"'Bat Out of Hell' was rejected by dozens of record companies before the album was finally released by Cleveland International, a small label.... It received tepid, even hostile reviews at first."

"But through relentless touring and a 1978 appearance on NBC’s 'Saturday Night Live,' Meat Loaf found an audience, making 'Bat Out of Hell' an enormous, if unexpected hit.... Its signature tune, 'Paradise by the Dashboard Light'... was an ornate melodrama about a teenage make-out session... more than eight minutes long and [it] even contained a long segment narrated by Hall of Fame baseball player and broadcaster Phil Rizzuto, describing a batter rounding the bases and sliding into home. (Rizzuto said he didn’t realize his description was meant to be an elaborate sexual metaphor.) His musical secret, Meat Loaf said, was that he approached every song like an actor preparing for a role. 'I can’t sing unless there’s a character... Because I don’t sing. It’s almost like being schizophrenic — I don’t sing, the character sings.' Early in his career, the long-haired, 300-pound Meat Loaf was openly mocked by critics — and even by [his collaborator Jim] Steinman, who once called him 'a grotesque, bloated creature, who stalked the stage like an animal but acted as if he were a prince.'"

From WaPo's very lengthy obituary, "Meat Loaf, whose operatic rock anthems made him an unlikely pop star, dies at 74."

This wasn't my kind of music, but I can admire his work from afar. People loved him in "The Rocky Horror Show,” and he had a very interesting role in "Fight Club." 

 

And he's got a great Donald Trump connection — "Meat Loaf, should I run for President?" 

 

Later, "You look in my eyes: I am the last person in the fucking world you EVER want to fuck with":

"Trump gives Biden the best advice."

@austinnasso Trump has advice #donaldtrump #trump #impression #fyp #usa #america #biden #bidenimpression ♬ original sound - Austin Nasso

ADDED: It looks much nicer as a TikTok embed, so I've replaced the YouTube version. I'll put it below the fold if people say this doesn't work on their browser. By the way, the last line is so clipped you could miss it, but it's excellent.

"Has political satire lost its power? Or has reality become so absurd that it’s now beyond parody?"

That's from the intro to "Why Are People So Mad About Don’t Look Up? Climate change is a tough subject for any film, let alone a satire."

It's a podcast — audio and transcript at the link — with various Atlantic staff people (Kevin Townsend, Sophie Gilbert, David Sims, and Spencer Kornhaber). I have seen the movie, by the way.

I think the quote I put in the post title is trite and foolish. The difference between the present and the past is the present is where you're living now. It's self-involved to believe that in the past, you could do parody and satire, but now — now! — things are already so absurd that there's nothing to add, no way to exaggerate, and we're suffering in some extreme new way that makes comedy impossible.

But let's see what these people have to say:

Sims: You could make a more straight-ahead blockbuster movie.... But... this flirts with being... more like a Dr. Strangelove kind of movie. A pure anarchic satire that is set in the real world, but every character is cartoonish, and there’s no sense of humanity whatsoever. But Don’t Look Up tries to retain this core of humanity... 

Gilbert: [T]here was the idea that Trump defied satire, because he was bigger than it could ever manage to be in its wildest imagination. I also think it’s really hard to satirize things when you’re in the middle of them.....

Kornhaber: I think this quest for movies to deliver a message that changes people’s minds is maybe quixotic. There aren’t a ton of works in history like that.... True, you can’t really satirize Trump. He’s kind of beyond parody. But you can call attention to the dynamics of the way that people relate to him and the effect he has on the world around him—and on the viewers themselves.

Comedy is hard! It's not enough to sign up a lot of stars and spend a ton of money and pick an important topic. Why would you expect it to be good in the first place? Dr. Strangelove is great, but you have to make some choices and exercise discipline. Sims reveals, based on an interview with the director....

DiCaprio was obviously interested in the project and the message but was not going to commit until they’d figured out his character. He clearly did not want to be in a cartoony pastiche movie.

That precluded the Strangelove approach. I'd like to see a comedy about making "Dr. Strangelove" in which all the actors are divas insisting on their character's humanity.