Opinions

I’m opinionsourcing this post again, which I think is what I decided to call that thing where I save a bunch of links about a topic, intending to write something cogent and insightful and full of citations later on, but then give up and just post a bunch of links and say “Here, all of this, that’s what I’d have said if I were a more effective human being.”

For instance, The Onion had a thing at the Oscars. (I’m so articulate, you can see why I’m keeping my own creative contributions to a minimum here.) I somewhat agree with Charles at Popehat, also think Matt Kirshen has a point, and am on board with a great deal of the Flick Filosopher’s thoughts.

I’m less interested in Seth McFarlane’s performance. Greta Christina has good words on that. The idea that jokes can’t be powerful and never make serious points is obviously ludicrous; what I keep coming back to is that the implicit premise of the joke is crucial in determining whether it’s worth taking offense at. I get most frustrated about this among discussions of “rape jokes”; the simple fact that rape is the subject matter of a joke isn’t enough to determine whether or not it’s funny, or offensive. If the premise, when you unpick it, is that rape is whimsical or comical, then it might be worth raising a fuss; Louis CK, meanwhile, provides an example of how to joke around the theme of rape without any horrendous or abusive subtext. (That wasn’t even the routine I was looking for when I typed “louis ck rape” into YouTube, but it’ll do.)

Anyway, I’m not meant to be opinionatifying my own thoughts tonight. Onward.

It’s also important to note that workfare continues to be some serious bullshit. The government are still pushing to force unemployed and disabled people into unpaid work, despite legal setbacks, increasing evidence that the scheme doesn’t work, and Iain Duncan Smith being an unutterable shit.

That was my own opinion sneaking in there again, wasn’t it? Sorry.

Read Full Post »

Topical humour makes the baby Djesus cry

The video below is of a recent Saturday Night Live sketch.

In case it’s vanished by the time you read this, like several other versions have, it’s a trailer for a fake movie called Djesus Uncrossed, a suitably over-the-top parody of several Quentin Tarantino films, featuring Jesus Christ as a merciless, sword-happy, gun-toting god of vengeance. The juxtaposition of two ideas that don’t obviously mesh well together isn’t a ground-breaking comedic construction, but it’s nicely done. It plays on Tarantino’s style of film-making and directly takes off a few specific scenes, and seeing the lamb of God played by a psychotically violent Christoph Waltz is jarring in the sort of way that makes things humourous. There’s nothing revolutionary about any of this.

Some Christians have decided that it’s the worst thing ever.

And I’m not even exaggerating to make them sound ridiculous.

NBC has produced the worst possible attack on the person and character of Jesus Christ.

…

Never be surprised at the level of evil man can devise.

If I were a better writer or any sort of cultural analyst, I’d have something to say about this sort of thin-skinnedness, and this capacity for such stupendous missing of the point. Rather than just pointing it out and inviting you to join me in staring in dumb bemusement.

Bryan Fischer, director of the American Family Association, felt the need to obliquely threaten the makers of the sketch with Jesus’s actual vengeance. Other people cried at that sketch because of how mean it was to their omnipotent overlord. Good grief. Nobody tell them what the Romans did to him two thousand years ago; they might have an attack of the vapours from which they’d never recover.

Read Full Post »