(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

[buttonlass.livejournal.com]

The only thing you have to base your entire argument off of is the title "Going Full R____", which is a very obvious play off of Tropic Thunder. So very obvious that even I, the pop culture inept, got it.

I hate dealing with this further but here I am.

Funny thing about Tropic Thunder, I never saw it. Most of the people I talk to in a week didn't see it. You know why? Because it used the word ret@rd and we were warned, none of us wanted to see it on that basis. I had no idea the title of the upcoming show was a play on that until after I was upset. It may be common knowledge to you but you live in a different subculture than we do.

[mamajenzie.livejournal.com]

Ah, lady. I haven't seen it either. Which is why it was surprising to me that I understood the reference. I don't watch TV. I see incredibly few movies. I don't listen to the radio, preferring my classical music to the loud noise those kids are into nowadays. I often get teased for my lack of understanding of very basic pop culture references.

I do live in a different subculture, it's true. Many more people saw the movie than didn't, and I am not a part of that group. But you are right that I got the reference while you didn't. It raises an interesting question: how many people have to get it and how many don't before one can set a reasonable expectation that a reference has saturated enough of the mainstream to use in a satirical way?

I don't have an answer to that. But I did want to explain my surprise at getting the reference and how difficult a task that is.

[buttonlass.livejournal.com]

Well, to be fair apparently my husband got it too. Maybe I'm just clueless.:)

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Not at all. I didn't get it, and still don't. Nor do I watch TV, or see many movies, and certainly not first-run movies. I listen to non-commercial radio all the time. I am never teased for my lack of understanding of very basic pop culture references.

It doesn't make sense to say that "many more people saw the movie than didn't." There's no way that more than 50% of people saw this movie.

K.

[mamajenzie.livejournal.com]

Clueless is not always a bad thing. Since that's normally my place in the pop culture food chain, I'd like to think I have good company.

[guppiecat]

For what it's worth, I also didn't catch the reference at all.

Which, really, is the problem with reference-based humor. When it hits, it's hilarious... but when it doesn't it's either incomprehensible or completely misinterpret-able.

[jmanna.livejournal.com]

A moment to explain the reference (as I see it at least): In the movie, actors and the movie industry are portrayed as ridiculous caricatures of reality. One of the characters is a white Australian who has pigment therapy done to make himself look black so he can play a black character. THe point of the character is to mock the stupidity of Hollywood in thinking this guy was some kind of brilliant method actor instead of hiring a skilled black actor. The movie pokes fun at Hollywood's latent racism, homophobia bigotry, etc. Where Hollywood names (stars, directors and executives) parade around in fancy clothes at banquets to raise money for causes while at the same time thinking there is nothing wrong (perhaps even laudable) about a white guy playing a black man instead of hiring actors of color.

The scene in particular specifically references the numerous instances where actors have portrayed people with disabilities and how ridiculously Hollywood awards those actors that don't make people uncomfortable by going 'Full (I'll leave the phrase out because I know it upsets you)'. It is entirely a commentary on how Hollywood pats itself on the back about being worldly and aware while still punishing those that 'go to far' into the realm of 'not palatable'.

Mind you this is all mixed in with a movie that has cross dressing and fart jokes but there it is.

Not saying the word usage shouldn't upset you, just explaining the reference.

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

Because it's probably lost in the mega-comments. Here's what my favorite father of a boy with down syndrome/english professor/liberal blogger had to say:

"(Extended aside: before anybody asks me about Tropic Thunder: strange as it may sound, I actually kind of appreciate how the movie was trying to skewer the Rain Man - I Am Sam - Radio representation of intellectual disability. It did so in a ham-handed and aggressively unfunny way, but then, it was a ham-handed and aggressively unfunny movie, though not quite so aggressively unfunny as Burn After Reading. My sense is that it was trying to do for Vietnam War flicks what Galaxy Quest did for SF: to wit, parade and lampoon the cheesy, well-worn tropes of the genre and then work those tropes back into the script for a clever and meta- closing sequence. Except that Tropic Thunder forgot about the “clever” part and the “funny” part.) "

I think that says it pretty well. Full link (http://www.michaelberube.com/index.php/weblog/comments/1257/).

[jmanna.livejournal.com]

Yup. Tropic Thunder was...not funny in my book. But I don't enjoy that over the top comedy stuff. I hate most of Will Ferrel's stuff for the same reasons.