The appeal of Adam Curtis, to me, has a lot to do with his style: that mishmash of sound and image that lands somewhere between late Godard and Zeitgeist: The Movie. I understand the criticisms of his work--i.e. that it couches essentially shallow insights in an arch ponderousness--but I also think that his core insights, while perhaps a little low-cal, are nonetheless correct. We do live in dreamworlds conjured by the media. Our cages are merely gilded. The New Age…

I am dating myself here but I remember Heidecker doing this character, and these jokes, in small clubs and open mics, probably a decade ago. (Not that I was there. I just saw the performances on YouTube.) This style of comedy works better in those contexts, where the audience isn’t in on the joke, and there’s a sense of real hostility.

That said: I find this stuff very funny. Like Andy Kaufman, or more recent examples like Dan Klein’s This…