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.

Quote of the Day

Patton Oswalt: A Salon I Used To Know/7.15.13

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.

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?

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 Crass and the Furious

Today's column for the Daily Banter -- actually it was posted last night but after traveling I was way too tired to write any more about it -- is once again all about our long national nightmare: The Oscars. And our ongoing insane furor over Seth MacFarlane and The Onion.

Here's the opening shot:

"After the Social Media and Politics panel that we participated in last night at East Tennessee State University, Bob Cesca, Feministing’s Vanessa Valenti and I — along with our gracious host, “Comedy Fred” Poag — sat down at a comfortable table in the bar of our hotel for a couple of drinks. The panel discussion had gone well, with each of us making the points I think we wanted to make about where social media is leading us and what effect it’s having on the way we communicate, think and vote. But once we’d retired to our dimly lit spot near the fireplace just off the lobby of the Carnegie hotel and I’d gotten a pint of Gaelic Ale in me, I turned to Vanessa and dropped the question I’d been interested in asking all night but didn’t want to bring up at the panel because the road it would’ve led down would no doubt take us far away from the basic topics we were asked to discuss. That question, again posed to the founder of Feministing, was, 'Okay, so, what do you think of controversy over the Onion tweet?'"

Read the Rest Here

By the way, I also wanted to point out two columns that manage to sum up my feelings about this ridiculous outrage over a couple of jokes and a scathing piece of satire almost perfectly. They put it so damn well that I'm jealous I didn't write them myself.

First, from start to finish, Scott Mendelson over at the Huffington Post nails the necessity of the kind of stuff The Onion does, even the stuff we don't like, and points out why the Quvenzhané Wallis comment, shocking as it was, matters:

"Those decrying The Onion, a satirical newspaper, for running an offensive tweet about Quvenzhané Wallis are possibly missing the point. Obviously this wasn't someone online expressing an honest opinion about how they felt about a nine-year-old actress celebrating her first Oscar nomination. It wasn't Rex Reed calling Melissa McCarthy a hippo or Brett Easton Ellis whining that Kathryn Bigelow wouldn't be considered a great director if she wasn't a hot white woman who made manly war pictures. This was an intentionally offensive, knowingly disruptive statement intended to provoke outrage and offense sent out by a technically 'fictional' twitter avatar. Sadly, it wouldn't have been as shocking if an even slightly older woman had been called a 'cunt.' Because we do that all the time.

Oh, we're fancier about it and we use nicer language. But we call women 'cunts' all the time. We do it when we complain that Anne Hathaway just annoys us for no good reason, or that she earns our ire because she's just too damn energetic or just wants 'it' too badly. We do it when we obsess endlessly about Michelle Obama's new bangs or her bare arms. We do it when we ignore Angelina Jolie's humanitarian work and still see only 'that bitch' who stole Jennifer Aniston's man. We do it whenever we turn any slight disagreement between two females into a 'feud' and/or 'cat fight' or when Jessica Chastain has to publicly declare that she really isn't feuding with Jennifer Lawrence based purely on fabricated gossip. We do it when we obsess more about Jennifer Lawrence's success as a red carpet fashion princess than as a twice-Oscar nominated (and now Oscar-winning) actress. We do it when we express our alleged outrage at The Onion and then immediately click on a slideshow of the various dresses that the actresses wore in order to snark or pointlessly compare.

We do it when we lionize female stupidity and then decry that women made to be vain or stupid are considered role models. We do it when we treat every accomplishment of every would-be successful woman as merely a prelude to the ultimate accomplishment that is childbearing. The message is clear: Women of accomplishment deserve our scorn rather than our admiration, and the only thing that should really be admired about a woman are her looks, her fashion sense, and/or her ability to be a mom. Those decrying the fact that Wallis is a nine-year-old African-American child only open themselves up to the fact that it would apparently be okay to call her a cunt if she were a 21-year old white lady. Those saying that Wallis's feelings may have been hurt are A) missing that she was merely a vessel for satire and not a target of criticism and B) she likely never would have found out about it had the outrage machine not charged in full force putting it to the front pages of the online news all day long...

The Onion arguably took the fall for our national misogyny. Maybe they really are the satire we need, rather than the kind we think want. So belittle and criticize The Onion because it can take it. Because it may have just done a mitzvah. The Onion, by cutting through the niceties, has created what has the potential to be a teachable moment. For the fault lies not in The Onion, but in ourselves."

Then there's Drew Magary in GQ, who cuts through all the bullshit and just spells out the absurdity of the backlash to Seth MacFarlane's stint as host of the Oscars (a job I'm now convinced no one in their right mind would take anymore):

"I'm not a Seth MacFarlane fanboy. I've always been staunchly pro-"Simpsons" and anti-"Family Guy". I never watch any of MacFarlane's other shows, either. And I'd take a bullet to the dome before watching five minutes of "Ted". So I'm not in the tank here when I say that MacFarlane, all things considered, did a perfectly adequate job hosting the Oscars on Sunday night. He took a thankless task and the worst audience in show business and managed to, at the very least, slip in a few subversive wisecracks AND keep his energy level high for four straight, interminable hours. At this point, I don't really know what else you want from an Oscar host. If people aren't bitching about Billy Crystal being too mild, they're bitching about MacFarlane being too harsh on a group of people that DESERVE harshness.

This week, MacFarlane's jokes were subjected to the kind of microscopic analysis reserved for quantum particles. From Gawker to Slate to The Atlantic, there was string of PhD-length discourses about the underlying sexism, racism, homophobia, and whatever-elsephobia of MacFarlane's humor. The scrutiny was enough to obliterate comedy as we know it. Of course MacFarlane made tasteless jokes at the Oscars. That's what he does, and I think it's pretty clear that MacFarlane has no real malice when telling these kinds of jokes. But Jesus Christ, the way people reacted to his "We Saw Your Boobs" song, you would have thought he personally assaulted every actress in Hollywood. Give me a fucking break. We're never gonna shame tasteless comedians out of work, and we shouldn't! Tasteless humor is FUN, and it shouldn't be legislated by people who think certain people have the right to tell a certain joke and certain people don't. Piss off. Seth was fine. If you thought he was unfunny, fine. I get it. But you don't have to exhaust the dictionary explaining why. Quit ruining comedy for everyone."

Spot. Fucking. On.

Tweet(s) of the Day

I'm going to collect these kinds of tweets and use them to write a book on how not to argue. When all you've got is the tired "White Privilege!" line -- which should be considered an internet-era argumentative fallacy it's so impossible to defend against and therefore such a shameless line of attack -- you've pretty much already lost the fight.

You wanna discuss issues like reasonable people who for the most part have respect for each other's views, perfect. You wanna make the pious and asinine claim that somebody's not allowed to comment on something in a way you disagree with because he or she happens to be of a certain race, sex or ethnic background, you're not even worth listening to.

Incidentally, this whole Onion thing isn't about race and never was. I consequently didn't inject race into it, but it's fascinating the number of people who are happy to.

An Unequal and Opposite Overreaction

For those who figured that there was no way the controversy over The Onion's crude tweet involving Quvenzhané Wallis was going to simply vanish now that the website's CEO, Steve Hannah, has offered what appears to be a pretty sincere apology, give yourself a prize. Former president of Bennett College and current political commentator Julianne Malveaux, a very smart woman by any measure, is circulating through social media right now what she imagines will turn into a petition but what's inarguably a list of demands aimed at The Onion and its management.

I want you to remember something as you read this: Quvenzhané Wallis wasn't physically assaulted. Because of the Onion tweet that very unwisely used her to make an admittedly brutal comment on our popular culture, one that never should've been attempted at the potential expense of a 9-year-old girl, she won't spend years in therapy, nor will anyone else. No one else was physically or psychically harmed by one offensive bad joke (and anyone who claims otherwise is full of crap). There was no larger group that was demeaned here: not children, not African-Americans, not women, not actors or actresses, and there's no need for anyone besides possibly Wallis herself to demand any kind of satisfaction.

And yet, Julianne Malveaux has bestowed upon herself the right and privilege to decide what penance The Onion, a website that traffics in comedy, must pay to the community at large for its supposed sins. (In my opinion, the sin of making a joke that horribly misfired.) Julianne Malveaux has decided that The Onion's apology isn't good enough and that more action needs to be taken against the site. In essence, she's appointed herself and is drafting others to be enforcers of political correctness who deserve to be assured that The Onion will never cross the line -- whatever line they happen to determine is proper for all of society -- ever again. She believes that she and those who agree with her take on this miasma can and should serve as the arbiters of humor for our entire culture.

That's not only breathtakingly arrogant, it borders on flat-out crazy.

Here's the e-mail in its entirety, including not only Malveaux's letter to Steve Hannah but her entreaty to her friends to pass this along to anyone and everyone.

"Friends an dColleagues,

Please feel free to use all and any parts of thi to deal with the Onion. If there are those of you who will turn this into a petition, please do. I will be reaching out to women's organizations tomorrow. I remain incensed and the 'apology is simply note enough. I am modest in my 'demands' and at this point I am not working with others, but by tomorrow I will be. Take this to the next level if you will.

Dr. J.

Dear Steve Hannah,

While your apology for the vile statement made by your staff regarding the wonderful and talented Quvenzhane’ Wallis is duly noted, it is an insufficient response to the heinous insult lobbed at a 9 year old girl. The communities of women, African American women in particular, and indeed the community of anyone with sensitivity, were utterly repelled by the ignorant genderized racism of your staffer. Thus, your apology is received, but not accepted. You must mitigate the damage that your comments caused, not only for Quvenzhane’, but also for the women who, reveling in her success, were damaged by the sucker punch we experienced when your writer found it acceptable to describe a 9 year old girl in a crude term for genitalia, a term at which most adult women would recoil.

Your apology might be more readily received if you and your team would:


1- Reveal the discipline that was imposed by the offensive writer, and that their identity was revealed so that their future offenses can be monitored,

2- Your company made amends to both Quenzhane’ and the community that supports her by;

a. Offering the organizations that monitor gender and racial discrimination through a financial contribution. My suggestion is that you direct at least $50,000 to The Black Women’s Roundtable, The National Organization for Women, and the National Council of Negro Women. Additionally, I would suggest that you offer $50,000 to the charity of Quvenzhane’s choice. If you choose to offer at least $200,000 to other organizations, you should reveal this information to the public.

b. Meeting with representatives of African American and women’s organizations in Washington DC on a date that is mutually agreeable, but no later than March 31, 2013 to discuss the thought process behind the insulting way a young black girl was described and the ways that future occurrences will be prevented.

c. Sharing information on the number of women and people of color on your staff, and share the ways that they impact editorial decisions.

3- Your company provides scholarship opportunities to African American women students at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) to indicate that you do not see young women in the disparaging ways, but as scholars and contributors. There are two HBCUs that are women’s institutions, Bennett College for Women in Greensboro, North Carolina, and Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia. At least one scholarship for each of these institutions would be an effective way to offer recompense for your comments.

4- Your company provides speakers to the colleges that will have you to, at no fee to the colleges, explain the difference between satire and offense. To notify interested colleges, it is my suggestion that your company take out a full page advertisement in Diverse Issues in Higher Education to both reprint your apology and offer the opportunity for your staff to meet on colleges.

As an emerita president of an HBCU focused on women, I was repelled by your writer’s comments. Taking them down and then apologizing is the simple way out for this offense. I call upon you to take proactive action to redress this wrong.

I have no vested interest in any of the organizations I have mentioned here (except that I am President Emerita of Bennett College for Women). However, my constant association with young women and my association with young women make The Onion’s comments exceedingly offensive.

I am asking friends and colleagues to withdraw any support to The Onion until your apology is enhanced by action. I am also asking all women’s and African American organizations to join my insistence that your apology is insufficient. I expect that you will hear from them.

I do look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Julianne Malveaux"

There's nothing wrong with being offended by The Onion's comment. There's everything wrong with taking that offense and turning it into this insanity.

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

The Age of Outrage

My latest piece for the Daily Banter is now up, and it expands on and summarizes my thoughts on a conversation that's been going on pretty much nonstop here, via e-mail, on Facebook and on the podcast for the last few days: Daniel Tosh's rape joke and the reaction to it.

Here's the opening shot:

"There are a few subjects that I feel like I’ve written about so often that when they inevitably come up again, I’m at a loss to say anything about them that I haven’t said before. It’s one of the occupational hazards of blogging steadily for six years: You just run out of clever twists to put on the subjects you’re passionate about and which inspire you to speak up and so you essentially wind up recycling all your previous points and arguments while hoping no one notices how tedious you’ve become. (This is known as 'Greenwalding.') Among my cast of rotating regular topics, there’s Nancy Grace doing something despicable, Fox News doing something unethical and not giving a damn what anyone thinks about it, and the subject I’ve been embroiled in an ongoing online debate over for the past 48 hours: a comedian or entertainer saying something offensive and the whole world losing its fucking mind..."

Read the Rest Here