Lesbian Cougar Video--funny or not?
 

One of my favourite gay bloggers, JoeMyGod, has posted this Second City video and I wanted reactions.

I posted a comment under the nic *rapeisnotfunny* on his site which lets you know my feelings on it.

I was wondering how others feel about it.

I am very disappointed that he would have this on his site and that Second City created it.

What do you think?

Yeah I agree it was pretty stupid

hi HowSoonIsNow!!!

I watched it not surprised at all that a gay man would post this!!!
I have had many great relationships with many gay men in my life and I have always been aware that most of them were be misogynistic and could be cruel to women and transgendered people as well!!!
Hell I am on the outs with my roomie who happens to be my best cookie because he can't be real with himself about his transphobic and misogynistic views.



The video does not make me laugh!!!
It is one more video that kinda grosses me out and leaves me shaking my head!!!

I thought it kinda stupid? But not highly offensive. Second City is well known for .. satiric stuff. Just a bit off...
But I think that it wasn't men ,was kinda the point. Basically making fun of men.. Who wouldn't get it, I guess..
Maybe its just me, I found it so silly, that I saw it as more anti matter than not...

I really wish people would stop with the whole "well, if a man did it" spiel. It's like men and males have become the scapegoats to an extent, or females are allowed to be individuals and men must all be grouped into the same negative group. There are many comedies/comedy skits that are based around the very concept of a man in said cougar's place, and in which the man is placed in a negative light. More and more I feel like there's some kind of modified Animal Farm mantra: Female good. Male bad. Why not take this for what it is, instead of bringing in "if a man did it"? I don't mean to vent at you, suebee, this is more something that's been building up on several comments that have been made in various topics, that I just wanted to address here. I just wish this kind of thing would stop.

I think part of what is feeding into this is that with the whole Cougar Convention thing (that numerous popular celebrities have participated in), the spotlight is now on "cougars," and it has kind of reached a temporary level of being "cool." If we want to talk about double-standards, though, I think that if a male equivalent to the Cougar Convention existed, the mainstream and people in general would be in an uproar (at least, I cannot imagine such a thing being allowed to come to Toronto and attain the same public approval). When men participate in this kind of behaviour they're often considered "dirty" or "perverted."

Anyways, about the commercial for this show itself, I have mixed feelings. I admittedly don't even know what Second City is, or know very much about the show other than the clip you've posted here, HowSoonIsNow, but I did get a bit of a satiric vibe off of it. Jokes or comedies can make light of otherwise unpleasant, hypocritical or overall negative subjects for the exact purpose of pointing out their heinous/ridiculous nature. Take the movie Borat for example, or countless other similar films who make light of darker subject matter; not because they actually believe in the racist or sexist subject matter, but because they're highlighting its existence and hypocritical place in society. I wonder if perhaps this show aims to do the same.

And just to add about my response to the clip: I didn't find it either funny or overly offensive. Not something I'd care to watch.

anyone taking advantage of a drunk person is gross.

sometimes too far is too far.

I reported it and I posted under my name..

"Where do you find any humour whatsoever in the sexual assault of drunken young women by predators? Be careful what you conjure...the images you have created and watch will linger in the culture and add to the pradigm that woman are just fuck holes. Well, the joke is on you..for it is your emasculated little erections not this video that are truly the pitiful jokes of our sick culture."

:| :| :| :| :|

I didn't find it offensive at all. I think that they were trying to be funny and missed it by a long shot. I could totally tell it was made by a gay guy too.

I see the world from a comedic perspective so I can understand the satire. Everyone gets made fun of and some people find some things distasteful. Shows make fun of cougars all the time and in this case it just happened to be lesbians.

I understand comedy. I really do, but I also think this particular clip could be construed as anti-lesbian and anti-woman to some.

I may be alone in thinking that, but pieces that are denigrating to women aren't funny. To me.

In the same way that the tired old frat boy type jokes aren't funny to me.

OMG. I've turned into my mother.

No I don't think this is funny. Taking advantage of someone young and drunk- that's supposed to be funny?

Also why is it that lesbians seem to be open season for other queers to make fun of?

Yeah, images of drunk girls and someone not caring that they are drunk comedy or not is oogey for me...

I did not find it to be funny.

Maybe it's a mom thing I dunno

not to mention the image of lesbians as predators of young people.

we already have had real life consequences for that belief when the religious right takes away our civil rights by scaring the masses into believing that we ARE predators recruiting their young.

ugh.

I didn't find it amusing.

Replacing 20-something "frat boys" with 40-something "lesbian cougars," and thinking it's satire is really pretty pathetic. I would expect more from Second City.

It's not even the fact that the dykes are made up to look ugly is that stereotypical lesbian manner or that they use a word like "twat," it's that whomever made this so clearly knows nothing about lesbian culture. That's why its not funny.

For christ fucking sake, a lesbian cougar would not go after a drunk straight college girl. A lesbian cougar would go after a hot young packing butch go-go dancer.

;)

ETA: As for the predator thing -- I get why that's disturbing, but I don't think anyone in the clip is supposed to be underage. Young does not equate to child or minor. Let's remember that people with large age differences DO engage in consensual relationships. Part of the problem with the whole "cougar" thing is that it is so totally age-ist - on both ends of the spectrum.

Is this kind of thing really necessary? Why throw in emasculating comments like this? Even if you believe the image is perpetuating something you do not support, stooping to what you believe to be a lower level is not the way to go about changing anything, imo. It perpetuates what appears to be the entire qualm you have with the video. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, as they say.

All satire can be misconstrued as anti- whatever the subject matter happens to be. In some ways, that is part of the reflective point of satire. How many people do you think watched Borat and thought Sacha Baron Cohen was actually perpetuating sexism, racism, homophobia among other subjects he touched upon? The same has happened with nearly every satiric work that has ever come out, and it is because people fail to see the purpose of satire: to hold a mirror up to society, to overexaggerate and therefore make more visible its blatant hypocrisy.

And even if it was not meant as a satire by the original creator (which we still don't know yet, as far as I've seen), there is also the case of inadvertant satire that can function just as well toward that aim. Why not use it in such a manner, consequently stripping it of the power with which you believe it to be endowed?

For those interested, Slavoj Zizek actually talks about how such "jokes" or satires function, and may explain better than I currently am. It's a long clip and I understand most people don't want to get into the whole thing, but his overview of the example joke he uses starts at around 37:00 for those interested (the joke is used to support other arguments in the debate, but the whole debate does not centre around the use of jokes/satire as a tool toward illuminating social hypocrisy, so I don't want anyone to think the whole thing is about such jokes).