23 comments up in this bitch attempting to define consensus. Nobody reads the funnies. You did when you were a kid. Your grandparents might have. By the time you were an adult you acknowledged that they were almost entirely devoid of humor. The ones that weren't were transgressive. Newspaper comic strips are where humor goes to die. Newspaper comic strips, however, are also where consensus is reached. You can't print a Family Circus that's only funny to a select few people, so you have to print a Family Circus that's faintly funny to everyone. That Family Circus comic establishes "things we can all laugh at." It has a humongous platform and therefore must have the broadest appeal. It also doesn't leave someone bleakly staring into their coffee knowing today is another day when they're the butt of the joke, where they're the thing everyone else unites against, where it's been established whose feelings can be safely hurt without fear of blowback or reprisal. Humor is necessarily transgressive. It must therefore be necessarily niche. The more transgressive, the more a niche will find it funny. This is entirely a battle about the size of that niche. Do we, as a culture, condone humor made at the expense of the trans community? Let's not paint around it - we've got one side saying I'm sure all that heinously tone-deaf mean shit was said with love and one person saying I feel no love and the fundamental argument, really, is whether Quatrarius should STFU and let everyone else enjoy their queer-bashing. That didn't feel good did it The othering of the trans community has been ripe comedy gold for longer than I've been alive. Some Like It Hot predates me but I was here for Bosom Buddies and Tootsie (10 Oscar noms!) and Mrs. Doubtfire (Oscar for "best makeup" I shit you not). We all laughed uproariously when Crocodile Dundee shamed someone transgender but maaaaybe had some introspection fifteen years later when we watched Hilary Swank get murdered? I've watched "diva" switch from Liza Minelli to Ru Paul. I've also listened to my boss passionately bitch about the fact that you can go to jail for queer-bashing now. "Impossible pussy?" "Beet juice?" That's not funny. That's a rejection of cultural mores because they do not align with your comfort level. More than that, it's a denigration of a vulnerable community. Andrew Dice Clay played the whole "but I know women who like me" thing, too. The appeal is always "what's the intent" while ignoring the "what's the consensus" of the situation 'cuz I tell you what: a world in which Andrew Dice Clay is consensus-funny is a world devoid of Amy Schumers and if you think the Andrew Dice Clays of the world need more representation in culture you can fuck right off. Whose victim card has a stronger suit - blacks or the trans community? Fuck off with that shit it isn't a goddamn race to the bottom. Buy the world a Coke goddamn it. This whole shitshow is about negotiating who we're still allowed to laugh at. Lately? We ain't allowed to laugh at anybody and that pisses people off. But my kid is 8 and there are three transgender kids in her class and I would much rather the world be inviting to them than to Dave Fucking Chapelle. Humor is transgressive, so we will never agree what is or is not funny. We can, however, recognize that humor evolves and that the role of culture is to track that evolution, not fight it. (ten Oscar noms)
Well written, as always. I’m genuinely curious to know if you watched the special? I saw someone using humor to show compassion and to simultaneously state what bothers him about the “movement.” I don’t agree with all of it. But on balance, I believe he may have done more brt positive FOR the movement than negative. It ends with a genuine plea for empathy. I’m gonna watch it again tonight with all of these discussions in mind. I’ve never seen Tootsie.
I've never enjoyed Dave Chapelle. I don't care for most standup - Since Eddie Murphy Raw it's often "let's make fun of people who suck." Genuine pleas for empathy rarely get shared and reshared and reshared on Facebook. "Impossible pussy?" On balance, my grandfather was a sweet old man who used the n-word regularly. So regularly that in assuming his patois once I used the phrase "niXXer-rig" a component on a loudspeaker in front of one of my very favorite colleagues in the world who happens to be black. he was cool about it but I'm ashamed to this day - I didn't mean anything by it it's just what people said in that context that I was tapping into because I felt comfortable. Every time a joke is repeated that context changes. Lewis Carroll was a pedophile in a time when pedophiles were rarely punished. Thus, Lewis Carroll is remembered as the guy who came up with Alice In Wonderland rather than the guy who totally wanted to fuck his friends' 11-year-old daughter. The context of Alice in Wonderland has drifted away from Lewis Carroll thanks to popular culture remixes like Disney's or Jefferson Airplane's. The context of Lewis Carroll, on the other hand, has drifted towards his pedophilia thanks to popular culture's innate drive to re-evaluate itself. Tootsie is dated. Here lemme ruin Breakfast at Tiffany's for ya.