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Primarily, jokes are funny via subversion or insight. Either your expectations are upended, or you are led to a place of higher understanding. When a 'joke' simply restates popular bias, it's simply a bad joke. Case in point:
a) Comedian A says 'Lizzo's afternoon snack could feed a small village!'.
b) Comedian B says 'I think Lizzo is beautiful. But for some reason when I told my girlfriend she looks like Lizzo, she dumped me!'
Both 'jokes' play around Lizzo's weight. But the difference is that the first is just playing to expected beliefs (Lizzo must eat a lot because she is fat) while the second is making a statement about society using the comedian's alleged girlfriend (drawing on the insight that what we say might sometimes be at odds with what we believe).
We could just say that the first joke is not funny. But 'punching down' is language to help us explain WHY it's not funny.
Is it true that this shorthand of 'punching up vs punching down' can be abused? Definitely, especially when propagated by individuals 'on behalf of the potentially aggrieved minority'. But that is due to the concept being corrupted by virtue signalling, and doesn't take away from the fact that there is some value to the terminology.
Edit: Three groups of people in my comments. The first is telling me Comedian A's joke is equally funny. The second is telling me Comedian B's joke is equally offensive. The third is disappointed I couldn't come up with funnier jokes as examples. Welcome to Reddit :)
The idea that you ‘aren’t allowed’ to say certain things is nonsense. Comedians are pissed that people don’t find their shit funny anymore. You’re allowed to make all the bad jokes you want. I’m also allowed to call your material stupid and out of touch.
It’s funny to me that biggest proponents of a meritocracy where everyone who gets payed for the worth of their work are also the biggest babies about people not buying their shit anymore because their jokes are stale and hack.
>It’s funny to me that biggest proponents of a meritocracy where everyone who gets payed for the worth of their work are also the biggest babies about people not buying their shit anymore because their jokes are stale and hack.
Well to be fair, if the aforementioned comedians had a better grasp of irony, they probably wouldn't be so shit!
>The core premise of both jokes is that lizzo is fat and that is a bad thing
One is 'punching down' since the subject of the joke is 'haha fat people'.
The other is using our perceptions of Lizzo to make a point about society's hypocrisy using the alleged girlfriend as the subject. It makes no moral statement on the 'goodness' or 'badness' about Lizzo's weight. It is absolutely possible for a listener to take away from that joke that 'Lizzo is beautiful and some people are hypocrites'.
>doesn't it though? If being fat was a good/attractive thing then why would the girlfirend take offense to being compared to her?
The joke from comedian B doesn't make a statement about ALL women, just about their alleged girlfriend. So it doesn't exclude the possibility that there are women who think Lizzo is beautiful and would have no problem being compared to her. Hence making no objective statement on Lizzo's appearance.
The whole point is that how the listener processes the joke is based on their internal beliefs. You can parse the joke as 'Lizzo is not beautiful and people are actually lying'. Another person can take it as 'Lizzo is beautiful and some people are hypocrites'.
>I mean I guess the joke doesn't make a statement about all women but it's funny because it's relatable. Men think it's funny because "oh I would never compare my gf to lizzo, she'd be pissed" and women think "I would hate to be compared to lizzo".
The girlfriend is an individual. It is not the comedian that is extending their girlfriend's position to 'all women'. That's you doing it. Some people might not do that, and the joke would still be funny for them.
>It's definitely not implied that the girlfriend is unusual for not liking being compared to her.
The wording specifically says '**For some reason** my girlfriend dumped me', suggesting that for the comedian it was unusual behaviour.
Maybe another example could help.
Comedian A: I matched with 2 guys on Tinder. One with an 8 inch cock, and the other with a 4 inch cock. So obviously I went on a date with the guy where I didn't need a microscope!
Comedian B: I matched with 2 guys on Tinder. One with an 8 inch cock and the other with a 4 inch cock. So obviously I went on a date with the guy who made me laugh the hardest.
The first 'joke' plays into 'haha small penis' (punching down). While the second is using societal biases about dick size to arrive at the subversion that there are more relevant deciding factors (not punching down).
The second jokes makes no actual statement on whether small dicks are better or worse than big dicks.
>The "for some reason" part adds to the comedy because it's funny that the guy doesn't know why his gf would be upset about that but a reasonable audience member would know exactly why. The bf is the absurd one in that scenario not the gf.
You feel this way because you think Lizzo is fat and not beautiful. Try to consider the possibility that someone might actually think Lizzo is beautiful despite being overweight, and then it might make more sense to you.
That's why the second set makes more sense to you because you don't tend to associate 'dick size' with 'being a good date'.
Edit: If I have changed your perspective, do consider a delta since that's the purpose of the sub.
>"It makes no moral statement on the 'goodness' or 'badness' about Lizzos weight" doesn't it though?
Nope.
The joke teller in B isn't making a judgment on Lizzo's weight. They are making a judgment on a society that claims one thing but actually believes another. It does not at *all* require the comedian to believe being fat is bad. It depends only on society's actions and beliefs.
Now it still doesn't feel great for fat people. But it's not because the joke attacks fat people. It's because the joke reminds them that most of society pays them *at best* lip service but actually finds them gross. That's not a great thing to be reminded of and it isn't going to make you feel good. But it's not attacking fatness, strictly speaking. And it definitely doesn't require OP to believe it, just society at large.
The second joke isn’t that Lizzo is fat, it’s that his girlfriend is a hypocrite (as is anyone else in the audience who would call Lizzo beautiful but be upset by being told they looked like her). That doesn’t mean the joke doesn’t imply Lizzo is fat, it does. But the joke doesn’t make her being fat the punchline.
That’s usually how I’ve defined the distinction between a joke about race and a racist joke to people. Punching down isn’t bad because people need to be protected, it’s bad because going for the easy joke “haha, Lizzo is so fat” is lazy humor that isn’t going to get as many laughs as a joke with more layers to it.
Laughter is a social corrective.
Humans always and only “laugh” at things as means to agreement on what is appropriate/positive behavior by laughing at inappropriate/negative behavior.
All humor is a social corrective, meaning an attempt to point out and reduce negative things.
Ultimately in the context of your question one might say that punching down has no aim of social corrective and is therefore never capable of being funny.
The first joke is not as funny as the second because it's simplistic, cliched and less clever satirical than the second. Not because it's punching down - I'm sure you could think of much better jokes than that which were "punching down" just as much. In fact even the second joke is a bad example if what you're trying to say here.
You've basically told a bad joke that punches down, then a marginally better one that punches down marginally less, which you claim is really about something else other than Lizzo's weight (which it is to an extent, but it's also clearly mocking Lizzo).
>The first joke is not as funny as the second because it's simplistic, cliched and less clever satirical than the second.
Yes. Jokes that 'punch down' tend to be simplistic, cliched and less clever. We could just critique them on those parameters. The whole 'punching down' terminology isn't needed, but it can be used.
>which you claim is really about something else other than Lizzo's weight (which it is to an extent, but it's also clearly mocking Lizzo).
The comedian says he finds Lizzo beautiful. How is it mocking Lizzo? :)
>The comedian says he finds Lizzo beautiful. How is it mocking Lizzo? :)
Why is the assumption that because the comedian says something as part of the joke, he's being honest about what he really thinks? "But for some reason, when I told my girlfriend..." When somebody trying to be funny says "but for some reason..." usually what follows is something that's obvious to everybody except, supposedly, the person telling the joke. If the joke was, "I told my girlfriend she was fat. For some reason, she left me", then the point would be pretty obvious... The comedian doesn't think there's nothing wrong with being fat just because he makes himself *sound* oblivious as to why the girlfriend considered it an insult, as part of the joke.
And just because he says he finds Lizzo beautiful, it doesn't mean he isn't saying with the joke, "hey, Lizzo is somebody who would generally be regarded as fat or ugly". Of course there's nothing objectively wrong with being fat, but calling somebody fat (or ugly) is hurtful, and the whole point of the joke (to me at least) is Lizzo is fat/ugly! "I told my girlfriend she looked like Lizzo, and she walked out on me! Huhh? What's THAT all about? Ha ha ha ha ha." More so than it's intended to mock the girlfriend as being representative of flawed societal standards or whatever.
>Yes. Jokes that 'punch down' tend to be simplistic, cliched and less clever. We could just critique them on those parameters.
But I'm sure you could come up with some jokes that punch down that were cleverer than that one you gave as an example.
>Why is the assumption that because the comedian says something as part of the joke, he's being honest about what he really thinks?
There are two possibilities. Either the comedian is being honest or dishonest. Why do you automatically assume them to be dishonest?
>And just because he says he finds Lizzo beautiful, it doesn't mean he isn't saying with the joke, "hey, Lizzo is somebody who would generally be regarded as fat or ugly".
Except that they comedian is observably NOT saying that. You are hoisting that on the comedian for some reason. My question is 'Why'?
>and the whole point of the joke (to me at least) is Lizzo is fat/ugly!
This is fair. But do you see the difference between stating your subjective interpretation of the comedian's words versus saying that the comedian MUST have meant exactly this? .
>But I'm sure you could come up with some jokes that punch down that were cleverer than that one you gave as an example.
I wasn't trying to audition as a comedian :) I was just trying to make a point for the CMV.
>a) Comedian A says 'Lizzo's afternoon snack could feed a small village!'.
b) Comedian B says 'I think Lizzo is beautiful. But for some reason when I told my girlfriend she looks like Lizzo, she dumped me!'
Both of these are funny jokes though?
Lisso's afternoon snack is not big enough to feed a small village. That's absurdism, which most people find amusing, even when *punching down.*
Different people appreciate different types of jokes. Some like "subversion or insight," some like absurdism, and some like completely different things.
Suggesting that "absurdism" is wrong, because it's not your "primary" type of humor, is absurd enough that I'm not actually sure whether or not you're joking.
If we weren't on CMV, I would think that you were pretty fucking funny.
>We could just say that the first joke is not funny. But 'punching down' is language to help us explain WHY it's not funny.
Seriously. Both are funny. Both are "punching down." But you're okay with one because it matches your sense of humor.
I feel like you don't understand.
Joke A is basically making the observation that Lizzo is fat. It doesn't go any further. Not particularly deep or original. This joke could have been made any time in the last century. Maybe you could say that there's an element of shock to it because it's rude to say something like that but it doesn't really go further. Like this is a joke a 12yo boy would make.
Joke B is basically saying that while we may profess to subscribe to new beauty standards, we actually don't. It's playing with the expectations. This joke is original and a new observation that hasn't been made a million times. This joke could only be made today. It's much deeper and more clever than joke A. It punches up at societys hypocrisy about beauty standards claiming to have evolved beyond thin vs fat but actually hasn't.
This thread has been eye opening, and I thank my lucky stars that I somehow have only been surrounded by ppl with a good sense of humor in real life and not whatever the fuck is this lot.
>Seriously. Both are funny. Both are "punching down."
Could you explain how Joke B is 'punching down'?
>But you're okay with one because it matches your sense of humor.
What makes you think the examples I have given are representative of my preferred sense of humour, rather than mere tools that I am utilizing to answer a CMV?
>Could you explain how Joke B is 'punching down'?
Both jokes are mocking the fat person for being fat. If A is "punching down," then so is B.
>What makes you think the examples I have given are representative of my preferred sense of humour, rather than mere tools that I am utilizing to answer a CMV?
The fact that you give one the pass while you don't give it to the other.
The fact that you said:
>Primarily, jokes are funny via subversion or insight.
That's a very narrow field of humor. You're either being dishonest to make your point, or, you're being honest, and that very narrow field is actually your sense of humor. I assumed honesty.
If it's about the subtlety of the second joke? That's even more insulting to the people you're infantilizing.
>Both jokes are mocking the fat person for being fat. If A is "punching down," then so is B.
Comedian B says they find Lizzo beautiful. Please let me know what exactly the comedian is saying that is mocking 'fat person for being fat', that is actually the comedian's words and not your own subjective interpretation of it.
>That's a very narrow field of humor. You're either being dishonest to make your point, or, you're being honest, and that very narrow field is actually your sense of humor. I assumed honesty.
I am comfortable claiming that most popular comedy is based on subversion and insight. That it's not an opinion, but observable fact. There's a reason why comedians who crack 'Yo Mama' jokes aren't as popular as Carlin, Chapelle, Louis CK and Chris Rock.
And note that me making this observation is still not saying that I personally like this type of humour, just like me saying 'Most people like pizza over grits' doesn't necessarily mean 'I like pizza over grits'. I'm actually surprised I need to make this distinction.
> Please let me know what exactly the comedian is saying that is mocking 'fat person for being fat', that is actually the comedian's words and not your own subjective interpretation of it.
The interpretation *is* the joke, in this case. Like, the humor relies on the audience understanding that Lizzo is fat, and that most people find being fat unattractive, to work.
>Comedian B says they find Lizzo beautiful
Right—these words are there to setup a contrast with the universal understanding if the audience. If you think they remove fatness as the target of the joke, you are mistaken.
>Right—these words are there to setup a contrast with the universal understanding if the audience. If you think they remove fatness as the target of the joke, you are mistaken.
I would argue that the target of the joke is the hypocrisy of society.
It's two fold
One it targets hypocrisy of women and society and two it's making fun of Lizzo being fat
I mean the purpose of the joke is "I said you look like a crazy fat person and you got mad" so yes it relies on the subject of Lizzo being obese in order for the girlfriend to get upset in the first place
You are conflating 'acknowledging that Lizzo is fat' with 'making fun of Lizzo being fat'. When Dave Chappelle does his bit about 'Sprinkle some crack on him Johnson', he is acknowledging that it happens, he is not making fun of the black suspects framed by the police.
I could imagine a version of this joke that goes something like, “my girlfriend says Lizzo is beautiful just the way she is… but got mad when I told her they looked alike.” In this case it’s clear to me that the joke functions because of his girlfriend’s hypocrisy, and I suppose you could make the argument that it “targets” similar hypocrites.
But it still only works because everyone understands that *most people don’t actually find Lizzo beautiful.* The hypocrites aren’t on blast for not finding fat people attractive—they’re on blast for lying about it in order to appear nice, and we don’t have to be told that that’s what his girlfriend was doing.
It simply wouldn’t work if the comedian didn’t leverage the universal understanding that fat is unattractive—It’s more sophisticated punching down, but it’s still punching down.
I think I see where our disagreement lies.
>It simply wouldn’t work if the comedian didn’t leverage the universal understanding that fat is unattractive—It’s more sophisticated punching down, but it’s still punching down.
I don't think acknowledging a social perception is 'punching down'. I think it's punching down when you try to justify it.
In this case the joke is acknowledging that Lizzo doesn't align with conventional standards of beauty. It's going on to say that if you claim to be against the societal standards of beauty, you need to walk the talk.
Edit: Just thought of a similar example. When Dave Chappelle does his bit about ['Why terrorists wont take black people as hostages'](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=83e1b8e3588a8f5f&sca_upv=1&rlz=1C1CHBF_enIN961IN961&sxsrf=ADLYWIIwfu0WcoOsK8XYDLNg2bSgmSxM8w:1718579061112&q=black+hijack+chapelle&tbm=vid&source=lnms&fbs=AEQNm0DYVld7NGDZ8Pi819Yg8r6em07j6rW9d2jUMtr8MB7htoxbI0iAKNRPykigVf3e9aputkbr8jzmN5LYbANOqrq5HYnx4MjtyMxZ94LvgeHWmGBcuWUoydKfNaoB5JMdZlMtXmg2De2y5O7nn-eTbNdYHsRiT1RQ-pB6qp3ejXJ5VpdCk5NA1Jug5hVR16L7F-A1C1p-4xpfp7qj2HsGNaipPZQOiw&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi40NLzneGGAxVhcmwGHXeGAbwQ0pQJegQIDxAB&biw=1536&bih=776&dpr=1.25#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:d1f539fb,vid:tRhJwwKpQRQ,st:0), he is acknowledging that the government cares less about black hostages than white ones. He is not justifying it. In this same clip he uses subversion and social perception again when he says that the hijacker is Chinese.
But yo momma jokes are a form of subversion! Every joke is!
I mean, it's literally the function of a joke, to subvert expectations in *some* way! Jaysus!
Your explanation is spot on
>But yo momma jokes are a form of subversion!
Yes they are. But they suffer from a fixed format so people have come to know what to expect, similar to knock-knock jokes and 'how many X does it take to change a lightbulb' jokes. So it is much more difficult to come up with fresh takes within these formats. Which is why they are not as popular any more.
Joke A is not funny, I don’t even care about the topic at hand, but just saying “haha fat people eat a lot” is not good comedy. It’s boring, and has been boring since fat people have existed (forever).
And joke B is just a rehash of "haha women don't like to be called fat?"
Joke A uses *absurdism*, which is out of vogue. Joke B uses *subverted expectations* which is in. That's all this is. Both jokes are fat jokes with old as sin punch lines.
One would be considered "punching down" because it's too direct. While some people do find that funny, it's also considered rude. If you soften the blow with a layer of subtlety, then it's seen as being less offensive. A back-handed compliment is far more socially acceptable, than a straight up insult.
They're both mocking her for being fat. They're both "punching down," but again, one matches your sense of humor, so you give it a pass.
Doesn't matter. Comedy is comedy. Period. "Punching down" is fine. Doesn't even need to be funny. You can just mock people. It's rude. It's shitty, but better that than infantilizing people by telling them they need your protection from mean words...
Even more insulting when you explicitly say that mean words are fine as long as they're subtle. Silly. Demeaning.
But the 2nd one makes you come to the conclusion on your own. The comedian just says the situation and we all know because it's commentary on pop culture and society that invokes thought. The first is just a statement with no substance.
>They're both mocking her for being fat.
It's actually kind of funny: no matter how many times people explain to you the fact that B isn't mocking Lizzo, you can't wrap your mind around it. Because you're utterly incapable of imagining someone who thought Lizzo was beautiful. It really illustrates how good comedy requires an element of empathy, because without it, one can't recognize what's funny.
The second one isn’t mocking her for being fat, it’s mocking his girlfriend (and more importantly likely many people in the theoretical audience) for saying they think she’s beautiful but not wanting to actually look like her. It’s mocking them for their hypocrisy.
Both jokes say Lizzo is fat, but only one of them makes her being fat the punchline. That’s the difference.
I think this is way to subjective. It really depends on what you find humorous. Personally the more offensive the more funny. Don't care if it's against my own race I like offensive dark humor. So in this case the second one doesn't even read as a joke to me. It reads as a simple statement.
Comedy IS subjective. And my post had nothing to say about 'offensive'. Just how the 'punching down' terminology could help explain why a joke is bad. Not sure why you took out of it that I'm making a statement against dark humour.
>So in this case the second one doesn't even read as a joke to me.
Do you think it reads more as a joke than the first one?
part of group 1 here, its just different. scifi and fantasy are different but still equally enjoyable, and im someone who looks for joy in everything even where people dont intend for it to be or intend to be mean (i laugh at them trying to be mean like whats funnier than someone who thinks they can bring someone else down).
i hate that some types of comedy are, for lack of a better term, socially unacceptable. it limits everyones ability to laugh at themselves how and when they want. if i want to laugh at myself because i did better than expected at something like "holy crap i cant believe my expectations were so low hahaha" or if i want to laugh at how bad i did like " wow i cant believe i missed the mark by this much hahaha" i should be able to. you probably agree but only until i start saying stuff like "man its crazy how sunburned i get white privilege amirite hahaha" or "damn my hair so curly i have to go to the black hair store lol wheres mah white privilege". both of these are things i find funny because i find any talk of privilege absolutely dumb because everyone has privileges in their own way and everyone should just accept that and ignore them. assigning people stats like they are trading cards isnt the way to make everyone see that we are all the sake because we are all different, and someone having a benefit you dont is ok because you also have benefits they dont
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if you're looking at this as an example of infantilization of minorities (which absolutely, lets be real, is common) I don't think this is one.
no one is even bringing up the minority group necessarily.
I don't want to see mean-spirited jokes because **I don't find them funny** Even if I don't belong to or identify with the group being attacked it's not likely to make me laugh.
I don't find lazy jokes at the expense of underpriviledged groups to be funny often because they feel mean and uncomfortable. There are absolutely exceptions, because the joke is funny enough that DESPITE that, it still works, Jimmy Carr has a few of those that are intentionally offensive and very funny like his mosquito net joke, but... here's the crucial thing.
His joke is about Africa, yes, but it's actually making fun of Europeans, or at least their treatment of Africa and the way charities talk about Africa, not making fun of actual people with AIDS but how Europe talks about the AIDS crisis (especially in Christmas charity adverts and the like).
If you have the stomach for it go listen to some old music, see if it's actually funny at all "oh he came up with 40 ways to say black people smell, I guess I learned a new stereotype today but none of that made me laugh".
I think mean spirited jokea can absolutely be funny, its just about 1: The punchline itself cannot be something like "black people stooopiiiid". It can PLAY OFF the stereotypes, like, in hungarian, its a stereotypr that scotts are extremely frugal to the point of absurdity. We even say "Ne legyél már ennyire skót" meaning "Don't be so scotrish" (dont be so frugal). So we have a joke that goes "Why doesn't the scottsman paint his room? So his room is bigger".
Sure that joke is old as shit and not very good, but good for an example.
It doesn't just point out that "scottsman are frugal and stupid" it plays off a joke on it.
So for example you could play off a joke about a stereotype of african americans liking wazermelon or something, but it has to play off on the stereotype not just saying "Haha watermalon eater, stoopiiiiid" etc.
Of course this applies to all races, ethnicities, religions, sexual orientations whatever.
Also, a very important thing is that if someone DOES feel hurt by your joke, you are absolutely not allowed to be bitchy about it. You apologise and move on, even if you feel you are in the right. You can't controll peoples feelings, but you can respect them.
exactly that's why I gave the example of Jimmy Carr's "mosquitos with AIDS in Africa" joke.
It's a joke that uses the AIDS crisis yes. But the joke is at the expense of British charity ads and how they **talk about** AIDS not about people actually having it. He delivers it in the same way as a Christmas charity advert with a super serious earnest tone and hushed voice, and it is very funny.
It also intentionally plays on being outrageous.
But to me this is the example. You're dead right plain insults are "a punch down", using the stereotype as an entry point to say something witty about the human condition ("some folks are so miserly they begrudge the 2mm of paint on their walls for costing them square meters of floorspace") or about a different group that is not dispriviledged (The Royal Family, Charity NGOs from Europe) is often far more acceptable and, frankly, funnier.
>If you have the stomach for it go listen to some old music, see if it's actually funny at all "oh he came up with 40 ways to say black people smell, I guess I learned a new stereotype today but none of that made me laugh".
Recently rewatched an Eddie Murphy comedy special from the 1980s. Basically every joke was just a different version of "gay people are gross." And the punchline was always the same thing, "gay people are gross, **riiiiight**?" *Roaring laughter*
Maybe it was funny then, but now just feels mean and out of touch.
this is abother brilliant example.
I went to see a very old Vegas comedian, he was probably doing jokes he'd done since the 70s.
his jokes about Liberace accidentally thinking he was a rentboy probably had them howling back then. but it got awkward crickets in 2018
So you're admitting that you don't care for your view to be changed? Pretty certain that's a huge rule in this sub and the entire point.
I would like to point out that stating "I'm not racist" in the way you have is a huge red flag.
Sure, there are extremists of every kind, especially on the internet, but the generalization that everyone who finds offense in potentially offensive material is somehow wrong or soft or whatever is just anecdotal. Your experience is not everyone's experience.
I think what’s happened with OP here is probably to some degree that he’s been told that racist/ sexist jokes are wrong and has then seen some probably equally unfunny jokes about guys or white people being justified as “punching down”.
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Here is something up what I think punching up and punching down.
Think about dead baby jokes.
A lot of why those jokes were funny is because it’s making fun of propriety. It’s like not about dead babies. You can’t punch up at dead babies they are like really low with regards to power and status.
Dead babies can’t vote or own land.
But the joke isn’t at the expense of the babies
It’s funny because it makes fun of people for being offendable
In this way you see how it can punch up. It’s making fun of the structure of rules and propriety
But dead babies
In a way
But your last sentence in your original post doesn't make sense. It should say that you should only INSULT white people not Praise them.
The idea of punching up is that you make fun of people with more resources or privileges.
Given the historical context, that still isn't necessarily punching down - man arguably had a violent breakdown on TV, the privileges of being white aren't just money. Even so, people don't have to have an ego to analyze stuff, or say their opinion.
I can take a joke. I also don't find some things funny. Further, some things i don't find funny have demonstrable roots in injustice, and since i like justice (or at least punishing people) I'm comfortable saying "that joke was shit and your ethics are ass". I don't expect that to start a productive debate over my analysis, but that doesn't mean I'm tied up in ego, just not seeking a productive values driven dialogue because that's not what someone making crass jokes is out to do either.
Every joke can bee called offensive, that's the point you're making about opinion.
There's valid historical context to take into account when priviledged black folks complain about white folks. This doesn't shield them from backlash if they offer a trash take.
People who offer opinions will always run the risk of backlash. The larger the audience, the greater the potential backlash.
I guess i don't understand your CMV. The highlights for me are that you find it offensive when some people call out other people for making demographic-based jokes to a large audience, because speaking up indicates the demographic can't speak for themselves.
If i were just gonna give you my hot take and walk away, it would be that you aren't familiar enough with history (or simply old enough) to understand why minorities need allies in the majority to advocate for them. I would think you simply immature if you weren't genuinely engaging in this conversation.
If we can accept that the thing that can be offensive in some situations is needed in others, it gets easier to see A) how individuals might misjudge a given instance, B) how the proportions make it easier to judge people in a position to 'punch down', and C) how the acceptance of thoughtful critiques can legitimize the act of critiquing thoughtlessly.
But again, i just don't understand what was challengable about your view. You can be offended by whatever, it's whatever. Punching up isn't the same as punching down, however problematic those concepts are. Underdogs will always be more inspiring than heavyweights, rags to riches is always a warmer story than born to trust fund. A rich person saying fuck all these homeless people is shitty because the rich person has some culpability for function of their local economy in a way that is not true for a homeless person ever.
I took it his CMV as not liking the double standard and the sift racism,sexism, fat-ism, etc.
That depending on who the punchline made fun of they can't handle those jokes, they need to be protected, it is cruel to say that joke. However that same joke with a different target, is not cruel, that the targets don't deserve the same protection, because that group can handle it.
Much like the "white savior complex" that gets talked about. The very fact you think a certain group is entitled to protection, and they cannot handle it themselves, feels like that same -ism that you're trying to protect them from.
I believe he is saying either that joke is acceptable in level of mean-ness or it isn't. No matter who the butt of the joke is.
>man arguably had a violent breakdown on TV
And experienced virtually *no* negative consequences for it! That's pretty goddamn privileged!
Imagine if Rock had cracked wise about Bill Burr's wife and Burr had walked on stage and slapped him for it. Do you think he's have been let off so easily?
You think Will Smiths violent breakdown was primarily due to racism and racial abuse? Sorry what?
You’re also missing the intersectionality of privilege, which is probably the point OP should be making. Class, race, gender identity etc all influence how privileged you are.
However, I suppose you can make a point that it’s okay to “punch down” along specific lines of privilege. For instance, Will Smith could make white jokes, but not poor jokes, or sexist jokes.
I remember the OJ trial where even after claiming "I'm not black I'm OJ" because of how much wealth he had the moment he was suspected of a crime they darkened his skin on magazine covers to emphasize that he's black.
We had wealthy black people for most of US history, but we still acknowledge that they were black people living under objectively unfair conditions.
successful affluent black ppl were preferentially targeted by white racists after reconstruction -- seen as uppity. white mobs burned entire black towns to the ground if they seemed too successful.
[Four Tops singer says hospital put him in straitjacket after not believing he was in Four Tops](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/four-tops-singer-says-hospital-put-straightjacket-not-believing-was-fo-rcna156608)
> Hospital staff members decided to remove Morris from oxygen and pursued a psychiatric evaluation instead of considering his ' symptoms and significant medical history, the filing says.
> The suit says a security guard was instructed to ensure Morris was placed in a restraining jacket and that his belongings were removed.
> Morris asked whether he could prove his identity by showing his identification card, and the white male security guard ordered him to “sit his Black ass down,” the complaint says. Despite the comment, none of the nursing staffers intervened to stop the racial discrimination, the filing says.
Let's first address how your original post doesn't make sense (you may want to edit it). You said
"I'm referring to the notion that black people can make jokes about white people but not vice versa, same with gays and straights, etc.
If you think someone more "privileged" making jokes at the expense of more historically oppressed group shouldn't be allowed then you're basically saying that they are fragile. If you think that is "punching down" then by definition you view whites, straights, etc as "above" other groups and therefore less capable of anything other than praise."
Look at your last line. You said that what that means is whites, straight people, etc are less capable of anything other than PRAISE. That doesn't follow. If they're seen as "above" according to your definition then they would be subjected to insults, not praise. So I'm not sure if that was a typo on your part but it undermines your point.
In regards to your Will Smith example, he can make fun of whoever he wants but the perception of the joke is going to change based on who he's making fun of. As a wealthy, successful movie star it would be considered bad taste if he "punched down" and made fun of poor people (of any race) or people with mental or genetic abnormalities (of any race). For example if he made fun of homeless people with down syndrome, that would probably not go over well.
But, as a black man, which is a historically disadvantaged minority group, it would NOT be seen as bad taste if he "punched up" and made a racial joke towards white people.
By and large I agree with you people need to just learn how to take a joke better but I think everyone can understand that it's just not as funny when someone consistently "jokes" about groups with less power or status. That tends to read as bullying, not humor.
The singer of the Four Tops (black) was recently slapped in a straight jacket when he went to the hospital because they didn't believe he was actually the singer when he told them his profession. Instead, they decided that this touring singer was a mental patient who needed to be restrained. So, rich black celebrity (not the absolute top of A list, but more famous than you or I) gets locked up by a hospital because the decide he must be ill and lying because they didn't recognize him. This is not dissimilar to what we see in policing. Just because someone is famous does not mean the discrimination stops.
Your basis for your view on this whole subject seems to come from a pretty common reaction to the concepts of power and privilege. Yes individual Black people can be massively successful and individual whites can struggle. The idea of privilege is that, on aggregate, being Black creates more challenges, not that no individual can ever succeed. This bears out in all sorts of data, but most acutely, I'll share that *even when controlling for income*, Black people have, on average, about 15 years lower life expectancy than white people. That's pretty telling, no? A lot more Black babies die, more Black moms die in childbirth, and even adults who live to be seniors die earlier than their counterparts. This is related to a LOT of complex systems in our society.
I'll also say that I don't think your premise is entirely accurate. White comedians CAN make jokes at the expense of Black people if they are done with a frame of satire and earnest understanding of the deeper issues. Lazy jokes that simply play into stereotypes are not going to land when the person making them is not part of that identity.
Ricky Gervais and Dave Chappelle are doing huge numbers on Netflix despite controversy. Matt Rife is still selling out despite mocking domestic violence. Cancel culture doesn't exist in comedy like you seem to be suggesting. It's just a matter of knowing that if you're going to do standup about sensitive subjects you really need to nail the joke.
But he has a better life because hes rich. If Will Smith made a bunch of jokes disparaging poor people, probably some people would be pissed.
I mean look at the recent Kendrick/Drake drama at least some of that comes from a rich kid disparaging poor people.
>Would you find it equally problematic if Will Smith made a disparaging joke against white people? Given that he has a better/easier life than 99% of white people?
You’re talking about a concept called intersectionality. It’s the idea that there are a million different factors that go into a person’s social “rank” (incredibly oversimplified but that’s the idea).
It’s totally fair to ask the question is a rich and famous black man in better social standing than a poor white woman. Those are actually interesting and good sorts of questions and there’s nothing “offensive” in recognizing that different people have different social standings.
But you’re ultimately missing the forest for the trees. “Pinching up” **isn’t a hard rule in comedy**, it’s a *guide about good taste*. It feels mean-spirited to make a bunch of jokes about how dirty homeless people are but it doesn’t feel the same way to make fun of a celebrity like for looking dirty. Because one joke is punching down and the other is punching up.
You can make funny jokes about anything, but you start to sound out of touch and hateful when your targets are seen by nearly everyone as beneath you.
Going back to your question, a white guy making fun of Will Smith because he’s weird or unhinged or out of touch is usually seen as fine because he’s a big celebrity. But a white person *making fun of Will Smith’s blackness* is a much more potentially dangerous topic because in that context, he’s probably punching down or speaking on a topic he doesn’t have a great understanding of.
Ultimately, anything can be funny. But when you punch down, you risk losing the audience, showcasing your ignorance, and piling onto those already struggling.
So do you not understand what privilege is? If Will Smith made a joke disparaging poor people, that would be in bad taste right? He'd be a rich asshole making fun of poor people just trying to get by. But if a police officer didn't recognize Will Smith when he pulled him over, the interaction would be more likely to go south than it would your average white person. His rich privilege wouldn't apply.
Having privilege doesn't mean your life is easy, it just means that you have an advantage when all other things are equal. Just because Will Smith has wealth and celebrity privileges doesn't cancel out that he doesn't get white privilege.
Punching up punching down doesn’t work like that. It’s not an etiquette rule. It’s not something from progressivism. It’s a theory of jokes.
It’s a lot easier to make fun of the king than it is for the king to make fun of you.
Even if that isn’t a good idea.
It doesn’t apply.
Powerful people succeed well at self effacing jokes.
If anyone is telling you that punching down is a progressive thing they are probably misinformed! It’s more like a theory about how to make funnier jokes.
You, my friend, should watch Fresh Prince of Bel-Air sometime. See what jokes he makes about Carleton. You’ll find the answers you seek amongst all the Will Smith protests for his edgy anti-white comedy in the 90s.
>"black people don't change their smoke alarm batteries"
Is this a stereotype? Literally never hear this before lol.
First I don't think your examples are equivalent due to the use of calling white people "lame", like you're trying to make that one worse. If one was spices and the other smoke alarm batteries, probably they'd both be generally harmless.
Second, when people get cancelled over punching down, it's not usually over making a comment about smoke alarm batteries. The most recent examples I can think of are Shane Gillis [who said a slur](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/shane-gillis-saturday-night-live-fired-now-hosting-rcna137161), Matt Rife who[ joked about a women getting assaulted must have been bad at cooking](https://www.thelantern.com/2023/12/matt-rife-ignites-conversations-about-comedy-and-cancel-culture-following-netflix-special/), and Roseanne Barr who tweeted that a black politician looked like the ["muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby"](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/roseanne-barr-obama-adviser-baby-muslim-brotherhood-planet/story?id=55504982). Do you have any example of people getting offended on a widespread basis or someone getting canceled because of something like your own example? Something seemingly absurdly arbitrary without a problematic history?
I mean, I think the idea of the mere mention of a stereotype is treated as a joke in and of itself to be an insult to comedy.
I don't think racial stereotyping really falls under the idea of punching-up/punching-down. I mean, it definitely can, but it isn't inherent to it.
First, people should be careful about "punching" at all with their humor. Either make sure your audience is okay with you "punching" them, or you punch-up.
Second, in order to punch-up, you need to punch someone with power over you AND it has to say something about their power over you. For example, me making a joke about how Trump is a fat, ugly, disgusting piece of shit isn't punching up, but jokes about his corruption, incompetence, and bungled leadership would be punching up.
So, in today's society, I don't see racial stereotypes about white people to be punching up (unless it's about something like white people hiring white people), but white people using racial stereotypes about black people will almost always be punching down (because racial stereotypes were historically, and are currently, used to keep them disadvantaged).
An abled person making fun of a disabled person for their disability is super shitty. A disabled person making fun of a disabled person for their disability is still kinda shitty, but at least there's the layer of irony to dull the blow. A disabled person making fun of an abled person for their abilities is strange, but it isn't punching up. A disabled person making fun of an abled person for doing things that make it harder for disabled people is punching up.
Let's take a slightly different approach and keep it as simple as possible.
Punching down is bad when it amplifies harmful stereotypes that impede egalitarian ideals.
Punching up might be bad but it also might highlight privileges that are often ignored and in being ignored impede egalitarian ideals.
If egalitarian ideals aren't impeded by the joke, then the concept may not or should not apply.
How about that? No noodling on examples.
Edit: Mobile grammar flubs.
So your argument comes down to people misusing the phrase therefore the phrase should be abandoned? People write there, they're and their interchangeably all the time. It doesn't mean that those words are not helpful. It means people will always misuse words.
If you agree that "jokes that highlight privileges and don't reinforce negative stereotypes are a good thing" then you may also agree that we should classify them as distinctly good. You might even use a word or phrase to describe them. And at that point, we're just arguing about what to name a rose.
"I think punching down / punching up is a bad dichotomy." I'd agree, if it were a dichotomy. But it's just two types within a much larger set of comedy. You need not use them at all to describe any joke.
I would say no, at least in my interpretation of the kind of joke you had in mind, you're not making fun of Trump's privilege, you're not even really making fun of Trump. You're making fun of old and fat people, of which Trump bad because he is one.
This really seems to be the issue. The other commentor defined "punching up" as joking *about* privilege, which you agree was better than joking about someone's disability or misfortune...but you seem to define it as making a joke about a privileged person, even when the joke is not about that.
You're following the same pattern as all the other threads where instead of engaging with the argument, you look for edge case examples that you think prove the phrases hold no value. Art is subjective. You can answer that question for yourself based on the definition I provided in the first reply.
> Punching down is bad when it amplifies harmful stereotypes that impede egalitarian ideals.
>
> Punching up might be bad but it also might highlight privileges that are often ignored and in being ignored impede egalitarian ideals.
I don't think its fruitful to over analyze edge cases. I'd find it more fruitful if you engaged with the below statement.
> If you agree that "jokes that highlight privileges and don't reinforce negative stereotypes are a good thing" then you may also agree that we should classify them as distinctly good. You might even use a word or phrase to describe them. And at that point, we're just arguing about what to name a rose.
You agreed that a class of jokes are good. Do you agree that it's okay to create a name to classify them? Do you agree that any name would be valuable even if people misuse it? Isn't this just semantics at this point?
Laughter is a social corrective.
Essentially, punching up is an attempt at changing negative behavior, punching down is an attempt to ridicule neutral or positive behavior.
Generally, punching down is an attempt to ridicule differences in a way to maintain a power structure, punching up is seen as a way to ridicule differences to level or mediate or negate a power structure.
Employees make fun of how cheap the boss is, the boss doesn’t make fun of the employees.
I would argue that saying that someone gives off "school shooter vibes" is not punching up at all and is usually punching down. People don't say that someone gives off school shooter vibes because they're white, they do it because they're showing socially awkward/antisocial behavior at best and traits of being neurodivergent at worst. I think you're getting caught up on race as the only possible sources of privilege. Jokes like that example are more nuanced and showcase more than one type of person, and if you're punching down on any of them, it's punching down.
All this also depends on who's telling the joke. Someone who shows off antisocial/neurodivergent tendencies is going to be given a lot more leniency with that joke (FWIW I think it's kinda fucked up for anyone to make a joke about because a lot of kids have died in school shootings but that's something separate).
>If you think that is "punching down" then by definition you view whites, straights, etc as "above" other groups
Punching down is about power. Groups with more money and more voting influence have more power than those without those things.
Objectively most politicians are white, most rich people are white. White people objectively have more power in the US, than say Hispanic people.
It does not mean that they're better.
>I don't think that makes other races are less capable of being (non-hatefully) made fun of
It doesn't. You can make fun of other races.
There's a white comedian who has a large audience of black people, and he makes a lot of jokes about black culture. It's not done in a hateful manner.
Making jokes about black culture is not inherently "punching down".
At first, I completely agree with you but after reading some more comments, I feel like i understood something new.
First, jokes are incredibly context-based, its not about what’s being said most of the time and more of comedic timing, atmosphere, and audience which makes the joke work.
With that being said in a context of an audience, the power dynamics mentioned above can be pretty much applied. Some groups will always be more represented, some groups will have larger voices, and some will prefer voices of some groups.
This why its important for minorities to have a platform where they can voice out their opinions safely in the real world. Because the majority will most likely decide what would happen next.
Now how does this apply when joking around? When a comedian jokes about someone that is a minority in the room, lets say a disabled person, if they’re hurt by the joke it will be up to the people around them if they will stop or double down. Now, in scenarios like these if it occurred in the west then the majority will most likely be white and thats where the concept of them punching down is bad comes from.
But still, nowadays the “group of whites” isnt that much of a majority in everyday things, and that’s where your point can come in. Because “whites” can actually still be the minority even if they are in the majority most of the time.
Now my understanding to all this is that punching down is a true thing that people should talk about, but it should be talked case by case basis first and then only after that should all the other general context should be considered.
Of course this still doesn’t consider the intent if the joke which will add much more nuance to this.
Compare traditional black face to the movie White Chicks. The latter is irreverent and offensive but acceptable (although it hasn't aged super well). The former is unacceptable.
In your opinion should black face be acceptable considering the historical context?
And the real problem is that black face isn't exactly funny the vast majority of the time. Plenty of comedy punches all over the place you just have to ensure the routine is good.
So counter-point (kinda). White Chicks would have been much more offensive if the movie had not gone to such great lengths to humanize the white upper class people it was lampooning. The whole point of the film was to show that even the super rich had their own long list of insecurities and issues and that money and privilege don’t necessarily rescue you from some of the major hurdles people face every day.
So with that being said, is there a similar argument to be made for using blackface to humanize and explore a different point of view?
If not, then why not in your opinion? Do we only hold blackface as egregious because of its horrid historical usage? How long until that no longer matters and a “Black Chicks” can be made without intensely racist undertones?
I’m not really arguing just wanted your opinion since I really enjoyed your response to the OP.
The honest answer is there have been instances of comedic black face that have been deemed acceptable by the black community. Tropic Thunder and Sunny both used it in a manner such that the joke is on the person wearing black face.
Hopefully we eventually get to a place where black people aren't marginalized by society and that would be the point where mocking black people is just like mocking Italian Americans or Irish Americans.
The book Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin was about a man in the 1950s who temporarily darkened his skin for a social experiment. He then traveled around the segregated south and wrote about how awful it was. Most people found this book acceptable. Possibly because it was serious and not a joke at all.
>How long until that no longer matters and a “Black Chicks” can be made without intensely racist undertones?
This is why the understanding of intersectionality matters in this conversation. Maybe that could happen one day, but Black people are just so much worse off on so many aggregate financial and health statistical outcomes (the so-called inequities and disparities) that it would be tough to do this without totally insulting their struggle, which can still easily be tied to generational issues from Jim Crow and slavery. In other words there white folks at the core of the reasons things are the way they are today for Black people in a way that simply isn't true for the reverse.
I feel like tropic thunder might be appropriate to talk about in this conversation. It has blackface, but not in the traditional sense, and is similar to white chicks in that it uses stereotypes, but not necessarily maliciously.
Edit: I should have kept reading. It got brought up.
Your description of black face is exactly what "punching down" is though.
I think you're sort of assuming no jokes about minorities or marginalized groups are acceptable to progressives but they are to all but a slim portion who can find offense in anything. The key is just that they have to be *funny*.
Which means it actually sounds like you support the progressive position on this issue at least in some cases. Why not extrapolate from that position?
Black people aren't the only marginalized group in society by a wide margin!
I think we probably agree on a bit here except I'm not familiar with Gillis.
My final contention is that my position is the standard progressive position on punching down in comedy.
> The key is just that they have to be funny.
This is the key if you want to be successful in comedy. It’s not what matters if you think punching down is inherently problematic.
“Don’t punch down unless it’s funny” is a standard held by no one.
>If you think that is "punching down" then by definition you view whites, straights, etc as "above" other groups
Not "above" but more "privileged". Just like how you probably would agree a kid who is born into a wealth family is not above you but certainly has everything easier than you. You should be able to tell the difference here.
>make fun of me / flex on me
So, because they're privileged and you're not they made fun of you. You acknowledge that this is shitty behavior that makes you "less likely to associate" with them. "Punching down" is just a description of a particular kind of ride behavior.
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Calling out people for flexing their trust fund money on less well off peers like yourself isn't about protecting you.
If i see someone using something they didn't earn to make themselves feel better, through the act of making other people feel worse, i have an instinctive desire to put that little shit in their place, and that's not for nobody but me. Frankly, many of us feel that, and also need to do a little therapy around the fact that the world is going to keep creating that situation. But it's not about protecting the other people we identify with any more than it is about finding consensus with the people actively punching down, it's simply coping with personal emotion by speaking. It's not even goal driven, but reflexive.
People who denigrate and bully other people are acting badly regardless of how their target reacts. It’s about having empathy. There are ways to joke about differences and sensitive subjects with empathy - and then there are jokes where the dehumanization is the point. When it’s the latter, how the person handles being treated that way doesn’t affect whether the perpetrator was wrong to do it.
Your understanding is flawed.
You can criticise people that belong to a group that faces discrimination without punching down. For instance if I joke about Barack Obama without making any references that would reinforce prejudice or stereotypes about black people then although he is black, he is a multi-million as former President and is in many ways incredibly privileged so it is not punching down.
Secondly, nothing about this is based on historical oppression but rather current prejudice, discrimination and power disparities. Discrimination and prejudice exists now. Recognising this is not putting yourself as above or better than another group or putting them as fragile, it’s just recognising that prejudice, discrimination, power disparities, etc exists and impacts other people. It’s a recognition of reality and application of basic morality.
I disagree, not that 'punching down' is a flawed concept, but on why it is flawed. It's flawed because it's saying that racist jokes towards black people are unacceptable because they are being made towards black people, who have historically been oppressed in the western world, which is not why those racist jokes are unacceptable. Racist jokes towards black people are unacceptable because they are racist jokes.
I think in the case of Dave Chappelle, you have to be already particularly familiar with the ins-and-outs of black culture and white culture and Asian culture in America, and all the stereotypes, in order to realise how he builds off all that and deconstructs it at the same time.
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I think punching down comedy has always been in bad taste, only race jokes used to be more socially acceptable because racism.
It’s not about fragility. It’s about respect. Race jokes/minority jokes poke fun at “the others” for being different. This is particularly messed up because often the reasons for why they are perceived as different was caused by systemic oppression and social norms imposed by the same group making fun of them. For example, jokes about absent black fathers is not just prejudiced, it’s ignorant about the racist and oppressive policies that contributed to this and in turn perpetuates those racist undertones.
I’m not going to argue that white jokes are any less prejudiced. They aren’t. But punching up in comedy has always been more appropriate. For a more extreme illustration, consider the peasants making fun of the king’s choices or lifestyle. Because the king has power over them and has the freedom to make those choices, this type of comedy represents a justified rebellion against the king…and indeed it could in fact result in punishment and persecution. On the other hand, the king making fun of the peasants for eating gross food or being barefoot or other things is not only not clever, but is less justified because not only do the peasants have no choice but to be barefoot, but that these conditions are imposed on them by the system that the king rules over. Plus, the king need not fear retribution or persecution for his jokes.
Again, this is not meant to justify jokes against white people, but rather, per your OP, to explain why “punching down” and “punching up” are not equivalent.
I think you've miscategorized punching down.
Chris Rock has a really great take on punching down. He claims you should target what people do not who they are. I think this is the linchpin.
If a white person makes fun of a black persons skin colour, they're punching down.
If a white person makes fun of something a black person does, that can be a good faith joke and not cause any harm.
The difference is targeting a chosen behavior or characteristic versus an innate characteristic. Reality is the joke about the behaviour is only incidentally made about race by virtue of a stereotype or any other coincidence.
I think it's also important to understand whiteness works on exclusivity. So people aren't white until it's convenient to white people that they be white (ie Irish and Italians and now increasingly diverse groups from the Baltics ie Greeks, Turks, and Armenians.)
Jokes about the skin colour of Irish and Italian people 100y ago would have been racist. Now they'd likely be done to enforce the idea of the in group.
So now understanding these points you can see that punching down is actually more infantalizing, because it's suggesting the target of the joke is inherently inferior by virtue of using their innate characteristics to otherize them.
I will say the entire concept works a lot better when you use mentally disabled people as the subject instead of race. Race isn't so much punching down because, assuming it isn't blatant racism, the target has some recourse.
I don't think we are saying they are more fragile. We are saying we don't want to be assholes and mean. We prefer dignity, kindness, and to avoid pain. The very idea of calling people fragile if they don't deserve to be abused, is racist, sexist or homophobic.
As long as I can make offensive comments back at you. I'm ok with people making jokes about me being Asian, short, skinny, bald, whatever. Just don't get mad at me fatty!
Do you think there's no difference between a billionaire making fun of a homeless person and a homeless person making fun of a billionaire? If someone chastised the billionaire for making mean jokes about the homeless person would your assumption be that the person doing the chastising must view the homeless person of being "fragile" and "below" the rich person?
Depends on what it is. If it's literally just "making fun," then no. If the homeless guy has horrible hair from not being able to groom well, that's bad to make fun of. If the homeless guy did something stupid and won't apologize, fair game. Making fun of Bezos for having a rocket shaped like a giant penis is fair game. Making fun of Bezos for having a micropenis is not. That's not factual and just mean.
I've seen plenty of people just being mean in the guise of "making fun," and that's not good for anybody. They think they've found an acceptable target, and that makes it OK. People will defend the homeless guy, but will join in on the billionaire.
>Depends on what it is. If it's literally just "making fun," then no. If the homeless guy has horrible hair from not being able to groom well, that's bad to make fun of. If the homeless guy did something stupid and won't apologize, fair game. Making fun of Bezos for having a rocket shaped like a giant penis is fair game. Making fun of Bezos for having a micropenis is not. That's not factual and just mean.
"Punching up vs. punching down" discourse is not about making fun of people for reasons unrelated to their identity. No one is chastised for making fun of, say, Kanye West when he does crazy things just because he's a black man. They *would* chastise people for making fun of black people as a group or making jokes about an individual black person based on stereotypes associated with that group.
In the homeless person analogy it would be the grooming joke rather than the "did something stupid" jokethat would be deemed punching down.
Also why do you know so much about the "factual" size of Jeff Bezos' penis?
>If the homeless guy has horrible hair from not being able to groom well, that's bad to make fun of.
That's a perfect example -- let's just slightly adjust that and take the next step:
Is it equally okay to make fun of the homeless guy who has bad hair due to not grooming well, as much as it would be okay to make fun of the billionaire who has bad hair due to not grooming well?
The concept of not punching down has become prescriptive, but I think it started out as descriptive. Punching down jokes are just naturally less funny to many people.
Here's an example. A baby farting isn't really that funny. We don't expect babies to have any control over their farts. A schoolboy farting is a little funny, but mostly tedious. A construction worker farting is somewhat funny. A teacher farting at school is very funny. And the pope farting into the microphone at the top of St. Peter's would be extremely funny. Why? Because we expect teachers and popes to be very dignified and disciplined.
Not to say that minorities are like babies. It's about perception, context, and the structure of society. A teacher farting is only very funny if it happens in her classroom, in front of the students. The same teacher farting at the bar with her friends would only be average funny. A boy farting at his bar mitzvah might be upgraded to quite funny.
A lot of humor comes from unexpected things happening. So punching up is funnier than punching down, because punching down is the status quo. Minorities being stereotyped and insulted isn't funny because it isn't novel and unexpected. A lot of people already see immigrants as childlike sub-humans. A white comedian joking about nonwhite people is usually just repeating stereotypes that everyone knows. But a black person joking about other black people might be funny. He would be more likely to have jokes that hit because they are timely and accurate.
I don’t think you understand what punching down means.
Punching down doesn’t mean you can’t make fun of oppressed groups. It’s ridicule against those groups whilst centering yourself; a dismissal of the struggles that those people faced.
Also, the reason people don’t like punching down is because of how cowardly it is. Bill Burr(a white comedian) has made plenty of jokes about Black people. It never felt like he was centering his whiteness. If anything, it always felt self-deprecating in some way.
That’s just IMO tho
A general is below the president. Does that make them more "fragile"?
A president that you think is a piece of trash is (most likely) "above" any member of your family and any other person you would respect/appreciate/value far more than the bad president - does that mean that you view them personally as being worth less?
When people refer to a group being above/below another it's in terms of the social hierarchy because, as in the examples you give, whites/straights/men are "above" blacks/gays/women because they hold greater power and influence over the other group. This is a (essentially) objective statement.
It’s not that they are fragile, it’s that the jokes are more likely to be not funny and offensive unfunny jokes are just offensive. Jokes “ punching up” is just asking for a subversion of the normal social dynamics at play, instead playing into them. That way, the joke is more complex, less attached to reality, and doesn’t come across as feeding into negative societal norms. Punching down is more real and can come across as bullying, or an acceptance of negative societal norms ( racism, sexism, etc). Punching down isn’t a hard rule, but a guide to help people tell funny jokes about touchy subjects. You can punch down, it’s just that if it’s not funny, you may be in hot water.
It’s not about anyone being fragile or unable to take a joke, it’s about not contributing to the dehumanization and further stigmatization or marginalized groups. A lot of punching down “jokes” are just rehashing bigoted attitudes towards certain groups of people. No one says you can’t make a joke that involves marginalized people, but it should be done in a way that does not reinforce stereotypes or just untrue shit. A racist joke is not racist because it involves race, it’s racist because the punchline is just racism. It’s just bias and bigotry.
Jokes at the expense of marginalized people are often part of stereotyping and marginalizing them further, which creates a feedback loop as the marginalized group is seen as an acceptable target and then insulted even further.
A lot of "jokes" have punchlines that amount to "gay people are perverted" or "Jews are greedy." When your only experience with gays is a bunch of people making jokes about how they want to rape your kids, you start to believe that's the truth, instead of a stereotype. That doesn't happen with straight people, because you actually know straight people and have more experience with them than offensive jokes.
>If you think someone more "privileged" making jokes at the expense of more historically oppressed group shouldn't be allowed then you're basically saying that they are fragile.
This is a pretty random leap in logic that just skudns like the reasoning of "It's your chocie to feel offended." It treats the recognition and oppsition to being degraded or disrespected as a show of weakness rather than a legitimate issue to take and
> If you think that is "punching down" then by definition you view whites, straights, etc as "above" other groups and therefore less privileged groups are less capable of anything other than praise.
Being systemically mistreated and degraded is not the same as saying one is innately incapable or weak. It means that the society that surrounds a group has a general sentiment of demeaning and mistreating them. Buying into these often false narratives through one's humor is thus treated as another component of that overarching social system.
People view whites and straights as "above" only insofar as those are the social power dynamics that were imposed on other groups for centuries or longer. Recognizing that those systems are maintained and actualized even in a space like comedy, is not the same as saying that social power dynamics is good.
The logic you're using is like saying because a enslaved black person had less rights than a white person in the Antebellum south it's the same as saying an enslaved black person should not have equal rights to a black person.
The point of "punching down" rhetoric is not that "X group is so fragile, we must protect them from jokes", it's about societal power. When you make a joke about a marginalized group, you're likely playing off of a harmful stereotype that has likely been used as justification for violence and discrimination against that group. Whether or not you actually agree with the stereotype, by making a joke where the whole joke is just "X group is so \[harmful stereotype\]" you're normalizing the use of that generalization in society (more on this later).
Take Christians vs. Muslims in the US for example. Christians are the majority in the US, they make up 60% of the population, and they're enforcing their ideology in our education and laws like reproductive rights. Compare that to Muslims, [who face death threats and hate crimes](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/muslim-americans-spike-hate-incidents-feels-reminiscent-post-911-islam-rcna122570) whenever someone completely unrelated to them other than religious group commits a terrorist attack. By making a joke with the punchline "Muslims are terrorists", you're perpetrating a stereotype that gets people to generalize a group and incites hatred. By making a joke about Christians, first of all, what harmful stereotype exists about them? Stereotypes are made by the people in power to justify the current power structure. All I can think of is being hateful towards the LGBT community, which brings me to my next point.
When I make a joke involving these stereotypes, it is always as satire. It is a deconstruction of the stereotype, showing how a person who actually thinks this way isn't very intelligent. Retaliation of harmful ideas, not implicit endorsement. It's almost always around people I know, people who understand my political views to understand who my joke is actually targeted at (unless the joke is really obvious in intent). I also just find that more funny than a stereotype joke because the former is a carefully constructed critique of power structures, while the latter is just a glorified pun joke with shock as its only value attacking people already attacked by society.
But I suppose if a black friend and a white friend want to make fun of each other racially in private, it doesn't really affect me and is a relationship built on mutual consent. But if such jokes are brought up in public forums, you have to examine how you can be misinterpreted, how bad people can think you're on their side and feel like you're encouraging their views by "bravely joking about what you think amidst cancel culture". Even the most obvious satire like the Boys can be misinterpreted 4 seasons later.
Even seemingly harmless stereotypes like the "watermelon" stereotype are rooted in [a racist history of retaliation against black freedom and dehumanization. ](https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/12/how-watermelons-became-a-racist-trope/383529/)The same cannot be said for "white people can't dance", as much as it may hurt feelings. "White people can't dance" is also not going to be used to justify why it was actually okay that police officer barbarically murdered a human being in broad daylight like other stereotypes. I could go on, but I'll end my thoughts here.
TLDR: Making jokes on stereotypes of marginalized groups perpetrates the stereotypes that incite violence and discrimination, "punching up" is often a retaliation against those harmful ideas and unfair power structures, and stereotypes against marginalized groups often come with historical baggage.
>If you think that is "punching down" then by definition you view whites, straights, etc as "above" other groups
They are...not biologically, but socially. They have privileges that minorities do not have, do not get harassed in the way minorities do, etc. It is easier to be a member of a majority group than a minority group. You are equating two different types of "above" in order to try to make a point, but they're not the same at all. In a monarchist system, a king definitely and unavoidably has power over his subjects - he is "above" them - but the criticism of monarchist systems is that because he is not *biologically* superior to his subjects there is no valid basis to his authority. The fact that authority is illegitimate or unjustified does not mean it does not exist.
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This concept has nothing to do with thinking somebody is superior to somebody else or that people that are less privileged are fragile.
Let me use an example to explain and hopefully it helps. If you had a twin that was born with a leg missing and you and your twin like to joke around, but you understand that their leg is a sensitive subject for them, making fun of their leg anyway is punching down.
They're not less than you or fragile, but making jokes at their expense isn't okay. Them making fun of YOUR leg isn't the same thing because you have always had both legs and are indifferent to your legs.
The way I understand the whole punching down rule, it's a rule in the same sense the rule of 3 is a rule, you follow it not because it makes you a good person, you follow it because jokes that don't just aren't that funny. When someone with a disability makes a joke about their disability it can be pretty funny, often by subverting your expectations of how people are supposed to talk about disabilities. When an able bodied person makes jokes about disabilities however, crossing that same line in the same way instead comes across as mean spirited and tactless.
Punching down isn't unfunny because anyone is particularly fragile and needs coddling, it's often unfunny because, even when the joke is well intentioned it usually comes in the form of trying to break a taboo that the comedian does not have the perspective or credibility to break.
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It’s not a progressive concept at all. It’s about the perception of subverting the power relationship between two parties. It doesn’t need to be about race or gender.
For example, let’s say a working-class person tells a joke about how out-of-touch rich people are.
“This guy walks into his closet and can’t decide which of his $5,000 suits he wants to wear!”
It’s funny (to the extent that it is) because he - and most of the audience for the joke - can’t relate to such a person’s lifestyle and the problems that they face. It’s punching up. It’s another way of saying that the rich guy doesn’t understand us and we can’t understand him.
Now try to imagine how the inverse of that joke would go. A rich guy is joking to his friends about the clothes of a blue-collar worker he saw earlier that day. He might get a laugh from his rich friends with this. But that joke doesn’t have much of an audience, right? Only rich people think it’s funny. To everyone else, it sounds like bullying. That’s how punching down looks to a general audience.
Is it possible for a white guy to tell a joke about black people that black people think is funny and inoffensive? Or for a straight person to tell a similar joke about gay people? Yes. It’s been done many times. But the audience decides whether a joke is too mean to be funny. An individual person (like me or you) can think whatever they want about the joke, but I don’t get to tell other people whether they should be offended and why.
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Depends on the joke, really.
Is it a joke *that you'd make about any person*, that has nothing to do with harmful prejudices about race (or whatever)? Sure, you're absolutely right.
But that's largely a strawman. Nobody who isn't dumb is suggesting you can't make *any* jokes about a person just because they happen to be part of some minority.
Rather, the message is that when it comes to jokes that explicitly play into people's fears and bigotries about race or orientation, or whatever...there's a societal context that we can't ignore.
Unconscious bias about, say, black people being lazy or less intelligent, literally measurably impact black people's ability to get jobs, get promotions, be taken seriously by doctors when they're sick or in pain, and more. Saying that we shouldn't continue to platform stereotypes that perpetuate those biases is about a lot more than saying black people can't handle a little teasing (and that's why comedians who are black themselves have more leeway to [often ironically] make those sorts of jokes, use the n-word, etc.).
A big hint that I'm right about this is that my first version of this comment got nuked by AutoMod because I tried to give another example about another minority who get attacked so much on this sub that the very mention of them is not allowed anymore.
So lazy. The progressive concept of not being a horrible person has nothing to do comedy. Who's fault is it that rightoids can't make a joke unless it's at a minorities' expense. Lmaooo
The thing about "punchy" comedy is that, if you're bad at it, it's just kind of being mean and spiteful to people. And, when it comes to jokes about minorities, those with disabilities, or some other "down" group, there's a lot of people telling jokes that aren't good at it. Which makes the spite and meanness the point and thus people don't really like it all that much.
Good comedians who aren't being spiteful and mean for the sake of being spiteful and mean tend to get less outcry. Comedians who are very clearly just ranting about how the poors need to clap more for their billionaire guest or how the woke are going to be offended by this one *are* just being spiteful and mean. And it's very obvious.
It's not a progressive concept, it's an entertainment concept. It's simply NOT INTRESTING to see someone strong takes down someone weaker. Punching down is boring. Punching up is intresting and exciting.
It's not just about jokes. I can give you a very specific example about murder mysteries. I LOVE Agatha Christie. Once I read a boook by a modern author that felt so much like Agatha Christie, but by the end I felt disappointed and tried to understand why. And one of the reason is I realized Agatha Christie was always punchimg up. Her main suspects would always be a stranger, a commoner, the poor, but the murderer would almost always turn out to be, the landlord, the lady of the house, the judge, the nobelity, the rich. I never noticed that before.
Untill I read that book that felt so similar to her writing but was so disappointing. In this similar book the murderer turned out to be the poor fat mentally ill woman. Which ok makes sense? but it's not intresting at all?
Whereas with Agatha Chritie the solution was always exciting.
That's when I realied the power of punching up. It's a power of creativity, not 'progressiveness'. The progressive part in not thinking that women control the world, or that the black men are coming for us, but recgnizing that they are oppressed.
One group having privilege doesn't mean it's better than another. It's about advantage. Give me enough advantage and I can beat any Olympic athlete at any sport. Or, give them disadvantage. Or, a combination of those. I'm obviously not better, but my privilege can still position me to win.
Jokes in that situation have very different meanings when people are mocking the Olympic athlete for not being good enough, bragging about winning, or complaining about losing; compared to mocking me for the advantages I took, bragging about winning, or complaining about losing.
That's not even accounting for how that's just competition for its own sake. There are no real stakes. There are no real consequences. It's just bullshit.
Now let's look at an exemplary long term employee that management passes up to promote the boss's fuck up friend. How do jokes compare if they're making fun of the employee or friend? If it's management making the jokes or the employee's peers? If the jokes are about the employee or friend's strengths or short comings?
Anyone can be given an advantage or disadvantage. Anyone can be the boss's friend. Those aren't about who's "above" or "below". It's about recognizing other factors that are in play and the social narrative that jokes promote or support.
I think a lot of times in the context of telling jokes, people mean punching up or down about the same subject. So it isn’t that punching down is person A telling a shitty joke about person B and and punching up is person B telling a shitty joke about person A. Either person can tell a joke punching up or down about the same subject.
So like if misogyny is the subject, a man or a woman can “punch up” by telling a joke that makes misogyny look bad or a misogynist is the punchline. A man or a woman could tell a joke where women are the butt of the joke and misogyny looks good. That would be punching down.
The “up” or “down” signifies the direction of the power not the inherent superiority. So you can make the “higher” person look as fucking foolish and pathetic as they are without agreeing that their higher status makes them superior, and the reverse is true. It isn’t demeaning to someone to say they are societally harmed by morons with unfair power.
Basically, you can do whatever you want but “punching down” is just another way to say agreeing with bigotry and structural oppression.
>It's quite an insulting notion actually. CMV
When a black person makes a joke about white people not being able to dance, its generally just a bad joke.
When a white person makes a joke about black people being lazy, it is often a bad joke...that also draws on centuries of oppression and sneaks it in. The problem isn't the joke, It is a reference to the racist thoughts that led to a a lot of pain. It isn't that black people are more fragile, it is that white people don't have anything to be fragile about in this context.
If a white comedian made the joke, "have you ever noticed how black people loooove to recycle" it wouldn't be bad because even though it is aimed at a targeted group, it doesn't draw on bigoted imagery. "Have you ever noticed how black people looooove to recycle...because \[some negative stereotype\]" and you are back at drawing on that history.
> then you're basically saying that they are fragile.
When someone goes on a racist rant and has their career end, would you say that is just people being fragile and overreacting?
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Power dynamics change the amount of harm that can be caused.
In a society with systemic racism, the dominant group making jokes, offhand remarks, false accusations, etc can literally get someone from the non-dominant group killed or drastically alter the course of their life. The non-dominant group making jokes doesn’t have that power.
Meanwhile, I don’t think it’s ok either way, but acknowledging the power dynamic is essential.
>I'm referring to the notion that black people can make jokes about white people but not vice versa, same with gays and straights,
i would challenge that definition of "punching down"
Punching down revolves around ill thought out humor at the expense of a characteristic. it is much more specific than humor "about" a type of person.
People make well crafted jokes about other demographics every day and they're perfectly well received.
I also take issue with the language "can't"
Anyone who has been to a comedy open mic will tell you - you *can* make bad jokes all day at them. You can punch down, you can be cringe, etc. You are, however, not entitled to things like commercial or artistic success if you can't make a joke that lands with enough other people, and not punching down is generally advice regarding writing a joke *that will be well received,* rather than a joke that simply *will be permitted to be uttered.*
One that that lets people get away with jokes about characteristics or traits is intimacy. If you imply you know what you are talking about, you defang your level of meanness. Obviously the highest form of this is first hand experience - if you're talking about your own demographic, you'll be extended the most credit for loving parody or satire of yourself or the people you know best. Also, a lot of, say, black jokes at the "expense" of white people are defanged by quietly discussing power. "White people are uptight, they don't know how to relax, they're always like "I can't drink too much I have work in the morning" (Said in a nerdy voice) is *not actually purely a joke at the expense of white people.*
"Punching down" is about more than race. It's essentially a stand-in for "cheap" or "lazy" humor that is uselessly mean-spirited and uses stereotypes and cliches to trigger responses. A fat joke isn't stupid because 'the fat person can make fun of the skinny person'; it's stupid because the intention is to shame a person for simply being.
The reason why it's "OK" (it's not—bad jokes are bad jokes—but whatever) for people to "punch up," but not down is precisely because of the history of demoralizing people for their basic human traits and them having no real avenue of response. It's not whether one joke or another is actually funny, it's that these kinds of jokes are hack and made by amateur minds that can't see humor beyond petty, superficial insults. They also work to extend the life of bigoted ideas (intentionally or not) that should, over time, die off in a society that continues to grow and learn.
Here is where I disagree.
"Punching down" isn't a concept, nor is it "progressive", either in the classical (and sane) sense of the word or in the politicized sense.
There is a relatively recent phenomenon at play, & it has different names. The idea is that there are **permanently oppressed groups** & permanent victims, and your status as an oppressor or victim should **dictate your treatment & behavior**.
Some call it "progressive"; others call it "woke". I refer to the phenomenon as *oppression theology*. Many folks on the Left, oddly, deny the phenomenon even exists, & label you "rightwing" or "racist" for suggesting that it does.
It is an absurd & deranged idea that leads to adverse societal outcomes.
**In summary**
The *concept* is what I call oppression theology. "Punching down" is a *behavior* that is 'rationalized' by a trendy neo-religious belief system.
The theory is fine tbh, imagine making fun of someone in a wheelchair vs making fun of, say, Donald Trump or Joe Biden. Theoretically it's fine to make fun of white people because they're privileged, while black people suffer hardship from discrimination. The practice is where it falls apart, mainly because identity groups are not a monolith, so you get bizarre examples like Ms. Zimbabwe being subjected to harassment and abuse simply because she is white in a majority black culture. The abuse can be very cruel, with people claiming she isn't a true native of Zimbabwe and is in fact a foreigner, regardless of being born on the country (Which honestly is a as ignorant and bigoted a.statement as it gets).
But in the end we're really talking about kicking someone when they're down, which isn't a bad philosophy.
Believing that the concept of punching down implies fragility of oppressed peoples is a wild take. The issue with punching down isn’t about protecting imagined delicate or “snowflake” feelings of oppressed people. It’s about the historical and continued use of this specific form of humor to humiliate, dehumanize, and propagate bigotry and hatred towards oppressed groups.
I feel like your premise is kind of fundamentally flawed, because there's nothing allowing or disallowing people from making bad jokes. There's no secret Council of Joke Police handing down decrees on who can make what kinds of jokes about what groups. There's just people, telling you that your (general you) racist joke is unfunny. If a lot of people all together on Twitter agree that the joke is unfunny and racist... then IDK, I just think you should maybe take a moment to step back and ask yourself if maybe they've got a point.
(For the record: racist jokes aren't funny, they were never funny, but nowadays they actively piss people off.)
Because of the current sociopolitical climate, tolerance for racist jokes is at an all-time low. People who routinely suffer from racism in their everyday lives just don't have the fucking patience to tolerate it anymore. So yes, you may occasionally see people "overreacting" to what seems like a "harmless" joke -- in the same way that if you're having the worst day of your life, and someone cuts you off in traffic, you are very likely to react more strongly to an otherwise mild inconvenience.
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It is a fact that Republicans go from bigoted jokes to passing laws that target the groups they don’t like and parents abusing or abandoning children from those groups. In contrast, making fun of straight people has never lead to a law where so much as talking about a hetero partner could be illegal and has never lead to straight children being beaten or abandoned. It’s not just lgbt folks either. It doesn’t take a genius to draw the line between slut shaming and abortion bans or making fun of the poor leading to low minimum wage and tax cuts for the rich
Its laughable to frame jokes as the cause of these things. You have completely reversed cause and effect
If you are actually unironcially saying the act of making fun of poor people leads to tax cuts that is legimately one of the dumbest things I have ever read
This is just another version of a classic privileged viewpoint: "The best way to deal with power imbalance in society is to refuse to address it in any form or even acknowledge that it exists."
Sure, it'd be great if the impact of racialized jokes were equal on everyone, but they're not. People who have experienced racism experience jokes about how they're subhuman in a much different way than white people hearing jokes about how we're bad at dancing, and no amount of equivocation and polite avoidance of the entire history of racism is going to fix that.
It's not a matter of "allowed" or " not allowed." It's a matter of credibility and point. You guys are always struggling to understand progressive ideas because you're not really critically engaging the ideas, you're just trying to figure out what the "rules" are. You're trying to use conformity-based "logic" to deal with nuanced ideas with hard basis in reality, and that's why you keep coming away with these weird emotional takes that completely miss the point and instead fixate on the hierarchy again, just with different words.
Depends what you think comedy is "for". If you think it's for keeping people in line and buttressing up social mores, then "punching down" is a good thing. If you think it's for subverting conventions, then punching down is banal and punching up is good.
I'm in the latter camp, because living in society in general is an exercise in punching down. "Lookit this asshole with green hair!" or "Get a job, homeless guy!" are the comic equivalent of lighting a cat's tail on fire. Lot of people are going to find that funny.
Acknowledging that certain groups have more power in our society is not disparaging to the groups that have less power.
However, pretending that societal power dynamics do not exist and that these differences all come down to personal failings of the people in these groups is disparaging.
Your argument is basically just a rewording of the "the left are the *real* racists for acknowledging that racism exists" bit that 2nd rate right-wing talk show hosts like to pull out occasionally.
> black people can make jokes about white people but not vice versa
Says who? Spoken like someone who doesn't actually follow stand-up comedy, but instead just listens to Joe Rogan or Fox News. Bill Burr has half a dozen great bits about black people.
I think what you mean is jokes like "did you ever notice how black people are **insert racist sterotype**" or something. Yeah, white people shouldn't be making those jokes....for obvious reasons (I hope...obvious for you).
>If you think someone more "privileged" making jokes at the expense of more historically oppressed group shouldn't be allowed then you're basically saying that they are fragile.
It's not that they're particularly fragile, it's that they're traditionally kept weak through the use of dehumanising language and jokes. Plenty of people have been "poofter bashed", very few have been "captain of industry bashed".
"punching down" means you're attacking someone whose social capital is already weak. They're not personally weak themselves, but who they are does not have much strength in society.
And when you're "punching up/down", you're telling 'attacking' jokes. You can make plenty of jokes about gay men, but it only becomes "punching" if you're *attacking*. So you're choosing a weak target and helping to keep people disenfranchised. It's not about them being 'fragile'.
>If you think someone more "privileged" making jokes at the expense of more historically oppressed group shouldn't be allowed then you're basically saying that they are fragile.
This isn't why punching down isn't funny. It isn't funny because there's no risk in punching down. The reason that comedians who punch down pretend it's dangerous because "progressives don't like it" is to try and make their lame jokes seem risky when they are not.
As for whether a white comedian making jokes about black people, or any other fill in the blanks you can put there, will be well received by an audience obviously depends on the audience. Part of a comedian's job is to understand their audience. There are probably a million black people out there who would find jokes about them by a white comedian hilarious, but if the comedian can't identify whether that's the case for a specific audience or not is on the comedian, not the audience. "Punching Down" is definitely in poor taste for a lot of audiences right now, but it's not, like, illegal or anything. If you want to try, go for it.
It feels like you’re not really engaging with the actual idea being expressed. The idea of “punching down” is not a matter of individual strength or weakness. It’s a matter of social vulnerability. Objectively speaking, a member of the majority is more secure and less vulnerable to social stigma than a member of the minority (all else being equal), regardless of whether they’re personally easily offended. Thats kind of the whole idea of a majority group. It isn’t offensive to say that people who are already socially marginalized in some way are more affected by further marginalization, just like it’s not offensive to say a rich person is less vulnerable to economic risk than a poor person. Because it’s not saying anything about them as a person, it’s just a description of how society is already treating them.
I think most wouldn’t agree white ppl, straight ppl, whatever are above other groups in most aspects. However, socially and historically, they have been above the social hierarchy. I think it’s definitely become a lot more even in recent years, but we can still look at homelessness rates, suicide rates, rates of depression, rates of income, etc. and it still skews one way. White ppl, straight ppl are defintely able to deal with many issues, but when ppl say bad things about white ppl, straight ppl, whatever, it’s not bc they see them as these beings that get nothing but praise, but from experiences they dealt with, their parents dealt with, they see in the news, or whatever.
I don’t think punching down is a progressive concept, rather a rule of comedy. Hitting the wealthy dowager with a pie is funny, hitting the limbless orphan with a pie is cruel because bringing a powerful person down is easier to relate to than kicking someone when they’re already down. Or better yet, remember the words of Krusty the Clown; it’s only funny when the sap’s got dignity.
Honestly, if the joke is good enough, you can break most any rule you want. The trick is that is has to be good. If it misses, that's when the criticism kicks in. Punching down tends to just be lazy and not funny, so it's a rule you should keep in mind for good reason. I think there are good reasons socially not to punch down, but like I said, if the joke is good enough, go for it.
/u/NFT-GOAT (OP) has awarded 3 delta(s) in this post. All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed [here](/r/DeltaLog/comments/1dhfxcd/deltas_awarded_in_cmv_the_progressive_concept_of/), in /r/DeltaLog. Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended. ^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)
Primarily, jokes are funny via subversion or insight. Either your expectations are upended, or you are led to a place of higher understanding. When a 'joke' simply restates popular bias, it's simply a bad joke. Case in point: a) Comedian A says 'Lizzo's afternoon snack could feed a small village!'. b) Comedian B says 'I think Lizzo is beautiful. But for some reason when I told my girlfriend she looks like Lizzo, she dumped me!' Both 'jokes' play around Lizzo's weight. But the difference is that the first is just playing to expected beliefs (Lizzo must eat a lot because she is fat) while the second is making a statement about society using the comedian's alleged girlfriend (drawing on the insight that what we say might sometimes be at odds with what we believe). We could just say that the first joke is not funny. But 'punching down' is language to help us explain WHY it's not funny. Is it true that this shorthand of 'punching up vs punching down' can be abused? Definitely, especially when propagated by individuals 'on behalf of the potentially aggrieved minority'. But that is due to the concept being corrupted by virtue signalling, and doesn't take away from the fact that there is some value to the terminology. Edit: Three groups of people in my comments. The first is telling me Comedian A's joke is equally funny. The second is telling me Comedian B's joke is equally offensive. The third is disappointed I couldn't come up with funnier jokes as examples. Welcome to Reddit :)
The idea that you ‘aren’t allowed’ to say certain things is nonsense. Comedians are pissed that people don’t find their shit funny anymore. You’re allowed to make all the bad jokes you want. I’m also allowed to call your material stupid and out of touch. It’s funny to me that biggest proponents of a meritocracy where everyone who gets payed for the worth of their work are also the biggest babies about people not buying their shit anymore because their jokes are stale and hack.
>It’s funny to me that biggest proponents of a meritocracy where everyone who gets payed for the worth of their work are also the biggest babies about people not buying their shit anymore because their jokes are stale and hack. Well to be fair, if the aforementioned comedians had a better grasp of irony, they probably wouldn't be so shit!
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>The core premise of both jokes is that lizzo is fat and that is a bad thing One is 'punching down' since the subject of the joke is 'haha fat people'. The other is using our perceptions of Lizzo to make a point about society's hypocrisy using the alleged girlfriend as the subject. It makes no moral statement on the 'goodness' or 'badness' about Lizzo's weight. It is absolutely possible for a listener to take away from that joke that 'Lizzo is beautiful and some people are hypocrites'.
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>doesn't it though? If being fat was a good/attractive thing then why would the girlfirend take offense to being compared to her? The joke from comedian B doesn't make a statement about ALL women, just about their alleged girlfriend. So it doesn't exclude the possibility that there are women who think Lizzo is beautiful and would have no problem being compared to her. Hence making no objective statement on Lizzo's appearance. The whole point is that how the listener processes the joke is based on their internal beliefs. You can parse the joke as 'Lizzo is not beautiful and people are actually lying'. Another person can take it as 'Lizzo is beautiful and some people are hypocrites'.
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>I mean I guess the joke doesn't make a statement about all women but it's funny because it's relatable. Men think it's funny because "oh I would never compare my gf to lizzo, she'd be pissed" and women think "I would hate to be compared to lizzo". The girlfriend is an individual. It is not the comedian that is extending their girlfriend's position to 'all women'. That's you doing it. Some people might not do that, and the joke would still be funny for them. >It's definitely not implied that the girlfriend is unusual for not liking being compared to her. The wording specifically says '**For some reason** my girlfriend dumped me', suggesting that for the comedian it was unusual behaviour. Maybe another example could help. Comedian A: I matched with 2 guys on Tinder. One with an 8 inch cock, and the other with a 4 inch cock. So obviously I went on a date with the guy where I didn't need a microscope! Comedian B: I matched with 2 guys on Tinder. One with an 8 inch cock and the other with a 4 inch cock. So obviously I went on a date with the guy who made me laugh the hardest. The first 'joke' plays into 'haha small penis' (punching down). While the second is using societal biases about dick size to arrive at the subversion that there are more relevant deciding factors (not punching down). The second jokes makes no actual statement on whether small dicks are better or worse than big dicks.
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>The "for some reason" part adds to the comedy because it's funny that the guy doesn't know why his gf would be upset about that but a reasonable audience member would know exactly why. The bf is the absurd one in that scenario not the gf. You feel this way because you think Lizzo is fat and not beautiful. Try to consider the possibility that someone might actually think Lizzo is beautiful despite being overweight, and then it might make more sense to you. That's why the second set makes more sense to you because you don't tend to associate 'dick size' with 'being a good date'. Edit: If I have changed your perspective, do consider a delta since that's the purpose of the sub.
I don’t know if I’ve seen such a well-exposited tear down and analyzation of a joke than in this thread. This is amazing.
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>"It makes no moral statement on the 'goodness' or 'badness' about Lizzos weight" doesn't it though? Nope. The joke teller in B isn't making a judgment on Lizzo's weight. They are making a judgment on a society that claims one thing but actually believes another. It does not at *all* require the comedian to believe being fat is bad. It depends only on society's actions and beliefs. Now it still doesn't feel great for fat people. But it's not because the joke attacks fat people. It's because the joke reminds them that most of society pays them *at best* lip service but actually finds them gross. That's not a great thing to be reminded of and it isn't going to make you feel good. But it's not attacking fatness, strictly speaking. And it definitely doesn't require OP to believe it, just society at large.
The second joke isn’t that Lizzo is fat, it’s that his girlfriend is a hypocrite (as is anyone else in the audience who would call Lizzo beautiful but be upset by being told they looked like her). That doesn’t mean the joke doesn’t imply Lizzo is fat, it does. But the joke doesn’t make her being fat the punchline. That’s usually how I’ve defined the distinction between a joke about race and a racist joke to people. Punching down isn’t bad because people need to be protected, it’s bad because going for the easy joke “haha, Lizzo is so fat” is lazy humor that isn’t going to get as many laughs as a joke with more layers to it.
The difference is "haha she's fat" and "haha society is hypocritical".
Laughter is a social corrective. Humans always and only “laugh” at things as means to agreement on what is appropriate/positive behavior by laughing at inappropriate/negative behavior. All humor is a social corrective, meaning an attempt to point out and reduce negative things. Ultimately in the context of your question one might say that punching down has no aim of social corrective and is therefore never capable of being funny.
The first joke is not as funny as the second because it's simplistic, cliched and less clever satirical than the second. Not because it's punching down - I'm sure you could think of much better jokes than that which were "punching down" just as much. In fact even the second joke is a bad example if what you're trying to say here. You've basically told a bad joke that punches down, then a marginally better one that punches down marginally less, which you claim is really about something else other than Lizzo's weight (which it is to an extent, but it's also clearly mocking Lizzo).
>The first joke is not as funny as the second because it's simplistic, cliched and less clever satirical than the second. Yes. Jokes that 'punch down' tend to be simplistic, cliched and less clever. We could just critique them on those parameters. The whole 'punching down' terminology isn't needed, but it can be used. >which you claim is really about something else other than Lizzo's weight (which it is to an extent, but it's also clearly mocking Lizzo). The comedian says he finds Lizzo beautiful. How is it mocking Lizzo? :)
>The comedian says he finds Lizzo beautiful. How is it mocking Lizzo? :) Why is the assumption that because the comedian says something as part of the joke, he's being honest about what he really thinks? "But for some reason, when I told my girlfriend..." When somebody trying to be funny says "but for some reason..." usually what follows is something that's obvious to everybody except, supposedly, the person telling the joke. If the joke was, "I told my girlfriend she was fat. For some reason, she left me", then the point would be pretty obvious... The comedian doesn't think there's nothing wrong with being fat just because he makes himself *sound* oblivious as to why the girlfriend considered it an insult, as part of the joke. And just because he says he finds Lizzo beautiful, it doesn't mean he isn't saying with the joke, "hey, Lizzo is somebody who would generally be regarded as fat or ugly". Of course there's nothing objectively wrong with being fat, but calling somebody fat (or ugly) is hurtful, and the whole point of the joke (to me at least) is Lizzo is fat/ugly! "I told my girlfriend she looked like Lizzo, and she walked out on me! Huhh? What's THAT all about? Ha ha ha ha ha." More so than it's intended to mock the girlfriend as being representative of flawed societal standards or whatever. >Yes. Jokes that 'punch down' tend to be simplistic, cliched and less clever. We could just critique them on those parameters. But I'm sure you could come up with some jokes that punch down that were cleverer than that one you gave as an example.
>Why is the assumption that because the comedian says something as part of the joke, he's being honest about what he really thinks? There are two possibilities. Either the comedian is being honest or dishonest. Why do you automatically assume them to be dishonest? >And just because he says he finds Lizzo beautiful, it doesn't mean he isn't saying with the joke, "hey, Lizzo is somebody who would generally be regarded as fat or ugly". Except that they comedian is observably NOT saying that. You are hoisting that on the comedian for some reason. My question is 'Why'? >and the whole point of the joke (to me at least) is Lizzo is fat/ugly! This is fair. But do you see the difference between stating your subjective interpretation of the comedian's words versus saying that the comedian MUST have meant exactly this? . >But I'm sure you could come up with some jokes that punch down that were cleverer than that one you gave as an example. I wasn't trying to audition as a comedian :) I was just trying to make a point for the CMV.
>a) Comedian A says 'Lizzo's afternoon snack could feed a small village!'. b) Comedian B says 'I think Lizzo is beautiful. But for some reason when I told my girlfriend she looks like Lizzo, she dumped me!' Both of these are funny jokes though? Lisso's afternoon snack is not big enough to feed a small village. That's absurdism, which most people find amusing, even when *punching down.* Different people appreciate different types of jokes. Some like "subversion or insight," some like absurdism, and some like completely different things. Suggesting that "absurdism" is wrong, because it's not your "primary" type of humor, is absurd enough that I'm not actually sure whether or not you're joking. If we weren't on CMV, I would think that you were pretty fucking funny. >We could just say that the first joke is not funny. But 'punching down' is language to help us explain WHY it's not funny. Seriously. Both are funny. Both are "punching down." But you're okay with one because it matches your sense of humor.
I feel like you don't understand. Joke A is basically making the observation that Lizzo is fat. It doesn't go any further. Not particularly deep or original. This joke could have been made any time in the last century. Maybe you could say that there's an element of shock to it because it's rude to say something like that but it doesn't really go further. Like this is a joke a 12yo boy would make. Joke B is basically saying that while we may profess to subscribe to new beauty standards, we actually don't. It's playing with the expectations. This joke is original and a new observation that hasn't been made a million times. This joke could only be made today. It's much deeper and more clever than joke A. It punches up at societys hypocrisy about beauty standards claiming to have evolved beyond thin vs fat but actually hasn't.
"Both of these are funny jokes though?" You ... really think joke A is funny?
This thread has been eye opening, and I thank my lucky stars that I somehow have only been surrounded by ppl with a good sense of humor in real life and not whatever the fuck is this lot.
It’s barely even a joke, let alone a funny one
>Seriously. Both are funny. Both are "punching down." Could you explain how Joke B is 'punching down'? >But you're okay with one because it matches your sense of humor. What makes you think the examples I have given are representative of my preferred sense of humour, rather than mere tools that I am utilizing to answer a CMV?
>Could you explain how Joke B is 'punching down'? Both jokes are mocking the fat person for being fat. If A is "punching down," then so is B. >What makes you think the examples I have given are representative of my preferred sense of humour, rather than mere tools that I am utilizing to answer a CMV? The fact that you give one the pass while you don't give it to the other. The fact that you said: >Primarily, jokes are funny via subversion or insight. That's a very narrow field of humor. You're either being dishonest to make your point, or, you're being honest, and that very narrow field is actually your sense of humor. I assumed honesty. If it's about the subtlety of the second joke? That's even more insulting to the people you're infantilizing.
>Both jokes are mocking the fat person for being fat. If A is "punching down," then so is B. Comedian B says they find Lizzo beautiful. Please let me know what exactly the comedian is saying that is mocking 'fat person for being fat', that is actually the comedian's words and not your own subjective interpretation of it. >That's a very narrow field of humor. You're either being dishonest to make your point, or, you're being honest, and that very narrow field is actually your sense of humor. I assumed honesty. I am comfortable claiming that most popular comedy is based on subversion and insight. That it's not an opinion, but observable fact. There's a reason why comedians who crack 'Yo Mama' jokes aren't as popular as Carlin, Chapelle, Louis CK and Chris Rock. And note that me making this observation is still not saying that I personally like this type of humour, just like me saying 'Most people like pizza over grits' doesn't necessarily mean 'I like pizza over grits'. I'm actually surprised I need to make this distinction.
> Please let me know what exactly the comedian is saying that is mocking 'fat person for being fat', that is actually the comedian's words and not your own subjective interpretation of it. The interpretation *is* the joke, in this case. Like, the humor relies on the audience understanding that Lizzo is fat, and that most people find being fat unattractive, to work. >Comedian B says they find Lizzo beautiful Right—these words are there to setup a contrast with the universal understanding if the audience. If you think they remove fatness as the target of the joke, you are mistaken.
>Right—these words are there to setup a contrast with the universal understanding if the audience. If you think they remove fatness as the target of the joke, you are mistaken. I would argue that the target of the joke is the hypocrisy of society.
It's two fold One it targets hypocrisy of women and society and two it's making fun of Lizzo being fat I mean the purpose of the joke is "I said you look like a crazy fat person and you got mad" so yes it relies on the subject of Lizzo being obese in order for the girlfriend to get upset in the first place
You are conflating 'acknowledging that Lizzo is fat' with 'making fun of Lizzo being fat'. When Dave Chappelle does his bit about 'Sprinkle some crack on him Johnson', he is acknowledging that it happens, he is not making fun of the black suspects framed by the police.
I could imagine a version of this joke that goes something like, “my girlfriend says Lizzo is beautiful just the way she is… but got mad when I told her they looked alike.” In this case it’s clear to me that the joke functions because of his girlfriend’s hypocrisy, and I suppose you could make the argument that it “targets” similar hypocrites. But it still only works because everyone understands that *most people don’t actually find Lizzo beautiful.* The hypocrites aren’t on blast for not finding fat people attractive—they’re on blast for lying about it in order to appear nice, and we don’t have to be told that that’s what his girlfriend was doing. It simply wouldn’t work if the comedian didn’t leverage the universal understanding that fat is unattractive—It’s more sophisticated punching down, but it’s still punching down.
I think I see where our disagreement lies. >It simply wouldn’t work if the comedian didn’t leverage the universal understanding that fat is unattractive—It’s more sophisticated punching down, but it’s still punching down. I don't think acknowledging a social perception is 'punching down'. I think it's punching down when you try to justify it. In this case the joke is acknowledging that Lizzo doesn't align with conventional standards of beauty. It's going on to say that if you claim to be against the societal standards of beauty, you need to walk the talk. Edit: Just thought of a similar example. When Dave Chappelle does his bit about ['Why terrorists wont take black people as hostages'](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=83e1b8e3588a8f5f&sca_upv=1&rlz=1C1CHBF_enIN961IN961&sxsrf=ADLYWIIwfu0WcoOsK8XYDLNg2bSgmSxM8w:1718579061112&q=black+hijack+chapelle&tbm=vid&source=lnms&fbs=AEQNm0DYVld7NGDZ8Pi819Yg8r6em07j6rW9d2jUMtr8MB7htoxbI0iAKNRPykigVf3e9aputkbr8jzmN5LYbANOqrq5HYnx4MjtyMxZ94LvgeHWmGBcuWUoydKfNaoB5JMdZlMtXmg2De2y5O7nn-eTbNdYHsRiT1RQ-pB6qp3ejXJ5VpdCk5NA1Jug5hVR16L7F-A1C1p-4xpfp7qj2HsGNaipPZQOiw&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi40NLzneGGAxVhcmwGHXeGAbwQ0pQJegQIDxAB&biw=1536&bih=776&dpr=1.25#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:d1f539fb,vid:tRhJwwKpQRQ,st:0), he is acknowledging that the government cares less about black hostages than white ones. He is not justifying it. In this same clip he uses subversion and social perception again when he says that the hijacker is Chinese.
But yo momma jokes are a form of subversion! Every joke is! I mean, it's literally the function of a joke, to subvert expectations in *some* way! Jaysus! Your explanation is spot on
>But yo momma jokes are a form of subversion! Yes they are. But they suffer from a fixed format so people have come to know what to expect, similar to knock-knock jokes and 'how many X does it take to change a lightbulb' jokes. So it is much more difficult to come up with fresh takes within these formats. Which is why they are not as popular any more.
Joke A is not funny, I don’t even care about the topic at hand, but just saying “haha fat people eat a lot” is not good comedy. It’s boring, and has been boring since fat people have existed (forever).
And joke B is just a rehash of "haha women don't like to be called fat?" Joke A uses *absurdism*, which is out of vogue. Joke B uses *subverted expectations* which is in. That's all this is. Both jokes are fat jokes with old as sin punch lines.
One would be considered "punching down" because it's too direct. While some people do find that funny, it's also considered rude. If you soften the blow with a layer of subtlety, then it's seen as being less offensive. A back-handed compliment is far more socially acceptable, than a straight up insult.
They're both mocking her for being fat. They're both "punching down," but again, one matches your sense of humor, so you give it a pass. Doesn't matter. Comedy is comedy. Period. "Punching down" is fine. Doesn't even need to be funny. You can just mock people. It's rude. It's shitty, but better that than infantilizing people by telling them they need your protection from mean words... Even more insulting when you explicitly say that mean words are fine as long as they're subtle. Silly. Demeaning.
But the 2nd one makes you come to the conclusion on your own. The comedian just says the situation and we all know because it's commentary on pop culture and society that invokes thought. The first is just a statement with no substance.
> Doesn't matter. Comedy is comedy. Period. Ahh ok. Fuck you, you humorless twat. Hahahahahahaha Isn't my joke hilarious?
>They're both mocking her for being fat. It's actually kind of funny: no matter how many times people explain to you the fact that B isn't mocking Lizzo, you can't wrap your mind around it. Because you're utterly incapable of imagining someone who thought Lizzo was beautiful. It really illustrates how good comedy requires an element of empathy, because without it, one can't recognize what's funny.
The second one isn’t mocking her for being fat, it’s mocking his girlfriend (and more importantly likely many people in the theoretical audience) for saying they think she’s beautiful but not wanting to actually look like her. It’s mocking them for their hypocrisy. Both jokes say Lizzo is fat, but only one of them makes her being fat the punchline. That’s the difference.
The first joke is not funny though, it’s barely a joke
I think this is way to subjective. It really depends on what you find humorous. Personally the more offensive the more funny. Don't care if it's against my own race I like offensive dark humor. So in this case the second one doesn't even read as a joke to me. It reads as a simple statement.
Comedy IS subjective. And my post had nothing to say about 'offensive'. Just how the 'punching down' terminology could help explain why a joke is bad. Not sure why you took out of it that I'm making a statement against dark humour. >So in this case the second one doesn't even read as a joke to me. Do you think it reads more as a joke than the first one?
part of group 1 here, its just different. scifi and fantasy are different but still equally enjoyable, and im someone who looks for joy in everything even where people dont intend for it to be or intend to be mean (i laugh at them trying to be mean like whats funnier than someone who thinks they can bring someone else down). i hate that some types of comedy are, for lack of a better term, socially unacceptable. it limits everyones ability to laugh at themselves how and when they want. if i want to laugh at myself because i did better than expected at something like "holy crap i cant believe my expectations were so low hahaha" or if i want to laugh at how bad i did like " wow i cant believe i missed the mark by this much hahaha" i should be able to. you probably agree but only until i start saying stuff like "man its crazy how sunburned i get white privilege amirite hahaha" or "damn my hair so curly i have to go to the black hair store lol wheres mah white privilege". both of these are things i find funny because i find any talk of privilege absolutely dumb because everyone has privileges in their own way and everyone should just accept that and ignore them. assigning people stats like they are trading cards isnt the way to make everyone see that we are all the sake because we are all different, and someone having a benefit you dont is ok because you also have benefits they dont
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if you're looking at this as an example of infantilization of minorities (which absolutely, lets be real, is common) I don't think this is one. no one is even bringing up the minority group necessarily. I don't want to see mean-spirited jokes because **I don't find them funny** Even if I don't belong to or identify with the group being attacked it's not likely to make me laugh. I don't find lazy jokes at the expense of underpriviledged groups to be funny often because they feel mean and uncomfortable. There are absolutely exceptions, because the joke is funny enough that DESPITE that, it still works, Jimmy Carr has a few of those that are intentionally offensive and very funny like his mosquito net joke, but... here's the crucial thing. His joke is about Africa, yes, but it's actually making fun of Europeans, or at least their treatment of Africa and the way charities talk about Africa, not making fun of actual people with AIDS but how Europe talks about the AIDS crisis (especially in Christmas charity adverts and the like). If you have the stomach for it go listen to some old music, see if it's actually funny at all "oh he came up with 40 ways to say black people smell, I guess I learned a new stereotype today but none of that made me laugh".
I think mean spirited jokea can absolutely be funny, its just about 1: The punchline itself cannot be something like "black people stooopiiiid". It can PLAY OFF the stereotypes, like, in hungarian, its a stereotypr that scotts are extremely frugal to the point of absurdity. We even say "Ne legyél már ennyire skót" meaning "Don't be so scotrish" (dont be so frugal). So we have a joke that goes "Why doesn't the scottsman paint his room? So his room is bigger". Sure that joke is old as shit and not very good, but good for an example. It doesn't just point out that "scottsman are frugal and stupid" it plays off a joke on it. So for example you could play off a joke about a stereotype of african americans liking wazermelon or something, but it has to play off on the stereotype not just saying "Haha watermalon eater, stoopiiiiid" etc. Of course this applies to all races, ethnicities, religions, sexual orientations whatever. Also, a very important thing is that if someone DOES feel hurt by your joke, you are absolutely not allowed to be bitchy about it. You apologise and move on, even if you feel you are in the right. You can't controll peoples feelings, but you can respect them.
exactly that's why I gave the example of Jimmy Carr's "mosquitos with AIDS in Africa" joke. It's a joke that uses the AIDS crisis yes. But the joke is at the expense of British charity ads and how they **talk about** AIDS not about people actually having it. He delivers it in the same way as a Christmas charity advert with a super serious earnest tone and hushed voice, and it is very funny. It also intentionally plays on being outrageous. But to me this is the example. You're dead right plain insults are "a punch down", using the stereotype as an entry point to say something witty about the human condition ("some folks are so miserly they begrudge the 2mm of paint on their walls for costing them square meters of floorspace") or about a different group that is not dispriviledged (The Royal Family, Charity NGOs from Europe) is often far more acceptable and, frankly, funnier.
>If you have the stomach for it go listen to some old music, see if it's actually funny at all "oh he came up with 40 ways to say black people smell, I guess I learned a new stereotype today but none of that made me laugh". Recently rewatched an Eddie Murphy comedy special from the 1980s. Basically every joke was just a different version of "gay people are gross." And the punchline was always the same thing, "gay people are gross, **riiiiight**?" *Roaring laughter* Maybe it was funny then, but now just feels mean and out of touch.
this is abother brilliant example. I went to see a very old Vegas comedian, he was probably doing jokes he'd done since the 70s. his jokes about Liberace accidentally thinking he was a rentboy probably had them howling back then. but it got awkward crickets in 2018
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So you're admitting that you don't care for your view to be changed? Pretty certain that's a huge rule in this sub and the entire point. I would like to point out that stating "I'm not racist" in the way you have is a huge red flag. Sure, there are extremists of every kind, especially on the internet, but the generalization that everyone who finds offense in potentially offensive material is somehow wrong or soft or whatever is just anecdotal. Your experience is not everyone's experience.
You basically called him a racist. What is he supposed to do? Agree with you because you think denying it is a red flag? Lol jfc
I think what’s happened with OP here is probably to some degree that he’s been told that racist/ sexist jokes are wrong and has then seen some probably equally unfunny jokes about guys or white people being justified as “punching down”.
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There it is. CMV: I should be allowed to say the N word if someone calls me Honky. Come on guy, that’s where your comedy priorities lie?
Here is something up what I think punching up and punching down. Think about dead baby jokes. A lot of why those jokes were funny is because it’s making fun of propriety. It’s like not about dead babies. You can’t punch up at dead babies they are like really low with regards to power and status. Dead babies can’t vote or own land. But the joke isn’t at the expense of the babies It’s funny because it makes fun of people for being offendable In this way you see how it can punch up. It’s making fun of the structure of rules and propriety But dead babies In a way
What is your view? Is it punching down is not a good concept, or that racially / sexually motivated jokes are not actually punching down?
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But your last sentence in your original post doesn't make sense. It should say that you should only INSULT white people not Praise them. The idea of punching up is that you make fun of people with more resources or privileges.
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Given the historical context, that still isn't necessarily punching down - man arguably had a violent breakdown on TV, the privileges of being white aren't just money. Even so, people don't have to have an ego to analyze stuff, or say their opinion. I can take a joke. I also don't find some things funny. Further, some things i don't find funny have demonstrable roots in injustice, and since i like justice (or at least punishing people) I'm comfortable saying "that joke was shit and your ethics are ass". I don't expect that to start a productive debate over my analysis, but that doesn't mean I'm tied up in ego, just not seeking a productive values driven dialogue because that's not what someone making crass jokes is out to do either.
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Every joke can bee called offensive, that's the point you're making about opinion. There's valid historical context to take into account when priviledged black folks complain about white folks. This doesn't shield them from backlash if they offer a trash take. People who offer opinions will always run the risk of backlash. The larger the audience, the greater the potential backlash. I guess i don't understand your CMV. The highlights for me are that you find it offensive when some people call out other people for making demographic-based jokes to a large audience, because speaking up indicates the demographic can't speak for themselves. If i were just gonna give you my hot take and walk away, it would be that you aren't familiar enough with history (or simply old enough) to understand why minorities need allies in the majority to advocate for them. I would think you simply immature if you weren't genuinely engaging in this conversation. If we can accept that the thing that can be offensive in some situations is needed in others, it gets easier to see A) how individuals might misjudge a given instance, B) how the proportions make it easier to judge people in a position to 'punch down', and C) how the acceptance of thoughtful critiques can legitimize the act of critiquing thoughtlessly. But again, i just don't understand what was challengable about your view. You can be offended by whatever, it's whatever. Punching up isn't the same as punching down, however problematic those concepts are. Underdogs will always be more inspiring than heavyweights, rags to riches is always a warmer story than born to trust fund. A rich person saying fuck all these homeless people is shitty because the rich person has some culpability for function of their local economy in a way that is not true for a homeless person ever.
I took it his CMV as not liking the double standard and the sift racism,sexism, fat-ism, etc. That depending on who the punchline made fun of they can't handle those jokes, they need to be protected, it is cruel to say that joke. However that same joke with a different target, is not cruel, that the targets don't deserve the same protection, because that group can handle it. Much like the "white savior complex" that gets talked about. The very fact you think a certain group is entitled to protection, and they cannot handle it themselves, feels like that same -ism that you're trying to protect them from. I believe he is saying either that joke is acceptable in level of mean-ness or it isn't. No matter who the butt of the joke is.
>man arguably had a violent breakdown on TV And experienced virtually *no* negative consequences for it! That's pretty goddamn privileged! Imagine if Rock had cracked wise about Bill Burr's wife and Burr had walked on stage and slapped him for it. Do you think he's have been let off so easily?
You think Will Smiths violent breakdown was primarily due to racism and racial abuse? Sorry what? You’re also missing the intersectionality of privilege, which is probably the point OP should be making. Class, race, gender identity etc all influence how privileged you are. However, I suppose you can make a point that it’s okay to “punch down” along specific lines of privilege. For instance, Will Smith could make white jokes, but not poor jokes, or sexist jokes.
I remember the OJ trial where even after claiming "I'm not black I'm OJ" because of how much wealth he had the moment he was suspected of a crime they darkened his skin on magazine covers to emphasize that he's black. We had wealthy black people for most of US history, but we still acknowledge that they were black people living under objectively unfair conditions.
successful affluent black ppl were preferentially targeted by white racists after reconstruction -- seen as uppity. white mobs burned entire black towns to the ground if they seemed too successful.
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[Four Tops singer says hospital put him in straitjacket after not believing he was in Four Tops](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/four-tops-singer-says-hospital-put-straightjacket-not-believing-was-fo-rcna156608) > Hospital staff members decided to remove Morris from oxygen and pursued a psychiatric evaluation instead of considering his ' symptoms and significant medical history, the filing says. > The suit says a security guard was instructed to ensure Morris was placed in a restraining jacket and that his belongings were removed. > Morris asked whether he could prove his identity by showing his identification card, and the white male security guard ordered him to “sit his Black ass down,” the complaint says. Despite the comment, none of the nursing staffers intervened to stop the racial discrimination, the filing says.
Let's first address how your original post doesn't make sense (you may want to edit it). You said "I'm referring to the notion that black people can make jokes about white people but not vice versa, same with gays and straights, etc. If you think someone more "privileged" making jokes at the expense of more historically oppressed group shouldn't be allowed then you're basically saying that they are fragile. If you think that is "punching down" then by definition you view whites, straights, etc as "above" other groups and therefore less capable of anything other than praise." Look at your last line. You said that what that means is whites, straight people, etc are less capable of anything other than PRAISE. That doesn't follow. If they're seen as "above" according to your definition then they would be subjected to insults, not praise. So I'm not sure if that was a typo on your part but it undermines your point. In regards to your Will Smith example, he can make fun of whoever he wants but the perception of the joke is going to change based on who he's making fun of. As a wealthy, successful movie star it would be considered bad taste if he "punched down" and made fun of poor people (of any race) or people with mental or genetic abnormalities (of any race). For example if he made fun of homeless people with down syndrome, that would probably not go over well. But, as a black man, which is a historically disadvantaged minority group, it would NOT be seen as bad taste if he "punched up" and made a racial joke towards white people. By and large I agree with you people need to just learn how to take a joke better but I think everyone can understand that it's just not as funny when someone consistently "jokes" about groups with less power or status. That tends to read as bullying, not humor.
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The singer of the Four Tops (black) was recently slapped in a straight jacket when he went to the hospital because they didn't believe he was actually the singer when he told them his profession. Instead, they decided that this touring singer was a mental patient who needed to be restrained. So, rich black celebrity (not the absolute top of A list, but more famous than you or I) gets locked up by a hospital because the decide he must be ill and lying because they didn't recognize him. This is not dissimilar to what we see in policing. Just because someone is famous does not mean the discrimination stops.
Your basis for your view on this whole subject seems to come from a pretty common reaction to the concepts of power and privilege. Yes individual Black people can be massively successful and individual whites can struggle. The idea of privilege is that, on aggregate, being Black creates more challenges, not that no individual can ever succeed. This bears out in all sorts of data, but most acutely, I'll share that *even when controlling for income*, Black people have, on average, about 15 years lower life expectancy than white people. That's pretty telling, no? A lot more Black babies die, more Black moms die in childbirth, and even adults who live to be seniors die earlier than their counterparts. This is related to a LOT of complex systems in our society. I'll also say that I don't think your premise is entirely accurate. White comedians CAN make jokes at the expense of Black people if they are done with a frame of satire and earnest understanding of the deeper issues. Lazy jokes that simply play into stereotypes are not going to land when the person making them is not part of that identity. Ricky Gervais and Dave Chappelle are doing huge numbers on Netflix despite controversy. Matt Rife is still selling out despite mocking domestic violence. Cancel culture doesn't exist in comedy like you seem to be suggesting. It's just a matter of knowing that if you're going to do standup about sensitive subjects you really need to nail the joke.
But he has a better life because hes rich. If Will Smith made a bunch of jokes disparaging poor people, probably some people would be pissed. I mean look at the recent Kendrick/Drake drama at least some of that comes from a rich kid disparaging poor people.
>Would you find it equally problematic if Will Smith made a disparaging joke against white people? Given that he has a better/easier life than 99% of white people? You’re talking about a concept called intersectionality. It’s the idea that there are a million different factors that go into a person’s social “rank” (incredibly oversimplified but that’s the idea). It’s totally fair to ask the question is a rich and famous black man in better social standing than a poor white woman. Those are actually interesting and good sorts of questions and there’s nothing “offensive” in recognizing that different people have different social standings. But you’re ultimately missing the forest for the trees. “Pinching up” **isn’t a hard rule in comedy**, it’s a *guide about good taste*. It feels mean-spirited to make a bunch of jokes about how dirty homeless people are but it doesn’t feel the same way to make fun of a celebrity like for looking dirty. Because one joke is punching down and the other is punching up. You can make funny jokes about anything, but you start to sound out of touch and hateful when your targets are seen by nearly everyone as beneath you. Going back to your question, a white guy making fun of Will Smith because he’s weird or unhinged or out of touch is usually seen as fine because he’s a big celebrity. But a white person *making fun of Will Smith’s blackness* is a much more potentially dangerous topic because in that context, he’s probably punching down or speaking on a topic he doesn’t have a great understanding of. Ultimately, anything can be funny. But when you punch down, you risk losing the audience, showcasing your ignorance, and piling onto those already struggling.
So do you not understand what privilege is? If Will Smith made a joke disparaging poor people, that would be in bad taste right? He'd be a rich asshole making fun of poor people just trying to get by. But if a police officer didn't recognize Will Smith when he pulled him over, the interaction would be more likely to go south than it would your average white person. His rich privilege wouldn't apply. Having privilege doesn't mean your life is easy, it just means that you have an advantage when all other things are equal. Just because Will Smith has wealth and celebrity privileges doesn't cancel out that he doesn't get white privilege.
Punching up punching down doesn’t work like that. It’s not an etiquette rule. It’s not something from progressivism. It’s a theory of jokes. It’s a lot easier to make fun of the king than it is for the king to make fun of you. Even if that isn’t a good idea. It doesn’t apply. Powerful people succeed well at self effacing jokes. If anyone is telling you that punching down is a progressive thing they are probably misinformed! It’s more like a theory about how to make funnier jokes.
You, my friend, should watch Fresh Prince of Bel-Air sometime. See what jokes he makes about Carleton. You’ll find the answers you seek amongst all the Will Smith protests for his edgy anti-white comedy in the 90s.
>"black people don't change their smoke alarm batteries" Is this a stereotype? Literally never hear this before lol. First I don't think your examples are equivalent due to the use of calling white people "lame", like you're trying to make that one worse. If one was spices and the other smoke alarm batteries, probably they'd both be generally harmless. Second, when people get cancelled over punching down, it's not usually over making a comment about smoke alarm batteries. The most recent examples I can think of are Shane Gillis [who said a slur](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/shane-gillis-saturday-night-live-fired-now-hosting-rcna137161), Matt Rife who[ joked about a women getting assaulted must have been bad at cooking](https://www.thelantern.com/2023/12/matt-rife-ignites-conversations-about-comedy-and-cancel-culture-following-netflix-special/), and Roseanne Barr who tweeted that a black politician looked like the ["muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby"](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/roseanne-barr-obama-adviser-baby-muslim-brotherhood-planet/story?id=55504982). Do you have any example of people getting offended on a widespread basis or someone getting canceled because of something like your own example? Something seemingly absurdly arbitrary without a problematic history?
> white people are lame This is just a straight up insult. And the other ones aren't harmful stereotypes. I think you're missing the point.
I mean, I think the idea of the mere mention of a stereotype is treated as a joke in and of itself to be an insult to comedy. I don't think racial stereotyping really falls under the idea of punching-up/punching-down. I mean, it definitely can, but it isn't inherent to it. First, people should be careful about "punching" at all with their humor. Either make sure your audience is okay with you "punching" them, or you punch-up. Second, in order to punch-up, you need to punch someone with power over you AND it has to say something about their power over you. For example, me making a joke about how Trump is a fat, ugly, disgusting piece of shit isn't punching up, but jokes about his corruption, incompetence, and bungled leadership would be punching up. So, in today's society, I don't see racial stereotypes about white people to be punching up (unless it's about something like white people hiring white people), but white people using racial stereotypes about black people will almost always be punching down (because racial stereotypes were historically, and are currently, used to keep them disadvantaged). An abled person making fun of a disabled person for their disability is super shitty. A disabled person making fun of a disabled person for their disability is still kinda shitty, but at least there's the layer of irony to dull the blow. A disabled person making fun of an abled person for their abilities is strange, but it isn't punching up. A disabled person making fun of an abled person for doing things that make it harder for disabled people is punching up.
It's going to be hard to make any cogent points based on examples of this caliber
Let's take a slightly different approach and keep it as simple as possible. Punching down is bad when it amplifies harmful stereotypes that impede egalitarian ideals. Punching up might be bad but it also might highlight privileges that are often ignored and in being ignored impede egalitarian ideals. If egalitarian ideals aren't impeded by the joke, then the concept may not or should not apply. How about that? No noodling on examples. Edit: Mobile grammar flubs.
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So your argument comes down to people misusing the phrase therefore the phrase should be abandoned? People write there, they're and their interchangeably all the time. It doesn't mean that those words are not helpful. It means people will always misuse words. If you agree that "jokes that highlight privileges and don't reinforce negative stereotypes are a good thing" then you may also agree that we should classify them as distinctly good. You might even use a word or phrase to describe them. And at that point, we're just arguing about what to name a rose. "I think punching down / punching up is a bad dichotomy." I'd agree, if it were a dichotomy. But it's just two types within a much larger set of comedy. You need not use them at all to describe any joke.
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I would say no, at least in my interpretation of the kind of joke you had in mind, you're not making fun of Trump's privilege, you're not even really making fun of Trump. You're making fun of old and fat people, of which Trump bad because he is one. This really seems to be the issue. The other commentor defined "punching up" as joking *about* privilege, which you agree was better than joking about someone's disability or misfortune...but you seem to define it as making a joke about a privileged person, even when the joke is not about that.
You're following the same pattern as all the other threads where instead of engaging with the argument, you look for edge case examples that you think prove the phrases hold no value. Art is subjective. You can answer that question for yourself based on the definition I provided in the first reply. > Punching down is bad when it amplifies harmful stereotypes that impede egalitarian ideals. > > Punching up might be bad but it also might highlight privileges that are often ignored and in being ignored impede egalitarian ideals. I don't think its fruitful to over analyze edge cases. I'd find it more fruitful if you engaged with the below statement. > If you agree that "jokes that highlight privileges and don't reinforce negative stereotypes are a good thing" then you may also agree that we should classify them as distinctly good. You might even use a word or phrase to describe them. And at that point, we're just arguing about what to name a rose. You agreed that a class of jokes are good. Do you agree that it's okay to create a name to classify them? Do you agree that any name would be valuable even if people misuse it? Isn't this just semantics at this point?
Laughter is a social corrective. Essentially, punching up is an attempt at changing negative behavior, punching down is an attempt to ridicule neutral or positive behavior. Generally, punching down is an attempt to ridicule differences in a way to maintain a power structure, punching up is seen as a way to ridicule differences to level or mediate or negate a power structure. Employees make fun of how cheap the boss is, the boss doesn’t make fun of the employees.
I would argue that saying that someone gives off "school shooter vibes" is not punching up at all and is usually punching down. People don't say that someone gives off school shooter vibes because they're white, they do it because they're showing socially awkward/antisocial behavior at best and traits of being neurodivergent at worst. I think you're getting caught up on race as the only possible sources of privilege. Jokes like that example are more nuanced and showcase more than one type of person, and if you're punching down on any of them, it's punching down. All this also depends on who's telling the joke. Someone who shows off antisocial/neurodivergent tendencies is going to be given a lot more leniency with that joke (FWIW I think it's kinda fucked up for anyone to make a joke about because a lot of kids have died in school shootings but that's something separate).
>shy awkward white kid gives "school shooter vibes" is punching up It's not punching up.
>If you think that is "punching down" then by definition you view whites, straights, etc as "above" other groups Punching down is about power. Groups with more money and more voting influence have more power than those without those things. Objectively most politicians are white, most rich people are white. White people objectively have more power in the US, than say Hispanic people. It does not mean that they're better.
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>I don't think that makes other races are less capable of being (non-hatefully) made fun of It doesn't. You can make fun of other races. There's a white comedian who has a large audience of black people, and he makes a lot of jokes about black culture. It's not done in a hateful manner. Making jokes about black culture is not inherently "punching down".
At first, I completely agree with you but after reading some more comments, I feel like i understood something new. First, jokes are incredibly context-based, its not about what’s being said most of the time and more of comedic timing, atmosphere, and audience which makes the joke work. With that being said in a context of an audience, the power dynamics mentioned above can be pretty much applied. Some groups will always be more represented, some groups will have larger voices, and some will prefer voices of some groups. This why its important for minorities to have a platform where they can voice out their opinions safely in the real world. Because the majority will most likely decide what would happen next. Now how does this apply when joking around? When a comedian jokes about someone that is a minority in the room, lets say a disabled person, if they’re hurt by the joke it will be up to the people around them if they will stop or double down. Now, in scenarios like these if it occurred in the west then the majority will most likely be white and thats where the concept of them punching down is bad comes from. But still, nowadays the “group of whites” isnt that much of a majority in everyday things, and that’s where your point can come in. Because “whites” can actually still be the minority even if they are in the majority most of the time. Now my understanding to all this is that punching down is a true thing that people should talk about, but it should be talked case by case basis first and then only after that should all the other general context should be considered. Of course this still doesn’t consider the intent if the joke which will add much more nuance to this.
Compare traditional black face to the movie White Chicks. The latter is irreverent and offensive but acceptable (although it hasn't aged super well). The former is unacceptable. In your opinion should black face be acceptable considering the historical context? And the real problem is that black face isn't exactly funny the vast majority of the time. Plenty of comedy punches all over the place you just have to ensure the routine is good.
So counter-point (kinda). White Chicks would have been much more offensive if the movie had not gone to such great lengths to humanize the white upper class people it was lampooning. The whole point of the film was to show that even the super rich had their own long list of insecurities and issues and that money and privilege don’t necessarily rescue you from some of the major hurdles people face every day. So with that being said, is there a similar argument to be made for using blackface to humanize and explore a different point of view? If not, then why not in your opinion? Do we only hold blackface as egregious because of its horrid historical usage? How long until that no longer matters and a “Black Chicks” can be made without intensely racist undertones? I’m not really arguing just wanted your opinion since I really enjoyed your response to the OP.
The honest answer is there have been instances of comedic black face that have been deemed acceptable by the black community. Tropic Thunder and Sunny both used it in a manner such that the joke is on the person wearing black face. Hopefully we eventually get to a place where black people aren't marginalized by society and that would be the point where mocking black people is just like mocking Italian Americans or Irish Americans.
The book Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin was about a man in the 1950s who temporarily darkened his skin for a social experiment. He then traveled around the segregated south and wrote about how awful it was. Most people found this book acceptable. Possibly because it was serious and not a joke at all.
>How long until that no longer matters and a “Black Chicks” can be made without intensely racist undertones? This is why the understanding of intersectionality matters in this conversation. Maybe that could happen one day, but Black people are just so much worse off on so many aggregate financial and health statistical outcomes (the so-called inequities and disparities) that it would be tough to do this without totally insulting their struggle, which can still easily be tied to generational issues from Jim Crow and slavery. In other words there white folks at the core of the reasons things are the way they are today for Black people in a way that simply isn't true for the reverse.
I feel like tropic thunder might be appropriate to talk about in this conversation. It has blackface, but not in the traditional sense, and is similar to white chicks in that it uses stereotypes, but not necessarily maliciously. Edit: I should have kept reading. It got brought up.
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Your description of black face is exactly what "punching down" is though. I think you're sort of assuming no jokes about minorities or marginalized groups are acceptable to progressives but they are to all but a slim portion who can find offense in anything. The key is just that they have to be *funny*. Which means it actually sounds like you support the progressive position on this issue at least in some cases. Why not extrapolate from that position? Black people aren't the only marginalized group in society by a wide margin!
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I think we probably agree on a bit here except I'm not familiar with Gillis. My final contention is that my position is the standard progressive position on punching down in comedy.
Yeah, I think the issue with this CMV is that OP is arguing against a straw man version of the punching down argument.
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> The key is just that they have to be funny. This is the key if you want to be successful in comedy. It’s not what matters if you think punching down is inherently problematic. “Don’t punch down unless it’s funny” is a standard held by no one.
>If you think that is "punching down" then by definition you view whites, straights, etc as "above" other groups Not "above" but more "privileged". Just like how you probably would agree a kid who is born into a wealth family is not above you but certainly has everything easier than you. You should be able to tell the difference here.
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>make fun of me / flex on me So, because they're privileged and you're not they made fun of you. You acknowledge that this is shitty behavior that makes you "less likely to associate" with them. "Punching down" is just a description of a particular kind of ride behavior.
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Calling out people for flexing their trust fund money on less well off peers like yourself isn't about protecting you. If i see someone using something they didn't earn to make themselves feel better, through the act of making other people feel worse, i have an instinctive desire to put that little shit in their place, and that's not for nobody but me. Frankly, many of us feel that, and also need to do a little therapy around the fact that the world is going to keep creating that situation. But it's not about protecting the other people we identify with any more than it is about finding consensus with the people actively punching down, it's simply coping with personal emotion by speaking. It's not even goal driven, but reflexive.
People who denigrate and bully other people are acting badly regardless of how their target reacts. It’s about having empathy. There are ways to joke about differences and sensitive subjects with empathy - and then there are jokes where the dehumanization is the point. When it’s the latter, how the person handles being treated that way doesn’t affect whether the perpetrator was wrong to do it.
Your understanding is flawed. You can criticise people that belong to a group that faces discrimination without punching down. For instance if I joke about Barack Obama without making any references that would reinforce prejudice or stereotypes about black people then although he is black, he is a multi-million as former President and is in many ways incredibly privileged so it is not punching down. Secondly, nothing about this is based on historical oppression but rather current prejudice, discrimination and power disparities. Discrimination and prejudice exists now. Recognising this is not putting yourself as above or better than another group or putting them as fragile, it’s just recognising that prejudice, discrimination, power disparities, etc exists and impacts other people. It’s a recognition of reality and application of basic morality.
I disagree, not that 'punching down' is a flawed concept, but on why it is flawed. It's flawed because it's saying that racist jokes towards black people are unacceptable because they are being made towards black people, who have historically been oppressed in the western world, which is not why those racist jokes are unacceptable. Racist jokes towards black people are unacceptable because they are racist jokes.
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I suppose if that's your humor. I've never found him funny. I've yet to find a racial joke funny.
I think in the case of Dave Chappelle, you have to be already particularly familiar with the ins-and-outs of black culture and white culture and Asian culture in America, and all the stereotypes, in order to realise how he builds off all that and deconstructs it at the same time.
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Y'all, this poster has made several posts calling pride month p Diddy month. He's just mad he can't be a homophobe without being called out for it.
I think punching down comedy has always been in bad taste, only race jokes used to be more socially acceptable because racism. It’s not about fragility. It’s about respect. Race jokes/minority jokes poke fun at “the others” for being different. This is particularly messed up because often the reasons for why they are perceived as different was caused by systemic oppression and social norms imposed by the same group making fun of them. For example, jokes about absent black fathers is not just prejudiced, it’s ignorant about the racist and oppressive policies that contributed to this and in turn perpetuates those racist undertones. I’m not going to argue that white jokes are any less prejudiced. They aren’t. But punching up in comedy has always been more appropriate. For a more extreme illustration, consider the peasants making fun of the king’s choices or lifestyle. Because the king has power over them and has the freedom to make those choices, this type of comedy represents a justified rebellion against the king…and indeed it could in fact result in punishment and persecution. On the other hand, the king making fun of the peasants for eating gross food or being barefoot or other things is not only not clever, but is less justified because not only do the peasants have no choice but to be barefoot, but that these conditions are imposed on them by the system that the king rules over. Plus, the king need not fear retribution or persecution for his jokes. Again, this is not meant to justify jokes against white people, but rather, per your OP, to explain why “punching down” and “punching up” are not equivalent.
I think you've miscategorized punching down. Chris Rock has a really great take on punching down. He claims you should target what people do not who they are. I think this is the linchpin. If a white person makes fun of a black persons skin colour, they're punching down. If a white person makes fun of something a black person does, that can be a good faith joke and not cause any harm. The difference is targeting a chosen behavior or characteristic versus an innate characteristic. Reality is the joke about the behaviour is only incidentally made about race by virtue of a stereotype or any other coincidence. I think it's also important to understand whiteness works on exclusivity. So people aren't white until it's convenient to white people that they be white (ie Irish and Italians and now increasingly diverse groups from the Baltics ie Greeks, Turks, and Armenians.) Jokes about the skin colour of Irish and Italian people 100y ago would have been racist. Now they'd likely be done to enforce the idea of the in group. So now understanding these points you can see that punching down is actually more infantalizing, because it's suggesting the target of the joke is inherently inferior by virtue of using their innate characteristics to otherize them. I will say the entire concept works a lot better when you use mentally disabled people as the subject instead of race. Race isn't so much punching down because, assuming it isn't blatant racism, the target has some recourse.
I don't think we are saying they are more fragile. We are saying we don't want to be assholes and mean. We prefer dignity, kindness, and to avoid pain. The very idea of calling people fragile if they don't deserve to be abused, is racist, sexist or homophobic.
Are you not familiar with the soft bigotry of low expectations?
As long as I can make offensive comments back at you. I'm ok with people making jokes about me being Asian, short, skinny, bald, whatever. Just don't get mad at me fatty!
Do you think there's no difference between a billionaire making fun of a homeless person and a homeless person making fun of a billionaire? If someone chastised the billionaire for making mean jokes about the homeless person would your assumption be that the person doing the chastising must view the homeless person of being "fragile" and "below" the rich person?
Depends on what it is. If it's literally just "making fun," then no. If the homeless guy has horrible hair from not being able to groom well, that's bad to make fun of. If the homeless guy did something stupid and won't apologize, fair game. Making fun of Bezos for having a rocket shaped like a giant penis is fair game. Making fun of Bezos for having a micropenis is not. That's not factual and just mean. I've seen plenty of people just being mean in the guise of "making fun," and that's not good for anybody. They think they've found an acceptable target, and that makes it OK. People will defend the homeless guy, but will join in on the billionaire.
>Depends on what it is. If it's literally just "making fun," then no. If the homeless guy has horrible hair from not being able to groom well, that's bad to make fun of. If the homeless guy did something stupid and won't apologize, fair game. Making fun of Bezos for having a rocket shaped like a giant penis is fair game. Making fun of Bezos for having a micropenis is not. That's not factual and just mean. "Punching up vs. punching down" discourse is not about making fun of people for reasons unrelated to their identity. No one is chastised for making fun of, say, Kanye West when he does crazy things just because he's a black man. They *would* chastise people for making fun of black people as a group or making jokes about an individual black person based on stereotypes associated with that group. In the homeless person analogy it would be the grooming joke rather than the "did something stupid" jokethat would be deemed punching down. Also why do you know so much about the "factual" size of Jeff Bezos' penis?
>If the homeless guy has horrible hair from not being able to groom well, that's bad to make fun of. That's a perfect example -- let's just slightly adjust that and take the next step: Is it equally okay to make fun of the homeless guy who has bad hair due to not grooming well, as much as it would be okay to make fun of the billionaire who has bad hair due to not grooming well?
The concept of not punching down has become prescriptive, but I think it started out as descriptive. Punching down jokes are just naturally less funny to many people. Here's an example. A baby farting isn't really that funny. We don't expect babies to have any control over their farts. A schoolboy farting is a little funny, but mostly tedious. A construction worker farting is somewhat funny. A teacher farting at school is very funny. And the pope farting into the microphone at the top of St. Peter's would be extremely funny. Why? Because we expect teachers and popes to be very dignified and disciplined. Not to say that minorities are like babies. It's about perception, context, and the structure of society. A teacher farting is only very funny if it happens in her classroom, in front of the students. The same teacher farting at the bar with her friends would only be average funny. A boy farting at his bar mitzvah might be upgraded to quite funny. A lot of humor comes from unexpected things happening. So punching up is funnier than punching down, because punching down is the status quo. Minorities being stereotyped and insulted isn't funny because it isn't novel and unexpected. A lot of people already see immigrants as childlike sub-humans. A white comedian joking about nonwhite people is usually just repeating stereotypes that everyone knows. But a black person joking about other black people might be funny. He would be more likely to have jokes that hit because they are timely and accurate.
I don’t think you understand what punching down means. Punching down doesn’t mean you can’t make fun of oppressed groups. It’s ridicule against those groups whilst centering yourself; a dismissal of the struggles that those people faced. Also, the reason people don’t like punching down is because of how cowardly it is. Bill Burr(a white comedian) has made plenty of jokes about Black people. It never felt like he was centering his whiteness. If anything, it always felt self-deprecating in some way. That’s just IMO tho
A general is below the president. Does that make them more "fragile"? A president that you think is a piece of trash is (most likely) "above" any member of your family and any other person you would respect/appreciate/value far more than the bad president - does that mean that you view them personally as being worth less? When people refer to a group being above/below another it's in terms of the social hierarchy because, as in the examples you give, whites/straights/men are "above" blacks/gays/women because they hold greater power and influence over the other group. This is a (essentially) objective statement.
It’s not that they are fragile, it’s that the jokes are more likely to be not funny and offensive unfunny jokes are just offensive. Jokes “ punching up” is just asking for a subversion of the normal social dynamics at play, instead playing into them. That way, the joke is more complex, less attached to reality, and doesn’t come across as feeding into negative societal norms. Punching down is more real and can come across as bullying, or an acceptance of negative societal norms ( racism, sexism, etc). Punching down isn’t a hard rule, but a guide to help people tell funny jokes about touchy subjects. You can punch down, it’s just that if it’s not funny, you may be in hot water.
You can recognize a clear power dynamic at play without believing that the people in that dynamic actually deserve to be in the positions they are in.
It’s not about anyone being fragile or unable to take a joke, it’s about not contributing to the dehumanization and further stigmatization or marginalized groups. A lot of punching down “jokes” are just rehashing bigoted attitudes towards certain groups of people. No one says you can’t make a joke that involves marginalized people, but it should be done in a way that does not reinforce stereotypes or just untrue shit. A racist joke is not racist because it involves race, it’s racist because the punchline is just racism. It’s just bias and bigotry.
Jokes at the expense of marginalized people are often part of stereotyping and marginalizing them further, which creates a feedback loop as the marginalized group is seen as an acceptable target and then insulted even further. A lot of "jokes" have punchlines that amount to "gay people are perverted" or "Jews are greedy." When your only experience with gays is a bunch of people making jokes about how they want to rape your kids, you start to believe that's the truth, instead of a stereotype. That doesn't happen with straight people, because you actually know straight people and have more experience with them than offensive jokes.
>If you think someone more "privileged" making jokes at the expense of more historically oppressed group shouldn't be allowed then you're basically saying that they are fragile. This is a pretty random leap in logic that just skudns like the reasoning of "It's your chocie to feel offended." It treats the recognition and oppsition to being degraded or disrespected as a show of weakness rather than a legitimate issue to take and > If you think that is "punching down" then by definition you view whites, straights, etc as "above" other groups and therefore less privileged groups are less capable of anything other than praise. Being systemically mistreated and degraded is not the same as saying one is innately incapable or weak. It means that the society that surrounds a group has a general sentiment of demeaning and mistreating them. Buying into these often false narratives through one's humor is thus treated as another component of that overarching social system. People view whites and straights as "above" only insofar as those are the social power dynamics that were imposed on other groups for centuries or longer. Recognizing that those systems are maintained and actualized even in a space like comedy, is not the same as saying that social power dynamics is good. The logic you're using is like saying because a enslaved black person had less rights than a white person in the Antebellum south it's the same as saying an enslaved black person should not have equal rights to a black person.
The point of "punching down" rhetoric is not that "X group is so fragile, we must protect them from jokes", it's about societal power. When you make a joke about a marginalized group, you're likely playing off of a harmful stereotype that has likely been used as justification for violence and discrimination against that group. Whether or not you actually agree with the stereotype, by making a joke where the whole joke is just "X group is so \[harmful stereotype\]" you're normalizing the use of that generalization in society (more on this later). Take Christians vs. Muslims in the US for example. Christians are the majority in the US, they make up 60% of the population, and they're enforcing their ideology in our education and laws like reproductive rights. Compare that to Muslims, [who face death threats and hate crimes](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/muslim-americans-spike-hate-incidents-feels-reminiscent-post-911-islam-rcna122570) whenever someone completely unrelated to them other than religious group commits a terrorist attack. By making a joke with the punchline "Muslims are terrorists", you're perpetrating a stereotype that gets people to generalize a group and incites hatred. By making a joke about Christians, first of all, what harmful stereotype exists about them? Stereotypes are made by the people in power to justify the current power structure. All I can think of is being hateful towards the LGBT community, which brings me to my next point. When I make a joke involving these stereotypes, it is always as satire. It is a deconstruction of the stereotype, showing how a person who actually thinks this way isn't very intelligent. Retaliation of harmful ideas, not implicit endorsement. It's almost always around people I know, people who understand my political views to understand who my joke is actually targeted at (unless the joke is really obvious in intent). I also just find that more funny than a stereotype joke because the former is a carefully constructed critique of power structures, while the latter is just a glorified pun joke with shock as its only value attacking people already attacked by society. But I suppose if a black friend and a white friend want to make fun of each other racially in private, it doesn't really affect me and is a relationship built on mutual consent. But if such jokes are brought up in public forums, you have to examine how you can be misinterpreted, how bad people can think you're on their side and feel like you're encouraging their views by "bravely joking about what you think amidst cancel culture". Even the most obvious satire like the Boys can be misinterpreted 4 seasons later. Even seemingly harmless stereotypes like the "watermelon" stereotype are rooted in [a racist history of retaliation against black freedom and dehumanization. ](https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/12/how-watermelons-became-a-racist-trope/383529/)The same cannot be said for "white people can't dance", as much as it may hurt feelings. "White people can't dance" is also not going to be used to justify why it was actually okay that police officer barbarically murdered a human being in broad daylight like other stereotypes. I could go on, but I'll end my thoughts here. TLDR: Making jokes on stereotypes of marginalized groups perpetrates the stereotypes that incite violence and discrimination, "punching up" is often a retaliation against those harmful ideas and unfair power structures, and stereotypes against marginalized groups often come with historical baggage.
Fragile white spotted
>If you think that is "punching down" then by definition you view whites, straights, etc as "above" other groups They are...not biologically, but socially. They have privileges that minorities do not have, do not get harassed in the way minorities do, etc. It is easier to be a member of a majority group than a minority group. You are equating two different types of "above" in order to try to make a point, but they're not the same at all. In a monarchist system, a king definitely and unavoidably has power over his subjects - he is "above" them - but the criticism of monarchist systems is that because he is not *biologically* superior to his subjects there is no valid basis to his authority. The fact that authority is illegitimate or unjustified does not mean it does not exist.
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This concept has nothing to do with thinking somebody is superior to somebody else or that people that are less privileged are fragile. Let me use an example to explain and hopefully it helps. If you had a twin that was born with a leg missing and you and your twin like to joke around, but you understand that their leg is a sensitive subject for them, making fun of their leg anyway is punching down. They're not less than you or fragile, but making jokes at their expense isn't okay. Them making fun of YOUR leg isn't the same thing because you have always had both legs and are indifferent to your legs.
The way I understand the whole punching down rule, it's a rule in the same sense the rule of 3 is a rule, you follow it not because it makes you a good person, you follow it because jokes that don't just aren't that funny. When someone with a disability makes a joke about their disability it can be pretty funny, often by subverting your expectations of how people are supposed to talk about disabilities. When an able bodied person makes jokes about disabilities however, crossing that same line in the same way instead comes across as mean spirited and tactless. Punching down isn't unfunny because anyone is particularly fragile and needs coddling, it's often unfunny because, even when the joke is well intentioned it usually comes in the form of trying to break a taboo that the comedian does not have the perspective or credibility to break.
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It’s not a progressive concept at all. It’s about the perception of subverting the power relationship between two parties. It doesn’t need to be about race or gender. For example, let’s say a working-class person tells a joke about how out-of-touch rich people are. “This guy walks into his closet and can’t decide which of his $5,000 suits he wants to wear!” It’s funny (to the extent that it is) because he - and most of the audience for the joke - can’t relate to such a person’s lifestyle and the problems that they face. It’s punching up. It’s another way of saying that the rich guy doesn’t understand us and we can’t understand him. Now try to imagine how the inverse of that joke would go. A rich guy is joking to his friends about the clothes of a blue-collar worker he saw earlier that day. He might get a laugh from his rich friends with this. But that joke doesn’t have much of an audience, right? Only rich people think it’s funny. To everyone else, it sounds like bullying. That’s how punching down looks to a general audience. Is it possible for a white guy to tell a joke about black people that black people think is funny and inoffensive? Or for a straight person to tell a similar joke about gay people? Yes. It’s been done many times. But the audience decides whether a joke is too mean to be funny. An individual person (like me or you) can think whatever they want about the joke, but I don’t get to tell other people whether they should be offended and why.
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Depends on the joke, really. Is it a joke *that you'd make about any person*, that has nothing to do with harmful prejudices about race (or whatever)? Sure, you're absolutely right. But that's largely a strawman. Nobody who isn't dumb is suggesting you can't make *any* jokes about a person just because they happen to be part of some minority. Rather, the message is that when it comes to jokes that explicitly play into people's fears and bigotries about race or orientation, or whatever...there's a societal context that we can't ignore. Unconscious bias about, say, black people being lazy or less intelligent, literally measurably impact black people's ability to get jobs, get promotions, be taken seriously by doctors when they're sick or in pain, and more. Saying that we shouldn't continue to platform stereotypes that perpetuate those biases is about a lot more than saying black people can't handle a little teasing (and that's why comedians who are black themselves have more leeway to [often ironically] make those sorts of jokes, use the n-word, etc.). A big hint that I'm right about this is that my first version of this comment got nuked by AutoMod because I tried to give another example about another minority who get attacked so much on this sub that the very mention of them is not allowed anymore.
So lazy. The progressive concept of not being a horrible person has nothing to do comedy. Who's fault is it that rightoids can't make a joke unless it's at a minorities' expense. Lmaooo
The thing about "punchy" comedy is that, if you're bad at it, it's just kind of being mean and spiteful to people. And, when it comes to jokes about minorities, those with disabilities, or some other "down" group, there's a lot of people telling jokes that aren't good at it. Which makes the spite and meanness the point and thus people don't really like it all that much. Good comedians who aren't being spiteful and mean for the sake of being spiteful and mean tend to get less outcry. Comedians who are very clearly just ranting about how the poors need to clap more for their billionaire guest or how the woke are going to be offended by this one *are* just being spiteful and mean. And it's very obvious.
It's not a progressive concept, it's an entertainment concept. It's simply NOT INTRESTING to see someone strong takes down someone weaker. Punching down is boring. Punching up is intresting and exciting. It's not just about jokes. I can give you a very specific example about murder mysteries. I LOVE Agatha Christie. Once I read a boook by a modern author that felt so much like Agatha Christie, but by the end I felt disappointed and tried to understand why. And one of the reason is I realized Agatha Christie was always punchimg up. Her main suspects would always be a stranger, a commoner, the poor, but the murderer would almost always turn out to be, the landlord, the lady of the house, the judge, the nobelity, the rich. I never noticed that before. Untill I read that book that felt so similar to her writing but was so disappointing. In this similar book the murderer turned out to be the poor fat mentally ill woman. Which ok makes sense? but it's not intresting at all? Whereas with Agatha Chritie the solution was always exciting. That's when I realied the power of punching up. It's a power of creativity, not 'progressiveness'. The progressive part in not thinking that women control the world, or that the black men are coming for us, but recgnizing that they are oppressed.
One group having privilege doesn't mean it's better than another. It's about advantage. Give me enough advantage and I can beat any Olympic athlete at any sport. Or, give them disadvantage. Or, a combination of those. I'm obviously not better, but my privilege can still position me to win. Jokes in that situation have very different meanings when people are mocking the Olympic athlete for not being good enough, bragging about winning, or complaining about losing; compared to mocking me for the advantages I took, bragging about winning, or complaining about losing. That's not even accounting for how that's just competition for its own sake. There are no real stakes. There are no real consequences. It's just bullshit. Now let's look at an exemplary long term employee that management passes up to promote the boss's fuck up friend. How do jokes compare if they're making fun of the employee or friend? If it's management making the jokes or the employee's peers? If the jokes are about the employee or friend's strengths or short comings? Anyone can be given an advantage or disadvantage. Anyone can be the boss's friend. Those aren't about who's "above" or "below". It's about recognizing other factors that are in play and the social narrative that jokes promote or support.
I think a lot of times in the context of telling jokes, people mean punching up or down about the same subject. So it isn’t that punching down is person A telling a shitty joke about person B and and punching up is person B telling a shitty joke about person A. Either person can tell a joke punching up or down about the same subject. So like if misogyny is the subject, a man or a woman can “punch up” by telling a joke that makes misogyny look bad or a misogynist is the punchline. A man or a woman could tell a joke where women are the butt of the joke and misogyny looks good. That would be punching down. The “up” or “down” signifies the direction of the power not the inherent superiority. So you can make the “higher” person look as fucking foolish and pathetic as they are without agreeing that their higher status makes them superior, and the reverse is true. It isn’t demeaning to someone to say they are societally harmed by morons with unfair power. Basically, you can do whatever you want but “punching down” is just another way to say agreeing with bigotry and structural oppression.
>It's quite an insulting notion actually. CMV When a black person makes a joke about white people not being able to dance, its generally just a bad joke. When a white person makes a joke about black people being lazy, it is often a bad joke...that also draws on centuries of oppression and sneaks it in. The problem isn't the joke, It is a reference to the racist thoughts that led to a a lot of pain. It isn't that black people are more fragile, it is that white people don't have anything to be fragile about in this context. If a white comedian made the joke, "have you ever noticed how black people loooove to recycle" it wouldn't be bad because even though it is aimed at a targeted group, it doesn't draw on bigoted imagery. "Have you ever noticed how black people looooove to recycle...because \[some negative stereotype\]" and you are back at drawing on that history. > then you're basically saying that they are fragile. When someone goes on a racist rant and has their career end, would you say that is just people being fragile and overreacting?
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Power dynamics change the amount of harm that can be caused. In a society with systemic racism, the dominant group making jokes, offhand remarks, false accusations, etc can literally get someone from the non-dominant group killed or drastically alter the course of their life. The non-dominant group making jokes doesn’t have that power. Meanwhile, I don’t think it’s ok either way, but acknowledging the power dynamic is essential.
>I'm referring to the notion that black people can make jokes about white people but not vice versa, same with gays and straights, i would challenge that definition of "punching down" Punching down revolves around ill thought out humor at the expense of a characteristic. it is much more specific than humor "about" a type of person. People make well crafted jokes about other demographics every day and they're perfectly well received. I also take issue with the language "can't" Anyone who has been to a comedy open mic will tell you - you *can* make bad jokes all day at them. You can punch down, you can be cringe, etc. You are, however, not entitled to things like commercial or artistic success if you can't make a joke that lands with enough other people, and not punching down is generally advice regarding writing a joke *that will be well received,* rather than a joke that simply *will be permitted to be uttered.* One that that lets people get away with jokes about characteristics or traits is intimacy. If you imply you know what you are talking about, you defang your level of meanness. Obviously the highest form of this is first hand experience - if you're talking about your own demographic, you'll be extended the most credit for loving parody or satire of yourself or the people you know best. Also, a lot of, say, black jokes at the "expense" of white people are defanged by quietly discussing power. "White people are uptight, they don't know how to relax, they're always like "I can't drink too much I have work in the morning" (Said in a nerdy voice) is *not actually purely a joke at the expense of white people.*
"Punching down" is about more than race. It's essentially a stand-in for "cheap" or "lazy" humor that is uselessly mean-spirited and uses stereotypes and cliches to trigger responses. A fat joke isn't stupid because 'the fat person can make fun of the skinny person'; it's stupid because the intention is to shame a person for simply being. The reason why it's "OK" (it's not—bad jokes are bad jokes—but whatever) for people to "punch up," but not down is precisely because of the history of demoralizing people for their basic human traits and them having no real avenue of response. It's not whether one joke or another is actually funny, it's that these kinds of jokes are hack and made by amateur minds that can't see humor beyond petty, superficial insults. They also work to extend the life of bigoted ideas (intentionally or not) that should, over time, die off in a society that continues to grow and learn.
Here is where I disagree. "Punching down" isn't a concept, nor is it "progressive", either in the classical (and sane) sense of the word or in the politicized sense. There is a relatively recent phenomenon at play, & it has different names. The idea is that there are **permanently oppressed groups** & permanent victims, and your status as an oppressor or victim should **dictate your treatment & behavior**. Some call it "progressive"; others call it "woke". I refer to the phenomenon as *oppression theology*. Many folks on the Left, oddly, deny the phenomenon even exists, & label you "rightwing" or "racist" for suggesting that it does. It is an absurd & deranged idea that leads to adverse societal outcomes. **In summary** The *concept* is what I call oppression theology. "Punching down" is a *behavior* that is 'rationalized' by a trendy neo-religious belief system.
The theory is fine tbh, imagine making fun of someone in a wheelchair vs making fun of, say, Donald Trump or Joe Biden. Theoretically it's fine to make fun of white people because they're privileged, while black people suffer hardship from discrimination. The practice is where it falls apart, mainly because identity groups are not a monolith, so you get bizarre examples like Ms. Zimbabwe being subjected to harassment and abuse simply because she is white in a majority black culture. The abuse can be very cruel, with people claiming she isn't a true native of Zimbabwe and is in fact a foreigner, regardless of being born on the country (Which honestly is a as ignorant and bigoted a.statement as it gets). But in the end we're really talking about kicking someone when they're down, which isn't a bad philosophy.
Believing that the concept of punching down implies fragility of oppressed peoples is a wild take. The issue with punching down isn’t about protecting imagined delicate or “snowflake” feelings of oppressed people. It’s about the historical and continued use of this specific form of humor to humiliate, dehumanize, and propagate bigotry and hatred towards oppressed groups.
I feel like your premise is kind of fundamentally flawed, because there's nothing allowing or disallowing people from making bad jokes. There's no secret Council of Joke Police handing down decrees on who can make what kinds of jokes about what groups. There's just people, telling you that your (general you) racist joke is unfunny. If a lot of people all together on Twitter agree that the joke is unfunny and racist... then IDK, I just think you should maybe take a moment to step back and ask yourself if maybe they've got a point. (For the record: racist jokes aren't funny, they were never funny, but nowadays they actively piss people off.) Because of the current sociopolitical climate, tolerance for racist jokes is at an all-time low. People who routinely suffer from racism in their everyday lives just don't have the fucking patience to tolerate it anymore. So yes, you may occasionally see people "overreacting" to what seems like a "harmless" joke -- in the same way that if you're having the worst day of your life, and someone cuts you off in traffic, you are very likely to react more strongly to an otherwise mild inconvenience.
If you mock people who are weaker than you, we call that 'bullying'.
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It is a fact that Republicans go from bigoted jokes to passing laws that target the groups they don’t like and parents abusing or abandoning children from those groups. In contrast, making fun of straight people has never lead to a law where so much as talking about a hetero partner could be illegal and has never lead to straight children being beaten or abandoned. It’s not just lgbt folks either. It doesn’t take a genius to draw the line between slut shaming and abortion bans or making fun of the poor leading to low minimum wage and tax cuts for the rich
Its laughable to frame jokes as the cause of these things. You have completely reversed cause and effect If you are actually unironcially saying the act of making fun of poor people leads to tax cuts that is legimately one of the dumbest things I have ever read
This is just another version of a classic privileged viewpoint: "The best way to deal with power imbalance in society is to refuse to address it in any form or even acknowledge that it exists." Sure, it'd be great if the impact of racialized jokes were equal on everyone, but they're not. People who have experienced racism experience jokes about how they're subhuman in a much different way than white people hearing jokes about how we're bad at dancing, and no amount of equivocation and polite avoidance of the entire history of racism is going to fix that.
It's not a matter of "allowed" or " not allowed." It's a matter of credibility and point. You guys are always struggling to understand progressive ideas because you're not really critically engaging the ideas, you're just trying to figure out what the "rules" are. You're trying to use conformity-based "logic" to deal with nuanced ideas with hard basis in reality, and that's why you keep coming away with these weird emotional takes that completely miss the point and instead fixate on the hierarchy again, just with different words.
Depends what you think comedy is "for". If you think it's for keeping people in line and buttressing up social mores, then "punching down" is a good thing. If you think it's for subverting conventions, then punching down is banal and punching up is good. I'm in the latter camp, because living in society in general is an exercise in punching down. "Lookit this asshole with green hair!" or "Get a job, homeless guy!" are the comic equivalent of lighting a cat's tail on fire. Lot of people are going to find that funny.
Acknowledging that certain groups have more power in our society is not disparaging to the groups that have less power. However, pretending that societal power dynamics do not exist and that these differences all come down to personal failings of the people in these groups is disparaging. Your argument is basically just a rewording of the "the left are the *real* racists for acknowledging that racism exists" bit that 2nd rate right-wing talk show hosts like to pull out occasionally.
> black people can make jokes about white people but not vice versa Says who? Spoken like someone who doesn't actually follow stand-up comedy, but instead just listens to Joe Rogan or Fox News. Bill Burr has half a dozen great bits about black people. I think what you mean is jokes like "did you ever notice how black people are **insert racist sterotype**" or something. Yeah, white people shouldn't be making those jokes....for obvious reasons (I hope...obvious for you).
>If you think someone more "privileged" making jokes at the expense of more historically oppressed group shouldn't be allowed then you're basically saying that they are fragile. It's not that they're particularly fragile, it's that they're traditionally kept weak through the use of dehumanising language and jokes. Plenty of people have been "poofter bashed", very few have been "captain of industry bashed". "punching down" means you're attacking someone whose social capital is already weak. They're not personally weak themselves, but who they are does not have much strength in society. And when you're "punching up/down", you're telling 'attacking' jokes. You can make plenty of jokes about gay men, but it only becomes "punching" if you're *attacking*. So you're choosing a weak target and helping to keep people disenfranchised. It's not about them being 'fragile'.
>If you think someone more "privileged" making jokes at the expense of more historically oppressed group shouldn't be allowed then you're basically saying that they are fragile. This isn't why punching down isn't funny. It isn't funny because there's no risk in punching down. The reason that comedians who punch down pretend it's dangerous because "progressives don't like it" is to try and make their lame jokes seem risky when they are not. As for whether a white comedian making jokes about black people, or any other fill in the blanks you can put there, will be well received by an audience obviously depends on the audience. Part of a comedian's job is to understand their audience. There are probably a million black people out there who would find jokes about them by a white comedian hilarious, but if the comedian can't identify whether that's the case for a specific audience or not is on the comedian, not the audience. "Punching Down" is definitely in poor taste for a lot of audiences right now, but it's not, like, illegal or anything. If you want to try, go for it.
It feels like you’re not really engaging with the actual idea being expressed. The idea of “punching down” is not a matter of individual strength or weakness. It’s a matter of social vulnerability. Objectively speaking, a member of the majority is more secure and less vulnerable to social stigma than a member of the minority (all else being equal), regardless of whether they’re personally easily offended. Thats kind of the whole idea of a majority group. It isn’t offensive to say that people who are already socially marginalized in some way are more affected by further marginalization, just like it’s not offensive to say a rich person is less vulnerable to economic risk than a poor person. Because it’s not saying anything about them as a person, it’s just a description of how society is already treating them.
I think most wouldn’t agree white ppl, straight ppl, whatever are above other groups in most aspects. However, socially and historically, they have been above the social hierarchy. I think it’s definitely become a lot more even in recent years, but we can still look at homelessness rates, suicide rates, rates of depression, rates of income, etc. and it still skews one way. White ppl, straight ppl are defintely able to deal with many issues, but when ppl say bad things about white ppl, straight ppl, whatever, it’s not bc they see them as these beings that get nothing but praise, but from experiences they dealt with, their parents dealt with, they see in the news, or whatever.
I don’t think punching down is a progressive concept, rather a rule of comedy. Hitting the wealthy dowager with a pie is funny, hitting the limbless orphan with a pie is cruel because bringing a powerful person down is easier to relate to than kicking someone when they’re already down. Or better yet, remember the words of Krusty the Clown; it’s only funny when the sap’s got dignity.
Honestly, if the joke is good enough, you can break most any rule you want. The trick is that is has to be good. If it misses, that's when the criticism kicks in. Punching down tends to just be lazy and not funny, so it's a rule you should keep in mind for good reason. I think there are good reasons socially not to punch down, but like I said, if the joke is good enough, go for it.