that any little tangents, like the story about his youth, won't seem as disjointed, because by the time you get to this we'd already know the basic premise of the article, and would likely assume that our narrator is just giving us some background. The first joke that really jarred for me was the condom one. I didn't really get it, and I also suspect it's a bit nonsensical. Condoms aren't actually made of paper, and even if they were, why the hell would Beck love them so much? I appreciate that you're using the classic "rule of three" technique where you say a silly third thing, but I think condoms is a bit of a stretch. Try something a bit more attuned to the character, like "tissues, the Bible and a tissue with Bible passages written on it." Another joke that I kind of stumbled over is the one about his favourite food being a vegetable. I guess you're implying that he's dumb, although I wasn't sure, I also considered that maybe Beck himself was trying to make a joke. If he is trying to make a joke, make it clearer. If he is just being stupid, I would recommend rewording the joke slightly. Just sticking a one-word punchline on the end of a sentence doesn't tend to be very funny in written humour, try to keep the jokes prose-based, making them flow is important. Something like "as a kid I loved vegetables, especially ketchup" for example. This way the twist is less obvious. Have a think about what you could do along these lines. A common joke I've noticed in pieces with right-wing American narrators is the blending/listing together of all the typical "enemies of the free world", or whatever you want to call them, usually with one silly one thrown in for good measure. You do this when you say "communists/Marxists/socialists/communists/Muslims/Idiots/Nazis". Like I say, it has been done a lot, so you might want to try something else. Repeating the same one several times is also tends to be a staple of such jokes, as you do here too. To be honest, I think this would work a lot better if you shortened it and tried to be a little less broad. Maybe try something like "commie Muslims", or even use the old strikethrough technique and say " Another small and nitpicky point; the "lol" doesn't work. It's totally out of character. I mean, I don't actually know anything about Glenn Beck but it certainly isn't consistent with the tone you've created here. I'd just get rid of it. |
| Concept: | 7 | As someone who has never heard of Glenn Beck I did find this a little confusing. I mean, I got enough to figure out his general character (American, right-wing, possible TV host of some kind), but I couldn't really figure out exactly what he was famous for. Perhaps you could try to establish within his monologue what it is he does, preferably at the start. My earlier idea to start it like a TV show would help with this, although I still think it would be nice to hear a little bit more about the man himself, and not just for those who've never heard of him.
While it isn't vital, it makes sense to have more content on the character of Glenn Beck because this is supposed to be the article on him. Sometimes just writing in his style isn't enough, it'd be nice if the reader could learn a little about his career, maybe even his personal life - just anything notable about him really. Take a look at these articles for instance, see how they employ the style of their subject but also get to grips with who they are as people. Not to put too fine a point on this however, I appreciate the whole rant thing you're doing here, and wouldn't expect you to make grand structural changes to what you've already got. |
| Prose and formatting: | 6 | At times your prose are excellent. But let's not talk about that, let's talk about when they’re not-so-great. First of all there's this line; "Thank you for spending an hour of your life watching my time". Watching my time? Do you mean "watching my show", or something? I expect you simply hadn't noticed that one, so will leave it with you to fix accordingly. There's another little typing error like this actually; "We alcoholics better things to spend our money on" - you missed the word "have", is all.
Then there was a section of the article I didn't really understand due to the unclear way it was written. It's the part where Beck debunks the myths in the history books, and you list a few of these (Workplace injuries, living conditions, wages). I couldn’t figure out what you were trying to do here. Are these the myths you're listing, or the truths? And what do you mean by; "living in a tenement would be like being on vacation forever. Tenements were smelly and cramped in the same way hotels have been"? This really needs to be explained better because I still have no idea what you're on about. In fact, I think this whole part of the article needs a bit of work, you need to go into a lot more depth about what Beck is actually saying. Perhaps establish the myth first of all and then talk about the "truth". Ok, so now for your ending; "since Obamacare will kill put my grandmother in front of the death panel, at least the insurance companies will step up to the plate and sacrifice their profits by saving my grandmother. But wait, Obamacare outlawed private insurance. My grandmother is screwed! Her life will be shorter by just two weeks! Gold! Help me! Save her!" This was all a bit messy in my opinion, and was a fairly weak ending to an otherwise good bit of writing. First of all, you say both "put" and "kill" in front of a death panel, but you should only really say one. Which is it? I think put would work better, that way he's not actually saying they'll kill his grandmother (not yet, anyway), but he's implying it. Then it jumps quite abruptly to a new subject, where you start talking about the insurance companies. This should really be a new sentence, as it's hard to follow and you don't link it very tidily. In fact, you could probably tidy all of this up quite nicely by just getting rid of the opening and starting with from "at least the insurance companies". It will definitely be a lot less confusing that way. And you should also probably end on "my grandmother is screwed!" because the shouting at the end was a bit over the top and unconvincing. Too often these rant articles simply end with the narrator exploding (not that you go quite as far as that, in fact you've kept this nicely low-key in most places - just don't lose it at the end). |
| Images: | 8 | I have very little criticism for your images, although they're all basically the same, I really liked what you've done with them. The blackboard diagrams are increasingly nonsensical and really build well to reveal the absurdities in this kind of thinking. The only problem, and it is a minor one at that, is that some of your captions aren't quite as strong. The first one, for instance, might work a little better if you had something more introductory that will ease the reader in to the world of Glenn Beck. Then the Hawaii one didn't actually have a caption at all, which again isn't a huge detractor, but surely you can think of something. Then just the last one seemed a bit silly. I think it was the idea of bribing God with apple pie just seemed a bit too "out there" compared to the rest of the article. Perhaps a smug comment from Beck, thinking he's proved his point, would be better here. |
| Miscellaneous: | 7 | My gut feeling. |
| Final Score: | 35 | So to sum up; a pretty good article that could very easily become very good if you iron out some of the minor problems I discuss. A future feature? I don’t see why not. Key things to keep in mind when revising are my comments on the overly-disjointed intro and the weakness of the conclusion. Also, have a think about what else you can do to help those readers who haven't heard of Beck. If there's anything I've said here that you want me to explain better, or if you want my opinion on anything I might have missed, please let me know and I'll try to help. I hope the review is ok. |
| Reviewer: | --Black Flamingo 15:24, November 13, 2010 (UTC) | |