House is one of my favorite TV shows. Even when it’s a bad episode, I enjoy it. Last night, there was a mention of Wicca on House, and I thought it was notable.
There’s a film crew doing a documentary about one of House’s patients. They interview Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard) who uses the opportunity to totally punk his best friend, House. He does a whole song and dance about how “the records were sealed” and “he was probably just tapping his toes” and then says “it was a witch hunt” and the documentarians asked if he means House was singled out because…And Wilson interrupts and says “No, I mean literally. House practices the religion of Wicca. It’s a beautiful religion, all about love. They’re very sweet people.”
Okay, if you know what an evil cynic House is, it’s hysterically funny. But notice that (a) What Wilson said about Wicca was positive and nice and fairly accurate, (b) His usage was correct—not “House is a Wicca” like they were always saying on Buffy, but “the religion of Wicca,” and (c) the joke only works if a familiarity with Wicca can be assumed in the audience. And yes, that familiarity includes being bemused and thinking it’s silly—fluffy—but I still think it’s huge progress.
Now here’s why I was shocked/confused by this post: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/punk#Verb
Many peoples, divided by a common language…
Oh! My apologies. The TV show “Punk’d” has made “to punk” common usage here, where once I would have said “to prank.”
Yeah, so I guessed once I’d found that page. Never heard of that show here, but maybe it’s shown somewhere on the 200+ satellite channels and just hasn’t caught on like “Smile, you’re on candid camera” or being “Beadled” did.
It’s on MTV.
“Beadled” goes right over my head.
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