Also, this week has done so much to demonstrate that women are capable of keeping their irrational emoting in check and behave professionally. What a great feminist advance.
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Opinions, art, debate
Also, this week has done so much to demonstrate that women are capable of keeping their irrational emoting in check and behave professionally. What a great feminist advance.
Clarissa's Blog 
Bee used the word as part of the comedy show; technically, a whole team of people stands behind using that word. Roseanne tweeted as a (racist) private citizen. That’s a key difference. I personally don’t think Roseanne should have been fired, either, not in the least because firing her fucked the rest of the team that had nothing to do with her tweets.
The Samantha Bee imcident reminds me of the uproar over the WH correspondence dinner, where comedian Michelle Wolf was brought in to roast, then indeed mildly roasted, and the GOP went apoplectic.
I’m disgusted by how speech policing always ends up harshly penalizing women (anyone remember the Reba incident?) while men routinely say and do way worse things with impunity.
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Then the whole team should be fired. I believe that calling women cunts on TV is wrong. Because today it’s Melanka and tomorrow it’s me. So if this team can’t come up with anything more entertaining than this kind of trash, I’m sure there’s a crowd of talented people eager to take their place.
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“calling women cunts on TV is wrong”
I don’t understand this: is the word cunt the issue? Of offending women with any expletive?
Vulgarity is pervasive in comedy and this was a comedy show. Also, the insult punches up, at someone in power for their abuse of that power, which is what comedy is supposed to do.
Women are called all sorts of things by men online and on TV (does anyone even register stupid bitch, feminazi, and other adorable terms any more?) including dumb cunt and whatnot, and nothing ever happens to the men. I hate to see women be the only ones punished for ideological or verbal impurity.
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The word “cunt” is the worst gender-based slur you can use to insult a woman in the English language. And “ape” is one of the worst insults you can use to offend a black person. I believe that anybody who uses these insults in a professional setting is demonstrating utter unprofessionalism. If anybody who works for me makes such comments, I fire them on the spot.
As for “punching up”, I never thought it was ok to call President Obama, for instance, the n-word because he had immense power. And it’s not ok to call Valerie Jarrett and ape, in spite of her political power. I don’t get this punching up idea at all.
We either collectively decide it’s ok to call everybody in sight the n-word or the c-word because it’s somehow funny or we decide it’s not ok and try to express ourselves in a different way.
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I think we’ll have to agree to disagree here.
First, yes, cunt is a gender slur but I don’t think its severity is comparable to the n-word or ape as racial slurs. Cunt is worse than bitch, but nowhere near the stratum of racial slurs.
Second, this is a woman comedian calling another woman in a position of power cunt for reasons associated with that position. A male comedian calling a woman in power a cunt would be much more awful. Guess what: it happened a lot with Hilary, people calling her the whole plethora of gender slurs, and no one did anything about it other than agree she’s vaguely unlikable.,
A black comedian calling Obama the n-word would not be a big deal because the n-word used among the black community is not problematic. A white comedian calling Obama the n-word (or an ape) would be awful. But guess what: white men including politicians and TV personalities have called Michelle Obama an ape with impunity.
Again, I don’t want women to be punished for the shit men routinely get away with, personally and professionally, and in much worse incarnations.
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Summary of the Kathy Griffin incident from a year ago and its aftermath:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1002040425232809984.html
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If these comments were made by men, I’d be in favor of immediately firing them, too.
We keep complaining about how crude the political speech has become, but the only way to stop it is to oppose it no matter who engages in it.
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“women are capable of keeping their irrational emoting in check”
Is there something missing there or are you doing sarcasm (which I didn’t think did much)?
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I don’t think anybody is obligated to live up to the worst stereotypes quite so diligently, is what I’m saying.
Then these very ladies are going to whine that nobody takes them seriously at work.
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I find the endless analysis of identity to decide whether someone is punching up or down, tiring. What if a black, immigrant woman was ridiculing a super-rich, Ivy League educated, white woman but the target was disabled or gay? How the hell is one supposed to decide what exact combination of identity will make the joke/comment okay?
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First, Bee it is punching up because the target is politically powerful (Trump’s daughter and advisor) on account of the politically disenfranchised (the misplaced immigrant children). That’s punching up. It’s maddening that you are pretending not to understand this and instead try to muddy the water with “scratching privilege” bullshit.
Second, straight white dudes are likely to get away with various outrageously shitty things aimed at whomever, while everyone else is far more likely to face consequences for even minor infractions. So until the penalization field is level, I am afraid that you will have to endure tiresome discussions. Because what I find tiresome is that so many people are OK with immediately throwing highly visible women (because far too many men and women–no matter how progressive they say they are are–feel deep down that highly visible women are ostentatious and abhorrent) under the bus to signal how not racist they are (fire Roseanne!) or how not hypocritical they are (fire Bee because you fired Roseanne!). And somehow dudes always end up squeaky clean and smelling like roses.
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“It’s maddening that you are pretending not to understand this and instead try to muddy the water with “scratching privilege” bullshit.”
Reactionaries love this strawman. He’s the only one who has brought it up, then claims it’s an ‘endless analysis’.
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“First, Bee it is punching up because the target is politically powerful ”
Aren’t Valerie Jarette, Chelsea Clinton and George Soros also powerful people?
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I’m not going to play this game with you.
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Ah, I get it. Roseanne used a racist slur while Bee used a sexist slur. So it’s okay to ridicule within the in-group and not okay to do so with the out-group?
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I suspect for Samantha Bee the desired outcome has already been achieved: publicity. Why else would a huge team of writers, directors, producers, etc. allow the comment to be green lit?
For Roseanne, people have always said these ridiculous, racist things in private. She’s not going to change because she got fired. Not sure if she’ll learn to keep her gross thoughts private or not. But regardless, the number of comments like these hasn’t really gone up in recent years; they have only become more public thanks to social media.
I’m kind of tired of all of it.
https://polldaddy.com/js/rating/rating.js
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