New Zealand writer-director Taika Waititi is no stranger when it comes to giving his candid — and often humorous — hot takes on Twitter.
In his latest off-the-cuff remark, the Thor: Ragnarok director retweeted a story from Vice News about his home country becoming the world’s first nation to permanently legalize “drug checking services.”
According to the article, the move is being hailed by experts for allowing individuals to test the safety of illicit substances at festivals and other locations without the fear of legal repercussions, thereby having the informed empowerment to dispose of a substance laced with some other, fatal chemical, for instance.
Waititi’s hot take: “Cool job.” Take it from a man known for juggling several cool jobs at a time.
The Jojo Rabbit filmmaker’s tweet is rather ambiguous and on the surface may come across simply as a New Zealander congratulating his home country for making the move that has a goal of over-all harm reduction.
But given Waititi’s penchant for humor and partying, an alternative explanation is that the director is giving a sarcastic response as if he mistakenly believes there are literal “drug testers,” like royal taste-testers of olden times, who will take a small dose of a substance for you to make sure it’s ok to use.
The law probably doesn’t work that way, of course, and instead likely refers to people being able to test their drugs presumably with some kind of portable technology to check its purity, not a literal person imbibing a sample of the drug for you.
With that possible interpretation in mind, “Cool job” comes across like the kind of one-off funny lines we’d expect from Korg, the rock alien the writer-director and actor voices in the Marvel movies.
Anyway, leave it to Taika Waititi to turn the steady doldrum of the daily news on its head by giving it a zany and novel interpretation, just as he is quite talented at doing with his filmmaking.
Published: Nov 30, 2021 07:48 pm