A Spectre is haunting comedy...

Tue Jul 7 09:43:35 CDT 2015

Hey, just to wrench (sic) it up....any jokes offend anyone?
How about that notion going around...."no rape jokes are--can be--funny" ?

I have had Rightward friends send me Obama, Hillary jokes......which I would
never want censored BUT.................

Some make me cringe. Almost all I cannot find even remotely funny
.....(and it is because I see a different set of facts than they do,
among other reasons. )

One thing that interests me is when and why certain joke themes catch
on in a society.
Why, for example, did that comedian who broke the comedian club rule
and joked about
Cosby's actions---widely believed and even brought out over some media
years ago--
finally hit a nerve, go viral and...voila.

On Mon, Jul 6, 2015 at 11:27 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> Comedy is Irrevrance.  It is designed to offend, startle, tickle, provoke.
> It should never be predictable. It is sometimes also very wise...
>
> The "Other" in comedy is often ourselves, fat & stupid like Homer Simpson.
> That Identity factor of Comedy is a deeper relevance in us than an offense
> against this "Other" character. Our own experience, identified feeling, is
> why we laugh. Comedy is an offense against ones's own self, ones's Shadow.
>
> David
> I think the difference between the US and the Euro is obvious:  one is a
> country, the other is a currency.  Currency, like Corporations, aren't
> people. A Country is made of people.
>
> The EU was never a sincere Union.  It was a bankers deal, pure and simple.
>
> On Monday, July 6, 2015, Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I have what I think is a basically ACLU attitude towards free speech,
>> you can't be selective, you gotta protect all of it if you want to
>> maintain it.  I wouldn't sign on, most recently, a "fire Donald Trump"
>> (who by all rights should have "fired" himself the moment he declared
>> his candidacy, who under the Fairness Doctrine [1949 - 2011,
>> requiescat in pace] would have basically required NBC to give ALL the
>> candidates their own "reality" [sic] shows [or so it goes in some
>> parallel universe]) petition 'cos I'd just as soon have idiots
>> identify themselves clearly (and, in this case, @ least, repeatedly,
>> not to mention loudly) as such.  And, lo and behold, a couple/three
>> days later, either out of some sort of corporate conscience, or (more
>> likely) threats (explicit, implied and/or anticipated) of pulled
>> sponsorships, did ihe deed "itself" (sic)..
>>
>> On Mon, Jul 6, 2015 at 12:14 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
>> > -
>> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l