(no subject)

[lollardfish]

Can anyone more knowledgeable than I point out any examples of the Vilification Tennis show doing productive social satire - that is, making fun of something in order to demonstrate its impropriety or nonsensical nature?

I'm seeing excuses that I shouldn't be offended at their upcoming show because it's productive social satire.

I think it's just an excuse and the show isn't about satire, it's about getting laughs by being as mean as possible. They are really good at it. They get a lot of laughs. I think they're kidding themselves about the satire, but I'm not that familiar with their shows.

Comments

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

About this time of year, every year, my mother would bring home bags of mixed nuts from the grocery store. You could buy them today, and the mix is the same now as it was when I was a girl: Hazel nuts. almonds, pecans, English walnuts and Brazil nuts.

And my father would complain about the the Brazil nuts. "These damned nigger toes are hard to open." Or, "Why are there always so many nigger toes in the mixed nuts?"

Deconstructing his joke is simple. It's easy to see that it has an element of surprise, a little twist that draws the laugh. It's ridiculous. Using the word nigger simply out of the blue like that gets a laugh from the shock because it is not a word that polite company uses.

For some, I suppose, it's easy to say that the joke isn't about people, it's just funny. For others, the word nigger is a connection to slavery and the not-fully-human status given to slaves is inescapably lucid, and cannot be set aside for the laugh.

On a more personal level, jmanna, you and I don't really know each other. Nevertheless, I am sorry as can be that friends and strangers have hurt you and made you cry by making fat jokes. But I am much, much sadder that on some level you find fat jokes acceptable, and think it's fine for people to make them. You deserve to be treated better than that, by the world and by your friends. Honest. You really do.

K.

[jmanna.livejournal.com]

Please don't feel sorry for me. I have great friends who when I point out what they said hurt me, they apologize. Or I tell them it was actually funny.

I am overweight. That's just a fact. It doesn't make me lazy or stupid or ugly. Just, well, fat. When someone does something funny with humor related to weight, I laugh. Because it's not belittling me. It's a joke. If I trip and I'm not hurt, my friends have my full permission to laugh at my clumsy ass. Because it's funny.

When someone makes a joke about annoying American tourists, I laugh because I've seen those annoying tourists. (BTW, the make the same jokes about Brits too.)

My father's side of the family is Italian. They are loud and pushy and tend to have fights with each other for reasons that baffle me. (They're also generous to a fault, warm and joyful.) I seen this behavior is the three other Italian families I've encountered. Some of the jokes made about Italian families? They're true. Sure there are Italian families that don't act like that (there's exceptions to every rule) but a good measure of it is true.

I don't need someone to defend me. I don't need someone to protect me from laughing at myself. If someone hurts me, I tell them so. Sometimes? They don't agree. I shrug and evaluate the intent. If there was no malice I can't perceive it as a willful personal slight. I just can't or I would waste a heck of a lot of time being hurt, angry or outraged.

So please, don't feel sorry for me. I don't.

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

So if you tell someone and judge it accidental, and then they do it again, and again, and again, what do you do? I'm not saying that is an analogous situation to here, but I am curious about your sense of things. I really appreciate all the feedback you are giving me.

[jmanna.livejournal.com]

If they do it again and again after repeatedly being asked not to I give them the final 'I told you this hurt me and you didn't stop' and then I stop being friends with them. But Each incident isn't so cut and dry. I cannot tell someone who makes their living a fat suit to stop making a living that way. I can either accept it as part of them or not be friends with them. It's kinda selfish and silly to think my way of living is the best/only way of living for everyone.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

"Because it's not belittling me. It's a joke." And this was my point about the Brazil nuts.

I've said elsewhere that I can be very black-and-white (<--Irony! Funny!) about these situations, and I find that easier than trying to understand someone else's moral distinctions. (Thus, lollardfish, SP = Not Under Any Circumstances.)

Being able to laugh at one's self is admirable, and being able to ascribe the best of motives to people you trust to care about you is, too. But those great qualities can't keep you from being hurt, as you've said. And you don't deserve the hurt. None of us do.

When jokes are made about people who cannot defend themselves (for any of a number of reasons), who don't see the "it's a joke" motive that excuses the attack, that's a situation I can't understand.

K.

[jmanna.livejournal.com]

You point about the Brazil nuts is not my point. I would present your logic that your father was not black therefor he was being racists where as I am fat and therefor it's inclusive.

As for not deserving being hurt I shall be nerdy and quote a movie:

"Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something."

Just because something causes me pain does not necessarily mean it is wrong or malicious. It means it causes me pain. Know what causes me pain? Seeing people wounded, dying or dead because of violence instigated by religion. I have sobbed at pictures of the hideous shit people do to each other in the name of religion. Now I have had friends say to me 'But aren't they just bad people doing bad things and using religion as an excuse?' or 'But if religion inspires someone to do something good isn't it okay then?' My answer to both is No. I have my reasons but I feel strongly about it.

However, I don't tell my friends not to be religious. Some people think me ridiculous to even have the belief that I do. I do not tell my friends that by being religious they are involved in some way in something that horrifies and hurts me. Why? Because using my hurt, my beliefs as a reason to belittle them, call them names like hateful or ignorant or malicious is just ans painful to them. Because I judge my friends on the sum of their actions, not on a part.

As for attacking those that can't defend themselves, well again, it comes back to my discussion on assumed malicious intent.

[zarathud23.livejournal.com]

In The Adventures of Huckelberry Finn, Mark Twain uses the word "nigger" over 200 times. Now, at the time of the writing of this book, it was a socially acceptable term. It was used often. I believe that he was trying to tell us something. By using it over and over and over again, he was trying to tell us that it was NOT correct to use that word. I don't think most people believe that Mr. Twain was a racist.

I'm not saying that what we do is try to make people socially aware. I'm simply pointing out the fact, at different times in history, a word can be a black mark, or can be accepted by society.