That's Not Funny!

So, let's go ahead and spin the Wheel of Outrage and see what we land on this time. Oh, look at that -- we're back in familiar territory: The Onion.

I'm sure you all remember the Quvenzhané Wallis tweet-heard-round-the-world during the Oscars; our nation's psychic wounds are just now, finally, starting to heal in the wake of it. Well, now it looks like any chances the almost across-the-board brilliant satire site may have had of making amends and winning back fans within a certain segment of the perpetually indignant liberal intelligentsia have apparently been dashed because of a story it just posted just a little while ago. The target this time: Chris Brown.

Here's the piece in its entirety:

"LOS ANGELES—After revealing yesterday that he had recently split up with longtime girlfriend Rihanna, a heartbroken Chris Brown tearfully told reporters that he always thought the 25-year-old singer was going to be the woman he’d beat to death one day. 'Despite all the ups and downs, I was so sure Rihanna was the one I’d take by the throat one day and fatally assault, and even toward the end I continued to hold out hope that we’d be together until the day she died at my hands from blunt-force trauma,' Brown, 24, said in a radio interview this week, telling DJs he still has abusive feelings for his ex-flame and is hopeful that he might punch her again one day. 'It’s hard knowing that there’s some other guy out there who gets to beat her senseless. In fact, for all I know, there might be someone out there assaulting her right now. And let me tell you, that guy is the luckiest guy in the world.' A saddened Brown added that, should the couple not reconcile, he remains confident that the special someone he was meant to beat to death is still out there for him, and when he finds her, he’ll waste no time in slapping her."

Now you'd think that something this vicious that was obviously intended solely to demean Chris Brown -- an unapologetic woman-beating dickhead who should be in prison right now -- would be embraced by the usual names within the feminist media community. You'd think that, however only if you didn't allow for the fact that those same usual names believe that when it comes to certain predetermined subjects, satire should always be watered down at the risk of very stupid people maybe getting the wrong idea or the already victimized -- literally or figuratively -- being victimized all over again by something they read on a website that deals in smart humor.

And so, compliments of Salon, of course -- who immediately busted out its stock "Did _____ Go Too Far?" headline -- come these breaths of pure fire, designed to hopefully cleanse The Onion, and us, of our cultural sins.









As you can see, there are some thing that can't be the subject of biting satire, no matter who that very nasty bite is taken out of. There are some things that just aren't funny. There are -- eh, fuck it, how many times have I said this now?

That's Not Funny!

Okay, so today on our recurring "That's Not Funny" segment is something that is, actually, funny. Hilarious, in fact. Compliments of a link from Patton Oswalt to a Tumblr account called "Liartown USA" comes what could be the most epic, detailed parody of Jezebel -- which itself reads like a nonstop parody of a very specific and insufferable brand of joyless, perpetually outraged feminism -- ever committed to the internet.

Liartown USA: Abusive, Insane Twitter Rant Posted, Aimed at All "Biches"/4/.29.13

That's Not Funny!

Also subbing as today's Quotes of the Day, let's spin the ever-popular Wheel of Outrage and see what we come up with this time around:

"While Ms. Harris did not seem offended, others were on her behalf."

-- The New York Times

"No, I can’t take a fucking compliment."

-- Irin Carmon of Salon.com

What these happen to be are my two favorite quotes related to the "controversy" over President Obama's comment yesterday about California Attorney General Kamala Harris.

During a fundraiser just outside San Francisco, he effusively praised Harris's many abilities, then said that “she also happens to be by far the best-looking attorney general in the country." If you were curious what that mushroom cloud was on the horizon west of you yesterday, well, there you have it.

Even though Obama's comment was meant as both a compliment and a lighthearted joke about a friend, was it probably unnecessary? Sure. Is it worthy of being turned into yet another "teachable moment" where everything has to come to a complete stop until the fragile liberal sensibilities of the relentlessly aggrieved are satisfactorily salved (at least until the next thing comes along)? No, not a chance.

As you can see above, the Times inadvertently sums up in one quick sentence the very nature of our call-out culture and the indignation nation we now inhabit, where even if you're not insulted by something, there are always a million people happy to be insulted for you. Meanwhile, Irin Carmon, one of the most prolific offenders when it comes to being offended, manages to sum up perfectly the attitude that perpetuates, ad infinitum, this kind of exhausting nonsense. Her column in today's Salon (motto: "All the Self-Righteousness That's Fit To Print") is of course called, in appropriately scolding/lecturing fashion, "How To Talk About a Woman's Looks." That's a trick by the way, because if there's one thing Salon has taught me over the years, it's that the only proper response is, "you don't -- ever -- because, well, fuck you, you objectifying, sexist asshole."

So, there -- I hope you've all learned your lesson for the day.

That concludes this episode of "That's Not Funny!"

Let the usual accusations of "mansplaining" and "white privilege" commence.

Adding: This is interesting. A discussion via e-mail with a friend of mine about this little controversy led me to a three-year-old piece in Slate by Emily Gould that I'd somehow forgotten about and that really takes Irin Carmon apart. Gould takes aim at what she calls the "Outrage World" that sites like Jezebel and Salon thrive on, creating righteous indignation among their audiences in the name of page views. The column Gould's piece was pegged off of was written by Carmon; in it Carmon basically accused The Daily Show of being a sexist boys' club and dismissed the then-recent hiring of Olivia Munn as something that should offend women.

Here's Gould:

"Irin Carmon's argument is essentially this: 'Former videogame show host' Olivia Munn may soon become the show's first new female correspondent in seven years, but her potential hiring is nothing to celebrate, because, while she's a woman, she's not the right kind of woman. She has hosted G4's Attack of the Show for four years, and she has written a book. But, per Carmon, 'her previous career path has led some' -- meaning, I guess, Carmon and Jezebel commenters -- 'to criticize The Daily Show for hiring someone better known for suggestively putting things in her mouth on a video game show … and being on the covers of Playboy and Maxim than for her comedic chops.' Included as a link is a previous Jezebel post that featured video of Munn jumping into a giant pie while wearing a French maid costume...

As of this writing, Carmon's post has generated almost 1,000 comments and nearly 90,000 page views. It's a prime example of the feminist blogosphere's tendency to tap into the market force of what I've come to think of as 'outrage world' -- the regularly occurring firestorms stirred up on mainstream, for-profit, woman-targeted blogs like Jezebel and also, to a lesser degree, Slate's own XX Factor and Salon's Broadsheet. They're ignited by writers who are pushing readers to feel what the writers claim is righteously indignant rage but which is actually just petty jealousy, cleverly marketed as feminism. These firestorms are great for page-view-pimping bloggy business. But they promote the exact opposite of progressive thought and rational discourse, and the comment wars they elicit almost inevitably devolve into didactic one-upsmanship and faux-feminist cliché. The vibe is less sisterhood-is-powerful than middle-school clique in-fight, with anyone who dares to step outside of chalk-drawn lines delimiting what's 'empowering' and 'anti-feminist' inevitably getting flamed and shamed to bits. Paradoxically, in the midst of all the deeply felt concern about women's sexual and professional freedom to look and be however they want, it's considered de rigueur to criticize anyone, like Munn, who dares to seem to want to sexually attract men."

Gould's been the subject of quite a bit of controversy herself over the years, with seemingly anyone and everyone in the cliquey New York City new media world, including me, having an opinion of her and her work at one time or another. But irrespective of that, she's right on the money on this. Also, the whole Daily Show-Olivia Munn dust-up helps to put things in perspective: As it turns out, Irin Carmon has always been a self-satisfied hack whose opinions should rarely be taken seriously.

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.