Consider this a meta-comment:
Returning from 5 day trip I discovered that Eric's jokes had in fact caused
the uproar I thought they would when I wrote "WOW" immediately after I read
it. Having sat where he sits now I of course have something a neutral
attitude about it all. Sort of like Switzerland I suppose, which could be
good or bad, depending on how you look at it, but one thing it is: SAFE.
What really surprised me was how long it took for it to come out. I posted
my "WOW" immediately on reading eric's post. When I left a day later still
nothing had appeared, then in a space of about five days (just the time of
my trip +/- some hours) the thread grew from a dribble to a tidal surge with
the typically mediating efforts of mike to keep the dikes from bursting
although it always seems some flood damage takes place anyway. When my
children were very small, I could always tell how bad they were hurt from a
fall or some other childhood mishap by noting the length of time between the
impact and the actual emission of sound. If it took a long time, I knew I
was in for a very loud cry of pain.
But then it occurs to me that it's curious that this little process (didn't
someone euphemistically call it "self-policing") occurs and re-occurs on
xmca. In addition to the standard COP ideas, I think people should very
seriously consider the role of ritual victimization and its usefulness,
especially in the destabilization of counter-hegemonic ideas in the
maintenance or control of community self-identiy -- Is there a hegemonic,
political correctness on xmca? GO FIGURE.
How about some verse from Bob Dylan?
Now Ophelia, she's neath the window.
For her I feel so afraid
On her twenty-second birthday
She already is an old maid.
To her death is quite romantic
She wears an iron vest.
Her profession's her religion.
Her sin is her lifelessness.
And though her eyes are fixed uipon
Noah's great rainbow.
She spends her time peeking
Into Desolation Row.
Is this verse offensive to some feminist sensibility or can one see it as a
valid depiction of a PERSON in which the gender is not a factor. Could the
verse have a male subject, (Othello for Opehelia/eye to meter not metonymic
association) and all changed pronouns and still give one the feeling: i've
know someone like that before? In other words are there characteristic
behaviors that do tend to be associated with one or the other sex other than
the obvious like our toilet-seat-position-preference or is even the mention
of this offensive too??? If something is true most of the time (even if we
don't actually quantify formally) are we justified in taking it as a
characteristic? (This might also be a response to those who claim that
jokes about bisexual marriage are offensive to those who want that
institution extended to include same sex marriage are innappropriate). And
does it matter if the characteristic is funny in its own right and doesn't
depend on some additional stereotype of its subject?? If the imputed
characteristic isn't really common among the group to which it's attributed
(or even the individual if gender is specifically mentioned) then it's just
slander or some element of domination--but that's not true of most humor
which has the exact opposite effect: that of taking apart the pretensions of
subject, for example.
I don't think the dylan verse can be modified since there is no way that a
man can be an "old maid" something that must be part of many women's
consciousness at least with respect to the possibilities of being a mother,
as witness the centrality of this them in Ally McBeal. Yes this is all
popular culture but where else does culture change happen???
Just as in the case of Marge Simpson where one is challenged by the
Aristotelian virtues she displays in the role of subservient slave to a
family composed of socially challenged misfits, one is likewise challenged
by the coexistence of the masculine and femine in oneself. and it hardly
matters to me whether these predispositions (RIP PB) are the result of genes
or history since I have to live with them in any event. As Bob Dylan
pointed out about verses like the one above, when he's writing about a third
person, he's usually writing about some aspect of his own person. Little
portraits. Maybe one only sees things about oneself in seeing something
about an other?
Does the very notion that only members of a group (Poles, Irish, women,
Italians, people who play the viola, etc.) can tell a joke about
characteristics of that group, mean that only members of that group should
be the ones to hear it? Why??? Are those characteristics only perceptible
(and funny) to the members of the group? If this is so then we've really
got to let Bill Cosby, Ellen Degeneris (sp?), Eddie Murphy (especially Eddy
Murphy of the TV clamation show about the Chicago tenement), and others such
as the 'blue" Robin Williams, because they need to be brought in too. Why
are they so popular if all of this is so morally wrong? All of them aim
their humor precisely at OTHERS.
I can't but think of Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose" and his theory
about the fate of the last book of Aristotle's aesthetics, the one on
comedy: destroyed by men whose profession was their religion and their sin
was their Lifelessnes (or maybe fear of life is better) according to Eco.
Eco seemed to suggest that Aristotle explored why it's funny to lampoon
people's shortcomings. But then hey! Big A is a dead white man too!! (are
Greeks white now? I know WASPs don't think so and Mediterranean Ave (along
with Baltic) are the cheapest properties on the Monopoly Board but then I
haven't talked to a real live WASP since I lived in . . (FADE TO GREY)
Paul H. Dillon, in name only
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Feb 01 2002 - 01:00:08 PST