A Spectre is haunting comedy...

[Mark Thibodeau]

Thanks, Laura. Actually, I think I kind of make the same point you did here
about how the finger-pointers are (in an oddball way) serving the long-term
cause of comedy when I called them a necessary aspect to any great comedy:
the Square Left Out of the Joke. But you put it much better than I.

MT

On Mon, Jul 6, 2015 at 1:14 PM, <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:

> I agree with you, Mark. My real issue with most comedy out there is that
> it's just not very funny, precisely because there are few, if any,
> boundaries left. Maybe, in an oddball way, the finger-pointers are serving
> the long-term cause of comedy by putting the boundaries back. As Michael
> Flanders, of the old comic singing duo, Flanders and Swann, once quipped:
> "The purpose of satire is to strip off the veneer of comforting illusions,
> and cosy half-truths. And our job, as I see it, is to put it back again."
>
> I think odious PC tongue-clucking, in general, is related to the broader
> phenomenon of crowd-shaming:
>
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid-tweet-ruined-justine-saccos-life.html?_r=0
>
> Personally, I refuse any calls to pile on to any online shaming campaigns
> of public figures, in their various guises: "You won't believe what [blank]
> said." or "Demand that [blank] be fired for his [blank] statement," etc. I
> decry laws and policies, never people. If a public figure brags about how
> great the KKK is, it's my right to feel revulsion. But I support free
> speech, even if it's Limbaugh or O'Reilly or Palin or McCain or any of the
> Bushes doing the speaking.  Maybe it's because in the 18 years I worked in
> the construction industry, during which I was called honey, baby, bitch,
> cunt, dyke, Jewess, Jewish cunt, etc., I learned to either ignore the slurs
> or respond with dignity. When I was sexually harassed or threatened with
> rape or even murder, the system was so out of whack that the focus was on
> saving MY job, not getting the other person fired. And, you know what? I
> was still able to discern that there was a broad range of intent and
> intelligence, even among the slur-makers.
>
> Are there exceptions to what I'm saying? Of course there are. That's the
> cool thing about humans - we're nuanced, self-contradictory, and constantly
> evolving. No point in defining any of us by a few random statements.
>
> Laura
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
> From: Monte Davis
>
> Sent: Jul 6, 2015 10:12 AM
>
> To: Mark Thibodeau
>
> Cc: pynchon -l
>
> Subject: Re: A Spectre is haunting comedy...
>
>
>
> I have some broader and more ambivalent misgivings about how the
> progressive version of "more outraged than thou" has accelerated with
> social media... but very little ambivalence when it comes to comedy, which
> has been a "firewalled" space to say *anything* in a lot of cultures for a
> long, long time before the First Amendment. See court jesters, satyr plays,
> carnivals & Lords of Misrule, giggly scandalous children's rhymes, etc etc.
> IMHO that has been and remains a good thing: if there's anywhere the
> Voltairean "...but I will defend to the death your right to say it" should
> be absolute, it's comedy.
> To put it another way: my own preference when I vehemently object to
> expressions of racism, sexism, etc. is to prioritize targets with actual
> legal/political power...
> Followed at quite a distance by random celebrities NOT in the sphere of
> comedy/ satire...
> Followed by the random racist/sexist/etc bozos in my face who attempts to
> sweeten his venom ingenuously with "Hey, just kidding! You [bien-pensant
> advocacy label here] are so humorless!"
> Followed, at the very very bottom of the priority list, by those who
> explicitly fly the cultural flags/tags of comic/satiric performance. Too
> many of my own cherished progressive tenets started out and/or gained
> momentum there.
> On Mon, Jul 6, 2015 at 2:46 AM, Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> I wrote this for my blog a couple days ago.
> I realize it may rankle some here in terms of its implications, but I
> would really appreciate feedback from a group of people whom I am pretty
> much certain are, for the most part, a lot smarter than I am.
> So, by all means... critique away!
>
> Here's the link:
>
> http://dailydirtdiaspora.blogspot.ca/2015/07/thats-not-funny-manufactured-crisis-of.html
>
> Thanks in advance for your help!
> Mark T. aka Jerky LeBoeuf
>
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