The Ridiculous Memeification of Nicolas Cage and Con Air

Not gonna lie: this one cracks me up. AND makes a good point! #Lockherup!

At this point in his extraordinary life and career, Nicolas Cage might just be more meme than man. The Academy Award winner’s impossibly expressive face and gloriously bonkers filmography are made to be glibly re-appropriated in the contemporary language of memes and gifs. 

These images change with time, gaining and losing meaning as we cycle through obsessions and preoccupations. I can’t even imagine the meme shit storm that will ensue when the mini-series where Cage plays Joe Exotic is released. 

Will the internet even be able to handle the explosive combination of Nicolas Cage and the Tiger King? 

The thing about memes is that they often take on a life of their own. Take, for example, the iconic image from Con Air of Nicolas Cage with his eyes closed and his long hair flowing majestically in the breeze as he looks forward to finally getting to taste sweet, sweet freedom after serving a prison stint for killing a man in self-defense while defending his pregnant wife. 

Before COVID-19 this meme-friendly image served as useful visual shorthand for feeling not just happy but ecstatic, blissful, utterly at ease with yourself and the world. 

In a post-COVID 19 world, this image has been crassly appropriated by the anti-mask brigade as the expression of a mask-flaunting “badass” luxuriating in the outlaw, rebel freedom of going mask-less in a world full of conformist sheeple who cover their faces in public out of a lame, cowardly desire to protect themselves and others from disease.

In one meme in this vein, the words “THE FACE YOU MAKE WHEN “KAREN” IS SCREAMING AT YOU FROM ACROSS THE PARKING LOT FOR NOT WEARING A FACE MASK WHILE LOADING GROCERIES IN YOUR OWN CAR” accompany the familiar image of a blissful Cage letting his hair blow in the righteous breeze. 

Another Con Air-themed anti-mask meme has the words ME HEARING THAT PEOPLE WHO DO NOT WEAR A MASK CATCH THE CORONAVIRUS AND DIE superimposed over the image of the blissful Cage. 

Turning Point USA, the deplorable meme factory that gave the world giant-headed man-child Charlie Kirk re-ran a variation on the parking lot meme when it quote tweeted a meme of Cage in Con Air with the words “ME NOT WEARING A MASK WHILE A LEFTIST SCREAMS AT ME FROM THEIR CAR ACROSS THE PARKING LOT AT WHOLE FOODS.

This irreverent sentiment amused Turning Point USA’s official Twitter feed so much that they quote-tweeted it with LOL! followed by three crying face emojis and the hashtag #BigGovSucks. 

Alas, Turning Point USA had to delete this hilarious and VERY insightful tweet, along with a number of others mocking mask-wearers and downplaying the severity of COVID-19 when co-founder William T. Montgomery, a wealthy bigwig in the Tea Party movement, died of COVID-19. 

When he was on the podcast, Travolta/Cage guest Griffin Newman made a very smart observation about the absurdity and irony of using Con Air and Nicolas Cage in anti-mask memes when he pointed out that within the context of the movie, Cameron Poe, Cage’s character, is an overgrown Boy Scout so dedicated to keeping people safe that he literally defeats an entire plane full of the most dangerous criminals in the world. 

Griffin pointed out that Cameron Poe is ecstatic to feel the sun on his face after long years in a dank hellhole of a prison because he’s done exactly what he’s supposed to do all film-long, even if it means uncomplainingly doing a prison stint for a crime he did not commit. 

Poe didn’t flinch at doing long, hard years in jail for defending his pregnant wife from sexual assault. It seems safe to assume that he wouldn’t have a problem with wearing a mask.

Cameron Poe isn’t just a good guy: he’s a fucking Saint. He’s not on your side, anti-mask assholes. No one is, with the exception of the Scott Baios and Kirk Camerons of the world. 

So why don’t you make memes featuring Conservative actors? Is it because there are so few of them, and also they fucking suck?

Oh, and by the way, Sam Elliott voted for Joe Biden, even narrating a campaign video for the president-elect so you may need to re-consider your entire meme game, as it no longer seems to be working quite as well as it used to. 

Help ensure a future for the Happy Place during an uncertain era AND get sweet merch by pledging to the site’s Patreon account at https://www.patreon.com/nathanrabinshappyplace

Also, BUY the RIDICULOUSLY SELF-INDULGENT, ILL-ADVISED VANITY EDITION of  THE WEIRD ACCORDION TO AL, the Happy Place’s first book. This 500 page extended edition features an introduction from Al himself (who I co-wrote 2012’s Weird Al: The Book with), who also copy-edited and fact-checked, as well as over 80 illustrations from Felipe Sobreiro on entries covering every facet of Al’s career, including his complete discography, The Compleat Al, UHF, the 2018 tour that gives the book its subtitle and EVERY episode of The Weird Al Show and Al’s season as the band-leader on Comedy Bang! Bang! 

Only 23 dollars signed, tax and shipping included, at the https://www.nathanrabin.com/shop or for more, unsigned, from Amazon here