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.
Yep, I’m feeling hostel.
Well, I thought it was desperately unfunny and rather more than borderline racist.
I’d be intrigued to know who’s been speaking up for it. Perhaps you can flag up examples of “the scum somehow defending this skit”, since they’re clearly not posting here?
I dunno, I’m in more of a serviced apartment mood.
This tread need better sockpuppets. Like this one:
http://fc00.deviantart.net/images3/i/2004/181/4/a/The_Lurking_Sock_Puppet.jpg
Did someone say meep?
I love the troll’s assumption that either women don’t have an id, or a woman’s id unleashed results in harmless activities like sandwich making.
Waittttttt. That dude doesn’t know what sounds animals make? Didn’t he go to school? Or have tv?
And to the MRAs sobbing “you women are all soooooo mean” I doubt you can read. There was no *yay SNL for this!* it’s all: “wow. That’s bad & racist” – it’s nothing about anything else. If you think it is, you’re projecting your own shit onto us & darlings, we don’t care!
Didn’t some big MRA site have a piece raging against Lena Dunham for showing her naked body because they didn’t like the looks of her? I’m trying to find it, and it’s driving me nuts.I can almost see it in my brain …
“Cover your shame, non-boner-pleasing woman!”
I don’t even like Dunham, but shit like that makes me want to send her flowers.
Ah yes, the twin assumptions – a woman’s body exists only to please men; and what MRAs lust after or not speaks for all men’s desires.
But oh no, they don’t hate women.
There was one enjoyable moment in that skit: the groans from the audience at the mention of “men’s rights activist”.
I felt the first Hostel, just not enough to make me want to watch the rest of the movies in the franchise. I guess I just didn’t feel it enough. Ya feel me?
wakka wakka wakka
But what does the fox say?
I didn’t want the SNL skit. SNL is occasionally funny, but only when a truly stellar actor or comedian helps it be so. As I’m no Lena Dunham fan, I’ll pass.
According to Lovecraft, ghouls also meep. And glibber.
I don’t know what I like more: the implied threat or the implicit message that men are always one slip-up away from becoming raging rapemonkeys. And we’re supposed to be the rational sex?
Not to be confused with October 19th, which is a glorious day in Community fandom:
See? ‘Cause the 4th season of Community was supposed to air on 10/19, but then it got bumped to February, which they told us by having the show-within-the-show talk about how it got bumped and…it probably doesn’t make much sense if you’re not into Community…
Sounds like you could use this book.
It goes “HHHHHRRRRRNNNNG!” It is a hippopotamus!
That is not my cow!
Maybe they say “meep” in his native language? Different languages have different words for animal sounds, and they’re not always close to the English words (for example, Spanish dogs say “gua”). IDK, I’m just not comfortable with this line of shaming when it could be a legit language difference…
Thank you Emily.
Reading that thread was rather uncomfortable and was beginning to feel racist, with the assumption that not only the english rendition of sounds is the only valid one, but that one must be specially ignorant to pick the “wrong” one. Believe it or not, animal sounds are not the first thing they teach in “English – second language” classes.
I hadn’t planned on delurking on a topic like this, but with all the absurd things the troll had said, focusing on his “accent” (in lack of a better word) felt wrong.
Ok, I found the MRA spew attacking Lena Dunham: http://heartiste.wordpress.com/2013/02/20/bitter-delusional-fattie-thinks-sluttiness-is-an-accomplishment/
Oh wait, I probably shouldn’t imply there’s only one MRA post attacking Lena, there’s probably a million.
@zippydoo There is an answer to that! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuw6YBn6pnk
“IDK, I’m just not comfortable with this line of shaming when it could be a legit language difference…”
well, sheep in sheep language definitely don’t “meep”. They don’t “baa” either, but that’s closer. It’s more like “mh’ahah”
-this post brought to you by too much time around sheep.
Wow. Just got back from my break and… damn. Yeah, it’s a shame that a potentially good opportunity got so wasted by being seriously unfunny and horribly racist. Someone needs to tell SNL the difference between “accent” and “speech impediment”. (Like Buttercup Q. Skullpants, I did enjoy the audience reaction to the phrase “Men’s Rights Activist”, though.)
********
Totally off-topic diversion:
I was at an RPG convention this weekend (it was for a specific game, Arcanis: World of Fallen Empires, by Paradigm Concepts, for folks into that sort of thing). Now, as we’ve all heard a lot, there’s a long history of really awful behavior and casual sexism both in the geek community. This is an ongoing conversation for the community, and though long overdue, headway is being made.
Now, the judges of the events tend to have their throats run dry–they spend most of the time speaking, after all. So the con staff (all volunteers, mixed gender) run around with water and often some snacks for the judges.
At our table, one of the guys made a ‘joke’ as the (female, of course) volunteer came by with some water for the judge, saying, “Hey, I could use a coffee.” She just kind of ignored it and went on; no one else said much in response.
Later on (I learned after the fact), he repeated the effort, telling another volunteer (who had come by just to see if we were having fun), “Well, I’m still waiting for my coffee.”
At this point, one of the volunteers had had enough, and spoke to the convention organizer. So, what happened next? Did he blow off her complaint? Did he ignore her, or tell her to grow a thicker skin? Or, alternately, as the anti-feminists who’ve been complaining about convention anti-harassment policies insist will happen, come over, drag the guy kicking and screaming from the convention, tossing him bodily into the street and posting him on a public blacklist of men who are never to be admitted to any game convention ever again?
Nope. He came over to the table during a break in the action, sat next to the player, and calmly and quietly explained that his comments went over the line, crossing the volunteers’ comfort level. The player, suitably chagrined at being admonished, asked the con organizer to convey his apology to the offended parties, and assured him it wouldn’t happen again. He did not gripe after the con org had left about it, just went on with the purpose of the weekend.
It was was not a high-drama moment, but rather only noteworthy in terms of being a picture-perfect example of how this sort of thing should be handled. It’s perfectly possible the guy would’ve made the same comments to a male volunteer, and just didn’t see the context of sexism; it’s also possible that he holds sexist views himself and is perfectly comfortable with the whole ‘get me a sammich’ variety of ‘humor’. It doesn’t matter, because he at least knew that, once called out, he had to mind his step a bit more, and thus, everyone else was able to continue having fun as well.
The blatant hypocrisy and disconnect with reality in the comments of the MRAs in David’s screenshot is hilarious. My favorite has to be Grubnar, who can’t imagine men being judged by their looks, because men are judged by their wealth.
What freaking “wealth”? I don’t know how it is in other places around the globe, but a cursory google search tells me that only 19% of US households earn over 100k a year, and only 11% make over 150k. That’s right. Households. By the time we subtract the percentage that are only in that range because the woman works, too, or the percentage of men that earn in that range but are unavailable to women, the results are probably at best 10%.
Doods! Try to start living in the now, huh?
@tealily
Didn’t you get the MRA memo? 80% of the women are only screwing 20% of the men. The rest are apparently out of luck and will remain virgins until they die.
scarletpipsttrelle, wow. That was really hateful. Not that I’m surprised. I love how he assumes that any man who is with a woman who isn’t thin is lowering his standards. It simply doesn’t occur to him that different people are attracted to different body types.
I’m not accustomed to trigger warnings and not clear about they work, but anyone with a history of EDs might want to avoid clicking on that link. It’s pretty brutal.