tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36331360.post4217127725462645175..comments2023-10-12T05:09:46.380-04:00Comments on Guilty Displeasures: Why Seth McFarlane wasn't funny and why the Onion wasneilshyminskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14745442660488961314noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36331360.post-4394690713107925802013-03-19T00:14:17.298-04:002013-03-19T00:14:17.298-04:00Those are all fair responses, of course, and I cou...Those are all fair responses, of course, and I could have included them all. The focus of this particular blog was a lot simpler than that - it was about why I found it funny, especially in relation to the show itself.<br /><br />More generally, though, my response is more ambivalent. And that ambivalence is, naturally, not an entirely bad thing. I think that really good humor requires an ambivalent response, because it should make us uncomfortable. We should have to think about why we're laughing, and that laughter should be part of a reflexive process. (see: the original The Office, HBO's Girls) <br /><br />But I also think that intent matters. I suspect that the person who wrote the joke would agree with you completely, and I think you agree. So, does that make it a word that's untouchable by comedians? (Or is it only in this particular context?) I'm not sure that I'm comfortable with that.<br /><br />As for the comment that "women don't exist for our names to be politicized and used, even for feminism", I don't think I can or should refute that. That's the part of the joke that I'm least comfortable with, too. I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place, here. I want to agree with the point because, yes, but I also wouldn't want to deny a provocateur the ability to provoke, even if that action is a well-meaning but ultimately mistaken one.<br /><br />Obviously, though, my positionality, here, is really privileged and that affects my ability to laugh when I feel ambivalent. (Or to feel ambivalence here at all, for that matter.) I'm not sure how to proceed from that, though.<br /><br />Tying this back to the issue of comedy, though, and relating it to your last sentence: "asshole" wouldn't have worked. Kids are called assholes all the time - in fact, 9 year-old kids routinely <i>are</i> assholes. If they didn't cross a line, if they had used "assholes", I don't think we'd be talking about how she's 9 - we'd be talking about how it wasn't funny.neilshyminskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14745442660488961314noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36331360.post-63069770899554667602013-03-12T22:03:49.756-04:002013-03-12T22:03:49.756-04:00Your analysis of the purpose of The Onion's jo...Your analysis of the purpose of The Onion's joke is spot on, but it misses what it is about the joke that crosses a line. While the tweet may have been a commentary on sexism, it still calls Quvenzhané Wallis a cunt, albeit sarcastically. Women don't exist for our names to be politicized and used, even for feminism. The tweet would have been offensive regardless of which woman's name they used, but the fact that it was a 9 year old girl of colour, who I'm sure is already well aware of what that means in the sexist, racist world we live in, really crosses a line. Do you think she'd ever been called a cunt before? If not, do you really think that experience is worth trading for the point The Onion was trying to make? This seems by far the most easily understood by feminist women of colour, most likely because it evoked their first encounters with the word.<br />I'm wondering if you consider "cunt" along the same lines as racial and other slurs. Its a word that taps into the supposedly inherent wrongness of being a woman, the way that other slurs tap into the wrongness of having a certain racial identity or sexual orientation. I'm not saying this would have been fine if the word had been "asshole" instead of "cunt," but then we would just being talking about the fact that she's 9, not that she is girl of colour.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com