She played the piano with her penis

[NotRightNowNo]

So I am told anyway. I can't bring myself to watch it. Has anyone been brave enough?

Can't seem to link to the article. It's in the DM

I can never decide whether Hines is simply a bonkers idealogue or a grifter who knows a good scam when she sees it.

Mind you, the same can be said for a lot of the high profile names.
Whichever it is, I’m still amazed at how these people get in positions of influence.

"demystifies and deshames the female penis"

Well that is a mouthful you don't see everyday. On par for Hines though.

That's a great article.

I was studying stuff like this in the 1990s.

It also goes much further back. The parallel I remember about 'irony' was about how the character Alf Garnet and his racism. The argument was that the audience was supposed to be laughing AT Garnet's views. In reality what they found was that a large percentage of the audience was laughing along with Garnet's views and agreed with him.

On the Wiki about 'Till Death Us Do Part' under the controversy section there is a very similar explanation to the one about 'ironic sexism' in the Critic Article above:

Although Speight said he wrote the series to challenge racism, it was felt by some critics that many people watched it because they agreed with Garnett's views. Anthony Clark of Screenonline stated, "Sadly, Speight's defence was far from watertight—having a white actor, Spike Milligan, black up and don a turban in one episode is clearly questionable", and added that "In Till Death Us Do Part, Alf's lengthy rants go largely unchallenged; his wife does little more than raise an eyebrow, while the responses from daughter Rita and the wholly unsympathetic Mike are often little more than impotent quips or frustrated laughter." However, John Cleese defended the series in 2020, saying "We laughed at Alf's reactionary views. Thus, we discredited them, by laughing at him. Of course, there were people — very stupid people — who said, 'Thank God someone is saying these things at last'. We laughed at these people too."

Now John Cleese has stood up for gender criticals, however he has also proved himself to be screaming sexist, racist bellend in recent years too.

It didn't end in the 90s. I think Bo' Selecta! which ran 2002 - 2009 was part of the same thing, and then Celebrity Juice. (I've always been really uncomfortable with the treatment of Fearne Cotton and Holly Willoughby) which is still in production. Bo Selecta! has since forced apologies over its 'black face' from Leigh Francis, but I think Celebrity Juice will age particularly badly over time.

So this is a pattern that has played out regularly, with women reduced to being impotent and giving frustrated laughs to 'go along with the joke' rather than actively challenge. Actively confronting sexist and racist behaviour in comedy wasn't allowed then, it wasn't allowed in the 1990s and its not now because the power lies with the script writers and directors to decide what is funny, it doesn't belong to those who ultimately are the butt of the 'joke'.

The most notable of 'ironic humour' is perhaps SouthPark which was deliberately ironically offensive through comedy but made a point of trying to offend absoluetely everyone in this way - it never hide from its desire to offend through comedy and made a point of 'owning it'. The whole point was, that if you were going to do it, no one could be off limits and above self reflective criticism. And again you got the problem with people often laughing along with it rather than seeing the irony. Modern trolling has its roots in SouthPark culture and that has quite a dark side to it.

So yeah, long history of deliberate in your face 'ironic' offensive comedy. Which isn't quite as harmless and ironic as it makes itself out to be. And it definitely now plays out in real life via social media.

This is quite a step away from more considered and clever observational humour which might touch on sex, race, culture etc. The point is its problematic when the ENTIRE content and intent is this 'ironic' humour.

The song would have been much funnier if Jordan had said they were better than men as well as women

Well, it does reveal that the whole premise is based on a hierarchy of the sexes. Feminists aim for practical equity based on moral equality of the sexes. Jordan is positioning himself as 'better than' women. It emphasises precisely how the whole gender project reinforces and upholds sexist patriarchy.

Comedy is interesting because it works when people say the unsayable. Jordan's show is successful because Jordan vocalises what most people are thinking subconsciously but won't allow themselves to say. (ie - Jordan is male).

What happened here is that Jordan has started with that basis but gone further and revealed the underlying narratives of genderism. Largely sexually motivated, angry at women, bound up in self hatred, and I would say deep down showing a desperate need for someone to put up some boundaries.

Mothers will recognise the behaviour very well.

And it has a link to L7 in it! 😍

What happened here is that Jordan has started with that basis but gone further and revealed the underlying narratives of genderism. Largely sexually motivated, angry at women, bound up in self hatred, and I would say deep down showing a desperate need for someone to put up some boundaries.

Spot on! It really was toddler type behaviour.

Down to the nudey strip and jumping around and doing the peen music.

But that Jordan did seem to go further in this song than before.

She’s on fire!

When you mentioned ‘ironic sexism’ I immediately thought of the 1990s. And it’s so true isn’t it - that this is an extension of that horrendous culture? I reckon now Toby Young and the other big players (in propagating that shower of shit upon women and girls) are fathers, they’d get rather awkward rueful feelings if they read her piece.

I just watched a couple of those Transaction shorts, and I think he has a great delivery and is fun to watch - but all the jokes are really pornographic and disgusting - and really, really ‘laddish’. I don’t believe for a second that he isn’t hugely sex-obsessed and porn-addicted after taking female sex hormones. At best they’ve just taken the edge off imo.

I think it’s a shame he got implants and became a one-trick pony though - I think he could have the potential to go really far as a comedy writer/actor, but once he’s done the joke of blokishly pissing on a car and saying “Don’t you just hate getting splash back on your tits” - where can you go from there?

I can't read the article, I've used up my freebies. I've tried to register but it won't accept my email, says it's not valid. Ironically, I can't get validation!

This section is excellent. I think maybe 'ironic sexism' deserves its own thread, actually:

'We used to have to giggle at the antics of FHM and Loaded, for fear of being considered too unsophisticated to differentiate between that and “real” misogyny. Now we are supposed to delight in the empowered self-objectification of Paris Lees (“that eye-fuck … I live for it”), Grace Lavery (“being treated like shit by men … feels like affirmation itself”) and Andrea Long Chu (“at the centre of sissy porn lies the asshole, a kind of universal vagina through which femaleness can always be accessed”). Any woman who dares to raise an objection can be written off as boringly literalist. Don’t we know we aren’t meant to take it seriously, despite the fact that no subtext is anywhere to be found?'

This is the opening paragraph @IcakethereforeIam

“The Emperor’s New Clothes” is the story of a man who gets his dick out in public whilst coercing observers into pretending it isn’t happening. Everyone can see said dick, but anyone who says so will be subject to social censure. It takes a child to speak the truth.

Almost two centuries after its publication, the message of Hans Christian Anderson’s classic is as powerful as ever. By this, I don’t mean the allegorical one about speaking truth to power. I mean the literal one: when a man has his dick out in public, don’t be gaslit into saying that you can’t see it.

Brilliant!

My favourite section was this one Arabella:

On Friday night, Jordan Gray showed us who Jordan Gray is: a dick. When someone shows you that, believe them.

And this part:

"Jordan Gray gets to play Emperor in an environment where to be considered a member of the moral and intellectual elite, one must feign ignorance of the social and political salience of biological sex. It’s an environment steeped in snobbery: only a gammon would fail to see the difference between Jerry Sadowitz getting his penis out and Gray’s bold act of self-expression. Those with a more refined analysis of social justice are not permitted to sully themselves with anything so basic as the recognition that people with penises wield an enormous amount of power over people with vaginas, regardless of what they call themselves. To do so is to risk being called a bigot and a fool."

"One runs a similar risk should one point out that if anything constitutes punching down, it’s a male person singing about being the “perfect woman” in a song that reduces women to tits and ass. We’re meant to think of this as pastiche, the kind of thing transphobes might claim trans women think about female people. It’s the same double-bluff exploited by Lees, Lavery and Long Chu. Yet if it is pastiche, what is it that trans women actually believe women are?"

"It’s not as though there is some hidden, non-objectifying vision of womanhood trans activists have been hiding behind their backs. Female bodies and inner lives — the ageing tits, the non-consenting minds — are indeed an enormous inconvenience to the trans vision of eternal girlhood. Female people are supposed to laugh along at the idea that we’re not quite fit for purpose. The self-pity that underpins Gray’s song — the intimation that women should give the misogyny a free pass since none of us know the agony of having “massive fucking feet” — is used as an excuse. We are supposed to respect Gray’s right to “ironically” reduce us to objects on the basis that Gray is bravely laughing through the tears."

Yes and the other one I think of is Al Murray the Pub Landlord. It was supposed to be an ironic persona but most people seemed to enjoy it as a freedom from ‘political correctness’.

I also think the ‘metrosexual’ idea at the time, that it became acceptable for straight men to be vain, get their eyebrows tidied and wear ‘guyliner’, to be faux gay and it became acceptable to ridicule and shame men for their looks too - just like women -Jonathan Ross was the main player in this (he was huuuge - he ended up hoovering up the salaries of everyone at the BBC who got sacked) - it was suddenly fair and acceptable to be far more overt and judgemental about women. Instead of treating women better, you just pretend it’s the same when you do it to men. This was like the early murmurings of the mainstreaming of deeply misogynist entertainment like Ru Paul’s Drag Race imo.

STARE INTAE THE ABYSS LONG ENOUGH AND EVENTUALLY IT STARES BACK AT YOU

ONLY WI A MOUSTACHE

"demystifies the female penis"..

If anyone is on the fence about trans ideology, that phrase should show you how far they expect you to throw your true, proven, scientific and logical knowledge and beliefs under the bus to appease the feelings of a few confused men.

It does reveal very baldly that there is nothing mysterious or special about the 'female penis'. It's a penis like any other.

I think most people were more likely cocking their heads to one side and experiencing the ‘demystification of the male with breast implants’.

I think the difference with Till Death Us Do Part was that Speight genuinely intended it to be a show mocking racism. There are, clearly, reasons why that didn't work out, most notably that Alf Garnett was given long monologues to put forward his racist views, while the challenges from the other characters were brief and quite mildly stated. Garnett was a much more compelling character than any of the others. But the intention was anti-racist.

Penis man, though? I don't think his intention was to make fun of sexism. I just think he's an out-and-out sexist.

There certainly was plenty of cocking going on.

Grim. Actually beyond grim.

Clearly still a man - obsessed with his penis as they all are.

World is doomed.

I’ve been having a bit more thought about ironic retrosexism in the 1990s - and Jordan’s act does feel pretty retro in its references - that Yorkie bar “not for girls” campaign was in the late 90s/early noughties wasn’t it? And the Chuckle Brothers I would have thought were before his time.

Gray was born in 1989 and really grew up as that was all unrolling - he would have been around 9 or 10 when the Yorkie Bar campaign started and that probably had quite an impact on kids of that age at that time. He would have missed the pinkification of girls and the blueification of boys because that really didn’t getting the swing until the mid noughties iirc.

Thank you @ArabellaScott, @EndlessTea and everyone else for the excerpts.

I didn't actually get the Chuckle brothers joke🤔