I’m a big fan of reading Cracked.com (the articles, not the comments…dear sweet Jebus, the comments). Normally, it’s pretty funny, and a little off the wall, and very occasionally, I get the idea that the writers might have a progressive bent to them (the article about racist Disney cartoons definitely suggested it). Sometimes, they totally miss the boat entirely, and then I do like I do with most of my media- complain to Hubby, and shrug it off as “that’s the world”. Cracked does a photo-shop contest once a week, the grand prize being 50 dollars normally, and most of the time the pictures can be quite clever. This week, the thread was “If Everyone Had An Unlimited Advertising Budget“.
And this is the point that I felt like I had to say something to the interwebs.
My reactions looking this over were thus:
#14- *Yawn*
#13- Hehe, that’s clever
#12- What the fuck? Someone’s bitter over a breakup. Must be some kid.
#11- *shakes head* Couldn’t think of something funny, could we?
#10- Hehe- and kudos for sucking up to the site.
#9- Rude, but funny after I found out that those were the right translations (what can I say, I’m a nerd).
#8- Lol
#7- Hehe, way to destroy a kid’s love of astronomy.
#6- HAHA!
#5- Hehe, I agree
#4- At first, I thought this was a clever way of pointing out how ubiquitous boobs were in advertising. Then I read the newspaper, and was completely irritated. The fact that a woman was reading it (suggesting that she should take the hint and show her boobs too) bothered me even more. Those “polls” about stress being down clearly didn’t think about what women would feel about this.
#3- *urg* flash. *Waits* oh, hehe.
#2- *yawn*
#1- Okay, what the fucking hell? Not only is the number one slot given over to a flash (which I hate) but it’s not even clever, and it’s completely cruel. You have a picture of someone, clearly taken when you were intimate, when it’s supposed to be for your eyes only, and to punish her for not dating you anymore, you’re going to share it with the world. The worst part is, I suspect that this is actually someone’s ex-girlfriend’s picture: they didn’t have a million dollars, but they could at least let a million people see it on the internet. The only way that this is “funny” is if you think getting back at a woman by sexually humiliating her is an appropriate punishment for cheating on you. Yeah, it sucks if that’s what happened, but suck it up and act like an adult.
In the end, it wasn’t so much that three of these were really, really sexist: that’s bound to happen when most of the women are completely chased out of the site (commenting, writing, whatever). It’s the fact that Cracked.com decided that this was the best out of all of their submissions- this is what deserved money, and the number one slot.
So yeah, I sometimes, I really think guys hate us. When there are so many that are willing to humiliate women, and so many that think it’s funny to the point where they REWARD it, I sometimes wonder if they can even SEE me as a human being.
*blink*
Surely this is a parody. Surely.
Parody of what?
I don’t really get the criticism of #1. It’s a picture of a girl fully clothed, sitting up and smiling. And cheating is a dick move, for which I have a hard time blaming someone (male or female) for engaging in some therapeutic photoshopping. It would be different if it were a naked or sexually suggestive pic, and I agree that there’s no sense in it being #1 in the contest, but I think the newspaper one is far more demeaning to women in general.
I agree, the newspaper one is much more sexist, and if they would have made the number one slot, I would seriously consider giving up Cracked. As such, the girl is not fully clothed- she’s wearing a towel. Cheating may be a dick move, but it sure as hell doesn’t justify putting someone’s picture on the internet for everyone to see.
I’m kinda with Stacy on the criticism on #1 and I also think the newspaper one was worse. And even though it switches frames pretty quickly so its hard to tell that does loo like a shirt and pair of shorts that she is wearing. However upon looking at that pic a bit more the scary part is that red dot and REC in the upper right corner. That points to it possibly being video…
I think the rec and the red dot were added to make it imply video.
Wow, I keep looking at number one, and even though you pointed it out, it looks like she’s wearing a tube top and shorts. Its way creepier if it is a towel, and way out of line. The newspaper one was definitely worse. Especially. the article in the newspaper about more women becoming bisexual. Stupid, male fantasies.
I think the punchline behind #1 is the implicit threat that he will release their sex tape. What she’s wearing in the one still we see isn’t really relevant.
What she’s wearing in the one still we see isn’t really relevant.
Now that it looks to be a video instead of a picture its not relevant but at first it was thought to be a pic and that point there was relevance.
“I think the punchline behind #1 is the implicit threat that he will release their sex tape. What she’s wearing in the one still we see isn’t really relevant.”
Of course it’s relevant. Somebody chose the picture, and given the subject matter I think it’s safe to say they deliberately went for one with minimal creepiness factor. And somebody else chose to include it in the contest, presumably in part because it was perfectly SFW.
The bigger question is, are we meant to laugh at the cheating girl getting her comeuppance when her sex tape hits YouTube, or is it a “meta joke” making fun of the MySpace crowd and their sex videos and naked cellphone pics? Very different implications in one case or the other.
Hmm. I think I’m going to have to part ways with y’all, and suggest that the #1 slot seems to me even more misogynistic than #4. Because while #4 is just a juvenile and asinine male entitlement fantasy, reducing women to body parts– which, taking the newspaper headlines away, is not all that far from the real world, truth be told– #1′s juvenile male entitlement fantasy goes the extra step of pushing on us the story of a particular (faceless) man violating a particular (full bodied, face fully identified, and humiliated for her sexuality) woman. And asking us to approve of this.
Now granted, the “boobs world” joke could be seen as just another side of the same coin, since in both cases, the punchline requires us to see things from a male chauvinist’s POV to squeeze any humor out of it. But only the “superbowl sex tape” joke asks us to take the side of a man who, intentionally and directly, intends to sexually humiliate an unconsenting woman.
Stacy, do you seriously think that it could actually be a meta joke? I guess anything can be a meta joke if you stare at it for long enough. Even allowing the 1-in-a-zillion chance that it’s actually some kind of tepid meta statement masquerading as typical patriarchal college humor, trust me, the folks who awarded those other jokes 14th through 2nd places weren’t seeing the “meta” when they gave it first place.
Quin, can it possibly not be a “juvenile male entitlement fantasy”, and just be a juvenile fantasy? Everyone is angry and bitter at an ex at some time in their life, and therefore everyone can relate when someone else displays same. This does not prove or even imply that a) the creator of the animation is a committed foot soldier of the patriarchal restoration or that b) the people who vote for it are.
You look at it and see these things because you are a committed foot soldier of anti-patriarchy. It’s not deep insight, it’s confirmation bias.
The “boyfriend gets back at bitch girlfriend by posting sexual pictures of her on the internet” narrative is so well-entrenched in our culture now, that to use it as the punchline of a joke is pure hackery. But notice that this is a man-dominating-woman narrative. There are no comparable “girlfriend gets back at asshole boyfriend by posting sexual pictures of him on the internet” stories competing for our attention– at least not that I’ve ever heard of.
Since there is a blatant sexual double standard going on here, if one passively accepts the first narrative as humorous (or even awards it a cash prize over other, far less hackneyed jokes), this is an act of sexism. Humor at the expense of women.
For you to argue that it’s not sexist, you would need to argue that the joke would be just as successful if a man were its subject of humiliation rather than a woman.
Actually, that probably would have been just as successful– actually far funnier! But only for the specific reason that it would be ironically subverting a sexist trope. Thus demonstrating my point even more strongly.
Actually, that probably would have been just as successful– actually far funnier! But only for the specific reason that it would be ironically subverting a sexist trope. Thus demonstrating my point even more strongly.
I was about to respond to this but first I’d like to know what trope you speak of. It might alter my response.
You take a trip and the internet goes to hell!
Anyway, yeah, I noticed thee “Rec” button in the corner, too, which again made me think “sexually revealing picture”.
For all arguing that it’s not sexist, try a thought experiment:
If we lived in a world where women weren’t punished for being sexual, if sex was just a day-to-day thing that people enjoyed, would this joke be funny? Think of it another way- if it was a picture of her smiling in a porch with a big comfy sweater, looking like she was about to start one of those sweet “shut that camera off” stories, would it be funny? No, it’d be sad, and a little tragic for the guy. But no, this is clearly meant to humiliate and it only works because we have so little esteem for sexual women.
That’s why I say it’s clear that guys hate us. Because it only works, both as revenge, and a joke, if we’re all in on the “bitches ain’t shit” mentality.
I don’t think we’re supposed to emphasize with the faceless man in number one. The joke for all of these is what would happen if people had an unlimited advertising budget. The joke that I got was that some very pathetic people would do very silly things with their budget.
Exactly! It’s only a joke because it’s (1) humiliation, (2) sexual, of a (3) woman.
Danny, it was probably an inexact use of the word “trope”. To be clear, I was talking about the old “boyfriend gets back at bitch girlfriend by posting sexual pictures of her on the internet” narrative. Which of course existed before the internet– as in “boyfriend gets back at bitch girlfriend by posting sexual pictures of her on the school bulletin board”, etc.
K because I was thinking that you were saying a woman doing the same thing to a man would only be considered funny because of the irony of insulting his male sexuality which he himself over-inflates. If that were the case I was gonna say that that only works if one believes the generalization that he has an over-inflated sense of sexuality (because its pretty much assumed that straight men have an over-inflated sense of their sexuality regardless of if there is proof of it or not). So basically insulting a man’s sexuality is funny and okay because by virtue of him being male and straight he MUST overestimate his sexuality.
Personally I’ve been disgusted with Cracked.com ever since I read their list of spies–there was ONE woman on that list. Mata Hari. AND OH MY STARS did they slut-shame her into oblivion! This was a woman so mysterious that people still debate what side she was actually ON. And they reduced her to whom she allowed in her vagina. UGH.
This list doesn’t surprise me one bit–I’m glad you called them on this particularly insidious and disgusting bout of sexist slut-shaming.
I used to be a mod on a web forum where that actually happened. Someone’s ex showed up with naked photos of one of the female members.
Yeaahh, not humour fodder imx.
“girlfriend gets back at asshole boyfriend by posting sexual pictures of him on the internet” stories competing for our attention– at least not that I’ve ever heard of.
Have you taken a look at pretty much any female-dominated mainstream website (or one aimed at a female audience) lately?
Try looking at AOL for instance. They have a 15-photo ‘spread’ of ‘funny’ revenge stories where women have got back in various ways at their cheating OH’s. Among them is at least one where the woman in question created a website and posted sexual pics of the ex.
In another “ho ho my ribs are aching… no really” spread they have the story of a woman humiliating and belittling her OH to keep him under her thumb (last I heard that’s defined as DV). No approbation is shown by either AOL or by any readers in the comments thread.
The Mail (UK newspaper) has a “Female” section which regularly runs features like the AOL ones. I have seen similar stuff in my wife’s Cosmo before now, and in plenty of other hard-copy and ‘net based forums too.
#1 on Cracked isn’t any more or less funny than so many other revenge fantasies, but to suggest that male-on-female “slut-shaming” is the only game in town is ridiculous. The billboard isn’t ‘funny’ because it’s shaming a woman, it’s ‘funny’ because it’s attempting to shame a person who’s cheated on their partner and doing so in a massively over-the-top way.
I don’t find revenge stories funny at all, mainly because I’ve been on the wrong end of a very violent woman’s reaction to a relationship break-up. I don’t laugh at the DV perpetrated by women in cartoons (which is almost always projected as ‘amusing’) and I don’t laugh at the stories of ripped-up clothing, trashed sports cars, sunk yachts, ebayed personal items, burnt photo’s, engineered sackings or any of the million and one other ‘funny’ stories out there either.
James, I’m not denying that women are capable of being just as nasty to men as men are to women. And I’m truly sorry if you’ve personally experienced violent abuse, physical or otherwise, from a woman. But I don’t share your view that women are encouraged by society to abuse men just as often as the other way round.
I can’t really address the stories you’ve brought up– which may be entirely legitimate– since you’re presenting them secondhand and in a generalized way. I did search for them, but I can’t find any sign of them. In fact, a perusal of the women’s section of both AOL and Daily Mail Online not only doesn’t reveal the stories you’ve mentioned, I didn’t see anything else I thought was particularly anti-male. Links?
I agree with Quin that the “women are encouraged by society to abuse men just as often as the other way around”. As way of illustration, i went to a country-music karaoke bar (not my first choice). When I was there, there had to be at least three songs about guys abusing women (I don’t know the names, I’m sorry, but one of them was “Ain’t So Easy”) and the people in the place were stomping and whistling at the end of them. Then 2 girls went up and sang “Goodbye Earl” by the Dixie Chicks and the mood in the place turned…hostile. It was pretty damn quiet when that song was over.
But I do agree with James that playing off female on male violence as “funny” is WRONG WRONG WRONG. It’s denying women’s strength, men’s vulnerability, and trying to make an acceptable practice of being cruel to one another.
I’m not going to go so far as to declare anything as never funny. Even violence and wanton cruelty. “Funny” is just too complicated. Fact is, the majority of both drama and comedy comes down to being about some kind of power games, and violence is often a natural extension of that– played for laughs or no. But, personally speaking at least, if a joke is hackneyed and seems to reveal uncomfortable biases of its author, good luck getting me even to crack a smile.
On the other hand, if it’s a little bit clever, hey, funny is funny. For instance, if you think it through, #7 implies an extremely unhealthy family relationship at the very least. But the execution is unusual enough, and silly enough, that I couldn’t help but laugh. “If I had an infinite advertising budget, OF COURSE I’d put personalized anti-masturbation messages on distant stars, and then spend some quality time with my son and a telescope.” I mean, that’s wrong on so many levels– and bizarrely so– that it’s frankly a little bit brilliant.
I really like the song Goodbye Earl. I also like the Cellblock Tango from Chicago. Does this make me a bad person?
Shiyiya,
I realise that was rhetorical, but of course not.
I listen to rap, and enjoy a lot of it, but almost all that I listen to is ‘Old Skool’ stuff which seems to be a hell of a lot more inventive than the ‘Guns and Ho’s’ rubbish that seems to be stock-in-trade of most rappers now (God I sound middle-aged). That doesn’t mean I won’t catch myself liking the odd ‘G&H’ type track.
Quin,
There are plenty of very mainstream cartoons that will happily depict (to get a laugh from) female violence on men whilst shying away (rightly) from anything in reverse.
Dilbert is a classic example – I love the strip, but Alice’s character is forever losing her temper and punching out men (never a woman btw) and the Boss’ Secretary is often depicted aiming a crossbow or poisoning coffee etc etc. The only other characters that are seen dishing out physical punishments are androgenised by making them animals (even if we’re to assume that ‘Catbert’ is male).
I think you see a different version of AOL from the one I do (the UK site), but here’s the link to the specific piece I was talking about on revenge:
http://rubyroom.aol.co.uk/search/?q=revenge&invocationType=aoluk-rubyroomChannel_en_GB_aolcom
(“Real Women Confess…”).
I couldn’t find the other one they did in similar vein (it was linked on the home-page yesterday but not today) but note the sexual humiliation piece they have (same link, further down) about a wife’s revenge on her husband and his lover (the panties on ebay). The “Revenge – best served hot or cold?” article is also quite instructive.
I appreciate your sympathy. It was luckily some 10 years ago now, but I will never forget the reaction I got from the Police or the lack of assistance extended to me by anyone within the system.
In the link, it goes:
1) Sexist, transphobic, and homophobic. Revenge only works because the male has been “feminized”- the rumor is he dresses up in dresses and makeup
The rest of them are gender neutral, with the exception of:
14) This is one of those arenas where mainstream society does have it out for guys, that they have to prove their manhood by penis size (which, I can quite easily say, is a stupid metric of “manhood”). So, of the 15 revenge fantasies, one was actually sexist against a guy.
The panties one, again, isn’t about her husband’s sexuality, but the mistress’s. Note that they aren’t his underwear- it’s her’s, and evidence that she’s been sexual. In addition, she threw in the “they’re humongous” line, to further shame the woman, and to shame the man for having such a crappy “prize”.
The one about screwing with the ex-boyfriend is not only immature, but I think might meet the legal definition of stalking. Definitely not funny, at all. But, again, the point was not that women can’t be terrible human beings (they can, clearly, as they’re human) it’s that when men are lashing out, they are not lashing out at us as individuals, they are lashing out using highly sexist environments. The stupid revenge thing with this woman didn’t have any aspect of it that was attacking the guy for being a guy and sexual. It would have been equally stupid, and equally effective against a woman.
Antogone,
I agree with you on the cross-dressing.
On the panties thing though, doesn’t the fact that one woman will humiliate another sexually kind of blow the whole theory that only men will get revenge this way and that it’s only down to sexism (rather than lack of an imagination) that they do so?
Sorry, typo on your name, Antigone.
Where did I say that only men will get revenge this way, and that women couldn’t be sexist towards other women?
If I may quote myself:
FYI, # 9: the French translation is a babelfish translation, it’s not even a sentence…
So there you go.