Friday, February 13, 2009

It's just a joke man

Yes, I critique humor seriously.

"It's just a joke" does not make what is said meaningless.

How about you stand up in the middle of your town and tell the joke about how many Jews can you fit in a beetle, or the one about why don't Mexicans and blacks have kids? Because we know damn well that a joke can easily not be "just a joke." The intention of the teller is irrelevant, the intention of the writer is irrelevant.

Because even when you're being funny you're saying something. In order for a joke to work, some things must be taken as facts. x + 2 = 4 Four may be the punchline, but x is what can offend and upset.

The assumptions made in a joke can quite insidiously train a human mind to see reality a certain way without them ever knowing they've been trained.

And that's how I feel about the trillions of examples of relationship humor when sexist assumptions are made. I'm tired of being told I have to put up with that shit if I want a girlfriend. Well, I don't. I decided a long time ago that if a girl wants to be important to me she gets to abandon and hope of riding me into an early grave so she can enjoy a plethora of double standards.

And you know what happened? I figured out that if I'm just a little patient, given the population of 6.7 billion, I can find people that don't demand total servitude. So you can take your boring 1950s sexist "normal" humor and leap headfirst into the dust bin of history.