Chris

Idle Thumbs 152: Piercing the Fourth Dimension

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I disagree, expression via non-forceful means can never be immoral, no matter the subject matter.

That's a bit broad... Immoral acts are committed through communication all the time, such as coercing people into doing things against their own interest, or using deceit to gain an advantage over someone. Do you really believe what you just posted?

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That's a bit broad... Immoral acts are committed through communication all the time, such as coercing people into doing things against their own interest, or using deceit to gain an advantage over someone. Do you really believe what you just posted?

 

I was talking specifically about fiction and creative works.

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Also the suey park/cancel colbert stuff is super complicated and a lot of what i thought about it has been said. i don't think it's as simple as misunderstanding satire. i do think it's about thinking about WHY you're laughing at a certain joke and whether satire is being used to allow for marginalizing attitudes, in some ways. but it's a whole other huge discussion.

 

It is really easy for people to often act as if activists don't know what they're talking about because they take the activist message at face value, and assume that that's what the activists' goal really is. But activists are just as savvy as politicians or advertisers when it comes to this sort of stuff, and they'll go with whatever message gets attention. Activists in San Francisco recognize that Google Buses aren't the real problem with people being forced out of their homes, it's the greed of the real estate industry, but that's a much more anonymous thing, whereas a privatized transportation system for a specific industry benefiting in the current economic climate is a much more visible target. Guess which one the media writes about, and people talk about? It's the same thing with #CancelColbert. Sure, a lot of people will dismiss it as a ridiculous thing, but it will also cause some people to consider an issue they hadn't previously considered before.

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This adds nothing to the discussion, but I have to say that:

 

1) Emily Nussbaum is generally awesome

2) The day I got to argue with her about Girls over Skype was one of the highlights of grad school for me so far.

 

EDIT: This post is dumb and I wish I could delete it. I was reading the thread a few pages back and got excited that The Argobot referenced a TV critic I like, and now this post is just sitting here, out of context, messing up the flow of the thread.

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Bit shift of topic.  Huge fan of the show and everyone on it.  Noticed the last few episodes that Sean is running a little hot compared to the others.  Not complaining or anything just observing that it makes listening a little bit more challenging.

 

Also for the record, Simpson - Bowles represents the worst of bipartisan, consensus politics in Washington.  Deficit scolding, entitlement slashing war on the middle class on down.  Just sayin'. :)

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Wow, fantastic podcast. I think the setting really helped to relax you guys, though I agree with gatazhk that Sean is super fired up. Not complaining, mind. Danke Sean.

Interesting stuff all around, Danielle is as ever a really fun personality to have on the cast. She complements the available knowledge because of her current occupation as PolygonTM journalist.

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Interesting stuff all around, Danielle is as ever a really fun personality to have on the cast. She complements the available knowledge because of her current occupation as PolygonTM journalist.

 

That's a good point. I admit, I've missed having a journalist Thumb on the podcast. They play more games and games they don't like, which adds spice to the conversation.

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And crazy idea: what if they stole her from Polygon and hired her full time to play games and write about them on Idle Thumbs in addition to being a permanent cast member? Having some words on the site would be awesome. (I can dream right?)

 

I fully support this idea.

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I think for me the most obvious example of this effect of South Park is the "red heads" thing.

 

I'd never in my life heard the term "ginger" used as a pejorative or even ever heard anyone be prejudiced against red heads before.

 

But after that episode all of a sudden I see that shit pop up everywhere.  I'll be at the community college and hear teenagers use that stuff without any hint of irony.

 

It's as if South Park had managed to invent a completely new type of racism.

 

 

But I don't for an instant blame South Park for that.  I blame the idiots that watch it, see the character on the show that's specifically designed to be a shitty person being as shitty as possible, and think that that's something that would be a good idea to emulate.

 

I refuse to blame a medium for the inability of the people who consume it to be to handle it like rational human beings.

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Hire Danielle to review Campto Santo games full-time. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

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I think for me the most obvious example of this effect of South Park is the "red heads" thing.

 

I'd never in my life heard the term "ginger" used as a pejorative or even ever heard anyone be prejudiced against red heads before.

 

I'm not sure how widespread it was (certainly more of a Brit thing than an American thing), but the ginger hate and other negative stereotypes/slurs about red heads go back a long time

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This episode was so great I had to listen twice. The forum thread it has spawned is icing on the cake! 

 

In terms of referential humour I'm never surprised when someone immediately claims to hate it, that its mere existence is awful. But to me this is more indicative of the usual delivery of referential humour, seemingly delivered with the subtlety of a hammer. 

 

My favourite example of referential humour comes from Assassin's Creed 2, when you meet a new character, your uncle, who introduces himself by saying something like "Ezio! Don't you remember me? It's a me! A Mario! Your uncle". It's perfect. The reference is there for those in the know, but slotted perfectly into the necessities of the character introducing himself in the story. Those who don't catch it won't feel left out because it seems perfectly normal for the character to say it.  

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The discussion of media literacy made me think of this piece on The Nation about the danger of suppressing viewpoints in an effort to create more progressive society. Not that I think Danielle, Chris or Sean were suggesting we ban South Park but the implication that media literacy is necessary to digest something correctly can and does lead some to consider the inverse. If enough people cannot understand the subtext is it better for it to not exist? I know a lot of my more progressive friends are proudly anti-classical-liberal and don't see a problem with suppressing certain things in an effort to create a more progressive society, but I wonder if using the same tools those we disagree with only makes us the same. 

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I think I'm with DarthEnderX on this one. It's not the responsibility of a work to be construed properly, and it isn't the artist's fault if an audience lacks empathy. I think with comedy this is especially important, because getting the joke is half the fun. If an audience thinks that the end of the joke is when a comedian recites a slur, that's laziness on the audience's part.

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I just finished up the second half of the 'cast, had to split it into two parts.

 

I loved all the talk about local politics and journalism!  Great stuff, and I heartily endorse learning more about your local politics.  Go to a city council or school board meeting occasionally.  Sure, it can be boring a lot of times, but it can also be fascinating!  Before I moved a few miles outside of town, I used to go to the city council meetings a few times a year just to hang out.  Anyone has the right to stand and address the council (at least in Kansas), about anything they want.  There are some people who just use it as a platform to rant, sometimes about international stuff, sometimes about local stuff, sometimes about crazy conspiracy shit.  This was always my favorite part of the meetings.  A lot of these people just wanted someone in power to listen to them, and this was their only opportunity to do that. 

 

A high point of my life was actually getting to give a rousing speech/ass chewing to our school board.  After the housing crisis, our board was considering serious cuts to the music and art departments to save money, but would not consider any cuts to athletics.  And they tried to do it in a really stealthy way.  Something like 300 total students and parents showed up to protest, and the band kids got there early to serenade the board members as they walked into the building, and stayed late to serenade them again as they walked to their cars. I was so fucking proud of those kids.  When I got up to speak, I focused on the complete lack of transparency the board had been showing during the process, and what incredibly poor examples for personal responsibility they were setting for the children of the district.  Got a standing ovation from the crowd.  I thought shit like that only happened in movies.

 

Seriously, local politics are awesome.

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I think I'm with DarthEnderX on this one. It's not the responsibility of a work to be construed properly, and it isn't the artist's fault if an audience lacks empathy. I think with comedy this is especially important, because getting the joke is half the fun. If an audience thinks that the end of the joke is when a comedian recites a slur, that's laziness on the audience's part.

I am concerned that this way of thinking can justify really selfish creative work that for all outward appearances is incredibly mean-spirited but falls back on "why don't you get the joke" when someone confronts the artist. 

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I'm not sure how widespread it was (certainly more of a Brit thing than an American thing), but the ginger hate and other negative stereotypes/slurs about red heads go back a long time

 I feel like the North American proliferation of this is definitely South Park related though, it's even mentioned in that link.

 

Understanding comedy is definitely a two way street, the onus is on the satirist to present his comments clearly with context, but I think it's really fair that different people will have different reactions. I specifically recall feeling shocked and devastated when a friend who was a huge Chappelle fan didn't get what was wrong with the Michael Richardson freak out at the Laugh Factory. There are people for whom the humour won't go beyond shock words as catchphrases, which is a large part of why Chappelle had to back away from his show. At the same time I would never let that get in the way of enjoying what I do think is nuanced comedy just because it might be misconstrued by others.

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I am concerned that this way of thinking can justify really selfish creative work that for all outward appearances is incredibly mean-spirited but falls back on "why don't you get the joke" when someone confronts the artist. 

 

An artist can certainly try to communicate something (not saying that is necessarily "the point" of all art) and be unsuccessful in doing so and that failure can sometimes be on them rather than the audience. The artist that says "why don't you get it" without examining their own responsibility in that is probably a worse artist than the one that does. But to be clear, I think it's totally ok for an artist to be selfish and to only create stuff that a few people are going to get.

 

IMO this isn't necessarily any kind of snobby elitism. If an artist, for example, *cough*, deploys an obscure cultural reference, it may well be that such a reference signifies something that another, more accessible reference or generalized depiction would not be able to convey.

 

edit: though I do think in this latter case the artist ought to be keenly aware of what they are doing and if they come out with "why don't you get it" they're just being a jerk.

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I haven't caught up on the thread yet, but I wanted to echo the sentiment: Danielle is the probably the guest who is the best "fit" the cast has ever had. When she's on, she both meshes with the existing tone and style and contributes something unique to herself.

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I think I'm with DarthEnderX on this one. It's not the responsibility of a work to be construed properly, and it isn't the artist's fault if an audience lacks empathy. I think with comedy this is especially important, because getting the joke is half the fun. If an audience thinks that the end of the joke is when a comedian recites a slur, that's laziness on the audience's part.

 

I am reminded of the Far Cry 3 discussions that happened here and surrounding the game in general. The writer did an interview and basically accused his audience of not getting that the presented story wasn't the "real" story.

 

Nope. It is, emphatically, not the audience's job to do the heavy lifting for the presenter. However, like I said before that doesn't excuse the audience from having to participate in the work. Willful ignorance doesn't count.

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I don't think there is one factor that is the inherent responsibility of the creator or audience by default. In general I think it's the creator's job to be honest, the audience's job to be thoughtful, and the job of responsible critics to evaluate works in a humane and holistic way. Those things are all very complicated though and I don't think there's any way to just slam all that responsibility into one group or requirement.

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I don't think there is one factor that is the inherent responsibility of the creator or audience by default. In general I think it's the creator's job to be honest, the audience's job to be thoughtful, and the job of responsible critics to evaluate works in a humane and holistic way. Those things are all very complicated though and I don't think there's any way to just slam all that responsibility into one group or requirement.

 

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Someone on the moderation staff is being hypocritical because I was promised I wouldn't be banned for discussing issues in a non profane way by Jake in the text for the discussion of episode 146 about halfway down page 5 and yet now I am banned on the "video games are childish" user account. It's not even letting me be "talked at to death" because I could not view any content or responses whatsoever

 

https://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/topic/9202-idle-thumbs-146-osamas-dog/?p=277503

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Someone on the moderation staff is being hypocritical because I was promised I wouldn't be banned for discussing issues in a non profane way by Jake in the text for the discussion of episode 146 about halfway down page 5 and yet now I am banned on the "video games are childish" user account

 

https://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/topic/9202-idle-thumbs-146-osamas-dog/?p=277503

Sorry dude. Your posts are rude and offensive. If you were actually "discussing issues" that would be one thing but your posts have been pure trollshit.

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Sorry dude. Your posts are rude and offensive. If you were actually "discussing issues" that would be one thing but your posts have been pure trollshit.

I haven't been rude or offensive. No one actually knows my positions because everyone has been more eager to jump down my throat at what they imagine me to be than to actually have a discussion

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