Is it the bit where she ineptly tries to be ironic by adding on pointless bits like "how to apply mascara"? Maybe the silly double entendres about screwing etc? Or the flip flop between "I'm just a helpless woman who can't do anything" to "Fuck sake people, of course I can do this"..?

Irony is only irony when it reverses expectations. Perhaps this would be hilarious to a person who honestly believes that she is the ditsy centerfold she spends half the video making out to be. Maybe if she maintained some sort of constant narrative rather than flipping between polar opposites, it wouldn't have landed so flat for me.

That being said, it's all subjective. I don't view women as incapable, subservient morons, so attempts to play up that view as the predominant one don't really get much traction with me...

She can change a tyre and make a decent end table, but she's a shit comedian.

What did Jello ever do to you, huh? Poor guy... stealing his band's royalties and hiding it, then admitting in court he knew about it and just didn't know what to do about it, losing the rights to his own band and now having difficulty keeping Alternative Records afloat. But what do you expect from a dude who doesn't give a fuck about money?

Oh wait... jello, as in J-E-L-L-O and Fat Albert and the chicken heart and raping women -- what's his name...? OH -- Bill Cosby? Oh. Yeah, fuck that guy. Insipid comedian who criticized other black comedians and black culture in general, meanwhile he was raping women. Pillar of the community, that man. Family man.

Oh wait... this is about charter schools?! I'm only 2 minutes in and it's completely derailed me!!!

Your video, Comedian Ronny Chieng breaks down Kanye West lyrics, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This achievement has earned you your "Pop Star" Level 78 Badge!

Remember when Denis Leary didn't steal all his material from other comedians?

Neither do I.

Donald has once again become the gift to comedians that they were all hoping for, became afraid of was never going to be (when he was "winning, just tremendous, you've never seen someone win like this") and now, with a sigh of relief, they have found once again.

Not a monkey joke, that wouldn't get a laugh from anyone. there is a racial stereotype that black people don't swim. Perpetuated even by black comedians. It's not considered the most offensive stereotype. More playful than serious, like, "white people put mayonnaise on everything."

And if you watched the old black and white Tarzan films, he had only two modes of locomotion, 'swing on vine' and 'swim'.

@SDGundamX, first up, it was a throwaway line, you're reading way too much into it.

I'm not going to go over Jim Jeffries joke (it's been discussed to death already), except to say that, yeah, I got what he was trying to do and no, it still wasn't that funny or clever.

Besides, I wasn't trying to compare the two. Mine was a throwaway line, his was an extended sketch by a touring professional comedian. My point was simply that taste is in the eye of the beholder.

And would you please do me the courtesy of not telling me what I'm thinking. I'm not angry about ignorance, I'm angry about woolly thinking (specifically, lack of critical thinking).

If you're ignorant, then you just need to be taught. I'm not angry at ignorant people, I'm sorry for them and I want to help them.

My problem is with people (like the guy in the video) who have been presented with evidence, but ignore it because it doesn't fit their worldview.

200 years ago, if you believed that disease was a result of demonic possession, that's unfortunate. If you believe that today, you're deliberately ignoring knowledge.

As far as viewing people who reject evidence as a dangerous "other", I'm ok with that. As I've said before, I don't believe in "tolerance" as a virtue. If someone isn't bothering me, or someone is doing something I don't like, but it doesn't harm anyone, then I'm fine with them; I have no need to "tolerate" them.

But if people are doing something that causes harm (racism, homophobia, misogyny, etc), I don't tolerate that at all, and will speak out against it.


As for your torture example, it is flawed. You're saying that you wouldn't reconsider the ethics of torture, even if evidence of its efficacy was available. Do you see the problem?

You proposition was that torture is unethical, and your hypothetical evidence states that it is effective. The two are orthogonal properties. It is possible to be both effective and unethical.

Besides, I didn't say you had to change your position, I said you had to reconsider. If someone presented you with a philosophical argument arguing for the ethics of torture, are you saying you wouldn't even hear it out?

I hold positions like that myself. Despite everything, I believe that one day, people will overcome their petty differences and venture out into the stars. That doesn't mean I don't question it..

*backup=[...snipped...]

thanks!

Exactly. Oswalt calls it "kicking upwards."

Comedians are at their best when they expose something true about the world, and they lay bare the lies of the entitled and the vicious.

Lindy West discusses this in her new book Shrill. Great book. I think she even uses the phrase "kicking upwards." It is lazy joke writing to trade in stereotypes. It is lazy joke writing to kick people who are "down."

Louis CK tells a funny rape joke. Oddly enough, on the page it probably reads terrible, just as Jim Jeffries says about this particular bit of his. The difference is, for me, that Louis lays bare in no uncertain terms EXACTLY what a rapist does and so exposes the brutality and utter selfishness of their entitlement. It's brilliant.

Mr Jeffries doesn't do that. He isn't "kicking upwards" enough for me. Not in this rape culture world. (And good on him for weaving the criticism into his bit, in an attempt to do what Louis CK does.)

Nailed it for me, but that's kinda the point. Humour is subjective... As much as the comedian uses techniques to deliver his comedy, it also requires an audience that is receptive.

You could go off at this point and make all sort of assumptions about the person I am, and vice versa I could do the same re: you. Ultimately though, it doesn't really matter because we aren't all required to get the joke. We are allowed to be entertained, and we are allowed to be offended.

Though I'm not sure how "once rape isn't something that is filmed" makes a difference one way or another because the comedian isn't personally responsible (to the best of my knowledge) for standing by and allowing a rape to happen while he films it.

And I don't see why you'd duck out of the conversation because your opinion on this matter cannot be wrong. It's your point of view about a subjective piece. It's not like it's a fact for everyone that the routine is funny.

*Warning I've only gone and done yet another wall of text again! This may or may not get read by anyone on here (good god I wouldn't blame anyone for skipping it), but at the very least it's formed the backbone to a video script so it's not a complete waste of my time! (he tells himself)*

This is as much @bareboards2 as yourself, but he already made it clear he wasn't willing to engage on the issue, so you're getting it instead MWAHAHAHHAHA! *coughs*

I don't wish this to come across as over condescending (though I'm sure it will none the less as I'm in one of those moods). But pretty much every (successful) comedy premise operates on the same underlying principle of irony. i.e. there is an expectation or understanding, which is deliberately subverted, and what results is comedy.

In this case, amongst other things we have the understood premises that:
A. rape is a bad, often horrific thing.
B. that there is an established social taboo about praising such behaviour.
C. that there is a section of society inherently opposed to making light of things of which they do not approve (or in a way in which they do not approve)
D. most words and phrases have an expected association and meaning.

What Jim Jefferies (an accomplished and well respected comedies amongst his peers) has done here, is take these commonly understood premises and subverted the audiences normal expectations in order to evoke a sense of irony, from which the audience derives humour and amusement.

A simple joke might take a single such premise and perform a single inversion of our expectation. e.g. my dog has no nose, how does he smell?....terrible!

By subverting our assumed meaning (that the missing nose refers to the dogs implied lack of olfactory senses), the joke creates basic irony by substituting this expected meaning for that of the odour of the dog itself.

This is of course a terrible joke, because it is as simple as a joke could be. It has only one layer of irony and lacks any sense of novelty which, might tip such a terrible joke into working for any other than the very young or simple minded.

We could of course attempt to boost this joke by adding more levels of irony contextually. e.g. a very serious or complex comedian Like say Stuart Lee, could perhaps deliver this joke in a routine and get a laugh by being completely incongruous with his style and past material.

And herein we see the building blocks from which any sophisticated professional comedy routine is built. By layering several different strands or ironic subversion, a good comedian can begin to make a routine more complex and often more than just the sum of its parts to boot.

In this case, Jim is taking the four main premises listed above, layering them and trying to find the sweetest spot of subverted expectation for each. (something which usually takes a great deal of skill and experience at this level)

He mentions the fact that his jokes incite outrage in a certain section of society because this helps to strengthen one of the strands of irony with which he is playing. The fact that he also does so in a boastful tone is itself a subversion, it is understood by the audience that he does not/should not be proud of being merely offensive and as such we have yet another strand of irony thrown into the mix.

You know how better music tends to have more and/or more complex musical things happening at once? It is the same with comedy. The more ironic threads a comedian can juggle around coherently, the more sophisticated and adept their routines could be considered to be.

Naturally as with music there's no accounting for taste as you say. Some people simply can't get past a style or associations of a given musician or song (or painting or whatever).

But dammit Jim is really one of the greats right now. Like him or lump him, the dude is pretty (deceptively) masterful at his craft.

There are at least 4-5 major threads of irony built into this bit and countless other smaller ones besides. He dances around and weaves between them like some sort of comedy ballerina. Every beat has been finely tuned over months of gig's (and years of previous material) to strike the strongest harmonies between these strands and probe for the strongest sense of dissonance in the audience. Not to mention, tone of voice, stance, timing etc.

I think Ahmed is basically terrible too, but it is because the jokes lack much semblance of complexity or nuance. Jeff Dunham's material in general feels extremely simple and seems like it uses shock as a mere crutch, rather than something deeper and more intelligent.

Taste is taste, but I feel one can to a reasonable extent criticise things like the films of Michael Bay, or the music of Justin Beiber for being objectively shallow by breaking down their material into its constituent parts (or lack thereof).

Likewise one could take the music of Wagner and while not enjoying the sound of it, still examine the complexity of it's composition and the clear superiority of skill Wagner had over most of this peers.

I guess what all this boils down to is, Jim seems to me to be clearly very very good at what he does (as he ought after all these years). Reducing his act to mere controversy feels a lot like accusing Black Sabbath of just making noise and using satanic imagery to get attention (or insert other less out of date example here).

The jokes were never at the expense of victims, they are at the expense of our expectations. He makes his own true feelings on the matter abundantly clear towards the end of the section.

As as he says himself his job is to say funny things, not to be a social activist.

I take no issue with you not liking it, but I do take issue with the suggestion that it is somehow two dimensional, or for that matter using controversy cheaply.

Offensive initial premises are some of the most ironically rich in comedy. It's like deliberately choosing the brightest paints when trying to create a striking painting. Why would you avoid the strongest materials because some people (not in your audience) find the contrast too striking?

Eh, much love anyway. This was more an exercise in intellectual masturbation than anything else. Not that I didn't mean all of it sincerely.

This is interesting, because these ladies are famous (in Japan) Japanese comedians but I don't think they will actually be doing the voice-overs when the film comes to Japan (won't be out here for months). On the YouTube page for this video, it explains that these ladies are members of the Japanese Ghostbusters' "branch office," implying an international franchise.

"Charlie Zelenoff is an internet troll who takes pleasure in fighting the non-fighter types."
But he's challenging professional fighters.

"He even fights Floyd Mayweather Sr."
And sucker-punches him when he knows he's lost?

This is worth zero peoples time. Bill Burr is one of my favorite comedians, but I wish he'd spend time highlighting something more worthwhile, because this is the product of first-world boredom.

How fucked up is it that the people speaking the most sense about this are late night comedians?

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Samantha-Bee-on-Orlando-Again-Again

I think the biggest thing that is upsetting millennials is the cost of college. Bill is a comedian, I get that, but if he doesn't comprehend that many kids are entering a mediocre job market with 60k or more of student loans riding on their backs, then he is very out of touch.

Of course there are other options, like skilled trades such as the ones Mike Rowe tries to educate teens about, but the reality is that if you go to college on your own dime today, you are going to have a ton of debt by the time you get out. I got my degree back in the 90's on pell grants and money I got from working outside of school. There is absolutely no way I could have afforded it if I was going to college today. I also would have balked at putting myself deep in debt to go.