Michael Che of 'SNL' accused of transphobia over Biden's military executive order joke.

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[–]RedEyedWarriorGay | Male | 🇮🇪 Irish 🇮🇪 | Antineoliberal | Cocks are Compulsory 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

I find late night shows like SNL unfunny. I dunno, maybe my sense of humour is unusual, but my humour is based on self-deprecation, black comedy, offensive comedy, inconvenient truths, shock or slapstick. None of these things would fly on programmes like SNL.

[–]lovelyspearmintLesbeing a lesbian 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

The point of comedy, in its purest form, is to make fun of something/someone or for something/someone to be hurt in the process of the joke. If if doesn't contain one of these elements, the joke won't be funny. Now, you've still got wordplay jokes and that sort of thing, but it seems TRAs can't take any kind of joke directed at them, even though there are plenty of other jokes about other protected classes, not just them.

[–]ArthnoldManacatsaman🇬🇧🌳🟦 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I read something similar recently! Something about the philosophy of comedy nd it’s historical origins always boils down to someone being the butt of the joke. It might have been here on Saiddit but I can’t recall now.

[–]PenseePansyBio-Sex or Bust 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This is a subject that I've been fascinated with for a while now; was just discussing it over on Discord. What IS comedy/humor, in fact? How would you explain it to an extraterrestrial? Such a basic thing, seemingly-- probably the most popular, and in many ways safest, of genres... yet also utterly mysterious. (And I'd argue that our quintessential response, laughter, is just as odd. Other animals-- as indicated by the standard online phrase "made me laugh so hard I scared the dog/cat"-- certainly seem to think so.)

Here's my best shot at defining humor: it's a subversion of expectations, where any potential threat (as from surprise) is diffused at the last minute. So we're caught off-balance, then reassured. We thought that we knew where it was going, but we were deliberately misled... and that's OK. Often, the "OK" comes from a sense of general non-seriousness (even if the subject is inherently serious); this promotes a feeling of control, that WE are in a position to ridicule this thing, and derive pleasure from it thereby.

Maybe THAT'S what's meant by someone/something being the "butt of the joke"? That sense of power, control? Though I'd say it's not so much over a person, or even a thing, as... reality. Life. Existence. We manipulate it with humor; we impose our POV on it... we laugh at it.

So when humor fails, I posit that it's a matter of either the subversion or the diffusion failing (or both). In the first case, the audience doesn't share the comedian's expectation, so subverting it leads to "... I don't get it." In the second case, the threat isn't diffused, which leads to, "hey-- THAT'S not funny, asshole!!!"

Andy Kaufman's (rather philosophical) approach illustrates these points: he subverted the expectations of comedy ITSELF, and (for good measure) only diffused the threat in the sense that nothing serious was actually threatened (besides the audience's complacency). It's one of the most original takes on comedy that I've ever heard of, even all these years later.

[–]RedEyedWarriorGay | Male | 🇮🇪 Irish 🇮🇪 | Antineoliberal | Cocks are Compulsory 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

TRAs and people like them have no sense of humour. Or maybe they are insecure. Another possibility is that they were made fun of when they were at school and they never learned from it. Most people were made fun of when we went to school, though. I was often the butt of jokes among my peers until I learned to take a joke, corrected aspects of my behaviour to help me socialise better and embraced the flaws that I could do nothing about. Then my peers started to respect me. I also realised that everyone at school is the butt of a joke, so I stopped taking things personally. Unfortunately, some people never learn to lighten up, and these are not the type of people you’d want in positions of power.

Admittedly, sometimes people do go too far. Especially when it comes to a subject that is personal and easy to be ignorant about. But we’ve all gone too far at some point. I even admit that there have been times where I’ve gone too far making fun of someone. That’s why apologies exist. But some people are so thin skinned that you can’t even breathe without setting them off.

[–]lovelyspearmintLesbeing a lesbian 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This reminds me of a statistic TRAs threw around a few months back. Apparently some large percent of transpeople were bullied at school, and that they needed more rights and protections at schools...except they missed the fact that most kids will be bullied at some point in school or in adult life. The ones lucky enough not to be bullied are either bullies themselves or non-descript enough to not be a target.