Everyone do me a favor and Google some of those sites that explained the Charlie hebdo covers. They didn’t mean what you thought they did.
Having looked for examples of this punching down a few months ago, I have to agree that I can’t see anything with that sentiment. I think a number of Muslims were offended by depictions of Mohammed as an ugly person and as a character who is not revered at all. Not insulted, just not given any special treatment or celebrated. This in itself is seen as insulting, but nobody has the right to demand universal respect for the objects of their belief - any more than politicians have the right to be protected from caricatures and lampooning. This is very different from denying the Holocaust, which often goes together with specific attitudes towards Jews and white supremacy.
I think this action reflects an attitude where Islam is presumed to have dominance, and explicit challenges to that dominance must be repelled (even in places where there are relatively few Muslims). I think the actions carried out based on a provocation with words that only ever promoted peace along with their ridicule says a lot about the perspective of the attackers (and writers who felt that the main story was that “Charlie Hebdo insulted Islam”).
I didn’t get it at first. It had to be pointed out to me by someone who knows the situation, and knew that we were seeing work out of context, shorn of anything that explained what they were doing.
My feeling then was that murder is unacceptable, but that Charlie Hebdo had been punching down. Now I believe they were punching at bigots. Is that up or down? Not sure, but I do believe bigots have it coming to them.
Murder, of course, is still wrong. So far, we all agree on that one.
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Cancel Colbert!
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There comes a point where satire just becomes plausible deniability - so if a satire passes too close to the object of it’s mockery then it risks reinforcing rather than undermining.
Stewart Lee makes this point really well - Top Gear being a TV show famous for its presenters making crude, insulting and belittling remarks and then defending them as ‘just satire; just jokes; just harmless fun’.
It’s also really funny, although perhaps requires some familiarity with British TV and the culture of the South East of England.
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Let us consider National Lampoon in the 1970s, because that’s a fine example of this form of humor. National Lampoon generally espoused a liberal white guy outlook (P.J. O’Rourke notwithstanding) during this period. Their favorite route to mocking bigots, homophobes and misogynists was to trot out the fried chicken, limp-wristed danties and unshaven armpits.
In the context of the times, it seems amusing as long as you aren’t black, gay, female or all of the above. But how far is that stuff from the actual published rantings of right-wing reactionaries? How simple is it for white supremacists to simply reprint your laddish japes as actual hate speech? Ask Robert Crumb, who famously had his “When the N*****s Take Over America” comic meet exactly that fate.
It ain’t the 1970s anymore, folks. I think any satirist worth the name should consider this dated tactic and learn from its excesses. Rather than asking, “Am I punching up or down?” Why not ask yourself, “How easily could my work be appropriated by people I despise? And if they do appropriate it, who looks like the biggest idiot: The bigots or me?”
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I’d love to see Louis CK or Rogan interview Lee, y’know, as a method of capturing the spectrum of the cultural Zeitgeist.
Especially considering Louis, HAM on joke thieves, ‘stole’ his Daily-Show-appearance-fart-joke from Lee.
If it was easy, everybody’d do it. Instead of just thinking they’re doing it.
So you’re saying Charlie Hebdo isn’t racist, it’s just shit?
Yeah, I think you’ve nailed it. Awfully convenient that white dudes get a lot more latitude to be ‘challenging’ and ‘push boundaries’. I think whether a satirist is punching up or down is still important, but you’re right about potential for po-faced expropriation, too. It isn’t only the direction of your punches that matter - it’s also who you hit!
Or don’t agree.
A joke that has to be explained is a failed joke.
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I’m saying I don’t believe it’s intended to be racist. I said it in English, so no interpreters needed, thanks.
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Sorry, Goethe! Your 19th-century humor must have been worthless, since an American in the 21st century isn’t absolutely sure what you meant.
One need only look at the Colbert Report, may it RIP, to see the form is not dead or irrelevant. It made a political statement against “the establishment” by taking their own self-absorbed rhetoric and turning up the volume to absurd levels. Taken out of context it could be highly offensive, but as a whole, it made its point artfully by demonstrating just how tone deaf, hypocritical, and self-serving it really was.
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And (my favorite comedian here) isn’t funny, because they wouldn’t make any sense to an ancient Egyptian!
No, obviously, context matters. Shakespeare was and remains a legendary writer. That doesn’t mean that doing your email in Shakespearean English makes you a great writer.
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I don’t mind getting missed jokes explained. It does wonders for gaining more knowledge.
(Double so for language or culture related jokes.)
If you don’t get a joke because of not knowing a reference, it’s the problem of the one who says the joke, or of you?
There used to be times when people did fun stuff.
Now everybody seems to be criticizing others who did fun stuff.
The whole world is becoming an absurd comedy and we are supposed to not laugh?
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I’m right with you.
I don’t think that “punching up” or “punching down” even is worth discussing here.
All I really care about is this: Two dozen people were killed for writing words and drawing pictures.
It matters not whether the pictures and words were offensive. What matters is, somebody killed them for saying something.
That’s intolerable.
Discussing whether Charb was punching up or down doesn’t play into whether they deserved to be killed. It doesn’t soften the blow, or make the crimes committed against them any less heinous and anathema to the very idea of civilization.
Seriously, getting caught up in whether some people deserved to be killed for saying words and drawing pictures is a fucking waste of time and effort, and honestly, I find it offensive myself. But don’t expect me to show up where you work and kill you for it.
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Of course it is. No one is saying otherwise. If Alice keys Bob’s car, and Bob shoots Alice dead for it, then Bob is a murderer and should go to prison. The problem I have is that a bunch of people are acting like, because Alice got murdered, it’s retroactively okay for her to have vandalized Bob’s car.
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