Category Archives: Alleged Comedy

D.A.D.D. is S.T.U.P.I.D.D. (Stereotypical Thinking Underscoring a Patriarchal Ideology of Domination & Desperation)

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JC Schildbach, LMHC

(Once again, with all apologies for the overly hetero-normative tone of the piece).

Shopping for Father’s Day gifts can be hard.

A lot of dads will say they don’t want or need anything. Or if they do want something, it’s probably very specific to their particular tastes.

That’s at least in part why the buy-dad-an-unwanted-tie jokes have gone on year after year.

And speaking of jokes, one of the most enduring Father’s Day gifts is the joke T-shirt—or, rather, the T-shirt with the dad-related joke on it. You know the ones—touting dad’s love for beer, or naps, or fishing, or farting.

And those are all perfectly fine, I suppose.

But one gift you don’t want to get your father this year, or any time, is the “D.A.D.D.: Dads Against Daughter’s Dating” T-shirt. The T-shirt exists in many forms, and is available from Internet T-shirt sites and Etsy shops, all the way to the Father’s Day gift displays of department stores.

Many of said T-shirts simply have the main phrase, like this one:

For bland dads who want to make a sexist statement.

For bland dads who want to make a sexist statement.

But the full joke involves a follow up line of “Shoot the first one and the word will spread” or a similarly-worded joke about shooting any boy who asks a girl out, like this shirt, here:

For dads who feel the need to aggressively advertise their insecurities.

For dads who feel the need to aggressively advertise their insecurities.

I’ve written before about the whole cultural insistence on threatening boys with violence because of their interest in girls, even when that interest is totally age-appropriate. I don’t understand what such threats are supposed to accomplish, or why such jokes are supposed to be funny.

Most of the responses to questions about the alleged humor of such jokes involve adult men saying that they know what they were like themselves when they were teenagers, and so they know they need to set young men straight/keep them in line.

But I’m not sure if they are thinking clearly about what they are saying.

Are they saying that they needed an adult male to threaten violence against them (or their teenage selves) in order to keep them from raping a girl who agreed to go out on a date with them?

Or perhaps it’s that, as teenagers, they went on dates that ultimately led to kissing, or groping, or any of a number of acts all the way up to and including full-blown intercourse, because their dates were agreeable to engaging in such acts with them—and somehow they think that the best way to prevent their own daughters from being like the girls that they dated is to threaten any teenager who dates their daughters.

But that explanation spawns a whole host of other questions. Did those men, as teenagers and into adult life, really hate the girls they dated in high school so much that they live in fear of their own daughters behaving like those girls? And, if those men did, as teenagers, go out with any of ‘those girls’ (the kind who would engage in at least some form of sexual activity), did threats of violence really shut the men (then boys) down or get them to abstain from sex when it was being offered consensually?

Of course, there is the rather unpleasant possibility that those men are announcing that, as teenagers, they really did engage in sexual assault, and they believe that it was the responsibility of adult males—or more specifically, the fathers of their dates—to stop them from such behavior.

I’m guessing that if someone needs to be a tough-guy dad, threatening one’s daughter’s dates (who happen to be someone else’s children) with physical violence, all because of how one remembers one’s own teenage years, there are a lot of unresolved issues there. And perhaps those issues are manifesting themselves in a need to try and control one’s own daughters—and more specifically one’s own daughters’ sexual behavior, or their potential for sexual behavior. It’s essentially staking a claim to, and asserting a property right over, a teenage girl’s body.

At base, it is an assertion that girls and women are the property of men—first their fathers, and then their husbands. One implication of the anti-dating sentiment is that girls and women should skip dating altogether, and swear off interactions with boys and men, especially sex, until they are married. Essentially, it’s suggesting that there should be a title transfer of the female body/person from dad to husband.

In addition, it is an assertion that all teenage boys are in the throes of raging hormones to the point where they cannot control themselves—or at least not without the threat of violence and death to keep them in check. This, of course, is the kind of “boys will be boys” garbage that both encourages and excuses insufferably sexist behavior, up to and including sexual assault.  It is the idea that the behavior of boys and men necessarily involves violence of all sorts.

It is also a kind of challenge to teenage boys—prove you’re a man by persuading a girl to go to bed with you, while dodging the violent father who wants to put a stop to it. In other words, it’s macho crap that perpetuates notions of who is responsible for their behavior, who is not, and how people need to be controlled. It posits the idea that boys are supposed to want sex, and take it when they can, but that girls are not, and are supposed to resist it until it is forced upon them. It promotes the idea of relationships as conquest—at least for males.

If you deny the inherent sexism, stupidity, and outright creepiness of the joke, then why aren’t there T-shirts promoting the idea that boys shouldn’t be allowed to date?

Where are the D.A.S.D. (Dad’s Against Son’s Dating) shirts? Or perhaps the M.A.S.D. (Mother’s Against Sons Dating) shirts? Or even the M.A.D.D. (Mother’s Against Daughters Dating) shirts? Although that last acronym is taken (which could spawn a whole other piece of commentary about why anybody is deliberately “spoofing” Mother’s Against Drunk Driving).

Why not shirts with “M.A.  I.S.  G.O.D.: Mother’s Against Innocent Sons Going Out on Dates”?

Maybe it’s just that the M.A.S.D. and D.A.S.D. shirts don’t have a very catchy acronym—although I suppose you could make them into D.A.D.S. and M.A.D.S shirts—except that the phrasing gets problematic. I mean, we don’t really want Dads or Moms to be “for” dating sons—especially if the implication of the D.A.D.S. and M.A.D.S. shirts would be that parents are standing up against dating their own daughters and sons. Oh–but wait—there is that whole creepy Daddy-Daughter Date Night thing out there, isn’t there?

I guess when parents get overly obsessed with controlling the sexual behavior of their teenage offspring, things just automatically get creepy.

Overall, rather than getting into these stupid threats of violence, and assertions of rights over the bodies of others, why not, instead, teach all of our kids how to be empathetic, and respectful to themselves and others, when it comes to matters of physicality and sexuality? Why not teach them, both boys and girls, how to avoid succumbing to feelings of peer pressure, or partner pressure, to engage in sex when they are not ready? Why not teach them basic, factual sex education, starting from an early age, so that they will not view sex as some weird mystery, some taboo subject, something that cannot be approached because of the threat of violence, or of damnation, for such approach?

You can teach children and teens the real risks of sexual activity—whether those risks are physical or emotional–without making the main threat one of pointless aggression. And you can teach them how to reduce (not completely eliminate) the potential for unwanted physical or emotional consequences, without having to promote the idea that those people dating daughters should live under threat of violence for wanting to date, or even for having sexual feelings.

Or, perhaps we can keep making obnoxious jokes and T-shirts promoting the idea that daughters’ “purity” needs to be owned and protected by fathers, to the point where threats of violence and murder against other people’s children seem totally appropriate.

In line with those stereotypes and attitudes, how about some of the following, somewhat tortured, acronyms as T-shirts:

D.I.P.C.H.I.T.  Dad’s Instigating Pissing Contests w/ Horny Impulsive Teenagers

W.T.F.  D.A.D.? Why The Fascination w/ Denying Autonomy for Daughters?

D.O.D.G.E. Dad’s Obsessed w/ Daughter’s Genitals—Eww!

I.  A.M.  O.C.T.O.P.U.S. Insecure Adult Males Obsessed w/ Controlling Their Offspring’s Puberty Und Sexuality

I’m sure you all can come up with some acronyms that might work with the idea above.

Or maybe we can just shorten that original acronym to what it really means, and think about better ways to deal with it:

D.A.D.  Dad’s Afraid of Daughters

Happy Father’s Day!

Elonis and the ‘Art’ of the Online Threat

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JC Schildbach, LMHC

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that making threats on social media isn’t always making threats on social media.

Call it the jk standard.

Or don’t call it that. That’s not really what the Supreme Court decided.

In this particular case, (Elonis v. United States, 13-983 U.S. ___ (2015)) a rather sad and unpleasant man named Anthony Douglas Elonis took to calling himself “Tone Dougie” on Facebook, where he wrote and posted “lyrics” and “comedy routines” involving threats to his ex-wife, former co-workers, an FBI agent, and elementary school children. But the Supreme Court really only decided whether the jury that convicted Elonis of criminal offenses was given the appropriate instructions for deciding that conviction.

So, the Supreme Court was not looking at whether Elonis legitimately acted in a criminal fashion, but whether the jury was instructed to apply the wrong standard in his case. In the court that convicted Elonis, the jury was asked to apply the “reasonable person” standard that is used in civil cases involving threats, when they should have been asked to apply the “criminal intent” standard that is used in criminal cases.

In other words, it’s as if the jury was instructed to decide whether Elonis should be forced to pay a financial penalty to the people he antagonized, and the jury said ‘yes,’ so Elonis got thrown in prison. The question the jury was asked did not match up with the penalty Elonis received—legally anyway.

So, while “reasonable persons” might recognize that Elonis was deliberately threatening his wife and numerous other people, a criminal conviction generally requires a standard of “criminal intent”—or proof that it was Elonis’ intent to threaten his wife, and the others.

The jury should have been instructed to decide whether Mr. Elonis had intended for his posts to be viewed as threats by those people who were the targets of those threats. Elonis argued that his posts were just “art” and a “therapeutic” way of working through his pain after his wife took their children and left him. Elonis and his lawyers pointed to Eminem as an artist who has built much of his career on songs threatening violence against his ex, and to the other posts on Elonis’ facebook feed where he asserted he was engaging in protected free speech, joking, or that otherwise had nothing to do with the threats, as proof that Elonis was not deliberately threatening anybody.  That is, Elonis argued that he had artistic and self-soothing intent, not intent to threaten anybody. And, although reasonable people might call bullshit on Mr. Elonis’ argument, reasonable people don’t count here.

There is ample evidence to suggest that Mr. Elonis did, in fact, intend for his targets to feel threatened. For instance, one of his jaunty little poems/rap songs questioned whether his wife’s protection order–granted because a judge saw that there was legitimate reason to keep Mr. Elonis away from his wife and their children–would, when folded up and stuffed in her pocket, be “thick enough to stop a bullet.” That same “poem” included claims that Elonis stood to earn plenty of money in a “settlement” against the police, and claims to own explosives that could be used against state police and sheriffs.

A little background from the court opinion, highlighting Elonis' 'art.'

A little background from the court opinion, highlighting Elonis’ ‘art.’

Another of Elonis’ quirky little fantasies involved slitting the throat of the (female) FBI agent who was sent to his house to question him about a Facebook post wherein Mr. Elonis suggested he was going to gain fame by shooting up an elementary school.

Elonis also posted some “art” suggesting that he could easily sneak into the Halloween events at the amusement park he was fired from, in order to engage in violence.

Such fun. So expressive.

Grammar fans are also upset by Elonis’ use of the botched phrase, “if worse comes to worse,” in his poem about his wife’s protection order.

There were other posts involving insults and threats against his wife, calling her a slut and a whore, indicating he should have smothered her with a pillow, posting floor plans of the house where she was staying, and describing how, from a nearby cornfield, he would have a clear shot in through some glass doors at said house.

And beyond just the words that Elonis posted, there were plenty of other indications that his words were meant as more than just artistic expressions.

For instance, Elonis called his sister-in-law to make sure his wife had seen his posts on Facebook. And, prior to threatening his co-workers online, he was fired, in part, because he had begun to undress in front of a female coworker after cornering her in her office one night.

But—and this is a big but—the Supreme Court wasn’t deciding whether Elonis’ actions were A-OK, or whether he was engaging in acts of protected speech. In fact, the Court declined to address the issues of free speech, since the main question was about whether Elonis had been wrongly convicted.

Simply stated, the Court decided that, because Elonis was convicted on criminal charges by a jury using the standards for a civil decision, Elonis had been wrongly convicted of a criminal offense.

This is not to say that the jury would not or should not have convicted Elonis had the jury been given the appropriate instructions–to decide Elonis’ (criminal) guilt based on whether he had criminal intent to threaten his wife and other parties—rather than deciding whether a reasonable person would have recognized Elonis’ words and actions as threatening.

"Ammo Can Kiss." Media: Selfie. Artist: Tone Dougie

“Ammo Can Kiss.” Media: Selfie. Artist: Tone Dougie

So take heart, reasonable people. The Elonis case does not mean that threats are now a protected form of speech. I would guess that a jury would likely see Elonis’ behavior as meeting the criminal standard of having legitimate intent to threaten—given the specificity of the targets and actions laid out in his ‘rap lyrics.’ That the targets of Elonis’ behavior took his words as legitimate threats, and lived in fear of what he might do, and that his “art” provoked the necessity for a visit and monitoring by the FBI, suggests that Elonis was not somebody who was just a misunderstood artist.

Yet, that’s a question for another day. Or, put a different way, the Supreme Court makes decisions based on the questions it gets, not the questions the public wants answered. And the only question the Court really decided here was whether the jury got the right instructions to make the decision they were tasked with making in the Elonis case.

To be sure, the Supreme Court’s decision leads to a shift in how cases like Elonis’ will have to be prosecuted. Plenty of lower courts have allowed criminal convictions using the same “reasonable person” standard that was used in the Elonis case. And the “criminal intent” standard can be much harder to prove.

There is much to be said about how to successfully address online threats, and questions of how our slow-moving legal system can adequately respond to rapidly- changing technology and online environments. For practical advice on those issues, Crash Override, started by Gamergate target Zoe Quinn, is an excellent resource

And in related entertainment news, I’m guessing Tone Dougie’s album drops around the 12th of Never.

Really Lowes? and Sherwin Williams? and HGTV? Mocking Mental Illness as an Ad Strategy

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JC Schildbach, LMHC

Lowes decided to announce its rollout of Sherwin Williams’ line of “HGTV Home” paint by crafting an ad that plays on popular ideas about some of the most well-known artists in history (and pop culture), each jealously challenging the notion of who is “the most legendary name in paint.”

Well, okay, “Mr. Happy Little Trees” Bob Ross doesn’t come across as jealous.

But Leonardo da Vinci, Andy Warhol, and Michelangelo all do.

Vincent van Gogh just comes across as…well, you can watch it here:  

Get it? It’s funny because you think he’s saying “what?” because he cut off his ear. But then you realize it’s actually funny because van Gogh is suffering from psychosis or whatever would make him talk to a pigeon.

Hilarious—right?

He talks to pigeons. How clever.

He talks to pigeons. How clever.

Of course, nobody diagnosed van Gogh with a particular mental illness during his lifetime, particularly not from a current understanding of mental illness. Perhaps the most popular theory of van Gogh’s troubles is that they stemmed from Bipolar Disorder. Whatever the case, eventually van Gogh died of complications from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, following numerous other episodes of emotional difficulties and self-harm.

I want to be clear that I don’t have any particular axe to grind with any of the businesses in question (even if I should for one reason or another). I shop at Lowes regularly.  And even though Sherwin Williams has that terrible “Cover the Earth” logo, cover the earth all of the paint we’ve used in our home has come from our neighborhood Sherwin Williams store, except for the paint in the upstairs bathroom, and the stain on the deck, which we got at Lowes. And I watch HGTV (and the DIY Network) enough that M wishes I would just get off the damn couch and make our house more beautiful (or at least just quit talking about all those projects and do them).

Still, it’s disappointing to see that the big punchline for the combined Lowes-Sherwin Williams-HGTV commercial involves mocking, specifically, somebody who suffered from mental illness, and, more generally, the idea of psychosis, particularly given that the commercial was rolled out at the beginning of Mental Health Awareness Month:  NIMH’s “Mental Health Awareness by the Numbers”

I suppose I could also point out that all of the artists in the commercial are white males. But given how the myriad options for art “jokes” involving white male artists were handled, I don’t have a lot of faith that a woman artist, or a non-white artist, would have fared much better when reduced down to a humorous reference that might be commonly understood.

Suey Park Out of Context, or How a Bunch of (Liberal) White Guys Proved #CancelColbert was Necessary and Didn’t Even Realize it. Part 4: Colbert Gets Snarky, Dodges the Issue

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With Cliven Bundy and Donald Sterling grabbing the headlines for their overt, easily-condemned racism, I really should have cranked out these Park/Colbert-related posts a lot quicker. After all, in the U.S.A. we can’t go all that long without another disturbing, race-related story coming to light. And so long as we have people like Bundy and Sterling saying such outrageous things, we can go along ignoring more subtle examples of racism, which really aren’t that subtle at all, as we pat ourselves on the back for not being as bad as those guys.

Still, when I started these posts calling #CancelColbert necessary, the underlying idea wasn’t that it was necessary to cancel “The Colbert Show,” but that the discussion that arose out of the #CancelColbert campaign was necessary, especially given the rather harsh, negative reaction to the campaign, not by the usual hard-right, proud racists, or even the Fox News fan base of racism deniers, but by a large group of people who count themselves among Colbert’s enlightened fans, those people largely being liberals or progressives. The necessity for the discussion was furthered by the severe freak-out aimed at Suey Park, the person behind the #CancelColbert campaign, and the avoidance of actually talking about whether it is okay for white people to use racist language targeting one group in order to criticize/satirize white racism against another group.

“It was a joke,” or “It was satire,” is simply not an adequate answer. It is exactly the kind of thing that Rush Limbaugh fans say anytime anybody criticizes him for his vulgarity and stupidity—“It’s just a joke. Get over it. Why are you so sensitive?”

The underlying debate is, arguably, another version of whether it is okay for white people to use “the n-word,” in any of its variations, and if they can expect that people will take it in the way they intend—or if it’s just plain offensive regardless. If you want to get down to finer points, it is possible to argue that Colbert’s language wasn’t specifically a racial slur against people of Asian descent, in the same way that “the n-word” is a slur against people of African descent. (Of course, maybe “people of African descent” isn’t the best description, since that includes everybody on the planet–but I think you take my meaning).  Still, the language Colbert used was not innocuous.

Consider it: “The Ching Chong Ding Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever.” Just imagine you heard this language, or more specifically, the “Ching Chong” or “Orientals” part, coming out of the mouth of a white person in a restaurant, or a bank, or pretty much any other public setting. Would it strike you as odd? Offensive? Would it seem perfectly okay? If one of your white friends used this language, would you call them on it? Ignore it? Analyze the context to determine if it was an acceptable use of those words?

My guess is that, unless you’re cool with racist digs at people of Asian descent, it might seem more than a little ‘off.’

Yet, despite the clearly offensive (sorry if I’m making assumptions) nature of the language, when Park called Colbert on the use of this language, a bunch of people attacked Park as lacking a sense of humor and failing to understand the context of the joke.  Rather than an exchange of reasonable viewpoints, the ugliest garbage the Internet can produce came flooding out—including targeting Park with unquestionably racist and sexist language, rape threats, and death threats. There was an all-out effort to tear Park down, without ever giving any real consideration to whether the language is, at base, offensive.

Several people, including Park, have noted that Colbert chose to craft the joke with offensive language targeting Asian people rather than other ethnic groups, exactly because it was accepted that the “Ching Chong” language would be seen as an obvious joke, whereas other racially-charged language wouldn’t be so readily viewed as ‘satire’—one underlying message being that Asian people are in on the (white people) joke, and cool enough not to get all freaked out about white people saying racist things in service of satire. Such a belief falls into ideas of Asians as the “model minority”—willing to go along to get along. When Park raised an issue by objecting to the language, fans of Colbert immediately shifted the issue away from Colbert using the language, and on to Asian people who “can’t take a joke.”

Now, I get that Colbert is arguably painted into a corner in that the character he plays on “The Colbert Report,” and the kind of person that character represents, would never issue an apology or acknowledge any kind of mistake or wrongdoing. And given that he is playing a character, it is more than difficult to say anything that would be taken sincerely, or really understood as him breaking character. Still, Colbert’s response, which notably did not refer to Suey Park by name even once despite showing a picture of her, was sadly lacking. It never once addressed the use of the particular language, or why it might be offensive, and instead, chose to repeat the language multiple times, while saying “not my fault” and “don’t take jokes out of context.”

You can watch the whole piece here:  Colbert’s Dodgy Response

Colbert’s response can be summed up in the following points (now drained of humor, sorry):

  1. I am playing a character.
  2. I was mocking Dan Snyder.
  3. The joke was repeated several times (reruns and social media) with no reaction.
  4. Somebody other than me sent the problem tweet.
  5. The tweet did not provide any context for the joke.
  6. The news media blew this out of proportion
  7. Michelle Malkin attacked me over this, and she is clearly worse than me.
  8. This took the attention off Dan Snyder and put it on me.
  9. I’ve done a number of other pieces involving race issues that would seem really bad out of context.

So much of this response seems as if it were crafted by handlers following social media reaction, who then ran it by a focus group just to make sure it would resonate with Colbert’s adoring public. It was a joke/satire—check. You’re taking it out of context—check. Don’t you get it?—check. Why now?/Why this?—check. Snyder is the issue here—check. This was blown out of proportion—check. Michelle Malkin sucks—check.

Colbert’s response, by failing to name Park, implies that Michelle Malkin—someone many Colbert fans despise—is the person most associated with the #CancelColbert campaign. It also has this creepy mythological undertone of refusing to name one’s enemy—“She Who Must Not be Named” in Harry Potter Parlance. Or, if you want to go into a history of racial issues involving naming and claiming, Columbus declaring, well, everything for Spain while refusing to acknowledge or accurately identify those he was claiming it from, or even concern himself with whether they were speaking the same language…

Okay, maybe that’s being a bit dramatic, but why couldn’t Colbert say who started the campaign, or even identify what she said was the underlying point? Don’t want to add any more to her (as every hack has written) 15 minutes of fame? Sorry, I don’t think Park is going away that soon, unless it is by her own choice. (And, btw, you don’t get to claim somebody and her particular form of communication is insignificant while also blaming her/it for allegedly derailing an important national conversation. Calling attention to a joke, thereby creating a national conversation is not the same thing as derailing a conversation that was already taking place). Don’t want to direct any attention toward her because then people might see that she has already engaged the same kinds of “hashtivist” campaigns in service against racist mascots? I guess it really doesn’t serve your attempt to tag someone as ‘anti-First-Nations’ if she’s shown support for First Nations people. Don’t want to answer the question regarding the use of particular forms of language? That sounds more like it.

I’d have at least a little more faith that Colbert’s audience is laughing at the sophisticated satire and context of the joke if they didn’t all giggle each time he used the “Ching Chong” language, as if they were toddlers hearing someone say “poopy.”

I’ll concede that Colbert isn’t the poster boy for racist comedy.  He’s been a voice for progressive causes, and has called out hypocrisy in politics, religion, and the media for a good long while.  Still, if someone questions something he does, it doesn’t speak highly of his audience if they are going to react with anger and hate–regardless of who is asking the question.  If someone asks whether Colbert’s language was racist, supporters of Colbert replying with name-calling, particularly grossly racist name-calling, doesn’t really lead to the conclusion that they are enlightened consumers of sophisticated comedy.

And when those supporters, and Colbert himself, dodge the actual question that was raised, they don’t appear to have some amazing sense of humor that the questioners lack.  They just look like they’re afraid of the question.

I’m still not sure why it was so impossible for (white, liberal) people to have this conversation in particular. I’m still not sure why Park had to be attacked by Colbert fans who were unable to accept the idea that maybe this kind of language should be dropped. After all, when Rush Limbaugh mocked Chinese President Hu Jintao with a ridiculous verbal stream of mock-Chinese “ching chong” talk, plenty of people rightfully criticized him.

Some have said the use of the language comes down to intent—that Limbaugh was talking in ignorance, while Colbert was talking with satire in mind.  And, sure, there’s a difference there. But isn’t that just a way of saying that we are laughing with Colbert, and laughing at Limbaugh? Or that Limbaugh was laughing at Asian people, while Colbert was laughing with Asian people?  But, then, where does that leave you when you find out that not all of the Asian people are laughing with you? Or at you? Or at all?

At base, it’s the same language. It’s the same stupid joke. Whether someone is laughing at or with somebody, they’re still laughing at the idea that all that “ching chong” talk is the basis of a good joke.

And when Colbert fans start decrying the people who questioned the use of the language in the first place, and acusing them of being anti-white, they sound an awful lot like those racism-denying Fox News fans—you know, the ones who think that the real race issue in America is that non-white people dared to admit that they aren’t all that happy with the way white people treat them—or talk about them.

Suey Park Out of Context, or How a Bunch of (Liberal) White Guys Proved That #CancelColbert Was Necessary and Didn’t Even Realize It. Part Three: Chez Pazienza’s Double-Filtered White Whine

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Chez Pazienza of “The Daily Banter” wasn’t even able to make it past the title of his piece about Prachi Gupta’s Salon.com interview with Suey Park, auteur of the #CancelColbert Twitter campaign, without stepping in it. Yes, Pazienza thoughtfully titled his non-analysis of the interview “We Read Salon’s Interview with Suey Park So You Don’t Have To.” That is to say, when a controversy blew up in regard to the use of racist terms in humor, based heavily on the idea that white privilege is at play, Pazienza (a self described “white guy”) responded by telling his audience not to read what the originator of the conversation, a person of color, had to say. Instead, Pazienza filtered what he calls Park’s “hashtag outrage” down to a more appropriate white-guy outrage at Park’s ideas, all while failing to actually address the bulk of the ideas Park touches on in the interview.

Pazienza provides two full paragraphs of his own vitriol before actually beginning to speak directly to anything Park said, proclaiming that the #CancelColbert campaign was never really about addressing racism, and all about Park calling attention to herself. Sounding like a Fox News curmudgeon/commentator decrying the elitism of educated folk, Pazienza bashes Park for her “mindless repetition of buzzwords and narratives drilled into a willing mind by a modern humanities and critical race theory education.” Pazienza’s imposed narrative, then, is that Park is a narcissist whose education has made her an academe-bot who is completely out of touch with reality and so should be duly ignored.

Pazienza further reports that he would “be curious to approach some of the Twitterati I respect who have inexplicably defended her and ask” (following the publication of the Salon.com interview), “if they feel like they still can.” Sending off a few private messages, or e-mails, making a phone call, or even reading through tweets that those “Twitterati” have posted is apparently too time-consuming for Pazienza, since it is much easier to make the blanket statement that such support is “inexplicable,” thereby avoiding the risk of being confronted with more ideas that Pazienza would then have to either ignore or misrepresent.

You can read the whole piece here: Pazienza strikes a blow for…well…even he doesn’t know.

Pazienza goes on to state that he “is not going to fully and seriously analyze the interview” but will instead “post some of the best excerpts of it here” and “leave it to you to decipher in the comment section,” because, of course, website comments sections are where real critical thinking and reasoned debate shines. Abdicating the writer’s responsibility to actually provide any kind of coherent analysis of the interview or the points therein, Pazienza instead lifts portions of the interview and makes snide comments about them without even attempting to show any understanding of anything, aside from how annoyed he got at reading said portions. It’s anyone’s guess as to why Pazienza thought he had put together a winning strategy for proving that Park, not Pazienza, is the unreasonable one.

Following his first selection from the interview, wherein Park says that the particular context of her #CancelColbert campaign is irrelevant to the larger conversation, Pazienza slams Park for her “combative tone.” Pazienza’s roughly-400-word introduction, trashing Park and (Paziena’s interpretation of) her intentions, is, in Pazienza’s view, appropriate to “reasonable, sane” people, while Park steering the conversation away from questions of specific context somehow shows she’s out of control.

Pazienza then skips over the part where Park explains her view that the ‘default position’ in the whole debate over #CancelColbert has been to read everything Park has said as literal while reading everything Colbert said as satire, and to assume Park didn’t understand why Colbert made the joke that he did. Among other things, that default position has led to the much-repeated storyline that Colbert’s use of hyperbole is justified, while Park’s use of hyperbole is simply misplaced anger. But, since Pazienza is trying to make a case that Park is aiming her anger at the wrong target(s), it’s best not to explain that she might have intentions/targets other than the ones Pazienza assigns to her.

Pazienza then includes several lines from the interview which involve Park explaining follow-up issues to the paragraph he left out, such as the idea of people of color being made to “use the right tone…in order to be heard.” But Pazienza already belittled those ideas up front, by labeling them “the problem with the world, according to Suey.” Funny that Pazienza chastises Park for her combative tone, then suggests Park is being ridiculous for pointing out that people of color are told to keep their tone in check. Or maybe that’s some of Pazienza’s own “sheer madness—or willful bullshit” to use his own words.

At any rate, Pazienza’s only takeaway from the tone-related excerpt is that Park uses the phrase “whiteness at large,” a phrase that Pazienza apparently believes to be so ludicrous that all he needs to do is repeat it to make it clear that the phrase, and whatever Park said in relation to it, is worthy of derision. (Perhaps if Pazienza hadn’t skipped that paragraph about hyperbole, he might be able to process some of this a little better). Of course, Pazienza does not bother to try and explain or contextualize the phrase—again inadvertently proving Park’s points for her. That is to say, Park connects the idea of “whiteness” or “whiteness at large” (as opposed to the specific Colbert joke and Colbert’s response to Park’s criticism) to the overall idea that it is made incumbent on people of color to understand the intentions of white people, while it is not considered reciprocally necessary for white people to try to understand the position of people of color. For example, Park has been repeatedly asked if she understands the context of Colbert’s joke, while those asking the question assume they understand what Park meant by her criticism of the joke—that assumption being that Park did not understand the context of Colbert’s joke or she would not have criticized it.

Park also made the comment about “whiteness at large” while explaining that she did not want the discussion of “oppressiveness” narrowed down and confined to either “The Colbert Report” or the particular joke that led to the #CancelColbert campaign. In other words, Colbert’s joke was not an isolated incident, and certainly such use of language is not only confined to Colbert. One can only guess that Pazienza believes that it was reasonable for Gupta to ask the question of whether it was Colbert’s TV show as a whole, or just one joke by Colbert, that was “oppressive,” and that that Park could have answered in any way that Pazienza would have found acceptable.

The next excerpt involves Park responding to a question about what she wants out of her “revolution,” which ends with Park asking for the question to be repeated because she was “distracted” by “a bird outside my window.” Pazienza labels this “the best Millennial-ADD moment or affected impression of an ADD-moment…you could possibly imagine.” For the time being, I’ll leave off any detailed discussion of the politics of using a diagnosable mental illness as an insult, and just ask what the hell is a “Millennial-ADD moment” or an “ADD-moment” at all?

Perhaps the more interesting question, though, is why, in an interview allegedly “edited for clarity and length,” the Salon.com editors thought there was some legitimate reason to include Park’s comment about being distracted, especially given that the editors set the sentence on it’s own—which they did not do with any other sentence in the interview. So, it appears that the editors deliberately set the particular sentence apart in such a fashion in order to call attention to it so they could paint Park as a flake. Or does Salon.com routinely print such comments in interviews? It seems impossible that Park was the first person ever in the history of Salon.com to get distracted during a phone interview and to ask for a question to be repeated. Yet Pazienza mocks Park for losing her train of thought, as if it is evidence of mental illness or some deep character flaw.

Pazienza goes on to accuse Park of “staggering narcissism” and “putting her work writing Twitter hashtags on the same level as civil rights pioneers who truly put their lives and futures on the line to advance noble causes.” And maybe it would have been pretty narcissistic for Park to put her work on the same level as civil rights pioneers, if she had, in fact, done that. But what she actually said is that “white America” has repeatedly asked people of color to be “reasonable” if they want white America to support them, and that “big historical figures in racial justice were never reasonable” and were “painted as crazy.” Park may be positioning herself in a historical pattern (a positioning which Pazienza inadvertently validates by accusing Park of being unreaonable and unstable), but she didn’t say anything like ‘my #CancelColbert campaign is set to eclipse MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech in terms of civil rights milestones’—although Pazienza implies Park has committed some such blasphemy.

One might also note that, on the matter of placing one’s life and future on the line, Park has received numerous death threats, rape threats, and been hit with a barrage of exceedingly offensive sexist and racist insults because she criticized something that her detractors have repeatedly characterized as “just a joke.” The threats, as Park notes in the interview, led to the necessary cancellation of some of Park’s public appearances due to safety concerns. I hope Pazienza thinks trolls who threaten rape and murder are a real problem, and wish that the existence of such trolls and threats would have provoked a more powerful response from Pazienza than his statement that Park “doesn’t deserve to be threatened” and that nobody should mock her for her “background or gender.” He does say, though, that Park should be mocked for her “deeply absurd opinions” which are “deserving of every bit of ridicule and derision that’s been heaped on them”–an argument that would hold more water if Pazienza showed any ability to articulate what those opinions actually are. One can only guess that Pazienza’s failure to examine Park’s arguments slips over into a failure to really consider the damage done by trolls who think nothing of engaging in assaultive behavior via Internet, and his unfortunate choice of diction leaves open the question of who Pazienza believes is actually deserving of threats.

Pazienza goes on to get offended that Park answers in the affirmative in response to the question of whether “white men are sort of the enemy.” Oh, Lord, what atrocities will she commit next? Why, she might even say that she thinks white men should acknowledge that they have a privileged position in society!! ¡Qué horror!

Of course, Pazienza fixates on the “enemy” word, instead of on the idea that maybe white guys should acknowledge that they have privilege in society. He says “there’s nothing wrong with” acknowledging white privilege (although he uses a whole a lot of words to cushion the blow of this devastating concept), and only utters it after complaining about Park’s “youthful moral certitude” and “black and white” thinking. Apparently in Pazienza’s world, “sort of” and “acknowledging white privilege” are words and concepts associated with all-or-nothing thinking. Pazienza then lobs accusations that Park, by making statements acknowledging white privilege and labeling white men as “sort of” enemies, while at the same time failing to point to the accomplishments of white allies, is “unbelievably childish” and “shockingly stupid and counterproductive.”

So, once again, we are treated to the finger-pointing tantrum of somebody falling miserably short of understanding the perspective of someone other than himself, or even trying to understand it. Pazienza says Park’s perspective is about “incremental but important positive changes not being enough for those who believe it’s all or nothing.” And, not to draw the MLK-Park connection, but what was all that stuff in that Birmingham jail letter thingy about ‘how long are we supposed to wait for white people to achieve the ability to be comfortable enough for real equality with people of color?’

Yes, Pazienza thinks Park, who he summarily dismisses as ridiculous, is in the wrong for lacking the maturity to acknowledge all the amazing things white people have done for people of color in the context of an interview regarding the problem of using racist terminology in comedy.

So, Pazienza accuses Park of alienating allies and potential allies by using hyperbole, when Park’s initial point was that Colbert’s use of (particular forms) of hyperbole is (potentially) alienating to people of color. But, again, in Pazienza’s view, it is up to Park to be conciliatory and to have the right tone, not Colbert. Strangely enough, this pressure for people of color to “behave” so that (white) people understand their good intentions and may just decide to help them to become equals with whites, while white people can say what they want and expect/demand to be understood (by people of color AND white people), is exactly what Park spends much of the interview explaining.

Pazienza goes on to accuse Park of not caring about Native Americans because (in his view) she made herself the focus of Colbert’s joke about Dan Snyder’s ignorantly-named Redskins society, instead of just letting Colbert’s audience laugh at Colbert’s joke and return to doing nothing about the issue of racist team names/team mascots. Never mind that it was Pazienza and his ilk that turned the spotlight on Park and her personal flaws rather than having an actual discussion about Park’s criticism of racist jokes being used to criticize racism. Pazienza, like his pouty brethren, ignores the fact that Park has been involved in other “hashtag activism” campaigns in relation to the issue of racist mascots. After all, it’s much easier to say Park is all about herself than to acknowledge anything she has done that might go against the ludicrous narrative that Park ruined everything that Colbert was fighting for—y’know, because his original joke was aimed at making sure people pushed Snyder to change the name of the football team he owns.

Pazienza can’t resist tacking on the whiny white-guy complaint that Park would invalidate his opinion simply because he’s a white guy, and then asserts that just because he is white doesn’t give Park a pass from criticism. Okay, but if you’re going to say Park is deserving of criticism, how about addressing the ideas Park raises instead of just getting angry and defensive, and spouting a bunch of bullshit that doesn’t even touch on said ideas? I mean, really, what part of Pazienza’s argument is Park supposed to validate? The part where he accuses her of seeking attention, or the part where he explains that he has no cogent argument to make?

I’ll grant Pazienza that Park can ramble, and that she uses a lot of language that is common to social justice theory, but perhaps not so accessible to mainstream America. But to say that Park’s form of activism is so off-putting that it is going to turn away people who were otherwise right on the cusp of casting off their white privilege, is to give far too much credit to people who don’t already recognize the problem, and to place far too much blame on Park.

Then again, I’m guessing Pazienza recognizes that there is some underlying truth to a lot of what Park says. And if he were to actually attack her arguments, he would put himself in a bad position of having to side with the people who deny white privilege exists and who argue that racial slurs are okay so long as they are in the right context–as defined by white people. So, Pazienza attacks Park’s character, and the way Park presents her information, rather than actually taking on the challenge of meeting her arguments in a more direct fashion. Because, in the end, all he really says is ‘I don’t like her,’ and ‘She’s being too confrontational’—which are points that really don’t amount to anything except the same old white guy crap, where everybody needs to quit being so sensitive, until the “jokes” and criticism get aimed at the white guys, at which point excessive sensitivity is magically transformed into a concern with civility and the need for people to behave like reasonable adults instead of calling names and using angry language.  It is the assertion that demanding that others “get over it” while insisting “you need to understand me” is the exclusive domain of white guys.

And while Pazienza bemoans all the terrible, exhausting work it took him to read Park’s interview, I can’t imagine the trauma he would have been put through if he had actually taken the time to try to understand it and respond to it in some way that wasn’t totally reactionary.  After all, calling your adversary ‘immature’ while you stamp your feet, shake your fists, and hold your breath, is not exactly a good strategy for proving your point. Neither is trying to claim that a bunch of people of varying races and genders agree with you by linking to their posts—some of which don’t really show all that strong of an agreement with you, and most of which take the same, childish ignore-the-argument-attack-the-arguer stance—which Pazienza does at the end of the article, right before he suggests that Pazienza talking about Park was Park’s end goal. So, now, who’s the narcissist?

Crisis Line Prank Call Reviews: Ownage Pranks & the Wacky World of Rape Jokes

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On the eve of April Fools’ Day, it only seems appropriate to look into the hilarious world of Crisis Line prank calls. The majority of prank calls to regional crisis lines and to the Lifeline Suicide Prevention Hotline involve humor of the sort that is enjoyed by middle-school males who fall on the low end of the socially-conscious and critical-thinking spectrum for that age group. And Ownage Pranks’ work in this area is no exception to that rule. (From here on out, I will be referring to the auteur/auteurs as “Ownage” since I don’t have any other name to associate with the site—withholding the names and hiding the faces of those involved being perhaps the only intelligent thing about Ownage).

The real achievement of Ownage, though, is that it has become the top Crisis Line prank call video on YouTube by exploring a juvenile fascination with anal penetration, engaging in racist stereotypes, and making light of domestic violence, rape, and spousal murder.  With this winning formula, Ownage managed to get well over 2 million views of it’s post titled “Asian Crisis Hotline Prank Call HILARIOUS!”  The title is perhaps best described as inexplicable, as it both identifies the prank as involving an Asian Crisis Hotline—whatever that’s supposed to mean, and refers to the prank call as hilarious—which is only appropriate if one believes the definition of “hilarious” to be “supportive of rape culture.”

The video, which is not exactly recommended viewing, was originally posted in March of 2009 and is comprised of audio with subtitles.  In case you haven’t had your fill of rape jokes and racist stereotypes for today, and you don’t trust me to accurately describe it, it is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9THBsHeODQ

Just be aware that by clicking on the above link, you’re going to build up the view tally for this video, and then have to live with yourself afterward.

Ownage Pranks is the brainless-child of some unknown person who bills it as “Nine stereotypical characters, one hilarious adventure.” Apparently, this is the tagline because Ownage believes that the people who would willingly view/listen to his pranks are too stupid to realize that the characters are based on stereotypes, and, as already mentioned, lack any knowledge of the definition of “hilarious.” The mascot for the site looks something like the Lamisil mascot “Digger,” the little toe fungus monster that, in one of the most disturbing series of commercials ever produced, lifts up toenails to crawl in under them. Visually associating Ownage with Digger is entirely appropriate, as both are roughly as pleasurable as toenail fungus and/or having one’s toenails lifted away from one’s toes.

Would you rather...have your big toenail pulled off, or listen to 7+ minutes of rape jokes?

Would you rather…have your big toenail pulled off, or listen to 7+ minutes of rape jokes?

At any rate, the Crisis Line prank involves Ownage “voice acting” as a woman that Ownage identifies as “Chinese—sorry Vietnamese.” When the crisis line volunteer, a 76-year-old woman, asks the caller for ‘her’ name, Ownage says, “Rangnahhahbilmangoyumdidahmgeh” (Ownage’s spelling from the subtitles). The Crisis Line volunteer then asks him to spell it out, and is told, “W-O-R-Q” for the first name, and “G-U-I” for the last name. Are we all cracking up, yet?

Ownage quickly dives into sexual abuse/spousal abuse/anal rape jokes with the caller explainnig that ‘she’ wants to have a family but that “every time we sleep together he want” (sic—as in deliberately ‘broken’ English) “to put it in the wrong area.”

The Crisis Line volunteer isn’t quite sure how to approach the call. Keep in mind that Crisis Line workers have to take every call seriously unless/until they can be certain it’s a prank. The volunteer’s task is made particularly difficult because Ownage keeps talking as much as possible, while asking only minimal, ridiculous questions. For instance, Ownage asks the Crisis Line volunteer if it would be a good idea to defecate on her husband’s penis while he is anally raping her in order to get him to stop.

Ownage goes on to say, “He force me. It like a rape.” Now, by saying it’s “like” a rape, I’m not sure if Ownage is making fun of the allegedly Vietnamese-American woman for not recognizing that her husband forcing her to engage in anal sex is actually rape, or if Ownage just doesn’t think that women who are married can be raped by their husbands. There are numerous other possible explanations behind what is supposed to be a joke, which I will leave out. I will just say that any woman who is forced into sex by her husband is, in fact, being raped, regardless of what part of her body is being penetrated, and regardless of what is being used to penetrate it.

Which leads us to our next point…Ownage proceeds to make jokes about the caller’s husband inserting baseball bats, wine bottles, beer bottles, and a watermelon into ‘her’ anus.

Following the watermelon comment, the Crisis Line volunteer states, “You need some help, you really do.” Ownage jumps right back in talking, I’m guessing, because he realizes that if the Crisis Line worker were to mention domestic violence shelters or resources for sexual assault victims, it would have ruined the glorious fun of his little prank. After all, nothing brings down a good rape joke like pointing out that it involves laughing at victims of sexual abuse.

Ownage also touches on the topic of men viewing porn and then expecting their wives/girlfriends to behave like the women in pornographic videos.   The caller reports that her husband watches videos that depict teen girls engaging in anal sex and enjoying it, and questions if there is something wrong with her for not enjoying anal sex like the performers in the videos. OMG, isn’t it so funny to think that men would watch porn, and then force their wives to engage in acts they viewed, whether or not their wives were comfortable going along with it? Oh, wait, that’s laughing at rape again, isn’t it?

Providing a brief break from the sexual violence jokes, the caller then mentions that ‘she’ thinks her husband is waking up and is in the bathroom. The husband in the bathroom becomes an excuse for Ownage to play some diarrhea sound effects—definitely the high point of the prank.

The husband eventually joins the conversation, and guess what? The husband is (supposed to sound like) a stereotypically abusive African-American man.  At this point in the prank, Ownage (via text) provides the little behind-the-scenes detail that, “I did both voices, by moving the mic away from me and turning away from the mic :).”  Yes, if ever there was a reason to use a smiley face emoticon, it’s when one is engaging in multiple racist stereotypes at once, all in the service of making jokes about sexual abuse.

The husband is then heard saying, “I’m not playin no games, you bitch. Now get your ass over here. Pull yo pants down nigguh” (Ownage’s subtitles). When the caller/wife protests/pleads that she does not want to engage in anal sex, and states that the “counselor” said “fack you,” to the husband, the husband gets on the phone with the Crisis Line volunteer and demands to know who is on the phone.

The prank ends with the ‘husband’ saying “fuck you” to his wife, followed by the sound of two gunshots, and then the wife wimpering for help. Are we all ROTFLOAO now?

Ownage’s prank lasts roughly 7 minutes, which can be enough time to de-escalate a person from a panic attack, or to help ground a person suffering from chronic mental illness.  It is enough time to determine a person is at serious risk for a suicide attempt, or perhaps has actively engaged in a suicide attempt, and is in need of intervention by emergency services.  It is enough time for a volunteer or paid professional to lend an ear to someone who has hit a rough patch in his/her life, and to provide that someone with a little solace.  But, instead, Ownage thought it would be funny to take up that time by trying to shock a 76-year-old woman with moronic jokes about anal rape, diarrhea sound effects, and racist “voice acting.”

As I’ve pointed out in other posts, when people point out problem “jokes” like this gem of a prank call, it is common for some backlash—accusations of excessive sensitivity, demands to lighten up, explanations that it is “just a joke.”

So, let me ask—on a scale of one to five—how many stars would you give to jokes involving racist stereotypes? How many stars does domestic violence rate? How about spousal rape? Spousal murder?

Yuck it up, clown. You really owned that 76-year-old volunteer.