This won’t be news to a lot of you — I’m a little late getting to it — but our old pal Tom Martin, the repulsive British MRA celebrity, is actually going ahead with the somewhat baffling video “women and comedy” project he was babbling about in the comments here many months ago, when he was still allowed to comment here. Well, “actually going ahead with it” this August if he can get anyone else to agree to work for him for free minimum wage.
The documentary project is called “Laughing with Women” and, Martin explains, it will “investigat[e] if gold-digging impairs women’s joke-making ability, and if, when women reject gold-digging in all its forms, they can become instantly funnier.”
In case that didn’t make sense to you — don’t worry, that’s a completely natural reaction — Tom explains his, er, “logic” a bit further in a jobs listing he’s posted in hopes of finding a crew, which has already gotten a good deal of ridicule over at PZ Myers’ and on at least one comedy website.
Why are women, on average, slightly less funny than men? Does gold-digging in particular impede women’s joke-making ability? When women publicly reject gold-digging, do they become as funny, or even funnier than men?
In his numerous visits to Man Boobz, Martin expounded at length on the topic of gold-digging women, generally referring to them by his preferred term, the shorter and blunter “whores.” Martin has previously estimated that roughly 97% of women fit this description, and has suggested that female penguins are also whores. Frankly, once he gets going on the topic, it’s hard to shut him up, which is partly why he’s no longer welcome in the comments here.
In any case, this odd hypothesis will be tested, Martin says, with a “radical, and revealing street-based social experiment.”
Still puzzled? Mike Booth, the British video comedian behind SomeGreyBloke and Dan Cardamon, has managed to tease out a few more details from Martin (posting here as sexismBusters):
Martin is confident that his proposed video will blow the lid off this whole “women and gold-digging and comedy, no really, they’re connected” thing:
If the radical, and revealing street-based social experiment at the centre of our documentary proves gold-digging does make women less funny (as pre-production research suggests) then our findings will make headlines around the world, our film’s two minute teaser trailer attached to all those news and blog articles (Update: this advert alone has already been blogged and tweeted about by outraged PC types).
The full documentary will be shot to a broadcast-quality standard and format, giving mainstream television companies worldwide the opportunity to purchase broadcasting rights (if they’re feeling brave enough) whilst we maintain a virtually guaranteed revenue stream from our already established hardcore of supporters and fans within the non PC gender equality field around the world, who, along with everyone else, will be able to enjoy Laughing with Women on newly launched pay-per-view channel, Vimeo on Demand (VoD) – where VoD itself takes a very modest 10% cut. The documentary has the potential to be translated into several languages – gold-digging a familiar if hidden story in every country, until now.
In other words, it sounds like some sort of video gold mine.
So I’d recommend that all gold-digging women out there try to get in on the ground floor of this Tom Martin dude.
Oh, and speaking of Dan Cardamon, here’s the faux MRA’s take on the project:
CORRECTION: This post originally stated that Martin wouldnt’ be paying his crew, but he says he will be paying them minimum wage, so I’ve corrected the relevant passage above.
EDITED TO ADD: Tom has shown up in the comments, and I’m letting his comments through (for now at least), so if you have any questions for him, feel free to head to the comments to address him directly.
Um, the whole article about how women aren’t as capable of humor as men? You’re unbelievably obtuse.
Again, what is an interpretation of “women aren’t funny” that ISN’T dehumanizing and patronizing to 3.5 billion people?
Jake, when I say you strike me as a tiresome, weak sauce troll you must take into account the tone in which this post is written. It’s meant to be a lighthearted piece. Interpreting it otherwise is just looking for something to get upset about because it supports your worldview. Run along now.
Manboobzer HM said “Think I’ll whip out the vibrator and chuckle in this guy [Tom Martin’s] direction now.”
Don’t manboobzers think, that in light of Manboobzer HM’s comment, David should now change the name of this article, from “Women laughing alone at Tom Martin” to “Women laughing alone (whilst playing with vibrating plastic cock) at Tom Martin”?
I promise I will get back to all your important questions about Laughing with Women after I’ve finished laughing with HM.
It might take a few days.
Um, the whole article about how women aren’t as capable of humor as men? You’re unbelievably obtuse.
Of course, in the same article he also mentioned that men were stupid and lacked wit, which led to their ability to “laugh at anything”. You’ll interpret it how you want to interpret it, I guess.
For everyone who isn’t as dense as a neutron star, observe that satire is in fact a genre and that it’s in fact entirely separate from authorial intent arguments. Authorial intent refers, almost by definition, to something that is not clearly apparent from the text itself; anything that is clearly apparent from the text is just, you know, the meaning.
So, applied to satire, authorial intent would come into play if you wrote a piece that was meant to be satire but everyone took it at face value or vice-versa, forcing you to clarify. Either way, you’ve failed.
This can apply to other genres, too: If you made a mockumentary but everyone thought it was real (eg, Orson Welles), for instance. Fact is, unless you’re actually writing a genre deconstruction, the genre of a work should always be evident to the reader, either from the text itself or from an introduction. If a reader isn’t sure what kind of work you were trying to write and gets confused as a result, then once again, you’ve failed.
Authorial intent refers, almost by definition, to something that is not clearly apparent from the text itself; anything that is clearly apparent from the text is just, you know, the meaning.
Who decides what is “clearly apparent from the text”?
Tom, when you come back could you tell us which experts you’ve collaborated with? I’d like to read the relevant literature.
*presses lips together*
*flaps hands*
*can hold it no longer* BAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Hey, look! It’s the dumbest thing I’ve read today!
Jake, are you really this dense? It’s not a good look.
Well, if you think “Why women aren’t funny” doesn’t mean that women aren’t funny, but it also isn’t a satire about how women are funny, and you think all this should be obvious to anyone who reads it, you’ve pretty well ruled yourself out.
I’ve read weird things before, but…
Marie, it is you are gold digging! Every time you post something adorable I send you mental hugs and bonbons, but I have received neither equal gifts nor sexual favors in return.
The kitty in my avatar is very disappointed in you.
Whoops, that should say it is me you are gold digging.
Well, I see what the references to Jake being a dick were about.
Let me add smug little creep who feels the need to defend the indefensible.
Hitchens makes me want to puke, and so do his fanboys. All that florid rhetoric … just the Oxbridge version of the pub drunk spouting crap.
LOL, “the indefensible”. This Manichean stuff really is out of control.
Hitchens makes me want to puke, and so do his fanboys. All that florid rhetoric … just the Oxbridge version of the pub drunk spouting crap.
Certainly better than anything you could do.
I clearly am not going to fit in here. Have a nice life.
Blacky: I do not think that Tom is saying that all women are gold diggers.
You are wrong. That is all.
So you think misogyny is defensible? Want to explain why?
Sonny, I wouldn’t want to write like Hitchens’s verbal diarrhoea, and I really don’t think your good opinion is important. Just the opposite: if you came over all admiring of my writing I’d wonder what the hell was wrong with it.
loudiah: those photos are private, but I am willing to offer some proof of the Glories of the Golden State.
Here’s one of mine.
And here are about five hundred more, all taken in Calif.
This one is just too cute: Permission to come aboard
Tommy Boy: No, the pay won’t be deferred particularly. Each person will just have to finish their job before getting paid cash (no waiting months for the check as on big film shoots).
Whoa? When I was working on films I got paid (as did everyone else, who wasn’t getting a cut of the take [i.e. points on gross) weekly. X hours = X dollars. One of the nice things about it was “call”. If the call was for four hours, and we worked eight, everything over 4 was time and half.
So your “when the job is done” sounds like a scheme to cheat your employees.
Weak. 2/10.
Poor little Jakey, trying to be all sarcastic. It’s all the more amusing if he is one of the usual socks, because he’ll be back.
Wonder if I should tell him I have two nice lives?
I agree with Hitchens on lots of topics and admire him in some regards. His misogyny wasn’t defensible though. It isn’t now. It was gross and disappointing. Lots of things about him were. He was a strange fellow.
Dvärghundspossen: Whooot!
Regarding bushido: It’s complicated.
It’s fluid (in that what was “good” bushido ca 1400 was not ca 1500, and all bets were off on both by the transitional period of Oda Nobunaga/Toyotomi Hideyoshi/Ieyasu Tokugawa.
During the Tokugawa Shogunate it was semi-stable, and became more refined/ossfied (and I’d guess this is what most people think of when they use the word), and it changed again with the Meiji Restoration, and the expansionist period of the Empire in the 1920-1945.
I’d say that bushido was an evolving behavioral code, with an ethical framework. What makes it so different to the European chivalry is that it wasn’t married to an overarching religious morality, and the population to which it applied was much homogenous.
That said, it wasn’t as restrictive of women’s roles as chivalry was, and the upper echelons of the society had a much more egalitarian understanding (across the board) because of the requirements to have attendance in Edo, which meant the women were more widely required to engage in the day-to-day business of running the estate (because intercernine fighting was much reduced, and strongly dealt with).
It’s a really complicated subject, and as Historiphilia pointed out the mapping is so imperfect between the two as to be pretty mush useless.
Aaand it’s the “Let’s see YOU do better!” argument! Code chartreuse!
Protip: This rebuttal is always shit, but it works a lot better if it’s something that most people actually can’t do, like quantum physics or contact juggling.
But everyone and their mother blogs (my blog count is now up to six), so saying “I’d like to see YOU write persuasively better than that!” is not much of a challenge, particularly when we’re comparing to someone who by your own admission is unclear and bad at communicating.
Shorter Jakey: “The people being insulted by Hitchens don’t get it, but my superior manly man brain does!”