So, here we go again.
The most frustrating thing about any sort of scandal - political, sexual, social, financial - is that everyone and his (or in this case her) dog will try to shoe-horn their own views into the issue, and just now there was another prime example.
Like anyone living in the UK (and probably a lot of people abroad) a lot of people on my Facebook feed post links to articles they read in The Guardian. I don't know if they do this deliberately - I credit most of my friends with the ability to read the news without having to point out that they've done it - or if it's an annoying technological tick that's developed. Either way, whether it's due to my social circle or an aggressive linking policy, The Guardian seems to be the worst offender in terms of news feed clogging.
The article that annoyed me today was on by Eva Wiseman, entitled "Uni Lad website closure highlights the trouble with male banter." (Ms. Wiseman recently won the "Least Catchy Headline" contest at the weekly awards ceremony I hold in my head.)
Her article - which is worth reading to understand her full argument - manages to be uptight and sexist whilst decrying things that are reprehensible (and therefore worth being uptight about) and colossally sexist.
Her basic point, as I understand it, is that "banter" is an inherently male pastime and that it is usually offensive to everyone.
Her jumping-off point for this hypothesis is the recent closure of "unilad.com" after someone posted a piece that pointed out that 85% of rapes go unreported, and that this meant the odds were in your favour as a man.
First and foremost, I'm not ever going to condone that statement. It's horrible, and whoever came up with it is an asshole. Really. There's nothing to be glorified about rape, it's an abhorrent act conducted only by the sort of degenerates who should all be summarily killed.
That being said, Ms. Wiseman clearly thinks that "rape is okay 'cause you'll get away with it" constitutes "banter" and that all attempts at banter should be stopped immediately.
Ms. Wiseman, whilst being completely justified in her outrage at the initial statement, is clearly one of those dreary people who has long ago decided to act as the Comedy Police.
Once again: What was said wasn't funny. At all. But the problem with it isn't that it mentioned rape, or that it was on a "lads'" website. The problem, in it's entirety, was that, “as a joke,” it wasn't funny.
There are plenty of jokes that are cruel and risqué that also happen to be brilliant.
What's the opposite of Christopher Reeve?
Christopher Walken.
I think that's funny, but not because it makes fun of the disabled. I think it's a clever play on words. If I thought someone being crippled was a source of humour, you wouldn't need to put it in joke form, you could just say to me "Some peoples' legs don't work, they have to use a wheelchair!" and I'd laugh. That doesn't work, though, because nobody in their right mind would be brainless enough to draw humour from that. (Whoever wrote the rape joke above would probably think that was killer material, but I digress...)
What's brown and sticky?
A stick.
What's brown and runny?
Linford Christie.
Again, some people cry racism, but I think that's a funny joke. The joke isn't that - haha! - he's of a different racial background to me; the joke is a play on "run." You can call it racist all you like, but at no point does it belittle Linford Christie; it just points out that his skin is brown in colour. Which it is. And that he was famous for running. Which he was.
I'm already killing these jokes by analysing them, because analysis is the death of all humour. Anyone who's ever had to explain a joke will know that as soon as you spell it out, it stops being funny. Even evolutionary psychiatrists agree that the cognitive dissonance between the setup and punchline are what makes something funny. Bridging that gap takes the humour out of anything.
Still, analysing humour to death and making sweeping statements about people seems to be exactly what Ms. Wiseman is about. She picks out one comment poster, Andy, who defended the initial rape joke. Whilst clearly a wanker, she also assumes that Andy is a Top Gear fan (because, despite being one of the most popular programmes in BBC history, Top Gear is exclusively watched by wankers, in her eyes) and surmises that he watches a lot of Dave, which is implied to be an unfunny channel despite featuring the likes of Stephen Fry and Paul Merton, to mention but two. So, if you think rape is funny, you watch a channel that airs a lot of high-brow, satirical material, apparently. People who like satire condone rape. I can only assume the Private Eye offices have a room full of bound and gagged mail-order brides, based on this logic.
She also asks if banter is just "boy talk", which I can happily say it isn't. Almost all of my female friends can give as good as they get - some of them give better - when it comes to a bit of verbal fun-poking. There is never any malice in what's said, and nobody would ever set out to hurt anyone else. I'm confident in saying that whilst I enjoy banter (which isn't a dirty word, by the way) I would be mortified if anything I said ever actually hurt the feelings of anyone I'm talking to, and this is true of everyone I know, female or male.
I have no idea if women joke with each other in the way that men do when they're in same-sex company. I have absolutely no clue what women talk about amongst themselves. I've never been privvy to it, as a long-term penis owner and a fairly clueless one at that. Today I gave my girlfriend some money to get her hair done, and when I saw her later said [sarcastically] "Oh, nice haircut." A girl nearby was flabbergasted that I could actually tell she'd had her hair done, but in reality, I had no idea. She looked exactly the same to me. Women just know these things about each other, and it’s something I’ll never get involved in, in the same way that most girls look lost when men talk about football.
On a side note, female haircuts baffle me. I shave my head when my hair gets too long. I do it myself and it costs me nothing, and I come out of it looking totally different. Women book appointments to have their hair altered by a third of a nanometer, and it costs them forty-seven thousand pounds, payable over two years with a 0.02% interest rate, and then they bitch that it wasn't done right anyway.
I should clarify that that was comedic hyperbole. I'm legitimately baffled by womens' haircuts, but I was making light of it in a slightly mean-spirited manner for the purposes of amusement. This is something I often do in writing and in conversation. It's a form of banter, and most people are fine with it, and often even join in.
Unfortunately, Ms. Wiseman seems to inhabit the sort of joyless life where all conversations are either deadly serious discussions of important issues, or twee, Disneyesque platitudes amongst friends.
Frankly, I couldn't live that kind of life without suspecting everyone I talked to was a serial killer.
The ability to take the piss is an invaluable and cherished part of life. We should celebrate it when it's funny, and if it's not funny, the person responsible probably isn't worth talking to in the first place.
Rape isn't ever okay. Jokes are only jokes if they're funny. Eva Wiseman hates men and has a stick up her arse. The end.
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