(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

[techdragon.livejournal.com]

I can get you in contact with some of their members who I am friends with... I have not actually seen a show though.

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

Thanks. This is not a friends-locked post, so they are free to chime in. I am genuinely looking for examples.

[groomporter.livejournal.com]

I as I think I said on Facebook I have only seen the show at festival, which is just insult tennis, I haven't seen the off-site "themed" shows, but
their are excerpts of some of them on Youtube that you can check out.

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

I'd like to hear what their advocates say.

[(Anonymous)]

I am on the cast of Vil Tennis and the following is my opinion and does not reflect or represent the other jerks in Vil Tennis.
I personally do not care about providing "productive social satire". I am not even sure I understand what that is suppose to mean.
My job is to make people laugh. I do my job and I do it well. I'm not doing shows to make statements.

Mark L

[groomporter.livejournal.com]

Yeah, just figured the Youtube bits might provide some unfiltered direct samples of the shows even if they are just excerpts,

[mamajenzie.livejournal.com]

I just made a post a few hours ago on my perspective of all of this on my lj. It's a locked down blog, and for many reasons, but buttonlass has access to it, and I give permission for her to share it with you.

I seriously thought about preventing comments, but I feel everyone should get to say their piece. Just know that the post is not about you, us, them, sides, or whatever else. It is about me and my experience, about how I view vilification and what means I use it for. It has nothing to do with anyone except me.

And yes, I certainly do use the r-word. I have sometimes been called a "tame" vilifier, but that doesn't make me any less of a vilifier. :)

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

I didn't think so, Mark. But the claim has been made (see below), and I wanted to hear examples as I couldn't think of any.

I think it's a superb example of cruelty humor.

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

I read it and couldn't come up with any examples. I'd love to hear some. Right now, it looks to me like you are just making excuses for causing pain to people like me and my wife and for perpetuating the belief that it is appropriate and comical to make fun of people who, by definition, cannot defend themselves and are frequently seen as lesser humans on account of their disabilities. That's what I see.

But I believe satire can be extremely effective at undermining social ills, and I'd like to hear how Vill does that.

[mamajenzie.livejournal.com]

I never promised examples. I stated that the post was made for me and my thoughts. It wasn't actually made for you, sweetie.

That being said, I would love to hear exactly how we are picking on and making fun of the handicapped. 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. The use of that reference was in performers being hindered at being able to fully represent one with special needs. It's social commentary that I believe is rather accurate, and sadly shows a misrepresentation in Hollywood. Unless you feel Forrest Gump is representational.

All that being said, the show itself can often be satirical. It can also be ironical and sarcastic. For my part, I work best at word play. Were I in the show, I could tell you three insults I would definitely use in the show.

-You're so stupid, you thought a paraplegic was a step below lawyer.
-You're so stupid, you thought Downs was the opposite of Ups.
-You're so stupid, you thought retard was a noun.

If you are looking to me for a very specific example of what the show is going to be, I honestly can't help you. I'm not in this show- I was not a part of the planning, I did not help with any of it.

In fact, a part of me is having difficulty with the thought that you might know what's going to happen in the show better than I do. I mean, you already know it's going to hurt children. I had no idea.

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

In your post, you said that the show raises awareness. Others have suggested that the show presents effective satire. I requested examples. My experience with the show is limited, but did not feel that the show either raised awareness or presented satire (neither does Mark, above).

I got the reference. There was, for the record, significant outcry in the Down syndrome community about the movie, although I was not a part of it. I actually thought that the movie's use of the phrase was, as you say, an attempt at satire of Hollywood's portrayal of the disabled, though not actually particularly funny (it seemed to be playing for laughs by using the word retard repeatedly).

I do not understand how Vill does anything like that and requested examples. That's all.

I like that third joke. It's clever.

I'll address other points in a second post as I like to keep thought separated on lj as it works better.

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

For the second point - my contention has nothing to do with the show. I would not go to such a show. If I ended up at one accidentally, I would leave. But I believe that anyone going to a Vilification Tennis show checks their outrage and offense at the door.

I believe that to participate in, attend, or even just condone the existence of a comedy show called "Going Full Retard:- a Vilification Tennis Salute to the Handicapped. Because they have the ADA and we don't" is to help perpetuate the notion that it is appropriate and harmless to mock and marginalize the disabled on account of their disabilities. Moreover, the disabled are, by definition, often unable to defend themselves, and here they are rendered as targets.

This is a little bit abstract, though I believe it. There's also, I'm told (I haven't read it. I could, if it mattered), research into the word "retard" as an insult-phrase and the consequences of exposure to that word for people (especially teens) who have intellectual disabilities. It's devastating on them.

[(Anonymous)]

"but did not feel that the show either raised awareness or presented satire (neither does Mark, above)."
Easy there, I said nothing of the sort.
I said my job is to make people laugh, not contemplate the meaning of life.
Please do not put words in my mouth.

The closest example of anything i have done that may fit your criteria would be the Feb show. Our show was "A Salute to Black History Month".
I did the show in black face.
I did it for 2 reasons.
1- its funny
2- The easiest way to destroy someones hatred for anything in specific is to make fun of the way they think. (Ask Mel Brooks how he feels about making fun of Hitler)
I did not do it to be mean, hurtful, racist, or anything even close to that. I did it to be funny.

Also I have to agree with Jen in pointing out something to you and the others that are screaming and yelling about the upcoming show. Have you seen it yet? Was it hurtful? Was it mean spirited? i would suggest to you and the others that are up in arms with pitchforks in hand to wait and see.
If it is then by all means feels free to be a critic and publicly admonish the cast.

Mark L

P.S. I am also not doing the Nov show.

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

How did insulting other people in blackface help destroy hatred?

Brooks did fantastic satire.

I am not complaining about the show. I am complaining about the publicity, title, and articulation of the theme. It does enough damage.

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

Here's a more direct question, Mark. You and my wife are friends. You met my son this summer; he giggled at you in the cage. The title/theme of this show made my wife weep with anger and sadness.

Do you care?

If you don't, so be it.

[mamajenzie.livejournal.com]

I'm repeating part of my blog. I don't like doing so, but you have stated that I made comment about raising awareness through the show. Like I have said, I should not be seen as the end all be all of vilification. For that matter, neither should Mark. The only person that can truly represent Vilification Tennis is Tim, the "guy in charge."

The one insult I would have loved to have thrown was "you're so stupid, you thought retard was a noun" and then looked to see who got it. And then maybe those that didn't would ask. I have always been a fan of increasing awareness through wordplay, satire, sarcasm, and irony.

Look! I even included the insult you liked. :)

And the reason you liked it was because you "got" the joke. You *know*. Someone who didn't get the joke wouldn't *know.* If they knew, they'd get the joke, whether they liked it or not.

In not getting it, my hope would be that they would ask someone. At the very least, they would know they don't know. And that is raising awareness. Not an in your face, do or die raise of awareness. Just a slight bump in that there is something else out there. What else do you call awareness?

And m entire post was about how MY awareness was raised but this show that hasn't even happened yet, having to focus on what is and isn't funny about the topic presented. So there's two.

My post was about how we didn't talk about the elephant in the room growing up, and how little I knew because of that. Just by talking about the subject, one raises awareness. So have a third.

And Mark is right about one thing. The focus of the show is on being funny. We are billed as an offensive show, but the goal isn't to offend. It's to be funny. And there is nothing funny about insulting someone for the sake of being offensive. I would never go up to you and call you a r_____ daddy (hell, I wouldn't do it to someone I didn't like). That is not funny.

There is a part of me that has always found you to be a bit difficult. You haven't been with me thus far, and I feel it's led to some rather productive sharing, if not acceptance.

But I do need to point out that I have heard that many of our mutual friends have been hurt by direct attacks from you to them for being in the show, going to the show, or supporting the show, even when you haven't been able to give examples of what has been directly hurtful or why. You have resorted to name calling. You have been directly hurtful to people you feel are being indirectly hurtful to you and those you love.

It's hypocritical, and I feel it should be beneath you. I know you get frustrated when you feel attacked or defensive, but it's not okay behavior, and certainly does not add credence to your case.

I was going to end there, but your follow up comment just popped up, so I will respond to that as well (I hate doing that multiple threads thing)...

Huh. Honestly, the only further response I have to that is that yeah, it is kind of abstract. If you can't feel the sarcasm in that tag, I have no way of convincing you otherwise.

And I think that is where I'm going to have to end. I am now a couple hours behind on my design work and really need to get back to it. I wanted to take the moment to comment on here, because I do think fondly of you, and I do care that you are hurting. I just think much of the offence that you are seeing simply isn't there.

Take care, hon.

[akitrom.livejournal.com]

I am reminded of Don Imus and the Rutgers' Women's Basketball controversy. At the time, the aspect of it that landed Imus in such hot water was the perception that he was being nasty to people who were not celebrities, not behaving badly, and who were innocent of any cause of his malice.

Unlike, oh, Mel Brooks and Hitler.

[(Anonymous)]

Do I care? No, not really. I do not let words cause me pain.

I would empathize, if say your wife and your self had been out front of the movie theater picketing Tropic Thunder in 2008. Maybe if you guys had written Ben Stiller or the movie studio. BUT as you said when the other groups got up in arms you didn't get involved.
The term is SO OBVIOUSLY taken from a movie and worse yet, a long conversation and side plot in said movie. If you never said or did anything when it was in a movie why exactly should I care now that the phrase is being used in a production put on by 15 people in Minneapolis to an audience of 80? If one word offends you and your wife to the point of tears then I would say you are in for a very long and painful life.

My 8 year old daughter has cancer. Leukemia to be exact. I understand what it is like to be protective for your child.
Want to know why your son giggled at me this summer? It's because I am funny.

Mark L

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

I am difficult. I try not to be. But I get abrasive and angry, especially when people attack those dear to me. I only became aware of this show when my wife was in tears and I responded with a post, friends locked, that attacked the event without naming any names.I feel that was pretty restrained under the circumstances. Moreover, I later sent out emails apologizing for not contacting individuals directly. I'm not frustrated. I'm angry. I'm still angry.

I agree that the focus of the show is being funny. That's what I've been saying. But when I have expressed my feelings about this particular show's title and theme, I have been told, "it's satire." I still don't see it.

I do take your points about awareness in your experience. That all makes a lot of sense to me. I suspect everyone involved in this issue will, at least, think about it before they use the word retard pejoratively in this type of context. They may do it anyway. They may mutter, "fuck that asshole Lollardfish" under their breath. They may mutter, "Fuck politically-correct bullshit." Maybe they'll self-censor just to keep me from ranting at them, not through any acceptance of my perspective. I dunno. But they'll think about it for an extra second or two, and that pleases me. I'm going to be spending a good part of my life fighting to make the world a better place for my son, and if fewer people like me for it, I can live with that, though I'll regret it.

[petsnakereggie.livejournal.com]

I do not feel that what we do is social satire. I don't know where this has come from but I've never said it. I don't believe I am fooling myself about our show.

What we do is comedy. We do a specific kind of comedy that is not for everyone and that is why we are popular.

However, I feel that the moment we say "no, we can't go there" we have a problem. When we are willing to make fun of any topic, we are making it really clear that we don't mean anything we say. The minute we say "oh, we can't try a joke on that topic," we imply that we mean the jokes we are making on the other topics.

We don't. We don't mean any of it. We simply use offensive material to entertain our audience.

Our audience has a social contract with us that says "we know you are going to go places that make us uncomfortable. We know you are going to make jokes about things society says are not supposed to be funny." I point that out at the beginning of every show. Within the context of our show, we take chances that are going to offend some people and they need to be OK with that or they shouldn't come.

We also pay attention to our audience and if they respond negatively to a type of joke, we stop doing it. There is a feedback loop at our shows that involve us trying stuff out and our audience responding positively or negatively so we know which jokes are going to fly and which ones aren't.

If you want me to defend the show as "productive social satire," I won't do that. I believe there is some of that. I think that there was a lot of that in our political shows last year. I don't believe that social satire is the primary thrust of what we do.

Hate us or not - we are what we are. I can't change that or our show wouldn't work. Our goal is to make people laugh. That's it.

I'm sure I'm going to get raked over the coals for saying what I'm saying. I accept that or I wouldn't have chosen to post. I'm in charge of the show - I accept responsibility for what we do.

As a caveat - if I don't respond to someone who responds to me, I apologize. I certainly hope to respond as much as possible. However, I only have so many hours in the day to engage in online conversation. If you just want to tell me what a horrible person I am, that is groovy. I can take it but I probably won't respond.

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

I know about your daughter. Her grandparents are good friends of mine. I've been thinking about her since you started posting.

The pain of this is that, unlike Tropic Thunder, it's coming from inside my wife's long-term core community. To see people who she's known for so long entirely blind to our situation is a painful betrayal, even though unintentional.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

*Two* separate invocations of Godwin to one post. Two.

K.

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting. I basically agree with what you are saying.

Here's the thing - I'm not in the audience. Neither is my wife.

If I can accept that in the context of your show you are going to say cruel and hateful things in pursuit of humor, can you accept that as a non-audience member and non-participant, I have the right to be hurt when the most personally painful hateful language fills my (wife's) facebook?

I have more thoughts, but let's see if we can come to some agreement there.

I'm not interested in insulting anyone and deeply regret any hurt I've done in responding to this. I am interested in working through the issue as productively as possible, for all the difficulties that presents.

Vilification Tennis and the art of offensive comedy

[zarathud23.livejournal.com]

I have been a member of the Vilification Tennis cast for 13 years.

To quote our official website: "We feel that there is humor inherent even in the most taboo subjects and we are, therefore, willing to make fun of things that most people would think aren’t the least bit funny."

Our show is about being funny. It is also about pushing the envelope into non-politically correct humor, because (I feel that) "Political Correctness" has gone way too far. You can't hardly sneeze without offending someone these days!

I have ADHD and have always been wild. When I was a kid the other children called me all sorts of names such as "Spaz" "Mental" "Retard" (That's right! I said it!)and "Loser." I turned out just fine (ok, some might argue that last point).

We are not trying to piss you off. We are utilizing a format that no one else dares to touch. Why? Because somebody should.

As far as examples go, I suggest you come to the show. You may be surprised.

[petsnakereggie.livejournal.com]

If I can accept that in the context of your show you are going to say cruel and hateful things in pursuit of humor, can you accept that as a non-audience member and non-participant, I have the right to be hurt when the most personally painful hateful language fills my (wife's) facebook?

I would never suggest you don't. I completely understand your response and have never stated publicly anything to the contrary. The one post I made on the topic to the Vil Facebook page was specifically in response to someone (not you) who said they "hoped our show would not be disrespectful." I felt it was important to point out that is the kind of show we do.

Here is the thing - the whole reason I selected the title I did is because of the "Tropic Thunder" uproar from last year. I wanted to play off of that. I also wanted to make it really clear what kind of show this was. The concept of someone walking into our show unaware of what they are going to get horrifies me. I want to do everything I can to ensure that won't happen.

I hope you understand that I didn't make the decision with the intent to hurt anyone. I am extremely sorry for causing pain. For all I say the show is not about satire, the title was intended to make a satirical (and literal) point, not to cause pain.

And I say again - it was my decision to go this way. My fault. The buck stops here. I own it.

Tim