Comic interlude – the best troll question I’ve seen in some time.
Kindly tell me how “The hell with you, it’s my freedom, I’ll say what I want” is whining and “Please don’t do that” isn’t.
Do admit.
Also – a profound observation on the nature of comedy.
In my opinion, the best humor is pointed at someone else and in some cases those people lower than ourselves.
You know, I’ve noticed the same thing about punching. The best punching is pointed at someone else.
Kind of illuminating that “Please don’t do that” reads as whining to some people as much as the first comment. I used to work with a guy who on one occasion scolded his young son to not be such a wimp when the boy asked his cousin to stop hitting him with the shopping bag he was swinging back and forth.
What should this fellow’s son have done, according to him? Just punched the other kid out?
“Please don’t do that” is not what she said. What she said was “Guys, don’t do that” She directly addressed guys with an instruction. Ironically if she had said “Guys, please don’t do that” I double the reaction would have been as hysterical. Then she would be accused of whining. It’s a no win.
A feminist female telling men what to do or not to do is what scares them, the specific subject matter may be incidental. Women must always use the ‘please’ word when addressing men.
So admitted. That takes the cake. To eat AND keep. Forever. Like a tragic Greek pun.
Disagree on the comedy issue. While it may be inconvenient (not to mention potentially bad for furniture) to pun(is)ch oneself physically, a little well-aimed self-irony can sometimes be turned into laughs.
Also, vicious violent jokes at the cost of “inferiors” is nothing but bullying. I try hard to avoid, indeed to resist, such.
Heh. I’ve said before, that the core of much of Canadian comedy is based on self-deprecation.
After all, nobody else takes us seriously, so why should we?
It reminds me of reporting bullies at school and being punished for “telling tales”. There was never any insinuation by the teachers that the tales I was telling weren’t true. It was the reporting bullies for bullying part that was apparently wrong. And of course, the bullies didn’t get punished at all. My parents held the same view as the teachers.
Later I physically defended myself against the same bullies and was immediately suspended for fighting. My parents took a dim view of that, too.
Now *that’s* whining 🙂
@ludicrous:
Yes.
Fun fact – and to increase the whining quotient of this thread – I was *caned* for reporting those bullies. To put it another way, I was beaten up by a teacher because I spilled the beans about being beaten up by some students. I was forced to hold out my hand which was hit a dozen times by a teacher wielding an instrument deliberately designed to inflict as much pain as possible with the least teacher effort: a sort of whip made from wood. Let’s be clear: in those days (until the mid 80s) teachers in some state schools bought (where the fuck FROM?) instruments of torture and regularly used them on children.
On other occasions, I was caned on my arse, trousers and underpants round my ankles, in front of other students, male and female. This now seems incredibly wrong but at the time it was just how punishments for arbitrary crimes were carried out. I was once caned like that for clearing up the glass from a window someone else had broken by accident. I once got caned like that for passing a fizz-bomb to my friend. He got caned too, which was even less fair. It was a blue fizz-bomb though. so it was deemed to be worth it.
I don’t think that could possibly have been legal even back then, although caning certainly was. But it happened. In state schools. Other kids had it shit-loads worse than I, but it still amazes me that this kind of treatment of children was considered OK back then. There was an enormous collective societal howl of outrage when the law changed so that children could no longer be beaten by teachers. The general opinion was that society would collapse if teachers couldn’t smack up pupils if they wanted to.
Was caning like that a common occurance? It seems unusual, just in terms of prudery. Surely they didn’t do it to the female students as well?
Gawd, latsot, that’s terrible. Talk about being trapped in a no-win situation.
@hyperdeath
I honestly don’t know. I certainly never saw it happen to girls but exactly nobody would be surprised if it did.
@Stacy
I don’t know that the specific punishments are the problem. The problem is that some teachers form an impression of a kid from day one – often because their older siblings were disruptive or in my case sickeningly good – and that impression, mistaken or otherwise, can follow the kid through school. I had a pretty bad rep for cheeking my teachers: I was a precocious little shit who read a lot. When my teachers said things that weren’t true, I explained where they’d erred. That did not go down well.
Other people had it a lot worse than I did but for similar reasons. Their brother or sister was notoriously bad in some way or they eyeballed a teacher on the first day of school.
The actual punishments – humiliating and painful as they were – weren’t as bad as knowing, KNOWING, that whatever appeal I made to bad or inappropriate treatment would always be ignored.
These things in my past don’t bother me now. But my niece started school yesterday and when her mother dropped her off, she (the niece) was obviously a bit scared and upset but was trying to hide it from her mother TO PROTECT HER MOTHER FROM FEELING SAD. I used to do that, too. I assume a lot of kids do, especially the bullied or abused ones. It made sense at the time, but it’s kind of heartbreaking to think of kids protecting their parents.