I think it's fair to say that either deliberately or through journalistic incompetence it totally misrepresents both the interview and my material. To have those contentious lines quoted our of context, with absolutely no explanation of what else takes place can have no other effect than to make the casual (and even the quite careful) reader assume that I am a racist. It now seems clear that Logan had come into the interview with an agenda, was only listening out for things that confirmed his idea that comedians were just being offensive for no real reason and then ignored everything else.posted by TheophileEscargot at 9:20 AM on July 28, 2009 [10 favorites]
Capurro told me, with some distaste: "For a lot of comics, it's OK to talk about raping women now. That's the new black on the comedy circuit."posted by Sys Rq at 5:09 PM on July 28, 2009
I am all for women who decide to get plastic surgery, because plastic surgery allows you the rare opportunity to make your outer appearance reflect your inner self: Fake! See, that's a positive joke for women, unless you've got fake boobs, and let's be honest you're not smart enough to get that joke. How's that feel, whores? Keep telling yourself you did it to make your shirts fit better - you did it because you're a whore!"In written form, that's not only unfunny, but hideously misogynistic. If I read it in a book, I'd probably stop reading the book. But in the stand up setting you're missing both the timbre of the delivery and the interplay with the audience's response. You're also missing the fact that a major aspect of Tosh's set is intentionally (and explicitly) about taking things which were once relatively innocent jokes into places where the audience that was laughing a second ago now feels ashamed about laughing. It's a tightrope act, and his delivery is very hit-and-miss from night to night, but he's most definitely not getting the joke from saying that women are whores. It's coming from elsewhere. And it's, notably, the only part of the set where he takes anything in that direction.
You might remember at the end of 2004, when Jimmy Carr had to take Jim Davidson to task for stealing some of his material. Though to be honest, if Jim Davidson can steal your material, maybe it's time to think about writing something else. Although to be fair to Jimmy Carr, it was a kind of sexist bit that he'd written with a sense of irony, that Jim Davidson was able to appropriate at face value. One of the kindest things you can say about Jim Davidson, as a fellow comic, is that he's not a performer who's troubled by the possibility of duality of meaning.Say what we will about irony, but that, to me, makes all the difference.
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posted by scrowdid at 9:18 AM on July 28, 2009 [6 favorites]