No, this doesn't affect just the hacks.

You think the shitty kind of liberals that accuse artists of isms is limited to the hacks? Are you fucking insane?

Even just limited to stand-up, the college circuit was/is/should be one of the main lines for good, interesting stand ups to work on their act. Liberal hypersensitive puritanism is out of hand. Do you not know this?

Says the least credible guy on the site when it comes to knowing what is or isn't bigotry.

^ lol moron

GUILT IS NOT TO BE DOUBTED

oh, I hit a nerve.


stop being so sensitive!

dumbass.

Like I said below, Suey Park did indeed go after Stephen Colbert, and it's funny how the Stephen Colberts survive those confrontations just fine.

Don't worry, That guy! There are still jokes to be made about Caitlyn Jenner. But if the whole your joke is "haw, Caitlyn Jenner is a trannie", you'll find that more and more people think you're just being a dick, so you'll need to step up your game. As it should be.

My main reason for disliking Bruce Jenner is he is guilty of vehicular manslaughter, but his celebrity status got him off the hook. Anyone not famous enough would have served jailtime, no question.

Butchering himself in a totally unconvincing fashion to represent his inner ideals is not a struggle I'm going to commiserate with a murderer on.

Oh, and before the usual suspects lurking can jump out and yell "transphobic!", I already hated Jenner before any of this. I've never had a bad thought towards trans people for being themselves. Not my M.O.

I do have a problem with assholes who put others in danger on the road, however. Jenner wanted to pass by someone in a no-passing zone, and struck and killed that woman (Kim Howe). I can only imagine the bullshit song-and-dance that took place to get him off the hook - it was a read-end collision, Kim's car was struck and she was instantly and fatally wounded.

If you're going to have a problem with someone, it should be for the right reasons. Like because they've murdered for petty reasons (wanting to get back home a minute or so faster).

Gmork -- agreed, I consider Caitlyn Jenner completely fair game over vehicular manslaughter.

I like how he gets all dumbfounded about editing the Caitlyn Jenner line. Well Bill, you're right that there was no explicit insult to Caitlyn; but since most audiences are not fucking retarded, they understand that there was a tacit swipe at Caitlyn Jenner in there, otherwise there was no point in mentioning "Caitlyn somebody" at all.

Meanwhile, Louis CK can talk about "nigger Jim" and even use the word "nigger" because he's got an actual point. And his point holds up even though the character was never actually called "nigger Jim" in the books.

I think it's hard for comics, though, to distinguish the exact line they will step into an arena where a bunch of people will get offended because they are trying to go for a joke. It's hard because they are doing an art form where even if they don't intend any racism or hatred or anger towards groups of people, it may be easily interpreted that way if they media wants a story to provoke people with.

Some comedians are obviously and openly racist, such as Gallagher, but most of them aren't. I'm kind of sick of people complaining about comedians when there are laws in Saudi Arabia and India outlawing homosexuality that never get called out. If no one wants to come to a comedians show, they won't come, and that comedian won't make money. It will come to bite them in the ass if they go way too far, Michael Richards is a great example of this. He killed his career in one night.

But yeah, in the pursuit of trying to push back against decades of casual association with gay or trans as lesser, with good intention, the trend is now getting to be a little bit stifling in the other direction, and I say this as someone that grew up in an environment where nothing good was allowed to be associated with gay and it was as taboo as you could get. I grew up wishing anyone would say fucking anything. Now that people are free to publicly defend it, I think that's amazing and I'm grateful, but for fuck's sake, stand up comedy is hardly the place to look for social justice.

I think comedians whining about some of their audiences wanting less bigot jokes is just stupid.

It's like they're telling us that we have to like their humor, because those whacky gays/immigrants/women are such easy foils to write jokes about.


Yeah, it's fine if the pro comics don't want to do college shows. Because rewriting your act, that you get paid a lot of money to do, is so haaaard.

But then to whine to the media about how the audience needs to change to adapt to them, that's some entitled crap.

You're such a motherfucking piece of shit SolRo, it's fucking incredible. I'd talk to you kindly if I thought you had a chance...

Everyone's shit stinks- rich white straight Christian men's shit just stinks the most in America right now and in history,
~~in general~~.

In a given circumstance, it could be fucking anyone with the stinky shit; the fact that one group's shit stinks the most in general doesn't always apply to a specific situation, you asshole. And if you don't understand the difference between general and specific (which has to be an asshole-liberal-puritan's favorite fallacy in 2015), fucking kill yourself.

Regardless of how you and I would agree (*shudder*) to improve society for the poor, and groups other than the above rich WASP SWM..... every single fucking group, by identity, profession, what-have-you has shit that stinks sometimes, and take certain shit too far, and they talk shit and they do crap that is shit. Everyone's ass needs to be checked for shit on a regular basis, even if some shit more than others.

We've had so many fucking decades of echo-chamber reinforcement with modern media, politics and academia that most people are fucking stupid from it.

'make fun of' does not always equal bigotry. The very fact that you're conflating those two things shows you for a mouth-breathing fucktard. It's fucking proven to be incredibly bad for people to never be offended and never be around dissenting opinions.

Furthermore 'refer to in a joke' doesn't always equal 'make fun of'....

And the fact that you're defending the current severe intolerance of American universities, the very WORST place to ban ideas and jokes and conversation and dissent, makes your a world class fucking asshole. I have no question you'd be a complete fucking tyrant if you had any power. Liberal orthdoxy, where it does have power, stinks just as shittily as conservative.
Our American intellectual life has devolved into picking a fucking team. Your team sucks, my team is good.

An idea, joking or not, can be examined without always having to figure out whether the thinker/joker is on your team or not.

You're like a turd on legs with a million nerve endings, and they're all hurting because rich WASP SWM exist. Go rape yourself.

In case it's not crystal clear (when I said the idea and the thinker aren't the same), I'm not defending Maher as a fucking person.

LOL.

Well, I resign.

Good one.

Eastwood's joke isn't a good one, and he's mean-spirited about it, I have no doubt.

But a better comedian with a gentler spirit could have told a joke with a very similar idea behind it. We are not obliged to give a shit about Caitlin Somebody just because there's a congratulatory media spectacle all around her brought out by a ridiculous kind of liberal media orthodoxy that says that anything outside the norm is heroic. And specific to this case, we don't need to shine more light on a bunch of interrelated celebutards who should have had no spotlights at all.

Decency, understanding, fair treatment, yes. Did it take courage? Yes. Cause celebre... I don't know.

If you look into them, most good jokes about society or politics, as they should, ridicule the rigid blocking forces of society that oppress. But there is a use to jokes that ridicule the eccentrics for being out of the norm, simply because everyone's shit stinks, and because at least sometimes, being out of the norm means it's your problem and not ours.

The norm isn't always evil just because it's the norm. Not everyone gives a shit about revolutionizing how we think about gender and orientation, or insists on militant atheism or bible-literalism or privatizing the fire department or not eating anything with a nervous system, or believing that anything they call a micro-agression is where their rights begin and yours end.

We're all 'out there' about some thing or other. If you're out there, know you're out there. We're going to make fun of you for it, even though that means that sometimes we all get made fun of. If you're too sensitive for a joke about how you ain't special, fuck you. A joke isn't always the same as fervent hatred, even if none of us trust Eastwood's intentions.

Anyone who can dish out jokes but can't take them is a fucking piece of shit fundamentalist of one stripe or another.

well, yeah, Maher is a fucktard
but even a broken fucktard finds a nut every now and then

I...I think vaguely I remember he was pretty funny in a "fight the power" kinda way back in the 90s, without being a bigot, but then getting kicked off his show after 9/11 might have broken him...or he just go old and got Dennis Miller syndrome.

>without being a bigot

He REALLY hated women and to a lesser extent gay men in the 90s. Oddly enough he's much better about that these days.

Bill Burr is funny.

But now that I think about it, it's people who use the specific term "politically correct" who are unfunny and out of touch. People who actually make a point (like Bill Burr) when lampooning zealot attitudes can explain it without falling back on that so tired it's dead phrase.

So what someone calls it matters most, because you can tell which team they're on faster that way?

yeah, pretty much, bigots like you love ranting about how "PC" everyone is for not liking your racist jokes.

Find my racist jokes on here. Go for it.

What the fuck is wrong with you, SolRo?? You're a fucking ass-birth.

Sorry, That Guy. The correct response would have been to bring up Ukraine. We award you no points.

Oops I mean Bill Moyers. They all look the same.

said Manly McMan, as he got into his pickup truck, rolled coal, and drove off into the sunset, truck nuts dangling in the breeze.

You are smart.

BUT IDEAS ARE MICRO-AGRESSIONS.

CLEANSE THEM, CLEANSE THEM ALL!!
IF WE HAVE TO KILL, KILL.

Where were you when SPYKE censored the "Caitlyn Something" joke?

NEVAR FORGET!






...drama queens.

Right, because that's the only example.....

Good comedians know sensors exist and try to sneak things past them.

Lazy comedians get censored and then whine about it.



Stop white knighting for lazy comedy.

>"Good comedians know sensors exist and try to sneak things past them."

Lol have you been playing Splinter Cell?

Not all art, comedy, ideas and so on are about sneaking stuff past the censors. Some are about going right at it. Both are useful.

>"Lazy comedians get censored and then whine about it."
Here's how you think:
IF they get censored THEN they're lazy and bigoted.

>"Stop white knighting for lazy comedy."
ok, reddit. Here's you:
If anyone defends anything they're white-knighting and once I say white-knighting, I win!"

Do you have any idea how many great comedians are and would be fucked over and hated on by campusy politics?

You have no fucking idea what you're talking about.
Keep digging in.

SolRo, I've seen you be smarter than this. Are you just being obstinate? I don't care that Spike censored this joke. I care that it occurs to network censors to even do this.

Unless we protect objectionable speech, we won't have any.

Networks have the right to decide what content they allow to broadcast. In this particular case, SpikeTV chose not to air a joke the thrust of which seems to have been taking a swipe at a transsexual just for being a transsexual.

Unless you are arguing that A) networks shouldn't have the right to select their own content or B) the "Caitlyn somebody" joke was of such redeeming value that it needed it to be aired, I am entirely happy with this outcome.

I totally understand, respect, and agree with the idea that effective communication of ideas requires work from both the speaker and the listener and rarely do I think that it is all one or the other's fault when a failure to communicate has happened. However, I think I was decently clear in my post and you missed the mark so wildly that I have to question if you are mentally retarded, Bort.

What is your point then?

Because it sounds like you think "queers and trannies are weird" jokes are so culturally important that anyone offended by them should be forcefully exposed to them regardless because ART(fart).

Hooker: the problem is you're maybe 70% as smart as you think you are, and can't admit when you're making a dumb argument. I guess that's really two problems.

You're acting like it is new that networks are blocking offensive material. The only thing new here is that, for once, they're going to bat FOR a relatively powerless group that has to put up with too much shit already.

Maybe HBO should have flashed a TRIGGER WARNING before he started the rant.

This is what you sound like, that guy

You clearly don't know what the word "Marxist" means, but by golly that doesn't stop you from using it and I applaud your gumption.

Marxism evolved into a more culture/race-obsessed ideology after the Frankfurt School and the counterculture of the '60s had their way with it, the end result of which is the 'social justice warrior' phenomenon.

A: Calling Frankfurt School Critical Theory "Marxism" is like calling Marxism "Hegalianism." The one evolved out of and was influenced by the other, but they're not the same thing.

B: The Frankfurt School is important to the modern academic left, but so is post-structuralism, feminist theory, and existential phenomenology. Foucault and Judith Butler are probably the most important people in for the sort of people you're talking about and neither of them was in the Frankfurt School, and, though influenced by Marx, neither of them is anything close to an orthodox Marxist.

To put it more concisely, Marxism has definite content: the materialist dialectic, class struggle as the primary driver of history, etc. People that don't have that content are not Marxists, even if they were influenced by Marx.

I don't think traditional class-focused Marxism exists anymore, which is why I don't bother putting the words 'cultural' or 'social' before it like a lot of people do when using it to describe the sort of ultrasensitive behavior that Maher is talking about. Its been so thoroughly poisoned by the left's lunatic fringe that adding any sort of distinction to it is redundant. People like me (class-focused leftists with absolutely no interest in touchy-feely cultural issues) haven't existed in great numbers since before the Baby Boomers discovered drugs and stopped cutting their hair in the '60s.

Well put.

I don't know that the "purpose" of humor is to punch up, but total agreement that, if you kick someone who's down, your audience is going to perceive you as an asshole and that typically doesn't help your act. Unless it's a communally-approved target of derision, the way that LGBTs used to be.

It's not even that you can't make jokes poking at Caitlyn Jenner's transsexuality; it's just that, if the joke is "haw haw, he's a tranny!", the audience is going to pick up on that (no matter how well you think you've concealed it) and will respond unfavorably.

And seriously, Maher is using the word "censorship" wrong. No one is saying you have no right to make unfunny/distasteful/offensive jokes. We're just telling you that we don't think they're funny. If you want to not play at certain venues, that's your right too. But don't blame me for that choice.