Rifftrax - please stop with the transgender "jokes"

[MontyServo]

I guess we can now safely assume that Bill Corbett has not seen this thread.

The joke was stupid enough to make, but his reaction to the genuine outrage that it caused seemed a bit mean-spirited and misguided.

And then he was back to pimping Rifftrax product like nothing happened.

I really dunno what to make of this.

[MontyServo]

Just sent him a tweet pointing him to this thread.  Maybe he will take a look.  Bout the only thing I could think to do.

[Danecho1967]

As I said at the beginning of this thread, people love a good joke at someone else's expense, but get all bent out of shape when the joke is, even tertiarily, on them.  Sounds like Bill's getting sick of the culture of the perpetually offended too.

Edit: Minor word fix.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

I guess we can now safely assume that Bill Corbett has not seen this thread.

I would say so, the guys only do facebook and twitter now, been that way for a few years, I think around the time the blog went cold.  I'd think if they took the time to read the forum they would post once and a while.

As for the joke, I had no idea tranny was a slur, since it shows up in movie titles and such, I'm sure he has no idea (he is older than most of us).

In what way did his kid mean the word is the question?  Did he pick it up from jokes around the house or from car talk?  It is a commonly used word by car guys.  Anyway, not a well done joke, it does seem to imply lesser of 2 evils instead of one he would not have any problem with and one he does, he really should clarify instead of just ignoring people that object.

[D.B. Barnes]

This just popped up on tumblr.

On two separate occasions this week I managed to offend some people strongly on Twitter.  In the first case, it was mostly one guy.  In the other, quite a few people were upset.  ...And I mean, right out of the gate, screaming FUCK YOU ASSHOLE -level upset.

Sometime in the near future I hope to have time to parse through the specifics of this, and let my pedantry flag fly.  But I'm too busy with work and family right now, and it's theoretically a holiday, so that has to wait to be done with the care it deserves.

For now, I'll say:  I don't think even my biggest un-fan would say that my humor, writing, etc. relies mostly on being mean, offensive, and (sorry, this word was tired even 15 years ago) "edgy."   The short version is: it's never my goal to get attention mostly by being an unrepentant dick, and I don't any fair person could say that's what I do — in any aspect of my career, including my years of MST3K / RiffTrax.

But when you're in the humor and art biz, it is INEVITABLE that you will offend people, maybe many people, over time.  And sometimes they have a good case for suggesting that you're an unrepentant dick, and other times they don't.  A lot of stuff falls in the middle on that unrepentant-dickery continuum, too.

Humor is VERY subjective, and can become very personal.  My goal in life is not to make people feel shitty about themselves and the world, unless — perhaps — it's a person who is making the world a significantly shittier place.  Even that type of humor can go sour quickly, in my opinion.

All this is to say:  I'm not trying to hurt people.  But nobody in comedy can take care of everyone's feelings, all the time, and function for long.  IM - POSSIBLE.  And sometimes if a person says: "You hurt me and people like me with that remark," I think twice, and feel bad about it, and apologize, and resolve to do better in the future. 

And sometimes I consider it and think "Sorry, I don't feel so bad about that. Can't help you with those feelings."  This is especially true when I think the person has fundamentally misinterpreted the intention or meaning of the joke, Twitter crack, rant on the city bus, etc.  I happen to think this was true of BOTH my recent Twitter tussles, but sometimes it also does come down to: "I see this subject differently that you do."  ...at which point, there's nowhere to go but hopefully you can end it civilly.  (And while I love Twitter for many things, it's a terrible place to debate heated issues.)

However!  If instead of saying a version of "You hurt me etc. and here's why etc.", you come at me guns-a-blazin' and poo-a-flingin', and expect me to feel guilty about your feelings..? And be [*shudder*] "educated?"  ...Well, then we will get nowhere fast.  You might feel Internet-powerful for a second (it fades SO fast, kids), but you won't get much empathy from me.  You probably won't even get my attention for more than a second, because it'll be easy for me to say: "Unreasonable, poo-flinging jagoff. Blocked."

Holy crap, this was the SHORT version. 

Truthfully, I may or may not have time to post a more substantial piece on this anytime soon. (By substantial, I mean analyzing these two particular experiences this week in their specificity.  I am a goddamned pedant, I am not kidding.)

But in the meantime, in the interest of keeping the peace and offending nobody: cute bunny 4 u.  (as seen above!)

Happy Independence Day.  May you be free of non-cute bunnies, and tyranny!

Bill

http://billcorbett.tumblr.com/

[Artie]

As I said at the beginning of this thread, people love a good joke at someone else's expense, but get all bent out of shape when the joke is, even tertiarily, on them.  Sounds like Bill's getting sick of the culture of the perpetually offended too.

Edit: Minor word fix.

And that is completely irrelevant to what this thread is/was about.

[Danecho1967]

As I said at the beginning of this thread, people love a good joke at someone else's expense, but get all bent out of shape when the joke is, even tertiarily, on them.  Sounds like Bill's getting sick of the culture of the perpetually offended too.

Edit: Minor word fix.

And that is completely irrelevant to what this thread is/was about.

It is perfectly relevant, in that it illustrates the absurdity of your request.  If the joke doesn't hit close to home for you, you are okay with it.  However, you get all upset when the joke does hit close to home.  Why should Rifftrax customize their riffs to spare your feelings, but not others?  What makes you so special?

[MontyServo]

http://billcorbett.tumblr.com/

Well at least he addressed it.  I guess it is up to everyone to take what they will from what he has to say.

Seems to me though that he was more concerned with the tone of the backlash against him then the actual backlash. 

I kind of agree a bit with what he said though.  Comedy is hard and you can't help but offend some, sometimes.  The best you can do is take any reasonable criticism on board and try to adjust what you say if you feel you need to.

See that is why Twitter, to me, is such a double edged sword.  You want to be able to get your little pithy comments out there, but those comments can quickly explode all over the place exponentially.  And then all of the loud crazy people try to shout you down.

[Sideswipe]

Done-Echo has a point, how do you think Michael Bay feels?!

[RVR II]

I agree with Bill on this issue. That is all

[Artie]

As I said at the beginning of this thread, people love a good joke at someone else's expense, but get all bent out of shape when the joke is, even tertiarily, on them.  Sounds like Bill's getting sick of the culture of the perpetually offended too.

Edit: Minor word fix.

And that is completely irrelevant to what this thread is/was about.

It is perfectly relevant, in that it illustrates the absurdity of your request.  If the joke doesn't hit close to home for you, you are okay with it.  However, you get all upset when the joke does hit close to home.  Why should Rifftrax customize their riffs to spare your feelings, but not others?  What makes you so special?

Not all jokes in Rifftrax take shots a certain groups of people, yet there is a history going all the way back to Roadhouse of jokes taking shots that those who are transgender.  Nothing makes me special, but as a customer I have every right to ask them to do something that I think will improve the product.  They don't have to listen, but I can still ask. 

I've never asked for much, just stop making a certain type of joke.  Just like they don't drop racial slurs or hammer different religions.  They want to be seen as "family friendly", but I don't think they are when they use such jokes. 

[Artie]

http://billcorbett.tumblr.com/

Well at least he addressed it.  I guess it is up to everyone to take what they will from what he has to say.

Seems to me though that he was more concerned with the tone of the backlash against him then the actual backlash. 

I kind of agree a bit with what he said though.  Comedy is hard and you can't help but offend some, sometimes.  The best you can do is take any reasonable criticism on board and try to adjust what you say if you feel you need to.

See that is why Twitter, to me, is such a double edged sword.  You want to be able to get your little pithy comments out there, but those comments can quickly explode all over the place exponentially.  And then all of the loud crazy people try to shout you down.

It's unfortunate that some people will get way to angry rather than trying real dialog.  But it's clear from that post that Bill doesn't get why what he said could be taken badly.  Using slurs for transgenders is a-ok in his book as long as he can make a really lame joke.

[bta]

Horatio Sans had to lose 100 pounds before those jokes stopped. 

[Pak-Man]

If one compares the jokes of Bill and the Rifftrax crew in general to, say, the posts that Doc made earlier in this thread (Let's make those useful!) I think the difference between hateful remark and arguably-misguided pun are pretty clear. That's my opinion. It doesn't have to be yours.

Of course I'm saying that as a straight white American male-- part of the one group of people EVERYONE feels like they can insult without consequence. :^)

[Sideswipe]

Horatio Sans had to lose 100 pounds before those jokes stopped. 

At least they still have Jorge Garcia for fat guy jokes!