(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

[petsnakereggie.livejournal.com]

OK, I have time to do a more in depth response. I've read through every post in this thread and while I could try to respond to many very good points, I think I'll stick to this one. No offense meant to anyone else (I mean aside from the offense already taken).

I'm really just going to expand on what I wrote very quickly this morning.

I don't blame you for being offended. I'm not upset that you are. As I said, the intent was not to cause pain but it did and for that I'm truly sorry.

What individual cast members say is their own choice. I do understand the level of defensiveness because people (not you) have been pretty harsh about us. There is even someone on our event page who went so far as to suggest that our parents are horrible people because of this show. I don't think they were doing that to somehow satirize our show. I think they were doing that because they actually feel that my mother is a bad person because she raised a son who is a part of this show. When someone in our show makes fun of someone else's parents, they don't mean it. How is it useful when someone upset by our show insults our parents and means it?

That wasn't you. It wasn't Shannon. I'm just saying that I get the defensiveness.

I'm not trying to be defensive. I'm telling you why I made the choices I made and that is it.

So, to the individual points:

1) Your response is, as I said, completely fair.

2) I think this point is somewhat relevant but the argument is not productive.

3) I do agree with this argument to some degree. Words are damaging insofar as we allow ourselves to be damaged by them. The title was making fun of the people who objected to the scene in "Tropic Thunder" because they didn't understand the context. To me, the use of the word in the film was making fun of the people who were using the word - not the stereotype that word evoked. So to me that was an example where the word itself was being viewed as offensive simply because the word was being used. I don't subscribe to that philosophy. A similar argument has been as to why people shouldn't read Mark Twain. Yes, Twain uses the word "Nigger" and that word has extremely negative connotations. It is how he uses the word, however, that is relevant.

As a personal example, I've been a "nerd/geek" all my life. People made fun of me for that and so long as I viewed that word as derogatory, it hurt. When I found a bunch of like minded people, I could embrace the term "geek" as who I was and the jokes about being a geek didn't hurt because the word no longer had a negative connotation.

Now please understand that I'm not trying to draw a direct parallel here. I'm just using my experience to demonstrate my personal philosophy on this particular matter.

This is not to discount your response to the word or how I chose to use it. My intent in coming up with the title obviously did not register with you (and several others) which was a risk I took.

4) I can't agree with that argument and I would certainly never put it forth. What you find offensive is what you find offensive. What I think is offensive is irrelevant to your response.

5) I think I covered that one. I think we do that at times. I don't think we do it all the time.

I've known you and Shannon for a long time. We aren't exactly close friends or anything but I want to say again that I sincerely regret the pain that I caused you. It wasn't my goal and I'm sorry. I have no less respect for you than I did before this whole thing started.

Now, if you would like to savor some sweet irony for a moment - think about this.

The whole reason I did a handicapped theme was because we were going to have sign language interpreters at the show (which makes our show funnier for some reason). Due to a conflict, one of our interpreters had to bow out and the other one can't do the show alone. So far, we haven't been able to find a replacement.

So this whole thing is going on because of something that is most likely no longer going to take place.

I hope you can find that ironic twist to this story at least a little amusing.

Tim

[mamajenzie.livejournal.com]

Please note- my parents ARE horrible people. I didn't find that offensive in the least. Just, well, TRUE.

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

The title was making fun of the people who objected to the scene in "Tropic Thunder" ...

That -really- didn't register, as you say, obviously. To our ears/eyes, it was embracing the language, not making a commentary on the controversy, and I could already hear the retard jokes ringing in my ears (in this case, knowledge of V-Tennis did not help mitigate the reaction, because VT enjoys provoking outrage and offense in the context of the shows, so it did feel that provoking offense was an intended consequence). FWIW, I think your take on the controversy is spot on, and even shared by Michael Berube, a liberal blogger, great English professor, and father of a boy with Down syndrome here (http://www.michaelberube.com/index.php/weblog/special_special_edition/), somewhere in the middle.

Berube also has this lovely piece (http://www.michaelberube.com/index.php/weblog/a_stupid_proposal/) on insults and grammar. You'll like it, I think.

With the exception of the wedge driven between my family and the Brusts, I'm feeling pretty good about where things stand. Understanding and awareness, on all sides, has improved. That can only be a good thing.

I really wish I had been rational enough to just write you an email asking you about your thoughts on the title. You would have explained it. I would have said it was really painful and didn't read that way to people like me. We would have gone from there. But this isn't really an area in which I can guarantee full, calm, rationality. Thanks for your time talking about this.

[petsnakereggie.livejournal.com]

I don't act particularly rationally when I'm angry so I would be quite the hypocrite if I expected others to do so. You have every right to be protective of your son.

Thanks for the links and for listening to what I had to say.

If I offend you this way again (not likely since we only re-use a few themes and I never intended this to be one of them - I will probably offend you in a completely different way), please know you can talk to me about it. Hopefully, I won't be a complete douchebag ;-)

[buttonlass.livejournal.com]

Also people should lay off your parents. I know your mom and think she's fantastic.:)