Main Menu

Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 06:13:04 PM

Login with username, password and session length

Feminism in comedy

Started by The Mollusk, September 12, 2020, 03:50:03 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

phantom_power

Arguing like a bunch of women we are

Thursday

Quote from: Ballad of Ballard Berkley on September 28, 2020, 04:38:49 PM
Och, just fuck this. It's ruining a potentially interesting thread. I'm so sorry.

Idiot men bickering in a thread about feminism. Christ almighty.

Yeah sorry to act like the thread policeman, and I know I helped start the shit-flinging, but it would be best if people got back to the original topic as it was interesting at first.

It's difficult to know what to do in these situations though, because you don't want to let a comment like that pass, but you don't want to drag the thread away from something more interesting.

It's one of the problems with informal online discussions though-that, without being Politically Correct  Thought Police, it is necessary to just flat-out exclude some points of view in order to have a decent discussion. To give a much less inflammatory and political example, if you were having a debate about classic films and someone declared "All films made in black and white are rubbish!", the whole conversation is just derailed for good if everyone else starts taking this person seriously, even if they're being sincere.

Autopsy Turvey

Quote from: Ballad of Ballard Berkley on September 28, 2020, 04:29:56 PM
Yes he has. Your turn.

Ah right, well fair enough then.

I don't believe there's anyone who doesn't find women funny, most of the biggest and best films and sitcoms have funny women in them. Was anyone hooting at Eric Sykes and stonily clamming up when Hattie Jacques did her lines?

I suppose it depends what wave/level of feminism we're talking about, is it comedy that generally celebrates female equality and independence, in which case it is Gert and Daisy, or do the performers need to be well versed in academic misandrist dogma. There should be more of the latter in comedy, Andrea Dworkin's writing has certainly made me laugh out loud a good deal.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

What a funny, clever man you are.

Jake Thingray

Quote from: MortSahlFan on September 27, 2020, 10:49:16 PM
lol @ the gestapo thought police

I was merely making the point that the type of viewpoints that go unremarked upon on the Steve Hoffman Forums would elicit a very different response on here. (On a thread on said place titled "Searching for new, fine British sitcom", suggestions made included Are You Being Served? and Last of the Summer Wine.)

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Mort won't have a clue what any of that means, Jake, he doesn't like comedy.

Jake Thingray

Your suggestion of Peter Skellern for the aforementioned thread, and his uncomprehending reaction, were both hilarious in different ways.

Retinend

How many people here are on the Steve Hoffman forums? I recently joined myself, appreciating that there I won't get trolled for liking the Beatles 🙄

Horses for courses.

Menu

Quote from: Retinend on September 29, 2020, 07:33:57 AM
How many people here are on the Steve Hoffman forums? I recently joined myself, appreciating that there I won't get trolled for liking the Beatles 🙄

Horses for courses.

Their Macca ones are sometimes quite interesting.

Jake Thingray

Presumably, they judge Sir Paul to be inferior to Pat Boone, or any of the sub-Beverley Sisters acts who were musical guests on the horrible Hill's show.

Retinend

Just got around to watching Jena Friedman's stand-up special "American Cunt", as recommended before the thread got killed.

She is great at finding a satirical ground between the edgy and the mainstream liberal position on things. It's like how in the "Campus Rape" episode of "Soft Focus" she skewers both the hysterical and blasé viewpoints on sexual politics on campus, and lets you decide for yourself how she feels about the whole mess of a discourse. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usg2TDnRcKE

In this stand-up special she covers the thorny issues of transsexualism in sports, supposedly sexist language, the effects of estrogen and testosterone, abortion, and all the while and never says exactly what you expect "her" (as her hyper-liberal persona) to say.

For example in one joke, she sets up how awful and patriarchal it is for abortion doctors to try to guilt you into walking away by handing you a picture of your foetus in a 4x4. Then she drops the punchline that they should hand you a 4x4 of you aged 60, childless and alone, struggling to climb your own staircase.

Brilliant joke. Yet it doesn't pretend to resolve the issue in the slightest. That's the mark of a good satirist: they don't try to put things right.

Hers is like an evolution of Sarah Silverman's ditzy liberal persona; incorporating a more skeptical eye; provocative streak, but still standing for something. Hers is definitely a form of stand-up that asks more questions than it answers. Sort of like Carlin or Hicks had they been able to say "...but what do I know? go work it out yourself" (no I'm not a fan of theirs).

Also, she has a great look, with the skinny jeans and the oversized black blouse and "just-dried" hair. Very confident and on-point all around. I like her even more now.


jenna appleseed

Quote from: MortSahlFan on September 27, 2020, 10:49:16 PM
lol @ the gestapo thought police

ironic when the forum you or your namesake posts on *allegedly* contains some genuine neo-Nazis.
(one of the few non-male/stereotypical boomer/racist/right wing/Trump supporter SHF members (mostly lurking & slightly trolling the forum with my presence), who doesn't think The Beatles invented everything or only like Black musicians if they're safely ancient/dead.)

gilbertharding

As they were mentioned upthread, this might be the place to mention I've been rewatching French and Saunders - which is on the iPlayer.

The first series doesn't really hit its stride, although the fact it has several moments I remember distinctly from more than 30 years ago must say something.

I'm up to series 4 now, where they've definitely refined the formula, but it's still pretty amazing.

Fairly sure it's feminist. Don't think that was a problem, back then.

Fairly sure there would be people who didn't think it was funny, too. Jen's surly demeanor is quite low-key, and I can see it going over a lot of people's heads - but Dawn is a brilliant clown.

A lot of sketches go on for quite a long time, but that wouldn't have been an issue back then I don't think.

Anyone? New thread


*edit* Ah- there's already a thread. Sorry. https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=80653.0

phantom_power

The Good Place gets pretty feminist in places, particularly when the douchey bloke turns up and they try to make him nicer