You *are* living dangerously today. But yes, even as an atheist Jew-by-Choice, a ridiculously complicated identity, I totally laughed. Humans are absurd.
A commenter on Melby’s blog is saying that you aren’t supposed to be laughing at this obvious satire, and how terrible everyone here is. SJW’ing is supposed to be deadly serious business, ya know! No humor allowed!! (Then again it is hard to find humor in anything when one is mired in an obsession over one blogger)
Yeah, cause pointing out the ways in which I resemble a character in the video and yet find the whole thing humorously absurd is totally inappropriate.
The Melby blog commenter must have plugged his/her ears whenever, in the video, “Pat” talked about the others unfairly using the language of an “actual oppressed group” in order to describe their identities, including pac man and star signs. Some people are satire-proof. Oh… and completely humorless. :|
This is obvious satire.. fine. What or who is being satirized?
I could almost get a glimpse of mocking a trans person’s acquaintance being “smart” with their claim that they totally knew all along but it’s overshadowed by the standard mocking of trans people. Sure, they have the voice of reason guy, but what is he reasoning against?
Yes, it’s obviously a satire. But so what? Since I don’t treat “satire” as a success word (I see it rather as a mere name of the genre; in effect you can have just as well good satires and shitty, harmful satires), the mere name doesn’t solve any problem.
The issue is not whether it’s a satire. It’s whether there is a problem.
My reception: I don’t see it as mocking trans people. It is the identity politics (not trans people) that is the object of mockery. In particular, it is the confusion over what it means “to identify as something” that is mocked here. Sure, it’s provocative. Moreover, it’s meant to be provocative … to the people engaged in identity politics.
And here is the thing: it seems to me that at present there are no good means available to deal with satires of this sort – no ready-made, popular, efficient scripts. Just some inefficient ones. (An example of an inefficient script: ‘Our cause is just, and when mocking us, you ridicule our cause; so you are a BAD PERSON!’ Result: this is seen as an attempt to make yourself *untouchable*; in effect you become even funnier. Or: ‘This hurts trans people!’. Result: you are seen as too dense to understand that it was directed against you. Tough shit, isn’t it?)
I have a similar problem even with some of those pieces of humor, which – on the face of it – *are* sexist/homophobic/transphobic (no, I don’t qualify the video as such). The issue arises when such jokes are presented not in order to convey anti-women, anti-gay, anti-trans sentiments, but … well, just in order to provoke and to stir shit.
Here is an illustration. Some time ago I was drinking beer with a colleague of mine. Suddenly he asked: “do you know how many guys are needed to open a bottle of beer?” And almost immediately he answered: “None. She should bring it already open!”
Well … my colleague knows my views pretty well. Why did he tell the joke, then? The answer was plain, obvious and simple: it was to provoke me. Given the context, the joke was not directed against women. It was against *me*. End of the story.
This happens often also on the net and it’s a Catch 22 situation. Do you react with laughter? Then *you condone sexist jokes*, you asshole! Do you react with outrage? Excellent! Mission accomplished! Prepare yourself for more provocations!
Whatever you do, you are screwed. Totally. No efficient, ready-made scripts. Tough shit.
Beatrice – Ariel pretty much saved me the trouble of answering. “My reception: I don’t see it as mocking trans people. It is the identity politics (not trans people) that is the object of mockery. In particular, it is the confusion over what it means “to identify as something” that is mocked here.” – that’s a tidier version of what I would have said.
I’ll expand a little on how I see it though.
It mocks the earnestness of a certain kind of very young social justice type. (Yes I know, ageism…but I “identify as” a very young person myself, so it’s ok.) It mocks the rhetoric of that brand of social justice (identify as, appropriation, my truth, I feel safe saying, everyone knows that star signs are on a spectrum, thanks for being an ally). It mocks the instant enforcement of each new identity and the righteous indignation at the skeptic (“how dare you!”).
It mocks a bunch of silly shit. It really is possible to find that kind of thing hilarious even when it’s your silly shit that’s being mocked. Doonesbury did that all the time, and so did Alison Bechdel in the strip. My favorite parts were her mockery of Mo’s righteousness and constant indignation – because I’m very like Mo myself, and I recognized myself…and it was funny.
I do mock myself pretty often, after all.
Is it also mocking the basic idea behind “trans women are women, period”? Yes, while at the same time saying that trans people are not the targets.
Is it ok to do that? I think it is, and I get that other people don’t.
If the offensiveness of something depends on it being satire or played straight then it’s important whether it actually is satire or not… or rather, whether it is a sucessful attempt at satire or not.
I don’t understand what you actually mean by identity politics. Has that term lost all meaning, similarly to political correctness, only to be used as an insult?
Regarding your example of a male friend telling that sexist joke:
That joke is sexist. That his intent was to bait you with it doesn’t either make it not sexist or absolves him of being an asshole in that situation. What’s the point of that example? That it’s difficult to navigate in a sexist world? It is, I know. I have laughed at sexist jokes told by my work colleagues and then felt bad about it.
This is just a bad example.
Telling a sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, etc. joke “just” to provoke a person is sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, etc unless you mean provoke into thinking about the issues but your example is clearly not about that. (see also jokes about rape where the but of the joke is the rapist and not the raped person – that’s a way to successfuly dance on the line without crossing it )
Apparently I’m hanging with the wrong (or right, depending on one’s views) type of social justice crowd because I am not familiar with these young social justice types and the myriad of new identities that are being accepted without questioning (is this some teenage tumblr thing? Because if that’s it, teenage fads are hardly something widely accepted).
With the exception of furries and the misuse of the term trans-ethnical, I have never heard of people saying “I identify as..” anything but man/woman as related to being trans.
What’s the point of that example? That it’s difficult to navigate in a sexist world?
No, something far more specific than that. The point was to illustrate that traditional feminist reactions – consisting, basically, in pointing out that a given joke is sexist – *do not work* (are inefficient) in contexts like that, when the sexist and provocative character of the joke is obvious from the start to EVERYBODY, including the person who is telling it. This bothers me, because I see a lot of this, especially on the net.
Perhaps this is because feminism became a power to be counted with? As soon as you become a power, there comes an avalanche of ridicule and provocation; and the more serious and high handed you try to be in your reactions, the funnier you look, which only makes it worse … and so on, and so on. These were, more or less, my thoughts. Rather specific (not about “sexist world” in general). I also can’t think of any easy way out. It’s just something which I find quite troublesome.
Sorry, all of this is only very loosely related to the video under discussion and I shouldn’t have introduced it.
Re comment #12: “Appropriation is also a real thing.”
That’s one reason why i laughed at the video.
Is this an occasion to consider Poe’s Law?
Another thing that made me laugh was the way they perfectly enacted the “coming out” moments as actors, and played the cheesey LifeTime Drama Of The Week music in the background. Ever come out to your substance-abuse group that you are gay? Ever come out to your GLBT association that you have HIV? Ever come out to your HIV support group that you are an atheist? I’m glad those decades are far behind, and i’m glad this video could make me laugh at all of that so much.
Gad, there was a Saturday Night Live sketch, some 25-30 years ago, where an ‘Italian’ man gave a touching interview about how he had always ‘felt’ Japanese and had surgery to transition. Of course the term ‘transition’ wasn’t coined yet.
The satire was ready-made back then. Have we really progressed an inch in the time since?
Well. I see I’m important enough to have been called out by name in Melby’s comments.
By one of the reflexively toxic hordelings who made Pharyngula far too hostile a workplace for me to be able to continue with.
(And speaking of my leaving Pharyngula when the ritual abuse got too much to take, looky who’s appointed herself hall minotaur in this thread here!)
It’s odd that I’d get mentioned by name in that thread. Hard to read the intent, but it seems like more of the passive-aggressive Intolerable Joe-style “disappointment” that the hordelings toss at me every once in a while when my moderate and occasional consistency in living up to my principles confuses them.
I actually think my time at Pharyngula damaged my credibility in the rest of the world. Wouldn’t have been the case if it was just PZ’s blog, but the “community” there is so fucking replete with toxic assholes that I’ve gotten some serious shade cast my way by journalists and progressive activists I respect for having even commented at the joint.
I think the toxic assholery at Pharyngula has gotten far far worse since Elevatorgate, what with the prohibitions against asking questions (cause that’s always JAQing off in bad faith) and devil’s advocate arguments and the insistence on “safe space”, even if this means that one rape victim cannot talk about her rape in a way that “triggers” another rape victim (“trigger” is apparently a magic word for winning all arguments, or at least ending discussion). I have a lot of friends “met” at Pharyngula, some of whom were commenting there 10 or more years ago. None are still around, either because they were actively pushed out by the commentariat or because they were increasingly horrified by the cruelty of the comments section.
It makes me sad, angry, and resigned to the problems of human nature.
You *are* living dangerously today. But yes, even as an atheist Jew-by-Choice, a ridiculously complicated identity, I totally laughed. Humans are absurd.
I identify as a hornet’s nest AND a baseball bat.
As long as the hornets nest and baseball bat stay on opposite sides of the event horizon, no one gets hurt…
A commenter on Melby’s blog is saying that you aren’t supposed to be laughing at this obvious satire, and how terrible everyone here is. SJW’ing is supposed to be deadly serious business, ya know! No humor allowed!! (Then again it is hard to find humor in anything when one is mired in an obsession over one blogger)
*Returning to my bitchy social justice resting face*
Yeah, cause pointing out the ways in which I resemble a character in the video and yet find the whole thing humorously absurd is totally inappropriate.
I’ll go knit myself a hairshirt now.
The Melby blog commenter must have plugged his/her ears whenever, in the video, “Pat” talked about the others unfairly using the language of an “actual oppressed group” in order to describe their identities, including pac man and star signs. Some people are satire-proof. Oh… and completely humorless. :|
This is obvious satire.. fine. What or who is being satirized?
I could almost get a glimpse of mocking a trans person’s acquaintance being “smart” with their claim that they totally knew all along but it’s overshadowed by the standard mocking of trans people. Sure, they have the voice of reason guy, but what is he reasoning against?
Yes, it’s obviously a satire. But so what? Since I don’t treat “satire” as a success word (I see it rather as a mere name of the genre; in effect you can have just as well good satires and shitty, harmful satires), the mere name doesn’t solve any problem.
The issue is not whether it’s a satire. It’s whether there is a problem.
My reception: I don’t see it as mocking trans people. It is the identity politics (not trans people) that is the object of mockery. In particular, it is the confusion over what it means “to identify as something” that is mocked here. Sure, it’s provocative. Moreover, it’s meant to be provocative … to the people engaged in identity politics.
And here is the thing: it seems to me that at present there are no good means available to deal with satires of this sort – no ready-made, popular, efficient scripts. Just some inefficient ones. (An example of an inefficient script: ‘Our cause is just, and when mocking us, you ridicule our cause; so you are a BAD PERSON!’ Result: this is seen as an attempt to make yourself *untouchable*; in effect you become even funnier. Or: ‘This hurts trans people!’. Result: you are seen as too dense to understand that it was directed against you. Tough shit, isn’t it?)
I have a similar problem even with some of those pieces of humor, which – on the face of it – *are* sexist/homophobic/transphobic (no, I don’t qualify the video as such). The issue arises when such jokes are presented not in order to convey anti-women, anti-gay, anti-trans sentiments, but … well, just in order to provoke and to stir shit.
Here is an illustration. Some time ago I was drinking beer with a colleague of mine. Suddenly he asked: “do you know how many guys are needed to open a bottle of beer?” And almost immediately he answered: “None. She should bring it already open!”
Well … my colleague knows my views pretty well. Why did he tell the joke, then? The answer was plain, obvious and simple: it was to provoke me. Given the context, the joke was not directed against women. It was against *me*. End of the story.
This happens often also on the net and it’s a Catch 22 situation. Do you react with laughter? Then *you condone sexist jokes*, you asshole! Do you react with outrage? Excellent! Mission accomplished! Prepare yourself for more provocations!
Whatever you do, you are screwed. Totally. No efficient, ready-made scripts. Tough shit.
Beatrice – Ariel pretty much saved me the trouble of answering. “My reception: I don’t see it as mocking trans people. It is the identity politics (not trans people) that is the object of mockery. In particular, it is the confusion over what it means “to identify as something” that is mocked here.” – that’s a tidier version of what I would have said.
I’ll expand a little on how I see it though.
It mocks the earnestness of a certain kind of very young social justice type. (Yes I know, ageism…but I “identify as” a very young person myself, so it’s ok.) It mocks the rhetoric of that brand of social justice (identify as, appropriation, my truth, I feel safe saying, everyone knows that star signs are on a spectrum, thanks for being an ally). It mocks the instant enforcement of each new identity and the righteous indignation at the skeptic (“how dare you!”).
It mocks a bunch of silly shit. It really is possible to find that kind of thing hilarious even when it’s your silly shit that’s being mocked. Doonesbury did that all the time, and so did Alison Bechdel in the strip. My favorite parts were her mockery of Mo’s righteousness and constant indignation – because I’m very like Mo myself, and I recognized myself…and it was funny.
I do mock myself pretty often, after all.
Is it also mocking the basic idea behind “trans women are women, period”? Yes, while at the same time saying that trans people are not the targets.
Is it ok to do that? I think it is, and I get that other people don’t.
If the offensiveness of something depends on it being satire or played straight then it’s important whether it actually is satire or not… or rather, whether it is a sucessful attempt at satire or not.
I don’t understand what you actually mean by identity politics. Has that term lost all meaning, similarly to political correctness, only to be used as an insult?
Regarding your example of a male friend telling that sexist joke:
That joke is sexist. That his intent was to bait you with it doesn’t either make it not sexist or absolves him of being an asshole in that situation. What’s the point of that example? That it’s difficult to navigate in a sexist world? It is, I know. I have laughed at sexist jokes told by my work colleagues and then felt bad about it.
This is just a bad example.
Telling a sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, etc. joke “just” to provoke a person is sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, etc unless you mean provoke into thinking about the issues but your example is clearly not about that. (see also jokes about rape where the but of the joke is the rapist and not the raped person – that’s a way to successfuly dance on the line without crossing it )
Apparently I’m hanging with the wrong (or right, depending on one’s views) type of social justice crowd because I am not familiar with these young social justice types and the myriad of new identities that are being accepted without questioning (is this some teenage tumblr thing? Because if that’s it, teenage fads are hardly something widely accepted).
With the exception of furries and the misuse of the term trans-ethnical, I have never heard of people saying “I identify as..” anything but man/woman as related to being trans.
Appropriation is also a real thing.
Beatrice, I think you’re not quite understanding the nature of satire…
Beatrice #11
Obviously.
No, something far more specific than that. The point was to illustrate that traditional feminist reactions – consisting, basically, in pointing out that a given joke is sexist – *do not work* (are inefficient) in contexts like that, when the sexist and provocative character of the joke is obvious from the start to EVERYBODY, including the person who is telling it. This bothers me, because I see a lot of this, especially on the net.
Perhaps this is because feminism became a power to be counted with? As soon as you become a power, there comes an avalanche of ridicule and provocation; and the more serious and high handed you try to be in your reactions, the funnier you look, which only makes it worse … and so on, and so on. These were, more or less, my thoughts. Rather specific (not about “sexist world” in general). I also can’t think of any easy way out. It’s just something which I find quite troublesome.
Sorry, all of this is only very loosely related to the video under discussion and I shouldn’t have introduced it.
Re comment #12: “Appropriation is also a real thing.”
That’s one reason why i laughed at the video.
Is this an occasion to consider Poe’s Law?
Another thing that made me laugh was the way they perfectly enacted the “coming out” moments as actors, and played the cheesey LifeTime Drama Of The Week music in the background. Ever come out to your substance-abuse group that you are gay? Ever come out to your GLBT association that you have HIV? Ever come out to your HIV support group that you are an atheist? I’m glad those decades are far behind, and i’m glad this video could make me laugh at all of that so much.
Gad, there was a Saturday Night Live sketch, some 25-30 years ago, where an ‘Italian’ man gave a touching interview about how he had always ‘felt’ Japanese and had surgery to transition. Of course the term ‘transition’ wasn’t coined yet.
The satire was ready-made back then. Have we really progressed an inch in the time since?
Well. I see I’m important enough to have been called out by name in Melby’s comments.
By one of the reflexively toxic hordelings who made Pharyngula far too hostile a workplace for me to be able to continue with.
(And speaking of my leaving Pharyngula when the ritual abuse got too much to take, looky who’s appointed herself hall minotaur in this thread here!)
It’s odd that I’d get mentioned by name in that thread. Hard to read the intent, but it seems like more of the passive-aggressive Intolerable Joe-style “disappointment” that the hordelings toss at me every once in a while when my moderate and occasional consistency in living up to my principles confuses them.
I actually think my time at Pharyngula damaged my credibility in the rest of the world. Wouldn’t have been the case if it was just PZ’s blog, but the “community” there is so fucking replete with toxic assholes that I’ve gotten some serious shade cast my way by journalists and progressive activists I respect for having even commented at the joint.
Maybe in a few more hours you’ll rise to the dignity of a portmanteau name joining you to some venomous sexist asshole…
…or maybe that too is reserved only for the uppity women.
Chris Cloolonarke?
I think the toxic assholery at Pharyngula has gotten far far worse since Elevatorgate, what with the prohibitions against asking questions (cause that’s always JAQing off in bad faith) and devil’s advocate arguments and the insistence on “safe space”, even if this means that one rape victim cannot talk about her rape in a way that “triggers” another rape victim (“trigger” is apparently a magic word for winning all arguments, or at least ending discussion). I have a lot of friends “met” at Pharyngula, some of whom were commenting there 10 or more years ago. None are still around, either because they were actively pushed out by the commentariat or because they were increasingly horrified by the cruelty of the comments section.
It makes me sad, angry, and resigned to the problems of human nature.