I am very disappointed in your response to this site.
I'd like to talk about this. First of all, let me say that I'm sorry if my comments hurt you. Since we've all been educated recently on the slippery meaning of "sorry," I probably don't need to add that that wasn't an apology, but I will apologize if you can show me what was inappropriate about what I posted.
<<That Landover Baptist site is very interesting. I liked the Betty Bowers section. Thanks for the link.>>
First of all, I said it was "interesting." As we all know, interesting is the word you use when you want to be noncommittal, as in "Yes, that orange and purple polka-dotted dress you're wearing is, er, interesting." Then I said I liked the Betty Bowers bit. I read her first entry which was about masturbation. [ bettybowers.com ]It reminded me of admonitions about masturbation I heard as a youngster. I thought it was sweet and funny. Then I said thank you. Surely you're not disappointed in me for being polite...
This type of hate literature in the guise of satire, would not be countenanced for any other group that I can think of.
Greg, read that piece on masturbation and give me your take on it. I called it sweet and funny. What do you think?
Satire can be both funny and useful. It's useful because it gives us a different way of looking at ourselves and laughing at ourselves. I know that satire is sometimes mean spirited. I don't approve of that. I also know that there's a lot of hypersensitivity out there on the part of the objects of jokes. Our current PC climate reflects that hypersensitivity. I don't approve of that, either. We need to be able to laugh at ourselves and WITH others, though. We all have our oddities. I think it's important that we be able to maintain a sense of humor about them. Yes, there's a line when teasing turns to ridicule. We all have different judgments about where that line is. Naturally, we draw the line in different places depending on whether we're the skewer or the skewered.
The link that Thames posted to that site was to a Bible test. As you well know, I know nothing about the subject so I skipped right to the answers, skimmed them, and went to the home page. Greg, I was on that site a good ten minutes before I realized it was a satire, which made me judge it as pretty clever. The first clue I had was the "unsaved are not welcome" in the header. I couldn't figure out why the site would state that so boldly in the header. It took me several more clicks before my satire light bulb turned on. Maybe the site's in bad taste--the parts I read didn't seem so to me--but it was definitely clever. Maybe if I spent some more time on the site I'd find some objectionable material. That wasn't immediately apparent to me.
Regarding the satire of other groups, again, it always looks different to those who identify with the objects of the satire. No, it's not nice to make fun of blacks or Catholics or Jews or gays or Christians or whatever, but it's fair game to satire their oddities. Jokes about the pants that black kids wear or the hats that black church ladies wear are common. Al Sharpton is a walking caricature. Poking fun at flamboyant gays is ubiquitous. There are bunches of funny books about growing up Catholic, much appreciated by Catholics. And some of the funniest material ever written pokes fun at the customs and behaviors of Jews. Christians may not have either the material or the comedic talent of the Jews, but there's still plenty of satire fodder.
[A little while ago someone posted a piece about how to socialize with Jews. I thought it quite clever. There were a number of posts about the post that didn't seem to recognize that the piece was tongue-in-cheek. I consider that a compliment to the author of the piece.]
It seems to me that satire should be judged by whether the material crosses some reasonable line between fair game and cruelty and by the spirit in which it is presented.
IMO, a group can judge the respect it gets from the broader society by the comfort both members and non-members feel joking about the group. We shouldn't be mean, but we shouldn't coddle either. We shouldn't let our group be pushed around, but neither should we bristle at being teased.
Maybe if I spent more time on this site I'd see what you find so objectionable. My cursory look didn't turn up anything obvious. I couldn't tell even whether is was an inside or an outside satire so I couldn't judge whether it was intended to be insulting or not, but surely you know that I had no intent to insult you by my post.
Karen
P.S. Good thing I gave up my four paragraph rule. |
