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Watch, Watched, Watching: Ringing in 2018


RedEyedGhost

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17 minutes ago, Mexal said:

Oh I will. Needed to say that though. I get tired of Dr. Pepper being the bigot police.

Which is funny, as she is the very definition of a bigot - a person who is intolerant toward those holding different opinions. But she's the "good kind of bigot," so... erm, yay! :unsure:

I put her on ignore several months ago, and it's been great. Up until she was quoted in nearly every post on the last page of this thread.

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54 minutes ago, RedEyedGhost said:

Which is funny, as she is the very definition of a bigot - a person who is intolerant toward those holding different opinions. But she's the "good kind of bigot," so... erm, yay! :unsure:

I put her on ignore several months ago, and it's been great. Up until she was quoted in nearly every post on the last page of this thread.

Oh look, someone who thinks disliking bigots makes one a bigot!  Yeah, no, not how it works.  No one who hates nazis, racists, rapist and their supporters, etc is a bigot

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3 minutes ago, Veltigar said:

Reading the last page of this thread was about as enjoyable as the premiere of Knightfall :P

At least, you made it to the end :D

Every year we say that there is insurmountable amount of TV to watch, but I think I have never been truly faced with it as these couple of weeks. How in God's name am I going to watch it all? Quit the job and start the life of potato couch? Well, it could have gotten worse :D 

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6 minutes ago, Risto said:

At least, you made it to the end :D

I'm a closer what can I say ;)

7 minutes ago, Risto said:

Every year we say that there is insurmountable amount of TV to watch, but I think I have never been truly faced with it as these couple of weeks. How in God's name am I going to watch it all? Quit the job and start the life of potato couch? Well, it could have gotten worse :D 

Yeah, I still haven't seen everything from last year :( TV-series can be a bit intimidating to jump into

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Caught a few of the most recent episodes of Samantha Bee.  It's really surprising how she can be so biting and hilarious and yet not fall into the realm of bigotry.  If one read this thread, they might have thought that comedy couldn't be anything other than a guidebook to being a bigot.  

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Comedy is what makes people laugh. The pass/fail mark is always did more people find what you said funny than boring/mean/offensive/whatever? If they did, you win, and it's ok no matter what you said. So funny can come from any area.

Chapelle's only crime is he just wasn't funny like he used to be. Maybe some people always thought he was offensive, but more people used to think he was funny so it didn't matter. Now there's more people thinking he's offensive or offensive and not funny or just not funny and the criticisms have wings.

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30 minutes ago, Veltigar said:

I'm a closer what can I say ;)

Yeah, I still haven't seen everything from last year :( TV-series can be a bit intimidating to jump into

Which is why I bother seldom, or wait forever to look at them and decide if the bother is worth it.  There is too much else to do than television, particularly where art and entertainment are concerned.

Not that I don't love my tv, folks!, coz obviously I do!  But any day my tv fix can be taken care of by Resurrection: Ertugrul, which can and often is ignored for days at a time.  At 76 episodes for the first season and 79 for the second season (which is where I am now -- Mongols the Big Bad), there really is no hurry at all.  One CANNOT binge this.

 

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Yep, I have to disagree with Dr. Pepper's opinions as well. Chapelle is remarkably open when he talked in depth in his newest Netflix special regarding the backlash against his earlier one, that definitely made crass jokes about trans people. The guy, along with dozens and dozens of other comedians, has made a living on pushing the envelope, saying crass things about anyone he can string together a joke about (which means everyone), and using humor to explore the way people work. He's made more overt and subtle jokes about not liking white people for his entire career. He openly mocks how he is successful because of people like me - white men who liked him in college. His entire point in comedy it to say that we can tease and poke each other over our differences, because people are very different from one another innately.

Anthony Jeselnek has a terrific special on Netflix that is much, much darker than Chapelle. He has the same motivation as Chapelle - humor exists to push boundaries and press buttons. He also mentions that there's always one thing in current culture that is the untouchable thing, and that currently it is transgender people. He then makes a joke about it and moves on to skewer the next group. 

The increased visibility of trans culture in the world today is making great strides toward tolerance. There's still tons and tons of hateful feelings out there, because mankind is really bad at being nice to itself. One of my trans drinking buddies told me she always felt that LBGT was always more of LBG(t), because the trans community lagged so far behind gay men and lesbians in the last few decades of social change. As she says, paraphrased, "going from straight to B was tough. Then B to G was tough. But going from G to T was where shit got real." I suppose that my contention is that Chapelle speaking at length about his own reservations about the trans community, how his jokes affected his own attitude, and his viewpoint as both a minority, and someone that has made a career out of ribbing other minorities, the majority, and everything in between - none of that is this binary transphobia vs. normalcy. He never wishes violence or hatred toward the trans community, and he explicitly says so. He's saying it's fine to tease and be teased, as his kind of humor forces people to think outside their comfort zone.

The next time I buy Sam (née Samuel) a shot, I will make sure to ask her about Chapelle. I know her well enough, at least once we're all half in the bag, to guess that she'll say "I don't care that he still doesn't get us, I hope he writes funnier jokes about it next time, though."

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1 hour ago, drawkcabi said:

Comedy is what makes people laugh. The pass/fail mark is always did more people find what you said funny than boring/mean/offensive/whatever? If they did, you win, and it's ok no matter what you said. So funny can come from any area.

Chapelle's only crime is he just wasn't funny like he used to be. Maybe some people always thought he was offensive, but more people used to think he was funny so it didn't matter. Now there's more people thinking he's offensive or offensive and not funny or just not funny and the criticisms have wings.

I mostly agree, but with a caveat. You have to get the sense of feeling that the joke is not coming from a place of hate. A bunch of my buddies and I can rip one another for our ethnic and religious backgrounds because we know there's no hate involved. I think Chapelle failed this qualifier from the beginning. 

@Dr. Pepper, you're being really unfair here. Can't you understand that people can compartmentalize their beliefs on the advancement of civil rights and  their enjoyment of dark humor? I, as a really liberal guy, can work on a campaign that's goal is to advance civil rights and liberal causes and still enjoy an insult comic who lays waste to every sub group in the country. Some jokes will work and some won't, but comedians have to be allowed a bit of additional space for many of the reasons others have laid out. 

Anyways, your absolutism is likely to do your cause more damage than good. Pushing likely allies away because they're not perfect is a great way to shrink your movement and diminish the chances of achieving your goals. 

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3 hours ago, Zorral said:

Which is why I bother seldom, or wait forever to look at them and decide if the bother is worth it.  There is too much else to do than television, particularly where art and entertainment are concerned.

Not that I don't love my tv, folks!, coz obviously I do!  But any day my tv fix can be taken care of by Resurrection: Ertugrul, which can and often is ignored for days at a time.  At 76 episodes for the first season and 79 for the second season (which is where I am now -- Mongols the Big Bad), there really is no hurry at all.  One CANNOT binge this.

 

Jikes, I wouldn't even try to begin with that. I mean, can a show really be that good for so many episodes? As a rule of thumb, I tend to avoid series which have more than 13 episodes a season (animation and sitcoms, if I were to still watch the latter, excepted). Odds are pretty big that a show is going to be crappy if it exceeds that number. 

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3 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I mostly agree, but with a caveat. You have to get the sense of feeling that the joke is not coming from a place of hate. A bunch of my buddies and I can rip one another for our ethnic and religious backgrounds because we know there's no hate involved. I think Chapelle failed this qualifier from the beginning. 

@Dr. Pepper, you're being really unfair here. Can't you understand that people can compartmentalize their beliefs on the advancement of civil rights and  their enjoyment of dark humor? I, as a really liberal guy, can work on a campaign that's goal is to advance civil rights and liberal causes and still enjoy an insult comic who lays waste to every sub group in the country. Some jokes will work and some won't, but comedians have to be allowed a bit of additional space for many of the reasons others have laid out. 

Anyways, your absolutism is likely to do your cause more damage than good. Pushing likely allies away because they're not perfect is a great way to shrink your movement and diminish the chances of achieving your goals. 

Not all jokes intended to lay waste to every sub group are the same.  Some can be significantly more reckless or damaging than others.  A comedian can tell two different jokes about the same subgroup, both jokes cringeworthy, and yet one might be way more problematic than the other.  In addition, the types of jokes a person can tell can change based on what group they are in.  For example, there are a lot of jokes about Jews that would be off limits to me that wouldn't be off limits to you.  Or, they'd be off limits if I didn't want to fall into bigot territory or didn't want to suffer reprisals from the audience.  There's also considerations like punching up vs punching down, etc.

Chapelle's transgender jokes weren't just insult comedy, he wasn't mocking the lives and interactions or cultures of transgender folks.  He was mocking and denying their very existence.  Called them men who chopped off their dicks.  It's typical trans/gay panic bullshit that actively harms the transgender community.  Considering a significant percentage of trans women are murdered every year largely for reasons rooted deeply in this panic idea that these are just gay men who cut off their dicks, it's a completely reckless joke to make.  The worst part is that he begins that particular joke segment acknowledging his apparent recent attacks from the trans community for his past jokes, and he didn't give a fuck.  He continued anyway.  

I give zero fucks about pushing 'allies' away.  If they can be pushed away by being told they are wrong, they weren't potential allies to begin with.  Frankly I'm shocked that disproving of transphobia is so controversial. 

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13 hours ago, Dr. Pepper said:

Not all jokes intended to lay waste to every sub group are the same.  Some can be significantly more reckless or damaging than others.  A comedian can tell two different jokes about the same subgroup, both jokes cringeworthy, and yet one might be way more problematic than the other. 

Duh.

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In addition, the types of jokes a person can tell can change based on what group they are in.  For example, there are a lot of jokes about Jews that would be off limits to me that wouldn't be off limits to you.  Or, they'd be off limits if I didn't want to fall into bigot territory or didn't want to suffer reprisals from the audience

As a Jew, if you made a funny Holocaust joke, I’d laugh. For example, who’s the best Jewish cook?

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There's also considerations like punching up vs punching down, etc.

Comedy allows you to punch in every direction. It just can’t come from a place of hate, which is in part why Chapelle failed.

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Chapelle's transgender jokes weren't just insult comedy, he wasn't mocking the lives and interactions or cultures of transgender folks.  He was mocking and denying their very existence.  Called them men who chopped off their dicks.  It's typical trans/gay panic bullshit that actively harms the transgender community.  Considering a significant percentage of trans women are murdered every year largely for reasons rooted deeply in this panic idea that these are just gay men who cut off their dicks, it's a completely reckless joke to make.  The worst part is that he begins that particular joke segment acknowledging his apparent recent attacks from the trans community for his past jokes, and he didn't give a fuck.  He continued anyway.  

Comedians tend to lean into controversy, for better or worse. But as I and others have said, it was a bad joke, it wasn’t funny and it’s received the criticism it deserves. However,  that doesn’t mean you can go around calling people transphobic because they say they like some of Chapelle’s material and won’t universally condemn him and vow to never watch him again.

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I give zero fucks about pushing 'allies' away.  If they can be pushed away by being told they are wrong, they weren't potential allies to begin with.  Frankly I'm shocked that disproving of transphobia is so controversial. 

You’re letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, and you’re setting yourself up for failure. You can’t expect perfection from everyone at all times.

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9 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

As a Jew, if you made a funny Holocaust joke, I’d laugh. For example, who’s the best Jewish cook?

Never heard this one before, please do tell :P 

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6 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Wagner the composer who wrote the Ring Cycle.  "Ride of the Valkarie" and such. 

He was born and died in the 19th century, so I guess it depends on if you judge people based on the era they lived in or by modern standards.

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