September 12, 2022

"An extended riff on abortion... starts by saying he supports a woman’s right to choose, but he notes the phrase, 'perform an abortion' sounds jarring."

"'It’s … showtime!' he cries, impersonating an abortion doctor putting on a show. And when his wife asks about his performances that day, he says, 'I f***ing killed.'"

Hollywood in Toto reports on Sam Morril's new Netflix special, "Same Time Tomorrow Night," and quotes the segment I wanted to notify you about.

12 comments:

rhhardin said...

John Searle in his Philosophy of Language course (youtube) suggests to students that they go home and try to think of kinds of performatives not listed, just as an exercise in seeing how complete his list is (I think 21 types).

I thought of one right away - mansplaining.

His lectures youtube show an authority that overcomes philosophy.

I suppose you can tell an abortion joke that overcomes comedy. It has only two joke points, clever and cruel. It needs three. The problem isn't that it's about abortion but that it's not a good joke.

Joke points review:
Clever: "You recognize clever when you see it. It's just combining things that people didn't think you were going to combine, but yet you somehow made it work."
Naughty: "Naughty is usually just sex or bathroom jokes."
Bizarre: "Bizarre just means two things out of place."
Cruel: "Cruelty is a staple in humor. Cruel just means something bad happened to somebody or you said something unkind to somebody. You know cruel when you see it."
Cute: "Cute is usually just kids and animals."
Recognizable: "Humor usually requires that you recognize something about the subject of the joke being like your experience or like yourself. It's either like somebody you know, like you, but has to be familiar. Something you recognize."

gspencer said...

So difficult to get away from the idea that when an abortion is "performed," a dead child is the result.

Leland said...

Long ago, I had a Netflix subscription in the days of disc rentals. I liked the transfer to digital streaming primarily for comedy. I'm glad Netflix is staking a claim back in comedy. It might make me come back. I did watch their Dave Chapelle special. Not sure about this guy, but if Christian Toto likes him; he's one critic that seems to find things I enjoy.

n.n said...

There is no mystery in sex and conception. A woman, and man, have four choices: sex or abstention, contraception in depth, adoption (i.e. shared/shifted responsibility, and compassion (i.e. shared/mutual responsibility), and an equal right to self-defense through reconciliation. The wicked solution is neither a good nor exclusive choice. The Pro-Choice ethical religion denies women and men's dignity and agency, and reduces human life to negotiable commodities. Deja vu.

That said, civilized society has a compelling cause to discourage the performance of human rites for social, redistributive, clinical, political, and fair weather (e.g. climate stasis) causes, in the light, and the death of demos-cracy in darkness h/t WaPo.

Mary Beth said...

Morril’s material isn’t shy about sexual observations, and some of his crass cracks may chase some viewers away, particularly on the Right.

I haven't seen it yet, maybe he's right, that the Right will be the ones who are most offended by it. We'll see, but the negative comments I see so far on Twitter are about his misogyny and transphobia, not about his jokes being too risque.

Narayanan said...

I have been saying that DIY abortion would avoid all these hassles.

Planned Parenthood can just hand out the kits.

Ann Althouse said...

I thought the abortion joke was more of a problem for a pro-choice person. The punchline is that abortion kills.

Ann Althouse said...

Can't really enjoy the laugh if you're pro-life, unless you're laughing at the pro-choicer getting confronted with harsh reality.

n.n said...

Ironically, a Holocaust in Progress (HIP). Still, the gallows humor may be what's needed to wake people from their woke state of d... I'll leave it to their possession: life, sin, and baby.

Tina Trent said...

All pro-choice people should, for the sake of ethical consistency, witness a real abortion. Only believe in abortion to the 15th week ( A stance that takes us far past European norms)? Then witness that, including the reconstruction of the body parts in a lab tray.

Want to go to 20 weeks? You're in for a real shock.

Third trimester, like nearly all Democrat candidates and activists demand today?

Get ready to change your mind.

Especially if one gets the vapors when a comedian merely jokes about it. I don't think pro-life people go in for this type of comedian, but he certainly hits the third rail of his lefty audience. Isn't that sort of transgression honorable in itself in the stand-up world?

Yet another day I miss Norm MacDonald.

HoodlumDoodlum said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Václav Patrik Šulik said...

Check out Bill Burr on abortion:
Twitter Link
Tik Tok Link

Serious Rude Language Warning