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SOAS and behaviour agreement for a comedy gig.

Started by Travis B, December 12, 2018, 12:51:09 AM

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Travis B

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/dec/11/comedians-asked-to-sign-behavioural-agreement-for-soas-gig
Apart from the issues raised, who the fuck wants to go a to a comedy gig which takes place in 'an environment where joy, love and acceptance are reciprocated by all'

What do people think about this, PC gone mad or just the usual blathering of a student group?

Johnny Yesno


garnish

One person decided to do this in her capacity as an event organiser, according to that article.  It's not like you can even say it's just a few students being precious, the story is that one person thought this was the best means to make sure the event went off without upsetting anyone.

The real story is why on earth the Guardian thinks this is in any way newsworthy - the answer of course is that stories about PC gone mad is too irresistible to ignore.

Twed

It's not the usual "cuh they won't let us do anything PC gone mad etc. etc." aspects of these things that bothers me, just the idea that somebody has sat down and decided that they have the ability to write a set of rules that offend nobody, and then they've been allowed to be in charge of anything at all.

a duncandisorderly

shit like this cluttering up the MSM is why nobody knew what the fuck they were voting for/against in june two years ago.

fucking guardian should be ashamed of itself.

garnish

Quote from: Twed on December 12, 2018, 01:12:45 AM
It's not the usual "cuh they won't let us do anything PC gone mad etc. etc." aspects of these things that bothers me, just the idea that somebody has sat down and decided that they have the ability to write a set of rules that offend nobody, and then they've been allowed to be in charge of anything at all.

It's not like the people that selected her for the role as event organiser would have considered she'd do produce a contract like this for the hired entertainers.

Perhaps they should have asked their event organisers to sign a contract saying they wouldn't ask entertainers to sign a "don't be offensive" contract.

Twed

Well, yes, obviously unreasonable in this case. I didn't mean to put criticism on the people involved in this case, but instead cases where people who think they have solved the unsolvable problem of universal inclusion are encouraged.

It's just the wrong approach. No rules are fully inclusive. Instead, give people a voice to raise instances where they have been attacked or offended, de-platform people who attack others and shake off the nuts idea that it's possible to have one monolithic group where all people are catered for as long as some magic rules are followed.

Edit: I get that "don't attack" is a rule, but it's different from thinking that you've come up with some overruling code of conduct that makes absolutely everybody happy. Bollocks it does, you just want to be in charge of how people act.

thenoise

It's a bit rich comparing it to banning Dapper Laughs for his rapey lads-on-tour bullshit. I don't know anything about Kate Smurthwaite.

PlanktonSideburns

Their gig their rules, one event organisers decision does not a news article make. People should get the name of the person who wrote this article and send him death threats until he has to work in an over 25k box factory till the bottom of his spine is ground into a wet paste. The gig organiser should be left to his strange cares in obscurity, the dream of any comedy promoter these days

DeadBishop

Christ, I fucking hate this shit. Uh oh, the organiser from Soas' Unicef on Campus society made some misguided rules. Country's gone to the dogs mate. Albion's a fucking kennel. Mad gay students in hippy pants, tearing down statues of Ken Dodd, painting them black, turning Lime Street Station into The Maya Angelou Inclusivity Lounge for Queered Locomotion. And every Guy Whitey Corngood gathers to watch and tut and cluck and say "I understand the need to be inclusive but what of debate? What of diddy men? Stuff like this is why Brexit happened you know." And I think- is it? Is it really? Because I just made it up, pal, none of that ever happened. That Ken Dodd statues still there, unaccoutably trying to dust a harried Bessie Braddock. Just leave it.

Cuellar


Blumf

Look; it's either this, or back to the Tory Party clusterfuck thread!

Pijlstaart

Just imagine them waking up at SOAS one day, the SOAS students, one of them is woken up by a cold breeze and goes, oh, someone has left the SOAS window open. They go to shut it but um and ah about whether it being open promotes inclusivity, another barrier broken down. "Hmmph, you're more dimwitted than I thought" they hear, and turn around to see me hovering over their bed, bedecked in my badass pleather trenchcoat, my face hidden behind my long fringe with chartreuse frosted tips. The fringe moves as I talk. "Baka desu ka desu ne, baka-kun!" The student doesn't understand me and blathers about how racist nigel farage is for being white and how they don't like top gear. "Hmmph" I grunt, unimpressed "I'd already predicted your next three sentences and disproved you in Japanese". Bemused, they go to google translate and realise I am right, I have defeated them intellectually before they have even begun. "Bu..but Palastine" they bleat, sweating visibly.  "Mediocre dunce" I snarl, drawing my katana (Aquamarine skull pommel, lace tassels) and I cut them into 55 million pieces, the amount of money we send to brussels every day. The other SOAS students wake up and begin clapping for me, the spell lifted, but I am already gone.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: Twed on December 12, 2018, 01:12:45 AM
It's not the usual "cuh they won't let us do anything PC gone mad etc. etc." aspects of these things that bothers me, just the idea that somebody has sat down and decided that they have the ability to write a set of rules that offend nobody, and then they've been allowed to be in charge of anything at all.

They put them to the performer and the performer told them to get bent, now they look an idiot; an example of things functioning as they should.

Blinder Data

Quote from: Pijlstaart on December 12, 2018, 10:04:00 AM
Just imagine them waking up at SOAS one day, the SOAS students, one of them is woken up by a cold breeze and goes, oh, someone has left the SOAS window open. They go to shut it but um and ah about whether it being open promotes inclusivity, another barrier broken down. "Hmmph, you're more dimwitted than I thought" they hear, and turn around to see me hovering over their bed, bedecked in my badass pleather trenchcoat, my face hidden behind my long fringe with chartreuse frosted tips. The fringe moves as I talk. "Baka desu ka desu ne, baka-kun!" The student doesn't understand me and blathers about how racist nigel farage is for being white and how they don't like top gear. "Hmmph" I grunt, unimpressed "I'd already predicted your next three sentences and disproved you in Japanese". Bemused, they go to google translate and realise I am right, I have defeated them intellectually before they have even begun. "Bu..but Palastine" they bleat, sweating visibly.  "Mediocre dunce" I snarl, drawing my katana (Aquamarine skull pommel, lace tassels) and I cut them into 55 million pieces, the amount of money we send to brussels every day. The other SOAS students wake up and begin clapping for me, the spell lifted, but I am already gone.

Please write a book

gilbertharding

Why is it SOAS? I think it should be SAOS for exactly half the week - changing at midday on Sunday.

Dr Trouser

What the hell happened to SOAS? They were one of the few places who put on bands you'd never heard of in the late 80s. I remember going down to see Mudhoney and Soundgarden plus a few others.

Not sure 'touch me I'm sick' would go down well in today's climate then.

biggytitbo

Quote from: PlanktonSideburns on December 12, 2018, 08:42:47 AM
Their gig their rules, one event organisers decision does not a news article make. People should get the name of the person who wrote this article and send him death threats until he has to work in an over 25k box factory till the bottom of his spine is ground into a wet paste. The gig organiser should be left to his strange cares in obscurity, the dream of any comedy promoter these days


Yes, the story is clickbait. The gig rules, well they're shite aren't they, now I am aware of their existence.

gilbertharding

Would 'Touch Me I'm Sick' be problematic in 2018? I suppose the protagonist is giving consent to be touched (and later in the song, fucked), in spite of his illness, but it's open whether or not the consent was asked for.

I mean, he's been bad. He's been worse. And by his own admission he's both a creep and a jerk - which does suggest that whomever he's approaching might be better advised to give him a swerve... but we aren't made aware in the lyrics of the power dynamic in the relationship...

See also: 'Full On Kevin's Mom'.

H-O-W-L

Behold the thousand realms of toss that I shall spare for this article. Guard your mind, for what you're about to see might stun you:

sevendaughters

find it telling that this guy ran to the media and now his twitter is all RTs of academics who disagree with multiculturalism as a thing, absolute opportunist bullshit artist who won't even make it further than The Comedy Terrorist

manticore


Pingers

Quote from: Travis B on December 12, 2018, 12:51:09 AM

Apart from the issues raised, who the fuck wants to go a to a comedy gig which takes place in 'an environment where joy, love and acceptance are reciprocated by all'


I reckon Play-it-Safe Paul had a ticket. Right looking forward to it, he was.

Thomas

#23
Quote from: Travis B on December 12, 2018, 12:51:09 AM
What do people think about this, PC gone mad or just the usual blathering of a student group?

The second.

I take part in the ol' stand-up, and a lot of my cohorts at present are passionately waxing away about how political correctness is trying to censor us to death, and how comedy is the vanguard of free speech, and stephenfryoffense.jpeg.

My feeling is that this sort of thing is more emblematic of small groups of people - the blathering students you mention - clumsily working out ideas for a more inclusive world. On rare (but swiftly and critically amplified) occasions, things like this happen.

A song is briefly banned from a radio station you've never heard of. A gig somewhere establishes misguided rules about offense. One person says something soft, then a thousand people hear about it and express disbelief. Then a thousand more hear about it, and can't believe that political correctness has gone so mad.

Tiny little things, only the few most absurd results of a wider, well-meaning push towards inclusivity and kindness.

Of course, the likes of The Sun and the Mail like to amplify and exaggerate these things, to depict a society gone sensitive-mad, when actually the opposite is true. The ruling establishment have implemented the most horrible policies, disproportionately affecting lives on the bottom rung. But, of course, righteous routines about political correctness and Apu are easier and funnier than attacking Universal Credit.

I think that the people (like some of the comics I know) kicking up a righteous free-speech fuss have failed to think about the matter beyond the tabloid-presented surface, and their edgy kickback is actually deeply conservative. It's exciting to feel that you're on the last line of defense of free speech, though, and to cling to some sense that the jester serves a valiant purpose, so I do understand the overzealous reaction.

Twed


Brundle-Fly

As a student during the eighties, even though some people were very politicised and for want of a better expression, "right on", I don't recall any student body being so imposing or wielding such power on campus. When did this all change?  My first memory of internal uni activism was Steve Albini's Rapeman gigs being blocked by various student unions on the grounds of taste.

manticore

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on December 12, 2018, 06:41:28 PM
As a student during the eighties, even though some people were very politicised and for want of a better expression, "right on", I don't recall any student body being so imposing or wielding such power on campus. When did this all change?  My first memory of internal uni activism was Steve Albini's Rapeman gigs being blocked by various student unions on the grounds of taste.

In this particular case though, the SOAS SU have repudiated the censorious attitude of possibly a single 'overzealous' person and stated a commitment to free speech.

I think actually radical student politics started to shrink around the beginning of the '80s and probably before, and isn't nearly as prominent now on campuses as it was then. I could observe it happening during my student years from '80-'83. In 1980 the officers at my student's union were mostly members of the Socialist Students Alliance, which was a marxist group. There were leaflets distributed over the campus every day, occupations of administrative buildings to protest against education cuts etc. That had already begun to reduce by '83 and a libertarian right-winger was very nearly elected SU president before I left.

I spoke to a lecturer at Essex University in the late 90s, and he talked about how in the '70s there were huge revolutionary banners visible from the SU building, but when I did some studying there there was hardly any sign of political activity of any kind, posters advertising meetings or anything - a bit different from Barclays Bank being burned down in the mid-70s.  Though obviously a lot of those 70s students were acting out a phase and left to live middle of the road lives or work in the City or whatever.

It appears to me that the vestiges of student politics have turned largely in on themselves towards issues of identity.

Quote from: manticore on December 12, 2018, 08:49:19 PM
It appears to me that the vestiges of student politics have turned largely in on themselves towards issues of identity.

Not in my experience. Lots of anti austerity stuff when I was at uni. Only extremely online old hogs who mainline Sp!ked magazine still think that 'students only talk about identity politics'. It's just a dumb, fake talking point that older people use to flatter themselves with

Sebastian Cobb


Brundle-Fly

Quote from: manticore on December 12, 2018, 08:49:19 PM
In this particular case though, the SOAS SU have repudiated the censorious attitude of possibly a single 'overzealous' person and stated a commitment to free speech.

I think actually radical student politics started to shrink around the beginning of the '80s and probably before, and isn't nearly as prominent now on campuses as it was then. I could observe it happening during my student years from '80-'83. In 1980 the officers at my student's union were mostly members of the Socialist Students Alliance, which was a marxist group. There were leaflets distributed over the campus every day, occupations of administrative buildings to protest against education cuts etc. That had already begun to reduce by '83 and a libertarian right-winger was very nearly elected SU president before I left.

I spoke to a lecturer at Essex University in the late 90s, and he talked about how in the '70s there were huge revolutionary banners visible from the SU building, but when I did some studying there there was hardly any sign of political activity of any kind, posters advertising meetings or anything - a bit different from Barclays Bank being burned down in the mid-70s.  Though obviously a lot of those 70s students were acting out a phase and left to live middle of the road lives or work in the City or whatever.

It appears to me that the vestiges of student politics have turned largely in on themselves towards issues of identity.

In 1987, I recall a lecturer criticising our class for being complacent compared to his militant student days of the 1960's, so I guess it's been swings and roundabouts?. My mate became a mature student in the mid-90s and commented that the faculty then only seemed to be passionate about politics in the broadest terms. ie: racism, sexism, vivisection = bad but generally disengaged.