The False Dichotomy of Jokes vs. Serious Shit

Just recently I discovered that James Franco played a character named Franco on the long-running ABC soap opera general hospital. I found out about this at the supermarket, looking over the various magazine racks as I waited to buy, I don't know, Macaroni and Cheese. On the cover I saw James Franco and just stopped and stared for a few moments. Like many, I initially thought it was some sort of elaborate joke. After all, Franco is involved with that art meta-film project Erasing James Franco in tandem with filmmaker Carter.

So I decided to search for any clips of the events on YouTube. In a particular stroke of genius, one user did some quick video editing, so the only parts of any episode of General Hospital that remain are the parts that actually involve James Franco's character. Judging from the YouTube comments, it seems that these were mostly created to ogle James Franco who is, apparently, a hottie. It also serves to illustrate this blog post's point.