(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

[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 ;-)