>> ^Sketch:

I do a pretty mean Wookie, but this is a hell of an Ewok!


Show us.

>> ^Deano:

Did it ever annoy anyone at the end of Star Wars when Luke is giving targeting advice to experienced X-Wing pilots?</div>

Not as much as his whiney "But I was going to go to Tosche station to pick up some power converters!!!" /waaah

>> ^rougy:

Why, he's no bigger than a womp rat!
(sorry...couldn't help it)


Did it ever annoy anyone at the end of Star Wars when Luke is giving targeting advice to experienced X-Wing pilots?

AT-AT or AT-ST.. eh both good choices..
>> ^Retroboy:

I want to give him a hug.
And then stomp on him with an AT-AT.
...is that bad?

>> ^Retroboy:

I want to give him a hug.
And then stomp on him with an AT-AT.
...is that bad?


I have your 9 o'clock

Your video, John Pinette, the Ewok, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

An excellent examination of how status is used in comedy. Whether it be racism, or jokes towards "retards", pedophilia, etc., by downgrading one set, you achieve an implied status in the other. This can also work if it is self-deprecating; look at the works of John Pinette.

My personal favorite type of comedy though is what I call "intellectual comedy," comedy that requires the audience to participate by thinking, and making the bridge to getting the joke. A good example would be Steven Wright or Mitch Hedberg.

Sorry, tend to be really slow in replying

In reply to this comment by RhesusMonk:
I was hoping to see what you might say about my comment

I was hoping to see what you might say about my comment

>> ^RedSky:
hell I'm sure part of the reason people were laughing in the audience was that they simply didn't realise they held these deep seeded generalisations and laughed because they were made uncomfortable to be forced to confront them. (I switched "I'm" and "sure," but only cuz I'm sure it was a typo)

100% agreed.

>> ^RedSky:
some people would tend to gravitate from a harmless confrontation of a relatively amusing mannerism from one's culture's point of view to another, to extrapolated generalisations, oversimplification and eventual detachment and disassociation from groups of people they perceive as 'different'. If that's the case though, the problem isn't the contrasting of cultures, it's the cognitive chain of processes that leads you to that eventual conclusion. So, it may be a slippery slope, but only if your slope is slippery


I think we can agree that the only thing that increases the viscosity of such cognitive slopes is education (whether in school, at home, or whatever the context) and exposure to what anthropologists (like myself) call "the strange"--meaning any culture or set of behavioral characters one did not experience until one's identity was at least partially defined. From what I've seen since I started lurking here a year ago, I trust that the people in this audience (the Sift) have had that education and/or exposure (whether socialized into us or developed by automath)--hence my realization that this was a silly place to pick a fight. But I DO NOT trust the at-large public with the same sense of responsibility. And I suppose I've projected that categorization onto the audience present at Pinette's show and onto the casual viewer of this vid, albeit irrationally.

>> ^RedSky:
I don't believe he went over the line. Making fun of Asian dialects/accents and Indian cuisine? I would see no reason to be genuinely offended if someone made fun of my accent or choice of food. You or anyone else is free to have a differing opinion though, as that's certainly a normative statement.
I admit though that I'm white and have never really been culturally or ethnically discriminated against so I don't pretend to genuinely understand the issue from a first person point of view


I am also white, but my travels have brought me face to face with the true ugliness of racism one can only know when it rears itself against oneself (I expect anecdotes are not necessary, but they can be provided). As a lucky member of the underrated club of we who have come to know the world in the singular locale New York City, and perhaps because I was encouraged to love "the strange" very, very early in my development, I found myself able to mitigate the truly visceral hatred I felt in those moments. Racism elicits an immediate emotional--and sometimes psychosomatically physiological--response. It is not only unwise, but inequitable and irresponsible to require or expect the human animal to overcome that response.

Ahoy there, replied to your comment:

http://www.videosift.com/video/John-Pinette-Just-for-Laughs-First-Appearance

>> ^RedSky:
No but really, making fun of cultural or ethnicity specific idiosyncrasies isn't racist unless you let it get to you


So people who play on unconscious stereotypes for there own gain are ok? If there's a line that this fatass didn't cross, where is it? Who defines it? Are your line and my line in the same place? Who's the "you" in your statement? The listener? The performer? A person who identifies him/herself as a person being made fun of? If someone WERE to be offended by this, would you accept that offense as valid?

edit: wow. Umm, this kind of seems like a silly place to have tried to pick a fight. I guess my point was just that this kind of comedy is a slippery slope; sorry for going over the top.