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5/09/2023 9:41 am  #101


Re: Heh - A Thread For Comedy

While I'm not trying to imply it is all this whiney left wing noise that is the only issue in the equation, but if the point of vocalizing all of these petty and some times insane grievances about artists, is to help marginalized groups, I'd like them to answer how well that's been going?

Yes, the blame for the rise in hate crimes and the ultimate toppling Roe vs Wade, needs to be placed squarely where in belongs. On the shoulders of the growingly fascistic right. But what is compelling that movement to become more and more brazen. What is undercutting the urgency and the honesty of the left wing discourse we need to effectively combat this.

It's schmucks like this guy. It's these ass hats who have made an absolute mockery of trying to speak for those who are under privileged in society. They've basically become exactly what we were supposed to hate, posturing blowhards with little intellectual credibility. They've made it easy to frame the left as the real threat to liberty and free speech.

I've long given up hope that the right wing had any hope of course correcting itself. And now there seems to be no way to fight them off from the left since all credibility there has been corroded.

These people have a lot to answer for.

 

5/09/2023 12:10 pm  #102


Re: Heh - A Thread For Comedy

crumbsroom wrote:

While I'm not trying to imply it is all this whiney left wing noise that is the only issue in the equation...

Of course not, which should go without saying because it is an appeal to the extreme - no one is arguing "all" and "only" in the equation.  And no one should assume you were.

crumbsroom wrote:

It's schmucks like this guy. It's these ass hats who have made an absolute mockery of trying to speak for those who are under privileged in society. They've basically become exactly what we were supposed to hate, posturing blowhards with little intellectual credibility. They've made it easy to frame the left as the real threat to liberty and free speech.

Consider the basic position of the quote you posted.  This guy is equivocating Lenny Bruce's dirty jokes and Patrick Swayze's dirty dancing with #metoo sexual assault and harassment.  Think about that.  That's very revealing of what is fundamentally an illiberal understanding of art and speech.  Not to mention a completely disinterested disregard for the context of either.  Who is the type of person who would equate saying the word "fuck" or Elvis' publicly pelvic thrusts with rape culture?  The very people who wanted the former things traditionally prohibited in the first place.  There's been a trend in certain spaces on the so-called left that is antagonistic to these liberations of the sexual revolution.  In sexual exhibitionist expression, not private sexual acts of abuse.  It was always the goal of these nuns to conflate these things.  Isn't that exactly why we're currently supportive of drag performances?  I would think.

And this guy - "a professor at Georgetown" who "has written numerous scholarly books and articles"?  Somehow, I doubt this guy is under the age of 25.  So why does he constantly present himself as some kind of representative or authority on the attitudes of Gen Z, on the "generational divide" that somehow defines why these more puritanical attitudes toward art, comedy and speech have any kind of moral validity?  He's so dumb, he can try to compliment Bo Burnham for exposing the "corrosive nexus between social media and one's mental health" despite just having based his claims about Mulaney's supposed abuse of his spouse on the disposable reactions posted to the "beloved" TikTok like it's some kind of Mosaic tablet wrought from on high?  So social media is totally legit as long as it conforms to your preconceptions of the youth?  Kinda exactly why social media is so epistemically toxic in the first place?

Like I said, I hope this is an example of some schmoe trying to illegitimately speak on behalf of Gen Z in order to shape a self-fulfilling outcome of their worldview.  And I hope they get wise enough to call his bluff.

Oh, this guy also apparently teaches a "Monday morning" class on comedy writing.  I'll just reference a great joke by Steve Harvey about anyone dumb enough to attend a class on how to be funny.



 

Last edited by Jinnistan (5/09/2023 12:41 pm)


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5/09/2023 12:23 pm  #103


Re: Heh - A Thread For Comedy

Also, my description of Mulaney's "bright plum suit" is much superior, and accurate, to his "dark magenta". 


Bright plum




Dark Magenta




Baby J


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5/09/2023 9:04 pm  #104


Re: Heh - A Thread For Comedy

Looks like bright plum and dark magenta need to kiss and make up. 😘


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5/09/2023 9:04 pm  #105


Re: Heh - A Thread For Comedy

Also, I won't quibble over the exact shade, but it was definitely bright something instead of dark something.


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5/09/2023 9:26 pm  #106


Re: Heh - A Thread For Comedy

This does remind me of the time the guy at the menswear shop suggested a burgundy sportcoat before I immediately shot it down.


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5/10/2023 10:20 am  #107


Re: Heh - A Thread For Comedy

When I read his dark magenta line I immediately thought, 'nah, plum is better....this guy can't even do colours proper"

 

 

5/10/2023 10:49 am  #108


Re: Heh - A Thread For Comedy

Jinnistan wrote:

Of course not, which should go without saying because it is an appeal to the extreme - no one is arguing "all" and "only" in the equation.  And no one should assume you were.

It's not so much I was concerned it would be misinterpreted here, as it is just evidence of how all discussion like this now has these introductory clarifications baked into them. We can't ever dare be misinterpreted and we all know how the general person doesn't listen much past the first few sentences anyways so opening with 'the left have a lot to answer for' leads to 'stop equating them as if they are equally at fault'.

I obviously don't think that's going to happen here, but its just become a reflex now that whoever you are talking to might be listening in bad faith. Only looking for a way to prove you've misspoken.



Consider the basic position of the quote you posted.  This guy is equivocating Lenny Bruce's dirty jokes and Patrick Swayze's dirty dancing with #metoo sexual assault and harassment.  Think about that.  That's very revealing of what is fundamentally an illiberal understanding of art and speech.  Not to mention a completely disinterested disregard for the context of either.  Who is the type of person who would equate saying the word "fuck" or Elvis' publicly pelvic thrusts with rape culture?  The very people who wanted the former things traditionally prohibited in the first place.  There's been a trend in certain spaces on the so-called left that is antagonistic to these liberations of the sexual revolution.  In sexual exhibitionist expression, not private sexual acts of abuse.  It was always the goal of these nuns to conflate these things.  Isn't that exactly why we're currently supportive of drag performances?  I would think.

It always gets back to this. Some dink obviously flubbing the basic premise of how an artist is using their art and for what purposes, growing agitated when they see art move away from being a pleasant diversion to something which forces us to confront certain uncomfortable truths, or reflects upon its own value to society, or offers the artist a way to clarify further (or more deeply) on what they are doing with their art, or (god forbid) when they are more successful and funnier than these sorts (a 'comedy writer' in this case) can even hope to understand.

I guess its hard to see ones own hackdom so brightly reflected back to them, so we best discount such intense personal expression or societal criticism in the art of others.

Its upsetting these thoughtless fucks are being given so much oxygen. That just by staking up a position of offence or skepticism towards art really having any value beyond its most surface pleasures, one suddenly sounds like an authority on the matter.

The left has completely lost its way. They have fallen into what used to be the right wing anti-intellectual trap where they grow suspicious and angry at anyone who can articulate their points better than they can, so they shame all arguments into silence. Warning us that to debate their inherently moral and just position is to be complicit in whatever horror they are complaining about. Even though its really about the fact that any decent argument against them exposes the inherent stupidity and socially damaging of their positions.

A recent 'controversy' in the music world has been the terrors of Win Butler sexually assaulting a bunch of girls. Or...wait....maybe the one instance of potential sexual assault was remembered wrong and didn't happen but.....yes....he definitely was rich and famous and used this power dynamic to sleep with younger women.

Now if the argument was that this make Butler a terrible husband, or that it makes him seem like he's probably a big loser begging for considerably younger women to sleep with him, I would probably agree. But this is a conversation about consenting adults, who are old enough to give that consent, claiming he was wrong to even pursue them because of his success. That they didn't stand a chance against that.  That this makes him cancel worthy. Which is fucking insane.

This conversation is not about Win Butler being an abusive person and it is a joke to pretend otherwise. If there is any conversation here, it maybe should be about how our culture values fame and success, and how toxic that is for everyone involved. But because this isn't about course correcting anything, there is absolutely no fingers being pointed towards the actual problem (ie. how superficial our culture is, and how it has a grotesque effect on how we view those who we know from the television or movie screens). Instead, it's all about vilifying those who they can make a scandalous story of because, if we are being honest, this story is a hell of a lot less about him harming anyone as it was about making him look like a pathetic rock star that no one was actually attracted to. What it was doing was it was using one man to shame an entire system everyone was being accepting of (that Win Butler should be fucked by the nature of him being a star).





 

 

5/11/2023 4:38 pm  #109


Re: Heh - A Thread For Comedy

Looks closer to dark magenta to me.

"The dress is blue!"

 

5/11/2023 4:58 pm  #110


Re: Heh - A Thread For Comedy

It's Telemagenta, to be precise.  Which isn't Dark Magenta.  "Bright Plum" isn't an officially recognized color designation by those people who feign the right to do so.

Last edited by Jinnistan (5/11/2023 5:15 pm)


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5/11/2023 5:09 pm  #111


Re: Heh - A Thread For Comedy

Rock wrote:

This does remind me of the time the guy at the menswear shop suggested a burgundy sportcoat before I immediately shot it down.

Pfft.  Burgundy is stricly for smoking jackets.

[img]https://images.asos-media.com/products/asos-design-skinny-velvet-smoking-jacket-in-burgundy/14362571-1-burgundy?$n_640w$&wid=513&fit=constrain[/img]


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5/11/2023 6:03 pm  #112


Re: Heh - A Thread For Comedy

crumbsroom wrote:

It always gets back to this. Some dink obviously flubbing the basic premise of how an artist is using their art and for what purposes, growing agitated when they see art move away from being a pleasant diversion to something which forces us to confront certain uncomfortable truths, or reflects upon its own value to society, or offers the artist a way to clarify further (or more deeply) on what they are doing with their art, or (god forbid) when they are more successful and funnier than these sorts (a 'comedy writer' in this case) can even hope to understand.

I guess its hard to see ones own hackdom so brightly reflected back to them, so we best discount such intense personal expression or societal criticism in the art of others.

I mean, what was the point of that article?  To criticize "cancellation comedy", or comedians who turn their problematic behavior into the central fodder of their routines?  Well, first of all, I'm still a little confused why anyone would feel the need to cancel John Mulaney anyway.  Or at least I don't respect any of the yet given reasons.  (I notice he didn't use any musicians in his set of examples.)

But the opening of my review - "Not exactly Sunset Strip".  It's a backhanded insult.  "Oh, no, John Mulaney, your special isn't quite as good as one of the greatest stand-up recordings put to film."

What does this Jacques Bitchenblau have to say about Richard Pryor's autobiographical alchemy to turn his pain and embarrassment into endearing golden joy?  Is Pryor "doubling down" on his personal issues?  Is he just "joking it out"?  And, like Mulaney, are his problems actually caused by his comedy?  "Monday morning comedy quarterback" is just about the nicest thing I can say about Jacques, quite frankly.

So no, I think he feels like he's indulging the tabloid pettiness that I'm sure some of his Gen Z students have learned to believe amounts to valid social critique from their misfortune of having their entire young moral education being formed by Twitter.  God forbid he disabuses them of any of these notions (kinda like some teacher would), because, like a piss-poor parent, Jacques only wants to flatter their special little intuitions than to force them to challenge their presumptions.  His entire premise of what is problematic about Mulaney and other comics comes from some nebulous conjuration of "how Gen Z feels", as if I'm supposed to automatically recognize the value of this any more than "how doofus profs feel".

There is one specific case I think I can compare this to.  I haven't gone super-deep on it, but when I read a Ted Lasso review on AV CLub, for example, it usually comes with some kind of caveat about how I'm supposed to overlook what a scumbag Jason Sudeikis is.  Why?  Because he also had a messy divorce recently, and, as with all celebrity divorces, I'm obligated - nay, compelled - to have a firm moral stance on the particulars of the case.  Now, again, I don't...care?...know too much outside of whatever, but the best I can tell (feel free to correct me) is that he filed for divorce from Olivia Wilde shortly after he learned that she was fucking Harry Stiles.  I want to emphasize that it's really none of our (anyone's) business, and we're not privy to the emotional dynamics of their decade-long marriage.  But, personally, I think that's reasonable grounds for divorce myself.  So, in terms of Mulaney, again just the best guess of what I can gleen, is that he did his wife wrong because he may...may...have begun his relationship with his new wife (the lovely and talented Olivia Munn) before actually filing for divorce.  Hence!  He might be an adulterer.  But we don't really know.  But let's say he is.  How is he any worse than Olivia Wilde, who is still painted as the victim in that particular break-up?

Unrelated (kinda), but I saw the other day where the mayor of NYC had a big press conference to announce that the city had decided to start teaching phonics in elementary school.  And he's like, "It's going to revolutionize education."  And I'm thinking, ".....Where the fuck did phonics go?"  Turns out America stopped teaching phonics about 20 years ago.  I feel like that makes sense.  That helps to clear up a lot of my confusion about why so many people can't even handle tweet-sized information.  Qanon and Antifa is what happens when a generation isn't hooked on phonics.


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5/29/2023 9:55 am  #113


Re: Heh - A Thread For Comedy

In the weird alchemy of our times, of course Bill Maher interviews Billy Corgan, crossing all the streams and threads together.

The interview isn't very good, because Maher is a shlosh who can't tell his elbow from his asshole, and the general tenor is exampled with the story of Corgan talking about one time when he took something like 25 hits of acid and Maher respoding with "overdoses are a problem in your industry".  Then Bill went off about rock star pussy and how much he used to jack off on meth in college.  You get the jist.
 


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5/29/2023 12:47 pm  #114


Re: Heh - A Thread For Comedy

Jinnistan wrote:

In the weird alchemy of our times, of course Bill Maher interviews Billy Corgan, crossing all the streams and threads together.

The interview isn't very good, because Maher is a shlosh who can't tell his elbow from his asshole, and the general tenor is exampled with the story of Corgan talking about one time when he took something like 25 hits of acid and Maher respoding with "overdoses are a problem in your industry".  Then Bill went off about rock star pussy and how much he used to jack off on meth in college.  You get the jist.
 

I watched enough to see Maher's double visioned astonishment that anyone might actually be slightly discerning over who they sleep with.

I think Corgan was upset with himself that he opened the door for Maher to talk about cranking it.

Also Maher seemed disappointed Corgan didn't treat seeing the container for Aeroplane like some kind rare relic from his career. Or that he used it to store weed, because of course he did, like any 60 year old who still brags about smoking weed

Then my girlfriend came into the room and since those are her two least favorite people in the world  I quickly, and easily, turned it off.

 

6/11/2023 2:33 am  #115


Re: Heh - A Thread For Comedy

This week saw an "explosive" expose of Saturday Night Live from Maureen Ryan, author of the book Burn It Down: Power, Complicity and a Call For Change in Hollywood.  This excerpt, published in the Hollywood Reporter, follows an earlier excerpt which focused on the show Lost.  The book seeks to expose various forms of abuse in the entertainment industry and the systems which protect the abusers.

I want to point out up front that I have no intention of defending Lorne Michaels or the workplace environment that he fosters.  It's quite common knowledge that former SNL alums have referred to their memories of working there as akin to PTSD.  And I want to specifically say that the accusations in this piece against Horatio Sanz (and by extention Jimmy Fallon and Lorne Michaels and any other potential witnesses) are deeply troubling and believable.

What I will take issue with is in the way that Ryan focuses on 'comedy' specifically as a problematic medium.  Since this excerpt accounts to only a single chapter from Ryan's forthcoming book, which is a more sweeping indictment of 'Hollywood', it may not be entirely fair to complain about how she seems to frame these problems with comedians as being something especially or extraordinarily toxic than other power systems - politics, finance, corporate offices, athletics, law enforcement - where we also have substantial examples of abuse.  I can only go by what's written here, and there are a few quotes where the language bears scrutiny.

These days, millionaires holding forth in podcasts and on sold-out comedy tours regularly talk about how they are persecuted and silenced while holding microphones in their hands. This idea that comedians are truth-tellers who should have special status has roots in the comedy of the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s, when certain stand-ups—and SNL’s Not Ready for Primetime Players—made their marks as shit-stirrers.....

That’s the myth of SNL, which is intertwined with the cultural mythology of Lenny Bruce and George Carlin and Eddie Murphy, who were among the people who did, in their heydays, test the limits of what was acceptable in the public discourse....But the idea that a comedian, an improv performer, or a sketch writer is inherently a rebel in pursuit of noble, truth-telling goals—that is an assumption that Michaels is still putting forward, long past the point when a lot of other folks have begun to question whether it’s true.

I'm not sure how many working, touring stand-up comedians qualify as "millionaires" complaining about cancel culture (Bill Burr certainly doesn't do the latter), so that opening salvo seems more directed to a couple of specific people (Chappelle and Rogan).  I think "regularly" is doing an awful lot of work there in trying to paint a broad portrait of the current stand-up environment.

But what is this nonsense about "inherently"?  Who's making this case?  Name a single person arguing that it's simply impossible for a single comedian to be less than a truth-teller?  We see this kind of absolutist language throughout the piece.  "It's not all noble".  You're right.  Comedy is not all noble, but who's saying it is?  You can't take Jon Stewart, speaking about the nobility of comedy generally and try to project onto that an assertion that all comedy is then noble?  When we venerate any medium, say music or film or literature, we aren't then providing blanket immunity for the worst that these mediums have had to offer.  We're talking about potential, and comedy does have a powerful potential for revelation, clarity and processing difficult, painful truths.  (It's interesting how Ryan substituted Eddie Murphy for Richard Pryor in the above quote, as among the titans of comedian truth-tellers.)  I don't believe anyone has ever claimed that a comedian is then inherently endowed with this ability, and I would agree that anyone who did so wouldn't deserve to be believed.

Of course Lorne Michaels has made it his business to ignore any such qualitative assessments of his comedy product, and he does indulge in the assumption that SNL has always had a steady standard of quality and that anyone who disagrees is merely colored by the nostalgia over their preferred era.  I think most audiences at this point know this is bullshit, and a dodge from being accountable for those times where the quality (such as currently, imo) is at a particularly low ebb.  Comedy is qualitative-dependent, and it's become an easy tactic for those railing against it to undermine the genius within it by lumping it all together with the lowbrow, low-quality comedy and then pretending that it's all the same.

Despite the many scandals and exposés of systematic misbehavior, bias, assault, and toxicity, the myth of comedy as a meritocracy full of brave, admirable rebels fighting for justice and freedom simply refuses to die. In fact, it’s not uncommon for those who’ve succeeded in comedy to describe it as an important set of harbingers, a weather forecast system that tells us what we’re going to experience next. As Jon Stewart put it when he accepted the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2022, comedy is “a bellwether. We’re the banana peel in the coal mine”; in that speech, he also warned of the dangers of authoritarianism.

These kinds of “bellwether” ideas are typically voiced in comments meant to laud the bravery of a joke, a comedian, a sketch, or the comedy profession as a whole. And we can all point to jokes, shows, and bits that have not just been funny but paradigm-shifting. But it’s not all noble...

I'm not sure how it is so difficult for Ryan to understand that an industry that includes awful, manipulative toxic abusive people can also include "brave admirable rebels fighting for justice and freedom".  Again, it seems that this all-or-nothing approach suggests that it must be either one way or the other.  Or even possibly that the art of comedy (those truly gifted comedians) might not be the same as the business of comedy.  But either way, it feels like a rather 'gotcha' way of shutting down, or demeaning the value of, the actual truth-tellers in the midst.

There’s that “truth-tellers” thing again. Give me a break. Either comedy is so crucial that it must be protected at all costs, or it’s a wispy nonentity, so unimportant that no part of it needs to be held to account in any way. Just once I’d love for one of comedy’s powerful gatekeepers to tell us which of these rationales they’d like to permanently hide behind.

There seems to be some kind of concerted effort to confuse what's being protected here - comedy itself or individual comedians?  For one example, is anyone really trying to protect Bill Cosby at this point?  "At all costs"?  This is a crucial distinction considering how in so many of these cases - including every single one of the SNL examples Ryan lists in this piece - the objectionable behavior is taking place 'off-stage'.  Therefore it isn't the comedy (as a medium, artform or subject matter) that needs protecting, but an industry culture.  Nevertheless, as we see with Chappelle, in some thinly-veiled swipes, the objections to him are solely devoted to his on-stage speech, which requires a different ethical metric of recourse.  "Freedom of speech" is quite a different proposition than "freedom to groom and sexually assault", and one of those things is far less contentious than the other, but this is one aspect where evidence of the latter is being weaponized to question the integrity of the former.  The juxtaposition allows a clear throughline from one to the other, as if both of these things are equally toxic and abusive.

A lot of the “revolution” in comedy, especially in the past decade, has sought to cement the status and unassailability of certain comedy performers and creators—most of them heterosexual men—who want to speak, act, and conduct themselves with total impunity, no matter how harmful, actively damaging, and noxious their actions or views.

First of all....there was a revolution in comedy in the past decade?  Where did this happen?  Who are these people?  I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that maybe Ryan isn't listening to the best comedians available.  To reiterate, there are bad comedians out there, way more than there should be and definitely more than the good ones.  This is true of most artistic mediums.

Of course, those doing comedy are free to say what they like. But people get to respond to those statements. And these days, if people don’t like what they hear, they’re able to communicate, on any number of platforms, that what a comedian said was dumb, poorly formulated, tired, racist, biased, sexist, or whatever. An enormous percentage of these comedy “rebels” can’t handle that. They regard communication with their audience as a one-way street. The audience is, of course, allowed to laugh and clap—but that’s it.

The audience, I believe, also is allowed to buy tickets or not.  That's also a reaction, a response, even though it may not be the response you'd prefer to see.  The real problem that Ryan has with - let's call the hypothetical 'Shave Dappelle' - isn't that she or anyone else is being denied their right to respond to his comedy, but that others are responding more positively.  When someone chooses to react to a comedian by lobbing death threats at a comedy venue to force the cancellation of a sold out show, that person is privileging their reaction over those people who bought those tickets.  (Meanwhile continue the "not saying who" backhanded slander that this anonymous comedian is "damaging" and "dangerous to other people's safety" as if this is an objective incontestable fact.)

Much of this crucial middle in the piece, dealing primarily with the toxic nature of comedy more generally, is reinforced by this guy, Seth Simons, who's reportedly done "in-depth reporting on the comedy world".  Simons has one extremely important insight that I think is true enough to keep in mind: "There’s no culture of critical thinking or consumption around comedy, the way there is slightly more of that around television or film or theater."  (I like that snide little "slightly" there.)  And as if to prove this fact, Simons, an apparently self-appointed comedy-culture critic, compares "many people" to watching comedy like sports.  I'm not sure how much critical thinking he put into that analysis.  But further, Ryan concurs while saying, "And that’s troubling, given the comedy world’s reputation for inflating its importance as a force for good and downplaying its long-standing status as a haven for bigoted or abusive people."  Again, the conflation of comedy as an artistic medium ("a force for good") with the backstage culture ("haven for bigots"), as if both things couldn't be true.  We could use the same dynamic to describe everything from the music industry to Wall Street to the restaurant industry.  Ryan seems to be suggesting that there's something especially compatible about comedy that's welcoming to bigots.  Inherently so, perhaps.  But these absolutist dogmas are her problem, not mine, and hopefully not most of the genuine fans of fine comedy.  The fact that she takes it for granted that comedy "inflates its importance" (again, in some kind of way that other artistic or entertainment mediums don't?) tells the tale of her ultimate condescension towards the form, as opposed to the more toxic elements behind the scenes.

Seth Simons wrote "in a 2021 essay, 'comedy is a safe space for abuse'—one in which sexual assault is common, in which racism is common, in which transphobia is common, in which a number of bookers, podcasters, and club gatekeepers have strong links to inflammatory right-wing figures".  I feel as if Simons is being selective (ie, Bro Jogan) about which comedians he's talking about here.  Is this culture so endemic outside of a fairly small clique?  How does Simons account for the number of liberal, progressive comedians out there?  Simply ignore them?

“Ten years ago, the great intellectual discourse in comedy [was] about whether it was okay to make fun of Muslims and tell horrible rape jokes,” Simons told me. “Now, the last few years, the grand intellectual discourse has been about whether it is okay to say trans people are bad and not real. And we’re just going headlong into that awful direction. As a society, I think comedy has been predicting things for us—not really predicting, but it’s a preview. It’s the space where it has been okay to be a horrible person.”

This "great intellectual discourse"?  By whom?  Oh, Seth, you were in the room with all of the best and brightest comedy minds while they toiled over this dilemma?  And so now, the "great" has shifted to "grand" (again, the condescension is dripping).  Let's go ahead and assume that he's talking about Chappelle here (because obviously), and if his takeaway from The Closer is that "trans people are bad and not real" (they can be both?) then I don't think I'll be willing to give his big-brain cultural criticism a whole lot of cachet.  But this is where we are with so much of our critical discourse, where dogma rules and your validity is proximate to how you align to that, and any consideration to interrogate that dogma is seen as an affront.

And none of that does anything to help the real problem at hand, which is that there is a significant amount of toxicity and abuse among industry gatekeepers generally.  This Simons guy could be useful by focusing on the Jeff Ross, Chris D'Elia, Owen Benjamin, TJ MIller folks and all of the non-famous names who've facilitated and protected them in the industry.  No one is defending abuse.  But I, for one, will continue to defend comedy.  I'll even inflate its importance from time to time.
 


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6/23/2023 9:02 am  #116


Re: Heh - A Thread For Comedy

I've started the new season of Always Sunny in Philly, which is about three episodes in.  Promising titles include "The Gang Inflates", "Frank Shoots Everyone in the Gang" and "The Gang Gets Cursed", the latter involving a prospective shot on Bar Rescue, which is a great idea for the show, even if Jon Taffer never actually shows up (the hungry dog that he is).

As always, it's hard to determine the strength of the show early in the seaon, but so far it seems to at least be on par, which is a standard par that few other shows could have maintained for 16 seasons (or really, the 12 seasons after the extraordinary first four).
 


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6/23/2023 9:16 am  #117


Re: Heh - A Thread For Comedy

I Think You Should Leave S3

Disappointed at the relative lack of Patti Harrison (mostly in the background in one sketch) and the closer with Conner O'Malley felt kinda weak, but "Summer Loving" and the Tim Meadows sketch had me laughing so hard it hurt, so the season gets a thumbs up from me.


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6/23/2023 9:59 am  #118


Re: Heh - A Thread For Comedy

I watched the first episode of this season of ITYSL, and I was underwhelmed.  It's always been a hit-or-miss show for me, so hopefully I stumbled on on a miss-heavy episode.


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6/23/2023 10:10 am  #119


Re: Heh - A Thread For Comedy

I think the Focus Group sketch from the first season is probably the best indication of whether you can get on its wavelength. I dunno, I was laughing often and hard throughout most of  the series, and still chuckle periodically about a few sketches.


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7/16/2023 7:37 pm  #120


Re: Heh - A Thread For Comedy

The new Bill Maher Club Random episode with John Waters is quite entertaining and obviously not because of Bill Maher.


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