Oy gay

[seriousfic]

I read an article about Bruno the other day and the lay of it was this. It's alright for Sacha Baron Cohen to make fun of Jews in the Borat persona, because he's Jewish, but since he's a straight man playing a gay man with Bruno... well, that's like a white man wearing blackface. They literally used the word 'pinkface.'

You know what? I'm a human, therefore it's alright for me to make fun of humans. Let's just leave it at that.

Comments

[mcity.livejournal.com]

I once read an article that said that it's the new millenium, therefore there's no room for racist, sexist, or heightist jokes.

I was all "leaving, what, exactly?"

[rann.livejournal.com]

Making fun of fat people, that's always in vogue.

[mcity.livejournal.com]

I forgot a couple of "-ist"s. Weight was, in fact, one of 'em.

[rann.livejournal.com]

The article seems... either ridiculously idealistic or ridiculously naive, if that's the case. Especially considering that Ned Holness is still on the air, last I checked.

[azarias.livejournal.com]

Well, no. There's a concept called "insider language," where, for example, it's okay for me to call myself a milkshake-chugging fattie, but if a skinny person calls me that I get to cut a bitch with my fry-chomping incisors. It's in the rules. Check it out.

SBC is still funny, though. He's just offensive and kind of an asshole, too.

ETA: I'm betting everyone making the blackface comparison was, you know, not black and in fact most likely white, and I'd like to invite my fellow white queers to take a big chug of sweet stfu before saying that again.

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

But by this person's logic, no skinny person should be allowed to make fat jokes. There's a difference between "you're a fattie!" and "yo momma is so fat, when she lies around the house, she lies around the house."

[azarias.livejournal.com]

Honestly? Skinny people making fat jokes are kinda being assholes. Even when the joke is funny. When you get into groups that are actually oppressed*, like queer folk, the assholism is magnified. The humor depends on the othering of the trait being joked about and the suggestion that there's something wrong with people who possess that trait.

It's entirely possible to be an asshole AND funny AND not a horrible person at the same time. Billions do it everyday. Still means they're being assholes. The world would be a better place if we all unwound and little and acknowledged that we're most of us assholes at least part of the time.


*For those playing along at home, I think the English-speaking world's views on weight and size are seriously fucked and tied in with classism and sexism, but I'm not going to put being fat in the same category as things people are regularly killed for being.

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

I think if you follow that line of thought, pretty soon you can't tell jokes about anyone or anything. Because if you have a fat guy and a gay guy, both of whom have been offended by jokes told about them, are you going to be the one who tells the fat guy "Sorry, we don't care that you're offended, the gay guy's hurt feelings are more important than yours"?

ITA with South Park's statement that in comedy, either nothing is off-limits or everything is.

[azarias.livejournal.com]

I didn't say you couldn't tell those jokes. I said you're being an asshole if you do. One of my points is that being an asshole is so much a part of the human condition that it's more or less unavoidable, so there's no need to freak out about it as long as the existence of assholery is acknowledged.

To what extent one is obligated to avoid as much assholery as possible is a complicated question. Making an offensive joke in front of someone who's likely to be offended or frightened by it? Should be avoided.

Making an offensive joke in front of a group of people who are already bigoted and inclined to just reinforce each other's disdain for large swaths of their species? Should be avoided unless one wants to join their merry asshole band, in which case one is probably a bad person regardless of degree of asshole.

Making an offensive joke in a movie designed to offend people, filmed in a way so as to annoy the greatest number of people possible? Eh. It's a living.