The Anti-Muppet Defamation League!
The Muppets Strike Back at Goldman Sachs
By RANDY KENNEDY
The resignation manifesto read round the world – the Op-Ed
page article published two weeks ago in The New York Times by Greg Smith,
the disheartened Goldman Sachs executive – has already spawned more than its
share of parodies, most of them in mock-serious epistolary prose. But the
comedy Web site “Funny or Die” has gone these parodies one better with a
slickly produced short sketch starring Kyle MacLachlan as a Goldman Sachs
honcho bemoaning the firm’s bad press when his meeting is suddenly interrupted
by three Muppets bearing their own grudge.
“We represent the Anti-Muppet Defamation League,” announces the lone furless Muppet of the group, wearing a dark suit and tie. “And we’d like to lodge a formal complaint about Goldman Sachs’s use of the word ‘muppet’ in an offensive and derogatory way.” (If you have somehow managed to live in a Greg-Smith-less world, here is the pertinent sentence from the resignation article: “Over the last 12 months I have seen five different managing directors refer to their own clients as ‘muppets,’ sometimes over internal e-mail.”)
In truth, the offended Muppet brigade doesn’t make much comic headway with the bourbon-swilling fat cats. The funniest quotes from the bit, using language that can’t be printed here, aren’t about the Muppet conceit at all – one involves nostalgia for the coked-up 1980s, along with casual racism and references to anti-testicular violence. But the sight of Mr. MacLachlan conversing with a large, hairy, horned childhood character may just be reward enough.
In his article Mr. Smith also complained: “Today, if you make enough money for the firm (and are not currently an ax murderer) you will be promoted into a position of influence.” Maybe next on the Goldman parody schedule there will be time for a little Wes Craven. Ax murders of the world, sharpen your blades.
“We represent the Anti-Muppet Defamation League,” announces the lone furless Muppet of the group, wearing a dark suit and tie. “And we’d like to lodge a formal complaint about Goldman Sachs’s use of the word ‘muppet’ in an offensive and derogatory way.” (If you have somehow managed to live in a Greg-Smith-less world, here is the pertinent sentence from the resignation article: “Over the last 12 months I have seen five different managing directors refer to their own clients as ‘muppets,’ sometimes over internal e-mail.”)
In truth, the offended Muppet brigade doesn’t make much comic headway with the bourbon-swilling fat cats. The funniest quotes from the bit, using language that can’t be printed here, aren’t about the Muppet conceit at all – one involves nostalgia for the coked-up 1980s, along with casual racism and references to anti-testicular violence. But the sight of Mr. MacLachlan conversing with a large, hairy, horned childhood character may just be reward enough.
In his article Mr. Smith also complained: “Today, if you make enough money for the firm (and are not currently an ax murderer) you will be promoted into a position of influence.” Maybe next on the Goldman parody schedule there will be time for a little Wes Craven. Ax murders of the world, sharpen your blades.
posted by Clare L. Pieuk at 5:58 PM
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