Pointless But It Does My Head In

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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Slothrop said:
Isn't that pretty much what the joke was satirizing?
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That's not satire, it's using the cloak of satire/irony/being 'highbrow' and 'witty'/whatever other lame excuse you can come up with to use racist language. Biting satire it is not, perpetuating and normalising the use of racist language by white people, it is. If I had a pound for every time I've heard someone 'hilariously' do that, etc etc
 
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Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Slothrop said:
Isn't that pretty much what the joke was satirizing?
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Is it satirizing, or is it that awful modern tendency to say 'shocking' things in the assumption that people will think you're being clever and ironic whereas it's actually just an excuse to say bigoted things? Maybe, I dunno anything about this woman, it just seemed to fit very much into the Gervais/Boyle mould.

Edit: what baboon said, basically.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
baboon2004 said:
As to Banzai, it was the fact it was specifically made for a Western audience using lots of Japanese stereotypes that was the problem.
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I see your point but Japanese pop culture is so mental that you can't really exaggerate it into anything stranger than what exists in reality.
 
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Slothrop

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
Mr. Tea said:
Is it satirizing, or is it that awful modern tendency to say 'shocking' things in the assumption that people will think you're being clever and ironic whereas it's actually just an excuse to say bigoted things? Maybe, I dunno anything about this woman, it just seemed to fit very much into the Gervais/Boyle mould.
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The humour comes from highlighting the disconnect between the self-proclaimed liberalism on the surface and the actual racism implied by the language used, a disconnect which is probably more common in white middle class society than a lot of people would like to admit. Hence it functions as satire.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Slothrop said:
The humour comes from highlighting the disconnect between the stated liberalism on the surface and the instictive racism implied by the language used, a disconnect which is probably more common in white middle class society than a lot of people would like to admit. Hence it functions as satire.
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Ah, OK. Much harder to spot levels of intention when reading a quote on a Wikipedia page than when hearing it in context, I guess.
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Slothrop said:
The humour comes from highlighting the disconnect between the self-proclaimed liberalism on the surface and the actual racism implied by the language used, a disconnect which is probably more common in white middle class society than a lot of people would like to admit. Hence it functions as satire.
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Her intention in using a racist term was clearly to elicit a 'oh my god, did she say that?' reaction i.e. to be supposedly shocking. As you can see, along with her looking oh so pleased with herself for her 'wit':


She's an idiot. Who the fuck is she to tell Asian Americans whether or not they are offended by her use of racial slurs?

http://www.manaa.org/politicallyincorrect.html this is interesting.

Silverman "You're gonna teach me how to do satire?"
Well actually yes, seeing as you don't have the first idea how to be funny!
at 7:30, quite frankly the other woman would have been within her rights to have punched Silverman for being such a smug, odious dick. The host is awful too - two white people telling non-white people what they should be feeling. Glad the audience isn't as stupid.

Silverman - "We wouldn't have this forum (to talk about race) if I hadn't told that joke". What a fucking arrogant piece of shit.

On the other hand, Aoki comes across brilliantly, refusing to let the (white) host or Silverman lecture him as to how bad racism is or isn't, which they repeatedly try to do.

10:23 - one of the most gobsmacking things I have ever seen on TV. They bring on ANOTHER white person to tell non-white people that 'ironic' use of racist slurs is no big deal and....trust me, you just have to watch it.
 
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mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
I thought her original chink joke ages back was funny, to be honest, but she's really dug herself into a hole. It's very much Boyle territory except he's capable of explaining himself - see his Work Consume book, where he talks about the space comedy creates and what it does - but Silverman really doesn't do herself any favours here at all, she comes off really, really badly. Like, really badly.
 
e/y

e/y

Well-known member
baboon2004 said:
http://www.manaa.org/politicallyincorrect.html this is interesting.
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That's pretty incredible. I thought Maher was a shithead before, but his spiel about how the N-word is ok for white people to use ("as a term of endearment"!!! "I wouldn't know you were black...") is next level idiocy. Same for Silverman - baboon is spot on that Johnson showed remarkable restraint.

David Spade is a pretty near perfect encapsulation of a SWM with a persecution complex.

Ugh.
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Never heard of David Spade before tbh, and I won't be following his career now!

@mistersloane - agree about Frankie Boyle. Although sometimes he can be awful, at least there's something going on in his head, whereas Silverman shows herself to be utterly vacant in that video, and pretty much disproves any vapid protestations she might make about her comedy seeking to debunk prejudice, rather than exploit it.


In other news, below where I work they've opened up a new cafe selling 'artisan coffee' and 'artisan sandwiches'. What the fuck does that even mean?
 
Slothrop

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
4linehaiku said:
'expensive'
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Also 'slow'.

As in "hey man, proper coffee is worth waiting for - if you don't care about properly made coffee why not go to Starbucks..."

I dunno, "artisanal" is one of those things that takes a fairly reasonable concept - ie stuff that's comparatively expensive because it's made with attention to detail by people who give a shit about quality - and turns it into a meaningless buzzword used to market stuff to pretentious people.

See also "craft beer" (in the UK sense).
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Yeah, the demographic from the previous shop that was there (selling pretty much the same things but with no buzzwords) has completely changed already.

The extent to which people are prepared to buy into (pun not intended) conspicuous consumption in every aspect of their lives is depressing, particularly as it has absolutely zero necessary link with quality. Or often, the link that once did exist with quality has been severed, as you said about 'artisanal'. On the other hand, use of buzzwords can act as a useful barometer of mediocrity
 
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Leo

Leo

Well-known member
Slothrop said:
http://brokelyn.com/ok-so-now-theres-a-artisanal-mayonnaise-shop-in-brooklyn/
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ha! i know the woman behind this start-up company, a rather pretentious, mediocre former creative at an ad agency who married a guy who runs a successful digital agency, so now she has the luxury of free time to pursue vanity projects. welcome to brooklyn.

actually, i don't know her personally, so i probably shouldn't crap on her entrepreneurial spirit. karma and all. but it's all still kind of annoying.
 
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Slothrop

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
baboon2004 said:
The extent to which people are prepared to buy into (pun not intended) conspicuous consumption in every aspect of their lives is depressing, particularly as it has absolutely zero necessary link with quality. Or often, the link that once did exist with quality has been severed, as you said about 'artisanal'. On the other hand, use of buzzwords can act as a useful barometer of mediocrity
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It's difficult - I mean, I think that when I got to a specialist cheese shop and buy cheese that's more expensive or hard to obtain than supermarket block cheddar I'm doing it because that cheese gives me more pleasure on some authentic, non-manufactured level than supermarket block cheddar. And I think most people on here (cf the various food and cooking threads) will go out of their way to get good stuff in some spheres. But
a) there's no way I can prove that my pleasure in eating the cheese is genuine and authentic and instinctive and isn't a response I've conditioned into myself because I've come to believe that liking expensive cheese is something I ought to do and
b) there's no way that I know enough about cheese to identify the good ones based on my encyclopaedic knowledge of styles, producers, production techniques etc, so to some extent I'm basing my cheese shopping on a bunch of signifiers that are presented to me by the people selling the cheese - the packaging, the advice of the person in the shop, the description, which may include stuff no more inherently meaningful than the word 'artisan'.

I'm not totally relativist about this, but I think you're getting onto tricky ground when you start to claim that the stuff that they like is pretentious conspicuous consumption but the stuff that I like is Just Better.
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Yeah, that's true, as in many spheres of life.

But I think you can go a certain way towards minimising your own susceptibility to conditioning, by simply considering the issue consciously once in a while, and opening up your mind to the possibility that you might not really be feeling what you think you're feeling. I agree though that it's incredibly difficult on each occasion to know that you're not being duped. Or duping yourself.
 
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