Metaphors and Milkshakes

Saturday Night Live returned to its live status this past Saturday night, hosted by 30-Rock writer/actress/producer extraordinaire Tina Fey. There was humor. There was glee. There was a deliciously self-mocking Huckabee (but, really, if it’s not mathematically possible for him to win…). But the most worthy skit riffed on Oscar-nominated films by way of commenting on the ridiculous yet innate power (and problems) of metaphor. The last 15 minutes of There Will Be Blood showcase the showdown between false prophet Eli and oilman Daniel Plainview—this bowling-alley set allegorical battle between religion and capitalism, between greed-motivated Eli and Daniel, relies linguistically on Daniel’s drunken “milkshake” metaphor. It’s both strange and strikingly perfect (as is Daniel’s weapon of choice). SNL’s skit imagines Daniel as hosting a show on the Food Network called “I Drink Your Milkshake” that features a milkshake-loving Daniel traversing the country in search of the holy grail of milkshakes along with his son and partner HW. SNL’s skit un-metaphorizes the metaphor, literalizes the bizarre comparison between oil drilling and milkshake drinking, between heat and cold, between the politically drenched and ostensibly banal. The skit, ultimately, reveals the quixotic ambition of metaphor to yoke together things which don’t usually inhabit the same sentence. As writers, I think, we have a love/hate relationship with the metaphor. A fear and a dependence. It should be used. But carefully. Oh, metaphor.

In any event, check out the skit on YouTube.

Also, in this moment of pre-Oscar buzz (when the stars are, I’m sure, indulging in applying a last-minute sheen of spray on tan), I predict Daniel Day-Lewis taking the statue for best actor and No Country For Old Men (a line from a Yeats poem, by the way) winning for best picture. Although Michael Clayton is there, lurking, with its fluent, masterful storytelling.

Tina Fey took on the trials and tribulations (and costs and gains) of the writers’ strike in her opening monologue. I wonder if the Oscars will do the same. It seems necessary because pop-culture continues to shift to its new online habitat and away from its old haunts. These are issues that concern us all, as writers, and as watchers of (many) TV shows.