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.
@Argenti
Yes, Tom Martin is certainly an enigma. Unlike the vast majority of MRAs, he’s clearly studied some feminist theory. Most MRAs “educate” themselves by reading avfm’s version of feminist theory, which generally concludes with eugenics and other big, scary words.
Tom is no longer welcome at AVfM for the heinous crime of pointing out that there are many different and conflicting feminisms out there. Acknowledging the obvious truth will get you booted off Elam’s brigade of revolutionaries.
@Tom Martin
How are you feeling about being excommunicated from AVfM?
Where in Scotland are you from?
Who’s your favourite male and female comedian?
Does Tom consider himself a funny guy?
Tom, what is the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow?
Tom, if you end up finding out through your supa dupa scientific research that all or most gold diggers are just grossly disadvantaged working-class women who are forced by circumstance to date even grosser men, will you stop calling them whores? (BTW that actually seems to be the case for women driven to sex work – not that you give a shit cause you hate all women)
Also, how does some women “gold digging” (how does one even define that) lead to all women not being funny? Do you have any evidence of women “objectively” being less funny than men, because all these commenters are women and they’re all funnier than you.
Also, Tom, if over 90% of women are whores, does that mean your mother is a whore? This seems to be the logical conclusion of your theories
Kitteh — African or European? And yes, stating the obvious fact that the hair atop his head is scant is the greatest insult to man as hair is required for dating (I think that was it? Ask Cassandra, she induced that meltdown)
Carnation — yeah I remember him getting ousted, just find the idea of him calling himself a feminist hilarious.
And now I’m going to bed! G’night.
J — we’re not all women, but we are all funnier, so yeah, all the women here are funnier than him.
And now I really am going to bed!
Argenti, I don’t know that – aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Niters!
(I should have asked Sir. You know these things when you’re a king.)
So you’re not testing for whether or whether not gold-digging influences humor.
You’re testing whether or whether not, in the moment, an expectation of any further reward / present / obligation can make someone less inclined to banter, be witty and spontanous.
IE:
What you’re testing is if people who have something to lose might be less likely to speak up.
IE:
… What you’ll find is exactly that, yes, yes they do. The moment you take someone and remove their investment in any consequence of their own actions, I bet tyou they’ll certainly be more fun because they no longer give any thought, care or worry to how their actions will influence their own possibilities of getting some kind of reward. And so they relax. And so they can be funny.
IE:
THIS ISN’T SCIENCE.
Why is it only women you want to test in this way, Tom? Now that you’ve told us more about the experiment I’m struggling to see how the gender of your subject is in any way relevant.
I want to know if a man who isn’t spontaneously witty in his boss’s presence is considered a gold-digging whore.
I’ve completely forgotten on which thread we were talking about the Felinazis, Caninazis and Bunnazis, but this is live, so …
BUNNZAI!
And how many of those people have you contracted? Or have they gone suspiciously silent once you reveal how little you’re paying?
Bingo. He needs to include a “control group” by conducting the experiment on men as well.
Waaaaaaaaaaaaitwaitwaiwaitwaitwait. Is Tom Martin using the handle “Tim Martin fan”?
It’s lucky no man has ever married for money/dowries *cough*.
This needing to quantify everything is so peculiar. I haven’t really seen it outside of mra/pua circles. ‘If this woman is a 7/10 then I need to raise my game by 2.4% to be in with a chance’ ‘What the heck?! She’s still ignoring me!! But I did the sciencemaths! Must just be a whore’
You can’t quantify people, you can’t quantify humour. That might be upsetting but it’s true.
Like how certain men will start spouting technical irrelevant nonsense when you’re having a discussion or arbitrarily inform you of how many degrees they have – they must be right about everything because of sciencemaths!
I am reminded of, and sadly cannot find, the clip from Madagascar 2 when King Julien laments the failure of his plan to return water to the river by throwing the giraffe into the volcano…”I don’t know why the sacrifce did not work. The science seemed so solid.”
You may critisise Tom if you wish but you must recognize him as one of your own as you do so. He is the most sincere (possibly the only sincere) feminist I have ever met. He still seems to believe feminism is about equality (which is why he was surprised at what happened to him in the LSE) and he still believes that feminism has something do with women supporting themselves financially.
Baffling but true.
Wohoo! Just barging in completely off topic to tell you guys that I just got a research grant on 440 000 SKr for two years tax free! Economical situation SOLVED for the next two years, wohoo!
I will be paying people the minimum wage per hour, £6.19 (it’s going up to £6.31 per hour after October 1st).
I am more than happy to offer commission to collaborators – it shows a certain level of commitment and belief in receiving higher rewards eventually -but actually, the film crew jobs websites don’t like it when you offer commission only, so I’m offering a choice, of minimum wage or points, or something in between the two – its all open to negotiation.
People will be getting paid on the 30th August (2013).
I would estimate that of the 383 job applications I have received so far (who all know the deal as it’s in the advert) none have been from the gender politics websites poo-pooing my documentary. I think this might be because gender politics is hotly contested, rather than hotly investigated – internet commenters the naysaying nothing doing brigade
Shooting an independent documentary is hard physical work, for people who like risk – and can see the bigger picture.
I’ve noticed applications from Oxford and Cambridge graduates, from people who’ve been in the business for decades with major credits, BBC wets, all sorts – there’s lots of talent out there keen to go for it. Lots of applications from ambitious young black women (twice the work ethic of white or Asian women). The ones who start crying about money in their cover letter just get instantly discarded (because they’re jaded). Tesco pays £8 an hour – go and live your dream there.
I’m not going to be testing men for gold-digging in this documentary, because I don’t have limitless resources, and I don’t see it as such a pressing problem.
Feckless wannabe economically inactive househusbands, seeking to permanently scrounge off their overtime-working spouses is a problem, but nothing compared to the wannabe feckless housewife massive.
I will be challenging men on gold-giving though – because they are the enablers.
I will also take the experiment to different parts of London, to see how differing ethnicities, cultures and religions react – the united colors of gold-diggerton.
The experiment will not require hidden cameras, as the awful thing about most women is, when talking about sexual politics in public, its always their specialist uncontested domain (thanks feminism) – so they’ll just blurt out gender-fascistic orders and hatred towards men, laughing at their own jokes as they go. Less, “aren’t we women funny ha ha”, and more “Isn’t it wonderful how unfunny we can be, haw haw.”
But then, juxtaposing this lame awfulness (hope, hope) will be those women who don’t gold-dig, are optimistic and funny, can make jokes about things which don’t involve the financial or spiritual or physical abuse of men – these women becoming mini celebrities, for their awesomeness – setting an example (let’s hope they’re physically hotter than the gold-diggers too).
I have a dream…
Congratulations on your research grant! Thats pretty fabulous.
‘Giraffe into volcano = water’ makes more sense than ‘whores aren’t funny’.
There was a guy at school who was really clever, the top at everything but he absolutely hated English. He just couldn’t stand it at as according to him there was no rules. He didn’t understand how some people could write poetry and felt it was all some scam. It’s an incredibly limited way of looking at the world – ‘I don’t understand something, sciencemaths doesn’t appear to work….’ *brain melts anger ensues*
OT but this Nigella Lawson thing is horrible. =(
Who doesn’t do a bit of throat grabbing during an argument *sarcasm*
Awesome news Dvärghundspossen! Congratulations!
What’s really sad is that this experiment has actually already been done and presented on. http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html It’s a pretty good talk (and is awesome for disproving bullshit austerity measures, IMHO) and interesting research. And I’m willing to bet it was actually a well-funded study, one in which the people who worked on it actually got paid. In other words, it was legit. Course, it didn’t prove that all women are gold-digging whores, so of course it’s not good enough for Tom.