knock yourselves out: "punching up" in american comedy
~not starting with deadnaming caitlyn jenner
"But as the late political satirist, and quite humorous, Molly Ivins once put it, "Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful. I only aim at the powerful. When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel- it's vulgar.""
Garry Trudeau "Satire punches up, against authority of all kinds, the little guy against the powerful...Ridiculing the non-privileged is almost never funny--it's just mean."
"Here, in the land of unbridled speech and plucky self-reliance, even the lowliest among us is free to snark upon the high and mighty-- and playing the scrappy David our entitled Goliaths is, arguably, more important to us than actually being funny."
~i think that being kind and good is more important than being funny, and i think maybe that's unique to me, but i think that that is one of my core beliefs about my life. it's not necessarily how i view comedy, but for me, i'm not going to make a joke that i don't think is good in the moral sense. to me it should hit both of those metrics.
talking about comedy in the time of slavery, "What they reveal is that to punch up, you only have to convince your audience that you are the little guy, while your satirical targets represent the powerful, the elite. In other words, to own the moral high ground, you have to play to the cultural low ground."
maybe this is why it's easier for marginalized comics to make jokes that punch up -- they don't need to convince anyone of their oppression because it's readily visible
talks about how in "chris rock's poisonous legacy" that whoever does respectability politics shit positions themselves as a truthteller that's revealing truths from the inside about black people
interesting stuff about amy schumer~ should look into her more
~ooooo amy.....
describing the bro-centric new york comedy scene "In this crowd, explanations weaken jokes, apologies ruin them, and even Cumia is worth defending."
"Hipster irony is a thin defense for racist jokes, particularly with several centuries of unironic, blatantly racist humor in America preceding them. Last year, comic Heben Nigatu summed up this threadbare line of thought in a cogent tweet: "'It's satire'-ancient white people proverb.""
"in early July, Schumer backed off from the joke. "I used to do a lot of short dumb jokes like this," she wrote. "I played a dumb white girl character on stage. I still do sometimes. Once I realized I had more eyes and ears on me and had an influence I stopped telling jokes like that on stage. I am evolving as an artist. I am taking responsibility and hope I haven't hurt anyone.""
"Schumer's aligned herself with the safer side for now, the liberal comfort comedy you rarely have to explain to Americans--punching up."
sort of talks about amy schumer as someone who was like maybe scorned by like "liberal comedy" and sort of changed as a reaction to that response
I sort of bristle at the notion that liberal comedy or trying to make comedy that is like. punching up? is the safer side. like yes i think that it's probably going to be better received, but i guess that comes back to the question of what is the purpose of comedy. i personally don't think the purpose of comedy is just to reinforce existing oppressive structures. i think it's to be funny. i think comedy is a weapon and i generally don't believe in using it against the little guy. i think that there's like some sense out there that making conservative jokes or like offensive jokes is unsafe and like destabilizing and edgy and cool, but i think that the opposite is true. why is it edgy to say you hate black people or women or queer people or disabled people. like we know you do, everyone does, and it's not great! idk
