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Animals Interrupt Sporting Events: A Critical Analysis

2013-04-30 · letter vlog · John · 3:43 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Sports · mode: Comedy & performance · tags: community lore

Imitating Hank's cat-GIF critique, John gives mock-serious readings of GIFs of animals interrupting sporting events, crowning Pine Marten Invades Swiss Soccer Match for refusing the simple morals of sports stories.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — John as a would-be professional critic of animals-interrupting-sports GIFs: Anfield Cat, Squirrel Interrupts US Open

  • ★★ John says some days he wants to be a professional critic of GIFs of animals interrupting sporting events, and reviews them in mock-critic style. (playful) — 00:00:00
  • ★★ In mock-critic voice John calls Anfield Cat, a cat on the pitch at a Liverpool game, a classic best read as a metaphor for human life: isolated, afraid, resilient. (parody, hedged) — 00:00:00
  • ★ John jokes about Liverpool's own confused, inconsistent defending. (playful) — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Reviewing Squirrel Interrupts US Open, John says sport is not only about winning and losing but about displaying what bodies can do, especially squirrel bodies. (playful, hedged) — 00:00:29

00:00:58 — Dog pooping at a baseball game, dog on the pitch, Goalkeeper Dog Catcher Fail, Drug Dog Wants to Play and Air Bud: World Pup

  • ★★ John reads the dog pooping at a baseball game as rejecting our obsessive fascination with sports. (parody) — 00:00:58
  • ★★ John calls Goalkeeper Dog Catcher Fail the comic pinnacle and Drug Dog Wants to Play the greatest, a work that raises questions and leaves us unsettled. (parody) — 00:01:27

00:01:58 — Fox absconds with golf ball; sports stories' simple morals (Rudy, The Blind Side, Teen Wolf); Pine Marten Invades Swiss Soccer Match as the greatest; sign-off

  • ★ John says Fox Absconds with Golf Ball is another brilliant rejection of sport itself. (parody) — 00:01:58
  • ★★ John says most sports stories (Rudy, The Blind Side, Teen Wolf) lack a complex moral narrative, while great animal-interruption GIFs refuse that moral simplicity. (playful) — 00:01:58
  • ★★★ John names Pine Marten Invades Swiss Soccer Match the greatest such GIF: biting marten and fouling defender leave no clear hero, suggesting each of us contains multitudes. (parody, hedged) — 00:02:26

In the description and comments

Humor (dominant)

  • Imitating Hank's opening from his cat-GIF video, John declares a new critical career. — 00:00:00

    “some days, some days I just want to be a professional critic of gifs featuring animals interrupting sporting events.”

  • The dog pooping on the baseball field seems to ask which of them is really sentient: you, watching men hit a ball with a stick? — 00:00:58

    “or me, elegantly articulating my feelings via defecation?”

  • The drug dog's attack on the ball asks important questions: are there drugs in the ball, would they affect its performance? — 00:01:27

    “And most importantly, why wasn't Air Bud 3 World Pup a better movie?”

  • With the marten biting and the defender fouling, the GIF offers no easy answer to who is good and who is bad. — 00:03:24

    “the Pine Martin, the Defender, and indeed each of us contain multitudes.”

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: GIF

Also: People: Michael Oher · Sandra Bullock

Works: Air Bud: World Pup · Anfield Cat · Dog Pooping on Baseball Field · Drug Dog Wants to Play · Fox absconds with golf ball · Goalkeeper Dog Catcher Fail · Pine Marten Invades Swiss Soccer Match · Rudy · Squirrel at the US Open · Teen Wolf · The Blind Side

Organizations: Baltimore Ravens · Liverpool FC

Places: Switzerland

Only in the description or credits: Rosianna Halse Rojas

Also centred on GIF: Cat GIF Critique · The Top 10 John Green GIFs

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