Mister 6: Thanks for your questions. I'm sorry, by the way, if I seemed to use you as a negative example by implication--I probably could have handled that more skillfully.
I think Haus has elaborated pretty clearly, above, who I meant when I use "we." I accept that "we" is a potentially problematic pronoun in almost all circumstances, but I do believe I qualified it pretty carefully. However, & nevertheless, it probably is wise to say, of course not all people who might externally "seem" to fit the "we" of my statement actually do. My point was more that once someone makes clear they don't find a joke funny and they do find it sexist (or whatever), that person is likely to be seen as a spoilsport (and they are seen as often fitting an already existing category like "bitchy feminazi") by those who want to engage in the social bonding opportunity created by the joke for those who laugh. I feel solidarity with people who find themselves in this situation, as Mordant did, and as I know others to have done.
I am pretty sure that "cool" doesn't become "uncool" in my post: the people who are not laughing are uncool; the people who are, are cool. That remains constant in my first posting, I think.
What response to a joke that you find offensive do you leave?
Is there a word missing here? I can't make any sense of this sentence. Help?
I thought part of the problem/point here was in establishing that the 'I'm just joking' response was a cop-out and not valid yet you seem to be building a case for it to be valid. Did I misread that?
Do you mean in my first or second post? In my first post I am saying: pretty much it's always a cop out and one that masks the social function of jokes--reinforcing a kind of in-group and broader hegemonic social norms. In my second, I'm complicating that notion--I'm not sure how successfully--by suggesting there's more room for nuance than I initially allowed. I think the vulnerability of the persons making the joke is key for me.
Why is it not necessary for the joke to be offensive and if so, what would you call that kind of joke?
I, speaking personally (as I pretty carefully did about this term--I don't think I stated or implied that anyone else has to use my terms bored or annoyed)--I just don't like the word "offensive." Let's see if I can unpack my thoughts. I think there's a couple of things. First, I think of that old quote often attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt: "No one can make you feel inferior without your permission." Substitute "offended." Saying "I am offended" does open the way to limiting & focusing the analysis that follows to one's own, interior, personal reaction. It's like I'm blaming you for my feelings.
This makes it harder to see the systemic structures at work, which are the problem. It potentially gets us focused on making me "feel better." The joke teller can also pretty readily get let off the hook: "I haven't crossed any real or ethical boundaries, I've just hurt some individual's feelings." And, voila, the boundary either disappears ("sexism doesn't really exist anymore") or is, at best, trivialized ("really strong women aren't bothered by this; it's the pathetic weak ones; maybe they just need to toughen up; it's a hard world"). And then it's pretty tempting for a joketeller to follow that up with, at best, pity for the poor soul who isn't strong enough to let this stuff slide, & not the respect one might feel for those "unoffended."
That territory is a mess of entangled power relations, to me. Bleh. Don't want to go there, if I can avoid it, because it seems to distract from what I want changed: I don't really don't want to spend my time and energy punishing (and/or paradoxically rewarding) the teller. I don't even want those listening to the joke to try to assuage my feelings as "victim." I don't want to be "victim," and let the joketeller be "all powerful offender" and someone else "all powerful rescuer."
I want to change the structure. AND have fun. Less sameyness.
"Offended" also implies, as I noted above, "shock." Like "oooh. What a surprising horrible thing! I never thought of such a thing! I'm offended!" I knew a local comic act years ago, who I think stole the line "we're equal opportunity offenders!" from some other comedy group. Because "offense" is personal and a not entirely out of one's control response, it can readily be converted into a badge of honor.
And that all ads up to a way, again of putting the joke teller into a position of no vulnerability. Which is exactly what I'm trying to avoid. Speaking for myself.
Oh, and on that note, by the way, Dubmick, I have been meaning to say, has made hirself vulnerable by coming back here and talking about it. Letting yourself be "a student" is one way of being vulnerable, and ze's shown hirself to be able to place hirself in that role. That's not easy.
I sense you doing that more, now than in the penultimate one, Mister Six, and I appreciate it too. And if I weren't so annoyed on my first post, I maybe could have also paid more attention to the qualifiers of your first post. That was, as I said, less than wholly skillful.
I hope I'm making it clear that I'm willing to stand corrected. I do not feel invulnerable, here. I do still stand by most of what I've said, at this point.
On the Aristocrats... Can you pick a joke that proves your point? It would make things clearer and easier for me if you would. Not giving an example of the type of humor you're citing makes your point less clear the more you run with it.
I'll try. Sorry it was confusing to you.
[The following paragraphs, might be, I suppose, possibly construed as a small spoiler, Stoatie and others who haven't seen it, but I don't think my verbal rendering could really ruin seeing the thing in person]:
Sarah Silverman tells the aristocrats joke with herself as an abused child--a child being sexually molested by her family and by a specifically named, male agent who we'd seen earlier on the show (and his extraordinarily chaotic, tiny closet of an office, where the sexual molestation of the joke is set). In the joke, Silverman's character is presented as not really fully aware of what happened to her, but it is gradually dawning on her as she tells the story, just milliseconds after it's becoming clear to the audience that she's telling us that this agent abused her in his office.
It's risky. I think it works because she's very vulnerable, as a live performer, first off (which, in my current theory of vulnerability, gives almost any live-told joke a little more leeway than one splatted up on-line and readily raced away from), and the audience is placed in the position of both laughing and yet really being kind of horrified--she is both powerful over the named male agent, who she is, however, jokingly/libelously calling a pedophile and rapist! She's vulnerable to him, he's vulnerable to her, and we're vulnerable to wanting to laugh and yet also completely in her power--she's taken us to this place by acting like she's totally out of control. She's timed it perfectly so that we seem to be more aware than she is by a few milliseconds, and yet, it's her awareness that has led us on!
By contrast, in many versions of the aristocrats joke, particularly versions told by male comics, there's a dad character (in Carlin's and others, however, he really comes across differently) who is primarily sexually violating all others and often not really being violated himself. No one is fucking him in the ass or the eyeball or fisting his throat. This version of the joke didn't work for me. And in particular when the ventriloquist in the film told his version of it--he has the joke being told by his dummy, who just goes on and on in this misogynist vein, and further distances the ventriloquist from being really vulnerable in the joke. So it fell flat to me.
We don't go anywhere complicated in the latter joke; with Silverman, we did. Is it possible, I'm asking in post 2, that the complex place she takes us is a kind of healing place? I don't know, for sure. That may be too much for a joke to carry. |
