Damn this tv "for men"

C

capitolgoga

New Member
#1
#1
Hi comedy community. I'm ranting to you cause I don't feel like badmouthing these people in my blog right now but - ugh - dammit sexist tvs!

Fucking seriously college humor and "another sketch comedy tv show that's having new episodes very soon and my friends are in it so I don't want to name it".

They have said point blank that their humor is "for men." And they make shit like this: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/video/video.php?v=46214354113
Why?
Why are you excluding? It's disrespectful.
Why disregard the audience of women? This audience is watching you and liking you. Stop dicking on us.

Challenge yourselves to make human comedy. Not comedy for men. There's "dudes" in women too. Make dude comedy if that's how you brand yourselves. I feel like those who make comedy for men shouldn't be proud of these statements. It's not an accomplishment.

I'm not saying that these people aren't making good comedy. Some of it is good. But it's really backwards to be all caveman about being for men (they say it a lot in articles and such). The best art - including comedy - is stuff that hasn't been done before and this is really getting old.

I have respect for some of these people. WHY?! Why do they have to keep subjecting us to this backwards shit?

We women are taking it. It sucks. Don't take it. HOLLER.

----
- Oh and also, we have yet to successfully make equivalent dude comedy by women in the mainstream. I mean only sort of here and there. Usually "comedy for women" isn't exactly the good shit. See Variety Shac for an example of successful execution of dude comedy made by women.
http://www.varietyshac.com/videos/shorts.html
But here's the thing - they would never say it was FOR women. It's for everybody if it's good. Like Chappelle - it's not FOR black people. It's just ABOUT black people stuff lots of times. Part of the fun is sharing this humor with the whiteys.

- Oh and on that point - wouldn't it be stupid if Chappelle said "I make comedy for black people and all about black people stuff" - people usually criticize black comedians when all their comedy is just about their race and nothing else. There was a time when that POV was needed but it's not that way anymore.

Oh dear. It's 2am. Time to stop being so angry and go to sleep.
 
Rosie

Rosie

Code 4 "SASSY-ASS!"
#2
#2
capitolgoga said:
Hi comedy community. I'm ranting to you cause I don't feel like badmouthing these people in my blog right now but - ugh - dammit sexist tvs!

Fucking seriously college humor and "another sketch comedy tv show that's having new episodes very soon and my friends are in it so I don't want to name it".

They have said point blank that their humor is "for men." And they make shit like this: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/video/video.php?v=46214354113
Why?
Why are you excluding? It's disrespectful.
Why disregard the audience of women? This audience is watching you and liking you. Stop dicking on us.

Challenge yourselves to make human comedy. Not comedy for men. There's "dudes" in women too. Make dude comedy if that's how you brand yourselves. I feel like those who make comedy for men shouldn't be proud of these statements. It's not an accomplishment.

I'm not saying that these people aren't making good comedy. Some of it is good. But it's really backwards to be all caveman about being for men (they say it a lot in articles and such). The best art - including comedy - is stuff that hasn't been done before and this is really getting old.

I have respect for some of these people. WHY?! Why do they have to keep subjecting us to this backwards shit?

We women are taking it. It sucks. Don't take it. HOLLER.

----
- Oh and also, we have yet to successfully make equivalent dude comedy by women in the mainstream. I mean only sort of here and there. Usually "comedy for women" isn't exactly the good shit. See Variety Shac for an example of successful execution of dude comedy made by women.
http://www.varietyshac.com/videos/shorts.html
But here's the thing - they would never say it was FOR women. It's for everybody if it's good. Like Chappelle - it's not FOR black people. It's just ABOUT black people stuff lots of times. Part of the fun is sharing this humor with the whiteys.

- Oh and on that point - wouldn't it be stupid if Chappelle said "I make comedy for black people and all about black people stuff" - people usually criticize black comedians when all their comedy is just about their race and nothing else. There was a time when that POV was needed but it's not that way anymore.

Oh dear. It's 2am. Time to stop being so angry and go to sleep.
Click to expand...
*high five*

edit- i'll elaborate later- when it's not 3am.
 
Guy Patton

Guy Patton

I like naps
#3
#3
Ok, a few questions: is it inherently sexist to simply try to brand what you do for marketing purposes? Lifetime used to call themselves "Television for Women." Most of the women I know are not big Lifetime fans, but I digress. That doesn't mean men can't watch, but they are targeting a certain audience for what they do. I don't have any stats to back this up, but based on the content on the site I'd venture to guess that the majority of College Humor fans, for good or ill, are men. CH is in the advertising business, so they need to be able to reach out to specific demographics for their clients. Not an excuse, just an observation.

This is a bit of a tangent, but what do you think about women-only classes at the various improv schools? It seems to me that they serve to further ghettoize women in comedy. Especially in improv, where men play women and women play men (and unicorns and robot pirates) so often and more freely than in any other form of theater, I would think that the more equally everyone is treated the better. Making separate classes seems like segregation to me.
 
G

Gavin

Pleasantly Pudgy
#5
#5
I agree that good comedy is good comedy and everybody can enjoy it, if it's truly good. That being said I don't see a problem with marketing towards a certain demographic, mostly for the reasons Guy already mentioned. It's a business and people study who their audiences are for a reason. I agree it would be awesome if they didn't have to do that, but there's a very practical purpose for it. I LOVE romantic comedies that Hugh Grant is in, but I totally understand why they're marketed towards women.

I don't understand the problem with that College Humor promo at all. Is it because the women are in bikinis and being paid to just stand there? It's 8 dudes and a girl who took the money they were supposed to spend on the promo and spent it on ice cream and hot models. I think that's pretty funny. I would think it was just as funny if it was a group of girls who spent the money on ice cream and a bunch of hot dude models. The joke isn't putting down women, it's what these "idiots" decided to spend the money on. They just happen to be mostly dudes so thats the way the joke plays. I agree there's a lot of misogynistic comedy, but I don't know if that's a good example of it.
 
Last edited:
C

capitolgoga

New Member
#9
#9
I think that all of those brands that make stuff FOR whomever generally makes poor quality "art."

Those channels' original content is, er ... barfies.

My main point is that these people shouldn't be so proud or excited about making things just for men, and often it's news to me that I'm being excluded, and pointless to do so.
 
Q

qnarf

you get gun!
#11
#11
i think it's reasonably pointless to rail against people who are obviously making the stuff they want to make. if you don't like it, you neither have to justify your dislike, nor do you have to tell them to do something different with their time, you need only make the stuff you'd like to see.
as long as there's someone to buy a given thing, it will probably get made, posts about not liking it on the irc aside. demos will get targeted, and i don't think it's any more exclusionary than saying 'generally speaking, the daily show is liked by liberal young people, and less so conservative old people.'
as a side note: i agree with gavin regarding the college humor clip in question, because i don't see it endorsing the idea, it's saying it's so silly and dumb that it's funny that someone would do it. i know that there's a lot of really shitty misogynistic comedy out there, and that it becomes easy to see it in a lot of stuff, but i really don't think, in this particular case, that ch's intention is to marginalize females, nor do i think that's the ultimate outcome.
 
C

capitolgoga

New Member
#12
#12
Maybe you think it's pointless cause you don't feel excluded or marginalized by mainstream comedy all of the time :)

Yes, people can make what they want to make for whom they want to make it - but I'm pointing out that alienating audience with pride is a bad thing. You can create from your specific POV, but truly good art shares this POV with all audience - and however silly comedy can be, it's art. Daily Show would be happy if conservatives shared in the humor.

As for that ad, I feel it's the same backwards joke thats been made for a long time now. And I also think that those women have been purchased like talking monkeys or a minstral show. If women made that joke with a bunch of male models, it wouldn't be particularly funny either.
 
Q

qnarf

you get gun!
#14
#14
capitolgoga said:
Maybe you think it's pointless cause you don't feel excluded or marginalized by mainstream comedy all of the time :)
Click to expand...
the amount of comedy that's made that is not 'for me' is enormous, based on my bizarre tastes alone. when you factor in demographic factors, there's plenty of dave warth exclusionary comedy made.
but i am white, and male and there are plenty of things i'm far less sensitive to, i'm sure, based on that background, than someone who has grown up in a marginalized demographic. so, where i'm sitting, i don't see it as misogynistic. it's possible that's my problem. to me, the point being made by the ad is 'look at us jackasses, we got a show, and we are the type of people who do shit like this. wtf?' that's how i see it, anyway. it may not be a joke that you particularly think is funny or original, but i don't think there's a great deal of misogyny involved. i... just don't, i'm sorry. to me the idea of paying models to stand there, simply because they can is funny, precisely because that's something a bad person does. ch makes no claim that this is the way to behave.
that said, alienating audience with pride is common. see, on one degree of latitude larry the cable guy, on another, andy kaufman. some stuff isn't for everyone, by design, as part of both form and function. i like some of it, dislike a lot of it, but that goes to taste, and to me, this is a matter of taste. if you don't like it, cool, but true misogyny, the type that really harms people, is really really really evident, and generally speaking, liberal people don't argue amongst themselves over it. and it is still easily found in comedy, and society at large.
i disagree entirely, by the way, that the daily show wants a conservative audience. they want an audience that they've cultivated and grown, and if they started doing work that appealed to conservatives, they'd undercut the demo they've worked very hard and very consciously to develop.
 
Guy Patton

Guy Patton

I like naps
#18
#18
capitolgoga said:
Maybe you think it's pointless cause you don't feel excluded or marginalized by mainstream comedy all of the time :)

Yes, people can make what they want to make for whom they want to make it - but I'm pointing out that alienating audience with pride is a bad thing. You can create from your specific POV, but truly good art shares this POV with all audience - and however silly comedy can be, it's art. Daily Show would be happy if conservatives shared in the humor..
Click to expand...
I don't follow your argument. Are you saying that good art has to be inclusionary? I'd argue that many great artists (Picasso and Andy Kauffman leap to mind) delighted in the alienation of large swaths of their potential audience. While I personally don't agree with that strategy, I also don't think that art must share a POV with anyone. The only thing art has to do is be true.

Wait, are we talking about art or chicks in bikinis? What happened?
 
J

Joey

New Member
#20
#20
Welcome to The Long Tail

Almost all media runs on advertisement. Ad value is based on 2 things: how many people are watching, and what kind of people are watching. It used to be that ad costs were based solely on the numbers. As the number of viewers dropped, TV networks couldn't justify the same prices, until they began pushing demographic numbers. "Sure, 'Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia' only has 3 million viewers, but all are young, alternative, and with money to burn." Thus, programming that targets specific demographics is valuable. If I'm mountain dew, I'd rather direct my product to the kind of people who watch 'Sunny' than 'Law & Order'.

CollegeHumor knows it's audience: males 18-25. Which, coincidentally, happens to be the holy grail of ad sales for a good many products. So CH, knowing that it's fanbase are males 18-25, makes a show for it's fanbase. And this is a problem... how?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top