— Plato, Phaedrus
With his unique blend of craft mastery and psychosis, David Lynch produced films that were both immediately unintelligible and compelling. It’s the sign of good art — to elude the standard coordinates of interpretation and present something gripping to its audience, even if that thing is, at its very core, utterly horrifying.
Comedian Tim Dillon does not have the kinds of cinematographic tricks that Lynch used to conjure terrifying and hallucinatory scenes, but he manages to do so anyway. For the uninitiated, most episodes of the Tim Dillon Show feature Dillon talking at the camera behind oversized shield sunglasses and against a pastoral background. He’ll occasionally have guests on, but these episodes are departures from the norm: an hour-long right-wing talk radio rant that hovers between ironizing the genre and controlled bouts of fantasy.
On one episode, Dillon explains deindustrialization with extended reference to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. “The Oompa Loompas used to make chocolate, and now they’re working at Panera!” he exclaims. On another, he outlines the genesis of a “Labubu economy” filling the void of cultural meaninglessness. It’s the news of the day but refracted through parody intended, according to the show’s tagline, “to give you a tour of the end of the world.”
Wavering between irony, outrage, and hallucination, the Tim Dillon Show presents the same question that any viewer of Mulholland Drive must also ask: What am I watching? It’s right-wing, but not straightforwardly so. It’s ironic but also strangely sincere. Alone behind his sunglasses, yelling all manner of absurdities and obscenities mixed with biting…
Auteur: Benjamin Y. Fong
