"You're equipped to be a prostitute..."
Patrick Cassidy
This is an exact replication of National Public Radio (NPR) interview
between a female broadcaster, and US Army General Reinwald who was
about to sponsor a Boy Scout Troop visiting his military installation.
INTERVIEWER: " So, General Reinwald, what things are you going to teach
these young boys when they visit your base?"
GENERAL REINWALD: We're going to teach them climbing, canoeing, archery, and
shooting."
INTERVIEWER: "Shooting! that's a bit irresponsible, isn't it?"
GENERAL REINWALD: "I don't see why, they'll be properly supervised on the
rifle range."
INTERVIEWER: "Don't you admit that this is a terribly dangerous activity to
be teaching children?"
GENERAL REINWALD: "I don't see how, ....we will be teaching them proper
rifle discipline before they even touch a firearm."
INTERVIEWER: "But you're equipping them to become violent killers."
GENERAL REINWALD: "Well, you're equipped to be a prostitute, but you're not
one, are you?"
The radio went silent and the interview ended.
Drew Lawson
"Patrick Cassidy" <patrick...@paoli.com> writes:
>Has anyone heard anything about this? It has some age on it...
>
> This is an exact replication of National Public Radio (NPR) interview
> between a female broadcaster, and US Army General Reinwald who was
> about to sponsor a Boy Scout Troop visiting his military installation.
See:
http://www.snopes2.com/military/reinwald.htm
It's an entertaining bit of fiction.
Drew "equipped to be a glutton" Lawson
--
Drew Lawson
dr...@furrfu.com What would Brian Boitano do?
Leo G Simonetta
<patrick...@paoli.com> wrote:
> Has anyone heard anything about this? It has some age on it...
>
> This is an exact replication of National Public Radio (NPR) interview
> between a female broadcaster, and US Army General Reinwald who was
> about to sponsor a Boy Scout Troop visiting his military installation.
Snopes (soon to be on TV?) is your fiend:
http://www.snopes.com/military/reinwald.htm
Leo "General Pendant" Simonetta
--
Leo G. Simonetta Please note new address
lsimo...@newsguy.com
Patrick Cassidy
work, to look up such things...(They consider it a waste of time!!??)
Thanks!
Patrick
"Leo G Simonetta" <lsimo...@newsguy.com> wrote in message
news:asu26uoo7jebkj1bn...@enews.newsguy.com...
keith lim
> Just to clarify: I thought it was false, but can't get on the "internet" at
> work, to look up such things...(They consider it a waste of time!!??)
And your point is...? You couldn't wait until you *could* access the web
(e.g. at home, after work) and you absolutely *had* to blook your
question in ignorance to the newsgroup? Is this what you do 'at work'?
keith "please quit posting in here every little vaguely bizarre story
you come across; the post of JamiJo is already filled" lim
--
keith lim keit...@pobox.com http://pobox.com/~keithlim/
Do not make yourself more stupid than you are. It is not endearing.
--Daniel Ucko
David K. Wall
> In article <a3rsl0$jua$1...@topsy.kiva.net>
> "Patrick Cassidy" <patrick...@paoli.com> writes:
>>Has anyone heard anything about this? It has some age on it...
>>
>> This is an exact replication of National Public Radio (NPR) interview
>> between a female broadcaster, and US Army General Reinwald who was
>> about to sponsor a Boy Scout Troop visiting his military installation.
>
> See:
> http://www.snopes2.com/military/reinwald.htm
>
> It's an entertaining bit of fiction.
I remember reading the Welsh version several years ago. I had no
particular reason to disbelieve it, and never bothered to look for
references. It's a bit disappointing to find out that it's an urban
legend. But it's still a good story.
On the other hand, I've passed on many a story, considering it just a
joke, then later found that people actually believed it. Snopes has lots
of pages devoted to things I never thought of as anything but jokes.
--
David "just haggling over the price" Wall
dar...@one.net
"Oook."
JoAnne Schmitz
>dr...@furrfu.com (Drew Lawson) wrote:
>
>> In article <a3rsl0$jua$1...@topsy.kiva.net>
>> "Patrick Cassidy" <patrick...@paoli.com> writes:
>>>Has anyone heard anything about this? It has some age on it...
>>>
>>> This is an exact replication of National Public Radio (NPR) interview
>>> between a female broadcaster, and US Army General Reinwald who was
>>> about to sponsor a Boy Scout Troop visiting his military installation.
>>
>> See:
>> http://www.snopes2.com/military/reinwald.htm
>>
>> It's an entertaining bit of fiction.
>
>I remember reading the Welsh version several years ago. I had no
>particular reason to disbelieve it, and never bothered to look for
>references. It's a bit disappointing to find out that it's an urban
>legend. But it's still a good story.
Entertaining? Good? I have seen this story numerous times and it still
irritates me.
The base idea of the story is that the female broadcaster is a liberal
g*n-gr*bb*r and receives her well-earned comeuppance by having her sexuality
impugned, which stings her especially badly because we all know liberal women
are such anti-sex bluenoses. She was so shocked she lost all professionalism
and had to stop the show.
To agree or disagree with the idea that liberals, especially liberal women, are
silly bluenoses is BOR territory, but we can examine how that idea is expressed
in this story. It isn't a particularly nice or friendly story if you don't
agree with the premise. The subtext as I read it is:
"My penis is big and brave, and I'm training little boys to develop big brave
penises too."
"Oh my gosh I don't like big brave penises, you are bad for encouraging little
boys to develop big brave penises, they are mean and could be used in bad ways."
"But you've got a cunt, it could be used in bad ways like prostitution."
"I'm no prostitute, in fact I'm so insulted by the mention of my cunt that I
will stop this show now, but for your information I never use my cunt."
"Ha ha, I knew that, you dried up cunt."
Maybe some people who tell or hear this story aren't thinking the woman is a
stupid bitch who deserved to be verbally slapped, but when I've heard it, that's
the message I got, pretty clearly.
JoAnne "no chuckles here" Schmitz
Ed Kaulakis
> "My penis is big and brave, and I'm training little boys to develop
big brave
> penises too."
<other stuff, which would typically be read as misogynistic and
inflammatory, possibly intended to add by outrage and juxtaposition to
the voracity of the misanthropy above, snipped>
That's funny, I saw no mention of penes. Can you, without infringing the
Bo[PR], explain how you got there from "shooting"? Are you saying the
female members of our military aren't real wymmin? They shoot, you
know...
Ed "this should be interesting" Kaulakis
Karen J. Cravens
news:JiVd8.1777$j47.9...@twister.socal.rr.com:
IHNTA, except to publicly thank Luu Tran for the "Kill entire thread"
feature in XNews, because I know I'm going to need it.
--
Karen J. Cravens
David K. Wall
[snip stuff I found offensive and possibly deliberately provocative]
> Maybe some people who tell or hear this story aren't thinking the
> woman is a stupid bitch who deserved to be verbally slapped, but when
> I've heard it, that's the message I got, pretty clearly.
I would have left off 'bitch', and said "a metaphorical kick
in the crotch".
--
David Wall - dar...@one.net
"Oook."
JoAnne Schmitz
wrote:
>"JoAnne Schmitz" <jsch...@qis.net> wrote in message
>
>> "My penis is big and brave, and I'm training little boys to develop
>big brave
>> penises too."
>
><other stuff, which would typically be read as misogynistic and
>inflammatory, possibly intended to add by outrage and juxtaposition to
>the voracity of the misanthropy above, snipped>
>
>That's funny, I saw no mention of penes. Can you, without infringing the
>Bo[PR], explain how you got there from "shooting"?
Shooting and penises have no metaphorical relationship? "This is my rifle, this
is my gun"? "Bang bang"?
If you don't see that, then the rest of what I wrote would naturally be
incomprehensible to you, but so would most literature beyond Dick and Jane. But
metaphorically, "she's afraid of boys with guns" is similar to "she's afraid of
men with penises." The suggestion of repeated intercourse with lots of men
(being a prostitute) drives her right off the air.
>Are you saying the
>female members of our military aren't real wymmin? They shoot, you
>know...
I'm not saying anything about the female members of the military.
The people being trained are Boy Scouts, as explained in the story.
The person in the story that did not like guns overreacted, lost all
professionalism, and it was "just" and "funny" for her to be compared to a
prostitute. I'd say it's a story about people who don't like guns portraying
them as silly, prudish and unable to "take it" in an even minorly tough
situation.
Lots of people believe guns are useful and it's perfectly okay to teach Boy
Scouts to use them. Others disagree. That's BOP material and I did not claim
one side or the other on that. The pro-gun side is one part of the belief on
which the joke turns.
But the additional belief is that people who don't agree with that belief are
weak or deficient in some way. The woman in the story is morbidly upset by
reference to her vagina.
Do you think she's being portrayed as a healthy, robust, cheerful, mentally
stable person? I don't. A robust person would respond in some way other than
just shutting down in horror. The man "cut her down to size." He "showed her
who was who." He verbally slapped her.
The whole point of the story is to portray the anti-gun person as not just
wrong, but weak or deficient, unable to withstand the aggressive attack of the
pro-gun person. It's similar to the story about the chalk not breaking, where
the professor runs out of the classroom when confronted with A Greater Truth.
The woman in the story, like the professor, is to be despised as weak.
Just as we've discussed legends that depend on beliefs like "believing in $deity
will save you from disaster" or "poor people are stupid" or "pop stars are out
of touch with reality" without actually debating whether the beliefs are true,
we can discuss this legend without discussing whether this belief is true or
false.
The story assumes the target of the joke is typical of the anti-gun movement,
and weak or deficient, and perfectly deserving of ridicule on that basis.
It's one thing to agree with the pro-gun stance inherent in the story. It's
another thing to act as though calling anti-gun people prostitutes is "all in
good fun" and has nothing to do with the "manly man gives prudish woman deserved
comeuppance" theme, which is common to so many jokes I think you'd have to be
dead not to have heard of any of them. [1]
If it had been a conservative woman and a similar joke were made turning on her
assumed prudery in the face of a swingin' hepcat liberal kind of guy, I would
think it just as mean. In truth, I might laugh, but I wouldn't pretend it was a
nice laugh or that all conservative women are silly prudes.
JoAnne "after all, that would be my mother we're talking about" Schmitz
[1] Little Johnny jokes, where Little Johnny's masculinity compels him to talk
back to teacher and make a fool of her.
John Gilmer
>
> Shooting and penises have no metaphorical relationship? "This is my
rifle, this
> is my gun"? "Bang bang"?
But it doesn't end with "Bang, bang!"
It ends with "This is for shooting and this is for fun."
Clearly, those that use firearms at lot can tell the difference.
(BTW: in the military, guns were what the artillery used.)
TeaLady
> It's one thing to agree with the pro-gun stance inherent in the
> story. It's another thing to act as though calling anti-gun
> people prostitutes is "all in good fun" and has nothing to do
> with the "manly man gives prudish woman deserved comeuppance"
> theme, which is common to so many jokes I think you'd have to
> be dead not to have heard of any of them.
>
> If it had been a conservative woman and a similar joke were
> made turning on her assumed prudery in the face of a swingin'
> hepcat liberal kind of guy, I would think it just as mean. In
> truth, I might laugh, but I wouldn't pretend it was a nice
> laugh or that all conservative women are silly prudes.
>
Agreed. And as I can't manage to come up with a reasonable way to
add to your post and not violate BOP and BOR on afu, I won't.
And I don't think that I could do as fine a job, if I would try,
anyhow.
TeaLady
Ed Kaulakis
Sorry folks, for this one I pretty much had to inter-post.
> Shooting and penises have no metaphorical relationship? "This is my
rifle, this
> is my gun"? "Bang bang"?
You insist on "penises" eh? Sheesh, if I can't be rampantly pendantic
about "penes"...
> If you don't see that, then the rest of what I wrote would naturally
be
> incomprehensible to you, but so would most literature beyond Dick and
Jane.
I know that some people still believe that the Freudian paradigm has
explanatory power. Hell, some people believe in homeopathy, giant
planets comin' to getchoo, and who knows what. TWIAVBP.
But ya see Joanne, it's your metaphor. It's not in the story. You added
it. So the misanthropy is yours, and stands independantly of the story.
> But metaphorically, "she's afraid of boys with guns" is similar to
"she's
> afraid of men with penises."
Yeah, I heard you the first time. It's also similar to "she's afraid of
orchids with stamens". Let alone pistils.
Deriving from her unspoken "gnus are evil" axiom (the true butt of this
tale), our interviewer assumes that possession of such equipment and
training in its use equates to unethical use thereof. A lot of people
find this leap deeply offensive, and somehow see poetic justice in the
witty reflection of this offensive asssumption back on her.
> The suggestion of repeated intercourse with lots of men
> (being a prostitute) drives her right off the air.
>
> >Are you saying the
> >female members of our military aren't real wymmin? They shoot, you
> >know...
>
> I'm not saying anything about the female members of the military.
>
> The people being trained are Boy Scouts, as explained in the story.
Thanks for clearing that up. How then would your analysis of this tale
differ if the General were teaching her granddaughter's Girl Scout troop
to shoot? Where are the big brave penises (sic)? For lagniappe, let's
have a male interviewer and change the punchline from "you're equipped"
to "they're equipped".
Believe it or not, the modified story works just as well for me as a
criticism of the offensive assumption, although to be fair it loses a
lot of cultural traction.
> The person in the story that did not like guns overreacted, lost all
> professionalism, and it was "just" and "funny" for her to be compared
> to a prostitute. I'd say it's a story about people who don't like
> guns portraying them as silly, prudish and unable to "take it" in an
> even minorly tough situation.
So the "offensive assumption boomerangs" pattern just completely escaped
you? Glad I could help.
> But the additional belief is that people who don't agree with that
> belief are weak or deficient in some way. The woman in the story is
> morbidly upset by reference to her vagina.
>
> Do you think she's being portrayed as a healthy, robust, cheerful,
> mentally stable person? I don't. A robust person would respond in
> some way other than just shutting down in horror. The man "cut her
> down to size." He "showed her who was who." He verbally slapped her.
I have just one question: Did this happen during the Super Bowl?
> The whole point of the story is to portray the anti-gun person as not
> just wrong, but weak or deficient, unable to withstand the aggressive
> attack of the pro-gun person.
Duh. It's a pro-gnu story. Who did you think was going to come out on
(paging Dr. McKinnon, please come to the white courtesy phone) top?
Lilith?
> It's similar to the story about the chalk not breaking, where
> the professor runs out of the classroom when confronted with A
> Greater Truth. The woman in the story, like the professor, is to
> be despised as weak.
Well, how *is* one to terminate a "last word" tale? Isn't the rout an
integral part of the form?
"And then the professor got real mad, and tried to have the witnessing
student expelled, but just 17 years later he had a heart attack in
that... very... same... lecture hall!"?
It just doesn't work for me.
Ed "" Kaulakis
John Schmitt
"Ed Kaulakis" <kaulaki...@pacbell.net> writes:
>Deriving from her unspoken "gnus are evil" axiom (the true butt of this
>tale),
If a moose can be Satan, then I suppose that this is not a vast
mental leap to make. Personally, I don't trust *any* quadrupeds.
John "wallabies are OK, though" Schmitt
--
Most of what you read in the papers is lies. And I should know,
because a lot of the lies you see in the papers are mine.
- Max Clifford, publicist
Disclaimers apply
JG
Yeah, some of these politically sensitive hoaxes can be a bit
annoying, and I can understand JoAnne's concerns. Presidential IQ
tests come to mind for me but the TV show "The West Wing" seems to be
toning down the bubblehead jokes lately. Even the "Gold Star Mothers"
was a bit over the top in painting a picture of a perceived
stereotype. Some hoaxes are more damaging to public perception than
others and pointing out possible underlying prejudices or
misconceptions contained within a particular hoax is not necessarily a
bad thing on AFU, in my opinion.
Jer "happiness, is a warm gun" ry
Drew Lawson
JoAnne Schmitz <jsch...@qis.net> writes:
>On Sat, 23 Feb 2002 23:09:29 GMT, "Ed Kaulakis" <kaulaki...@pacbell.net>
>wrote:
>
>>Bo[PR], explain how you got there from "shooting"?
>
>Shooting and penises have no metaphorical relationship? "This is my rifle, this
>is my gun"? "Bang bang"?
In the 40 years that I have been acquainted with my penis, it has
never once gone "Bang bang."
Drew "and it has never smelled of burning gunpowder" Lawson
--
Drew Lawson | If dreams were thunder,
| and lightning was desire,
dr...@furrfu.com | This old house would have burnt down
http://www.furrfu.com/ | a long time ago
me
[snip]
> But the additional belief is that people who don't agree with that belief are
> weak or deficient in some way. The woman in the story is morbidly upset by
> reference to her vagina.
I must admit, I didn't read it that way. I read it that she was
was so skillfully out played verbally that she had no retort. Her
being morbidly upset for any reason didn't occur to me. I saw it
more as being confused from defeat and so unable to continue.
Nathan Tenny
me <ocon...@slr.orl.lmco.com> wrote:
>JoAnne Schmitz <jsch...@qis.net> wrote in message news:<poki7u0is7iifh274...@4ax.com>...
>>But the additional belief is that people who don't agree with that belief are
>>weak or deficient in some way. The woman in the story is morbidly upset by
>>reference to her vagina.
>
> I must admit, I didn't read it that way. I read it that she was
>was so skillfully out played verbally that she had no retort. Her
>being morbidly upset for any reason didn't occur to me. I saw it
>more as being confused from defeat and so unable to continue.
I tend to agree, for whatever my opinion's worth. (Note that I generally
don't tend to read sociopolitical subtexts into ULs even where others see
them, though.) It doesn't seem to me that the story plays out differently
if the interviewer is male and the response says "rapist" instead of
"prostitute".
"Weak" and "deficient" aren't particularly the words I'd use to describe
how the story paints the interviewer---it seems that the point is more
about the naivete of unquestioned assumptions than about anything to do with
the deeper (supposed) inadequacies (gender-related, psychological, whatever)
of the person holding those attitudes.
But of course much depends on the teller and listener, too.
NT
--
Nathan Tenny | A foolish consistency
Qualcomm, Inc., San Diego, CA | recapitulates phylogeny.
<nten...@qualcomm.com> |
cms
<kaulaki...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>"JoAnne Schmitz" <jsch...@qis.net> wrote in message
>
>But ya see Joanne, it's your metaphor. It's not in the story. You added
>it. So the misanthropy is yours, and stands independantly of the story.
>
<snip>
>
>Deriving from her unspoken "gnus are evil" axiom (the true butt of this
>tale), our interviewer assumes that possession of such equipment and
>training in its use equates to unethical use thereof. A lot of people
>find this leap deeply offensive, and somehow see poetic justice in the
>witty reflection of this offensive asssumption back on her.
Neither in defense or support of JoAnne or her opinions, and already
half-regretting it, I would like to add:
I think you're being a bit disingenuous in characterizing the metaphor
this way. Sometimes it's just a cigar, as the man himself said, but the
parallel anaology used in the story run thus:
Boy who has gun becomes violent killer
Woman who has vagina becomes prostitue
The joke turns on the individual hyperbole of the comparisons, but its
humor is also based on the implicit comparison between violence and
promiscuity. The comparison resonates in American culture not simlply
because of a century old pre-occupation with freudianisms, but also
because of the association of modern liberals, and in particular,
certain typs of feminists, not only with anti-gun but also with
anti-porn crusades. The joke posits that the only insult equal in
magnitude to accusing the Scout leader of being a killer is to accuse
such an Andrea Dworkin type of being a sex worker.
Further, I would argue that while Frued has a lot to answer for, and was
incorrect about many things, the gun-as-penis symbolism still has potent
metaphorical force in comman parlence, regardless of whether gun owners
are as a class deficient or superior in endowment. Sometimes a cigar is
just a cigar, and somtimes it's a birthday present from a presidential
intern, if you catch my drift.
cms ---- it's a fairly strong current
Daniel Ucko
(Nathan Tenny) wrote:
>In article <73af7090.02022...@posting.google.com>,
>me <ocon...@slr.orl.lmco.com> wrote:
>>JoAnne Schmitz <jsch...@qis.net> wrote in message news:<poki7u0is7iifh274...@4ax.com>...
>[...]
>>>But the additional belief is that people who don't agree with that belief are
>>>weak or deficient in some way. The woman in the story is morbidly upset by
>>>reference to her vagina.
>>
>> I must admit, I didn't read it that way. I read it that she was
>>was so skillfully out played verbally that she had no retort. Her
>>being morbidly upset for any reason didn't occur to me. I saw it
>>more as being confused from defeat and so unable to continue.
>
>I tend to agree, for whatever my opinion's worth. (Note that I generally
>don't tend to read sociopolitical subtexts into ULs even where others see
>them, though.) It doesn't seem to me that the story plays out differently
>if the interviewer is male and the response says "rapist" instead of
>"prostitute".
>
>"Weak" and "deficient" aren't particularly the words I'd use to describe
>how the story paints the interviewer---it seems that the point is more
>about the naivete of unquestioned assumptions than about anything to do with
>the deeper (supposed) inadequacies (gender-related, psychological, whatever)
>of the person holding those attitudes.
By contrast, I have to say that I tend to agree with JoAnne. Of course
what one reads from this story depends to a certain extent on where
one comes from on the opinion spectrum, but to me this is not some
little morality tale about prejudice and unwarranted assumptions but
rather the setting up of a straw man (or in this case, woman) only to
knock it down. Without debating the benefits of having boy scouts
practice shooting, I don't think our fictional woman is played
verbally that skillfully at all - I think she is set up to be a
typical knee-jerk liberal anti-gun (female, let's not forget it) news
fluff who should probably not even be doing this job that she is
clearly unable to do, failing so emphatically to understand the needs
of men to fire guns, damn it. Clear subtext: guns are manly and women
just don't understand them. And the way she is defeated is by
referring to her sexuality, which is so outrageous that she is
immediately struck dumb. I don't think it is reaching outrageously far
to suggest that there are certain anti-feminist themes in this little
cynical editorialising parable which, if it concerned road accidents,
reefer madness or angels walking you down the road to safety would be
rightly consigned to the glurge department where it belongs.
Daniel '' Ucko
--
'Ahh, too busy to do our homework, for a claim you pulled unwashed
from your gerbil hole.'
- Lon Stowell explains 'burden of proof' again on AFU.
* I will arbitrarily killfile posters without a real e-mail address *
Daniel Ucko
>The joke posits that the only insult equal in
>magnitude to accusing the Scout leader of being a killer is to accuse
>such an Andrea Dworkin type of being a sex worker.
No keywords... I suggest you read up a bit on Andrea Dworkin's past.
She makes no secret of the fact that she did work as a prostitute.
Daniel 'Have I Been Trolled?' Ucko
Ed Kaulakis
news:3c7aa013....@news.bellatlantic.net...
Disingenuous isn't quite me, I prefer provocative. Having made my point,
I readily admit there is no One True Reading.
I'll grant the original story is, ah, juicier than my hypothetical
derivative with a male interviewer and a female General teaching a Girl
Scout troop, equipping them to be violent killers as well as
prostitutes.
I'll grant that the extra juice may well derive from the cultural spurts
of implication you're citing. But I still see these elements as a sort
of superior package of, or throbbing interior rhyme within, the basic
trope of "offensive assumption (of antagonist's bad character)
boomerangs".
All of this speaks highly of the craftsmanship of the tale's originator.
Will you grant that the story still working *at all* in my crippled
form speaks for my reading?
Ed "oh, *that* cigar" Kaulakis
Ben Zimmer
Drew Lawson wrote:
>
> In article <poki7u0is7iifh274...@4ax.com>
> JoAnne Schmitz <jsch...@qis.net> writes:
> >On Sat, 23 Feb 2002 23:09:29 GMT, "Ed Kaulakis" <kaulaki...@pacbell.net>
> >wrote:
> >
> >>That's funny, I saw no mention of penes. Can you, without infringing the
> >>Bo[PR], explain how you got there from "shooting"?
> >
> >Shooting and penises have no metaphorical relationship? "This is my rifle, this
> >is my gun"? "Bang bang"?
>
> In the 40 years that I have been acquainted with my penis, it has
> never once gone "Bang bang."
I suppose you took John Lennon literally when he sang, "Happiness is a
warm gun (bang bang shoot shoot)"?
Ben "loved the Breeders cover" Zimmer
Ian Munro
> I know that some people still believe that the Freudian paradigm has
> explanatory power. Hell, some people believe in homeopathy, giant
> planets comin' to getchoo, and who knows what. TWIAVBP.
Ed, are you under the impression that Freud invented the connection
between weapons and penises? I'm sorry you missed so many of the jokes
in _Romeo and Juliet_.
> But ya see Joanne, it's your metaphor. It's not in the story. You added
> it. So the misanthropy is yours, and stands independantly of the story.
Oh, please. The story gives us an opposition between weapons and vaginas
and a parallel opposition between male discipline and female whores.
It's not JoAnne's metaphor, it's fucking Homer's.
> Deriving from her unspoken "gnus are evil" axiom (the true butt of this
> tale), our interviewer assumes that possession of such equipment and
> training in its use equates to unethical use thereof. A lot of people
> find this leap deeply offensive, and somehow see poetic justice in the
> witty reflection of this offensive asssumption back on her.
I can accept all of that; what I can't accept is your apparent claim that
the gender aspects of the story are just decorative.
> How then would your analysis of this tale
> differ if the General were teaching her granddaughter's Girl Scout
> troop to shoot? Where are the big brave penises (sic)? For lagniappe,
> let's have a male interviewer and change the punchline from "you're
> equipped" to "they're equipped".
> Believe it or not, the modified story works just as well for me as a
> criticism of the offensive assumption, although to be fair it loses a
> lot of cultural traction.
To say the least. You think a story that involved the General implying
that the Girl Scouts were ready to be whores would spread very far beyond
alt.fan.pedophilia? What about if the General implied, accurately, that
the male interviewer was equipped for prostitution--would this work the
same as the original version, or would it be a radically different tale?
(What would we think of a General who said this to another man?) It's
interesting that you didn't put it that way, since it would be the
simplest reversal of the gender positions.
The "cultural traction" is the whole point of the tale; of course it's
little boys, of course it's a female interviewer. Sure, you could tell
the tale differently, but no one would, because it's *better* this
way--that is, more culturally powerful. Notice how much the joke changes
when the roles *are* reversed in the other version on the Snopes site;
shooting becomes fishing, prostitution becomes rape, etc.
Ian "'Draw thy tool, here come two of the house of Montagues'" Munro
--
"I am the groundhog under the foundations of society, the pigeon on the
roof of compassion, the errant baseball through the window of the soul,
the squirrel on the powerlines of the information superhighway."--Ian York
Chris Clarke
Daniel Ucko <d.u...@physics.org> wrote:
> No keywords... I suggest you read up a bit on Andrea Dworkin's past.
> She makes no secret of the fact that she did work as a prostitute.
>
> Daniel 'Have I Been Trolled?' Ucko
I don't guess you've been trolled. Dworkin, like Rand, is often trashed
by people who wouldn't dream of reading what she actually wrote.
--
Chris Clarke | Editor, Faultline Magazine
www.faultline.org | California Environmental News and Information
Nathan Tenny
Ian Munro <ian....@ualberta.ca> wrote:
>The "cultural traction" is the whole point of the tale; of course it's
>little boys, of course it's a female interviewer. Sure, you could tell
>the tale differently, but no one would, because it's *better* this
>way--that is, more culturally powerful.
But...
>Notice how much the joke changes
>when the roles *are* reversed in the other version on the Snopes site;
>shooting becomes fishing, prostitution becomes rape, etc.
...evidently they *do* tell it the other way.
Yeah, sure, some stuff changes. But that isn't evidence that the joke
itself is intrinsically gender-loaded; I'd argue that the underlying joke
hardly changes at all between those two versions, and to the extent that
it does change, it's because the nature of the interrogator's hubris has
changed---smug narrowness of view in one case, the confidence of power in
the other---in a way that doesn't have anything to do with the gender
distinction being talked about here. But, basically, the joke is that the
person who goes into the exchange thinking they have an unassailable position
is unexpectedly slapped back by a quick wit.
That guns are associated with masculinity, and prostitution is perceived as
basically a female profession, seems to me to be (1) a pretty obvious point,
and (2) incidental to anything important about this particular UL. It's
also perhaps (3) sexist, certainly (3) stereotypical, but I think it's
about as important here as the Jewishness of Mr. Gorsky; a trapping, not a
plot point.
Ed Kaulakis
From: "Ian Munro" <ian....@ualberta.ca>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Sent: Monday, February 25, 2002 2:49 PM
Subject: Re: "You're equipped to be a prostitute..."
> Ed Kaulakis <kaulaki...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> Ed, are you under the impression that Freud invented the connection
> between weapons and penises? I'm sorry you missed so many of the
jokes
> in _Romeo and Juliet_.
You bitin' that thumb at me, punk?
<snip>
> I can accept all of that; what I can't accept is your apparent claim
that
> the gender aspects of the story are just decorative.
It's a free country, you're at liberty to accept or not. And yet...
Note the so-disingenuous juxtaposition of "cunt" and "tree", implying
murderous rape, just what you'd expect from a gun-toting goon of the
phallocentrist hegemony. Must make him really feel like a man, saying
that!
Who is to say what is a ridiculous gendered reading and what is not?
This question is important, because it's about power. About who owns the
discourse.
And that is why dismissing a point of view as worthless by associating
it with penes is worth a comment; a close reading of that comment
reveals outrage at the asymmetry of today's gender sensitivity. Oh dear.
BOP.
<snip>
Ed "BOP the comment, the dismissal is perfectly fine. Really." Kaulakis
Ian Munro
> Yeah, sure, some stuff changes. But that isn't evidence that the joke
> itself is intrinsically gender-loaded; I'd argue that the underlying
> joke hardly changes at all between those two versions, and to the extent
> that it does change, it's because the nature of the interrogator's
> hubris has changed---smug narrowness of view in one case, the confidence
> of power in the other---in a way that doesn't have anything to do with
> the gender distinction being talked about here. But, basically, the
> joke is that the person who goes into the exchange thinking they have
> an unassailable position is unexpectedly slapped back by a quick wit.
The underlying joke doesn't change, agreed, but the (pardon me) thrust of
the message changes. The quick wit of the woman in the fishing version
involves "accusing" the man of being a rapist; the quick wit of the
general in the gun version involves "accusing" the woman of being a
prostitute. The assymetry is pretty clear; I think gender distinctions
are part of the bedrock of the joke, in fact (do you think "confidence of
power" doesn't imply gender distinctions?).
JoAnne was expressing her irritation with a joke that relied on the
"cultural traction" of gender stereotyping to make its point; given the
oppositions the joke sets up, I think it's a bit disingenuous to claim
that this stereotyping is merely incidental.
Ian "I never considered the Jewishness of Mr. Gorsky before" Munro
--
"Then, when it seemed that all hope was gone, comes Ian Munro,
Liberator."--my Vicki Robinson .sig is better than yours
Ian Munro
> Who is to say what is a ridiculous gendered reading and what is not?
> This question is important, because it's about power. About who owns
> the discourse.
I agree completely. But I would go on to say that the comic turnaround
in the joke is based on a presumption of social power: the joke presents
the idea that all us gnu proponents (I really like this one) are
disempowered in today's society by feminine/feminist liberals, but that
this can be overcome by reminding them that they're women and we're men.
> And that is why dismissing a point of view as worthless by associating
> it with penes is worth a comment;
But what point of view is being dismissed? I don't see JoAnne endorsing
the position of the imaginary NPR reporter; she's talking about the
social subtext of the narrative, not the pros and cons of gnu education.
In fact, I have trouble believing that many real-life anti-gnu people
would hysterically claim that the little boys are being trained to be
murderers. This is why it's like most other political ULs, right or
left; it presents its opponents' views in bad faith, and it's hardly an
example of "political correctness" or gender-sensitivity-run-amok to note
this (nor do I think it necessarily violates the BoP, although maybe it
comes close).
Like you, I don't want to get into a BoPable debate about whether or not
the world the joke imagines is an accurate one. And I'm not saying that
I don't like seeing the smug and unthinking, male or female, bested by a
witty retort; in fact, I live for this. I'm just saying that this
particular joke comes with a lot of baggage that makes it not especially
funny.
Ian "will kill jokes for food" Munro
--
"The Library is unlimited and cyclical. If an eternal traveller were to
cross it in any direction, after centuries he would see that the same
volumes were repeated in the same disorder (which, thus repeated, would
be an order: the Order). My solitude is gladdened by this elegant hope."
--Jorge Luis Borges
cms
wrote:
>On Mon, 25 Feb 2002 20:54:37 GMT, adaor...@hotmail.com (cms) wrote:
>
>>The joke posits that the only insult equal in
>>magnitude to accusing the Scout leader of being a killer is to accuse
>>such an Andrea Dworkin type of being a sex worker.
>
>No keywords... I suggest you read up a bit on Andrea Dworkin's past.
>She makes no secret of the fact that she did work as a prostitute.
>
Mea culpa; I merely inserted her name as a prototypical anti-porn,
anti-sex feminist without being all that clear on her autobiography.
While she is anti-porn it appears that this resutls from her own
negative sexual experiences, and not a lack thereof, and thus the
comaprison was inapt. Thank you for furthering my knowledge.
cms, a broad but not deep.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Said the Pooka, "And the question I ask in conclusion
is this, where did your talk come from the last time
you talked?" --- At Swim-Two-Birds
Brought to you by the letter 3, the number L, and beekiller.net
Hugh Gibbons
Lawson) wrote:
> In the 40 years that I have been acquainted with my penis, it has
> never once gone "Bang bang."
>
>
> Drew "and it has never smelled of burning gunpowder" Lawson
We all have fun in different ways, Drew.
Michael J. Lowrey
> Daniel Ucko <d.u...@physics.org> wrote:
> > No keywords... I suggest you read up a bit on Andrea Dworkin's past.
> > She makes no secret of the fact that she did work as a prostitute.
> >
> > Daniel 'Have I Been Trolled?' Ucko
>
> I don't guess you've been trolled. Dworkin, like Rand, is often trashed
> by people who wouldn't dream of reading what she actually wrote.
I, on the other hand, have trashed and will continue to
trash the both of them, on the basis of what they have
written and I have read. I will admit, I consider Dworkin
misguided rather than actively evil like Rand; but I despise
the political effects of both their bodies of work.
--
Michael J. Lowrey
Sunrise Book Reviews
1847 N. 2nd Str.
Milwaukee, WI 53212-3760
James Lane
> Chris Clarke wrote:
>
> > Daniel Ucko <d.u...@physics.org> wrote:
> > > No keywords... I suggest you read up a bit on Andrea Dworkin's past.
> > > She makes no secret of the fact that she did work as a prostitute.
> > >
> > > Daniel 'Have I Been Trolled?' Ucko
> >
> > I don't guess you've been trolled. Dworkin, like Rand, is often trashed
> > by people who wouldn't dream of reading what she actually wrote.
>
Well, Andrea Dworkin "actually wrote" that marriage is "legalised rape"
(Our Blood: Prophecies and discourses on Sexual Politics, New York:
Harper & Row, 1976, p.27)
She also "actually wrote" that "romance" is "rape embellished by
meaningful looks" (Letters from a War Zone, London: Secker & Warburg,
1988, p.14)
And again, "actually wrote" that the only real difference between rape
and seduction is is that "in seduction, the rapist bothers to buy a
bottle of wine" (ibid, p.119).
And... "The traditional flowers of courtship are the traditional
flowers of the grave, delivered to the victim before the kill. The
cadaver is dressed up and made up and laid down and ritually violated
and consecrated to an eternity of being used" (ibid, p.14)
James "but apart from that, she makes a lot of good points" Lane
Chris Clarke
James Lane <ji...@triode.net.au> wrote:
> > > I don't guess you've been trolled. Dworkin, like Rand, is often trashed
> > > by people who wouldn't dream of reading what she actually wrote.
> >
[snip a collection of amusing, over-the-top handwaving from Dworkin]
> James "but apart from that, she makes a lot of good points" Lane
I'm not sure whether you've rebutted my point or supported it, but
either way it's not AFU material.
Chris "Don't make baby Shulamith weep" Clarke
Songbyrd11
>I, on the other hand, have trashed and will continue to
>trash the both of them, on the basis of what they have
>written and I have read. I will admit, I consider Dworkin
>misguided rather than actively evil like Rand; but I despise
>the political effects of both their bodies of work.
Aside from the BOP, it is so tempting.
Song "This is just a sot in the dark" byrd
JoAnne Schmitz
wrote:
>In article <a5ef23$h3g$1...@pulp.srv.ualberta.ca>,
>Ian Munro <ian....@ualberta.ca> wrote:
>>The "cultural traction" is the whole point of the tale; of course it's
>>little boys, of course it's a female interviewer. Sure, you could tell
>>the tale differently, but no one would, because it's *better* this
>>way--that is, more culturally powerful.
>
>But...
>
>>Notice how much the joke changes
>>when the roles *are* reversed in the other version on the Snopes site;
>>shooting becomes fishing, prostitution becomes rape, etc.
>
>...evidently they *do* tell it the other way.
>
>Yeah, sure, some stuff changes.
What's the difference between prostitution and rape?
>But that isn't evidence that the joke
>itself is intrinsically gender-loaded; I'd argue that the underlying joke
>hardly changes at all between those two versions,
I don't think so.
In the fishing story, the game warden does not run away, is not threatened, does
not lose all professionalism and just give up. There's sort of an "oh, well, I
guess I lost that one" shruggish feel to it, not a "oh my goodness, what an
insult, I have the vapors, I must run away, I cannot control myself" panicky
feel.
>and to the extent that
>it does change, it's because the nature of the interrogator's hubris has
>changed---smug narrowness of view in one case, the confidence of power in
>the other---in a way that doesn't have anything to do with the gender
>distinction being talked about here. But, basically, the joke is that the
>person who goes into the exchange thinking they have an unassailable position
>is unexpectedly slapped back by a quick wit.
But in the case of the radio interviewer, she is sufficiently shocked that she
abandons the scene in an obvious and public way.
To make it similar in the fishing story, the game warden would have to be
similarly shocked. He isn't. In fact, we aren't even treated to a description
of his discomfiture. We're just left to assume he doesn't prosecute the woman.
>That guns are associated with masculinity, and prostitution is perceived as
>basically a female profession, seems to me to be (1) a pretty obvious point,
>and (2) incidental to anything important about this particular UL. It's
>also perhaps (3) sexist, certainly (3) stereotypical, but I think it's
>about as important here as the Jewishness of Mr. Gorsky; a trapping, not a
>plot point.
There's a physical joke about what a Jewish woman looks like when she's eating a
banana, involving not wanting to. I guess I thought that idea was fairly
well-known. And "When a man walks on the moon" suggests rarity.
I can accept that you might have thought it had to do with her being an older
woman, raised at a time when women didn't do that, or that it was just a
personal thing. But in fact there is a stereotype.
JoAnne "to the surprise of many, I just found out what a literal stereotype is a
couple of weeks ago" Schmitz
JoAnne Schmitz
wrote:
>It just doesn't work for me.
I see.
That you can't see how it works for other people is a shame.
JoAnne "fortunately not a crime" Schmitz
me
[snip]
> but to me this is not some
> little morality tale about prejudice and unwarranted assumptions but
> rather the setting up of a straw man (or in this case, woman) only to
> knock it down. Without debating the benefits of having boy scouts
> practice shooting, I don't think our fictional woman is played
> verbally that skillfully at all - I think she is set up to be a
> typical knee-jerk liberal anti-gun (female, let's not forget it) news
> fluff who should probably not even be doing this job that she is
> clearly unable to do, failing so emphatically to understand the needs
> of men to fire guns, damn it. Clear subtext: guns are manly and women
> just don't understand them.
It is this last part which I didn't see in the original reading.
I read exasperation on the part of the man for an argument so severely
flawed in his point of view. He is thinking of a nice family, wholesome,
boy scouts/apple pie/american kinda activity and the interviewer is
framing it completely out of his context. He attempts to do the same
kind of juxtaposition on the interviewer.
I may be influence by foreknowledge of a joke which twists on the
same punch line, except the gender roles are reversed.
Drew Lawson
JoAnne Schmitz <jsch...@qis.net> writes:
>On 25 Feb 2002 15:40:21 -0800, n_t_e_nn_y_@q_ual_c_o_m_m_.c_o_m (Nathan Tenny)
>wrote:
>>That guns are associated with masculinity, and prostitution is perceived as
>>basically a female profession, seems to me to be (1) a pretty obvious point,
>>and (2) incidental to anything important about this particular UL. It's
>>also perhaps (3) sexist, certainly (3) stereotypical, but I think it's
>>about as important here as the Jewishness of Mr. Gorsky; a trapping, not a
>>plot point.
>
>There's a physical joke about what a Jewish woman looks like when she's eating a
>banana, involving not wanting to. I guess I thought that idea was fairly
>well-known. And "When a man walks on the moon" suggests rarity.
I've never heard that joke, at least I don't recognize it from the
summary. I'd also never had it pointed out that Gorsky is/was
jewish. It's just Yet Another Eastern European Name to me.
>I can accept that you might have thought it had to do with her being an older
>woman, raised at a time when women didn't do that, or that it was just a
>personal thing. But in fact there is a stereotype.
I'd though of it as an example of the large number of women (of
whatever ethnicity) who don't like to perform oral sex.
Drew "why does a bride smile on her wedding day?" Lawson
Estron
previous post, wrote:
> No keywords...
That's not the first time I've seen a reference to "keywords," or more
precisely the absence of keywords, in an AFU post commenting on another
AFU post. Ucko seems to be saying there should be.
The creaky 1997-model FAQ that gets automatically posted here makes no
mention of keywords. In fact, even though I now have my newsreader set
to display keywords in bright fuchsia, I notice most AFU messages do not
have keywords.
Is there an AFU policy regarding the use of keywords that is one of the
following: official; semi-official; generally adhered to; or agreed upon
by Those Wearing Headgear? And if so, what is that policy?
--
All opinions expressed herein are only that.
Pax vobiscum.
est...@tfs.net
Kansas City, Missouri
Drew Lawson
Estron <est...@tfs.net> writes:
>Previously in alt.folklore.urban, Daniel Ucko, in commenting on a
>previous post, wrote:
>
>> No keywords...
>Is there an AFU policy regarding the use of keywords that is one of the
>following: official; semi-official; generally adhered to; or agreed upon
>by Those Wearing Headgear? And if so, what is that policy?
The general practice is to put in a Keywords: line when trolling.
Some forget, some never picked up on the practice, and often enough,
the post was a joke and not a troll.
Above, Daniel is saying that the previous poster hasn't displayed
a fishing lisence, so he assumes there isn't a hook hidden in
there somewhere.
Drew "keystones, key clubs, but no keywords" Lawson
--
|Drew Lawson | Of all the things I've lost |
|dr...@furrfu.com | I miss my mind the most |
|http://www.furrfu.com/ | |
Mike Holmans
keyboard and brought forth:
>Previously in alt.folklore.urban, Daniel Ucko, in commenting on a
>previous post, wrote:
>
>> No keywords...
>
>That's not the first time I've seen a reference to "keywords," or more
>precisely the absence of keywords, in an AFU post commenting on another
>AFU post. Ucko seems to be saying there should be.
>
>The creaky 1997-model FAQ that gets automatically posted here makes no
>mention of keywords. In fact, even though I now have my newsreader set
>to display keywords in bright fuchsia, I notice most AFU messages do not
>have keywords.
>
>Is there an AFU policy regarding the use of keywords that is one of the
>following: official; semi-official; generally adhered to; or agreed upon
>by Those Wearing Headgear? And if so, what is that policy?
It is generally considered good manners in AFU to include something in
the Keywords: header field if the post is deliberately misleading or
contains bald-faced lies without debunkage. Trolling without a
Keywords: header is punishable by the normal two-fifty for a first
offence, except in NJ, where a further seven cents has to be sent to
the Governor.
Mike "mots a clef" Holmans
Deborah Stevenson,,,
>I, on the other hand, have trashed and will continue to
>trash the both of them, on the basis of what they have
>written and I have read.
Please don't do it here; this thread has managed so far to, I think,
discuss the legend without deteriorating into the kind of pointless
argument the BoP was designed to discourage.
Deborah Stevenson
(stev...@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu)
me
[snip]
> I'm just saying that this
> particular joke comes with a lot of baggage that makes it not especially
> funny.
Well, I think there is a subtle suggestion around here that the
baggage tends to come as much from the listener as the teller. I
might venture to say that much of that baggage extends from stereotypes
which are being projected on to both characters in the story.
There are at least two basic abstract approaches to this story.
Which one you read seems to have more to do with you are than who
the actual characters are.
1) Big strong guy with a macho love for guns as falic replacements
verbally asaults female liberal who is over stereotyped as a fridge
whimp.
2) Wholesome scout leader dresses down unprepared, uninformed,
and kneejerk liberal for nonsensicle logic.
Considering that the joke/UL is intended for folks who are more
likely to see the second telling, it would seem to be based in that
intent. Folks who are drawn to neither argument, but observe it
from a more objective issue can mix and match the stereotypes of
both characters however they wish.
Mitch Barrie
<d.u...@physics.org> wrote:
# Clear subtext: guns are manly and women
# just don't understand them.
As a gun nut who got a chuckle out of this story when I first
heard it, I think I am in a position to suggest there are really
no sexual overtones implied at all.
The woman is portrayed as simply ignorant, ignorant as most of
the rest of sophisticated society as to why people choose to own
and shoot firearms, and why they might want to develop a
proficiency in shooting. "But you're equipping them to become
violent killers," is far more meaningful, to your average
American gun nut (eg, me), than the glib little line about
prostitutes. That was just the punchline.
# And the way she is defeated is by
# referring to her sexuality, which is so outrageous that she is
# immediately struck dumb. I don't think it is reaching outrageously far
# to suggest that there are certain anti-feminist themes in this little
# cynical editorialising parable
It is pretty outrageous reaching, actually. Many gun nuts are
women themeselves and most male gun nuts have wives and daughters
they are eager to involve in shooting. That shooting, like
autosports, is an overwhelmingly male pastime (perhaps a
manifestation of adolescence interrupted, who knows?) is
indisputable. But the majority of American gun nuts chortling
over this story are also probably active in getting more of their
female acquaintences involved in the sport. And most
out-of-the-closet American gun nuts are of that social stratum
where their female friends and loved ones could be counted upon
to be far less offended by the joke than, say, Gloria Allred.
The interviewer simply had to be a woman for the joke to work.
Occam's Razor, and a close familiarity with the attitudes behind
the anecdote, suggests to me that this is all there is to it.
However, this is simply my informed opinion. Folks who wish to
disregard this and continue to wave the story around as yet more
proof (as if any was needed) that gun nuts are nothing but a pack
of redneck misogynist Bambi-killers may continue riding the
bandwagon of their choice.
Mitch
Nathan Tenny
In article <a5gb4n$2ghh$1...@home.eCynic.com>,
Drew Lawson <dr...@furrfu.com> wrote:
>In article <vabm7us32e4sqce2e...@4ax.com>
> JoAnne Schmitz <jsch...@qis.net> writes:
>>On 25 Feb 2002 15:40:21 -0800, n_t_e_nn_y_@q_ual_c_o_m_m_.c_o_m (Nathan Tenny)
>>wrote:
>>>[I think gender roles in the story under discussion are]
>>>about as important here as the Jewishness of Mr. Gorsky; a trapping, not a
>>>plot point.
>>
>>There's a physical joke about what a Jewish woman looks like when she's
>>eating a
>>banana, involving not wanting to. I guess I thought that idea was fairly
>>well-known.
>
>I've never heard that joke, at least I don't recognize it from the
>summary.
Me either. I recognize a general stereotype of Jewish women as averse to
sex, though I never really connected that with "Gorsky". I guess that might
be odd of me, but the story has worked fine for me all these years without
that ingredient, so wotthehell.
>I'd also never had it pointed out that Gorsky is/was
>jewish. It's just Yet Another Eastern European Name to me.
I hear "Oral sex you want?" as a stereotypically Jewish inversion of verb
and object; it's also a really punchy, memorable phrase and helps to give
the story its UL legs. Note that we've seen at least one version in which
the reteller had evidently forgotten the name "Gorsky", but substituted
another eastern-European-Jewish-standard-sounding name---"Leibowitz" or
some such.
Other stuff, apparently dropped by my news server but present on DejaGoogle:
[me first, then JoAnne]
>>>But that isn't evidence that the joke
>>>itself is intrinsically gender-loaded; I'd argue that the underlying joke
>>>hardly changes at all between those two versions,
>>
>>I don't think so.
>>
>>In the fishing story, the game warden does not run away, is not threatened,
>>does not lose all professionalism and just give up. There's sort of an "oh,
>>well, I guess I lost that one" shruggish feel to it, not a "oh my goodness,
>>what an insult, I have the vapors, I must run away, I cannot control myself"
>>panicky feel.
Maybe this is just an irresolvable difference of perception; I don't get that
same sense of massive collapse from the radio story. The interviewer has no
response to having her argument crushed, and wimps out by shutting down the
interview rather than confessing herself beaten. I just don't get the sense
that the affront to the interviewer has anything to do with the horrors of
reference to her sexuality---it's the demolition of the argument she's
advanced in her professional role. I see "g*n c*ntr*l supporters are idiots",
I see "l*b*r*ls are chickenshit", but I don't really see "women are weak in
the face of their sexuality".
On the other hand, I see the game warden as being more effectively clobbered
than you do, I think; here's an authority figure whose authority has just
been struck down by a superior wit. The silent end of the story makes me
think that the guy blinks a few times and takes his boat and wanders off
in bewilderment.
But we're debating a subtext here that's clearly dependent on interpretation,
so we may just have to agree to disagree.
Ian Munro
> The interviewer simply had to be a woman for the joke to work.
Why? Wouldn't a male interviewer also be equipped to be a prostitute?
> Occam's Razor, and a close familiarity with the attitudes behind
> the anecdote, suggests to me that this is all there is to it.
The attitudes behind the anecdote are largely irrelevant, I think. To
take a counter-example: most liberals are dedicated to ideas of social
equality, but many seem curiously comfortable making jokes about
"rednecks" and "white trash" and other groups.
I haven't been implying that gnu nuts are just the sort of bigoted pigs
who would get off on a sexist joke like this. (I don't think JoAnne or
anyone else has been implying this, either.) I'm saying that the social
power of the joke is related to its sexist structure, and that while
responding to that social power doesn't make you a bad person, pretending
that it's not there does make you a deliberately naive person.
Ian "dissecting the frog" Munro
--
"Kathy, please repost this article - I think that your point was lost in
transmission."--Jen Mullen
Mitch Barrie
wrote:
# > The interviewer simply had to be a woman for the joke to work.
#
# Why? Wouldn't a male interviewer also be equipped to be a prostitute?
Not in the minds of most people, no. Most prostitutes the world
over are women. Since it's a joke and not a real event, it's
easier to make the interviewer a woman rather than a man. Rodney
Dangerfield 101.
# The attitudes behind the anecdote are largely irrelevant, I think.
I don't know how they could be irrelevant. I understood that
this branch of the thread was a discussion of precisely what was
the subtext of the joke. Shirley the attitudes behind the
anecdote are relevant to such a discussion?
# I haven't been implying that gnu nuts are just the sort of bigoted pigs
# who would get off on a sexist joke like this. (I don't think JoAnne or
# anyone else has been implying this, either.)
I don't think you have been either and I apologize for the tone
of my last paragraph which might have implied otherwise.
# I'm saying that the social
# power of the joke is related to its sexist structure,
And as precisely the sort of person to whom this joke was
targeted I will have to disagree, for the reasons I explained
previously.
# and that while
# responding to that social power doesn't make you a bad person, pretending
# that it's not there does make you a deliberately naive person.
There is the school of thought that whenever anyone anywhere ever
mentions gender differences for any reason and in any context,
there are all sorts of heavy socio-sexual subtexts being played
out. I'm not sure what to say about that. All I know is that
gun nuts as a group feel besieged in this country (the US) not by
feminists or women reporters but by people of all sexes who are
willfully ignorant of them and their chosen sport. That's what
the joke is about.
Making more of it than is really there is probably a lot of fun
for some people, but it doesn't get you and closer to
understanding the nature of the joke.
Mitch
Daniel Ucko
<red...@goathill.net> wrote:
>On Mon, 25 Feb 2002 21:21:57 +0000, Daniel Ucko
><d.u...@physics.org> wrote:
>
># Clear subtext: guns are manly and women
># just don't understand them.
>
>As a gun nut who got a chuckle out of this story when I first
>heard it, I think I am in a position to suggest there are really
>no sexual overtones implied at all.
They were clear to me. If they were not clear to you that's your
interpretation, to which you are entitled.
>The woman is portrayed as simply ignorant, ignorant as most of
>the rest of sophisticated society as to why people choose to own
>and shoot firearms, and why they might want to develop a
>proficiency in shooting. "But you're equipping them to become
>violent killers," is far more meaningful, to your average
>American gun nut (eg, me), than the glib little line about
>prostitutes. That was just the punchline.
I can accept that this, 'But you're equipping them to become
violent killers,' in itself may be a meaningful issue. Where I
disagree is in your characterisation of this as merely a 'joke' with
no other subtext at all. You admit yourself later that she 'had to be
a woman for the joke to work,' i.e. in order for her to become the
butt of the 'joke.' How do you reconcile this with your confident
claim that there is nothing sexist about this little tale?
># And the way she is defeated is by
># referring to her sexuality, which is so outrageous that she is
># immediately struck dumb. I don't think it is reaching outrageously far
># to suggest that there are certain anti-feminist themes in this little
># cynical editorialising parable
>
>It is pretty outrageous reaching, actually. Many gun nuts are
>women themeselves and most male gun nuts have wives and daughters
>they are eager to involve in shooting. That shooting, like
>autosports, is an overwhelmingly male pastime (perhaps a
>manifestation of adolescence interrupted, who knows?) is
>indisputable. But the majority of American gun nuts chortling
>over this story are also probably active in getting more of their
>female acquaintences involved in the sport. And most
>out-of-the-closet American gun nuts are of that social stratum
>where their female friends and loved ones could be counted upon
>to be far less offended by the joke than, say, Gloria Allred.
I'm not really talking for or against guns here; I'm commenting on a
'joke.' Surely you're not suggesting gun enthuiasts are a homogenenous
mass with identikit opinions? I think in addition to the balanced 'gun
nuts' that you describe above there are paranoid 'my rights are being
infringed' nuts who identify with guns and gun culture differently to
and beyond the way to what you describe. Whoever wrote this 'joke'
wanted to make a point, and the point was not just to make me laugh.
(Had he succeeded with that I might have been more charitable.)
>The interviewer simply had to be a woman for the joke to work.
>Occam's Razor, and a close familiarity with the attitudes behind
>the anecdote, suggests to me that this is all there is to it.
>
>However, this is simply my informed opinion. Folks who wish to
>disregard this and continue to wave the story around as yet more
>proof (as if any was needed) that gun nuts are nothing but a pack
>of redneck misogynist Bambi-killers may continue riding the
>bandwagon of their choice.
I think the only bandwagon here is yours. I have not discussed
pro/anti gun stances in any way. I have discussed a 'joke.' Since I am
not interested in discussing pro/anti gun stances, especially not on
AFU, I am starting to feel that this last paragraph contains nothing
but an intentionally misleading piece of sophistry.
Daniel 'spoiling for it much?' Ucko
--
'Ahh, too busy to do our homework, for a claim you pulled unwashed
from your gerbil hole.'
- Lon Stowell explains 'burden of proof' again on AFU.
* I will arbitrarily killfile posters without a real e-mail address *
Drew Lawson
Mitch Barrie <red...@goathill.net> writes:
>On 26 Feb 2002 20:37:51 GMT, Ian Munro <ian....@ualberta.ca>
>wrote:
># I'm saying that the social
># power of the joke is related to its sexist structure,
>
>And as precisely the sort of person to whom this joke was
>targeted I will have to disagree, for the reasons I explained
>previously.
While I acknowledge that some people see this the way that Ian and
JoAnne are describing it, I see it about the same way that Mitch
does, though perhaps a bit more generically.
I saw the setup as arrogant, liberal, perhaps "Ivory tower" journalist
meets experienced, career military. The slapping down isn't for
being an uppity female, but for attempting to proclaim the moral
high ground without knowing what she's talking about.
And I think it is safe to say that Mitch and I stand pretty far
apart on gnu[1] control issues.
Drew "equipped to be a couch potato" Lawson
[1] I have doubts that this needs to be anti-grepped, but I just
love the look of it.
Drew Lawson
d.u...@physics.org writes:
>I think the only bandwagon here is yours. I have not discussed
I don't know. I see a distinct "any joke about a man and a woman
is a blatant attempt by male dominated society to subjugate women"
bandwagon riding through town. The posts suggesting that anyone
not seeing this joke that way must be "disingenuous" or "kidding"
look a whole lot like the entrance ramp.
As usual, I could be wrong.
Drew "I can only imagine what you'd make of the sheep
jokes in a current radio commercial for cheese" Lawson
Mitch Barrie
<d.u...@physics.org> wrote:
# You admit yourself later that she 'had to be
# a woman for the joke to work,' i.e. in order for her to become the
# butt of the 'joke.' How do you reconcile this with your confident
# claim that there is nothing sexist about this little tale?
Well, if you are one of those who believe that any allusion to
gender in any anecdote or account is burdened it with deep sexist
overtones, then I suppose there is no way to refute you.
The joke is a political one, exchanged among a group of people
with profound concerns about certain political issues, none of
which have anything to do with feminism or any other women's
issues (except, in some cases, women's ability to prevent their
own victimization, see http://www.pinkpistols.org for more on
that).
# I think the only bandwagon here is yours. I have not discussed
# pro/anti gun stances in any way. I have discussed a 'joke.' Since I am
# not interested in discussing pro/anti gun stances, especially not on
# AFU, I am starting to feel that this last paragraph contains nothing
# but an intentionally misleading piece of sophistry.
Well, not intentionally misleading, but sophistry nonetheless.
I think I just got a bit impatient with the rather bizarre
socio-sexual turn this discussion has taken, over a very simple
political joke. In all my years in AFU I have never seen such
attention given, for example, to the possible shocking sexual
subtexts of the dog-and-peanut butter stories. What is it about
this story that brings all these notions to the fore? Power of
men over women in society? WTF? Shall we start on about the gun
as a phallic symbol, or has that already been covered?
Furthermore, if you want to spend a little time among gun nuts,
you will hear a number of similar jokes and anecdotes (most
passed on, as in this case, as true stories). Almost none of the
others (and one concerning PETA and orange-vested deer was
discussed here recently) require these weird sexual subtexts to
make the same points as this joke makes. It's not about male
power over females, it's about one group of people trying to stop
the activities of another group. Perhaps the joke was a bit
off-color; that tends, in this modern age, to be the nature of
jokes.
I've done the field research; you're making it all up. You
haven't seen me around here much lately. You can dejagoogle my
address to see where I've been.
Mitch
Daniel Ucko
<red...@goathill.net> wrote:
>On Tue, 26 Feb 2002 22:38:57 +0000, Daniel Ucko
><d.u...@physics.org> wrote:
>
># You admit yourself later that she 'had to be
># a woman for the joke to work,' i.e. in order for her to become the
># butt of the 'joke.' How do you reconcile this with your confident
># claim that there is nothing sexist about this little tale?
>
>Well, if you are one of those who believe that any allusion to
>gender in any anecdote or account is burdened it with deep sexist
>overtones, then I suppose there is no way to refute you.
I am not one of those people, and I have not said that. I think this
joke is anti-feminist and sexist. I have not said that nor do I think
that 'any allusion to gender in any anecdote or account is burdened it
with deep sexist overtones.'
>The joke is a political one, exchanged among a group of people
>with profound concerns about certain political issues, none of
>which have anything to do with feminism or any other women's
>issues (except, in some cases, women's ability to prevent their
>own victimization, see http://www.pinkpistols.org for more on
>that).
I don't dispute that guns are an important issue in this group of
people to which you refer, but the issue of guns is not what I am
discussing. The issue is this tale at hand. I realise the tale is set
against the backdrop of a political discussion but I think there is
more to it than that. I am not claiming the sexist subtext I see is
the only subtext of this tale, but I still see this tale as having a
sexist subtext. If you admit as you have said that the tale cannot be
turned around by a gender switch, then the sting in the tale is aimed
at women, and I think the sting in this tale is offensive enough that
I call it sexist.
># I think the only bandwagon here is yours. I have not discussed
># pro/anti gun stances in any way. I have discussed a 'joke.' Since I am
># not interested in discussing pro/anti gun stances, especially not on
># AFU, I am starting to feel that this last paragraph contains nothing
># but an intentionally misleading piece of sophistry.
>
>Well, not intentionally misleading, but sophistry nonetheless.
>
>I think I just got a bit impatient with the rather bizarre
>socio-sexual turn this discussion has taken, over a very simple
>political joke. In all my years in AFU I have never seen such
>attention given, for example, to the possible shocking sexual
>subtexts of the dog-and-peanut butter stories. What is it about
>this story that brings all these notions to the fore? Power of
>men over women in society? WTF? Shall we start on about the gun
>as a phallic symbol, or has that already been covered?
It had been covered, but not by me, at least not directly.
I thought on this group we were interested in discussing not only
whether a tale is false or true, but what causes it to emerge and be
spread, as well as the message it conveys. As I see it, this tale it
is redolent with subtext, some of it anti-feminist and sexist. I might
well have said the same about the dog-and-peanut-butter story if it
had popped up as new recently, because it too is an objectification of
female sexuality, a point of view that seems to recognise female
sexual behaviour only as either virginal or dementedly slutty. In this
world, right now, there is a dichotomy in the public perception of
female sexuality and male sexuality, often expressed through ULs. The
mere fact that you admit that, in the mind of the public, men can't be
prostitutes, seems to prove my point. This dichotomy is, at least in
part, the origin of this story.
If you don't want to delve into the subtext and possible implications
of ULs, then fine, don't. If you think I'm reaching, then fine, think
so. But please recognise that I have at no point in this thread made
any statement for or against gun use, gun ownership or gun culture. I
find it interesting, and more than a little irritating, that I keep
saying 'I find this story is offensive in its treatment of B,' and you
keep popping up to say 'How dare you argue about this story's
connection with A from your relative position of ignorance!' I am not
talking about A, or guns.
>I've done the field research; you're making it all up. You
>haven't seen me around here much lately. You can dejagoogle my
>address to see where I've been.
I bow to your expertise on guns and gun culture, but (again) that is
not what I'm really discussing. I am not studying the gun enthusiast
demographic, so your claim that my research into said demographic is
insufficient is spurious.
and:
On Tue, 26 Feb 2002 23:16:31 +0000 (UTC), dr...@furrfu.com (Drew
Lawson) wrote:
>In article <g60o7ukphetc44f7k...@4ax.com>
> d.u...@physics.org writes:
>
>>I think the only bandwagon here is yours. I have not discussed
>
>I don't know. I see a distinct "any joke about a man and a woman
>is a blatant attempt by male dominated society to subjugate women"
>bandwagon riding through town.
Show me where I've said that. More to the point, I have never made a
general point about jokes in general. I am discussing *this*
joke/tale.
>The posts suggesting that anyone
>not seeing this joke that way must be "disingenuous" or "kidding"
>look a whole lot like the entrance ramp.
>
>As usual, I could be wrong.
With respect, I think you are. I don't think this is some 'right-on'
bandwagon at all. I have at all times maintained that it is a matter
of interpretation, which is subjective. But that doesn't make my
interpretation 'wrong.'
Daniel 'stuck for an internym again' Ucko
Fred Klein
>
<snip>
> The interviewer simply had to be a woman for the joke to work.
"...And your wife is equipped to be a prostitute..." works okay, in
my opinion.
Fred Klein
Donna Richoux
>
>
> Well, I think there is a subtle suggestion around here that the
> baggage tends to come as much from the listener as the teller. I
> might venture to say that much of that baggage extends from stereotypes
> which are being projected on to both characters in the story.
>
> There are at least two basic abstract approaches to this story.
> Which one you read seems to have more to do with you are than who
> the actual characters are.
>
> 1) Big strong guy with a macho love for guns as falic replacements
> verbally asaults female liberal who is over stereotyped as a fridge
> whimp.
>
> 2) Wholesome scout leader dresses down unprepared, uninformed,
> and kneejerk liberal for nonsensicle logic.
I can almost accept this as a good description, except that the man in
the joke was definitely not a "scout leader." He was a general expecting
some Boy Scout visitors.
I knew something didn't sound right, because Boy Scouts -- and by
extension, their scoutmasters -- are trustworthy, loyal, helpful,
friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean,
and reverent, and would never insult a news reporter. That would have
knocked off "helpful" through "kind," at least.
--
Donna "not the same joke" Richoux
cms
<kaulaki...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>"cms" <adaor...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>news:3c7aa013....@news.bellatlantic.net...
>
>> Boy who has gun becomes violent killer
>> Woman who has vagina becomes prostitue
>Disingenuous isn't quite me, I prefer provocative. Having made my point,
>I readily admit there is no One True Reading.
I agree.
>I'll grant the original story is, ah, juicier than my hypothetical
>derivative with a male interviewer and a female General teaching a Girl
>Scout troop, equipping them to be violent killers as well as
>prostitutes.
>
>I'll grant that the extra juice may well derive from the cultural spurts
>of implication you're citing. But I still see these elements as a sort
>of superior package of, or throbbing interior rhyme within, the basic
>trope of "offensive assumption (of antagonist's bad character)
>boomerangs".
>
>All of this speaks highly of the craftsmanship of the tale's originator.
>
>Will you grant that the story still working *at all* in my crippled
>form speaks for my reading?
Sure. I grant that the hinge of the joke is the hyperbole; without that
it wouldn't be funny. [1] But the joke is funnier because of the genders
involved; to me the parallel anolgy above seems to imply that while the
worst thing a guy can be is a killer, the worst thing a girl can be is a
slut [2]. The general doesn't say something like, "well, would you
become I violent killer if I took you out to the range and showed you
how to use a .22?" Granted, my example is not all humorous, but my point
is that he doesn't directly attack the contention that guns leads to
violent behavior; he instead implies that saying using guns lead to
violence is like saying using a vagina leads to sluttiness. The analogy
seems to imply that somehow a violent killer and a prostitute are
equivalent, and accusing a man of being the one is as deeply offensive
as accusing a woman of being the other.
Now, these are just undercurrents, not the main point of the joke. But I
think the undercurrents are sort of culturally illuminating, and I don't
think one can ignore them and have a profitable discussion about whether
or not the story is offensive.
Personally, it didn't bother me all that much. But then there is much at
which I do not take offense. And a lot of dirty jokes which I find
humorous.
cms ---- what's the diffrence between the Rocketts and a trapeze act?
[1] assuming that one thinks it is funny in the first place, which is
part of what people are arguing about.
[2] I find it interesting that in snope's gender switched version, the
accusation leveled at the game warden is that he's equipped to be a
rapist. Rape is a violent crime; prostitution is not. So the accusation
leveled at the game warden contains an implication of violence, which is
what the General in the original story is accused of. The violent male
crime is again presnted as analogous to the non-violent female crime
(fishing without a license). [3]
[3] I don't take the fish's side on this issue
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Said the Pooka, "And the question I ask in conclusion
is this, where did your talk come from the last time
you talked?" --- At Swim-Two-Birds
Brought to you by the letter 3, the number L, and beekiller.net
Deborah Stevenson,,,
>In article <g60o7ukphetc44f7k...@4ax.com>
> d.u...@physics.org writes:
>>I think the only bandwagon here is yours. I have not discussed
>I don't know. I see a distinct "any joke about a man and a woman
>is a blatant attempt by male dominated society to subjugate women"
>bandwagon riding through town. The posts suggesting that anyone
>not seeing this joke that way must be "disingenuous" or "kidding"
>look a whole lot like the entrance ramp.
To which? Adherents of each side are making essentially this claim for
the opposing opinion.
This was cross-BoP but workable for awhile, but now it seems to be turning
it to "It is"/"It is not." Which is why I will not post my brilliant
exposition on the problems of your claim and instead hope that something
more interesting begins to turn up here.
Deborah Stevenson
(stev...@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu)
Ian Munro
> On 26 Feb 2002 20:37:51 GMT, Ian Munro <ian....@ualberta.ca>
> wrote:
> # The attitudes behind the anecdote are largely irrelevant, I think.
> I don't know how they could be irrelevant. I understood that
> this branch of the thread was a discussion of precisely what was
> the subtext of the joke. Shirley the attitudes behind the
> anecdote are relevant to such a discussion?
First of all, it's irrelevant because there is no way to accurately
summarize the attitudes of gnu nuts, who (like every group) are large and
contain multitudes. Secondly, it's irrelevant because the audience for
the joke is not restricted to gnu nuts (surely they weren't the audience
for the original Welsh version). Thirdly, it's irrelevant because
attesting to the bona fides of the joke's fans is beside the point. What
you're really saying, I think, is that you, personally, like the joke,
you think the gender oppositions involved aren't what make you laugh, and
you're also not a raging misogynist. I'm sure that all of this is true,
but it doesn't change the fact that the joke works through a gendered
manipulation of sex and violence that, as I suggested in my first post,
is as old as _The Iliad_.
> # I'm saying that the social
> # power of the joke is related to its sexist structure,
> And as precisely the sort of person to whom this joke was
> targeted I will have to disagree, for the reasons I explained
> previously.
For you, the big payoff of the joke is that this ignorant and blinkered
anti-gnu nut is rhetorically bested. Fair enough; I definitely see that
aspect of the joke. But it's not an either/or situation; even if that's
the point of the joke, it gets there by relying on the age-old narrative
structure of defeating the uppity woman by calling her a whore.
Keep in mind, too, that you aren't "precisely the sort of person to whom
this joke was targeted," unless you have a particular affinity for Wales.
Someone took a British joke and refashioned it to fit into a great
American controversy. The sexist underpinnings of the original joke are
pretty straightforward, even quaint; it's kind of a "dumb blonde" joke,
really. In the American context, it acquires a new overlay of meaning,
one that might obscure the foundation of the joke but doesn't erase it;
instead, they work together.
> There is the school of thought that whenever anyone anywhere ever
> mentions gender differences for any reason and in any context,
> there are all sorts of heavy socio-sexual subtexts being played
> out. I'm not sure what to say about that.
Here's what I'd say: take out all those "any"s and replace them with
something a little less absolute, and I'd generally agree. Whether or
not this makes me a raving something-or-other in some people's books, I
don't know and don't care. In this instance, such a broad belief in
"heavy socio-sexual subtexts" is hardly necessary; the sexist aspect of
the joke seems so explicit and palpable that I'm surprised by the
resistance people have to acknowledging it.
Ian "raving something-or-other" Munro
--
"Just a friendly warning, dear. If you ooze that sort of ingratiating
oily charm, I shall hurt you."--Madeleine Page
cms
wrote:
>In article <g60o7ukphetc44f7k...@4ax.com>
> d.u...@physics.org writes:
>
>>I think the only bandwagon here is yours. I have not discussed
>
>I don't know. I see a distinct "any joke about a man and a woman
>is a blatant attempt by male dominated society to subjugate women"
>bandwagon riding through town. The posts suggesting that anyone
>not seeing this joke that way must be "disingenuous" or "kidding"
>look a whole lot like the entrance ramp.
>
>As usual, I could be wrong.
Hmm. Since I think one of the posts you're referring to is mine, I'm
responding. I don't think that the joke is an attempt by a
male-dominated society to dominate women. It's just a joke, and it's
mostly funny because of the outrageous hyperbole involved, e.g.
Knowing how to use a gun will make you a violent killer
Knowing how to use a vagina will make you a prostitute.
That the one statement is as ridiculous as the other is what makes the
joke funny, because the interviewer takes the first one seriously.
But above and beyond the central humorous twist, the analogy also draws
a parallel between being a violent killer and being a prostitute. The
analogy suggests that they are somehow equivalent, and that the insult
to the female interviewer is equal to the insult to the male general.
These are merely implications, and every person who reads the joke may
or may not pick up on them. I think that they do suggest some
interesting things about culture, namely that promiscuity is considered
as bad a violence, and that the former is associated with women while
the later is associated with men. Is that sexist? Inasmuch as it posits
fundamental sexual differences at all, some people would say that it is.
Of course other people would say I'm just reading way too much into the
whole thing.
cms --- but then, I was an English major, so whaddya want?
Ian Munro
> I don't know. I see a distinct "any joke about a man and a woman
> is a blatant attempt by male dominated society to subjugate women"
> bandwagon riding through town.
First of all, we're just talking about this joke, not "any joke."
Secondly, I haven't actually noticed anyone arguing that sexist jokes
are always blatant attempts to subjugate women (maybe I haven't been
reading closely enough). Sometimes they are, sure. Sometimes people
don't see that a joke is offensive until it's pointed out to them (and
sometimes that just doesn't matter much--there are definitely jokes I
still find funny even though I'm sure that some people would find them
very offensive). Sometimes, though, a joke is sexist because that's just
the symbolic vocabulary that we have. I'll let others argue about which
is the right way to talk about this joke (maybe all three?), but the
third one is definitely relevant. Guns vs. vaginas, soldiers vs.
prostitutes, men teaching boys how to be men and women interfering,
stupid and hysterical women vs. disciplined and experienced men...to call
these things "stereotypes" is to understate their cultural longevity.
> Drew "I can only imagine what you'd make of the sheep
> jokes in a current radio commercial for cheese" Lawson
Ian "are the jokes sheepish or cheesy?" Munro
--
"The hooves of your hobby horses disturb my thinking."--Daniel Ucko
Nathan Tenny
Ian Munro <ian....@ualberta.ca> wrote:
>Mitch Barrie <red...@goathill.net> wrote:
>> On 26 Feb 2002 20:37:51 GMT, Ian Munro <ian....@ualberta.ca>
>> wrote:
>
>> # The attitudes behind the anecdote are largely irrelevant, I think.
>
>> I don't know how they could be irrelevant. I understood that
>> this branch of the thread was a discussion of precisely what was
>> the subtext of the joke. Shirley the attitudes behind the
>> anecdote are relevant to such a discussion?
>
>First of all, it's irrelevant because there is no way to accurately
>summarize the attitudes of gnu nuts, who (like every group) are large and
>contain multitudes. Secondly, it's irrelevant because the audience for
>the joke is not restricted to gnu nuts (surely they weren't the audience
>for the original Welsh version). Thirdly, it's irrelevant because
>attesting to the bona fides of the joke's fans is beside the point.
I agree with all those statements, but I'm not sure they really add up to
irrelevancy. It's not like there's a single Correct Subtext; that much
should be obvious from the fact that we have, in this very conversation,
reasonable people espousing subtexts of two major flavors. The points
you've just made argue, somewhat convincingly, that attempting to discuss
the attitudes behind the joke is doomed to failure if it attempts to exclude
all alternatives---id est, Mitch is never going to build a case that way
that proves "I'm right about what this story says and everybody else is
wrong, neener neener".
But I think that same argument cuts the other way; the argument for a sexist
subtext runs up against the same problem. It depends on ascribing a certain
set of attitudes to the telling and hearing of the story, and the audience
isn't homogeneous enough for that to make sense.
>What
>you're really saying, I think, is that you, personally, like the joke,
>you think the gender oppositions involved aren't what make you laugh, and
>you're also not a raging misogynist. I'm sure that all of this is true,
>but it doesn't change the fact that the joke works through a gendered
>manipulation of sex and violence that, as I suggested in my first post,
>is as old as _The Iliad_.
Whoa, whoa, waitaminnit. I'm not Mitch, to whom the above paragraph was
addressed, but I fundamentally agree with his argument, and I'll accept for
myself the summary of "what you're really saying" above.
But, yeah, I *do* think that changes the "fact that the joke works through
a gendered manipulation of sex and violence". In particular, I think it
subverts the word "fact", unless you add some kind of disclaimer later on.
Sure, the joke can be understood to work that way. It can also be understood
to work on a different duality, a pride-goeth-before-a-fall dynamic that
doesn't have much to do with gender (as witness the gender-reversed fishing
version).
I find a certain stridency in the arguments for a sexist subtext; and I
can't *prove* that stridency means what I feel like it means, of course,
but I can certainly point out that I find it there.
Those arguments---yours and JoAnne's, I mean principally---seem to me to
carry a certain insistence that this story *is*, of itself, driven by these
sort of reprobate sexist attitudes about female sexuality as an Achilles
heel and gnus as surrogate phalli and hence seats of power. And I don't
see how you can find those attitudes to be intrinsic to the story without
making---even if you don't say it to my face---the leap to the conclusion
that *I* must be that sort of reprobate sexist, in my heart if not in public,
if I like the story. And I naturally bridle a bit at that implication.
Mitch Barrie
wrote:
# Someone took a British joke and refashioned it to fit into a great
# American controversy. The sexist underpinnings of the original joke are
# pretty straightforward, even quaint; it's kind of a "dumb blonde" joke,
# really. In the American context, it acquires a new overlay of meaning,
# one that might obscure the foundation of the joke but doesn't erase it;
# instead, they work together.
I am behind on this and was not aware of the provenence of the
joke. However, I am commenting strictly on the joke as written
at the beginning of this thread, and subsequently passed around
in US gun nut circles.
# "heavy socio-sexual subtexts" is hardly necessary; the sexist aspect of
# the joke seems so explicit and palpable that I'm surprised by the
# resistance people have to acknowledging it.
Perhaps in the context of its provenance. But not in the current
American political context, where any sexual subtexts are
unnecessary for the humor and impact of the anecdote. And after
all, context is all.
Mitch
Mitch Barrie
<d.u...@physics.org> wrote:
# But please recognise that I have at no point in this thread made
# any statement for or against gun use, gun ownership or gun culture.
I have never suggested otherwise.
# I
# find it interesting, and more than a little irritating, that I keep
# saying 'I find this story is offensive in its treatment of B,' and you
# keep popping up to say 'How dare you argue about this story's
# connection with A from your relative position of ignorance!' I am not
# talking about A, or guns.
So if we were talking about a story making the rounds in China,
about very specifically Chinese concerns, you would similarly
discount the suggestions of some, you know, Chinese posters?
This is all I'm trying to do.
Putting aside earlier origins of the original joke, the story as
written above and as passed around the American gun community (of
which I am a, heh, card-carrying member) has no significant
sexual implications either for the tellers or the listeners.
Okay, that it has sexual implications for you and JoAnn and a few
others who look upon it as an artefact of the human condition,
I'll certainly grant that. But there are none for most of the
people who are actually making real-life hay with the story in
the field.
# I bow to your expertise on guns and gun culture, but (again) that is
# not what I'm really discussing. I am not studying the gun enthusiast
# demographic, so your claim that my research into said demographic is
# insufficient is spurious.
If intentions of the teller of this story (in its context as an
American political parable) are not important, and the
understanding received by the intended recipient of the tale is
not important, what is?
And why is this little joke getting so much airplay in AFU?
Mitch
Mitch Barrie
<kdmlivesS...@hotmail.com> wrote:
# <snip>
# > The interviewer simply had to be a woman for the joke to work.
#
# "...And your wife is equipped to be a prostitute..." works okay, in
# my opinion.
Keep your day job, I do not believe a new career writing comedy
awaits you.
Mitch
Chris Clarke
Mitch Barrie <red...@goathill.net> wrote:
> Furthermore, if you want to spend a little time among gun nuts,
> you will hear a number of similar jokes and anecdotes (most
> passed on, as in this case, as true stories). Almost none of the
> others (and one concerning PETA and orange-vested deer was
> discussed here recently) require these weird sexual subtexts to
> make the same points as this joke makes.
Perhaps I'm missing your point here, but "sub"text? The equivalence of
guns and genitalia is explicity spelled out in the joke.
--
Chris Clarke | Editor, Faultline Magazine
www.faultline.org | California Environmental News and Information
Dr H
On Sat, 23 Feb 2002, JoAnne Schmitz wrote:
}To agree or disagree with the idea that liberals, especially liberal women, are
}silly bluenoses is BOR territory, but we can examine how that idea is expressed
}in this story. It isn't a particularly nice or friendly story if you don't
}agree with the premise. The subtext as I read it is:
}
}"My penis is big and brave, and I'm training little boys to develop big brave
}penises too."
}"Oh my gosh I don't like big brave penises, you are bad for encouraging little
}boys to develop big brave penises, they are mean and could be used in bad ways."
}"But you've got a cunt, it could be used in bad ways like prostitution."
}"I'm no prostitute, in fact I'm so insulted by the mention of my cunt that I
}will stop this show now, but for your information I never use my cunt."
}"Ha ha, I knew that, you dried up cunt."
Been spending some time with uncle Freud, have we?
Dr H
Dr H
On 24 Feb 2002, Karen J. Cravens wrote:
}
}IHNTA,
Watch it there, Karen. You're stepping on the local snake.
Dr H
Dr H
On Sun, 24 Feb 2002, John Gilmer wrote:
}> Shooting and penises have no metaphorical relationship? "This is my
}> rifle, this is my gun"? "Bang bang"?
}
}But it doesn't end with "Bang, bang!"
}
}It ends with "This is for shooting and this is for fun."
}
}Clearly, those that use firearms at lot can tell the difference.
One would hope so...
Dr H
Dr H
On Sun, 24 Feb 2002, JoAnne Schmitz wrote:
}Do you think she's being portrayed as a healthy, robust, cheerful, mentally
}stable person? I don't.
I think she's being portrayed as a redneck's stereotype of a "liberal
NPR reporter" -- male OR female.
[...]
}If it had been a conservative woman and a similar joke were made turning on her
}assumed prudery in the face of a swingin' hepcat liberal kind of guy, I would
}think it just as mean.
Yeah, but we all know that liberals don't make jokes like that.
Dr H
Dr H
On 25 Feb 2002, Ian Munro wrote:
}What about if the General implied, accurately, that
}the male interviewer was equipped for prostitution--would this work the
}same as the original version, or would it be a radically different tale?
}(What would we think of a General who said this to another man?)
And what if the General was a woman?
Dr H
Dr H
On Mon, 25 Feb 2002, Ed Kaulakis wrote:
}Who is to say what is a ridiculous gendered reading and what is not?
Actually, I am. But damned if anybody ever listens to me.
Dr H
Ed Kaulakis
From: "Chris Clarke" <ccl...@faultline.org>
> Perhaps I'm missing your point here, but "sub"text? The equivalence of
> guns and genitalia[1] is explicitly spelled out in the joke.
You must be using different values for "explicit" and "spelled out" than
I do. To me that means actual words, composed of letters. Not parallel
formations composed of unspoken implications.
Did I just explicitly spell out the (non)equivalence of letters and
unspoken implications? I don't think so, although I did use them in
corresponding slots of an (anti)parallel formation. At least both "word"
and "implication" occured, umm, explicitly in my text.
This joke is almost like one of those Gestalt old-crone / young woman
drawings. How it is perceived depends powerfully on set and setting.
[1] I'm sure you were just alliterating, but the gender-generalization
works for me too.
Ed "Big Bertha says HI! thanks for remembering" Kaulakis
Ed Kaulakis
> The analogy
> seems to imply that somehow a violent killer and a prostitute are
> equivalent, and accusing a man of being the one is as deeply offensive
> as accusing a woman of being the other.
While any assumption of bad character on insufficient grounds is
offensive, I'd have to go for "violent killer" as more offensive than
"prostitute". Your phrasing seems to indicate that your mileage varies;
could you expand on this?
Ed "Theodora? Attila?" Kaulakis
Fred Klein
You don't? That's funny....
Fred Klein
Donna Richoux
A brilliant twist. Unfortunately, the way the story was told to us, he
was identified as male in the introduction:
This is an exact replication of National Public Radio (NPR)
interview between a female broadcaster, and US Army General
Reinwald who was about to sponsor a Boy Scout Troop visiting his
military installation.
Note "his." So there's no chance we're falling victim to the old ploy of
"I can't operate on this boy! He's my son!"
--
Donna "Sisters and brothers have I none" Richoux
Lizz Holmans
wrote:
>A brilliant twist. Unfortunately, the way the story was told to us, he
>was identified as male in the introduction:
>
> This is an exact replication of National Public Radio (NPR)
> interview between a female broadcaster, and US Army General
> Reinwald who was about to sponsor a Boy Scout Troop visiting his
> military installation.
>
>Note "his." So there's no chance we're falling victim to the old ploy of
>"I can't operate on this boy! He's my son!"
Not to mention the fact that 'broadcaster' is qualified by 'female.'
Lizz 'not all females are broadcasters. Not all females are broads'
Holmans
Drew Lawson
adaor...@hotmail.com (cms) writes:
>[1] assuming that one thinks it is funny in the first place, which is
>part of what people are arguing about.
The interesting part of the "argument" that I see is that some
posts suggest the view of "I don't find it funny and therefor it
is not a joke."[1]
>[2] I find it interesting that in snope's gender switched version, the
>accusation leveled at the game warden is that he's equipped to be a
>rapist. Rape is a violent crime; prostitution is not. So the accusation
>leveled at the game warden contains an implication of violence, which is
>what the General in the original story is accused of. The violent male
>crime is again presnted as analogous to the non-violent female crime
>(fishing without a license). [3]
I think that both jokes rely on a selection from the set of "infamous
acts" (murder, rape, prostitution), as seen by polite society.
While I don't see prostitution as a Bad Thing, it is enough that
it is one of those things that most people don't want their mother
to know they're doing.
Drew "YMMV, void in Nevada" Lawson
[1] I suppose the intent may have been, "therefor the important
issue is not its status as a joke."
--
|Drew Lawson | Of all the things I've lost |
|dr...@furrfu.com | I miss my mind the most |
|http://www.furrfu.com/ | |
Paul Herzberg
> While I don't see prostitution as a Bad Thing, it is enough that
> it is one of those things that most people don't want their mother
> to know they're doing.
Or one of those things most people wouldn't want to know that their
mother is doing.
Paul "YMMV means your mum might vary, right?" Herzberg
Dr H
Ian was speculating 'what if' the story were told differently; I was
just expanding on that 'what if'.
Dr H
Daniel Ucko
<red...@goathill.net> wrote:
>On Wed, 27 Feb 2002 00:11:26 +0000, Daniel Ucko
><d.u...@physics.org> wrote:
>
># I
># find it interesting, and more than a little irritating, that I keep
># saying 'I find this story is offensive in its treatment of B,' and you
># keep popping up to say 'How dare you argue about this story's
># connection with A from your relative position of ignorance!' I am not
># talking about A, or guns.
>
>So if we were talking about a story making the rounds in China,
>about very specifically Chinese concerns, you would similarly
>discount the suggestions of some, you know, Chinese posters?
>
>This is all I'm trying to do.
I can see that, but where we disagree is the importance of the context
of the US mutant of this story. What has made me comment on this story
is not the gun usage context but rather the gender aspect of the joke.
I can understand that this is obviously not what you react to.
># I bow to your expertise on guns and gun culture, but (again) that is
># not what I'm really discussing. I am not studying the gun enthusiast
># demographic, so your claim that my research into said demographic is
># insufficient is spurious.
>
>If intentions of the teller of this story (in its context as an
>American political parable) are not important, and the
>understanding received by the intended recipient of the tale is
>not important, what is?
To me? The gender aspect. To you, clearly the gun question.
I am not and will not argue that gun enthusiasts are knuckle-dragging
neanderthals who are iredeemably sexist and bigoted. I don't believe
this is true, even though my experience of the gun culture is not as
extensive as yours. However, someone wrote this joke (in Wales,
incidentally) where it seems to me to be more about an uppity woman
being defeated in an argument by comparing her to a whore. I could
transpose this tale to almost any setting and it would be the same
point I'm debating, irrespective of context.
>And why is this little joke getting so much airplay in AFU?
Because it is more on-topic than childhood phone numbers? I find
analysing this joke interesting. I find it interesting to discuss it
with people who don't agree with me. I like discussion.
Daniel 'but this one is grinding to a halt, and rightly so' Ucko
--
'Ahh, too busy to do our homework, for a claim you pulled unwashed
from your gerbil hole.'
- Lon Stowell explains 'burden of proof' again on AFU.
* I will arbitrarily killfile posters without a real e-mail address *
Daniel Ucko
>On Mon, 25 Feb 2002 21:30:46 +0000, Daniel Ucko <d.u...@physics.org>
>wrote:
>
>>On Mon, 25 Feb 2002 20:54:37 GMT, adaor...@hotmail.com (cms) wrote:
>>
>>>The joke posits that the only insult equal in
>>>magnitude to accusing the Scout leader of being a killer is to accuse
>>>such an Andrea Dworkin type of being a sex worker.
>>
>>No keywords... I suggest you read up a bit on Andrea Dworkin's past.
>>She makes no secret of the fact that she did work as a prostitute.
>>
>
>Mea culpa; I merely inserted her name as a prototypical anti-porn,
>anti-sex feminist without being all that clear on her autobiography.
>While she is anti-porn it appears that this resutls from her own
>negative sexual experiences, and not a lack thereof, and thus the
>comaprison was inapt. Thank you for furthering my knowledge.
Retrospectively, I'm sorry I ignored a very good and sensible post to
carp on a detail. I do not wish to leave you with the impression that
finding fault in it is all I wanted to do.
Daniel 'not normally a pendant' Ucko
Drew Lawson
d.u...@physics.org writes:
>On Tue, 26 Feb 2002 18:45:58 -0800, Mitch Barrie
><red...@goathill.net> wrote:
>
>>On Wed, 27 Feb 2002 00:11:26 +0000, Daniel Ucko
>><d.u...@physics.org> wrote:
>># I bow to your expertise on guns and gun culture, but (again) that is
>># not what I'm really discussing. I am not studying the gun enthusiast
>># demographic, so your claim that my research into said demographic is
>># insufficient is spurious.
>>
>>If intentions of the teller of this story (in its context as an
>>American political parable) are not important, and the
>>understanding received by the intended recipient of the tale is
>>not important, what is?
>
>To me? The gender aspect. To you, clearly the gun question.
I'm confused on one more detail here. A couple posts upstream,
you say:
:: I thought on this group we were interested in discussing not only
:: whether a tale is false or true, but what causes it to emerge and be
:: spread, as well as the message it conveys. As I see it, this tale it
It would seem to me that what the story says to you, or to me, or
to any other person who isn't involved in spreading it, is pretty
much irrelevant to "what causes it to emerge and be spread."
What the person spreading it thinks the story says *is* relevant
to that issue.
So, if the story is to be vivisected in AFU, I think that feedback
on how and by whom the story is spread in the wild is an important
component of that discussion.
Drew "I still say it's just a joke" Lawson
Simon Slavin
Mitch Barrie <red...@goathill.net> wrote:
> Mitch
Mitch !
Simon.
--
http://www.hearsay.demon.co.uk | [One] thing that worries me about Bush and
No junk email please. | Blair's "war on terrorism" is: how will they
| know when they've won it ? -- Terry Jones
THE FRENCH WAS THERE
Rick Tyler
>Mitch Barrie <red...@goathill.net> wrote:
>> The interviewer simply had to be a woman for the joke to work.
<snip>
>
>I haven't been implying that gnu nuts are just the sort of bigoted pigs
>who would get off on a sexist joke like this. (I don't think JoAnne or
>anyone else has been implying this, either.) I'm saying that the social
>power of the joke is related to its sexist structure, and that while
>responding to that social power doesn't make you a bad person, pretending
>that it's not there does make you a deliberately naive person.
By imposing your particular analysis, you are denying that there other
viable explanations. FWIW (thread tie-in!) I interpreted it as
"ignorant New York leftie Volvo-driving chick gets pasted by
right-thinking conservative military guy." The "social power" of the
joke is just as likely to be urban-rural, conservative-liberal,
military-press, or, in the US, even northern-southern.
Something like 80-mumble percent (L) of the US press regularly votes
for Democrats. A similar percentage of career officers vote for
Republicans. A disproportionate number of career officers are
Southern. A higher percentage of women than men have voted for
Democrats in recently national elections. Gun use is associated more
with blue-collar, rural men than white-collar, big-city women. Part
of the appeal of the joke, if it is appealing, is that it matches up a
pair of *perfect* stereotypes. (You just know this reporter did not
vote for Bob Dole in '96, don't you? She also doesn't own a gun, does
she?)
Until JoAnne posted her colorful feminist deconstruction I had not
even thought of that. It is certainly one credible explanation, but
there is nothing inherent in the story to prevent other equally valid
analyses.
-- Rick "You're not naive, simply wrong on this" Tyler
__________________________________________________________________
"Ignorant voracity -- a wingless vulture -- can soar only into the
depths of ignominy." Patrick O'Brian
Joseph M. Shair
dyed tee shirt, lit a doobie and said:
> On Tue, 26 Feb 2002 18:45:58 -0800, Mitch Barrie
> <red...@goathill.net> wrote:
> >If intentions of the teller of this story (in its context as an
> >American political parable) are not important, and the
> >understanding received by the intended recipient of the tale is
> >not important, what is?
>
> To me? The gender aspect. To you, clearly the gun question.
>
>
> Because it is more on-topic than childhood phone numbers? I find
> analysing this joke interesting. I find it interesting to discuss it
> with people who don't agree with me. I like discussion.
>
> Daniel 'but this one is grinding to a halt, and rightly so' Ucko
>
So, would it be a fair summation to say something like:
In any joke/story/legend/etc. which deals with items
containing emotionally charged subtext, listeners will hear
and concentrate on those matters most closely aligned with
their own emotional interests?
Joe "Or is that too trite to mention?" Shair
--
Remove invisible fnord words to reply.
Alas, usenet is where one will often see crowds of people
jumping up and down on the greasy smear on the pavement
that used to be a dead horse. -- Winchell Chung
Ed Kaulakis
>
> So, would it be a fair summation to say something like:
>
> In any joke/story/legend/etc. which deals with items
> containing emotionally charged subtext, listeners will hear
> and concentrate on those matters most closely aligned with
> their own emotional interests?
This tale has a remarkable Erisian quality. It divides its hearers into
warring camps. If it holds up for a few hundred years it may get
promoted to a myth.
Ian, my classical education[1] has been sadly neglected, can you point
me to the piece of Homer you referred to as the deepest root of the
gendered reading?
[1] Except for FORTRAN and COBOL.
Ed "old crone! young woman with feathered hat! old crone!..." Kaulakis
DD
y not?????? (o)(o)
i do!!! (o)(o)
u r funny!!!! (*)(o)
DD
tee hee!!!! (o)(o)
u r so funny!!!!! (*)(o)
DD
wat snake???? (.)(.)
DD
tee hee!!!! (o)(o)
how can u b so funny all the time????? (o)(o)
cms
Well, it's kind of two different questions; I personally think that
calling someone a murderer is more offensive than calling them a whore.
But that's not really what you're asking; you want to know what I think
the story is saying. Well, bearing in mind my unassalible position as my
answer concerns only my impressions . . .
I think the that the joke presents these two insults as equally
offensive. I have two rationals for this:
First, what does the general intend? [1] Well, he wants to insult her
back. But the purpose of his insult is not merely to make her feel bad;
he also wants to demonstrate to her how deeply she offended him. I think
that in order to do that he has to insult her as deeply as she has
insulted him; if his insult is less effective than hers then she won't
appreciate how outraged he feels. If I call your momma a bitch and you
say I'm a big meanie, I'm probably not going to appreciate that I've
really struck a cord with you. On the other hand, if your response is to
punch me in the nose, then I'm gonna grasp your feelings on the
momma-bitch issue right quick.
Furthermore I think that the parity between the insults in inherent in
the comparison. A is to B as C is to D means not only that there's a
relationship between the first two but that the realtionship is similar
in kind as the relationship between the second two. Now, this is where
it gets complicated, because half (if not more) of the joke is the idea
that the comparison is ridiculous; letting a boy scout shoot a gun does
not turn him into a violent killer, and the interviewer is being asinine
to make the comaprison. But the general's analogy is not meant merely to
reflect the ridiculousness of the comparison[2]; it's also meant to
reflect the offensiveness of the comparison. And as it suggests a
parallel in ridiculousness, I think it also suggests a parallel in
offensiveness.
The conclusion of the story certainly seems to suggest it does, which is
I think in part what originally made JoAnne indignant. The woman is so
offended/flustered she immediately ends the interview, which is highly
unprofessional of her. That seems to me to suggest that the insult
worked, and that the woman retreats while the general stand his ground
seems to suggest either a) she has been made to understand how wrong she
was or b) the comment was so effectively insulting she's at a complete
loss for words.
In conclusion, I have to say I've never spent so much time and effort
killing a joke in all my life. Also, I should make clear that the story
didn't really bother me, personally. I don't really find sexist humor
offensive, in general, unless I think it accurately reflects the
sentiments of the joke teller. But I thought I could see what there was
to be bothered about, and I've done my best to explain why.
cms --- romp.com. Now that's sexist.
[1] Yes, I know, he's a fictional character, and he don't intend shit.
However, the story is often related as true, therfore, I don't think I'm
too far off base in speculating as to his intentions.
[2] I suppose I could spend additional aeons thinking up such a
ridiculous but not offensive comprison or comparisons, but since I'm
only stating my impression I'm not gonna. Plus, _I_ think I'm being
reasonable. Nyah Nyah.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Said the Pooka, "And the question I ask in conclusion
is this, where did your talk come from the last time
you talked?" --- At Swim-Two-Birds
Brought to you by the letter 3, the number L, and beekiller.net
John Schmitt
(Nathan Tenny) writes:
>I hear "Oral sex you want?" as a stereotypically Jewish inversion of verb
>and object;
Are there any linguists, or better still in this case, Hebrew
speakers here? Is this phenomenon linked to Hebrew having
trailing verbs, and people in stressed situations (who are native
Hebrew speakers) resorting to this syntax?
John "purely out of academic interest" Schmitt
--
Most of what you read in the papers is lies. And I should know,
because a lot of the lies you see in the papers are mine.
- Max Clifford, publicist
Disclaimers apply
Michael J. Lowrey
>
> In article <a5gn4i$1...@qualcomm.com>, n_t_e_nn_y_@q_ual_c_o_m_m_.c_o_m
> (Nathan Tenny) writes:
>
> >I hear "Oral sex you want?" as a stereotypically Jewish inversion of verb
> >and object;
>
> Are there any linguists, or better still in this case, Hebrew
> speakers here? Is this phenomenon linked to Hebrew having
> trailing verbs, and people in stressed situations (who are native
> Hebrew speakers) resorting to this syntax?
This is not a Hebrew-related matter.[1] This inversion is
characteristic of people natively speaking _Yiddish_, which
is a dialect of German. German, in turn, _is_ famous for
the sentence with the verb ending.
[1] Until the settlement of what became the State of Israel,
there had been no "native Hebrew speakers" for centuries.
Most of world Jewry in the Diaspora spoke either Ladino or
Yiddish plus their local language(s), or just their local
language(s). Scholars and rabbis would of course learn
Hebrew, but it was not a language of daily use (like New
Hebrew in the present-day State of Israel), and it did not
affect patterns of everyday speech.
--
Michael J. Lowrey
Steven Dufour
> In article <a5gn4i$1...@qualcomm.com>, n_t_e_nn_y_@q_ual_c_o_m_m_.c_o_m
> (Nathan Tenny) writes:
>
> >I hear "Oral sex you want?" as a stereotypically Jewish inversion of verb
> >and object;
>
> Are there any linguists, or better still in this case, Hebrew
> speakers here? Is this phenomenon linked to Hebrew having
> trailing verbs, and people in stressed situations (who are native
> Hebrew speakers) resorting to this syntax?
>
I think that comes from German, Yiddish being a dialect of German.
John Schmitt
"Michael J. Lowrey" <oran...@uwm.edu> writes:
[trailing verbs]
>This is not a Hebrew-related matter.[1] This inversion is
>characteristic of people natively speaking _Yiddish_, which
>is a dialect of German. German, in turn, _is_ famous for
>the sentence with the verb ending.
<smacks forehead>
Shame on me. I have no excuse, having mis-spent some of my youth
in NYC. I simply hadn't considered *German* as the source
language for this construction. Almost all of the people I know
of that faith[1] are either Israeli or British.[2]
John "now I understanding am" Schmitt
[1] I am avoiding leaving loon-bait around.
[2] By citizenship, for what that's worth.
Michael J. Lowrey
>
> "Michael J. Lowrey" <oran...@uwm.edu> writes:
>
> [trailing verbs]
> >This is not a Hebrew-related matter.[1] This inversion is
> >characteristic of people natively speaking _Yiddish_, which
> >is a dialect of German. German, in turn, _is_ famous for
> >the sentence with the verb ending.
>
> <smacks forehead>
>
> Shame on me. I have no excuse, having mis-spent some of my youth
> in NYC. I simply hadn't considered *German* as the source
> language for this construction. Almost all of the people I know
> of that faith[1] are either Israeli or British.[2]
>
> John "now I understanding am" Schmitt
This report of you I have from all circles heard.
--
Michael J. "Orange Mike" Lowrey
not a pip
JoAnne Schmitz
>The interviewer simply had to be a woman for the joke to work.
>Occam's Razor, and a close familiarity with the attitudes behind
>the anecdote, suggests to me that this is all there is to it.
Why not have a male reporter and give the "equipped for rape" line? It works
just fine in the game warden story.
Later, Mitch wrote:
>Perhaps in the context of its provenance. But not in the current
>American political context, where any sexual subtexts are
>unnecessary for the humor and impact of the anecdote.
and Nathan Tenny wrote:
>But I think that same argument cuts the other way; the argument for a sexist
>subtext runs up against the same problem. It depends on ascribing a certain
>set of attitudes to the telling and hearing of the story, and the audience
>isn't homogeneous enough for that to make sense.
Jokes and stories that survive are like new species that survive. Their
modifications don't always have to be helpful, they don't have to work for
everyone, but they can't be harmful. A sexist subtext is okay if the majority
of listeners aren't turned off by it and it is a plus if it adds something to
the joke for those who think of liberal women as especially silly and prone to
the vapors.
In other words, sexist attitudes don't have to exist in the major portion of the
audience, they just have to not be bothered by it. Not seeing it is a great way
to not be bothered by it.
This story never seems to have sprouted a version where the reporter is a male
and "equipped for rape," or if it did, that that version didn't survive.
So why doesn't it work here?
First off, this story and the game warden story both have a male and a female in
contention, and an accusation of illicit sexual activity as the snappy comeback.
Opposition of male and female is a common theme in jokes, even when it's not
central to the story it adds a resonance for many people who think of male and
female as constantly battling.
Calling a male liberal reporter a prostitute might imply homosexuality, which
would work well in the story. But it's not a clear enough statement. He could
service women. It calls attention to the reporter's masculinity, which is
stereotypically a source of strength. If they're referring to his anus, or his
mouth, that's too complicated to explain (Rodney Dangerfield rule).
Referring to the male liberal reporter as a potential rapist again puts power in
his hands. The idea is not to empower him, but to degrade him or show his
folly. Working penises in jokes aren't silly or weak; their major failing is in
being too eager and coming on too strong. It is the non-working penis that is
the butt of the joke.
Nathan Tenny again:
>Those arguments---yours and JoAnne's, I mean principally---seem to me to
>carry a certain insistence that this story *is*, of itself, driven by these
>sort of reprobate sexist attitudes about female sexuality as an Achilles
>heel and gnus as surrogate phalli and hence seats of power. And I don't
>see how you can find those attitudes to be intrinsic to the story without
>making---even if you don't say it to my face---the leap to the conclusion
>that *I* must be that sort of reprobate sexist, in my heart if not in public,
>if I like the story.
I don't think that's true either. And this is a common misunderstanding, both
among those who don't notice sexist subtexts, and among those who do.
I think that a good joke can have a sexist subtext that gives it an ev*lutionary
advantage over other jokes that are just as funny, but don't have that extra
"oomph" of a good gender-kicking for those who are attuned to it and like it.
It's an advantage only in certain situations, but that can give it the edge over
other jokes that don't have it. If this telling or this joke is chosen over
other jokes because of the extra oomph, then the subtext did its job.
Those who are equally attuned to gender-kicking for opposite reasons, like me,
will notice that subtext.
The mistake likes both in thinking that those who like the joke are always
liking it for the sexist subtext, and in thinking that there is no subtext if
you don't notice it or it doesn't make the joke funnier for you personally.
Nathan Tenny:
>And I naturally bridle a bit at that implication.
Of course. But you're inferring; I'm not implying.
JoAnne "I'll just hang onto her ears until she's broke" Schmitz
JoAnne Schmitz
>I don't know. I see a distinct "any joke about a man and a woman
>is a blatant attempt by male dominated society to subjugate women"
>bandwagon riding through town. The posts suggesting that anyone
>not seeing this joke that way must be "disingenuous" or "kidding"
>look a whole lot like the entrance ramp.
I don't think that jokes with sexist subtexts are written with the sole purpose
of subjugating women. I think that a sexist subtext in a joke does not have to
be the main point of the joke to exist. It can be there because it give the
joke an advantage in spreading, or it can be there because it's an assumption of
the culture from which it sprang.
We seem to be wandering into the "author says his book doesn't mean what the
critics say it means" territory. Just because a joke doesn't mean that to you
doesn't mean it doesn't have that meaning.
JoAnne "a possibly mean meaning" Schmitz
Nathan Tenny
JoAnne Schmitz <jsch...@qis.net> wrote:
[a lot of stuff with which I have no argument, but also:]
>Referring to the male liberal reporter as a potential rapist again puts
>power in his hands.
Then why does referring to the male game warden as a potential rapist remove
power from his hands?
I question whether very many people are really so screwed up in the head
that they perceive, even subconsciously, rape as a manifestation of power.
NT
--
Nathan Tenny | A foolish consistency
Qualcomm, Inc., San Diego, CA | recapitulates phylogeny.
<nten...@qualcomm.com> |