So you think Chris Rock’s famous shtick would have been received just as well if Michael Richards had delivered the same monologue word for word?
I think he is less restrained with his self-loathing jokes about Jews than he is towards gays. Compare “I don’t have a problem with homosexuals but I still like to use the word faggot, but not in a homophobic way” or “I don’t have a problem with homosexuals but some of them do weird things that are funny” with “No Jews allowed at this event. Get out.”
I don’t know about that, but Michael Richards certainly didn’t have the chops to do stand-up at all after Seinfeld.
Edit: As for Louis C.K. he doesn’t just say “Jews suck” or “Kill all Jews” when he does his schtick. He has actual jokes about something at the center of his bits. As I said before, that helps a lot.
Replace Michael Richards with any non-black comedian then. I have a hard time imagining the same reaction from the audience rather than nervous glances to each other. Which is to say that the joke-teller’s background has something to do with the audience’s reaction to the joke.
If PewDiePie had only made offensive jokes about Swedes, I think there is a very real possibility that he would still have his sweet deal with Disney and Youtube.
Well, yes? I mean, when was the last time Swedes faced genocide or slavery from being Swedes?
You’re forgetting a couple of things:
Comedy works better when you punch up, not down. A rich white American guy making fun of a poor disabled black woman is going to have to work a lot harder at being funny than if the roles are reversed.
You can punch down if you have something to say other than “these people suck.” For example, “Kill all Jews” isn’t inherently funny beyond the shock value. Like I’ve said a few times in this thread, it’s just naughty words and that’s only funny maybe once. Now, if you’re making fun of people that actually believe “Kill all Jews” is a good idea, then you’re probably going to get a lot more sympathy from the general audience.
I don’t know whether Disney or Youtube would have acted similarly if a non-white entertainer was making offensive jokes about whites. I recall Nick Cannon getting in trouble for dressing up in whiteface, so maybe there is indeed a desire for equal consequences.
I personally don’t feel that any combination of interracial mockery is genuinely funnier than any other combination. Maybe if you’re talking about clapter rather than laughter, then different dynamics would have better appeal to people of different political persuasions.
I just would like to reiterate that PewDiePie is the media. The media does not stop at the YouTube routers. Just because you smoke weed or whatever doesn’t exempt you from being part of the media.
It’s hard for me to take that criticism seriously from someone that became a household name thanks to a series of SNL bits in which she dressed and acted like Sarah Palin during the 2008 campaign. Tina Fey’s great, but I think she’s off-base with that one.
More importantly, I don’t agree that political humor can’t be funny on its own. Certainly, it ages badly compared to generic humor, but that’s different from saying it can’t be funny.
This is a tough example, because obviously that would be a bad reaction. Chris Rock’s humor, at least in that era, was about skewering black culture from the perspective of an insider. “Look how crazy we all are” That perspective only really works if you are an insider. It would be shocking because it wouldn’t make sense, more than anything else.
I think that, as a general rule of thumb, comedians really only should joke about their personal experiences and lives, because great comedy comes from truth. And having some comedian perform another’s act wholesale would be offensive, if only because it would feel untrue and wrong.
Louie CK is a great example of how comedians can get away with controversial stuff, because when he makes jokes about other groups or people with different sexual orientations, he is often the butt of the joke. That is the important part.
Like I said before, if Pewdiepie had made these jokes in a much more well constructed way, the blowback probably would be decidedly less strong. Maybe Maker studios would still drop him, steering away from any controversy, but at least he would have his well written jokes to defend, rather that some middle school level offensive stuff. Honestly, I think that PDP was trying to dip his waters into the offensive youtube waters that many comedians are swimming in, and he did a terrible job of it.
Plus, let’s not forget Louis C.K. early on wrote jokes for Chris Rock’s stand-up. In fact, he directed and wrote Pootie Tang, which came out of some of the bits he wrote for Chris Rock.
I think political humor depends greatly on your political views, naturally. You said that comedy works better when you’re implicitly criticizing prejudice towards marginalized groups, which in itself is reflective of your political viewpoints.
PewDiePie’s comedy has incidentally appealed to The Daily Stormer because it fits their political agenda. At the crux of the clapter vs. laughter line is the notion that political jokes have more to do with politics than they have to do with humor.
I think it’s even simpler. People respond to jokes that align with their interests. I may think Spaceballs or High Anxiety are the funniest movies ever, but if you don’t care about Star Wars or Hitchcock, those jokes aren’t going to resonate as well. If you think Trump is an idiot, SNL’s stuff right now is probably going to make you laugh. On the other hand, if you think Trump is exactly what this country needed, then SNL has probably been pretty annoying for the past few weeks…
Of course white nationalists and racists are going to find “Kill all Jews” hilarious and on point.
I could see Spaceballs being funny to both a person who loves Star Wars as well as a person who hates it. I can’t recall any of the jokes depending on whether or not you agree with Mel Brooks’ views on anything other than his sense of humor.
I think what Fey was trying to convey is that real laughter comes from something more than “this person agrees with me”, and is possibly irrespective of it.
I see the results here as one facet of this:
I’m not buying that he posted 10 or so videos about Jews and he’s not antisemitic to whatever extent. Its clearly a subject he felt the need to return to several times. And yes, Jewish comedians do the same, but that’s from a place of dealing with being Jewish so yeah they get a pass. Just like a black comedians can tell awful jokes about blacks. It comes from the same place.
Why not?
Surely the INTENT is what matters, and not whatever pre-conceived notion about who should and shouldn’t be allowed to use certain words or statements.
Not really. A word that might not bother you at all could make others feel differently.
An entertainment lawyer weighs in.
[quote]
Thus my surprise when Kjellberg admitted that his content was offensive and he crossed the line, that he exhibited poor judgment and that his amateurish attempt at comedy was a failure. He effectively admitted to breaching his contracts with Disney and Google, and then immediately sought to blame the press.
The context for his “joke,” and whether mainstream media took it out of context, never really had anything to do with it. It’s reasonable for companies like Disney and Google to consider mainstream media as the litmus test for what is considered offensive; their respective brands cater to a far broader demographic than PewDiePie’s followers, after all.[/quote]
[quote]
A private individual’s right to tell you to shut up, and a company’s right to censor your offensive content, are both protected by the first amendment.
If a client of mine terminates a player’s subscription because they violated a game’s code of conduct by spamming a chat channel with anti-Semitic rhetoric, they are well within their contractual rights to terminate that subscription. Your participation on a platform like Twitter, YouTube or one of the excellent games offered by my clients, however, is not. That is strictly governed by the Terms of Service or EULA you agree to when you sign up.
If you are an Influencer, your continued support from your backers is contingent on your compliance with whatever non-disparagement language you’ve agreed to. Almost every platform available to you is offered by a private entity. Surprise! Welcome to Capitalism!
The first amendment isn’t prohibitive against society at large; it protects society from government action.[/quote]
I think he got what he deserved and have no problems with it, but I do see at least a glimmer from the other side. Can Disney fire him for publically supporting gay marriage (10 years ago?). There would have been a huge outcry, he would have been a hero, lawyers get involved, amendments are cited. I do get there is a “if it’s the right kind of free speech” argument dividing the line between public and private, between permissive and government intervention.
Right, this is why you need some amount of subtlety or skill to be able to get away with doing the same humor.
see also http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2mluc0 though the video quality and syncing is horrific. Same exact words but a different joke entirely. PDP isn’t finding that line.
I had a huge argument with my 16 year old son about this last night. He was on PewDiePie’s side. The most horrific part of the discussion was how he has become normalized to the idea of this being a joke. There is no touchstone for kids to understand why anti-semitic words and “jokes” like this really shake people to their core. Kids today do not understand the holocaust.
There were a lot of things he said that concerned me and much of it revolved around this idea that somehow the media are coloring everything and there is this great conspiracy of covering “facts” when the facts he was telling me were the exact lies being perpetuated on Facebook, YouTube and by our own President of the United States.
It is a very difficult time to be a parent of a teenager, as if it wasn’t hard enough before this…