A Spectre is haunting comedy...

[Jamie McKittrick]

I'm glad when I hear people are being offended by comedy. That means its
doing part of its job. But remember good comedy doesn't have to be
offensive (Buster Keaton unfolding an enormous newspaper still one of the
funniest moments of cinema). The line in the sand for comedy - the wispy,
vapoury line - should be drawn where said comedy is used to promote
ignorance or intolerance. This aggression will not stand, man. If
Seinfeld's harping on about limp-wristed homosexuals then the campuses are
right to yawn and tut but I have little patience for the outrage machine
that fuels its own fire. It is moral bullying, it is squareness, it is also
philistinism and tedium incarnate, the self-righteous arm of the rabble
fawning over its own mirror-flexing. As has been said, context and intent
is everything and comedy *is* like jazz. Know your audience, yes, but also:
fuck your audience.

On a related note, as far as I see it the point of political correctness is
not to wage war on Christmas (seriously, who believes this!?) but a defence
of the differences between us. It's a constant negotiation process and is
by no means a perfect system but it's the best we have.

In summary: get some new material, *Jerrysaurous*!

-J

PS. While we're on the subject:  Q. How do you get a nun pregnant? A. Rape
her.

On Wed, Jul 8, 2015 at 5:42 AM, David Casseres <david.casseres at gmail.com>
wrote:

> My only quibble is about the term "political correctness." It was
> appropriated from the old-fashioned communists, who used it very literally
> to criticize narratives that deviated from the party line, by that noisy
> little asshole Dinesh D'Souza to apply to anyone who criticized him for his
> out-and-out racism. I hang out around political discussions where it is
> used entirely in D'Souza's sense, and one of my lines is "Careful! Don't
> you know that every time you rant about Political Correctness, your IQ
> drops 10%? Can you afford that?"
>
> I would not say that to you because you obviously don't mean it that way,
> but I'm an advocate of quarantining that expression. People who attack
> comedy for its frankness, or for the way it makes offensive material into,
> well, material for something else, are guilty of something other than PC…
> what would I call it? Um, moral bullying, maybe? Squareness? There was a
> time when "square" really conveyed the whole thing.
>
> Apart from that quibble, I wholly agree with you.
>
> On Sun, Jul 5, 2015 at 11:46 PM, 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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