Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends will end later this week. The Man Boobz Summer Video Fest continues with “SELL YOUR CAR OR ELSE!” Apparently this is how women are.
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We Hunted The MammothBucking the Backlash
YOHAMI: And you had qualified your statement in the first place, you wouldn’t need to clarify.
As to the issue of argument, what I am saying is summer_snow offered arguments. You said she didn’t. She said that, were you to include qualifiers (IME, Some women, 40 percent of the women I know, Straight men, etc.) you would be better understood.
If you don’t want to be better understood, fine. But saying she didn’t make any arguments is wrong.
Pecunium,
Requesting qualifiers is not an “argument”
So what do you think about the cartoon? funny, offensive?
I like that he asks if we disagree/agree w/ what he said, when he’s rly not saying ANYTHING xD And when ppl ask him to clarify he becomes very economical w/ his words and circumspect xD
I’m also amused that after I went to bed and woke up he’s STILL GOING xD I wonder how long this will go on… xD
Hrm.. I’ll set the line at 5.5 more hours… who wants to be the over and the under? xD
*bet
Okay, I’m through talking to Marc, and YOHAMI is boring.
*tags Pecunium in*
YOHAMI: But summer_snow explained why you needed them.
I think it’s stupid. I think the set up is lacking context for it to explain a specific event, and if it’s general it’s not trenchant, nor funny; merely laughable.
In short… it needs qualifiers.
ami: You have to count me out. I need to wash my hair and take a motorcycle ride.
I’m going to either the library or to see if somebody will go malling w/ me so I can use this coupon I have xD Have a good hair washings Pecunium! 😀
But, before I go: YOHAMI: You aren’t arguing. Merely disagreeing. You don’t think you need to qualify. Ok. You think adding “straight” to limit the men in a comment is “too PC”. Ok.
That’s up to you.
But… it has consequences. You are going to spend a lot of time being on the defensive for being misunderstood, and a lot of effort clarifying what you mean.
A little time at the beginning, making you actual argument clear, will save a lot of time, and energy, at the back end.
Okay, I’m through talking to Marc, and YOHAMI is boring.
*tags Pecunium in*
Just because you have no arguments!
Wish I could, Ami, but these dogs won’t walk themselves.
(Well, actually, they will walk themselves, but I can’t count on them coming back.)
Do links work here?
Ah, they do!
Yohami: I’m just curious. You’re obviously not a native English speaker. What’s your cultural background, if I may ask? I don’t know if that’s informing how you view the video, but I suspect it is. I don’t find it at all funny, actually, and have a hard time understanding how anyone could. Mind you, it’s not simply the idea behind the video (a manipulative woman trying to manipulate her boyfriend) that I find lacking, although that’s part of it. In a Judd Apatow movie, for example, this would be the setup for laffs. The poor pathetic henpecked guy, his awful demanding girlfriend, etc. Pathos, not humor.
In any case, it’s so poorly scripted, so leaden and dull, that even if there were some humor to be wrung out of the situation, the creator of the video wouldn’t be able to pull it off.
On top of that, I’m not even sure that it was meant to be funny. I kind of thought so at first (it contains some of what passes for humor in MRAland: e.g., “Did somebody spike your Cheerios?”), but having seen its author’s site, now I think it’s more like an informational video. Do you recognize yourself or your girlfriend in this video? If so: Read my site! And I guess that’s helpful in a way, although honestly, I do find something disturbing about his method. The pictures of the ladies covered in men’s blood, for example. Maybe I’d have to spend more time looking at it to be sure, but it certainly seemed, at first glance, as though the main point of the site is not that people should steer clear of awful, abusive people, but that women are totally different creatures from men — nonhuman, even — and therefore need to be treated differently from the way men would treat humans.
Pecunium,
“I think it’s stupid. I think the set up is lacking context for it to explain a specific event, and if it’s general it’s not trenchant, nor funny; merely laughable.”
yep, it is stupid, but the context is all there, not sure what context you´re missing. If you dont find it funny, thats ok.
“But, before I go: YOHAMI: You aren’t arguing. Merely disagreeing..”
Im not disagreeing with anything. Some people here is “disagreeing” without telling me what they are disagreeing with. So its a lot of ado about nothing so far.
I dont have any argument really, I just stated my opinion and experiences. If someone disagrees, just, tell me what you think about the subject. Pretty forward stuff.
“You don’t think you need to qualify.”
See, I never stated anything like that. This is how the pile of nothing sums…
“Ok. You think adding “straight” to limit the men in a comment is “too PC”. Ok”
See, never said anything like that either.
“But… it has consequences. You are going to spend a lot of time being on the defensive for being misunderstood, and a lot of effort clarifying what you mean.”
Again, what did you not understand about what I said? I can explain, no problema.
“A little time at the beginning, making you actual argument clear, will save a lot of time, and energy, at the back end.”
Which argument do you find unclear?
This is funny, really.
Ami,
“I like that he asks if we disagree/agree w/ what he said, when he’s rly not saying ANYTHING xD And when ppl ask him to clarify he becomes very economical w/ his words and circumspect xD”
Exactly. What is people disagreeing about, really? Im not saying anything outrageous as far as I know.
Bee,
Im latin american, english is my second language.
If the video is not meant to be funny, then its sad and clueless.
“Do you recognize yourself or your girlfriend in this video?”
I recognize the dysfunctional mechanics, I have met a lot of women who exhibit the pattern / couples that function in a way similar to the video.
I think that statement is whats causing so much trouble here, and, probably anything negative towards women is going to cause trouble here? feminist blog etc. if so, it wasnt my intention.
Whats your site? I´ll check it out
Yohami: You write English very well, by the way — much better than my attempts at Spanish.
And I agree with you on the sad and clueless part. I … I’m torn, because like I said, there are aspects of humor in the video and on the video creator’s site, but he describes his site as an educational site aimed to provide resources for men who have been abused. This video is one of the resources, I guess. I come away from the experience thinking that it’s sad and clueless — and I didn’t find it funny, anyway.
I was unclear in my last comment.
This is the web site that the video’s creator runs. When I said
I meant the sentences starting with “Do you recognize” to be kind of … what the video’s creator would be saying to you, its viewer. Not what I, Bee, am saying to you, Yohami. That wasn’t clear! I apologize.
So yes. Basically, in my experience, I have met a not insignificant number of men who have disproportionately wanted more from their relationships than they were willing to give. Including demanding a car, or sitting at home while their spouse works and takes care of the kid, or … lots of things, really. So while I’m not unsympathetic to the video creator’s (or your) assertions that men can/should do stand up for themselves and not be pressured to be in relationships that don’t work for them, I do get kind of confused about the insistence that this is a thing that evil women do to men and not a human dynamics kind of thing — a thing about people interacting with other people.
“The comic is funny because it portraits the mechanics that I see in bad relationships with women: the women rebalancing the resources in the relationships so she gets all of it and the guy gets none, and using key phrases like “if you really loved me” and stuff like that.
The equivalent with gender reversed would be something like Lyn described. The guy being self centered to the point he gives a rat ass about the girlfriend is sacrificing to be with him, and taking her for granted, so, demanding AND ignoring her. The guy would probably just sell her car and then “surprise her” with his new mercedes. That would be a good joke.”
Someone in a relationship is trying to take all the power! Ha… ha?
I honestly can’t see how either senario is hilarious, and I thought the “It’s just a flesh wound!” in Monthy Python was funny, even though it involved cutting someone’s legs off. So work on your delivery?
YOHAMI: It has no context. It starts and she is saying stupid things, and doing things which make no sense.
When summer_storms said,
she was making an argument. It wasn’t simple disagreement. She told you why you need to add qualifiers to what you say.
This is where you spoke about PC:
There’s a great thread on Pandagon about viewing women as a commodity that men buy.
http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments/buyers_and_sellers
It’s my day to post links.
Bee,
Got it, for a minute I thought you had a website.
“in my experience, I have met a not insignificant number of men who have disproportionately wanted more from their relationships than they were willing to give.”
Yes, I´ve seen a lot of that too. Theres lots of abusive people in all shapes and forms. Have you seen more male than female abusers? did the mechanics they use resemble the stuff on the cartoon?
Molly,
“So work on your delivery?”
Pizza you mean?
Pecunium,
Re: summer. No, said she was disagreeing with me, but wouldnt say what she was disagreeing about,so I asked her a few times to clarify her position and she just kept making police type questions. I guess she was trying to find something, but wouldnt tell me what she was looking for nor what was bothering her
“She told you why you need to add qualifiers to what you say.”
zero problems about that, already addressed, over and over.
“It has no context. It starts and she is saying stupid things, and doing things which make no sense.”
The context: its an male/female relationship where she´s a taker and the guy is a doormat. she uses emotional key phrasing “if you really love me” and he answer with broken mechanical logic (arguing it doesnt make sense), so everyone is in a bubble and isolated. This is pretty dramatic and dark. BUT the situation itself, the two cars and the absurdity and the the aesthetics, make it over the top so its “funny.” The combination of stereotypes ( mundane and predictable) and absurd (surprise) is what creates laugh. So, there you go, try watching it again.
Or maybe this hurts your sensitivity because the abuser is a woman, or because theres a gender dynamics? I cant tell. I know if this was about race, a lot of people would get offended, and this is a feminist blog after all. Maybe portraiting any women in any negative light is a sin here? even when Im not saying all women are like that, nor that women are worse than men, and Im framing everything to MY personal experience?
Maybe its too much for you guys?
Maybe it’s ridiculous, and strawman. It’s a cliché, absent some reason (other than women are grasping and selfish) it has no purpose.
To be close to funny it needs to be plausible. The idea that two used cars = 1 new car is absurd. The idea that someone who is that greedy is going to tell him to quit his job, and risk a cut in salary… absurd. The sheer level of over the top (loser, loser, loser, while dancing), absurd.
It’s a caricature, and what it does is make the idea of that sort of abuse look ridiculous. It defeats it’s purpose.