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.
There’s a scene in one of Pratchett’s later Discworld novels, in which Moist von Lipwig is being escorted into the headquarters of the Clowns’ Guild, along with his good lady Spike. The guildmaster explains that they do not ordinarily admit women, as they are not funny. Curious, she replies, since neither are clowns.
Is that from Going Postal or Making Money, Robert, or is there another one about those two out?
😀
@Dvärghundspossen, I wasn’t saying that at all about circumcision–I was clarifying my previous comment about the number of nerve endings before this guy jumped in with an “Aha!” That’s actually the opposite of what I was saying. That post was mostly an aside, and in that aside I thought I’d mention that plenty of feminists also oppose circumcision and that men lose a lot of those nerve endings that the clit has. Not that the loss of the entire clitoris is the same thing at all. I thought I said that explicitly? Anyway, I basically needed to expand on the comments about nerve endings because my initial post was far too general regarding the comparison between the clit and the penis.
My comments about the scientific realities about nerve endings in the vagina vs. the clit was just a response to this dude regarding his calling women who don’t climax from penetrative sex “orgasmless” creatures, and his bizarre belief that women somehow oppress men in this way, painting us as somehow innately sexually broken. Of course things aren’t that simple; unfortunately this guy is off his nut though. I wouldn’t have such an oversimplified conversation with a non-idiot!
HM, okay, sorry for the misunderstanding. Should have read more carefully before responding. 🙂
I find Tom’s attempts to shame HM for masturbating rather amusing. The fact that he thought that she was serious about doing so is funnier, though.
Totally true about inherited wealth.
I just think that the MRA mentality about “alphas” and “high status” men is sort of similar to the way that a young kid looks at a guy who owns a candy store and says “oh wow, if I owned a candy store, I’d eat candy all day every day”, when in reality, the candy store owner is doing inventory all day everyday and figuring out how to pay his creditors and…
To be late off-topic and generally clueless (so as usual):
I can contact juggle (badly).
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.. *I need a distraction!*..
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Look a kitty: http://i.imgur.com/lENZdt0.gif
WHAT has that kitten been snorting? 😀
I love the way the lizards are completely unfazed. Wonder if they’ve seen those antics before?
@CassandraSays: The King of Comedy: he doesn’t get jokes.
@Dvärghundspossen, no problem! I wrote an ocean of text. I just can’t stop laughing at the guy.
Here’s my take on the piece by Hitch, since I missed most of the discussion. I never read the article linked by Katz (thanks btw). I think that maybe he was drunk when he wrote it. Truly, it seems like the ramblings of a very late night.
Here’s what I took away, and it may be totally not what he was going for. Toward the end he talks about how the very nature of women’s existence on this planet (especially for the majority of human history) is one of serious and unsmiling business. Our lives have been punctuated by enormous risks as well as routine discomforts that men never need to worry about. This could leave us with a deficit in being able to produce humor (in a very general sense). And maybe men are more capable in that department simply to fulfill a helping role. They make us laugh; laughter is the best medicine, etc. This is all just speculative, non-scientific stuff obviously.
Also my take on it might be totally skewed because I really liked Hitchens. I didn’t know him personally, but it still makes me sad to think of him as a misogynist especially because he’s dead now. I admit that I am a total Pollyanna about people sometimes.
@marcilannister
I used to like Hitchens a lot.
But I used to like him when I was a devout fundamentalist, marching against women’s choice and supporting George W. Bush and his wars.
I never had a tiny little bit of cognitive dissonance from it, either.
Now that I’m an atheist myself, I can’t stand to read his stuff any more.
Which is a shame, because he really could put together an awesomely good put-down.
@Pecuniam, that’s a good overview of Bushido, and more detailed than I could do. I’m interested in Japanese History but I’m not an expert and what I know about Bushido is in a large part from the context of studying Chivalry, where they quite commonly lay it out to you why they are categorically not the same thing.
Maybe History degrees have had an influx of weaboos and the academics have got sick of it.
Also Jakey? Did you just reference Manichean-ism? Because I do not think that you actually know what that is.
Please don’t throw in long words to sound impressive without actually checking what they mean. Particularly not when there are History nerds around.
Ooh! Show show show.
This is my only evidence (I have a terrible luck with cameras). It’s, well, me practicing some rolling tricks (and all my butterflies being too high so out of picture… Yeah… ^^;):
Jake: Well, since your hysterically labeling him a “misogynist” is predicated on the misquote, yes, it does bother me.
More of that prescience you were prattling about earlier. 1: You know that Howard has read more than just that one piece. 2: You presume the reason for his thinking Hitchens a misogynist is that he misunderstood him, and no other reason (despite his saying he read more than just that piece).
This leads me to think you have a specific dog, of some sort, in this fight; that you have a reason to need Hitchens to be not a misogynist. There seems to be some sort of idolising going on here. You respected Hitchens for one thing, and so you can’t bear to have his other flaws revealed.
Go and re-read that piece. Tell me where the qualifiers are which make it, “one sexist thing” as opposed to a distillation of fundamentally sexist beliefs.
That’s what you’re arguing, that this piece is exceptional that it’s either a one off (which isn’t true) or that it, in some way, is a narrow slice of his views on women; applicable only to his opinions of their sense of humor. If so, you can try to defend it; but to do that you will need to show that it’s a limited complaint; that his attacks on on just that one aspect of women.
Good luck with that.
Yes, this is because it was meant as a light-hearted speculative piece. Unfortunately, tone is lost on certain people, especially when something plays into their pet ideologies.
Oh… I get it… we can’t take a joke. That’s so fucking original. You’ve got Hitchens explaining the motives for that piece? His defense of it as, “light-hearted” (i.e. not to be taken seriously)? You know, in all the writings, and interviews, and interlocutory events I saw Hitchens take part in, I never got the idea that he was saying anything he didn’t mean.
What’s your reason for saying he has no feet of clay? What ideological need do you have to keep him pristine, which our pointing out he was a misogynist offends?
My take on Hitchens:
He was chivalrous, in that he espoused paying for women, and in that he only ever spoke of Muslim women as victims, ignoring the disproportionate financial burdens placed on Muslim men – a benevolent sexist, and it known, benevolent sexists express more hostile sexism too (ie Al Murray, “Women are angels. Angels! ANGELS!!! – and whores”.
Jake: So you brought it up because … ?
The point being that, to a point, yes, you should be expected to read an author’s intent.
Ah.. I see, something completely over the top, at odds with prevailing morality; and written as a protest to unjust circumstances is to be compared to something which echoes a prevailing sentiment, and is in tone and tenor not so different from his other writings; because we should understand that St. Hitch was a mensch, and only wrote hateful things about women because he had to it to make a buck.
Got it. That makes him look SO much better.
IANAE, but it seems to me that this ought to be a wash, because as your income increases, the value of money to you decreases. A person who makes $10 an hour really needs that $10 an hour, so they’re not likely to blow it off: It represents their food or rent or utilities. A person who makes $100 an hour probably has a lot of other $100s where that comes from, and the money they’re losing by not working isn’t likely to be money they desperately need; in all likelihood they’re simply trading leisure income for leisure time.
(One exception would be if the $100 person had accrued a great deal of debt, eg, medical school loans. But the $10 person could just as easily have debt and would feel the effects more strongly.)
(The other exception would be families with two or more rather disparate incomes; if one person earns $10 and the other $100, then it’s quite natural for the $10 person to blow off work whenever zie feels like it, since zir entire income is a negligible amount of the family income.)
historiphilia: One of the interesting things about bushido is that it’s not linked to a specifically religious moral code (e.g. Christianity). Where it had to deal with one (Buddhism) it made Buddhism adapt (in the form of Japanese Zen). Which is why I called it an ethical code (i.e. “how do I live rightly). It’s also complicated in that (as with many martial codes) the people who followed it had to live inside it, while bridging two different worldviews (that of Japanese culture, as a whole, and inside the Samurai ethos of their class).
As warfare (the reason for the code) declined, it had to be moved over to other things; e.g. the complex rules/rituals/understandings about seppeku, and the focus on refinement in everyday life). I’m not an expert on Bushido; in specific, but I did a lot of reading on historical Japan (post about 1700 I don’t have much; save for haiku). My interest in things military is why I know as much as I do; Japan’s military history is different from most of the world’s, because they managed to keep themselves isolated, so they didn’t have outside pressures (much) to adapt to other people’s ways of fighting. Add a dearth of iron, and an abundance of steel (in the metal they did make) and one see some interesting adaptations of weapons to culture (and vice versa).
I also glossed the role of women in the age of widespread civil wars. Right to the very end of that period the women were militarily active; though mostly in sieges. The last great battle of consolidation was the Tokugawa family against the not quite old enough to take power heir of Hideyoshi, and his mother; who managed to stave off defeat for a fair bit; though she’d allowed some changes to the castle at Osaka which ended up making it a foregone conclusion that a siege would be ultimately indefensible; which might be because women didn’t campaign, and so the changes didn’t seem as important as they were. Though it may also have been a political calculus that she wasn’t in a position to fight for her son’s primacy at that point, since he was young enough then that she would have needed to find another regent: she wasn’t going to be able to rule in his stead.
Chivalry isn’t specifically linked to religion either. There are many examples of Chivalry being used to serve religious ends (see the Knight’s Templar and other similar orders) and a lot of Chivalric literature had religious links and overtones (see Arthurian legend, the prime example being the Grail Quest) but it wasn’t a product of religion and in the case of the ideals of Courtly Love it can even be considered very much at odds with Christian morality (eg. the idealization of love outside of marriage).
In fact, the earliest manifestations of Courtly Love in the troubadour poems of Catalonia have been linked by some Historians to heretical sects like the Cathars, Now this link is quite tenuous, almost a mere geographical coincidence in many cases. But Cathars did write this kind of literature, and it was read by Cathars, in courts that were sympathetic to Catharism.
Also, a lot of the figures held up as examples of the ideal Chivalric man were not Christian, Hector was a frequent example, as was Julius Caesar.
So if one could call Chivalry a “moral code”, then it was, like Bushido, not one linked to any one Religion.
Thanks for that information on Bushido, I do find it very interesting.
@katz: I like how the crystal in that awesome contact juggling video looks like a first-year physics problem: “Ignoring friction …. “
@augochlorella
Oh no! How will the hivemind ever forgive me! ::faints:: On the bright side, this probably makes me more like a female penguin.
historiphilia: I suppose the difference I see is in the more pluralistic nature of religion in Japan. One couldn’t be a knight (the chivalric ideal) without professing to be christian, and taking oaths based on it. So the intertwining of the two, while less rigid than people think (because the religious life of most people was quite different from how we tend to see it described) still had put a Christian stamp on it. Even the Cathars were arguing they were real Christians.
@Shaenon
Margaret Cho is indeed funny, but she kinda makes my skin crawl ever since that incident with Amanda Palmer (TW: rape). The times she’s admitted to fetishizing trans men don’t help, either.
@Kittehserf
DO IT NOW. It’s one of my favorites.
@Jake Jones, what is it with Hitchens fans? Someone has the unmitigated gall to not love him like you love him, and you have to spend countless comments performing mental gymnastics to convince them otherwise? God (or Hitch) forbid someone not like the things you like!
I’m kind of hoping you’re SkyrimJob, back for round two, because the thought that there might be more than one of you makes me sad.
Good job calling people “hysterical”, by the way. That doesn’t look like one misogynist defending another at all…
@Jake Jones (who apparently didn’t stick the flounce)
What the fuck is “traditionally male humor”?
Most of those pages of copy weren’t about women, and so are irrelevant to the topic of Hitchens’ views on women. Unless you’re trying to argue that someone must be preoccupied with misogyny in order to be labeled a misogynist – in which case, lol no.
False. Kittehserf is hilarious.
@Ugh
To be fair, Hitchens seems to have thought that ~100% of people had inferior intellects to his. Not that it makes the misogyny any better, of course.
@Everyone – Funny Women!
“The Mindy Project” is my favorite new comedy. Mindy Kaling needs to move back to Boston and marry me immediately.
And the two funniest blogs on the internet: Hyperbole and a Half and The Bloggess