The other day, I opened YouTube on my laptop expecting to be greeted by the usual recommendations of LofiChillHop and Study Girl. Instead, up popped a two minute clip from the 2007 blockbuster that everyone loves to hate: Ghost Rider. It’s easy to get lost in the memes and forget what a versatile actor Nicholas Cage is and the diverse career he has had. Of course, as tragic as it is, he has become a meme to an entire generation. 

“Why?” I ask. 

“Why what?” You say. 

The truth is, Nick Cage became a meme not just because of his face (though that is quality meme material as well), but because after a while his movies started to suck. It became transparent that he was pulling a Michael Bay™: in it only for the money. 

Later, as I was browsing Netflix I noticed that one of the top ten trending new shows was a Netflix Original Series starring Nicholas Cage. History of Swear Words is a short episodic docuseries chronicling what its title suggests. Was it lame? Not too much. Were the cutaways to our host, Nick Cage himself, corny and intrusive, happening at the most inopportune of times? Overwhelmingly so. 

The ensemble of comedians and academics was one of the show’s highlights, with the diverse troupe of women comedians basically stealing the show. One could say that Nicholas Cage was not a necessary addition to the docuseries, that his intro and interlude scenes were objectively kind of stupid as he sits there sipping a glass tumbler half full of hard liquor like he should be on the front of some sort of bottle, and that he was probably only there ironically as his name still evidently garners public attention and helps him out finance-wise. 

But, the exposure that big names like his brings to up-and-coming actors and comedians is valuable, and I hope that this docuseries accomplishes at least that, even if that means suffering through the generic corniness of Nicholas Cage’s current acting prowess.