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.
I kind of want to draw this…
Hello manboobzers,
Congratulations to David Futrelle for curling out another steamy surprise for your delectation.
I am living in a parallel universe at the moment, because nearly everyone on the internet who has commented on my project has been negative – I’d put it at 95%, and yet, I’ve had 378 applications from people who want to work on the film (and to correct David on one thing, all roles are paid, minimum wage, except mine, and the producer of marketing and distribution, who will be on commission only).
I really would not have got where I am with this idea if it hadn’t been for the recalcitrance of manboobzers making it clear that feminism’s stories are set in perspex – and that it’s best therefore to simply step round the plastic party, and take the gender experiments to the average person on the street.
Kittehserf said,
There’d be a much quicker way to do this: test Tommyboy for whether he has a sense of humour or not.
I will be getting tested, in the documentary, for improvisational humour capability, and so will my co-host (because improv comedy is much harder than crafting funny written comments for instance, and this documentary is about measuring instant, effortless humour levels versus gold-digging levels).
I think the reason people are being so negative online about this project, is that media reports make it sounds like I’m accentuating the negative, ignoring the fact that I will be accentuating the positive too, and trying to induce more positive outcomes for women’s humour levels.
I will also be examining why high testosterone men are the quickest witted, but with 14 to 20 times more testosterone than women, why are men only slightly funnier than women? Do women have physiological advantages over men for humour-generation, like more white brain matter (currently clogged up with cupcake recipes and patriarchy theory)?
.
I was…er…privileged…to have taken part in the first Tomplosion on Manboobz and witnessed his subsequent banning. He was initially quite entertaining and then descended into frothy awfulness relatively quickly. My, how I chortled though when I saw him flogging this shitty idea again.
100% off topic, but look what I got in the mail the other day!
(Bonus fun: can you find the cat in this picture?)
@augochlorella, it’s crying out for artistic life
Grr, it uploaded the wrong one. Here’s the one that isn’t backwards.
Look, the ultimate gold-digging penguin whore! She’s got her betapenguin trapped!
http://rlv.zcache.com.au/penguin_wedding_acrylic_cut_outs-r924269870723496c98fea262795f2f80_x7saw_8byvr_512.jpg
Yay for the tee-shirt!
And I see kitty’s head peeping out from behind your hip. 🙂
Note: I’m going to let Tom’s comments through in this thread so long as he behaves and talks about his project.
Tom, the original jobs listing I saw for this project said something about “no” or “deferred” pay for this. So will it be “deferred” and if so how long?
warning…this is disturbing.
monsterpenguin
LOL hi there Tommy!
not as disturbing as my inability to get past the cut and paste monster
TOM! He couldn’t resist.
Sorry, I now see it said “lo/no/deferred” pay. But I’d still like to know when they’ll get paid and where the money will come from.
a penguin welcomes you back to Manboobz
Tom old son, you’re always living in a parallel universe.
FTFY
I saw that one when I was looking for penguin pics too, BigMomma – it is scary!
Wonder if that’s how Tom sees penguins …
I debated posting it, Kitteh, it is kinda odd.
It’s prolly how any self-respecting penguin would react to Tommyboy, so it fits!
I’m fascinated by how you will measure humour and ‘funniness’, given that people have such varying tastes. I mean, Eddie Izzard and Father Ted totally crack me up but I know some of my friends, who share so many of my outlooks in other respects, don’t react at all to the comedy.
@Big Momma
I dunno, I feel like the volume of comments (and the volume of the comments themselves. Dear God, the essays) more than made up for the short time
Also, I’m finding it hard to follow the train of thought that must have led to this hypothesis. Like, he happened to be watching something, looked at one of the comediennes and thought “I know you’re supposed to be funny, but it’s hard to laugh at what you say when I know you want gifts from guys. This is obviously not my bitterness talking, it must be science!!”
BigMomma, another example: many people often find Tom Martin hilarious, but he evidently takes himself quite seriously.
David wins the internets.
sometimes I like to think he’s just a very well sustained Poe. The thought keeps a bit of sunshine in my day. The whole doco thingy though, what a hot pile of steaming mess that is.
I would like to remind everyone that I posted a video that prompted the “female penguins are whores” comment from Tom, because it is one of my proudest moments.
(Not really. I have had prouder moments, but that one does make me giggle.)