So this is … interesting. Last night, Saturday Night Live did a sketch, featuring guest host Lena Dunham, about Men’s Rights Activists. Alas, it wasn’t actually funny, or particularly on the mark, and it was kind of, sort of, maybe, a little bit racist (well, ok, a lot), but it did at least give a pretty good impression of what people in the real world think of the MRAs we know and loathe so well. I can’t embed it here, so go take a look at it on Hulu.
The folks in the Men’s Rights subreddit are up in arms about it, and have started not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, but six threads on the subject. (There may be more; that’s all I noticed.) Well, it’s not often they get this much attention, so I guess their excitement is understandable.
Given that the sketch was actually pretty crappy in a lot of ways, the MRAs did have some legitimate complaints to make against it — like the fact that the women in the sketch mocked the MRA character for being an unattractive loser. But naturally the Men’s Rights Redditors managed to undercut even this perfectly reasonable criticism by attacking the women in the sketch for being uggos. (Oh, misogynists, why do you hate Lena Dunham so much?) Here’s a rather delightfully ironic snippet of the discussion:
![SNL manages to misinterpret MRA arguments, shame man who are less physically attractive than others by implying they are somehow lesser, says that all MRAs are only MRAs because of bad love experiences, and accuse the MRHM of being pro-life, which is a blatant lie. (hulu.com) submitted 7 hours ago by Feminists_Are_Jelly 29 comments share source save hide give gold report hide all child comments sorted by: hot navigate by: submitter | moderator | friend | admin | IAmA | images | popular | new you are viewing a single comment's thread. view the rest of the comments → [–]MockingDead 16 points 6 hours ago (27|11) A bunch of unattractive unfunny women impugning a man for being not an apex male. permalink save source save give gold hide child comments [–]ugly_duck 5 points 5 hours ago (16|11) A bunch of unattractive unfunny women impugning a man for being not an apex male. Imagine if the genders were reversed. permalink save source save parent give gold [–]Grubnar 6 points 4 hours ago (12|6) I am trying ... and I can't. Men are not usually judged by their attractiveness, but by their wealth.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/ironymrastyle.png?resize=536%2C556&ssl=1)
Indeed, I’ve rarely seen irony so thick as in the outraged comments of MRAs in these threads. Here’s another angry Redditor:
Heavens! Sexism and shaming! MRAs NEVER engage in either of those things!
Oh, wait. That’s pretty much the entire basis of their movement.
Ruwanimo, you say you can’t imagine how it would look if the genders were reversed? You don’t have to imagine. All you have to do is go to the Men’s Rights subreddit, or A Voice for Men, or any other prominent (or not-so-prominent) Men’s Rights site. Or you could read through the Man Boobz archives. Ta da! Literally hundreds — make that thousands — of examples of MRAs directing “flagrant sexism and shaming” at women. (Also note: this shaming is directed at women, not only at feminists, whereas the SNL skit directed its shaming only at MRAs, not at men in general.)
You’re welcome!
The AgainstMensRights subreddit is also all over this thing, though they’ve limited themselves to four threads — here, here, here and here, which is where I found that first discussion I screenshotted.
Why do misogynists hate Lena Dunham? She is over size 2 and not only has the indecency to exist in that appalling condition, but isn’t ashamed of it and has the audacity to appear on camera nude.
Oh, the horror!
That sketch was pretty painful, I’m not gonna lie.
This is so racist. What the fuck. That’s not even what Venezuelan women sounds like. And what’s with the flower in the hair?
It’s like they learned everything about Latin women from Gloria on Modern Family.
Well, I guess this is how feminist white laydeez see me.
“Imagine if this thing that happens all the time were being done instead of this!” — MRAs, White Nationalists, assorted Fedoralords
Do MRA’s have any particular animus against Planned Parenthood? I thought they didn’t care about it one way or the other. My first thought was that the writers of the sketch just figured if conservative Christians are anti-woman and MRA’s are anti-woman, they must both be against abortion. At some point I had to stop watching because of the overblown “Venezuelan” accent.
I always had the impression that most MRAs were against abortion given how I would see lines like “Feminists make women think it’s all right to abort our children!” but I think it’s more because they find it unfair that women can chose to abort when they can’t (and apparently this means they automatically pay child support or something).
Wait, when did SNL stop being funny? Oh, right.
markb:
Ugh, right? I couldn’t make it past “yule-a-ree.” Seriously, SNL?
I don’t know if MRA’s are particularly opposed to Planned Parenthood. They mostly seem pissed that they can’t have a “paper abortion” and totally evade responsibility for children they father. Though Planned Parenthood serves women, and any organization that serves women’s needs instead of men’s needs must be misandrist.
MRAs hate any woman who is not “commercially” attractive, because she makes their boners sad.
They also hate any woman who IS “commercially” attractive, because they’ll never have her.
What more is there to know? You just can’t win with those guys.
http://www.reddit.com/r/againstmensrights/comments/1zzajp/another_mra_advocating_to_close_planned/
They’d be opposed to the idea of women being pregnant/giving birth by the woman’s choice, not the man’s. I’d bet they’re fine with abortion when it means the man forcing the woman to have one. It’s all the control thing. Back in the day they’d have got their rocks off on having newborns exposed.
khantron: Oh good fucking grief, of course.
Because birth control and abortions are exactly like elective cosmetic surgery.
When I saw it, I wondered how many MRAs would actually engage a woman enough to go with her to a jewelry party. I would find that kind of thing quite attractive in a man, which means that no MRA would ever do such a thing because that would just be too white knighting of him.
God, that sketch was awful – though I’d argue that’s an accurate description. Even one of my neighbors – who espouses MRA talking points, much to my chagrin – is horribly passive-aggressive in the same way when he’s around women. One of my female friends, when stopping by a liquor store, asked if he could help carry something. His first response was to point out how some college classmates would call it sexist of him.
Uh, dude? They asked you to help carry something – because they were already carrying things themselves. Even my female friends were annoyed by it – as if asking him at all was some kind of goddamn insult. If he wasn’t there and I had my hands empty, I would’ve just done it and not complained. ‘Cause that’s what a decent human being does.
As far as the Planned Parenthood thing goes: I wouldn’t be surprised if MRAs simply dislike abortion due to representing reproductive rights of women, like birth control pills do. They obviously wouldn’t give a shit when it benefits them (they certainly dislike the idea of being forced into fatherhood) but since organizations like Planned Parenthood and the availability of contraceptives give women more say when it comes to sexual relationships – they hate it.
MRAs are against birth control and/or abortion because they don’t get to use “babies” to control women.
MRAs are against “spermjacking”, because babies. And child support.
You just can’t fucking win with those losers.
They only go around yelling about “white-knighting” behind the safety of their monitors. They’re gigantic cowards in real life and, like anyone else, will compromise to be around others (if only very briefly – the guy I mentioned before is barely around most of the time).
I don’t even know what the point of that bit was. It kind of seemed like it was on the side of the mra.
saintnick – would this loser neighbour of yours react the same way if a bloke asked him to help carry stuff? ‘Cos if not, well, guess who’s showing his spotty sexist arse …
I only saw a fragment of the sketch. The accent thing got me too. Having said that, the guy trying to buy off all the women in the room with jewelry and then slinking out the door leaving his ex the car was, I have to say, accurate. That’s how they get to call themselves Nice Guys ™ and then whine later about how persecuted they are.
I was much more amused by Lena Dunham as Eve.
The sketch was just bad. I didn’t find it funny; in fact, it actually struck me as extremely racist. Plus they could have done more with the skit. Instead of strawmanning MRA positions, they could have used actual positions, like their insistence that rape culture don’t real.
I’m watching the sketch for a few seconds at a time as I type this:
It started feeling stupid (not even the funny kind of stupid) and obviously scripted right from the get-go. Jewelry party? Really? And the acting is just awful.
…
Okay, now I see where the racism comments are coming from. Heavy fake accent, and I’ll take the word of those who say that’s not even what Venezuelan women sound like. The outfit is almost costume-like in pointing her out as the foreigner.
…
The guy was pathetic, but not in the same way as MRAs actually are. It gave me the impression that the show still meant to portray him as the poor Unlucky Everydude who’s being bullied by those mean women.
I’m rather glad Hulu doesn’t work in Oz. I might have been tempted to watch it, though the racist references from the Americas would probably go straight through to the keeper.
Probably not, though I’m sure he’d try “clarifying” it with bullshit…
This is a guy who claimed that the books being used at the university we live near are “feminist propaganda.” Having worked at the community college bookstore, which is owned by the same company, I can certainly say that none of that is fucking true. I even pointed that out to him and he still dismissed it – as if someone who works for the company that sells his books wouldn’t know what books the guy has.
I can’t help but think that some guys who go to college (or even grad school) have no life outside of their classes and research. They have this very skewed idea of what feminism is and base it entirely off their professors and other obsessive students (who are a vast minority in comparison to the general population), rather than interacting with people in general.
Like, a former friend on FB wouldn’t ever fucking shut up about how feminists at his college were fans of Andrea Dworkin – nevermind most other feminists I talk to aren’t fond of her. It was even worse when we discussed Pinochet’s Chile wherein he took the uber-Libertarian position and, being as I knew what I was talking about, pointed out the various policies under the regime and their ill effects. The reason he dismissed everything I said? I brought up Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism in one of my arguments. Of which he countered with a totally bias article from Reason Magazine. ‘Cause of course…
I’m actually really annoyed with that SNL skit. How can you possibly screw up a MRA comedy? Those guys are nothing but comedy! An epic fail like this is just comedic sacrilege.
Upon further reflection, the part where the Planned Parenthood clinics were closed down could have been done better but had some hidden gems.
In the sketch, the “Venezuelan” woman initially boasts about him doing so because she believed he had been fighting against a horrible place, implying that before this gathering, he may have been bragging about it to her. Then when the other woman points out what Planned Parenthood actually does, suddenly he wants to shift the credit away from himself. “Well, my group did.” And the gf is wondering why he suddenly became so “modest,” even before PP was explained, so on a level he knew what he was really doing.