Welcome to the 21st century.

[andrewducker]

I can understand why there's a stereotype of feminists as humourless.

I mean, if you're used to being able to make jokes about horrible things happening to women and then a group of people start telling you that they don't find this funny then your perception of them is going to be that they just don't have a sense of humour.  After all, you don't _seriously_ want bad things to happen to women, you're just having a laugh, right?

My old friend Ed went to this debate in which a controversial comedian debated whether it was ok to make offensive jokes.  Frankie Boyle used his moments on the debating stand to tell a series of increasingly unpleasant jokes - all of which got a massive laugh from the audience, except when they touched on a subject just a little too close to home.  My friend found himself laughing at all sorts of appalling things, until the subject was (coincidentally) turned onto his own situation, at which point he found himself thinking "but that's not funny".

Because it's never funny when it's about you.  It's only funny when it's about someone you don't care about. 

Or, at the very least, if you can pretend that nobody you know is like that.

It's much easier when you live in a nice insular environment, where you only really know people like yourself, and you certainly only socialise with people just like you.  Then you can bask in in-group/out-group socialisation to your heart's content.

Not to easy when you're on the internet, and people are likely to pop up at any moment and point out the flaws inherent in something you thought was innocent fun.

The question is - how do you deal with it when someone points it out?  Do you have to let the flaws ruint it for you because they offend someone else?  Do you have to argue that there's nothing wrong with the thing you love?

If you care (and nobody is going to make you) then some very useful hints and tips can be found here.  The flow-chart at the end is particularly good.

Comments

[likeneontubing.livejournal.com]

i am completely conflicted about this in general. on the one hand i LOVE offensive jokes, but on the other if someone began to display signs of seriously believing in one, i would turn into debate mode.

it sounds awful, but i judge the situation around whether the people near me are likely to 'get' that this is a joke, or to think that it displays an attitude which is OK. if the latter, i encourage others not to joke around those people about issues too, unless i have established that this is not the case.

i refer almost entirely to sunderland and making jokes within earshot of those perhaps not as PC as myself in their beliefs, and there is nothing on this world more disturbing than someone joining in on a very offensive joke you/your mates have just told and agreeing. it really is quite frightening, and you feel a bit guilty as if you helped to spread their attitude a wee bit.

[drjon.livejournal.com]

Of course, the LGBT Society could have won the debate if they'd gotten a better comedian up against Boyle.

After all, THE ARISTOCRATS.

[andrewducker]

I love that movie!

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

Because it's never funny when it's about you.

Only if you are humourless, otherwise it is just as funny when it is about you. Hence the tradition of the roast.

[andrewducker]

it sounds awful, but i judge the situation around whether the people near me are likely to 'get' that this is a joke, or to think that it displays an attitude which is OK.

Doesn't sound awful at all. I've made some terribly offensive jokes in my time, and I hope I've judged the audience right most of the time. Occasionally I won't, and nowadays I'd apologise if I actually hurt someone's feelings.

[andrewducker]

I've seen a couple of them, and the person being roasted always looked distinctly uncomfortable if the jokes hit too close to the bone. They may well put up with it, but they didn't look happy about it.

[meihua.livejournal.com]

As I've recently commented elsewhere, what really riles me are "ironic" sexist jokes (usually accompanied by smilies) that are just thrown into the middle of a discussion (on feminism or otherwise).

They put a feminist in an impossible situation. The choice is:
a) Ignore it or take it in the spirit in which the person who posted it says it is intended (not necessarily the same as the spirit is is actually, consciously or subconsciously intended)
b) Challenge it

If we (a), then we are giving some tacit approval and have to take a certain amount of offence "on the chin".

If we (b) then we are easy to paint as humourless feminists.

Throwing in an ironic joke achieves the result of sabotaging/hijacking/jibing at feminists, and does this in a way which "plays well to the crowd".

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

From the other post - "liking a story with an arrow doesn't make you a bigot"

Does WRITING a story with an arrow necessarily make you a bigot/racist/sexist/whatever?

[andrewducker]

Depends. Did you deliberately play up to a negative stereotype?

("You" here being impersonal, I'm not accusing _you_ of anything)

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

Can you expand?

(And understood, although to make a point later I might do a quick analysis of BloodSpell, which I'm fairly sure you can analyse to make me look *really* bad.)

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

Erm, that "you" in my reply isn't intended to mean you personally either!

[meihua.livejournal.com]

It caaaaaaaaan do, yes. But, expand the definition of racism a bit.

Someone's a big, bad, evil racist if they go about beating up people of colour.

Someone's a medium racist if every black character in their books is poor, from the ghetto, loves watermelon and fried chicken, even when that wouldn't make sense for that character.

Someone can be a bit racist if they are unintentionally incorporating those stereotypes into stories they write.

The key thing is not to go "ARRRRGH! You just called me racist! I don't go around beating up black folks!". It's to go, "Ok, you're saying there are racist implications in my story. I should look at that."

A lot of confusion occurs because people can't handle other people suggesting they are racist. They feel that racists are those folks who used to be KKK members, not nice people like them. However, the word is broad, and covers both camps - just to differing degrees.

[meihua.livejournal.com]

Another point about "off-colour" jokes - they give social cover to bigots

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

How do you as a reader tell whether a usage is intentional or unintentional?

Also, is it better or worse if a stereotyped character is intentionally in place, rather than unintentionally? (In other words, if the author is aware of the stereotype, but chooses to use it or aspects of it.)

[meihua.livejournal.com]

As a reader, I probably don't know if it's intentional or unintentional. I find it distracting either way, and it lessens my enjoyment of the story.

If I know the author, I'd say, "Hey, this bit reads kinda racist." If I don't know them, I might complain in my journal, "I read story X by author Y, did anyone else think this bit was kinda racist?"

I'm not that fussed about deciding if it's "better" or "worse" - I'd think that both are a problem and can be addressed. Maybe better to think about how fixable it is, which varies.

Sometimes, an opinion which is consciously held is easier to change, because you can actually talk about it without the whole "But I don't think that" thing. But, sometimes it's consciously held with strong feeling, in which case it's hard to change.

[andrewducker]

Well, when Joss Whedon created a world where all of the main/successful characters were American, while the only Chinese characters were backgrounded peasants, despite stating that the world was a fusion of American and Chinese society, I assume he wasn't deliberately saying that Americans would naturally come out on top, and the Chinese aren't capable of being anything more than stereotyped peasants. But you can see why some people would have taken it that way, I assume?

But that's clearly less bad than someone deliberately producing racist stereotypes, because it's not intended to be upsetting, and deliberate stereotypes are there to make people look bad and reinforce prejudice, and would therefore tend to have a strong effect.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

Yep, I get that.

The question I'm asking is whether you'd therefore believe that Joss Whedon is anti-Asian in his own beliefs.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Maybe it's sometimes funny when it's about you, but you get the bad with the good.

[andrewducker]

I find it unlikely that he is positively anti-Asian in his own beliefs. i.e. I doubt that he set out to be negative about Asians.

But he may well be unconsciously anti-Asian, insofar as he has no interest in them beyond a trivial use of their culture as a backdrop to his TV show, without thinking about the effect this would have.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

Not to nitpick, but does "no interest in" equal "anti-"?

(For example, I'm not very interested in knitting, but does that make me anti-knitting?)

[andrewducker]

Depends on the effect it has in your work.

If you repeatedly use knitting as an example of something that ineffectual backgrounded characters do, while foregrounded active characters are chess-players, purely because you know about chess, and knitting seems like a handy shorthand for "another hobby that's non-tactical in nature", then you may not be intending to be anti-knitting, but you're still going to upset the knitters with your anti-knitting stance :->

Whereas if you never mentioned knitting (or Joss had never used any aspect of Chinese culture in Firefly) then obviously it wouldn't be an issue.

[lilitufire.livejournal.com]

I'm fairly sure there's some significant crimes against underwear in there :)

[chuma.livejournal.com]

First time I saw that was on some tv channel saying that up next her friends were going to roast Pamela Anderson. I remember thinking you wouldn't get much meat to go around.

[chuma.livejournal.com]

Or maybe he was influenced by American TV and what is popular and decided to go with the masses. Most American programs consist of american actors and are probably more accessible to the target audience.

Also... what effect has it had? None to negligable?

[andrewducker]

I saw a fair amount of discussion by upset Asians (both in America and otherwise) at the time.