{"id":2273103,"date":"2024-06-20T23:18:03","date_gmt":"2024-06-21T03:18:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/i-do-tip-my-cap-to-ren-faire\/"},"modified":"2024-06-20T23:22:16","modified_gmt":"2024-06-21T03:22:16","slug":"i-do-tip-my-cap-to-ren-faire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/i-do-tip-my-cap-to-ren-faire\/","title":{"rendered":"I tip my hat to the Ren Faire"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">16<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fi-do-tip-my-cap-to-ren-faire%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2273103&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>*Ren Fhumorber* from HBO\u200d is an unconventional docuseries set in \u2063the sprawling Texas Renaissance Festival, run by the octogenarian founder, George \u2062C. Coulam, \u200balso known as King George. The series paints a vivid tableau of eccentric characters driven by power, greed, and dreams, depicting Coulum&#8217;s struggle with \u200dhis dominion and his desire to step down from his rule.<\/p>\n<p>The narrative unfolds with various contenders vying for Coulam&#8217;s crown. Key\u200c figures include\u2064 Jeff Baldwin, a stage actor turned TRF general manager, whose ambitions are limited to ruling by proxy while keeping things unchanged, and Louie Migliaccio, a dynamic former alcoholic who dreams of revolutionizing the\u200c festival \u200cwith technology and education, aiming to purchase it outright.<\/p>\n<p>Amidst all \u2063this, other characters like Darla Smith, the vendor coordinator, and Brandi Baldwin, the protagonist&#8217;s wife, surface to make their play, adding layers to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/tennessee-professor-forced-to-undergo-training-for-referencing-tupac-album-with-racial-slur\/\" title=\"Tennessee Professor Forced To Undergo Training For Referencing Tupac Album With Racial Slur\">power dynamics<\/a> within the festival. Meanwhile, Coulam himself is portrayed as an autocratic and flamboyant leader with a complex\u2064 personality, captivating\u200d and repelling in equal measure.<\/p>\n<p>*Ren Faire* offers an intense look into the lives and motivations of its characters, framed by the unique backdrop of a\u2064 Renaissance festival, combining elements of absurdity, humor, and drama to create a riveting viewing experience. While ostensibly a\u2063 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/6-arrested-and-charged-for-changing-iconic-l-a-sign-to-read-hollyboob\/\" title=\"6 Arrested And Charged For Changing Iconic L.A. Sign To Read \u2018HOLLYBOOB\u2019\">reality show<\/a>, it also reflects on larger themes of leadership \u200band control, resonating as a microcosmic representation of broader\u2063 societal dynamics.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>What do you call <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/tv\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>unscripted TV<\/a> featuring <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/mental-health\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>lunatics<\/a> \u2014 when you\u2019re not calling it \u201cC-SPAN,\u201d that is? If the phrase \u201creality television\u201d comes to mind, dismiss it as insufficient right away. Abandon, too, the staid moniker \u201cdocuseries.\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/hbo\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>HBO<\/a>\u2019s <em>Ren Faire<\/em>, available now in its full, three-episode glory, is too unruly a beast for such a tame description. <em>Tiger King<\/em> meets <em>Game of Thrones<\/em> meets <em>Succession<\/em>, the show surveys eccentricity, greed, and fanaticism to an extent rarely seen before in \u201cauthentic\u201d programming. Real or otherwise, this is the most intoxicating world we\u2019re likely to behold on screen this year.<\/p>\n<p>Set at the sprawling <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/texas\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>Texas<\/a> Renaissance Festival, <em>Ren Faire<\/em> tells the story of George C. Coulam, the festival\u2019s octogenarian founder, owner, and \u201cking.\u201d Lord not only of TRF but of incorporated Todd Mission, Texas, Coulam rules all with an aging fist of iron. As the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-return-of-the-kids-in-the-hall-reminds-us-that-comedy-is-supposed-to-hit-in-all-directions\/\" title=\"The Return Of \u2018The Kids In The Hall\u2019 Reminds Us That Comedy Is Supposed To Hit In All Directions\">show opens<\/a>, \u201cKing George\u201d has become burdened by his crown and is looking to offload it onto one or more of his court jesters. <\/p>\n<figure><figcaption>HBO\u2019s Ren Faire (HBO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Will our protagonist really abandon his throne after a near lifetime of one-man supremacy? If so, which of the scoundrels at his feet will leap up to claim it? Like any good character study, <em>Ren Faire<\/em> offers multiple glimpses of fragile, grasping humanity. Among Coulam\u2019s most devoted subjects is Jeff Baldwin, a small-time stage actor and entertainment director turned in-over-his-head TRF general manager. A fearful and reactionary figure, Baldwin hopes chiefly to seize the crown by proxy. Should Coulam retain ownership of the festival, Baldwin might rule in all but name, awarding his wife a permanent position but otherwise making no changes at all, forever. <\/p>\n<p>Opposing this unadventurous vision is \u201cLord of Corn\u201d Louie Migliaccio, the festival\u2019s popcorn impresario and resident Hunter Biden doppelganger. A trust-funded, Red Bull-guzzling former alcoholic, Migliaccio wants to buy the fair outright and seize the throne by force. (\u201cI saw the crown of the Texas Renaissance Festival lying in the gutter,\u201d etc.) Among his dreams for the fair\u2019s future are \u201cimmersive technology,\u201d a \u201cRenaissance University,\u201d and, dearest of all, the firing of Baldwin. To observe Migliaccio\u2019s hopped-up wheeling and dealing is to be so powerfully reminded of the president\u2019s son that one half expects FBI agents to seize his laptop. Then again, he really does have access to the $60 million that the fair is worth. Without question, Coulam and TRF could do worse. <\/p>\n<p>Other characters arise to accompany this scheming duo. Vendor coordinator Darla Smith makes a play for power halfway through the series and may or may not live to tell about it. Baldwin\u2019s wife, Brandi, emerges as the show\u2019s one sane figure, gently cautioning her husband that King George is not the benevolent ruler some suppose. Yet it is Coulam himself who serves as the undisputed master of <em>Ren Faire\u2019s<\/em> preposterous storylines. Autocratic, visionary, and distressingly bawdy, Coulam brings to mind both Montgomery Burns and Caligula. Observing a day in his life, one doesn\u2019t know whether to tip one\u2019s hat or wash one\u2019s hands. <\/p>\n<p>Where to begin describing our outrageous protagonist? Coulam \u201cmoves you around as he sees fit,\u201d one Todd Mission resident confides, invoking a chess board. His house contains shrines to Mother Earth, the Buddha, Jesus Christ, and the Angel Moroni. He surfs \u201csugar daddy\u201d websites with the help of a beleaguered aide, so intent is he upon finding a \u201ccompanion.\u201d After enlisting willing ladies, the 85-year-old hosts them at the local Olive Garden. <\/p>\n<p>An inveterate misanthrope, Coulam \u201csuffer[s] from the gross inadequacies of the human race,\u201d to quote the man himself. But he is also, after his own fashion, obviously brilliant. How many art graduates from Cal State Northridge can boast a net worth approaching $100 million? It is to <em>Ren Faire\u2019s<\/em> great credit that the show never loses sight of an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/never-seen-anything-like-it-elon-musk-reacts-to-global-supply-chain-issues\/\" title=\"\u2018Never Seen Anything Like It\u2019: Elon Musk Reacts To Global Supply Chain Issues\">underlying reality<\/a>: Bizarre though his behavior may be, Coulam really did build the largest Renaissance festival in the nation from scratch. <\/p>\n<p>Were <em>Ren Faire<\/em> a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/fiction\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>work of fiction<\/a>, one would be tempted to read it as a knowing political parable in which Americans (Coulam) weigh both traditionalism (Baldwin) and utopianism (Migliaccio) and find them wanting. The series works best, however, as a commercial psychodrama with Renaissance characteristics. Not for HBO\u2019s latest are the lawyers, conference rooms, and formalities that typically govern large-scale acquisitions. Instead, the show\u2019s characters settle matters as they might have done in the court of Henry VIII. Case in point: When Baldwin wishes to sabotage Migliaccio\u2019s purchase, he does so not with legalese but with an emotional appeal made directly to the throne. Alter the vocabularies slightly, but not too much, and we might be witnessing a quarrel between Thomas More and Cromwell. <\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The effect of all of this is wonderfully strange. So is the show\u2019s editing, which takes a sharpened broadsword to the documentary community\u2019s cinema-verite pretensions. In Episode 1\u2019s last five minutes alone, we see Migliaccio\u2019s head transposed onto the body of a jouster, a gaggle of leering peasants, and what appears at first to be Coulam\u2019s death rattle. The explicit work of the scene is to show Baldwin receiving bad news. Its deeper purpose is to convince us of the stakes \u2014 and to bring the festival\u2019s peculiarities to thrilling life. <\/p>\n<p>There is, of course, a certain archness behind these editing-room liberties. A production without a sense of the absurd would not show Baldwin hallucinating a dragon, as <em>Ren Faire<\/em> does on more than one occasion. Nevertheless, the series\u2019s ambitions and dynamics remain convincingly Shakespearean. Not for nothing does Baldwin compare himself to Cordelia, <em>King Lear\u2019s <\/em>tragic and faithful heroine. \u201cI love your Majesty according to my bond,\u201d that virtuous woman proclaims. As both <em>Lear<\/em> and <em>Ren Faire<\/em> make plain, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/love\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>love<\/a> is a fine thing. But it isn\u2019t nearly enough. <\/p>\n<p><em>Graham Hillard is editor at the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal and a <\/em>Washington Examiner<em> magazine contributing writer.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What do you call unscripted TV featuring lunatics, aside from &#8220;C-SPAN&#8221;? Forget &#8220;reality television&#8221; and &#8220;docuseries.&#8221; HBO&#8217;s &#8220;Ren Faire,&#8221; now fully available in three episodes, defies such tame labels with its wild content<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":956,"featured_media":2273104,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/LA.TV_-1.webp","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[538],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2273103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-washington-examiner"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/LA.TV_-1.webp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2273103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/956"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2273103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2273103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2273104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2273103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2273103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2273103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}