Post by thneed on Apr 1, 2015 10:56:56 GMT -4
If we try to apply the standard of "never told a bad or offensive joke" there would be no one who could meet it. Not a one. Chris Rock has said he's never have a career now if all his early work at clubs was on youtube. It used to be that you try out bad jokes in clubs, they bomb, or you tell bad fratty jokes for awhile, then you grow up, your humor refines itself, and you get better.
But now every bad joke you've ever made is online. Add that to how easy and righteous it feels to bring someone down, to uncover a scandal, to think that everyone is a secret racist or misogynist monster deep inside, and you aren't. You're better than them because you're shaming them the loudest. Because you're signalling you have less tolerance for those kinds of attitude than anyone else. "See, look how non-racist and non-sexist I am! I have so little tolerance for it that I have to loudly and publically shame someone! If you're less vociferous in your attacks, you must not mind this behaviour as much as I do!"
Defending Trevor in the basis that his mother is half-Jewish is doesn't make sense. Being one-quarter something doesn't provide any insight into being a member of that group. But I can believe that based on these tweets, he's not an anti-Semite. It's hardly a consistent pattern. It hasn't been corroborated by reports on his behaviour towards Jews (and he's toured all over the world), and he's done the apology.
I'm not saying these tweets shouldn't be discussed. But before we condemn him, we should try to find one comic who meets the standards of behavoiur we're demanding.
But now every bad joke you've ever made is online. Add that to how easy and righteous it feels to bring someone down, to uncover a scandal, to think that everyone is a secret racist or misogynist monster deep inside, and you aren't. You're better than them because you're shaming them the loudest. Because you're signalling you have less tolerance for those kinds of attitude than anyone else. "See, look how non-racist and non-sexist I am! I have so little tolerance for it that I have to loudly and publically shame someone! If you're less vociferous in your attacks, you must not mind this behaviour as much as I do!"
Defending Trevor in the basis that his mother is half-Jewish is doesn't make sense. Being one-quarter something doesn't provide any insight into being a member of that group. But I can believe that based on these tweets, he's not an anti-Semite. It's hardly a consistent pattern. It hasn't been corroborated by reports on his behaviour towards Jews (and he's toured all over the world), and he's done the apology.
I'm not saying these tweets shouldn't be discussed. But before we condemn him, we should try to find one comic who meets the standards of behavoiur we're demanding.
