What did you think of the humor at the Oscars? Did you find it too off-color? Do you roll your eyes at the people who claim it’s “over the line”? Was it all satire?
These are comments by Doc Holligay, Allan Mott, Lindsey, and Richard Morgan on the post “In Defense of Offensive Comedy“.
Doc Holligay said:
You know what’s interesting? My line is sort of … “Is it actually funny?” The c*nt tweet wasn’t funny to me, so it doesn’t bug me if people go after it. And it wasn’t not funny because it was about a kiddo, it just … wasn’t funny. But “We saw your boobs?” I’m sorry, y’all can have my feminist card, I laughed. Kate Winslet herself, has made fun of how often she ends up naked in her movies. And I love her! I laughed at a lot of the offensive jokes last night. I laughed at the Jew jokes! I’m a Jew! I died at the “150 years, and it’s still too soon?”comment after the Lincoln joke. Everyone is entitled to go, “Well, that was kind of stupid,” but that doesn’t mean it should go away forever and I’m rambling but WHATEVER.
Allan Mott said:
You know what’s also interesting? I only know the cunt tweet through the outrage it generated. And I think that’s significant. If the people who had been upset with the joke had just decided to roll their eyes and go “That’s fucked up” and moved on, it would have faded away as quickly as most tweets do (from what I’ve read most have a max shelf life of two hours or so with occasional exceptions). Instead they decided to make a HUGE deal about it and its reach extended far beyond The Onion’s followers. Instead of protecting the girl from an offensive joke, they just ensured more people heard it.
Lindsey said:
As usual, Eva wins. I have a really hard time with offensive humor because I have an awful superpower of intensely feeling uncomfortable myself if someone I see/am with/ imagine is uncomfortable. This is why I am unable to watch Ben Stiller films. It’s kind of a bummer, but it’s my life. Other people have the right to do the same.
Also, Seth MacFarlane brought back Cosmos and is good friends with Ann Druyan so that means he has to be at least 1% not awful.
Richard Morgan said:
First off, I love Seth MacFarlane. His humor is often offensive, but I also find him hilarious. Yeah, I know that I’m supposed to be an enlightened male and understand how misogynistic I must be for laughing at his stuff, but the man nails my funny bone every damned time.
Second, I think The Onion is brilliant most times. That offensive tweet was not one of those times. That was kind of like someone pulling down their pants in the living room and taking a dump on the carpet, then pointing at it and going, “Look, I’m funny.” With one incredible tweet, The Onion has given itself a serious image problem — and rightly so. Whoever the moron was who posted that tweet needs to be fired. I don’t think that person should be fired for what they wrote — I think they should be fired because if he or she thinks that was funny, that person shouldn’t be working at The Onion.
I do have to disagree with Eva Woods about something, though. I think there need to be lines. Truly, I do. You see, the more that you eliminate the lines, the more you give people with darkness in their hearts to laugh at terrible things. When a 9-year-old girl has the ‘c-word’ tossed at her like that, I would want everyone on this planet to cringe at the thoughtlessness of that comment. But, when we start to walk away from the lines being crossed, we begin to go down a path where the very act of destroying someone’s life as entertainment might well be permissible. If people are not outraged over The Onion’s foolishness, I fear for our society as a whole.
—
Like this Comment of the Day? Here are more.
Want to nominate a comment of the day? Email the comment and the post it was on to [email protected].
–
Photo credit: ABC.com, The Academy Awards 2013
We already ruin people’s lives for our entertainment; it’s called TMZ and reality television. That stuff doesn’t get criticized nearly as much as it should considering that the real world harm is far greater than anything that can result from a tweet. Calling someone, anyone the c-word isn’t going to ruin their lives, and Jesus Christ it shouldn’t result in the end of a comedy writer’s career. Comedy requires people to take risks, and when the response is to crucify someone who said something offensive (which is almost wholly subjective) then you kill the spirit of the art form. As… Read more »
I can’t believe Seth McFarlane gets to host by himself, but Anne Hathaway couldn’t be trusted to host all by herself so had to be paired up with that $&^%*$*& James Franco.