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.
And congrats also to dvärghundspossen — woot!
Also, congrats Dvärghundspossen! ^_^
Asking Tom Martin his opinion on what is and is not funny is like asking Donald Trump for hair care advice – comedy may ensue, but not intentionally.
Did I hear the word chivalry? I wrote an essay about it in my exam.
It was Medieval chivalry so not directly the same as chivalry as a modern concept, but modern chivalry has it’s roots in the the ideas surrounding courtly love.
And I can tell you that it is inherently sexist and patriarchal, very much so.
If need be I can produce a grumpy Feminist who wrote his third year dissertation on Chivalry who will tell you the same thing.
Here’s a quote from a really great journal article on the subject of courtly love and knightly masculinity:
“Success in love was an important part of knighthood. This did not mean that the knight’s goal was to impress women. Rather, he used women, or his attractiveness to women, to impress other men. Much of chivalric culture was built around a myth of women’s power over men through love. This system denied what real political and economic power Women had and gave them an empty authority. Women, as signs and as stand-ins, mediated relations between men”
Karras, Ruth Mazo. From boys to men: formations of masculinity in late medieval Europe. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002.
@Dvärghundspossen
Yay! Congrats 😀
@Aaliyah
That sucks 🙁 What an ass. Jedi hugs if you want them.
@fibinachi
Can’t speak about the historical context? from there, because I don’t know much about it, but just regular chivalry is pretty sexist, imo, even though it’s ‘benevolent sexism’. I now link to stuff, cuz I can’t articulate well, plus I love links:
http://feministdisney.tumblr.com/post/44549240503/is-chivalry-sexist-reblog-version
Tell me if I sound like an ass to you? I don’t want to, but my internet tone feels waaaayyy off atm.
@fibinachi, can I just leap in to say that while it is very tempting to compare Bushido and Chivalry, it is actually incredibly inaccurate to do so.
For a start, Chivalry is gendered, it is/was about male behaviour and constructions of masculinity. Bushido is/was not gendered, both men and women were samurai and both were expected to follow and embody the ideals of bushido, loyalty to ones leige lord and family, duty, honour, willingness to sacrifice.
Bushido was also a much clearer moral code, Chivalry cannot really be referred to as a moral code, many different ideals of Chivalry existed and it should really be viewed as an amorphous collection of cultural phenomena which manifested itself in various ways with great variety, from the troubador ballads to the Knight’s Templar. It wasn’t a moral code as such, while Bushido very much was.
/sorry history nerd
What about gold-digging AS humor? Mae West made a brilliant career in comedy writing and starring as some blatantly gold-digging women. Jennifer Lawrence’s hilarious quip to Jack Nicholson at the Oscars was very much in that vein — when he says she reminds him of an old girlfriend, she doesn’t miss a beat, and kind of does a Mae West imitation, saying, “Do I remind you of a new girlfriend?”
Marie:
I think you captured the use of the word chivalry here perfectly; and often, when you’re apologizing for your tone, you sound to me somewhat excited. In a talking-faster-to-get-the-ideas-out-before-I-forget kind of way. And that has always been a state of being completely distinguishable from being an ass, which, to the best of my memory, you have never sounded like.
TL;DR–you’re doing fine.
@Marie:
To me, no – but I’m tone deaf. And thank you for the link.
@Historophilia:
Interesting! Thank you. That sounds like a really neat book, so thank you for the full source. Off I go to the library requisition page.
I guess I was wrong. How damaging for my ego, I will now have to edit myself so
as to appear right all along. Wait. No. I’ll just not say that again, and keep the correction in mind. 😀@historophilia
Did you just apologize for sharing an incredibly cool tidbit of historical data relating to the understanding of different honor systems and social organization?
Apology not accepted. .
I love you guys SO MUCH.
@howard bannister and fibinachi
*whew* for some reason I just worry a lot about that.
Don’t forget to forge some screencaps! 😀
Pretty much anything of value in “modern” chivalry is simply being polite, and can be done better in an egalitarian manner, rather than the act of a benevolent superior to an inferior.
As for Bushido… I’m a long-time fan of Stan Sakai’s “Usagi Yojimbo” comics. One of the themes that keeps popping up as a source of drama is that “honor” is a poor substitute for “justice”. Relying on the powerful to police themselves works about as well as you would expect.
Damn, I missed all the fun. 😀
@Marie
http://i1360.photobucket.com/albums/r645/Fibinaut/Forgery_zps704129af.jpg
@fibinachi
Curses! I can’t see it.
I know I’m late to the party here, but…
Shouldn’t this have been the first step? Why would you make a documentary about something without first checking with an expert in the field to see if it has any scientific validity? If you’re planning a study, shouldn’t you have worked with a researcher to come up with a research method that counted for extraneous variables and would be accepted by the academic community? Seems like a pretty important thing to miss if you want to convince people that your documentary topic wasn’t pulled out of your ass.
Also lazy ass isn’t doing any of the filmmaking or any of the research.
Speaking of lazy ass, I just let through a bunch of comments from Mr.Tom Martin. Have at them!
Oh golly, these new comments. There’s a billion things I could pick apart in them, but I have to say…
This makes the scientist in me cry. (Not cry really – mostly laugh.)
@Marie – “I’m 99% sure you don’t need game to get laid if you’re low income,”
Mr K would agree. He’s got no income. 😛
Also seconding what Howard said about your tone. 🙂
@Robert – “Asking Tom Martin his opinion on what is and is not funny is like asking Donald Trump for hair care advice – comedy may ensue, but not intentionally.”
BWAAHAHAHAHAHA and that’s real!
@Historophilia – seconding what Fibinachi said: apology not accepted! Also, how creepy chivalry and courtly love sound in the context of impressing other blokes. Very much like PUA …
Oh, Tom, when strangers approach me in public the last thing on my mind is making them laugh. I’m much more likely to smile and nod and try to do whatever I can to stop bothering me because (like many women) I’ve had negative experiences with strange men approaching me in the past. How will your “study” account for women who are uncomfortable or busy rightfully trying to gauge the intentions of the approachee(s) and aretherefore less likely to be funny but are very funny to their friends and people they’re close with?
Tommytwit’s thesis: if total strangers are at all aware of gender politics, they must be feminists, hiss boo! If he doesn’t laugh at (or simply understand) their humour, it must be that they’re unfunny, therefore they are gold-diggers!
Do you really expect a woman you approach to tell you her partnership and income status? And are you just going to target women alone? Something tells me you are, because if they’re with a guy, he might pop you one.
Face it, sunshine, you’re just a weaselly little man trying to justify your own pathetic failures in life and love by blaming half the world’s population for them. 0/10.
Tom, have you considered also approaching penguins in your study?
@kittehs
And you’re still with him? Blasphamy!
@augochlorella
Please do, Tom!