CHRIS BROWN

Oh come on bernard, have fun building yr strawman there. That is obviously not at all what I'm saying.

Someone using a public soapbox to remind the world that Chris Brown is an asshole /= to an imagined face-to-face confrontation urging him to violence.

xpost well then I'm sorry but I don't understand what you're saying!

oh I should specify that I was imagining a live on-air radio interview, I guess that makes a difference

and can we please keep in mind that the dude we are talking about is a COMEDIAN who made a joke about Chris Brown (a couple tweets after "you mean punching?" he responds to Anthony[of Opie & Anthony fame]'s joking accusation that he ripped off another Twitter user's joke with "mine was better")

I'm not sure why what I said is difficult to parse, I think its funny (and, you know, kind of necessary considering how little of a hit his career seems to have taken) when someone uses their public outlet to remind the world that he is, in fact, an unrepentant asshole. Thats a whole different situation than sitting down, in person, with Chris Brown and using inflammatory language in the hopes of provoking him.

the only thing I was trying to convey with my example was that I do not see anything inherently virtuous about using "an unrepentant asshole" to get lols.

I am all for speaking truth to power, but someone needs to go after a slightly-less-easy target than Chris Brown before I will applaud their moral courage.

that vid creeped me out so much -- i know his target isn't victims of DV, but he's clearly using the topic as opportunistically as he can, hoisting himself up on a pedestal of immediate respect and agreement by tackling chris brown the easiest target alive. he gains his upper hand by eliciting chuckles about DV, and it's all about him and his rightness and chris brown's wrongness and none of it is about rihanna. like, i have serious trouble believing that he went on air with his rant and actually thought to himself "rihanna would totally dig this!" maybe he's delusional enough to think that she would see him as her white knight and that she would happily thank him for his bravery, but it doesn't take much logic to find it more likely that a victim of DV might not be happy with a random political commentator using her trauma to gain public sympathy points (for himself, not her). he used her story as a hook for a comedy routine, not as an act of compassion.

the fact that this is fox news has nothing to do with it, i would be much more disappointed if it were a decent lib commentator. i'm guessing fox news hasn't really ever taken a stand against chris brown (if he were white, maybe) and let's not fool ourselves into thinking that every single obvious topic is reported contrary to what everyone else would say.

i mean i definitely believe chris brown should get shunned and ridiculed daily by everyone who might have some sort of influence on the public, but this isn't the way to do it and i'm not about to be on some "eh close enough" shit

So we are just basically saying that comedians aren't allowed to call out assholes for being assholes? I mean, that seems to be the common thrust here, that he was using this to "boost his career". If thats so, then I call bullshit. Do we then have to say that TMZ shouldn't stoop to be reporting domestic violence? Because, lets be real here, TMZ isn't reporting this out of some altruistic savior thing, they are trying to generate hits and boost their revenue.

jon...

there are "good ways" of doing righteous things and there "counterproductive ways" of doing righteous things. what this dude did fell somewhere in the middle. relax

has anybody called bernard cap'n save-a-breezy yet because dude. who gives a fucking shit. it's chris brown. he's a scumbag. save your incisive commentary for somebody who's worth you expending one fuckin calorie of energy.

"this guy who's kind of a dick was kind of a dick to chris brown!"
"—kick ass, this is worthwhile usage of a guy who's kind of a dick"

i am saying that comedians should call out assholes with a certain degree of tact if the overall concern is about an extremely sensitive topic, like domestic abuse. especially when the comedian in question is posturing themselves as the voice of the morally righteous. if you are going to pull that shit, doesn't it make sense to try to consider how victims of domestic abuse might take it? and if you honestly think that a decent amount of DV victims are going to pump their fists and shout YOU GO, ADAM LEVY, maybe you shouldn't be allowed to comment on a topic you know nothing about?

i said nothing about boosting his career, though pretty much everything in the media sphere is about career-boosting in a more-than-abstract way. it's about posturing himself as the guy you're supposed to agree with and failing to consider the possibility that he might be doing it wrong, because DV is bad and making fun of a domestic abuser = INSTANT AGREEMENT FROM EVERYONE, YOU ARE EVIL IF YOU DISAGREE, etc

and tmz should not report domestic violence because tmz should not exist

in dude's defense, I will say that his comments seem to resonate more and more the further removed they are from the original context (video vs. gif vs. transcript...) — it's like there was a silent majority of people waiting for *someone* to call Chris Brown out in a public forum of some sort, and when it finally happened they didn't even care that it was an uncomfortable comedy bit on a Fox News late-night program

aerosmith: i don't think bernard or i give a millionth of a shit about chris brown's feelings

and if you honestly think that a decent amount of DV victims are going to pump their fists and shout YOU GO, ADAM LEVY, maybe you shouldn't be allowed to comment on a topic you know nothing about?

When did anyone say this?

like if Chris Brown had a Thermos and somebody saw that he'd left it unattended and said "this guy farms cock, I'm gonna take a shit in his Thermos," that would not be "constructive." it would not help victims of domestic violence. none of the direct effects of domestic violence in my own life would be in any way mitigated. and yet, I would applaud the guy who crapped in Chris Brown's Thermos, because it's Chris Brown, and now his Thermos smells and tastes like shit.

"this guy who's kind of a dick was kind of a dick to chris brown!"
"—kick ass, this is worthwhile usage of a guy who's kind of a dick"

― pathos of the unwarranted encore (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Monday, August 22, 2011 8:17 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

aero man i just dunno. like what good does it do anyone to shit in this guy's thermos?

lol A++++++++

yknow what, i'm gonna back away from this discussion. forget i said anything.

and if you honestly think that a decent amount of DV victims are going to pump their fists and shout YOU GO, ADAM LEVY, maybe you shouldn't be allowed to comment on a topic you know nothing about?

as a child I had to watch a motherfucker beat up my mom on the regular. I was a child and was helpless to do anything about it. she never fully recovered her humanity from the decade-plus we lived with that fuckin monster. I don't speak on behalf of everybody who bears testimony to the disruptive, destructive, evil power of domestic violence to degrade, dehumanize and fuck up the people it touches. but on behalf of the young underrated a who has spent much of his adult life crawling out from under that fuckin landslide I'm pumping my fist for the dickhead who got in some cheap shots on Chris Brown.

so yeah that is one guy's fuckin vote.

But not if this guy works for FOX maaaaaan

jon: that was part of what i figured was a sensical thought progression, ie adam levy thinks victims of DV will be on his side because he clearly thinks his side is perfect and pure in every way. it was not a response to anything in particular in this thread.

aerosmith: again, what
i am saying that making light and trivializing domestic violence is wrong and potentially very hurtful to a huge amount of people (let alone rihanna) no matter who the target is.

if someone comes up to me and tells them about their experience w sexual assault, i am not going to make jokes at the expense of the assaulter, i am going to maybe try for a lick of compassion. and then i would proceed to never, ever try to make someone laugh about their assault.

xp obv

aero man i just dunno. like what good does it do anyone to shit in this guy's thermos?

― dozens, maybe even hundreds, of vagina related screen names (forksclovetofu), Monday, August 22, 2011 8:23 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

its lol to imagine chris brown accidently eating shit

can I put in a bid for somebody to have a "Shit? ...In My Thermos?" dn

re: thermos-shitting: I guess my thing is, I feel like vigilante justice and challopy pundits SHOULDN'T EVEN BE NECESSARY to condemn Chris Brown—he is a public figure who fucked up in a super-public way—didn't people used to just naturally get shunned/run out of town on rails/whatever for that? I am both fascinated and troubled by the total failure of the public sphere in this case, and I feel myself no less accountable for this outcome than any other consumer or citizen (obviously individual members of the media/artists/etc bear more or less blame depending on their conduct)

yo aero i'm not trying to ignore your experiences or anything, i just know people who are also really unhappy with this and they deserve to at least know that the entire fucking world isn't nodding their head with this one guy

if someone comes up to me and tells them about their experience w sexual assault, i am not going to make jokes at the expense of the assaulter

Well, of course not, but afaik that isn't what happened here. Unless I'm missing part of the story where Rihanna came up to Andy Levy and told himt he whole story and he turned right around and immediately made light of it.

again, what
i am saying that making light and trivializing domestic violence is wrong and potentially very hurtful to a huge amount of people (let alone rihanna) no matter who the target is.

we've covered this. capping on the abuser is not "making light of and trivializing domestic violence." in fact, mockery is one of the most powerful responses available to victims. it inverts the abusive dynamic. the idea that if you cap on an abuser, you somehow make light of the abuse - this is absurd. no you don't. you undermine his power and bring him down a peg.

know that the entire fucking world isn't nodding their head with this one guy

You do know its possible for us to nod our head with what this dude says without expecting that to serve as our whole and entire viewpoint on the entire subject of domestic violence, right?

i am saying that making light and trivializing coprophagia is wrong and potentially very hurtful to a huge amount of people

aero otm

jon: when 1 in 4 women experience domestic violence in their lifetimes and you're going to make a huge comedy rant on fox news, you have to assume your voice is reaching many many victims of domestic violence, and at this point i would not be surprised if rihanna herself has seen the vid given its popularity. and then i said "and then i would proceed to never, ever try to make someone laugh about their assault." it doesn't matter how much time has passed, there is no "too soon?" with someone else's trauma

we've covered this. capping on the abuser is not "making light of and trivializing domestic violence." in fact, mockery is one of the most powerful responses available to victims. it inverts the abusive dynamic. the idea that if you cap on an abuser, you somehow make light of the abuse - this is absurd. no you don't. you undermine his power and bring him down a peg.

― pathos of the unwarranted encore (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Monday, August 22, 2011 8:31 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

we've covered this. capping on the abuser is not "making light of and trivializing domestic violence." in fact, mockery is one of the most powerful responses available to victims. it inverts the abusive dynamic. the idea that if you cap on an abuser, you somehow make light of the abuse - this is absurd. no you don't. you undermine his power and bring him down a peg.

if you are a victim of abuse you of course have every right to joke about whatever you want regarding it.

but as a bystander, i'm never going to make a joke about someone else's trauma in the off chance that they're ok with it. even if they joke about it with me. no way.

as far as I can tell this dude's whole angle is to get lols out of Chris Brown's obliviousness

And, yes, this is a totally different thing than getting lols out of the violence itself. Can you see the difference?

You do know its possible for us to nod our head with what this dude says without expecting that to serve as our whole and entire viewpoint on the entire subject of domestic violence, right?

when did i say anything like that?

i am talking v specifically about this one instance and how it can affect people, not trying to make blanket statements on how you guys view DV

xpost to jon: yes I do, although I actually feel like those lines get blurred a bit in his rant, which is one of my objections. that moment when everyone is laughing as he describes the injuries Rihanna sustained still seems, to me, an awful lot like people laughing about somebody's suffering, even refracted through the prism of "joking about Brown's obliviousness"

the tweet was fine, the video was fucked up. i am right, the verdict is in, lock thread

if you are a victim of abuse you of course have every right to joke about whatever you want regarding it.

I don't know, again, just speaking for me, it's even better if the guy making the jokes doesn't even have a horse in the race. like me, of course I'm going to cheer on somebody going in on an abuser. but if the guy going in is just a normal person instead of "one of us," so to speak? that's icing on the cake - it affirms that the outraged feelings of the victim are valid. imo only obv. I'd rather people went too far in the interest of being right on, you know?

okay y'all, it's been fun, but I think I'm done with this thread for now. gonna go read some Maldoror, whose litany of misdeeds, set next to Chris Brown's, exposes the latter as a mere tyro in the halls of cruelty, a pathetically sheltered mama's boy whose infamous crimes could be counted on one hand while leaving enough fingers on that hand free to make an offensive gesture

xpost to jon: yes I do, although I actually feel like those lines get blurred a bit in his rant, which is one of my objections. that moment when everyone is laughing as he describes the injuries Rihanna sustained still seems, to me, an awful lot like people laughing about somebody's suffering, even refracted through the prism of "joking about Brown's obliviousness"

yo this is where a lot of creepiness comes from for me! i agree that the tweet wasn't so bad. it wasn't until he starts getting gruesome and constantly emphasizing "beating the CRAP out of rihanna" that sort of makes me think that he doesn't have her best interest at heart, cause it sounds like he's just using the image of her injured body to make his point in an edgy and humorous way

I don't know, again, just speaking for me, it's even better if the guy making the jokes doesn't even have a horse in the race. like me, of course I'm going to cheer on somebody going in on an abuser. but if the guy going in is just a normal person instead of "one of us," so to speak? that's icing on the cake - it affirms that the outraged feelings of the victim are valid. imo only obv. I'd rather people went too far in the interest of being right on, you know?

again dude if i ever met you i would be happy to joke about shitscum like chris brown, but i know way more people who have the opposite reaction

Okay, I think these last couple of posts sum it up for me here, because I'd only seen the gif and read the transcripts. I can't play the video at work. Seems like the video itself is where the disconnect is coming into play.

I can concede that point pretty readily zach. I can imagine a lot of people looking at it in that light. for me the brutality being emphasized, even overemphasized, is good, because one strategy of the whole abusive mindset is to call into question the account of the victim - "did he really 'beat her up,' or was it more of a squabble?" etc. so I sometimes think it's good to spell out real plainly what we're talking about when we talk about abuse, lest people stroke their chins and go "hmm well what exactly does 'abuse' mean?" and shit

that's an important point, definitely -- kind of going along with how people tend to respond w disgust (in the wrong way) when a film portrays rape violently rather than overly sexy -- but i still see this andy levy dude as going for chuckles and easy agreement more than making an actual statement about the assault. the constant chuckling in the video is disconcerting bc they're laughing at his specific details of her injuries as much as everything else. and i just can't squint enough to stop seeing it as opportunistic and exploitative.

and "making an actual statement about the assault" also refers to making a statement about chris brown's ignorance and entitlement, i know that's more the point.