January 25, 2016

"What's happening... is that she — through the internet and through video — is literally being verbally career-raped by an army..."

"... of unfuckable hate-nerds. They play video games all day, then they watch MMA, then they spend the evening jerking off to deep-throat gag-porn, and then they wake up and they put a few hours into shaming Amy, to verbally fucking, abusing Amy. You read the comments. It's not about justice. It's about hate.... If you go look at their Twitter feed, a lot of them are Trump supporters, because they like an authoritarian leader, because they service their hate and their fucking horrible fear and insecurity..."

That's Marc Maron, attacking the people who are accusing Amy Schumer of stealing jokes. (That's my transcription, beginning around 18:00.)

Such passion! Over Amy Schumer stealing jokes?! I had to go look up why anyone cares about this. Comics have been stealing and accused of stealing each other's jokes for as long as I can remember. How did this joke-stealing controversy get to be a big deal? Maron performs in The Theater of Feminist Outrage, calling it misogyny, but it seems that the controversy got traction in the first place because other women — other female comics — feel that Amy ripped them off.

One example: There is no more stock material in comedy than the problems men and women have understanding each other, and the comic Tammy Pescatelli had performed this observational bit:
“Women dress for other women. That’s why, men, if we love you, we dress you for other women too. That’s why we dress you stupid. Because we want a woman to look at you and think, ‘He’s cute but I can’t fix all of this.’”
Okay. Good enough. Then, Amy Schumer has a line in her movie "Trainwreck": "You dress him like that so no one else wants to have sex with him? That’s cool." Mostly different words and some overlap in the idea. The idea wasn't original to Pescatelli anyway, and Pescatelli's idea was about making the man seem as though he wasn't relationship material, while Schumer's line had to do with the man not being worth even a one-night-stand. Pescatelli dipped into the female problem of fixing men, adapting them for the long term, and Schumer's character seems to have more of the idea associated with males: Fuckability.

Why is Maron lashing out at men — accusing them of women hating — when the controversy seems to have come from women? There's an odd feminist angle to this. Women are eclipsed. Men are the important voices. Maron sexualizes the attack — "career-rape" — and visualizes male attackers, but this seems to be women who are — justifiably or not — mad at another woman.

75 comments:

Andy said...

What makes you think that it is the women comics behind the complaints?

rhhardin said...

Thurber "The Case Against Women."

His "War Between Men and Women" cartoon series has never been surpassed.

Carol said...

He apparently knows a bit about gag-porn.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

He knows what kind of person is going to be abusing Amy Schumer and he isn't going to let anything as irrelevant as "facts" or "evidence" dissuade him.

Michael K said...

"“Women dress for other women."

My wife used to say, "A party is to a woman what a battlefield is to a man."

Feminism has lost whatever purpose it once had. "The March of Dimes" did not close up shop when Polio was cured by vaccine,. It just found another subject for fund raising. Feminism is like that. Ralph Nader, of all people, pointed out that NOW was about fund raising and nothing else.

ThreeSheets said...

Because he's virtue signalling. Same reason he just knows they are all Trump supporters.

lgv said...

"What makes you think that it is the women comics behind the complaints?"

Uh, because three of them noted that they felt Schumer stole their jokes.

Comics have been stealing other comics' jokes and material since the second comic ever existed. It's not worthy of the attention it's getting. Schumer just isn't a nice person and I think that rep hurts her.

MadisonMan said...

Marc Maron want to get in bed with Amy Schumer.

Lewis Wetzel said...

All of feminism -- from government supplied abortion through making male scientists cry because they don't like their shirts -- is pseudo-rape as compensation for the lack of a penis.
Sorry. Sometimes the truth hurts.

rhhardin said...

Milton Berle made a joke of stealing jokes.

One test, on his show, involved locking up a bad joke. "If he steals this, he's not only a thief, he's an idiot."

rhhardin said...

It involved the Monroe Doctrine.

Bay Area Guy said...

Nobody cares if Amy Schumer is stealing jokes. She's not that funny or appealing, in any event. Her 15 mins of fame will be up soon.

More so, Marc Maron's path from Amy' s defense to an anti-Trump tirade is nonsensical. It shows a disordered mine.

Quaestor said...

Sounds like Marc Maron is projecting. Maybe he's jealous. Maybe he longs to be army-raped in the throat. Could be... Possibly...

Laslo Spatula said...

On his show Maron made a big deal confronting Carlos Mencia and Dane Cook about their stealing jokes.

With Amy Schumer he is defending her.

I see a difference, and it rhymes with 'vagina'.

It rhymes EXACTLY with 'vagina'.

Like, there is no difference in sound, pronunciation or spelling.

I am Laslo.

Tank said...

White Knight?

If Schumer wasn't so fat now, I'd think he was trying to get laid.

Bay Area Guy said...

Seth Rogan is fairly popular in movies these days - he has the casual, modern, slacker "everyman" persona role down pat. Made a few decent movies. He won't be confused with Laurence Olivier anytime soon.

Problem: in nearly every movie, he's taking off his shirt, showing his flabby, pear-shaped, chubby, unhealthy body. Yeah, it was kinda sorta funny, in a self-deprecating way, the first time, but the 10th time? I say no more, fat boy. Do some push-ups, or keep the shirt on.

Amy Schumer is a female Seth Rogan.

tim maguire said...

Pescatelli presents her joke as a universal woman thing and then gets upset when another woman says so ething similar? She's as dumb as Maron.

I've tried to like Maron, but it won't take. Part of his schrick is his bad life decisions, which obviously spils over into his social and political views. Possibly the truest thing I've seen on him is from his show on Newflix. He is being harassed on twitter and decides to find and confront the kids doing it. Dave Foley, his podcast guest that day, goes along for the ride. When he meets the kids, instead of the great shame he wants to put on them, they stand up to him and humiliate him. Then they notice Dave Foley and get excited because they're huge Kids in the Hall fans. Maron waits in the car while Foley has a great time reliving his glory days.

Tank said...

Is that a correct use of the word "literally?"

David Begley said...

Amy Schumer is Chuck Schumer's niece.

I would rather see her in the Senate than Chuck. We already have Franken.

TheThinMan said...

Verbally career-raped by an army...LITERALLY!

Which army was it, and how did they manage to rape a career? Did the career scream, "No, no! Go away!"? Or does he mean that this army used a "career" to rape her with, like maybe rolled-up diplomas in dentistry?

Mary Beth said...

It's just been a year of controversy for her so far. If it weren't for the gym incident and these things, I'd have no idea who she was.

Gahrie said...

Why is Maron lashing out at men — accusing them of women hating — when the controversy seems to have come from women?

That's easy...women must never be criticized......

woman = good

man = bad

jaydub said...

I'm appalled that our hostess and so many of the commenters on this blog seem to actually know who these people are.

Bob Ellison said...

Oh, c'mon, jaydub. Join us on the sidewalk and watch the parade. It's fun, and they throw candy sometimes.

Ann Althouse said...

"What makes you think that it is the women comics behind the complaints?"

The Buzzfeed article that I linked to.

Big Mike said...

Comedians steal jokes??? You mean like Milton Berle and Robin Williams?

rehajm said...

Why is Maron lashing out at men...?

Hitching up the bitch wagon to issues getting more attention.

Wince said...

Is Maron the one plagiarizing?

Come on, everybody: Sing along!

"... they put a few hours into shaming Amy,

to verbally fucking, abusing Amy."

William said...

I've got a hunch that the majority of Trump supporters are not involved--pro or con--in the Amy Schumer joke stealing controversy. That's quite a leap on Maron's part. I can see why Obama loves him though. If you can politicize something like this and use it to make Republicans look bad, then you deserve a voice on the national stage........For the record, I think Amy Schumer is funnier than Lena Dunham. However, if you want to hear overweight women make tasteless jokes about their menstrual cycle, Melissa McCarthy is the go-to comic......It should be noted that Amy is BFF with Jennifer Lawrence. I'm sure Jennifer would never hang out with a common joke thief, so Amy is ok in my book.

cubanbob said...

Who is Marc Maron and why would anyone care what he thinks? Especially our hostess, hard to believe she wasted all that time on this nobody.

Nonapod said...

This whole thing's ridiculous. With so many comedians writing so much material it's virtually impossible for their not to be overlaps in thinking. And as a comedian it must be virtually impossible to be able to be certain that whatever bit you're working on hasn't been riffed on in too similar a way before. And very successful comedians like Amy have to be especially careful because there's always people who want to tear them down.

It's usually pretty obvious when a comic is an out-and-out joke thief, like what was going on with Carlos Mencia a few years back. It won't be a few bits here and there with similar premises.

Tank said...

Seinfeld on a good standup bit:

"I'm a big believer than a great bit is a great bit - if I go and see someone I love, like Robert Klein. I want to hear some classics and some new stuff. But a great stand-up bit takes a long time to really polish and perfect, and they're beautiful things when they're done."

He talks about this in one of his Cars episodes, but I couldn't find it. Bits, or jokes, are important to these people. On the other hand, if you're creating material about the same subjects, sometimes it just comes out almost the same.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

I used to like Maron, but he's completely wrong on this one. Nice try!

Scott M said...

I've tried to like Maron, but it won't take. Part of his schrick is his bad life decisions, which obviously spils over into his social and political views. Possibly the truest thing I've seen on him is from his show on Newflix. He is being harassed on twitter and decides to find and confront the kids doing it. Dave Foley, his podcast guest that day, goes along for the ride. When he meets the kids, instead of the great shame he wants to put on them, they stand up to him and humiliate him. Then they notice Dave Foley and get excited because they're huge Kids in the Hall fans. Maron waits in the car while Foley has a great time reliving his glory days.

Link? Because not only am I a huge Kids In The Hall fan, but I'd like to see a little humiliation on Moran's part.

n.n said...

The matriarchy is a fierce battleground, where most are discriminated, many are aborted, some are cannibalized (to serve the greater good), and the most ambitious dominate. And some people think that there is a "war" between men and women. Whereas the macro-level fights (e.g. war, genocide, planning) are motivated by class diversity schemes and establishment of monopolies (e.g. Marxism, communism, socialism, fascism).

bgates said...

It was Maron's show where Obama chose to use the sort of language that would get a girl kicked out of high school in Tempe. Of course nobody expects Obama to live up to the behavioral standards we set for high school girls.

I bet those girls could redeem themselves by getting some more of their classmates together and arranging their shirts to spell "Amy Schumer is literally being verbally career-raped by an army of unfuckable hate-nerd Trump supporters".

mccullough said...

Here I come to save the day . . .

YoungHegelian said...

..then they spend the evening jerking off to deep-throat gag-porn..

First, guys get called out for polishing the toy soldier to hentai. Now, for pounding the pud to gag-porn.

I mean, jeez, these SJW sure are judgmental about other people's sex lives, aren't they? Oh, how it makes me miss the sexual openness of the Southern Baptists & Church of Christ of my youth!

Henry said...

Someone tell Mahon: You're supposed to insult up.

Unknown said...

Why is Maron lashing out at men...?

----
It's a classic PUA tactic. D.GOOCH

CatherineM said...

Ann - Marc is an angry angry man who has mellowed a bit. Before he had his podcast and people learned he was a good interviewer, he would rant and rave about his jealousy about Dane Cook. He thought Dane Cook isn't funny and it wasn't fair that cook harnessed My Space to reach an audience. I mean spittle soaked microphone anger. I think if this was 10 years ago, he would have been Schumer hater. If you followed comedy. You would know this.

Meanwhile all 3 female comics backed off last week Ann. I think the jokes were all "parallel thinking," but Amy said Kurt Metzger told her the Wendy Liebman joke has been done (and better), but she kept doing it because "it killed." She shouldn't have done it in a television special if it's be done.

Joke stealing with comedians is a serious thing. it is what plagiarism is to an academic. Joe Rogan was on a crusade about Carlos Mencia stealing from unknown comics, for example. Again, if you were a fan of comedy, you would have known this. Amy's first fans are those who follow Rogan, Jim Norton, etc. they are primed to be outraged. Go to Rogan's You Tube page. His listeners are brutal critics of him if they think he has strayed from what they think he should believe or if he has changed his mind. Crazy.

Amy had a lot of the same fans as Rogan (via Jim Norton for whom she used to open). She was one of the guys. Now she is very political (gun control, etc) and she wasn't before. At all. Now she tweets things like, "I met with Hillary Clinton..." She stated last week on Jim Norton's show to callers angry with her politics that part of being a celebrity is being a spokesman for causes since people won't listen to Hillary or Obama. She thinks people resent her success because she's a woman and it's her foray into politics. Politics will always divide an audience.

She is not Chuck Schumer's niece. He is her father's cousin.

Tyrone Slothrop said...

It's true. I hate Amy Schumer.

rcocean said...

I'm so out of touch. I have no idea who any of these people are. Looks like I'm not missing much.

Lots of female comics are rather repulsive for some reason. Lots of tedious 4 letter words and vulgar harsh rhetoric. Female Andrew Dice Clay's. I suppose they're all loved by the Howard Stern audience.

Jason said...

Wait. They have deep-throat gag porn?

Is this oral sex porn but with whoopee cushions, banana peels and clown noses?

I am intrigued.

Jason said...

Ok, I can't help myself. I'm searching for it now. I'll keep you posted.

Jason said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jason said...

Oh. My. God.

That's the best impression of Donald Duck I've ever seen.

And under such adverse conditions, too! What a trooper!

Jason said...

Ok, here's what I'm learned:

The word "gag" apparently does not necessarily mean "gag comedy" in the showbiz sense.

That said, I'm never looking at a rubber chicken the same way again.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

If a non-liberal guy says "your positions are wrong and you're a slut" or "your positions are wrong and you're a prude" the Left is happy to point out that this is slut shaming or sex shaming and unnecessarily sexualizing the dispute over the position. Multiple people have lost their jobs for doing something like that--for insulting their opponents in a sexual way.

If a liberal guy says "your positions are wrong and you're a loser who can't get laid and loves porn," though, I guess it's cool, no problem there, no reason for the Left to object.

What sensitive, empathetic creatures the Leftist are--and how profoundly consistent and committed to their feminists principles they show themselves to be.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

I do love how half of Schumer's shtick is to flaunt how sexually promiscuous she is, joke about people in a sexual way, etc, but anyone making even a mild joke along the same lines (even if they're echoing what she herself has said/joked about) is instantly branded a sexist bigot. It's almost like there are two sets of rules or something.

Variety: Amy Schumer Calls out Sexist Tweet from Teen Film Critic

It's only funny when SHE does it, guys.

Skeptical Voter said...

Who is Marc Maron, and why should I care? Same goes for Amy Schumer, who nobody would ever have heard of except for her uncle Chuck You Schumer.

jr565 said...

If she stole jokes, she stole jokes. Don't turn it into a suggestion that the peopel saying she did so are sexists.
What a white knight.

Sigivald said...

What does "literally being verbally career-raped" even !@#!^ mean?

(I think Schumer's act is actually pretty funny.

But Comics Steal Jokes. I expect it. Anyone not expecting it doesn't know comedy.)

Anthony said...

Fish Sticks

jg said...

Isn't Schumer the one who came up with a wildly popular Archie Bunker act, and then when she made it into mainstream she turned on her fans "ha ha it was just an act I hate you #WhyINeedFeminism?" If so, maybe there is something personal in the repudiations of her using uncredited writers.

No publicly-labeled as a 'joke stealer' is still working as a comedian. Credibility matters somehow to the stand-up audience. The judgment of your peers matters to your audience. (I'm thinking of Carlos Mencia, but maybe there are others).

Maron comes off a deeply miserable person. Perhaps this uncalibrated volume-to-11 vitriol is just that old timey male instinct to go out and brawl with whoever wants to hurt your woman. I wouldn't have pegged him as owning one.

jg said...

CatherineM's comment is probably closer to the truth than mine re: why some have a grudge. Anyway Amy has new fans now. It's true that many people don't like suck-up climbers who later say they never liked the people they were using on the way up. A better PR move for such a climber would be to say "you know, I changed my mind about some things since then".

Bilwick said...

As the Red Diaper Baby in the White House might advise Ms. Schumer: "You didn't create those jokes."

Also, I understand Ms. Schumer is a "liberal" (and by that I mean of course "tax-happy, coercion-addicted, power-tripping State fellator"). So why shouldn't she steal jokes? Private property is just one of those fetishes enlightened people like her want to junk--or modify so radically the concept would, de facto, cease to exist--on the Road to Serfdom.

Brian McKim and/or Traci Skene said...

"This whole thing's ridiculous. With so many comedians writing so much material it's virtually impossible for their not to be overlaps in thinking. And as a comedian it must be virtually impossible to be able to be certain that whatever bit you're working on hasn't been riffed on in too similar a way before."

Actually, the whole thing isn't really all that ridiculous. We're talking about intellectual property, about people's livelihoods. We posted about the Mencia controversy, in our magazine, when it happened. We had a nuanced take on the whole thing, but our magazine was for comedians and for knowledgeable comedy fans.

It isn't that hard for a comedian to be certain that whatever bit he's working on hasn't been riffed on in too similar a way before. We commented (again, in our mag, which we mothballed a year ago, so I'm not trying to drive traffic to it) on the ways in which comics police the material of their colleagues. A coupla eggheads from the UVA Law School even wrote a paper about it-- "The Emergence of Intellectual Property Norms in Stand-Up Comedy”-- and it spells out how we accomplish what seems impossible to those who are "out of touch." And we were even good at it before the WWW came along. (See our posting, with links to the UVA paper at http://sheckymagazine.com/2008/09/woe-to-those-who-violate-our-norms-based-ip-system/ )

After 30 years in the biz (or even ten... or maybe even five), you keep a sortofa catalog in your head and you know, with some degree of certainty, if you've come up with something that might be utterly unoriginal. And, if somebody sees you do something that is similar to someone else's bit, he'll probably see you after the set and say, "That bit you do? The one about (fill in the blank)? I saw (fill in the blank) do a similar bit on Ferguson." Then the two comics will hash out exactly how similar, whether it's merely the premise or the punchline, whether there are any significant differences that might make it unique. Oftentimes, the call is accurate and the comic will nine times out of ten stop doing it. Occasionally, the determination will be made that the call was sloppy, that there is no significant overlap. It's all part of a "norms-based intellectual property system."

From the UVA paper:In the last half century, however, comedians have developed a norms-based IP system. This system serves as a stand-in for formal law, and regulates authorship, ownership, transfer, and the imposition of sanctions on norms violators. Under the norms system, the level of investment in original material has increased substantially. We detail these norms, which often diverge from copyright law’s defaults. Our description is based on interviews with comedians, snippets of which we include throughout the paper.

I was one of those interviewed.


All this joke detective stuff is red meat for internet shamers. We take a dim view of civilians getting in on the gag. It damages the brand. It's kinda gotten out of hand and things were much better when it was handled privately, among colleagues.

Bill Peschel said...

No opinion here about the alleged theft(s), but about a year ago, Maron talked about the time he stole a joke.

In brief: It was on a talk show, he was tired, the line popped into his head, and it wasn't until he saw the broadcast that he realized what he did.

As he told it, he was mortified, ashamed, frightened that he would be called out. He sounded sincerely contrite that he did it, even though it was accidental.

The second thing is that even though Maron likes to pass himself off as a better man, he's still a shit. For one of his milestone episodes, he had an old friend on, someone he came up in the business with, to hash out how much of a shit Maron was.

After they got through all that, the guy pointed out that Maron had offered him a role on the show, asked the guy to text him about it. He did. Never heard from Maron again.

Maron didn't seem particularly bothered by doing the same thing to the guy that had made him a shit in his eyes years before.

Great interviewer, dumb liberal, lousy human being.

tim in vermont said...

Amy Schumer is OK, I have no idea who Mark Moron is, though I used to watch Kids in the Hall religiously. If that is an example of theft of a joke though, it is some pretty thin gruel. Maybe he has better examples, I doubt it though.

I think that the problem people have with Train Wreck is that it is kind of an uplifting movie that celebrates a prodigal child's return to traditional values and exposes the hollowness of the life the Amanda Marcottes of the world offer.

dwick said...

Either Maron is making most if not all of the 'facts' in his diatribe up here or he's spent a good deal of time 'researching' the motivations and daily habits of the objects of his scorn. I first ran across this clown when he was doing the early morning drive warm-up for Al Franken back in the early days of Air America - Maron's act hasn't changed a bit in the over 10 years since then.

CatherineM said...

Brian and Tracy - quite right. There is Mencia, and everyone in comedy dislikes Denis Leary for stealing Bill Hicks's act, Leary stole "I'm an asshole," from a young Loius CK and when called out by some Boston comics, Leary wrote Louis a check. Louis still bad mouths him.

Louis had Dane Cook on his show to skewer him over something he thinks Dane stole, and Dane basically did an apology in the episode.

Robin Williams was a notorious thief and when he was in Marc Maron's podcast he mentioned getting caught up in his rants that he would inadvertently blurt a joke he heard the night before. He was at least would turn around and write a check to the comic, but it burned his rep.

Amy knows just being imagined to being a joke thief in the comedy world means losing the respect of other comedians. She seems to care about that.

If you knew how hard it was to write a joke or create an hours worth of good material to hold an audience's attention, you wouldn't dismiss it lightly. Especially when the competition is so fierce.

Michael Fitzgerald said...

Maron's description of the men he lambastes is very specific and detailed, isn't it? More the case of angry progressive democrat projection apparently.

CatherineM said...

Skeptical Voter - you have it backwards and Chuck is a 3rd cousin. How many 3rd cousins of yours do you know? If you don't know who people are, why are you commenting about them?

eddie willers said...

Women dress for other women

I had never thought about it, but when I first heard Van Morrison's lyric in "Wild Night":

"All the girls walk by, dressed up for each other"

I knew instantly that it was an axiomatic truth and was ashamed I had not thought of it on my own.

furious_a said...

Amy Schumer is better looking and less creepy than Lena Dunham. She's got that going for her, at least.

Bob Loblaw said...

Comics have been stealing other comics' jokes and material since the second comic ever existed.

That's true, but there's a difference between stealing the idea of a joke and repeating it word for word, beat for beat.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Schumer's getting a lot of press and money, presumably--she's having a couple of very good years.
She really out to spread the money and fame around a little, you know?

Laslo Spatula said...

Brian McKim & Traci Skene said...
"This whole thing's ridiculous..."

Thank you for being here.

I am Laslo.

Brian McKim and/or Traci Skene said...

CatherineM said:

"If you knew how hard it was to write a joke or create an hours worth of good material to hold an audience's attention, you wouldn't dismiss it lightly. Especially when the competition is so fierce."

Yeesh... I sure hope that wasn't directed at me.

I'm one of the ones that has a rep for being scrupulously original and honest, by the way. Having survived (and, at times, thrived) in the business of standup for 30+ years, I know how hard it is to create an hours worth of material to hold an audience's attention. I've done it over and over... and over since the 1980's. And I sure hope it didn't sound as though I was dismissing it lightly. Quite the contrary. I know how important it is to standup comics. But I also know that we have a handle on it and we don't need civilians getting in on the gag (and it's kinda dumb for Maron to go full retard).

Perhaps I'm reading your comment wrong.

Brian McKim and/or Traci Skene said...

P.S.: I doubt Schumer gives a rat's ass as to how she's being perceived by other comics. She's hanging with Jennifer Lawrence at her house in the Hamptons. The days of her caring about what the others think is OVER.

FullMoon said...

.MAron said: If you go look at their Twitter feed, a lot of them are Trump supporters,

When I see this, it is obvious most were not Trump supporters

Freeman Hunt said...

What is a literal verbal career rape? Is someone talking, and the letters of the words are literally raping a resume? I don't know what I'm supposed to be seeing.

CatherineM said...

Brian and Traci - no, that wasn't meant for you. I should have said, "if people knew." That was poorly written and I am sorry.

She certainly seemed distressed on Jim Norton's show. I hope you're wrong about her not caring. Unlike Lawrence who is very young had success out of the gate, Amy has been at this a long time for success at 35.

: -)

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