"miracle in the alcohol aisle" etc
Aug. 11th, 2014 06:54 pm...whether it's funny is orthogonal to the problem with Takei's "miracle in the alcohol aisle" joke-- that it reinforces a false idea people believe uncritically, which causes them to hurt vulnerable people.
Here's a parallel: I have a large number of books of jokes going back well over a hundred years. Some of them contain, for example, Jewish jokes (iirc there's a section called "Told Against Our Friend The Jew", which shows they already knew about the problem and printed them anyway). Some of these jokes may well be pants-wettingly hilarious for all I care; antisemitism still flourishes, and I'm still not using that material. It's the punching up vs punching down distinction.
[a comment I have left in more than one discussion today; I am starting to think of it as "Told Against Our Friend The Jew" for short.]
no subject
Date: 2014-08-12 02:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-13 10:22 am (UTC)