I wonder, this morning, as I scan the comments on yesterday's post, "Whatever you think of [Dylan] Mulvaney’s transition, or her rather cloying girlishness... [s]he traffics not in anger or cruelty, but in whimsy and joy."*
Here's what I'm seeing (boldface added):
Sebastian: "Exuberant mockery of women, subversion of common sense, and in-your-face-take-that-deplorables-middle-fingerism....
Michelle Dulak Thomson: "[A]ll I can say is that he doesn't traffic in 'whimsy and joy.' He is a sick individual who mercilessly mocks women. Which is evidently OK these days...."The Vault Dweller: "I don't think Dylan is setting out to mock women or ridicule women in general." And Quaestor came back with: "Is blackface acceptable if it's not intended as mockery?"
RoseAnne: "Is Mulvaney mocking women? Absolutely. Is Mulvaney doing it out of hatred of women? I don't know. Mulvaney may simply be taking advantage of the opportunity that is making so much money and not thinking very hard about HOW the money is being made...."
Bender: "LARPer Mulvaney traffics in womanface minstrel-show mockery. Which is nothing but malice."
Is this a special-purpose sensitivity to the mocking of women? Is the outrage of a piece with anxiety about the transgender movement or do these commenters also object when male standup comedians mock women and when comic actresses embody female stereotypes?
Women represent a huge comic target. We are, perhaps, the biggest comic topic. We are mocked all the time. Do you want a new rule making women sacrosanct? Do you want to be the one stamping your foot and saying — in all seriousness — the punchline of one of the oldest jokes that mock women?
___________________
* My post title is a quote from Megan McArdle's WaPo column "For conservatives, Dylan Mulvaney should be a role model." And I'm only noticing now that my use of brackets — in "[s]he traffics not in anger or cruelty" — might give the impression that McArdle used the masculine pronoun "he." No, McArdle had a capital "S" on "she," and my elision combined 2 sentences, so I needed a lower-case "S." I'll add a note about this to the original post. Here I am following a routine editing practice — using brackets where I need to change something in a quote — and I'm unwittingly exposing McArdle/myself to criticism about pronoun choice!
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129 comments:
On the flipside, Riley Gaines, a true model for women, was not mocked, she was assaulted.
Ann Althouse said, "When did you first become sensitized to the mocking of women?"
Never. I'm not a hypocrite and afraid to admit that sensitivity to women is a useful foil to attack something detestably hateful. Women don't get a pass for mockery they themselves have opened the door to receiving. Transgenderism is 100% in modern feminisms wheelhouse of responsibility. In actuality I will never truly care about trans invasion of female spaces until women care about their invasion of male spaces taken place over the last 60 years. Which will never happen.
I've always been sensitive to the mocking of women when it's presented as something grand and noble, required to be devoutly valorized by all right-thinking people. It isn't usually presented that way.
It's mockery in the old sense of pretending-to-be, not so much ridicule.
Even if he were an actual woman, his shtick is too over-the-top vivacious for me. It worked for Loretta Young but she was beautiful too.
Dylan ain't got it.
People need to cease attacking this man. He is ILL. Just as if he had alcoholism or brain cancer. His brain is broken. He is mentally ill. He believes he is a 6-year-old girl who stars in Breakfast At Tiffany's.
And there's NOTHING wrong with that. He's not intentionally mocking anybody any more than someone with cancer is mocking bald people.
What IS wrong is for massive corporations like Bud Light to take a mentally ill person and put them into a bathtub dressed as a 6-year-old girl and hand them beer.
That was wrong; and although I see this morning that Alissa Heinerscheid, vice president of marketing for Bud Light, has been graciously granted a paid vacation by her employer, that is NOT ENOUGH.
Bud Light needs to come out, admit what they did to this man was wrong and apologize. They could offer to pay for his mental health treatment expenses, which I'm quite certain will last his entire lifetime.
Until then, I'm not drinking Bud Light any more, and you shouldn't either.
"Take my wife.....please."
I guess I am desensitized to women being mocked, because men and particularly fathers are never mocked in commercials or sit-comms.
I became sensitized when the mockery became monetized. It's 21st century Bones and Tambo, and will have a similar, predicable lifespan. After its death, it will not be mourned.
Of all the trans females out there, the one getting the big bucks and fame isn't a trans woman; it's a trans tween--a grown man pretending to be a silly girl enjoying the first flush of hormones as "her" 16-year-old neighbor boy walks by.
Mockery isn't exactly the right word. Misogyny is closer, but still doesn't capture the breadth of the insult.
The dogs won't eat the dog food, and the beer drinkers won't drink the beer.....There might have been something suspect about my childhood hero worship of Mickey Mantle and maybe there was even a hint of mint in my adolescent friendships. One thing I can say with absolute certainty, however, is that I have never on any level, conscious or subconscious, wanted to wear false eyelashes, and I would would go to considerable trouble to avoid having my penis cut off....My antipathy to the transgendered is not based on insecurity or bigotry. There's something off putting about a guy/gal like Dylan. It's too much. He's overdosing on his own flamboyance. Okay, he's entitled to live his life, but I'm entitled to avoid the beers that he endorses and to seek a safe space from the lectures of those who consider his struggles uplifting.
Humperdink said...
On the flipside, Riley Gaines, a true model for women, was not mocked, she was assaulted.
4/22/23, 8:03 AM
THIS.^^^^ And the left is okay with that, as long as you don't make fun of the boy pretending to be a 12 year old girl, or letting MEN take over womens sports. Don't cry when the WNBA is full of men, and women have no more teams.
“I don’t know” if Mulvaney is a woman or not. Unlike the not knowing if Trump really lost however, there is no test case, where millions of dollars are ordered to change hands, on account that something was alleged but it could not be proved.
There’s a public knowing and a private knowing and never the two shall tweet.
Gee, my Barbie pouch and I have been quite consistent on the subject.
When did you stop being sensitized to the mockery of women? You're the Andrew Dice Clay of defending this paedophilic misogynist.
When I see a grown man pretending to be a girl, by engaging in grade-school playground level mockery of what that means, consisting of flitting about being an air-head, I think, "that's not funny."
Not because it's against the rules to mock women or girls, but simply because it is NOT funny. It doesn't make me laugh; it doesn't even make me crack a smile. It just looks stupid and infantile. It reminds me of Pee Wee Herman, another stupid comic routine, that affected me the same way: "Boy, that's stupid! And NOT funny."
It's not that I don't have a sense of humor. Bill Maher makes me laugh. Dave Chappelle makes me laugh. Chris Rock makes me laugh. Lots of comedians make me laugh. Dylan Mulvaney makes me nauseous. Saying he's not funny is not a political statement, it's just a fact. Or at least an honest opinion.
"Do you want a new rule making women sacrosanct?"
No. I am a tad confused though. Blackface is bad, womanface good. Toxically masculine mockery of women is bad, joyfully aspiring trans mockery of women good. Men denying women opportunities bad, trans (wo?)men denying women opportunities good. Difference feminism good, men erasing women's difference also good.
Of course, some of us couldn't care less about Mulvaney as such and, as cynical deplorables, read events mostly as part of a process--maneuvers in the culture war, attempts to degrade common sense. Mockery of women is just another tool, with the particular twist that progs now insist that certain kinds of mockery need to be celebrated. It's the trans version of Havel's greengrocer effect: thou shalt affirm the lie.
Until Wednesday had I been asked the ratio of m>f vs f>m transgenders I would have guessed about 70-30. Maybe 80-20.all we hear about is men pretending to be women, like Tootsie Mulvaney.
On Wednesday I found out that while I would have had the numbers about right, I had the direction wrong.
Women pretending to be men greatly seem to outnumber men. About 70-30 or even 80-20.
So why do men get all the attention?
A conspiracy theorist might think that it is misdirection to hide the fact that so many women are being prevented from replenishing the human race.
But there are probably more mundane reasons.
John Henry
https://adage.com/article/marketing-news-strategy/bud-light-dylan-mulvaney-brands-marketing-leadership-undergoes-changes/2489431
Bud Light's marketing leadership undergoes shakeup after Dylan Mulvaney controversy
Alissa Heinerscheid, who has led the brand since June, takes leave of absence and is replaced by Budweiser global marketing VP Todd Allen
Alissa said (and i'm Quoting): "I don't understand How this could have happened? Ann Althouse liked me!"
Professor? How IS it? That you STILL haven't realized that the person we're mocking, is Alissa?
You'd have to be able to read Dylan's mind to know if she is mocking women or not.
Is it true that Dylan Mulvaney hasn't surgically transitioned? Is she even trans? Or is she a drag performer? 'Cause wasn't the Bud Light thing a celebration of her 1st anniversary as a woman?
So she stayed in drag for a full year, kind of like that French woman stayed in a cave? It was an endurance event?
Or did Dylan say, I'm never going back to men's wear and Bud Light is like, "One year down. Hooray! So far so good. Here's a beer can with your picture on it."
IMO, Dylan did the right thing by not rushing into getting surgery, if that's what happened. You can't undo that shit. Maybe she should talk openly and frankly with her fans about her decision to wait on the surgical transition.
This is thought-provoking post, as usual.
For me, Dylan’s brand of mockery does intersect with my repulsion of transgender behaviors, not the so-called movement itself. I’m all for treating people respectfully, but I don’t think trans men should compete with women in sports, share any women-only spaces, or accept awards meant for women. Those are all behaviors that are threatening to women both physically and emotionally, given the work women have done and continue to do to gain individual merit.
So, yes, I laugh at most jokes where women are mocked. We have to laugh at ourselves, after all. But we also can recognize when the mockery is no joke. To me, this is one of those times. If some man aspires to be a trans woman, then go for it, but don’t act like a spoiled brat 6 yr old and expect me to laugh.
If Dylan's womanface is meant as a parody of a certain type of woman, then I wouldn't have a problem with it. It would be in the tradition of Flip Wilson and many other comic actors who have performed in drag for laughs (of whom there are way too many to list, but of whom Dustin Hoffman, Tom Hanks, and Jack Lemmon are notable examples). Of course, if it's still ok for men to parody women in the name of comedy, it's hard to see why blackface is not also ok.
DM doesn't belong to that comic tradition. He's not acting the part of a woman as a comedic performance; he's purporting actually to be a woman. And, by his example, he's seeking to normalize transgenderism and sell it to other young people as a pathway to happiness. Not ok.
Do you want a new rule making women sacrosanct?
Do we want a new rule making trans people sacrosanct? Or Dylan Mulvaney sacrosanct? It seems the latter is what McArdle was asking for.
I am more and more convinced that Tootsie Mulvaneydoes not think that he is a woman. He is just a 21st century Al Jolsen using minstrelsy if so, it may not be mockery so much as just acting. Acting is his profession by education and experience. And/or running a straight-up Grift to make money.
Or,perhaps, like the shop teacher with the huge breasts or the male weightlifter recently in the news, he is making a point. Mockery, yes, but of crossdressing men pretending to be women.
The problem I see him facing is how does he "cool the mark". If he comes out and says "nyah, nyah, fooled ya" he will have a hard time getting work in the future.
I can think of a couple of exit strategies. Not sure any would work, though.
The transgender movement needs to be condemned for mockery on so many levels. I'm starting to become a Tootsie Mulvaney fanboi, though. He's figured out how to monetize it.
John Henry
It's a fitting post to mark the death of Barry Humphries, who played Dame Edna. Compare and contrast.
I have never found women who act like airheads funny. I don’t find men who act like women acting like airheads funny, either. I think both are insulting to women as a group. They promote a stereotype that isn’t grounded in any kind of truth. They are the same as a minstrel show that portrayed black people as stupid. (I will just add that in my experience women who act that way in real life are either seeking attention or using the persona to manipulate others.)
I had never heard of Mulvaney prior to the Bud Light/Nike ads, but I was viscerally repulsed by those ads, so I have little interest in seeing more of Dylan's work. I've tried to identify what I found so objectionable, since I did not object to Mrs. Doubtfire (Robin Williams) or Tootsie (Dustin Hoffman), and recall finding those movies entertaining. I really think what bothers me is that Bud Light and Nike expect me to accept that Mulvaney IS a woman, rather than a male portraying a woman. Robin Williams never expected me to believe that he actually was a woman, just that he was such a good actor he could portray a woman successfully. The same for Dustin Hoffman. Of course, Mulvaney presents as a very youthful, hypersexualized figure. If a teenage girl performed the same dance moves while advertising Nike sportswear, I think would be repulsed by the sexual exploitation of a young girl, so that's also a factor.
Even so, I think what bothers me is the assumption that I am hateful if I do not accept the "truth" that Mulvaney is a woman, even though that is counter to my own perception. I think I would be equally offended if I was expected to accept as truth that overweight people are thin or short people are tall. When I was four, I told my father he was fat. At bedtime my mother told me that my remarks had hurt his feelings, and that I should think before speaking and try to be kind. I don't think I've called anyone fat since that day, but I don't feel compelled to deny the truth of my own observations. FYI- some years later, my Dad started exercising and lost weight, and was proud to be back at his "fighting" weight in his later years.
Full points to Sebastian.
According to that OpEd (which must have been written by a very gay man), DM has 10 million followers.
Who are they? I'll bet not one is a heterosexual male. And a lot are girls/young women. What do they see in DM?
"I became sensitized when the mockery became monetized."
It bothers you that performers get paid?!
"Mockery isn't exactly the right word. Misogyny is closer, but still doesn't capture the breadth of the insult."
Feminism assumes that misogyny is pervasive in our culture, so necessarily comic performances are full of misogyny. It's the way of the world. Why single out transwomen as more problematically misogynist? Are they really first in line when we rank performers in order of misogyny?
Are Drag Queen shows mocking women? Those depictions are certainly far more flamboyant and over-the-top than the typical trans-person. But my sense is that Drag Shows don't upset as many people. Maybe it is the implied motive that a trans-person is trying for verisimilitude but a Drag Queen is trying for outlandish. And that attempt at mimicry makes some women upset because it reveals what some people think what is the defining form or characteristics of womanhood.
Althouse in this post inadvertently reveals the power structure of the New Dispensation. Openly mocking "people with vulvas": totally cool. Brackets that accidentally suggest non-use of Dylan's preferred pronouns? Unforgivable.
I suggest you give this subject a rest. Let’s agree to disagree. How many more ways are you going to approach this subject to try and prove that you are right? It appears that your underlying position is that transgender women are to be celebrated. Nobody should ever say an unkind word to a transgender woman no matter what he says or does. Dylan Mulvaney is the George Soros of transgenderism. Any criticism of Soros is antisemitism and any criticism of Mulvaney is anti-transgenderism.
Commenters offended by gender minstrelsy who have no real quarrel with racial minstrelsy.
Misogyny is pervasive in our culture, but so is the male equivalent. And if you look at what is good manners in the NYT or what you can learn from tv commercials, the put-down-the-male version is stronger.
the punchline of one of the oldest jokes that mock women?
The whole point of that line was men reacting to the fact that they got in trouble for mocking women. It shows that making fun of women had been risky for comedians for a long time.
It's been a running theme of your own blog that news stories tend to look for ways to present events to make women look better and men worse when the opportunity presents. In those instances, your commenters frequently observe that the media seems to be operating from the premise that women should not be made to feel bad about themselves.
Thus I'm a little surprised to see you now arguing that making fun of women is just an ordinary part of comedy and has presented no complications up until now. I'd turn this post's question around: when did you change your views?
He's only doing what Islam has been doing for the past 1,300 years or so...
Althouse, how do you think female stereotypes came about? Or male ones, if that suits you?
Mulvaney's parody of women probably ought to offend women, but it falls into the "sticks and stones ... but names will never hurt me" category.
However, he is a beacon for the trans activist community. Their commitment to maiming and/or sexualizing children ought to be condemned by all, particularly women. That it is not is indicative of how far we, particularly women, have fallen.
Interestingly, nearly a third of American male-to-female transsexuals are veterans.
Transgender people are significantly more likely to serve in the US military than the general population.
Despite the ban on military service, about 21.4% of the trans population is estimated to have served in the military.
About 32% of male to female trans persons have served. About 5.5% of female to male.
The US military employs more transgender people than any other organization in the world, around 15,500, more than 6,000 on active duty.
About 10% of the general population have served.
https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/trans-military-service-us/
"Transgenderism is 100% in modern feminisms wheelhouse of responsibility"
This is SO wrong. Feminists have been duped but it's the rich nutty genius bros like Stryker and Pritzker and Rothblatt who planned and bankrolled this whole thing.
They are bugfuck crazy.
There are no atheists in foxholes and all the women are brave until they’re changing in the locker room and the guy whips his dick out…
There's fresh new context to mocking women. Women have mocked each other for ages. Men mock women mercilessly. This is an all new context. IE: A mental patient allowed to shoot and kill 9 year olds in a school - and Biden's vile press secretary only has sympathy for the murderer.
Taking over women's sports. Calling yourself a women and being transferred from the men's prison to the women's prison so self-professed "trans" (who still has a functioning penis) can have open access to harm and rape women in prison?
Is that funny?
btw- Ann - you missed the best comment on that thread:
Gordon Pasha said...
" Mulvaney traffics in "woman face", if he had pretended to be a Black man he would have been taken out and stoned."
Earnest Prole: "Commenters offended by gender minstrelsy who have no real quarrel with racial minstrelsy."
Non-specificity combined with mind-reading.
"Mothers of boys with gender identity disorder: a comparison of matched controls
Abstract
This pilot study compared mothers of boys with gender identity disorder (GID) with mothers of normal boys to determine whether differences in psychopathology and child-rearing attitudes and practices could be identified. Results of the Diagnostic Interview for Borderlines and the Beck Depression Inventory revealed that mothers of boys with GID had more symptoms of depression and more often met the criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder than the controls. Fifty-three percent of the mothers of boys with GID compared with only 6% of controls met the diagnosis for Borderline Personality Disorder on the Diagnostic Interview for Borderlines or had symptoms of depression on the Beck Depression Inventory. Results of the Summers and Walsh Symbiosis Scale suggested that mothers of probands had child-rearing attitudes and practices that encouraged symbiosis and discouraged the development of autonomy."
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2016237/
Why single out transwomen as more problematically misogynist? Are they really first in line when we rank performers in order of misogyny?
Because they have XY chromosomes and are using aging suburban white women to justify rape and indecently expose their penis to young girls. Young girls have no safe place anymore. I don't care about "performers" who are transvestites but they encourage the sick stuff.
"Why single out transwomen as more problematically misogynist? Are they really first in line when we rank performers in order of misogyny?" -Althouse
Mulvaney isn't a transwoman. Mulvaney, who's 26 years old, chose to adopt the persona of the stereotypical "silly girl." Why? ("Why not" is the wrong answer.)
Does Rupaul mock women or parody them?
He is not transgender. He only pretends to be a woman onstage/camera. The rest of the time, like most dragsters he lives as a typical gay male.
Drag has always been about parodying or chariturizing women. Exaggerating female charistics for example. Or a fairly straightforward homage to certain women like Judy Garland.
Kind of like Alec Baldwin pretending to be trump.
So when does it stop being parody and become mockery? Is it based on intent of the performer? Or perhaps on who is the target? It is parody when you are the target, mockery when it is me? (you might feel the opposite)
I don't discard the possibility that tootsie really does think he is a woman. If so, I agree with others that he is mentally ill. I tend to believe that he is professional actor playing a role for moneu/fame/career. As such probably no more I'll than most of us.
I do salute him for his creativity in concept and execution.
Bud needs to salute him w a "real men of genius" ad
John Henry
Empathetic bullshit.
That said, feminism is a misogynistic philosophy, a class-disordered ideology, exploited by a minority of women and men for leverage in a democratic/dictatorial regime to keep women affordable, available, and taxable, and the "burden" of evidence aborted, cannibalized, sequestered in darkness. Trans/homosexuals, trans/socials, abortionists etc are part of an axis who have conspired in common cause in pursuit of capital and control.
On the flipside, Riley Gaines, a true model for women, was not mocked, she was assaulted.
Critical Class Theory (CCT) under diversity [dogma] of the Pro-Choice ethical religion asserts that humans are interchangeable, exchangeable, disposable in color or class blocs.
His workout bra routine cannot be viewed as anything but mockery.
It bothers you that performers get paid?!
Not a bit. It bothers me that more people will be inspired to follow this example and fall down an irreversible rathole. Money is a very powerful incentive, and I don't see this ending well for the people who follow this example to fame and whatever. As always, I could be wrong, and our values differ in important ways.
Can we divide the person from the performer/performance? Compare Dylan Mulvaney to PeeWee Herman to Paul Reubens. Note the long term consequences concern expressed by Sully regarding when Dylan is no longer young and cute. If a change into some Dame Edna type is in the cards for Dylan's forties, more power to comedy and the mental/emotional flexibility and depth of Mulvaney. I think the effect on the character "Dylan Mulvaney" is at odds with the long term good health of the the person Dylan Mulvaney. I worry about Dylan as role model.
'Ann Althouse said, "When did you first become sensitized to the mocking of women?"'
The reactions are diverse, but I suspect most here are not "sensitized to the mocking of women," but wonder why feminists are not. The answer, of course, is hypocricy. Dissonance must be resolved in favor of the party line.
Democrats are the champions of gender dysphoria. Despite their support of trans activists and other movements detrimental to women, e.g., Islamists and cartel sex traffickers, "feminist" women, like Jews and African-Americans, would rather go down in flames than leave their Democrat plantation.
People to the right of center instinctively get that they are in the minority. They can't win without persuading lefties. Just as instinctively, they must then "pounce" upon opportunities to point out ways in which the latest progressive propaganda contradicts last year's propaganda.
Everyone to the right of center has a dogeared copy of that deathless classic, "A Million Snide Things to Say About Women".
I think you are missing a point here. Bud Lite's cause celebré is DM celebrating 365 days as a girl.
DM is not a girl, nor a woman. DM is a 26 year old male who has had some facial feminization surgery. DM is not "trans"; adopting that term is implicit acceptance that a transition from state A (male) to B (female) is possible. DM will never be female. DM will never attain state B.
DM is an ersatz woman.
Never mind the massive disconnect between finding Woman face acceptable, while Black face is a crime against humanity. Making DM's face part of Bud Lite's branding is an insistence that everyone accept as given that which is impossible. That is where the offense lies, just as it does in every instance of an ersatz woman taking an honor previously reserved for women.
This time, though, there is an identifiable target: Bud Lite, which those of us who loath being told to accept 2+2=5 can fix, and destroy.
I like mockery, derision, and insult generally, so it's win-win for me.
It's the mockery of women being combined with men competing in women's sports, and men pretending to be trans to be placed in women's prisons or allowed in women's shelters or women-only spas and restrooms. When I say "men" I mean they still have their male genitalia and many or most of them are gaming the system. Dylan Mulvaney is especially annoying in pretending to be a little girl, and prancing around pretending not to know what March Madness is.
We normies are getting angry. Why aren't you, Althouse??
Women represent a huge comic target. We are, perhaps, the biggest comic topic. We are mocked all the time.
Or, perhaps not.
Find sample of male characters on comedy TV programs. Then tally the percent that are not bumbling fools.
But I certainly agree Mulvanney is making a target of women as a series of ugly stereotypes.
Ann Althouse
7,038 days straight.
YOU sound unhinged.
The woman who deserves mockery is Alissa Heinerscheid. It has nothing to do with her gender; everything to do with her wokeness and contempt for her customers.
I don't think those Bud Light drinkers are coming back. Few drink that swill for the taste. They drink it because they want fewer calories (plenty of alternatives there) and because it's a choice that didn't require any thought; it was on every tapper line in every bar in the country. Marketing reinforced that but it didn't create it.
Boycotts peter out because after the initial rush, people are reluctant to cut their nose off to spite their face so they come back. But in this case I expect Bud Light drinkers to find a new low calorie beer and not look back. It will be interesting to see where sales are months from now.
Notice how defensive Althouse gets when she is called on her nonexistent Cruel Neutrality?
Those of us who believe Mulvaney should just go away are halfway there. He has become boring.
"Feminism assumes that misogyny is pervasive in our culture, so necessarily comic performances are full of misogyny."
Interesting claim. It seems like you are using "misogyny" the same way people on the left use "racism", "homophobia", etc. That is, as a blanket condemnation tag for any view that you don't like, with the attached implication that the view is motivated by "bigotry". "Bigotry", in turn, means a completely irrational disapproval. It is necessarily irrational to find women annoying, because women are identical to men. It is necessarily irrational to fear blacks, because blacks are identical to whites. It is necessarily irrational to not want homosexuals around your kids, because homosexuals are identical to heterosexuals. In short, these pejoratives enable you to claim to have won an argument that you are actually unwilling to join, because your premises are not merely faulty, they are inherently self-contradictory. Using these words proclaims "The shit I am full of does not stink!"
"Is this a special-purpose sensitivity to the mocking of women? Is the outrage of a piece with anxiety about the transgender movement or do these commenters also object when male standup comedians mock women and when comic actresses embody female stereotypes?"
Two part question, two part answer:
(1) "Do these commenters also object when male standup comedians mock women?"
You are missing the point, Althouse. It isn't an objection to Mulvaney himself we are making- we are pointing out the truth of the matter of what Mulvaney does, and to the aggravating fact that we are supposed to pretend it is something it isn't- "whimsy and joy"- what McArdle was insisting we do. I don't/didn't object to the comedy of Andrew Dice Clay or Eddie Murphy in the day (see how I date myself), but I also didn't have to pretend that their comedy routines weren't misogynistic, and I didn't have to pretend the humor wasn't based in some sort of anger with and towards women. Same as I didn't have to pretend that female comedians using misandry in their routines were anything but what they were. Mulvaney is free to do whatever the fuck he wants to do, as could Clay and Murphy in the day, even take money from Anheuser-Busch for Tik Tok ads. However, I am not going to pretend it is whimsy and joy, and I am going to criticize Anheuser-Busch for using this in an ad, both as a financial critique and a social commentary one, but I won't criticize Tik Tok for giving him a platform. Do you not see the difference?
(2) "do these commenters also object.......when comic actresses embody female stereotypes"
I can critique it if I think it is wrong, and, again, I don't have to pretend it is something that it isn't. I might disagree where the line is drawn on what is stereotype and what isn't, but Mulvaney is clearly way beyond that line, and that you can't see that is pretty fucking hilarious, all in all.
Althouse blog has always been more about spurring folks to 'think better' which is why I've liked it.
I think two issues here come into play. One, it's not a bit that has comedic intention hat I can tell. It's a distinct concern there are men with power or in pursuit of power that are defining what a women is and replacing women in key opportunities of societal gains, that reflect an underlying actual misogyny.
Second, like white comedians can't or shouldn't make jokes or act out perceived mannerisms of other races because of a social history of racism, we should be sensitive to when men do that to women. Especially when the issues now aren't merely taking on a costume but to actually claim identity.
The Jerry Seinfeld episode about his dentist becoming Jewish to make fun of Jews comes to mind here.
We can also be critical about bad enterainment and how such debasing can both garner (this is an Althouse comment after all) a large audience and be bad aesthetically and socially in providing retrograde cues for the impressionable.
We can also call out really bad marketing decisions that seem to deeply misunderstand the audience of all involved thus evoking a unnecessary culture battle in a season where things are on edge and in need of richer discussions
Frankly, I am amazed that you all have apparently watched hours, or at least several minutes, of this Mulvaney person doing something or other. Why? I mean, I've probably seen a hundred pictures of this person. That's unavoidable, if you've been wasting time on the internet lately. But how do you come to spend more than three or four seconds figuring out that what you initially identified as an image of an attractive young woman is actually some asshole in drag? That happens so often nowadays it is not even startling. I gather that there are videos or TikToks or something, but why would you watch them? Does he have a cat that does cute tricks? I'm mystified.
I am not quite old enough for Milton Berle and have only a passing acquaintance with some of the performances mentioned but I do recall Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman's portrayals. I did not take offense nor did I especially like the performances, but for a slightly different reason. I found their female characterizations to be somewhat "canonized" as superwomen -especially Hoffman's - instead of being mocked. (Which, I guess could be seen as a form of mockery.)
In the comments to the other thread, various people claim Mulvaney is NOT mocking women while other claim Mulvaney is and that it is intentional. One can mock someone intentionally out of meanness or can do it out of ignorance. My personal view (a rant for another day) is the lack of civics and historical knowledge among people these days. Much of what Mulvaney chooses to do may be out of ignorance but it is still mocking. Maybe Mulvaney is looking at and magnifying the characteristics of specific women and would not intentionally try to offend anyone else. I don't know his intent.
In the video with "shopping shorts" and "normalize the bulge" there was a characterization of women that is unfamiliar to me (my sister, nieces, great nieces) in fly-over country. I ignored the "shopping shorts" reference and rejected the "normalize the bulge" comments. Sounded like "mansplaining" to me.
The Nike commercial was a bit different. I am old enough to remember the period before Title IX was enacted. Mulvaney's Nike commercial reminded me of various portrayals of what women's sports would look like under Title IX. In those cases, mockery WAS the intent. (Back to my reference to lack of historical knowledge these days) Had Mulvaney worn the same outfit but tried to act in a credible fashion as an athlete, I would have been less likely to think mockery was his intent. As to Nike, I have long had issues with the company unrelated to the transgender issue so I won't address that further.
Writes Megan McArdle in "For conservatives, Dylan Mulvaney should be a role model" (WaPo). No thanks, Megan I already have role models. Mulvaney is seizing an opportunity and making the most of it. That's it.
When I was growing up, there were no sports for girls in or out of school. When I graduated from high school, I was banned from many of the Ivies because I was a woman. Had I an interest in a military career, it was possible but just barely. I have a nephew who graduated from Annapolis so I know it is know that application is a much longer process than a few months if you want to be successful. I, and millions of other women, were told to "deal with it". We did - some better; some worse.
Someone else (may have been in other thread) mentioned being concerned for Mulvaney's personal future when this all dies down. I share the concern. I am also concerned by the numbers of people identified as autistic who are also self-identifying as transgender. This surgery has serious and life-long consequences. At the moment it feels like a runaway train.
"When did you first become sensitized to the mocking of women?"
It shouldn't be a problem to mock women when they do something mockable.'
Same with men.
The problem happens when some groups put themselves above the ability to be mocked.
Uhh. I'm a woman, not a very traditionally feminine woman and Mulvaney's whole schtick is extremely oft putting because it reinforces stereotypes that were supposed to be eliminated.
My femaleness doesn't come from my hair and makeup or that I don't like sports.
I find him distasteful and inappropriate the same way I'd find playboy bunnies as distasteful and inappropriate. My daughters do not need to model either behavior.
Althouse attempting to protect Dylan first from mean men with low self-esteem, now concerned the men are needlessly trying to protect women.
Good grief.
If Dylan is an entertainer in child-drag or in an honest "journey" along the Transpectrum jamming his image on a beer can is vulgar.
But if it's just entertainment, the audience needs to be in on the..gag.
Comparisons to prior comedic cross-dressing bits is lame in the contemporary context of clearly easily "influenced" children who are at times being pressured to get their bodies manipulated and mutilated, even placed on these journeys without parental knowledge.
It's bigger than feminism.
How are we doing on that manifesto?
Tox screen?
Whatevs...
Dyyyyylllllaaannnnnn!!!!!
So where is the line between DM-like mocking and one of my granddaughters being crippled in, say, soccer by a guy who's mad he didn't make starting fullback?
"Frankly, I am amazed that you all have apparently watched hours, or at least several minutes, of this Mulvaney person doing something or other. Why?"
I saw him for the first and only time on Tucker Carlson a few days ago. And it was instructive. Until then, I accepted at face value this had to do with transgenderism. But it clearly doesn't.
Since you made so much of the purported persecution of a Stanford Dean who you claim was just doing her job, I wonder why you have nothing to say about the dean at SF State who actually did nothing as violent trans activists assaulted female swimming champ Riley Gaines? Why did it take two hours for Gaines to be rescued from a room in which she was barricaded by campus police? The audio she recorded makes it quite clear that this mob meant her serious physical harm. Can you imagine what it felt like being trapped in a room with people outside threatening her -- for two hours? Where were the administrators? Why didn't the campus police immediately arrest and remove every single rioter? If any are students, why aren't they being expelled?
I hope she sues them all, the university, the dean, and everyone who attacked her. This sort of behavior needs to start costing schools far too much.
"When did you first become sensitized to the mocking of women?"
Good question. I imagine that for most folks who raise the point, it's easier and safer to advance this line of attack on a ridiculous tranny in alignment with a socially protected group rather than directly address the manifestation of mental illness that the tranny represents with the certainty of being labeled a hateful clod...
Just more civility bullshit if the point of asking the question is to shut folks up about it.
- Krumhorn
Non-specificity combined with mind-reading.
Louis L’Amour anticipated your yelping.
What Dylan Mulvaney needs to do is endorse Trump for President. That's what Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner did, and nobody gets offended by Jenner anymore. Trans for Trump!
Response to Jupiter at 1126.
The reason we watch Mulvaney is that the Biden Administration has made him the center of the latest propaganda campaign aimed at outweimaring Weimar. He has been selected to lead the charge against biological reality. The fact that the Fortune 500 are on board with President Lysenko is as hard to ignore as that really awful crash on the interstate.
""LARPer Mulvaney traffics in womanface minstrel-show mockery. Which is nothing but malice.""
Spot-on.
Yes. Women can be a comic target. Take my wife. Please.
"and I'm unwittingly exposing McArdle/myself to criticism about pronoun choice!"
"And if the party says that it is not four but five -- then how many?"
I'm one of those people who enjoys comedy that makes fun of people. (Assuming it's not specifically designed to insult and hurt someone.)
We still live in an era where you can make fun of certain people, but I wonder if, in the future, making fun of anyone will be considered inappropriate. (Not because it's not funny, but because it "might" hurt someone's feelings.)
Mockery is usually a charicature of the subject. If the subject is deserving of mockery in some way, then I find the mockery humorous. If I don't feel that way about the subject, then I don't see the mockery as being funny at all and possibly even find it disgusting.
Often, I think the mockery is of a cultural stereotype. If done well, then we see the problems with the stereotype while still finding it amusing. But when the problem with the stereotype being mocked is not obvious then the mocking will be seen as at best not funny and at worst repellent. A fine line to dance.
Of course, not everybody recognizes that there is a stereotype being mocked and take the mocking personally. That doesn't usually go well.
AB obviously misjudged their audience by using a man mocking young female behavior as the face of their poduct. I suspect that most of the audience associates beer drinking with good times and camaraderie. That isn't what their audience associated with the face they chose. Kind of like when Roseanne Barr destroyed the national anthem before Cincinnati Reds/San Diego Padres game in 1990. She intended a humorous charicature of something, but the audience didn't take it that way.
Feminists asserted that women can do it better than men.
Masculinists assert that men can be a better woman than women.
Trans/homosexuals socially distance from others in the transgender spectrum and trans/socials under the democratic policy of political congruence ("=").
The ethical religion of Progressive sects rewards exercise of liberal license to indulge diversity (i.e. class-disordered ideologies) in an ouroboros evolution.
"When did you first become sensitized to the mocking of women?"'
I've been speaking out against the ideological hatred of woman and womanhood along many fronts for many years commenting here. TRAs are only the latest (and most direct) manifestation.
Here's a counter-question: When, if ever, have you become "sensitized to the mockery of men?"
Likely, never.
Women get mocked, it's "Oh, quelle horreur, what an awful thing! Let's cancel that nasty, nasty person..."
Men? LOL... Like people even notice, let alone object. How many people look at Homer Simpson and see the slightest thing wrong with that mockery? It's satire, see...? Grow a pair; why are you offended by that characterization...?
Women notice these things when they're applied to them; they get up in arms, and go mad with rage over them. Then, in the next breath, they do the same damn thing to the men around them, and don't even recognize the hypocrisy and double-standards.
There's a book out, written by a guy (of course...), whose title is "Why Women Deserve Less", and while I've yet to get to it on the list of my reading, a quick run-through gives me the general impression that he's on to something, here. And, I will fully agree with his premise that women do deserve a lot less of many things. Starting with deference for their utter self-involved bullshit as typified by this post.
The ladies wanted to enter the male world? Well, girls... Here's the unfortunate fact: It's a brutal place where your arguments and your sensibilities have to stand up under examination and brutal abuse. They don't work? You lose; you don't get to fall back on "But... But, I'm a girl..."
Ninety-nine percent of what pisses me off about this debate is the double-standard applied. Our hostess here could have headlined this piece as "When were you first sensitized to the mockery of other sexes...", and she'd have had a decent argument. By focusing on the "Me, me, me, I'm a victim..." feminist aspect of it, she's basically ignoring all the other vapid bullshit circulating in the cultural commons about both sexes, which almost always goes without objection. Anyone ever note how prevalent the "Stupid dad" theme is, in advertising? The "Wise wife (and, kids?)" showing the buffoon "the right way" to do anything, from wiping his ass in the toilet to using a computer (which mostly men invented...)?
I'll pay a lot more attention to things like this, and lend credence to the arguments, when people like our hostess start noticing and paying attention to the fact that what they're bemoaning is going on in both directions, and is equally bad whoever it is applied to.
When I was in college and went to San Francisco for a weekend, we often went to Finocchio's There were some might strange looking dudes in there but it was all in fun and there were NO children. I saw some people whose sex I had no idea of. It was entertainment directed at adults.
The stuff going on now is not amusing and is directed at children who should be left innocent until they are adolescents. The Bud Light boy is not the problem. He is just tapping into the anger about children being groomed.
I'm not sensitive to anyone being mocked, man, woman, white person, black person, etc. Who cares, get on with your life.
What I am sensitive to is when people whose radars are exquisitly tuned to read (or infer) mocking of others by straight white men (or mocking of blacks by white women) seem completely blind to the fact that drag and trans women are clearly mocking women. Also, those who read sexism into virtually every facet of life but don't see the sexism inherent in the trans movement. I find that fascinating.
I am thinking about why I find Monty Python, Harvey Fierstein and Dame Edna funny but Dylan Mulvaney annoying. I think it's the girlhood schtick but I didn't have a problem with Lily Tomlin's little girl character and I can imagine any number of male sketch comics doing a little girl routine that would be funny. Vaughn Meader used to mock Carolyn Kennedy in his act and it didn't bother me at all. I think it's because part of Mulvaney's act is that it's not a performance - he dresses like that all the time. Harvey Fierstein puts on a wig and a dress to perform - he doesn't wear it when he does interviews. I don't feel any repulsion for Caitlyn Jenner or Wendy Carlos or Jan Morris but Mulvaney puts my hackles up. I think it's him.
“Althouse blog has always been more about spurring folks to 'think better' which is why I've liked it.”
Think better or think like her?
Big difference.
When did you first become desensitized to the mocking of women, Ann?
The fact is that there are more women transitioning to men than there are men transitioning to women. But the men transitioning to women is what causes all of the uproar, boycotts, yelling, etc., not the other way around. This is especially evident here on Althouse blog, where the loudest opponents are men. Why? Maybe because Mulvanney is causing the men on this blog to question their masculinity, and that scares the bejusus out of them. I often wonder how many of the angry men here are getting boners when they watch the Mulvanney videos, and that scares the hell out of them.
The phrase "mockery" was deployed to counter the claim that Mulvaney's routine is a joyous/joyful one. The point was that it is not joyful but mocking / minstrel. The point was to provide an alternative explanation to the perceived behavior not to be "extra sensitive" to the mockery of anyone.
This post will probably get me banned from Althouse Blog for life. But when I read the comments here from Drago and the rest of the like-minded people here condemning Mulvaney, I have this image in my mind of them all jacking off to his videos while listening to Lola by the Kinks. Please, G_d, make this image go away.
Here's the link to Lola for those of you who don't know the song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LemG0cvc4oU
"I suggest you give this subject a rest. Let’s agree to disagree. How many more ways are you going to approach this subject to try and prove that you are right?"
Right about what? I'm asking questions. Seems like you don't want to answer them, so it is you who are taking "a rest."
This blog is for people who choose to engage with interesting and sometimes difficult questions. I've been asking these questions every day since January 14, 2004.
I decline your suggestion that I take a "rest." It's quite pleasing and, indeed, restful for me to be watching things flow by and popping in with questions I don't think others are asking.
If you think I'm about proving I'm "right" about something, I challenge you to identify what the thing is I'm so dogged about. But really, it just seems like you don't enjoy what this blog is. What should I care about people in that category? I'm not going to redo the approach of this blog after following a very consistent path for 7,038 days straight. Why on earth would I do that? Because YOU think I should "rest"?!
I do believe I hit a nerve. I am sorry if I offended you, because that was not my intent. You are telling me that you really take no position on this topic, but you are just asking interesting questions. Yes, I know that you do that quite often. However, you did get many responses on your original post, the vast majority of which rejected the idea that Dylan Mulvaney is just playing a part and not mocking women. However, you then continued to post on this topic. Thus, it would appear that you were unhappy with the responses you got. You tried to shame your readers by suggesting that they were being mean to Dylan Mulvaney by rejecting his portrayal of women. You even took umbrage that they were trying to prevent him from financially capitalizing on his performance as a silly girl, which is not the case. Your readers were attacking the companies that were paying him to mock women, not Dylan Mulvaney. He is an exhibitionist who is playing a part on social media and has millions of followers. If he is going to present himself that way, he has to expect pushback from people who are repulsed by his portrayal of women. Maybe I am reading more into your responses than you intended, but it does appear that you are defending what Dylan Mulvaney is doing. My comment that you should give it a rest was not meant to be offensive. I was simply trying to indicate that you were not going to change the mind of your readers who were not amused by Dylan Mulvaney’s portrayal of women.
onejustice said...
I often wonder how many of the angry men here are getting boners when they watch the Mulvanney videos, and that scares the hell out of them.
4/22/23, 4:46 PM
I have this image in my mind of them all jacking off to his videos while listening to Lola by the Kinks. Please, G_d, make this image go away.
4/22/23, 5:08 PM
--
Get help.
lonejustice,
Most of what you post just above doesn't deserve a reply and won't get one from me, but this:
The fact is that there are more women transitioning to men than there are men transitioning to women. But the men transitioning to women is what causes all of the uproar, boycotts, yelling, etc., not the other way around
is flat-out wrong. Abigail Shrier in particular would beg to differ. Her book is entirely about FTM transgender people, and -- surprise! -- was subject to a massive banning campaign the moment it was published. I would add also that a lot of the touchy new language -- "pregnant people," "chestfeeding," &c. -- also refers to FTMs. And so does the concern about whacking off minor girls' perfectly healthy breasts.
LLR-democratical and Violent Homosexual Rage Rape Fantasist Chuck sidekick, lonejustice: "This post will probably get me banned from Althouse Blog for life. But when I read the comments here from Drago and the rest of the like-minded people here condemning Mulvaney,..."
LOL
A quick scan of the thread shows precisely zero comments by yours truly regarding DM.
lonejustice, if thats the best you can do in support of LLR-democratical Chuck and your dem allies, your team would be much better served if you didnt comment at all!
Big decisions ahead for you! Good luck!
Drago (to Earnest Prole): "Non-specificity combined with mind-reading."
Earnest Prole: "Louis L’Amour anticipated your yelping."
You were wise to add deflection to non-specificity and mind-reading to "prove" your point. There's no real "there" to it after all, is there?
Par for the course for you.
Female transitioners have been sexually abused and/or on the autism spectrum for the most part. A large subset of male transitioners are sexually attracted to the idea of being a woman. So yeah, it's a little more alarming for women. These are the people that try to go into women's locker rooms and join women's sports teams. And good men want to protect their wives and daughters. This isn't hard.
Althouse,
Well, what can I say? I can repeat what many others have said above -- that the parallel between grotesque parodies of femininity, like DM or, indeed, most drag, and Black minstrelsy of the Stepin Fetchitt variety is pretty well exact. Or that the relentless humiliation of the white Dad in advertising and sitcoms is brainless and deeply distasteful.
It is a coincidence that Barry Humphries/Dame Edna died the other day, but s/he shows the difference between what Mulvaney did and actual, y'know, comedy. Dame Edna never claimed to be a woman. Hers was a persona, explicitly "put on" for the show, and mercilessly funny. Compare, say, SNL's Church Lady. That is also a persona, one that I personally find insulting and repulsive, which is why I am using it as an example. All the same, the Church Lady doesn't pretend to be (say) a deaconess in real life. Mulvaney pretends to be an actual dippy, brain-dead tween.
So, Bud Light wants not to be so "fratty"? Nike is keen to show its sportswear intended for women on a body that will never have breasts unless they end up being surgically supplied? Well, congratulations; you've succeeded. But do not expect my fawning approval.
Ann Althouse said...
Feminism assumes that misogyny is pervasive in our culture
Well, that certainly explains why so many hardcore feminists come across to Normal people as batshit crazy lunatics residing on a far distant planet well outside our solar system. I suppose thst if one is sufficiently hard core one can apply that assumption, and some circular logic, to any male-female interaction, thereby confirming the assumption.
Not that things weren’t that way once upon a time. In the early 1970s there were plenty of STEM professors and bosses out in the corporate world who believed that a penis was an absolute requirement for technical expertise. My wife was wondering why her dissertation advisor was not advocating for her to get the time slots on the university cyclotron that she needed to run her doctoral experiments, only to overhear him tell a colleague that “if you give a doctorate to a woman she’ll just take a job from some guy who needs to feed his family. She eventually got her degree, but not from that advisor, and she had to start over on a whole new research project. But it was tough. Women who came along just a decade later, like Althouse, cannot begin to grasp how much easier they had it.
lonejustice said...
"The fact is that there are more women transitioning to men than there are men transitioning to women."
Yes. Isn't it...odd..how they want to joint the patriarchy, the ages-old oppressors of women?
I would be remiss if I did not point out that just as LLR-democratical and Violent Homosexual Rage Rape Fantasist Chuck pens porny posts explicating his clear desire for homosexual rage rape against certain Christian conservatives, So now does Chuck's sidekick lonejustice (LOL, what a handle) show up and makes explicit his disturbed visuals of other conservatives performing sex acts to alternative music videos.
It's simply another "tell" related to this hilariously transparent LLR-democratical Chuck/lonejustice "partnership".
Too funny.
@lonejustic: Maybe because Mulvanney is causing the men on this blog to question their masculinity, and that scares the bejusus out of them.
"Maybe" is doing heroic work in that sentence.
Which makes me think you either haven't read any of the comments, or comprehensively failed to take them on board.
"I have this image in my mind of them all jacking off to his videos while listening to Lola by the Kinks."
You might consider that, just because you react a certain way, doesn't mean other people do.
Just sayin'.
lonejustice: "I have this image in my mind of them all jacking off to his videos while listening to Lola by the Kinks."
No one doubts for one second that you have many images of males engaging in sex acts on your mind frequently.
Very frequently.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.......
Blogger walter said...
onejustice said...
I often wonder how many of the angry men here are getting boners when they watch the Mulvanney videos, and that scares the hell out of them.
Speak for yourself, twerp. I'm not angry, just disgusted. You perverts are feeling your oats right now. It won't last.
Wow, Lonejustice, I don't think I have seen more pure projection in two comments in a long, long time. The commenter above was right- get some professional help. And stay away from the schools.
How many feminists does it take to change a lightbulb?
None, of course. In-charge women simply order men to do such mediocre tasks. Meanwhile, important business decisions are rendered with some emotion but without due consideration of male inclinations.
Yay, team! . . . and la-la-la-Lola (Thanks, Mason).
With the Pro-Choice ethical religion that denies women's dignity and agency, and endangers girls through normalization of socially liberal lifestyle without a "burden" of evidence to inconvenience feminists/masculinists, corporate, and State's compelling interests. Witch hunts and warlock trials on one hand, gender conflation on the other, and reproductive... human rites for social, redistributive, clinical, political, criminal, and fair weather progress.
Mocking women? Seriously, have you seen a TV commercial lately?
Stupid man/Dad vs. smart funny woman/wife. He can't do the simplest task.
Seriously. It's pervasive.
Big Mike,
In the STEM fields, those of us who are Professor Althouse's contemporaries are the ones who did the most to change it. We were the first to show up in large enough numbers we couldn't be ignored. Not all women had the same priorities back then just as we don't now. While a lot of women of that era were out fighting for abortion rights, some of us were fighting for professional acceptance in STEM. Those of us in that age group know well what it felt like to be the only woman in a physics class, to have professors believe we only wanted an MRS degree, and to have to pick and choose classes based on which professor was welcoming to women instead of where our interests lie. In four years of working on a degree in engineering, I only encountered one female professor, and she taught the history of science. Many thanks to your wife for getting the ball rolling, to my contemporaries for standing with me, and to all of the young women today who are mostly welcome in STEM fields but still battle the stereotypes.
Ann Althouse said...
Feminism assumes ...................
Ah. There it is.
Is it still OK to tell Blonde jokes?
"Think better or think like her?
Big difference."
If her goal was to have folks think like her she would have a very different comments section. Of course we all want to convince others but in 20 years or so of this blog, I've only got the sense of frustration when the level of thinking doesn't rise to the expectations not when folks disagree.
Her commenters largely don't share many of the same conclusions and I think this actually is a win as it makes for better sparring. And if I recall this reflects how she was raised and parented.
"Explain yourself better" seems to be the goal of many of her posts.
I could be wrong but don't think so. Most people just want to be agreed with at the least amount of effort and so interpret prioritizing better thinking as something bad
I love it when "lonejustice" talks dirty.
"Until then, I accepted at face value this had to do with transgenderism."
I haven't seen the evidence you cite, but I question your assumption, that "transgenderism" is a thing, and this isn't it. "Transgenderism" is made-up bullshit. To the extent that the claims of "transgenderists" reflect their actual views, they are evidence of mental illness. When someone tells you he is Napoleon, he is putting you on, or he is crazy. When a man tells you he is a little girl, he is putting you on, or he is crazy. Or both. So, it sounds to me like this sad sack is as good an example of transgenderism as you are likely to find.
"We are, perhaps, the biggest comic topic."
What percentage of shows on commercials, tv, streaming, cable or movies in theaters do men come off better than women?
Asking for a friend.
Blogger rwnutjob said...
Mocking women? Seriously, have you seen a TV commercial lately?
Stupid man/Dad vs. smart funny woman/wife. He can't do the simplest task.
Seriously. It's pervasive.
Especially black women. Who knew that 50% of the middle class in this country (at least on TV) were black?
Ellie,
I know whereof you speak. My mom went to UW/Madison and came out with a biochem PhD in the late 60s. (My father did the same, around the same time.) On announcing that she was going to UW, she was kicked out of the house with (IIRC) forty bucks.
These are the women we need in academia now. Not these quaking idiots who tremble at a thought that hasn't been "sanitized for your protection."
Women are finally beginning to realize what many have seen all along: "Drag" is the sexist equivalent of racist blackface.
Narr: "I love it when "lonejustice" talks dirty."
I would bet LLR-democratical and Violent Homosexual Rage Rape Fantasist Chuck loves it much, much more.
Much.
Earnest Prole said...Commenters offended by gender minstrelsy who have no real quarrel with racial minstrelsy.
And the opposite/inverse, yes: that's exactly the point.
People super-sensitive to cultural appropriation and minstrelsy in all other situations but unbothered by it when it's drag performers or transpeople doing it are being inconsistent, yeah.
"Who knew that 50% of the middle class in this country (at least on TV) were black?"
As are nearly 100% of all judges.
MDT's mom, kicked out of the house "[o]n announcing that she was going to UW."
What, they expected Harvard?
Just kidding. My mother left the local teachers college with that prized MRS after two years. Fat lot of good it did her, but she would have made a lousy teacher anyway.
Blogger Earnest Prole said...
Commenters offended by gender minstrelsy who have no real quarrel with racial minstrelsy.
--
Rachel Dolezal?
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