Our BetterMost Community > Chez Tremblay
You know you're a Brokaholic when...
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on January 26, 2007, 11:35:08 am ---(I think it's healthier emotionally for me to go out on a Saturday night and hang out with my buddies than to sit at home--alone--watching late night television)
--- End quote ---
Good point. Well, there were some gay cowboys in the audience for Jake's appearance -- it was the only Brokeback reference -- and they were pretty cliched, so there was a debate going on here over whether they were harmless humor or unfunny reinforcement of stereotypes.
--- Quote ---That excerpt from Laura Kipnis is interesting. I like that phrase, "the humor of painful recognition." However, I barely know who Sarah Silverman is--I think I read something about her somewhere, so I assume she's a raunchy female comic--but I don't get Kipnis's take that Silverman's joke about being raped by her doctor is a poignant experience for a Jewish girl "demolishes" rather than "upholds" cliches. I would think the joke is funny precisely because of the stereotype or cliche that "all Jewish mothers want their daughters to marry doctors."
--- End quote ---
I know, I agree, it's ambiguous, and I think that example is probably the weakest part of that excerpt. But I guess what she's saying is that Sarah Silverman makes the stereotype SO absurd as to demolish it -- a lot of Sarah Silverman's humor is like that; she plays on stereotypes and prejudices to an extreme that makes them completely ludicrous rather than just a reinforcement of what we already believe (and she's hilarious, BTW). The comic I most associate with the other kind of joke -- the stereotype-reinforcing kind -- is Jay Leno (perhaps unfairly, because there are lots of comedians who do this, and I could even be wrong because I very rarely watch Leno). That is, men are beer-guzzling domestically challenged slobs who won't ask directions and hog the remote, women are long-suffering, neat-freak housefraus who fret that every item of clothing makes their butt look fat, "Brokeback Mountain" is ... well, you can imagine. The stereotypes are boring and cliched and, as Kipnis says, they uphold the status quo. Like, as you laugh you're supposed to be shrugging, "Yeah, men are lazy bums, but whattya gonna do?" I get email spam with those kinds of jokes, and I often delete them before I even finish reading them.
Whew! OK, there's my soapbox speech du jour.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: latjoreme on January 26, 2007, 03:10:12 pm ---Good point.
--- End quote ---
Well, it might be healthy emotionally for me to be out with people rather than sitting at home alone, but I might have added that it might not be healthy for my liver. ;D
--- Quote ---Well, there were some gay cowboys in the audience for Jake's appearance -- it was the only Brokeback reference -- and they were pretty cliched, so there was a debate going on here over whether they were harmless humor or unfunny reinforcement of stereotypes.
--- End quote ---
So it sounds like they weren't real gay cowboys, just guys dressed like cowboys and acting queeny? :P
--- Quote ---I know, I agree, it's ambiguous, and I think that example is probably the weakest part of that excerpt. But I guess what she's saying is that Sarah Silverman makes the stereotype SO absurd as to demolish it.
--- End quote ---
OK, I can see that might be what Kipnis means. I'm still not sure I agree with it, but I see that could be what she means.
Thanks, Katherine!
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on January 26, 2007, 03:27:27 pm ---So it sounds like they weren't real gay cowboys, just guys dressed like cowboys and acting queeny? :P
--- End quote ---
Yes. Sorry if that wasn't clear; they were characters planted in the audience. And one point made in the debate here was that not only did the joke reinforce stereotypes, but that it relied on them even to let viewers know what the joke was. If they just looked like regular guys, the SNL thinking seemed to be, then how would anybody know they were gay?[/quote]
--- Quote ---Thanks, Katherine!
--- End quote ---
Sure enough, and thank YOU, Jeff! See you Monday. :)
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: latjoreme on January 26, 2007, 04:43:45 pm ---Yes. Sorry if that wasn't clear; they were characters planted in the audience. And one point made in the debate here was that not only did the joke reinforce stereotypes, but that it relied on them even to let viewers know what the joke was. If they just looked like regular guys, the SNL thinking seemed to be, then how would anybody know they were gay?
--- End quote ---
I was pretty sure that's what you meant, just thought it safer to be explicit. ;)
I guess I'm finding myself wondering whether any humor based on a stereotype ever really destroys that stereotype, or just ends up reinforcing it? :-\ ??? Or maybe it only works when a character who clearly believes in the stereotype is made to look like a fool, like Archie Bunker?
ednbarby:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on January 29, 2007, 12:42:01 pm ---I guess I'm finding myself wondering whether any humor based on a stereotype ever really destroys that stereotype, or just ends up reinforcing it? :-\ ??? Or maybe it only works when a character who clearly believes in the stereotype is made to look like a fool, like Archie Bunker?
--- End quote ---
BINGO. That character and the time they parodied that homophobic cowboy on The Daily Show last year are the only two instances I can think of off the top of my head that served to try to destroy (or at least debilitate) the sterotypes. Boy, did they make the latter look like a fool, too. I'm sorry I didn't TiVo that and save it for posterity. It was some truly funny business. And better than anything anyone currently at SNL could write in their wildest dreams.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version