Dapper Laughs

[basgetti]

I just got an email to sign a petition to get ITV to cancel this series. I'd never heard of it so did a bit of googling, it's pretty grim reading. What on earth are ITV thinking, claiming that “his unique brand of banter and brash charm is neither sexist nor degrading to women" when it consists of shouting sexist abuse at women in the street, making rape jokes and the following comments:

"If she cries, she's just playing hard to get"

"Get your arm swing just right when you're walking and you occasionally touch a bit of *** by 'mistake', they love it."

"If she's looking at me and playing with her hair, by the end of the night she'll need a wheelchair"

This stuff makes me so bloody angry. Rant over.

I watched the Newsnight interview, it was indeed satisfying that he couldn't defend his material even though it was quite uncomfortable viewing.

I've unfortunately just had a look at his fb page where some of the comments from his 'fans' about Emily Maitlis show that some of his viewers clearly aren't watching it in an 'ironic' way or whatever drivel used to justify it, but actually do see his material as an acceptable way to talk about women.

Emily Maitliss was excellent on Newsnight, it's well worth a watch.

If you search for "Dapper Laughs dad" on Newsnight, you can see that his dad was trolling his son's critics on twitter (he's deleted the tweets but there are some screenshots).

I agree he looked genuinely shocked but I don't believe he thought it was satire or that the audience would take it as satire.

I don't buy the 'satire' argument at all. If you compare this idiot's material to Simon Brodkin when he performs as Lee Nelson, you really notice the difference. Brodkin's character superficially portrays the same sort of 'laddish/chavy' culture and in a lot of his material you sit there thinking "Oh no, he's about to say something obnoxious and bigoted" but in the punch line he manages to pull it back and poke fun at the bigotry instead.

He's not my favourite comedian and I wouldn't say he gets it right every time, but I do admire him for his cleverness. He manages to both enact the behaviour and attitudes and lampoon it at the same time. Dapper Laughs just enacts it, and fails to incorporate any commentary on it, or to undermine it in any way.

I saw the newsnight interview and agree he looked genuinely shaken but I get the impression he was sorry he was 'caught' and the negative backlash shocked him. I didn't get a sense of any understanding that he wasn't being viewed satirically by most of his audience or that he was contributing to a culture of sexualised misogyny.

Satire seems to be the go-to excuse for anything at the moment. Latest culprit is Redfoo, who's new song is of course 'satire' and he actually loves women and thinks they are 'the most powerful people on this planet.'

www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/music/63119984/rapper-redfoo-defends-most-sexist-song-of-the-year

He thinks that saying women are 'the most powerful people on this planet' is the opposite of sexist.

I expect we're supposed to be powerful because we're a) sexy or b) mothers.

Article in the metro by Tom who set up the 68k strong petition:

metro.co.uk/2014/11/12/why-the-fall-of-dapper-laughs-is-an-important-lesson-learned-4945630/

I know him from over at a feminist group I belong to on Facebook

Good article on the Radio Times website with the Newsnight clip as well:

here

I'm an English teacher. My A Level students (my GCSE students, come to that) would be able to put him straight on the meaning of satire. Whatever he thinks he's doing, it ain't satire in any way.

imagizer.imageshack.us/a/img746/5151/0NbHZH.jpg

Good meme from Digital Spy website ( men actually having an intelligent discussion about him and his 'comedy')

A friend linked to this on Facebook, which made me laugh.

newsthump.com/2014/11/12/comedian-to-retire-controversial-katie-hopkins-character/