RoR: Forum

Heh, I knew posting this joke would provoke this sort of reaction. Look, I know the South Park style of humor doesn't appeal to some, that's why I titled the joke "Dicks, Pussies, and Assholes" in big, bold lettering, so those who might have a problem with it would be duly warned as to its content. I mean, after reading that title, what did you expect when you clicked on "Read More"? Some sort of delighful pun, or maybe a dirty limerick of some kind? I am reminded of the father who wrote an angry letter of protest after he and his son listened to the entirety of George Carlin's bit about "the seven words you can't say on TV."

Do I think it's particularly inspired or intimately connected with the philosophy of Objectivism? Of course not. It's just a funny, timely metaphor for a foreign policy perspective. (That perspective is related to discussions that have taken place on the SOLO forums lately.) Even the uptight Christian wedgie-wearers over at The Weekly Standard gave Parker & Stone's movie a favorable review.

(Edited by Andrew Bissell on 10/18, 1:08am)

Post 21

Monday, October 18, 2004 - 3:00am

I've not seen this movie yet though I gather that Messrs Parker and Stone are both libertarians. South Park is essentially crude humour on the face of it, but the plotlines often have strong libertarian and anti-religious implications.

Post 22

Monday, October 18, 2004 - 2:29am

The thing is, there is nothing remotely funny about this passage whatsoever, unless, as I suggested, you find snickering Abu Ghraib-type humour funny. Where's the wit? Where's the comic genius?

Whether people had the option to click on it or not, I wonder why you would want to stick it under their noses in the first place? (It's especially disappointing because your posts are normally so good!?!)

The relevant metaphor is not the foreign policy debate, but the aesthetics debate. The passage perfectly underscores the fact that, for instance, the literal message of a lyric is less much important than the predominant message which is delivered through the music. In this case, any foreign policy message is completely obliterated by the delivery style, which says "this passage is written for arse-wipes".

Post 23

Monday, October 18, 2004 - 6:52am

As far as the issue of 'Dicks, Pussies and Assholes' is concerned and if it is appropriate for this Objectivist forum, consider if it elevates or debases the human spirit. You know the answer.

Barbara: I use Musicmatch which supports WAV files. Do you have a PC or a Mac? Do you get music from other sites? I'm not an expert in this.

Sam

Post 24

Monday, October 18, 2004 - 7:16am

Tim is right. This is a matter of aesthetics. Whether you wallow in it verbally or depict it graphically, there's no basic difference.

Sam

Post 25

Monday, October 18, 2004 - 2:15pm

South Park can be pretty funny in a nihilistic, scorch the earth kind of way.

I didn't find this funny at all. Too crude for me. It seems to me that many younger people (not necessarily anyone here; FYI I'm 34) are de-sensitized to the crude elements and can see the humor behind it. Does that sound right?

Sam, thanks for posting the Ray Charles. Gives me goosebumps.

Post 26

Monday, October 18, 2004 - 8:43pm

Barbara, I wasn't aiming that at you. I was referring to Sam including Michael Moore in this discussion.

And as far as the joke not being of the objectivist sort: there is a lot of stuff on this site that isn't objective. When the founder, in a very subjective manner, generalizes certain people as "headbanging caterwaulers," I see little reason to strictly stick to the objectivist theme.

As for younger people finding more humor in it because of their de-sensitization, I agree, and I would say that this is a good thing.

Post 27

Monday, October 18, 2004 - 9:30pm

This "joke" is horrifying, savage, brutal, and shockingly seems to show no mercy or sensitivity to anyone.

It's also...hilarious.

Of course, it isn't everyone's cup of tea. "To each his own." But the joke is very high-spirited, high-minded, and loftily-intended -- as was the daring, provocative posting of it on SOLO -- and it makes you laugh in a way which only the truly great can do e.g. Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Chris Rock, and the unequaled Sam Kinison.

Great social satirists like the subversives behind 'The Simpsons' and the merry warriors of 'South Park' are rarely appreciated in anything like a timely or just fashion. The well-targeted objects of their ridicule are hardly supportive or amused. But make no mistake: future generations will rightly revere and study Stone and Parker at the post-graduate level, and beyond.

Post 28

Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - 1:21am

I don't think that the joke itself is supposed to be funny, but the use of it as a verbal assault is. In other words, the humor in it is supposed to come from the horrified reaction of the audience, and whatever characters on screen it's directed towards.

The fact that it's pure, concentrated ghastliness is the point. It doesn't necessarily matter what's being said... in fact, you could just hear all the naughty words bleeped out. You could hear a character saying to another character, "BLEEP, BLEEP BLEEP, and those BLEEP BLEEP"...

Well, you get the idea. If I know the Southpark creators, the humor is in watching whoever's saying these things have a very clueless yet sincere look on their face, while they rattle off this filth, and the deer-in-the-headlights look on whoever's being addressed.

And yes. It's juvenile. But in a sense, it doesn't even have to be profanity. How often do we hear somebody speaking the most monstrous words and ideas with full and oblivious sincerity, while the audience is horror-struck to a cartoonish degree?

That's comedy. Capisce?

Post 29

Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - 4:34am

This "joke" is horrifying, savage, brutal, and shockingly seems to show no mercy or sensitivity to anyone.
...
But the joke is very high-spirited, high-minded, and loftily-intended -- as was the daring, provocative posting of it on SOLO
...
The well-targeted objects of their ridicule are hardly supportive or amused.

Oh I geddit! The whole thing was a trap designed to haul in some suckers.

Ha fucking ha, wankers! ;-)

Post 30

Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - 11:39am

If you were offended by this joke, I strongly recommend not joining the military, or encouraging your children to join the military. I've heard much worse in boot camp, in the barracks, and in the field. I mean that in all seriousness. No, it would never be in an Ayn Rand novel, and it is not the Objectivist aesthetic or the Objectivist sense of life, but I thought it was funny. Matt Stone and Trey Parker are libertarians, and South Park often has libertarian themes. "Atlas Shrugged" was even mentioned in at least one episode (of course, in a manner that may be offensive to many Objectivists).

Post 31

Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - 12:13pm

Byron: I have worked in logging camps, and a year as a millwright helper in a steel mill between university years, and on a rock drilling crew. I've belonged to two unions, the International Woodworkers of America and the United Steelworkers of America. I am a civil engineer (not known as being a genteel profession). I've used all these words routinely throughout my life with my buddies but I never would use them in the presence of my parents, children, wife or girlfriend.

You don't seem to get that there's a certain threshold of civility that shouldn't be breached, and in my opinion, this forum is one of them. I seem to be in the minority so I'll just keep my mouth shut and stop preaching.

Sam

Post 32

Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - 12:56pm

You don't seem to get that there's a certain threshold of civility that shouldn't be breached, and in my opinion, this forum is one of them. I seem to be in the minority so I'll just keep my mouth shut and stop preaching.

I agree with you Sam. However, the original poster is young and entitled to test the waters.

South Park's so-called "genius" is not in the comedy itself but in going beyond comedy to disturb the moral foundation of the audience: shock-value.

*WARNING: crude crude crude text ahead*

To illustrate: there's a South Park episode where a gerbil enters into a guy's, um, back-side and goes on something like a hero's journey inside the man's intestines in the style of a Tolkein novel. As I watched this I found myself saying, "Am I really seeing what I'm seeing? How crude will these guys get this time?" That's the so-called "genius" of South Park. That's the originality of their comedy. It reveals the depravity of our times. It kinda goes with the philosophy of our times does it not?

Neil Postman wrote a brilliant book called Amusing Ourselves to Death which is a study of the Television Age and its influence. South Park is a model for the experience Postman describes: you watch the screen and go, "heh-heh"............."ha!"........."mmmmhahahahah" at 8 second intervals. It is amusing. Comedy? I wouldn't say it's comedy.

Post 33

Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - 2:57pm

Employing the cheerfully crude, bad taste, low class, merciless language of 'Team America:'

In Objectivist terms, SOLOists seem to be real dicks while TOCers are definite pussys and ARIans are major league assholes. (The metaphors seem to hold up pretty well here.)

In internationalist terms, Americans seem to be the only dicks still around. They're the only ones who, when the planet really needs it, are still able to rise to the occasion. The rest of the quasi-civilized world consists of "Euro-weenie" pussys with their sorry shabby moral superiority and overweening contempt for the American cowboy Bush. Even the formally heroic Anglo-Saxons of Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand seem to have pussyed out and deserted the foreign policy field of play. And yet there's still plenty of asshole nations that desperately need to get fucked!

In individualist terms, the dicks virtually run and ruin the whole world. The pussys and assholes have no balls (by definition) and are completely impotent (by definition). How sad to live life as one of them! In many ways, these dickless wonders don't even seem to be alive.

Post 34

Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - 4:54pm

Sam wrote: You don't seem to get that there's a certain threshold of civility that shouldn't be breached, and in my opinion, this forum is one of them (emphasis mine). I seem to be in the minority so I'll just keep my mouth shut and stop preaching.

I beg to differ (and I also don't think you're in the minority). I agree with you to an extent that some words are inappropriate in some contexts but not in others (e.g. you speaking profane words with your friends but not in front of children). I would agree that this post may not be appropriate in some of the other forums, such as "Articles" or "News Discussions". But "Jokes"? Come on, now. I agree that toilet humor like this is not everyone's cup of tea, and children should not watch it without at least parental supervision, but I do think some "South Park" episodes were decent social commentary. Some of the funniest comedians I know are the ones who are not afraid to be politically incorrect (I think George Carlin and Dave Chapelle are good examples).

Since many Objectivists want to write of today's comedians as too postmodern, I'll give some writers from the Enlightenment who also used either crude humor and/or shock value (i.e. writing not for content in itself but for the reaction readers would have to the content). Jonathan Swift wrote a satire called "A Modest Proposal" where, in great detail, he proposed the Irish should eat their children as a solution to the potato famine (it was not a popular piece with the English, who wanted the writer dead). In William Shakespeare's "Othello", he used some crude language to describe the distaste some had with Othello's marriage to a white woman (Othello was black). Thomas Paine used some brutally frank language to criticize the Bible in "The Age of Reason". Going even further back, some of Geoffrey Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" used some racy, sexually suggestive language. All these men are regarded as great writers today, and rightfully so.

Post 35

Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - 8:54pm

Just to clarify, all I wanted to accomplish in submitting this movie excerpt was to make some people laugh. I didn't set out to offend or disturb anyone (although I did anticipate some "collateral damage," so in that sense I suppose I could be characterized as an arrogant, reckless dick). I myself laughed out loud at Andre's last post, which I think proves the point that this sort of language doesn't preclude making a clever, funny joke.

Lance, I think you are right about South Park, a great deal of the "amusement" in watching it comes from that sensation of "I can't believe I'm watching this." I remember feeling that way in particular during the South Park movie. But SP wouldn't be so successful if it didn't also include a lot of very clever comedy. For all its crudity, "Team America" is a great parody of Jerry Bruckheimer-style action movies, and it takes more than just a gross-out artist to create a good parody. That most of Parker & Stone's social commentary leans libertarian is an added bonus.

Post 36

Wednesday, October 20, 2004 - 9:19pm

Hey Andrew, did we meet in Vancouver this summer? If so, are you the kid wearing the red shirt with Ronald Reagan's face on it in the TOC picture? I hope so because I love that kid.

Who is Jerry Bruckheimer?

I remember feeling that way in particular during the South Park movie. But SP wouldn't be so successful if it didn't also include a lot of very clever comedy.

I dunno...<head scratch>...<sip wine>...I have a hard time taking these guys seriously as humorists (heh-heh). Monty Python, to me, is clever. Steve Martin and John Candy in Planes, Trains and Automobiles is clever.

The South Park guys scorch the earth with their comedy. They just rip everyone to pieces; an orgy of destruction (nice name for a band there!) While that can be amusing, it's empty to me. Nihilistic.

Post 37

Thursday, October 21, 2004 - 11:41am

Looks like we have a bunch of pussies right here in front of us.

This movie and more specifically this quote, is a mirror image of today's political climate. To generalize (as it's hard to name ALL groups that would fall under each word) Dicks = Republicans, Pussies = Democrats, Assholes = Terrorists.

If you can't see the clever way in which this was presented then you must be blind. This entire movie (saw it last night) is right on point about what is going on. Of course, it is also very generalized - but generally true. All actors in the movie are part of the Film Actors Guild or F.A.G. They make the point that all actors do is read the paper, find a point and regurgitate it every chance they get in interviews. Just because they're actors, they think they're something special when, as most know - they most certainly are anything BUT special. They just know how to act like someone else in front of a camera. This takes neither brains nor logic.

You all need to step back and stop looking at what words are used, rather take a look at the meaning behind the words.

Post 38

Thursday, October 21, 2004 - 12:10pm

Jack Mehoff...

took me a second...

Post 39

Thursday, October 21, 2004 - 7:10pm