History of Feminism

seabeyond

(110,159 posts) Fri Sep 28, 2012, 08:09 AM Sep 2012

Ted, and the Fallacy of ‘Harmless Jokes’

Film critic Jonathan Kim says in the Huffington Post, “It’s a film filled with the kind of jokes you might make with your closest friends, where you can say the most offensive things you want to get a laugh since your friends know you and your intent well enough not to take anything you say to heart.” Well, I’m not sure what kind of friends Jonathan has, but my friends and I certainly don’t find such things funny. No, not even in private. Not even if we ‘know we don’t really mean it.’ The whole idea of how it’s fine to make jokes at the expense of minority groups, because everyone knows you’re not really sexist, or racist, or homophobic, is a common fallacy.

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“Some research suggests that jokes like these can have surprisingly serious consequences. In 1977, psychologist Gregory Maio from Cardiff University of Wales and his colleagues looked at the effect that reading superiority jokes had on people’s perception of those who were the butt of the jokes. The study was carried out in Canada, and so centered around the group who was frequently portrayed as stupid by Canadians, namely Newfoundlanders (or ‘Newfies’). Before the experiment, participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups. The people in each group were asked to read one of two sets of jokes into a tape recorder, supposedly to help determine the qualities that make a voice sound funny or unfunny. Those in one group read jokes that did not involve laughing at Newfies (such as Seinfeld material), whilst the other read Newfie put-down humour. Afterwards, everyone was asked to indicate their thoughts about the personality traits of Newfoundlanders. Those who had just read out the Newfie jokes rated Newfoundlanders as significantly more inept, foolish, dim-witted, and slow, than those who had delivered the Seinfeld material.”

“Just as worrying, other work has revealed that superiority jokes have a surprisingly dramatic effect on how people see themselves. Professor Jens Förster, from the International University Bremen in Germany, recently tested the intelligence of eighty women of varying hair colour. Half of them were asked to read jokes in which blondes appeared stupid. Then all participants took an intelligence test. The blonde women who had read the jokes obtained significantly lower scores on the IQ test than their blonde counterparts in the control condition, suggesting that jokes have the power to affect people’s confidence and behavior, and so actually create a world in which the stereotypes depicted in the jokes become a reality.”

So is Ted, as Jonathan Kim opines, “a breath of fresh air,” or does it merely trot out the same old tired stereotypes and brand of humor that has honestly gone completely stale? In a world where sexism, racism and homophobia are thriving – the very things MacFarlane’s jokes depend on – do we really believe that all “viewers are smart enough to know that they’re just jokes”?

Being obnoxious doesn’t make you cute or funny, Ted…even if you are a bear.

http://cratesandribbons.com/tag/sexism/

i am seeing concern with increase in offensive comments being left on the board. of course, sexism wasnt one of them. though, in the thread we saw plenty of sexism being pointed out. by people that had nothing to do with hof. it is recognized. it is not liked. the point. as had been said repeatedly. we may think we can allow "sexism" to play in cause it is acceptable and just so much fun. you know, adult discussion. which is really crude sexist comments labeled as adult fun. no more. but, allow the sexism, and the homophobia and racism on this board will grow. nature of the beast. anyone raising children know better. know... having boundaries. fuzzy the boundaries, make them gray, give up. cause we have lost control.

language matters. i will say again. using language to dehumanize, and you are well on your way to being able to dehumanize even in a majority perceived misogynist manner. that is what dehumanizing is. using little, irrelevant ways that are accepted to dehumanize, conditions to dehumanize to the extent that when a girl is raped, and chooses to keep the baby, we can actually argue the rapist having parental rights to that child. it is his after all. and the one raped is merely female, not human, so empathy lacks. when we shrug our shoulders to manners in which we continually dehumanize a whole gender, why would we act surprised when that gender is not treated like a human being.