Salon Headline of the Day

The simultaneously funniest and saddest thing about Patton Oswalt's #SalonArticles trending topic game over the weekend, which sought to create the most ridiculous liberal outrage porn headline in the name of skewering Salon, is that in the end Salon will always show up everybody. That's the joke: Nobody can parody Salon better than Salon can parody itself.

Salon, I salute you.

Incensed of Humor

Yesterday's column over at the Daily Banter took a look at a piece in Salon from last week that targeted Patton Oswalt. The problem, according to the author, is that Patton hasn't used his considerable forum and eloquent voice to speak out against the very serious problem of rape and "rape culture."

Here's an excerpt, and you may recognize some of it from a quickie post here on Saturday:

"Patton Oswalt didn’t do a damn thing wrong. He’s a comic. He believes in being funny. He believes in doing whatever’s necessary to ensure that he and other comics like him — male and female — continue to have the freedom to take chances when it comes to being funny, because humor is so subjective and, one more time, no one has the right to tell somebody else — or to dictate as the voice of an entire culture and for the alleged benefit of society as a whole — what is or isn’t funny, what can and can’t be poked fun at as long as there’s no genuine malice intended. Patton’s history as a comic is one of brilliance, insight, and, yes, a lack of malice toward anyone; what Molly Knefel did to him was cheap and unfair and the only person it should make look bad is her. Maybe her intentions were pure, but as she so piously lectures Patton on, intentions mean shit."

Read the Rest Here

Since being posted yesterday morning, the piece I wrote has picked up quite a bit of steam, mostly due to Patton Oswalt thanking me for it via Twitter. That of course brought out a lot of very angry women and men who took me to task for what they believe is my insulting and condescending tone and, well, my "just not getting it." Once something takes off, you tend to go back and reread it and try to see it through someone else's eyes, particularly the eyes of those having a problem with it. I did that. And I stand by what I wrote and the overall point I was trying to make.

That said, there is something in the column that I want to apologize for. While I may think that what comedian and writer Molly Knefel said was wrong in the sense that she was blaming Patton Oswalt for something he didn't do and was under no obligation to do -- and I'm sorry, but the "if you're not part of the solution" argument is just ridiculous since you could make that claim pertain to anything -- it was wrong of me to refer to her as a "small-time" and "quasi-professional" comic. It truly did sound petty, condescending and insulting and that wasn't my conscious intention. I don't think Molly's heart was in the wrong place and I believe she was trying to be respectful to Patton even if her overall goal of dragging him into a fight that she personally deemed should be his was more than a little questionable. I'm sorry if I personally belittled Molly Knefel; I shouldn't have.

Again, it's a damn shame that I have to say this since it shouldn't need to be said, but I'm pro-women and stand against rape unequivocally -- no hedging, no excuses, no "legitimate or illegitimate," none of it. Rape is a despicable wrong, full stop. There are rotten men working in our government right now trying to either chip away at women's rights or swing a wrecking ball at them, and I suppose that's why, in my view anyway, there are far bigger and more important battles to fight on the subject of women's sexual sovereignty and authority than raising hell over a bad joke made by a comedian or, certainly, the lack of a soapbox stand by a comic who's proven time and time again that he's a good guy and someone who espouses liberal politics in the best possible sense of the term. No, by saying this I'm not telling you what you can and can't get angry over or be offended by; I'm offering up an opinion, the same way you are, which has as much value -- or lack thereof -- as all those other opinions that people are free to shout into the ether.

The issue I've always had when it comes to call-out culture and the outrage "machine" that ramps up whenever someone finds himself or herself offended by something these days has been well-documented: Thanks to social media, indignation can now snowball until it becomes an avalanche, the resulting cacophony vastly disproportional to the original offense. Our furious quest for satisfaction can sometimes have unintended consequences and can take a toll far greater than any sane person should be hoping for. That's the danger of reacting to everything with the same level of outrage. And the way that a column that may have been written with good intentions and meant merely to start a conversation can spiral downward into a guy who didn't hurt anybody being accused of making jokes he never made and generally suppressing women through, at best, silence which a select group interprets as a tacit admission of guilt and, at worst, public displays of misogyny.

The overall fight may be a noble and necessary one, but Patton Oswalt was the wrong person to pick it with.

Tweet of the Day

Quote of the Day

"Dear Salon: can you please create a simple primer that describes when it is acceptable to enjoy something, versus when something is too insensitive to racial, gender or sexual orientation standards? I'm finding it difficult to keep up with the rules. I've apparently been too busy just living my life and am not fully caught up on when I should be getting offended. Thank you."

-- "Wesley T." commenting on a piece currently running at Salon that bemoans the "white patriarchy" of The Walking Dead

Yup, a 4,000-word -- 4,000-word -- essay devoted to racial and gender politics in a show about zombies rising from the grave and eating the living. Here's the salient quote among all that indignant proselytizing and in-depth analysis of what kind of supposedly awful stereotypes the show promotes:

"For those of us who had hoped that season three of 'The Walking Dead' would move beyond the white patriarchy of the first two seasons, we have been disappointed. If anything, gender and race have become even more problematic in this past season than they were in seasons one and two."

Salon: official home of the outraged royal "we."

If it were anybody but them, I'd honestly think this was a really impressive April Fool's prank.

Adding:

If any of you were waiting for the actual words "white privilege" to enter the conversation from the author's end -- of course in the form of an accusation -- well, wait no longer.

That's Not Funny!

So, let's spin the Wheel of Indignation and see what kind of humorless hilarity we come up with this week.

Yesterday, a jury found former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick guilty of 24 counts of racketeering, extortion, attempted extortion, bribery, mail fraud, wire fraud and filing false tax returns. The verdict ends what's been a lengthy process for an angry and betrayed city of Detroit -- so when the decision came down, Detroit radio station Channel 955's morning show, Mojo in the Morning, flew a banner over the city courthouse that read "Don't Drop the Soap Kwame!"

That of course led the outrage trolls over at the Huffington Post to ask whether the station had gone too far with its joke.

And that, of course, led to comments like this gem:



Because, again, prison rape is never funny.

By the way, before you ask, yes, this is going to be a regular feature at DXM going forward. Feel free to e-mail me with a spy report whenever you come across an example of this kind of fucking ridiculousness. If the past couple of years are any indication, I doubt we're going to run out of material anytime soon.

The Onion Makes Everyone Cry

You knew this was coming: Today's column for the Daily Banter takes a look at The Onion's very crude crack that included 9-year-old Oscar nominee Quvenzhané Wallis and the word "cunt."

Here's the opening shot:

"I had planned on waking up this morning and writing about last night’s Oscars: the good, the bad, the ugly, a thorough blasting of the decision to turn the damn things into the Tonys, an at least tepid defense of Seth MacFarlane as host, who I thought was actually too deferential to the crowd and wasn’t nearly as savage and caustic as he could and should have been, etc. etc. I was ready to just do a basic overview of the proceedings and had catalogued a couple of noteworthy moments, like Chris Tucker saying on the red carpet that it was a joy to work David O. Russell, a line that has never been uttered by any actor before in film history, Halle Berry choosing to pay tribute to the Hollywood classic Ghostbusters by dressing as Gozer the Gozerian, and the fact that in the technical awards it was a huge night for Edgar Winter’s hair.

But as the night wore on and I followed the real-time response to Oscar show on Twitter and Facebook, it became apparent that the social media guest of honor at the event was the same one who always gets invited to these things nowadays: bullshit indignation trolling."

Read the Rest Here

Pinky Swear

Today's piece for the Daily Banter takes a look at the latest cause for outrage among those who freak out every time somebody says something offensive, particularly those among that group looking to score political points.

Here's the opening shot:

"So you’re never going to believe this, but Jason Biggs, the kid who made himself famous by pretending to fuck a pie, apparently has a really crude sense of humor and a filthy mouth to go with it. In case you haven’t yet seen the mushroom cloud off in the distance to your right or felt the shockwave of indignation, let me help you out: The usual suspects among the conservative media are losing their minds over a couple of really crass comments Biggs made about Mitt Romney’s wife, Ann, and Paul Ryan’s wife, Janna, during last week’s Republican National Convention. The offending cracks were offered via Twitter, as has become tradition in our culture, and were as follows..."

Read the Rest Here

Tweet of the Day

This is another one of those subjects that it would be a waste for me to pontificate on in too much detail because I've done it so many times before. Yeah, Daniel Tosh made a joke about rape at a comedy club then made another rape crack at a woman in the audience who took offense and heckled him for it -- so what? Love him or hate him, Tosh is a comic whose material is readily available to anyone going to see him live, given that his show is the most popular thing on Comedy Central at the moment, five times over. You know what you're getting yourself into by sitting in the crowd at one of his shows; you know the kind of humor you'll be subjected to, and in the end that's all it is: humor. He's a fucking comic. Don't think he's funny? His kind of comedy not your particular brand of vodka? Leave. Don't watch, don't listen.

Enough with the fucking offense at anything anyone says that you don't like. Enough with the horseshit indignation spread like wildfire through social networking to millions who weren't privy to the actual comment -- its extended context and the setting in which it was offered -- so that everyone can join in your personal pissy-party pile-on. Comedy is entirely subjective and I don't want to live in a country where someone, anyone tells me what I should and shouldn't think is funny.

I've said it before but it bears repeating: Comics stand as the vanguard of our right to free speech -- the canary in the coal mine, so to speak. They're the ones we count on to be able to push the envelope, challenge our sensibilities, even offend us occasionally because it's necessary for us as a culture. The world would be a much more tedious place without comedians willing to truly put themselves out there and take risks -- to make fun of the sacrosanct and vilify the revered if necessary -- and their ability to do that should be protected at all costs. Making them grovel before the altar of political correctness, in the end, damages all of us.

It doesn't matter whether you think what Tosh said was funny or not; he should be able to say it and not have to worry about the effects of a nationwide public backlash.

To everyone who's pissed about Tosh's rape crack: You got an apology from him -- and it's quite frankly more than you deserved.

The Age of Outrage

So in case you hadn't noticed, the push-back on my little piece last Friday that used "Hoodie-gate" as a jumping off point for a larger discussion on style and perception was swift and merciless. On the After Party that'll be posted a little later this afternoon, Bob and I spent almost the entire show going at each other -- it really did get mildly contentious for a while there -- over my opinions and the reaction to my piece. We also disagreed on whether we as a country had become too sensitive, too eager to be offended and to voice reaction to that offense, and too unwilling to simply let things that piss us off go without demanding immediate redress.

Basically, my views on these subjects can be seen right now in a piece posted over at the Daily Banter. I'm going to begin doing more work for the mothership of this site, and today's column is the first of many to come.

Here's the opening salvo from the piece. Feel free to comment either here or at the Banter.

"All it took was one retweet for the wrath of God to rain down on me.

Last Friday morning I did what a lot of hacky self-proclaimed online pundits were doing in the wake of Geraldo Rivera’s galactically stupid claim that the choice to wear a hoodie is what got Trayvon Martin killed: I penned a quickie column on it for my blog. Like a lot of other ostensible progressives, however, I apparently had the bad form to not heap what I would soon learn was the universally agreed upon level of scornful indignation in Geraldo’s direction. On the contrary, while I said that Geraldo’s idiotic no-hoodie plea to American parents of brown kids was just that, idiotic, I argued that he did manage to touch on a larger issue that deserved at least some consideration..."

Read the Rest at the Daily Banter

The Blind Snide

Seen during my afternoon run through Runyon Canyon just a little while ago: a guy hiking up the canyon carrying a cane obviously used by the blind and wearing dark sunglasses -- with a baby strapped to his back in a backpack.

Reminds me of a conversation I had a few years back with a drunk girl at a bar, one who apparently worked with the blind:

Drunk Girl: Blind people can do anything anyone else can. Name one thing someone with sight can do that a blind person can't.

Me: See.

Drunk Girl: I'm serious.

Me: So am I. Okay -- drive.

Drunk Girl: A blind person can drive.

Me: What? Let me explain something to you -- the first time I get into an accident and the guy who gets out of the other car is carrying a cane and wearing sunglasses, I'm shooting up a fucking insurance agency.