It's the equivalent, to me, of sitting at a table in a coffee shop or library, writing the first draft of a short story, or screenplay or, were I a musician, song lyrics, and having someone walk by, whip the sheet away from me, snap a pic with their camera, and then say, "Hey, I'm a fan of your stuff. I want the new thing you're working on permanently on my phone now. I'm deciding when it's 'done.'"He was giving a public performance (and I'm assuming being paid for it). It's not the same thing at all. It sucks having that control taken away from you but go work on it in private if you don't want it out there.
Being a "transgressive comedian" doesn't work that way either. At best, it gives you some limited extra leeway as long as you are funny.But who made you the arbiter of what responses are appropriate or not? Why should Patton Oswalt care what you think?
Jesus. You know, people are entitled to have, and express, an opinion about comedy. Whether or not Oswalt cares is rather beside the point.I didn't say people can't have opinions, I just don't get why those opinions need to be stated as universals. like "It doesn't work that way" what's "it" here? why does "it" matter?
What you don't do is what Oswalt has done, which is to try to explain your comedic persona in terms of your personal life, problems and feelings. If you do that, all you're really doing is admitting to a lack of craft, and then making excuses for it. Either what Oswalt did was a misstep in the performance or it wasn't, saying "but you didn't see what I did" highlights, rather than excuses, the misstep.Well, why not? I didn't get the sense that he was even trying to be funny in the blog post, he was trying to explain what happened sincerely. In which case "It wasn't funny" isn't really a relevant critique.
Delmoi, you are the last person who ought to be objecting to people stating their personal opinions, without explicitly caveat-ing them with an acknowledgment of it just being their opinion. You almost exclusively argue in declarative statements yourself. Get over it or MetaTalk it.Okay, well can you explain what you meant by "it"? when you said "It doesn't work that way"? I still don't know.
What I disagree with is that Oswalt managed to justify his reaction with his blogpost in response -- I don't think anything he's said there justifies the way in which he reacted to the woman -- with insulting remarks about her appearance, which is really neither here nor there, but just an easy way to insult a woman in this climate.I'm not really sure he was trying to justify his behavior specifically, but rather just explain it. I didn't read what he wrote as "here's why she deserved this" but rather "Here's why I had such a strong reaction to this".
To make it even more infuriating, she then said -- after I politely objected -- "You're going to want this later," as if she were the rational, intelligent one in this exchange, and I was some neophyte who was doing his first open mike. Yes, that's egotistical of me to say, but fuck it. I've been doing this for twenty three years. Ego was what got me started....and later...
But what you didn't see was her say, "I'm deleting it now" with the same, withering smirk I saw in the Crystal Ballroom. In other words, "I'm not deleting this, and fuck you."posted by delmoi at 1:12 PM on January 7 [4 favorites]
And you didn't see her roll her eyes at her two friends, who rolled their eyes back, and nodded in agreement when she mouthed, "What an asshole."
Now, from that point and beyond, I should've kept my cool. And I didn't. All of my past resentments toward the entitled and beautiful and dismissive and cruel and, especially, the ones who confuse a "dark sense of humor" with "being mean" -- all of these resentments rocketed out of my pores likes bats fleeing a collapsing cave. That part, the eruption that continued even after they left? That's on me. I should've been cooler.
I went to church and the preacher, man, he loves to talk. But he doesn't like it when you talk, though. Like I was in church the other day and the preacher got to a pause and all I did was stand up and say, "HEY! I SMELL ASS!"A comedy club operates remarkably like a church does. You might participate now and then, but you'll know when it's appropriate to do so. Otherwise, you might as well be standing up declaring that you smell ass.
Being a transgressive comedian means that your comedy act is well-known to be confronting or annoying or contain lots of special nasty word in it or something. You're funny enough that you're not thought of badly for doing this. Any time you're not actually funny, though, you risk losing the protection of being a "known transgressive comedian" and to have whatever it was you said or did judged on its merits. It's like the difference between the actions of Ben Stiller's character in Meet The Parents, and somebody actually busting a sewer line. The audience will laugh along, for a bit, because it is expected of them, and then will come the uncomfortable silences.Alright, I see what you're saying. But that's just true in general. If you're jokes aren't funny, there's going to be awkward silence no matter how polite you are. The other thing, though, is that lots of people like mean humor. But if people behind the woman filming didn't see her smirk then they wouldn't get the context of his insults, and might find them overly insulting.
From what I can tell reading the two accounts it wasn't exactly about misogyny, but rather this woman responding to his request to delete the clip with a reaction of entitlement, which Oswalt read to be entitlement based on her self-perceived attractiveness, which set something off in him and that's why he spent his rant cutting that down.WTF, though. Why would he read it as entitlement based on her self-perceived attractiveness? I mean, that's a really weird reading of obnoxious behavior by a woman. Does he have any reason to think that, other than projecting his own hangups?
Well, he looked at her eyeroll and her mouthed "what an asshole" along with her appearance and judged her personality and motivations to be malign, but I see your point.Wait, is there something about rolling your eyes and mouthing "what an asshole" that signals that you think you're hot shit?
Right, because mens' worth is never measured by their appearance.I've read men's looks actually a bigger impact on their wages then woman's.
I don't know if Oswalt is a misogynist, but I don't think he is. At least not in the Jerry Lewis "women can't be funny" way.Ok, seriously? You think that unless someone is a cackling villain who has never had an un-oppressive thought about a woman, then he can never do or say anything misogynistic? That's awfully convenient!
She said “I was out on the street and came in just because I heard you were performing” but this did not deter him. He kept going, she got upset and got up to leave and he said “GOOD! LEAVE” I guess she must have said they’d done a movie together because he said “I don’t care if we’ve done a movie together. You suck. I’ve done a movie with Wesley Snipes, he sucks too.”posted by gladly at 1:28 PM on January 9
« Older Best single-volume histories of WWII, a survey by ... | Emerging surrealist artist Mar... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by jbickers at 11:16 AM on January 7 [4 favorites]