your least favourite shakespeare play ? [Archive]

mortalterror

07-10-2015, 02:23 AM

I think all of these are bad-to-mediocre:

Taming of the Shrew
A very funny play.

Henry VIII
Two Noble Kinsmen
Two Gentlemen of Verona
Comedy of Errors
Another very funny play.

Pericles
III Henry VI
The end of that play gives Richard every bit as good a monologue as he begins his own with.

I, that have neither pity, love, nor fear.
Indeed, 'tis true that Henry told me of;
For I have often heard my mother say
I came into the world with my legs forward:
Had I not reason, think ye, to make haste,
And seek their ruin that usurp'd our right?
The midwife wonder'd and the women cried
'O, Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!'
And so I was; which plainly signified
That I should snarl and bite and play the dog.
Then, since the heavens have shaped my body so,
Let hell make crook'd my mind to answer it.
I have no brother, I am like no brother;
And this word 'love,' which graybeards call divine,
Be resident in men like one another
And not in me: I am myself alone.

Great villain stuff, like Iago has in Othello or Aaron has in Titus Andronicus:

Lucius. Art thou not sorry for these heinous deeds?
Aaron. Ay, that I had not done a thousand more.
Even now I curse the day—and yet, I think, 2260
Few come within the compass of my curse,—
Wherein I did not some notorious ill,
As kill a man, or else devise his death,
Ravish a maid, or plot the way to do it,
Accuse some innocent and forswear myself, 2265
Set deadly enmity between two friends,
Make poor men's cattle break their necks;
Set fire on barns and hay-stacks in the night,
And bid the owners quench them with their tears.
Oft have I digg'd up dead men from their graves, 2270
And set them upright at their dear friends' doors,
Even when their sorrows almost were forgot;
And on their skins, as on the bark of trees,
Have with my knife carved in Roman letters,
'Let not your sorrow die, though I am dead.' 2275
Tut, I have done a thousand dreadful things
As willingly as one would kill a fly,
And nothing grieves me heartily indeed
But that I cannot do ten thousand more.

I Henry VI
I remember hearing that this was his first play and is considered early juvenilia, but I think it still shows moments of promise. Correct me if I'm wrong, it's been so many years since I saw it, but isn't this the one with Joan of Arc? I remember they claimed she was a witch and that was cool. Plus, I believe one of the Henry VI plays has a peasant revolt in it where the mob raises decapitated heads on pikes and makes them kiss. I thought those parts were interesting.

All's Well that Ends Well
Titus Andronicus
You simply have to see the Anthony Hopkins film Titus. It is amazing. 'O tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide.'

Merry Wives of Windsor
This one was rushed and I think I heard once that it was written in six weeks for the queen, because she loved Falstaff so much. I have to agree. Falstaff is Shakespeare's greatest character, better than Hamlet. Plus, that scene where the husband is disguised paying Falstaff to cuckold him and Falstaff is openly mocking him since he doesn't know who's under the mask is just great. That scene is dramatically brilliant sort of like the disguised Henry V walking the battlefield talking to his soldiers, or the modern play Amadeus when the masked man asks Mozart to "Play Salieri." It's even a dramatically interesting scene since the husband is hiring a man to cuckold him, which is the opposite of our expectations. This brings to mind Richard III wooing a woman he's just made a widow. It's such a novel scene. Then there's the silly dueling scene which is quite like the one Sir Toby Belch instigated in Twelfth Night. Sure, the Merry Wives of Windsor doesn't have the best Falstaff moments like Henry IV parts I and II but it's still worth it to spend a little more time with such a likeable and entertaining rogue.

King John
I could almost agree with this one were it not for the scene where the French and English kings arrive outside a city and find it disloyal to both sides. The city guards refuse to open the gates, and propose that the Kings fight it out between them and then the city will open for the victor. Quite comically, the offended kings decide to besiege it on both sides and whoever breaches the walls first shall be the owner of the disputed city. The two kings then even develop a spirit of camaraderie now that they have a common enemy, and are only broken apart when the Pope arrives.

WHAAAA?! That's in my Top 10 Shakespeare! Perhaps his most beautiful play outside The Tempest and Antony and Cleopatra.
Tempest and A+C are good, but for my money the best are Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, King Lear, followed by Julius Caesar, Henry IV part I, Macbeth, A Midsummer Nights Dream, The Tempest, Richard III, Othello, etc. in about that order.

sohel24bd

07-10-2015, 04:03 AM

Henry IV

Pompey Bum

07-10-2015, 07:36 AM

Henry IV

Yikes! I hope that's dyslexia, Sohel. :) Henry IV Parts One and Two are usually considered masterpieces, and Bloom sees Falstaff as Shakespeare's supreme creation. Are you sure you didn't mean Henry VI Part One, which is sometimes said to have been his greatest clunker? If not, well, you are certainly entitled to your opinion. Mine is that the two Henry IVs (and Lear) are Shakespeare's best plays. Or perhaps they are just the most meaningful to me.

MorpheusSandman

07-10-2015, 12:57 PM

A very funny play.I don't find gross misogyny funny.

Another very funny play.Which one? Shakespeare's early comedies are extremely light fair without the linguistic, psychological, and moral complexity of his later efforts. They can be entertaining enough, but not much more.

The end of that play gives Richard every bit as good a monologue as he begins his own with.I do agree that Richard has some really good bits in that one, most certainly written by Shakespeare in preparation for his first solo effort. The problem is the rest of it is the most lurid in Shakespeare's canon outside the probably half-satirical Titus Andronicus.

I remember hearing that this was his first play and is considered early juvenilia, but I think it still shows moments of promise. Correct me if I'm wrong, it's been so many years since I saw it, but isn't this the one with Joan of Arc?That's the one. It's widely believed that the Henry VI trilogy was co-written by Shakespeare, though scholars disagree over which parts were. My gut instinct is that Shakespeare probably wrote somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of them, and I think that explains what I find so splotchy about them. They all have their moments, definitely some good drama and a lot of Machiavellian nastiness, but they definitely lack the artistry of the mature (solo) Shakespeare. I think II Henry VI stands out as the best, probably as it's the most psychologically interesting.

You simply have to see the Anthony Hopkins film Titus. It is amazing. 'O tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide.'I have seen it. I think it's one of the rare instances of a film adaptation improving on the play. Taymor nailed the tricky tone of that play and found a remarkable visual correlative for it.

This one was rushed and I think I heard once that it was written in six weeks for the queen, because she loved Falstaff so much. I have to agree. Falstaff is Shakespeare's greatest character, better than Hamlet.I can't agree with the Falstaff > Hamlet part, but everything else is right on.

I could almost agree with this one were it not for the scene where the French and English kings arrive outside a city and find it disloyal to both sides.King John is the one Shakespeare play that just left zero impression on me. I remember almost nothing of it.

Tempest and A+C are good, but for my money the best are Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, King Lear, followed by Julius Caesar, Henry IV part I, Macbeth, A Midsummer Nights Dream, The Tempest, Richard III, Othello, etc. in about that order.Ranking Shakespeare's best plays is a bit like ranking sex positions: they're all good, even if we disagree on the order. The Tempest is one of the most profound reflections on art and life in the history of the arts, filled with such beauty and wonder and formal mastery I'm in awe of it more and more with each revisit. A&C has Shakespeare's most ravishing language; it's very much a more mature follow-up to R&J, almost as if the latter two had grown-up to be rulers of countries but hadn't matured mentally. I've always found R&J and Othello a tad overrated; the biggest problem I have with the latter is I've never found Othello's "switch" believable, and the murder scene has always struck me as ludicrous (especially Desdemona's eloquence after being smothered nearly to death). Julius Caesar's first 3 acts are at the very top of Shakespeare's canon, but I think there's a major falling off at the end. The others I have almost nothing but good things to say about.

Pompey Bum

07-10-2015, 02:09 PM

I don't find gross misogyny funny.

I'm with MT. The Taming of the Shrew is one of the funniest plays ever written. It concerns me that politically prescribed thought seems to be eroding our appreciation of literature--not to mention our senses of humor. Here are some of my thoughts on the play (from another thread):

I find The Taming of the Shrew side-splittingly and endearingly funny, especially Kate's appallingly sexist "taming," precisely because it is so unbelievable and absurd. The scene where Petruchio tries to drive her nuts is something from Monty Python. Its divorce from reality, delivered straight faced, just makes it funnier and funnier. Obviously it's not as great a comedy as A Midsummer's Night Dream (in which the wit has a more range--from girl-fighting to intellectual snobbery to genuine sweetness), but some of the scenes are just as funny, which is saying a lot. It's also a sexy play. It is a romp. But its comedy is a bit simplistic, too. I can see where it would be easy to make a really bad production of The Taming of the Shrew. The only one I ever saw, though, was brilliant. Kate knew just what she was doing, and she ended up loving Petruchio not because she had been "tamed" but because they were two peas in a pod--the only ones who could ever love (or even put up with) one another. The Taming of the Shrew is not a subtle play, but in its own way, it has a sweet side, too.

Pompey Bum

07-10-2015, 02:54 PM

[HTML]I can't agree with the Falstaff > Hamlet part, but everything else is right on.

Once again I agree with MT--sort of. I'm not really concerned about who Shakespeare's greatest character is (although it's Falstaff :-P); but I consider both the Henry IVs to be at least Hamlet's equal. Once again, I cite a genuine authority: :)

I'm inclined to agree with you about Hamlet, by the way. It's certainly one of the greatest plays in literature, but in my opinion, its automatic assignment to the top of the Shakespearean heap has become a little too--automatic? King Lear, Macbeth, and Othello are more visceral plays (Hamlet is so damned heady). The Henry the Fourths appear more recognizably human to me. In some ways, Hamlet seems like an exposition about what it means to be a man (by which I mean an adult male, not just a human being). Several versions of manhood are critiqued in the ideal, and eventually, after a bit of bloodletting, Hamlet embraces his own noble but tragic destiny. In Henry IV, Prince Hal is just as troubled a figure as Hamlet, but he's not nearly as good. His "noble destiny" as Henry V is a sham and he knows it. On the eve of Agincourt (in Henry V), when he famously prays for his troops, he is still begging God to forgive his father for usurping the throne. In Henry IV Part 2, Hal is not choosing between ideals. He is betraying his lowlife friends because it turns out to be more important for him to embrace the lie than to wallow in the truth. In Henry V, he even hangs some of them. The price he (and they) pay, it seems to me, is more applicable to human experience than Hamlet's slow expiration in Horatio's arms. We all live like Prince Hal to some extent. How many of us die like Hamlet?

Jackson Richardson

07-10-2015, 04:25 PM

You simply have to see the Anthony Hopkins film Titus. It is amazing. 'O tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide.'

That line may be in the Hopkins film, but I think it refers to Queen Margaret in Henry VI Part 2 (or possibly Part 3).

The theory I've heard is that Part 2 was Shakespeare's first great success (and that line is quoted by a contemporary) and he then wrote Part 3 as a sequel and given their immense success (mentioned in the epilogue to Henry V) he wrote Part 1 as what Hollywood now calls a prequel.

Shakespeare's greatest characters are Cleopatra, Lady Macbeth and Volumnia. Men just don't have a chance with those three.

Jackson Richardson

07-10-2015, 04:41 PM

Greatest characters...

Also Paulina in Winter's Tale - worth the price of admission to that play alone. Some would say Rosalind in As You Like It but for my taste she speaks all this boring convoluted prose.

mortalterror

07-10-2015, 06:08 PM

I don't find gross misogyny funny.
That's your loss. It's one of the greatest sources of humor of all time. Humor comes from breaking taboos, defying conventional mores, shocking people, exposing hidden prejudices and fears. Racism, homophobia, sexism, violence, crudity, foolishness, insecurity, are the colors a comedian paints his canvas with. Humor is about men behaving badly, inappropriately, wish fulfillment, the Id, our deepest darkest desires. Those are the most raw and primal forms that humor comes in, and I would no sooner clean them up, and rob them of their beauty than I would ask Michelangelo or the ancient Greeks to cover their figures in clothes.

Which one? Shakespeare's early comedies are extremely light fair without the linguistic, psychological, and moral complexity of his later efforts. They can be entertaining enough, but not much more.
The Comedy of Errors is a refinement of a classic play by the Roman playwright Plautus, who invented modern comedy! Can't you appreciate the amusing subtlety of a bloke in a dress? Or how a sane man ends up being beaten in a madhouse? If that weren't hilarious enough, you have his twin/doppleganger having the best day of his life at the same time his opposite number is having the worst day of his? The contrast makes things even funnier. The confusion, the senseless beatings, role reversal, society in an uproar, chaos and anarchy. It's fantastic. The jokes are very clever. Not all good writing is poetry, and there's a lot to be said for a good pratfall. I think you are underrating Shakespeare's comedies because you are looking for the same things in them that made his tragedies so delightful. Different genres have different rules, different strengths.

I do agree that Richard has some really good bits in that one, most certainly written by Shakespeare in preparation for his first solo effort. The problem is the rest of it is the most lurid in Shakespeare's canon outside the probably half-satirical Titus Andronicus.
But why should the play being lurid be seen as a defect? There are many lurid masterpieces, and Shakespeare himself frequently wallows in the stuff. Macbeth is a bloody play full of witches and ghosts. I don't know if you've ever seen the Royal Shakespeare Comapany's film version of A Midsummer Nights Dream, but their take on it was that it was more of a nightmare. The elves are more like vampires, the forest is more a bog or swamp, and a man is transformed into a half-donkey monstrosity! In The Tempest, you have a sorcerer who commands spirits, and a cannibal. Shakespeare is full of decapitation, infanticide, incest. Where do you draw the line and say one thing is lurid and in bad taste but another isn't? There are executions, people jumping into graves, playing with skulls, suicide, rape, pirates, bear attacks, sexual innuendo, poisoning, domestic violence, racism. The whole thing is lurid. That's part of the fun.

That's the one. It's widely believed that the Henry VI trilogy was co-written by Shakespeare, though scholars disagree over which parts were. My gut instinct is that Shakespeare probably wrote somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of them, and I think that explains what I find so splotchy about them. They all have their moments, definitely some good drama and a lot of Machiavellian nastiness, but they definitely lack the artistry of the mature (solo) Shakespeare. I think II Henry VI stands out as the best, probably as it's the most psychologically interesting.
The Henry VI plays feel episodic, sequential, and a bit overlong, like the chronicle they were based on more than a play. But I did like that scene in the garden when the nobles pick the flowers white or red, and thus begin the Wars of the Roses.

I can't agree with the Falstaff > Hamlet part, but everything else is right on.
He's such a beautifully tragicomic character, so human, so flawed, but noble in his way, ideal after a fashion. He has too much depth and complexity to be an archetype fat clown soldier like his ancestor the Miles Gloriosis. He transcends all that to be a truly unique, intelligent, pathetic, heroic, comic character like Don Quixote.

King John is the one Shakespeare play that just left zero impression on me. I remember almost nothing of it.
Part of what I remember best are all the bastard jokes Philip the Bastard made.

First Citizen
In brief, we are the king of England's subjects:
For him, and in his right, we hold this town.

KING JOHN
Acknowledge then the king, and let me in.

First Citizen
That can we not; but he that proves the king,
To him will we prove loyal: till that time
Have we ramm'd up our gates against the world.

KING JOHN
Doth not the crown of England prove the king?
And if not that, I bring you witnesses,
Twice fifteen thousand hearts of England's breed,--

BASTARD
Bastards, and else.

KING JOHN
To verify our title with their lives.

KING PHILIP
As many and as well-born bloods as those,--

BASTARD
Some bastards too.

KING PHILIP
Stand in his face to contradict his claim.

First Citizen
Till you compound whose right is worthiest,
We for the worthiest hold the right from both.

Ranking Shakespeare's best plays is a bit like ranking sex positions: they're all good, even if we disagree on the order. The Tempest is one of the most profound reflections on art and life in the history of the arts, filled with such beauty and wonder and formal mastery I'm in awe of it more and more with each revisit. A&C has Shakespeare's most ravishing language; it's very much a more mature follow-up to R&J, almost as if the latter two had grown-up to be rulers of countries but hadn't matured mentally. I've always found R&J and Othello a tad overrated; the biggest problem I have with the latter is I've never found Othello's "switch" believable, and the murder scene has always struck me as ludicrous (especially Desdemona's eloquence after being smothered nearly to death). Julius Caesar's first 3 acts are at the very top of Shakespeare's canon, but I think there's a major falling off at the end. The others I have almost nothing but good things to say about.

I'd say that they are mostly good but I don't feel a pressing need to revisit some of them. How badly do we really need to re-read Timon of Athens or Pericles?

MorpheusSandman

07-11-2015, 02:48 PM

I'm with MT. The Taming of the Shrew is one of the funniest plays ever written. It concerns me that politically prescribed thought seems to be eroding our appreciation of literature--not to mention our senses of humor. The play is hilarious when Katherina and Petruchio are on a level playing field. If anything, the play becomes utterly dull (as well as offensive) once we go from their banter to Petruchio's torture and the ridiculous conclusion that everyone's happier when women know their places. Combined with the "drunken man is fooled into thinking he's king" prologue, I half suspect this was intentional on Shakespeare's part. It wouldn't be the first time he's pulled of the trick of playing into and against his times' expectations simultaneously (The Merchant of Venice being the other), especially since we know Shakespeare had a thing for strong female characters anyway.

Once again I agree with MT--sort of. I'm not really concerned about who Shakespeare's greatest character is (although it's Falstaff :-P); but I consider both the Henry IVs to be at least Hamlet's equal. Once again, I cite a genuine authority: :)I don't object to anyone considering the Henry IV plays masterpieces, but, personally, they're plays I admire intellectually more than plays that move me emotionally. Hamlet was (and remains) the second most profound experience I've ever had with fiction.

MorpheusSandman

07-11-2015, 02:59 PM

That's your loss. It's one of the greatest sources of humor of all time. Humor comes from breaking taboos, defying conventional mores, shocking people, exposing hidden prejudices and fears.The problem is that the play doesn't break any taboos: it reinforces the misogynistic notion that everyone is happier when women know their place. Breaking taboos would've been suggesting that things are actually better when men and women are considered equals. Shakespeare was capable of this, and, as I suggested above, he may have been subliminally suggesting this in Taming of the Shrew. It all depends on whether we read it straight or ironically.

The Comedy of Errors is a refinement of a classic play by the Roman playwright Plautus, who invented modern comedy! Can't you appreciate the amusing subtlety of a bloke in a dress?I enjoy Comedy of Errors just fine, but it's not the (near)-masterpiece Twelfth Night is.

But why should the play being lurid be seen as a defect?Because if that's all a work has going for it then it might as well be sold as a dime novel. Shakespeare's other "lurid" efforts (like Macbeth) have much more going for it than just that aspect. Lurid matter can be elevated to high art, absolutely, and Shakespeare did that frequently in the later plays.

He's such a beautifully tragicomic character, so human, so flawed, but noble in his way, ideal after a fashion. He has too much depth and complexity to be an archetype fat clown soldier like his ancestor the Miles Gloriosis. He transcends all that to be a truly unique, intelligent, pathetic, heroic, comic character like Don Quixote.And it's because of how sympathetic and human he is that Hal's betrayal at the end of II Henry IV may be the single most devastating moment in all Shakespeare. It's very close with the final scene in Lear, anyway. Others might object, but I feel that Orson Welles's Chimes at Midnight is probably superior to the two plays taken straight.

I'd say that they are mostly good but I don't feel a pressing need to revisit some of them. How badly do we really need to re-read Timon of Athens or Pericles?Pericles is certainly flawed (probably because, again, it was a collaboration), but I always feel like Timon is better than I remember it. It's certainly Shakepseare's bleakest play as it pertains to the nature of humanity.

Pompey Bum

07-11-2015, 05:27 PM

I half suspect this was intentional on Shakespeare's part. It wouldn't be the first time he's pulled of the trick of playing into and against his times' expectations simultaneously (The Merchant of Venice being the other), especially since we know Shakespeare had a thing for strong female characters anyway.

Oh I certainly think the part you take offense at is toungue-in-cheek--and more to the point, a lampoon of dumb-*ss male attitudes about women. Do what you will, but my advice is to relax a little and join the fun. The battle for women's well being is not to be won (or even fought) here; and taking offense at a comedy like The Taming of the Shrew only identifies one as another balloon to be pricked.

I don't object to anyone considering the Henry IV plays masterpieces, but, personally, they're plays I admire intellectually more than plays that move me emotionally. Hamlet was (and remains) the second most profound experience I've ever had with fiction.

My experience has been just opposite, but to each his own.

And it's because of how sympathetic and human he is that Hal's betrayal at the end of II Henry IV may be the single most devastating moment in all Shakespeare. It's very close with the final scene in Lear, anyway.

I agree with both of those statements. And the loss of bad mentors, fallen idols, insufficient father figures--even just drinking buddies--with the onset of adult responsibilities is such a universal experience that the scene truly captures something heartbreakingly human.

Others might object, but I feel that Orson Welles's Chimes at Midnight is probably superior to the two plays taken straight.

I'm not sure how to take a play by Shakespeare straight. I read them out loud myself (with my own characterizations--my wife thinks I'm nuts); and I always have pictures in my mind. I like the Welles' movie, but like most movies (and almost all audiobooks), it pales before art shared with an artist on such a personal level. Give me a book any day.

Jackson Richardson

07-11-2015, 05:46 PM

Now the case where an adaption of Shakespeare is far better then the original is Verdi's Falstaff, based on The Merry Wives of Windsor and a considerable improvement. Mind you I've just been to a wonderful production. Arrigo Boito who adapted it (and also Othello) was a genius.

Pompey Bum

07-11-2015, 05:51 PM

Congratulations as always on your access to London's rich cultural provender. :) The Merry Wives of Windsor is fun, but it's not real. Henry IV One & Two are funnier, and as real as it gets. What more can you say?

Jackson Richardson

07-11-2015, 05:59 PM

In a sense Verdi is Italy's answer to Shakespeare (on the basis that although Dante is the great poet, it's all symbolic). Actually Verdi and Dickens were exact contemporaries and in many ways parallel - boys with no higher education who became National Treasures.

But what is wonderful about Falstaff is that Verdi composed it when he was over 80 and not thought to write another opera. In fact it was his first comic opera for fifty years. And technically it is like nothing else: the music matches the words and situations without stopping for big solos until you get to the magical scene in Windsor Great Park at the end. It make me feel young.

MorpheusSandman

07-11-2015, 06:30 PM

Oh I certainly think the part you take offense at is toungue-in-cheek--and more to the point, a lampoon of dumb-*ss male attitudes about women. Do what you will, but my advice is to relax a little and join the fun. The battle for women's well being is not to be won (or even fought) here; and taking offense at a comedy like The Taming of the Shrew only identifies one as another balloon to be pricked.Where does one draw the line, though? Should we just "relax and join the fun" when the Klu Klux Klan rides to the rescue in Birth of a Nation? I mean, I do think some art reaches a point where we are morally obligated to denounce its content even if we praise its artistry.

I like the Welles' movie, but like most movies (and almost all audiobooks), it pales before art shared with an artist on such a personal level.Not quite sure what you mean here; there are a great many films that are very personal, and a great many books that are very impersonal. I wouldn't even call Shakespeare a highly personal author as far as that goes.

MorpheusSandman

07-11-2015, 06:31 PM

Now the case where an adaption of Shakespeare is far better then the original is Verdi's Falstaff, based on The Merry Wives of Windsor and a considerable improvement. When WH Auden taught his classes on Shakespeare, in which he delivered lengthy, in-depth lectures on every play, during his lecture for The Merry Wives of Windsor he simply turned on a recording of Verdi's Falstaff.

Pompey Bum

07-11-2015, 07:17 PM

Where does one draw the line, though? Should we just "relax and join the fun" when the Klu Klux Klan rides to the rescue in Birth of a Nation? I mean, I do think some art reaches a point where we are morally obligated to denounce its content even if we praise its artistry.

Sounds like a slippery slope argument to me, but I'll give you my best answer in any case. A riotous comedy like The Taming of the Shrew is not comparable to a (supposedly) historical epic film like Birth of a Nation because there is no question of historicity involved. There is, of course, plenty of art in which one is able to learn and teach from despicable content (the traditions of Jew-hatred behind Fagin in Oliver Twist come to mind). But denouncing (as long as slippery slopes are cool) is way too much like proscribing content, and proscribing content is way too much like burning books for my tastes. Of course, anyone is free to learn and teach about sexism from The Taming of the Shrew (and many do). Perhaps it can do women some good; I truly hope so. It's bound to give me a big laugh in any case. :)

Not quite sure what you mean here; there are a great many films that are very personal, and a great many books that are very impersonal. I wouldn't even call Shakespeare a highly personal author as far as that goes.

Sure, what I mean is that the connection between a reader and a writer is personal--even an intimate. The actual experience of the art is made in that interaction. With movies and audiobooks, the experience is mediated through directors, actors, cinematographers, or readers (not that movies aren't potentially worthwhile in other ways). Audiobooks in which the author is also the reader are a happy exception. Unfortunately they are not very common now.

MorpheusSandman

07-11-2015, 07:39 PM

Sounds like a slippery slope argument to me, but I'll give you my best answer in any case...I certainly wouldn't endorse any kind of banning or censorship, but part of free speech is the ability to denounce the content of what free speech we find morally repugnant.

Obviously BOAN is on the opposite end of the spectrum in just about every way, but that was part of my point about asking where, exactly, to draw the line. Very recently there's been a lot of controversy over the morality of comedians telling rape jokes, so I don't think it's a simple manner of "serious historical drama" VS "frivolous comedy" since even comedy is usually promoting some perspective while making fun of another (though some comedy tries to mock every perspective). Traditionally, though, comedy has been aimed at the powerful, establishments and privilege, as they're the ones that benefit the most and suffer the least through existing social structures. It gets very tricky when you start making light of groups that aren't privileged.

I'm not saying it's morally wrong to laugh at Taming of the Shrew, but I do think it's important to be aware of where the laughter is coming from; namely to guard against it coming from a place of agreeing with the misogynistic aspect. One shouldn't be laughing and saying to themselves: "Yeah, that ***** Katherina is getting what's coming to her!"

On a tangential note, this entire conversation is eerily echoing a recent poem I wrote on this very subject (taking Browning's My Last Duchess as a reference).

Sure, what I mean is that the connection between a reader and a writer is personal--even an intimate. Well, all I can say is that I can feel the same intimate connection with some filmmakers as you feel with writers. It always depends for me on the particular author/filmmaker. I always said that the film Eraserhead is as close as one can come to observing someone else's nightmarish psyche.

Pompey Bum

07-11-2015, 08:54 PM

I certainly wouldn't endorse any kind of banning or censorship, but part of free speech is the ability to denounce the content of what free speech we find morally repugnant.

Oh so we're not doing slippery slope? Cool! The Taming of the Shrew has nothing to do with Birth of a Nation (or rape jokes). And of course you have the right to say anything you like. Who said otherwise?

I don't think it's a simple manner of "serious historical drama" VS "frivolous comedy" since even comedy is usually promoting some perspective while making fun of another (though some comedy tries to mock every perspective).

You misunderstand me or are intentionally misrepresenting my position, but I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. I made no comparison between the serious and the frivolous. What I said was that the two works could not be well compared because the issue of HISTORICITY does not pertain to both. Historicity is the underlying kernel of historical authenticity within a work of art (among other things). Birth of a Nation makes a claim to the authenticity a certain version of history. The Taming of the Shrew does not. It is a raucous comedy lampooning courtship, which never even considers issues of historiography. My opinion is that idiot male attitudes toward women are especially skewered and that the "sexist" aspects should not be taken seriously. You are free to disagree.

Well, all I can say is that I can feel the same intimate connection with some filmmakers as you feel with writers. It always depends for me on the particular author/filmmaker. I always said that the film Eraserhead is as close as one can come to observing someone else's nightmarish psyche.

Again, I don't think you understood my point. A reader (or this reader in any case) provides vocal characterizations and narrative voice, and brings an author's colors and pictures to life in my mind as I read. One who views a film does not have to do that because others have already done it for her. But it is not important to me whether you understand what I meant, so it would probably be best to drop it.

Clopin

07-11-2015, 10:59 PM

It gets very tricky when you start making light of groups that aren't privileged.

"Look ma I'm using buzzwords on the Internet!"

MorpheusSandman

07-12-2015, 01:38 AM

"Look ma I'm using buzzwords on the Internet!""Look ma I have nothing to add to this discussion so I'll crib a banal internet meme and completely miss the irony of deriding someone else for using internet buzzwords!"

MorpheusSandman

07-12-2015, 01:58 AM

Oh so we're not doing slippery slope? Cool! The Taming of the Shrew has nothing to do with Birth of a Nation (or rape jokes). And of course you have the right to say anything you like. Who said otherwise?Sorry for the confusion but I was conflating two different parts of our discussion. Where you said "dencouncing is too much like proscribing content, and that's too close to burning books," I just wanted to clarify that I wasn't advocating anything that extreme, merely that there's nothing contradictory about championing a right to say something and denouncing what is said: I'm including in "what's said" to be all art, so I'm not talking about "burning books."

You misunderstand me or are intentionally misrepresenting my position, but I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. I made no comparison between the serious and the frivolous. What I said was that the two works could not be well compared because the issue of HISTORICITY does not pertain to both.Sorry about that, I did misunderstand your point. But even now as I understand your point I'm not sure I agree with it. There was a time when the Klu Klux Klan WERE seen as heroes to certain people in the south, and we really have no idea as to whether or not a situation like that depicted in BOAN ever happened or not, just like we usually don't know if what's depicted in historical fiction happened that way or not as we're usually quite limited in detailed accounts of such events (and it's worth pointing out that the particular part of BOAN in question isn't meant to be depicting a specific historical event like, say, Saving Private Ryan depicts D-Day).

Either way, IMO what makes BOAN morally objectionable is entirely in how it tries to portray an entire race of people and likewise how it champions a group known for their violent discrimination against that race. The parallel to be made with Shrew is in the notion that all "strong-willed women" are bad, and any man who tames them is heroic and in their right to do so (if, indeed, that's the "play's" perspective).

My opinion is that idiot male attitudes toward women are especially skewered and that the "sexist" aspects should not be taken seriously. You are free to disagree. I'm on the fence, personally. My bardolotry wants me to think the best of Shakespeare, and even my rational side says that Shakespeare had an almost superhuman ability to NOT stereotype people and make blanket declarations against them, and even when he was forced into presenting a certain perspective because of his times ("Jews are evil") he found a remarkable way to create a kind of ironic counterbalance going the other way that probably would've been missed by those at the time who lacked his humanistic depth. However, apart from the prologue, the dullness of everything "post-taming," and the exaggerated almost-to-the-point-of-parody element of the taming itself, there's not much evidence that the play is meant ironically. Whether you say that's enough evidence to declare that Shakespeare wasn't promoting the play's open misogyny is, indeed, a matter of opinion.

Again, I don't think you understood my point. A reader (or this reader in any case) provides vocal characterizations and narrative voice, and brings an author's colors and pictures to life in my mind as I read. One who views a film does not have to do that because others have already done it for her. But it is not important to me whether you understand what I meant, so it would probably be best to drop it.No need to get defense, I understand you now. :)

Clopin

07-12-2015, 08:08 AM

"Look ma I have nothing to add to this discussion so I'll crib a banal internet meme and completely miss the irony of deriding someone else for using internet buzzwords!"

Woah buddy, as a Native American member of the lGBTQWERTY community I think you had better fix that ire on someone a little more privileged; your post is honestly quite 'problematic'. I find your microaggressive use of sarcasm, levelled at a member of a minority group, to be quite 'tricky'.

cacian

07-12-2015, 09:16 AM

Woah buddy, as a Native American member of the lGBTQWERTY community I think you had better fix that ire on someone a little more privileged; your post is honestly quite 'problematic'. I find your microaggressive use of sarcasm, levelled at a member of a minority group, to be quite 'tricky'.
what is the meaning of that?

Jackson Richardson

07-12-2015, 09:17 AM

Like you, cacian, I don't know but I strongly advise you not to get involved in this sort of exchange..

Pompey Bum

07-12-2015, 09:40 AM

Sorry for the confusion but I was conflating two different parts of our discussion.

Okay, you are absolved. :)

Sorry about that, I did misunderstand your point. But even now as I understand your point I'm not sure I agree with it. There was a time when the Klu Klux Klan WERE seen as heroes to certain people in the south, and we really have no idea as to whether or not a situation like that depicted in BOAN ever happened or not, just like we usually don't know if what's depicted in historical fiction happened that way or not as we're usually quite limited in detailed accounts of such events (and it's worth pointing out that the particular part of BOAN in question isn't meant to be depicting a specific historical event like, say, Saving Private Ryan depicts D-Day).

I was not arguing that the objectionable aspect of Birth of a Nation was its lack of historicity (although I'm sure it's quite limited); simply that claims to the same sort of authenticity did not pertain to both works, making the comparison you sought somewhat facile. A historian would no doubt make mincemeat out of Birth of a Nation, but a high degree of historicity is not necessary to a successful work of art. Richard III, for example, is a Tudor whitewash, but poetically it is to die for--Jonathan's eccentric disdain notwithstanding. (If you are reading this Jonathan, please explain! :)) Likewise the Battles of Harfleur and Agincourt were fought with sword and longbow not canon and ball (no breach for the dear friends to charge unto once more).

I've never watched Birth of a Nation, but the parts I have seen are unconscionable. Even worse, since cinema was new when it was released, throngs of relatively naive Americans--many without advanced education--were literally ushered into a dark room to receive the myth of the heroic Klansman; no doubt with deadly consequences to some. I can see its use today by history teachers in showing how Reconstruction was perceived by many in the early 20th, and how the those perceptions helped fuel violent conflict and laid the background for the Civil Rights struggle. Since I haven't seen the whole film (or even very much of it), I can't speak to its artistic value.

No need to get defense, I understand you now.

I apologize for my impatience last night.

mortalterror

07-12-2015, 10:35 AM

I certainly wouldn't endorse any kind of banning or censorship, but part of free speech is the ability to denounce the content of what free speech we find morally repugnant.

Obviously BOAN is on the opposite end of the spectrum in just about every way, but that was part of my point about asking where, exactly, to draw the line. Very recently there's been a lot of controversy over the morality of comedians telling rape jokes, so I don't think it's a simple manner of "serious historical drama" VS "frivolous comedy" since even comedy is usually promoting some perspective while making fun of another (though some comedy tries to mock every perspective).
Yes, political correctness is the death of comedy. Everybody at the nightclub laughed at those jokes and then one uptight person went home and wrote a blog claiming they weren't funny.

Traditionally, though, comedy has been aimed at the powerful, establishments and privilege, as they're the ones that benefit the most and suffer the least through existing social structures. It gets very tricky when you start making light of groups that aren't privileged.
That's a modern myth propagated by the PC crowd, all that comedy is about speaking truth to power, punching up nonsense. That's just the only type of humor that suits their agenda. What truth to power do dead baby jokes tell? What power does a homeless person, a drug addict, or a fool have (all familiar targets in comedy)? What part of society are jokes about bodily functions aimed at? As far as Taming of the Shrew goes, that's every comedian's act ie gender conflicts and relationships.

Woah buddy, as a Native American member of the lGBTQWERTY community I think you had better fix that ire on someone a little more privileged; your post is honestly quite 'problematic'. I find your microaggressive use of sarcasm, levelled at a member of a minority group, to be quite 'tricky'.

You see, now that's funny.

Clopin

07-12-2015, 11:15 AM

what is the meaning of that?

LGBPTTQQIIAA+:*any combination of letters attempting to represent all the identities in the queer community, this near-exhaustive one (but not exhaustive) represents*Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Pansexual, Transgender, Transsexual, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Intergender, Asexual, Ally

Basically a way to self identify as something unique without actually becoming a unique or interesting person. As Morpheus demonstrated earlier you can also have a lot of fun moaning about 'privilege' and being easily offended by jokes. Off topic, but here's a joke that pokes fun at a sexual minority and is, in fact, quite popular (how tricky do you find this, Morpheus, on a scale of 1-10).

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mL7n5mEmXJo

MorpheusSandman

07-12-2015, 11:27 AM

Clopin

07-12-2015, 11:33 AM

What nonsense. My "ire" (more an attempt at pointing out your blatant hypocrisy) was directed at what you said, not you or any group you're a member of.

What blatant hypocrisy? You criticised humour which is delivered without the social agenda of battling 'privilege'; or at least you suggested that toppling existing social strictures is the primary function of humour. This is a lunatic concept, and a point of view which deserves scorn.

MorpheusSandman

07-12-2015, 11:37 AM

MorpheusSandman

07-12-2015, 11:50 AM

Yes, political correctness is the death of comedy.Or, as one comedian said: "Being PC is what we used to call 'not being an a--hole.'"

That's a modern myth propagated by the PC crowd, all that comedy is about speaking truth to power, punching up nonsense. That's just the only type of humor that suits their agenda. What truth to power do dead baby jokes tell? What power does a homeless person, a drug addict, or a fool have (all familiar targets in comedy)? What part of society are jokes about bodily functions aimed at? As far as Taming of the Shrew goes, that's every comedian's act ie gender conflicts and relationships.Firstly, I assumed we were talking about comedy that actually IS aimed at certain groups, which would exclude bodily functions and dead baby jokes. There's certainly plenty of comedy to be found that doesn't have to do social structures. Secondly, I'm not sure what you're referring to about the homeless, drug addicts, and fools being familiar "targets" in comedy. Frequently there are homeless, addicts, and fool characters that are sources of comedy, but this is distinctly different than comedy that targeted at denouncing those groups. I doubt very few that watched Chaplin thought it good that there were homeless people, or watched Cheech and Chong and thought all stoners needed to be locked away, or read Lear and thought the fool deserved beating. The question is entirely whether or not TOTS is a play promoting the idea of torturing the will out of strong-willed women in order to keep them in their place. If you don't see the difference between that and the above examples, then I don't know what to say.

BTW, I feel compelled to repeat that TOTS is, perhaps intentionally ironically, at its most hilarious when Katherina and Petruchio are on an even playing field. I haven't actually seen anyone here dispute that. The question is what to make out of the actual taming and the conclusion.

MorpheusSandman

07-12-2015, 12:18 PM

What blatant hypocrisy? You criticised humour which is delivered without the social agenda of battling 'privilege';1. The hypocrisy was you accusing me of using an internet buzzword while using an internet meme ("look ma!") yourself.

2. As I said to Mortal in my last post, I thought it was implied in my criticism that we were merely discussing humor that IS directed at social structures. I admitted there is plenty of (valid) comedy that is not, and that's fine.

or at least you suggested that toppling existing social strictures is the primary function of humour.No. The post where I mentioned the relationship between comedy and privilege was descriptive ("traditionally comedy was...") not prescriptive ("comedy should be aimed at the privileged."). The primary function of humor is to cause laughter. I'd argue one of the primary causes of art is to reflect and comment on the human condition, social structures being a part of that. When humor does that, we are obligated to comment and reflect on what is being reflected and commented on. I see no reason why humor should get a pass for what it implicitly or explicitly lauds or derides just because it's humorous.

Pompey Bum

07-12-2015, 12:44 PM

I feel compelled to repeat that TOTS is, perhaps intentionally ironically, at its most hilarious when Katherina and Petruchio are on an even playing field. I haven't actually seen anyone here dispute that. The question is what to make out of the actual taming and the conclusion.

Well, as I said I think the part where Petruchio is trying to drive Kate nuts is the funniest scene in the play, if only because it is the silliest (doesn't he even shoot her dog at one point, or am I remembering that from a Monty Python sketch?) I don't take it seriously at all, and I think you'd have a better time if you let yourself laugh, too; but if those are your scruples, of course you need to adhere to them.

On the PC issue, I am definitely with Mort and Clopin. Humor is anarchic and often seems mean, but it has also been said (and I believe) that the measure of a free society is the extent to which it tolerates an Aristophanes (or a Don Rickles or a Joan Rivers). Just to pour gasoline on the fire (:)), here is Rivers taking down a heckler who got PC on her. In my opinion, it's hilarious:

Warning: language is not office or kid safe.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GwfZRq57b9Q

Clopin

07-12-2015, 12:53 PM

I wasn't aware that 'look ma!' was a meme in the first place nor do I understand how making a joke which happens to be an Internet meme is the same thing as trying to use terms like 'privilege' to dictate who can and can not be made fun of humorously.

And regarding humour getting a free pass... A free pass to what? To making people laugh? To social respectability? To being 'acceptable'? You said it yourself, the primary function of humour is to cause laughter and this supersedes all other priorities.

Should we feel offended that the character of Homer Simpson is a caricature of a big, fat, stupid American guy? Or is this more or less acceptable due to of his being part of a privileged class? Should I take issue with the fact that Canadians are repeatedly portrayed as backwards mountain men with goofy accents and silly scarlet uniforms when they make it into popular media? Should Woody Allen's depiction of the 'neurotic Jew' as a target for comedy be considered unacceptable? How about Larry David or the character of George Costanza? When Dave Chappelle repeatedly makes jokes about African Americans what should our reaction be? I mean, they aren't a very privileged group. And consider something like South Park where nearly every joke is an off colour dig at ethnic or cultural stereotypes and no group is left unscathed; would you consider that acceptable or would it fall in line with the "I don't consider misogyny funny" point of view?

Clopin

07-12-2015, 01:05 PM

Anyway some examples of humour which makes fun of the underprivileged and still manages to be (gasp) funny.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oBSgpHQO-J4

Seinfeld - The Homeless

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Fg6J1Skptbs

Dave Chappelle - African Americans

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h0dM7oyXV5g

South Park - Asian Immigrants

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NfgHVSvxZUA

South Park - Severe mental and physical disabilities

Pompey Bum

07-12-2015, 01:29 PM

Heh heh. Thanks Clopin (especially for the South Park) :)

You see, I've learned something today:

Watching those videos (and the Joan Rivers one) made me think that humor is fundamentally Dionysian. When you laugh, you lose control for a second or two and it feels better than great. I think the trouble with PC humor (by which I mean: "Let's all get together and laugh because we agree politically") is the same problem with most Christian humor: it's too controlled to be very funny. Real laughter is scary. It's a kind of madness (in the Dionysian sense). When you come out of it--when you gasp between laughing jags--you understand perfectly well that laughing at disabled people is mean and you're not serious; and you know that too when the madness comes on a moment later. It doesn't make it less funny--it actually just makes the madness safer.

Do disabled people and other groups that "lack privilege" loose out in that equation? Maybe. But less so if they know it's a joke; and not at all if they laugh back. When that happens, they no longer need PC guardians to look after their interests. They can laugh at the stupidity of those who laugh at them: and it feels just as good to them and just and human. Then everyone can laugh together and understand that they like laughing with and at each other, so hey, let's be friends because we want to be friends--not because someone else is making us. Because those people--they never laugh.

Edit: On the other hand, Clopin, my wife says she's going to have your b*lls for the City Diner video. :)

MorpheusSandman

07-12-2015, 02:31 PM

I wasn't aware that 'look ma!' was a meme in the first place nor do I understand how making a joke which happens to be an Internet meme is the same thing as trying to use terms like 'privilege' to dictate who can and can not be made fun of humorously.1. Yes, "look ma!" is a meme.

2. For the second time, the only time I used the term privilege I was being descriptive, not prescriptive. I never said anything about who can and can't be made fun of humorously; this was all just you being reactionary.

And regarding humour getting a free pass... A free pass to what? To making people laugh? To social respectability? To being 'acceptable'? You said it yourself, the primary function of humour is to cause laughter and this supersedes all other priorities.A "free pass" from any kind of moral judgment. Yes, the primary function of humor is to cause laughter, just as the primary function of film is to entertain. If Birth of a Nation entertained you, does that mean we shouldn't judge its moral content?

The last paragraph of your post and your follow-up does nothing but reveal you really don't get the point. There's a difference between a character, having a character represent a group, and promoting actions that should be taken against a group. When you can find an example of Chappelle suggesting slavery was OK because blacks should know their place, or Allen suggesting the Holocaust was OK because Jews are indeed lesser human beings, or Sienfield suggesting that homelessness is no real problem or that the homeless should be tortured or put to slavery... then you might have a relevant example.

Clopin

07-12-2015, 02:52 PM

The last paragraph of your post and your follow-up does nothing but reveal you really don't get the point. There's a difference between a character, having a character represent a group, and promoting actions that should be taken against a group. When you can find an example of Chappelle suggesting slavery was OK because blacks should know their place, or Allen suggesting the Holocaust was OK because Jews are indeed lesser human beings, or Sienfield suggesting that homelessness is no real problem or that the homeless should be tortured or put to slavery... then you might have a relevant example.

What are you talking about? Humour where the punch line is literally "African slavery is good", or "the holocaust was OK" is incredibly rare and generally limited to very fringe communities (such as Stormfront). It's not likely to provoke laughter at any rate.

MorpheusSandman

07-12-2015, 03:18 PM

The "punchline" at the end of Shrew is basically "torture against strong-willed women is OK because they learn their place," and it seems to be provoking laughter with you and Pompey.

Clopin

07-12-2015, 03:34 PM

I've actually never read it, but maybe I will tonight and post my thoughts then. If you read Pompey's posts though I'm not sure that is exactly what he finds comedic in the play.

Pompey Bum

07-12-2015, 03:35 PM

The "punchline" at the end of Shrew is basically "torture against strong-willed women is OK because they learn their place," and it seems to be provoking laughter with you and Pompey.

But only if you shoot their dogs! :)

Pompey Bum

07-12-2015, 03:41 PM

I've actually never read it, but maybe I will tonight and post my thoughts then. If you read Pompey's posts though I'm not sure that is exactly what he finds comedic in the play.

The Taming of the Shrew is one of the few Shakespearian plays that (in my opinion) really begs to be produced; it needs a handsome, vain Petruchio and a sexy Kate for the physical comedy. But read it tonight in any case. It's a pretty funny play just the way it is.

Ecurb

07-12-2015, 03:45 PM

It is certainly true that some humor goes out of fashion because it is "politically incorrect" (isn't that just a dismissive phrase that means "offensive"?). Step 'N Fetch It humor used to be common, and you could argue that it made fun of white people's stereotypical misconceptions about black people, rather than making fun of black people. Nonetheless, it is jarring -- offensive enough that we no longer laugh.

I remember some John Wayne comedies in which Wayne spanked his romantic interest (Donavan's Reef and McClintock). Yuk, yuk, I suppose, but it's jarring today. The scenes are sufficiently disturbing that it's difficult to laugh.

As Mortal pointed out, the Freudian theory of humor is that laughter is the id bubbling irrepressibly up from the subconscious. Good humor is often on the borderline of good taste. We all, deep inside, want to abuse our significant others, perhaps.

In the case of TOTS, it's possible the joke is on Petrucchio -- we laugh not because Katherine is the stereotypical shrew taught how to be a woman, but because Petrucchio is (like us all, deep inside) a funny stereotype, crude, domineering, and vain. If we could be confident that this was Shakespeare's point, perhaps the abuse would be less distracting. IN any case, it's a reasonable reaction to the play to be unable to enjoy it completely because the abuse is jarring.

ON the other hand, the play spawned "Kiss Me Kate", with some great Cole Porter tunes, and a movie version that's well worth watching despite starring Kathryn Grayson. Bianca is Ann Miller, and her suitors are Tommy Rall, Bobby Van and a young Bob Fosse. "From this Moment On" is a truly great dance number, and the Cole Porter tune "BRush up Your Shakespeare" might appeal to some Litnet members.

Jackson Richardson

07-12-2015, 03:53 PM

Kiss Me Kate together with Verdi's Falstaff may well be another case were the musical is better than the original.

I have read Taming of the Shrew recently and seen it acted in my time, and in neither case was I over impressed.

I'd be interested to hear a woman's comments on it.

The Oxford World Classics edition notes that it is a play that has remained far more popular in the theatre than it is for academic study.

Humour, like sex, only works when there is an undercurrent of something dangerous (even Bertie Wooster is constantly worried his world is going to fall apart).

Pompey Bum

07-12-2015, 03:58 PM

So Jonathan, how come you don't like Richard III?

Jackson Richardson

07-12-2015, 04:21 PM

I was waiting for someone to ask that. Dunno, I just don't. I feel protective towards early immature works. But Dicky 3 has always been a favourite with actors and audiences - the Colley Cibber version that held the stage for the C18 was not as far from the mark as Nahum Tate's notorious King Lear with a happy ending.

I tend to suspect unduly popular works, just as in opera I'm not a fan at all of Puccini's La boheme or with novels David Copperfield, which in my youth was regarded as Dickens' masterpiece.

Richard says "I am determined to prove myself a villlain" and then goes on to work that out in a play nearly as long as Hamlet and with far less variety.

There are great fans of Richard as an historical person, but I'm not one of those. I found Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time in which her usual whodunnit detective proves that Richard couldn't have murdered his nephews let a nasty taste in my mouth.

I saw it acted in an all male production here in London at the Globe. I've always found the actor who was Richard irritating (he played it for laughs) and noted that the only characters who stood up to Richard were the women. Since they were all played by men in drag they barely moved in their stiff costumes, which made their resistance to him more impressive. (Edwards IV's widow was played by Samuel Barnett who first made his name playing the gay pupil in Alan Bennett's The History Boys.)

PS Some years ago the Globe, aware that putting on all male productions was not providing work for female actors (or actresses as I knew them) did an all female production of The Taming of the Shrew. I didn't see it.

Pompey Bum

07-12-2015, 04:35 PM

You can't say actresses anymore? O mores! (Still an all female Taming of the Shrew sounds like fun).

Richard III was the first Shakespearian play I read, way back in the mists of time. I didn't start with the idea that I was going to like Shakespeare just because he was Shakespeare, but I was hit square in the jaw by the beauty of the following, and the weirdness of its imagery, and I never looked back. So maybe it's like a first lover to me.

Lord, Lord! methought, what pain it was to drown!
What dreadful noise of waters in mine ears!
What ugly sights of death within mine eyes!
Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;
Ten thousand men that fishes gnaw'd upon;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,
All scatter'd in the bottom of the sea:
Some lay in dead men's skulls; and, in those holes
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept,
As 'twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,
Which woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep,
And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by.

MorpheusSandman

07-12-2015, 04:46 PM

Appreciate your contributions, Ecurb and Jonathan; very interesting.

I've always considered Richard III a bit of a guilty pleasure. I recognize that it is not one of Shakespeare's more mature, complex, or deep plays, but I've always thought that the joy Shakepseare had writing such an obvious, self-admitted villain shown through in it; it's such a FUN play. I also think it was important in Shakespeare's development as it was his first attempt at depicting the dynamic between a key outsider and their society, how that outsider goes about manipulating others because of their ability to see it from the outside in. I tend to think Shakespeare, as so many artists, identified with that perspective and saw a connection between such leaders as manipulators of people and artists as manipulators of audiences, albeit to very different ends. I also always found Richard III interesting because it seems almost like he gets swallowed up in the world of the play as it progresses, as if he gets caught in and crushed under the wheels of the machine he himself set in motion.

MorpheusSandman

07-12-2015, 04:49 PM

...I was hit square in the jaw by the beauty of the following, and the weirdness of its imagery, and I never looked back. So maybe it's like a first lover to me.

Lord, Lord! methought, what pain it was to drown!
What dreadful noise of waters in mine ears!
What ugly sights of death within mine eyes!
Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;
Ten thousand men that fishes gnaw'd upon;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,
All scatter'd in the bottom of the sea:
Some lay in dead men's skulls; and, in those holes
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept,
As 'twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,
Which woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep,
And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by.Indeed. Poe gets all the credit, but I'm not sure there was ever a better poet of the grotesque than Shakespeare.

mortalterror

07-13-2015, 03:21 AM

I was not arguing that the objectionable aspect of Birth of a Nation was its lack of historicity (although I'm sure it's quite limited); simply that claims to the same sort of authenticity did not pertain to both works, making the comparison you sought somewhat facile. A historian would no doubt make mincemeat out of Birth of a Nation, but a high degree of historicity is not necessary to a successful work of art. Richard III, for example, is a Tudor whitewash, but poetically it is to die for--Jonathan's eccentric disdain notwithstanding. (If you are reading this Jonathan, please explain! :)) Likewise the Battles of Harfleur and Agincourt were fought with sword and longbow not canon and ball (no breach for the dear friends to charge unto once more).

I've never watched Birth of a Nation, but the parts I have seen are unconscionable. Even worse, since cinema was new when it was released, throngs of relatively naive Americans--many without advanced education--were literally ushered into a dark room to receive the myth of the heroic Klansman; no doubt with deadly consequences to some. I can see its use today by history teachers in showing how Reconstruction was perceived by many in the early 20th, and how the those perceptions helped fuel violent conflict and laid the background for the Civil Rights struggle. Since I haven't seen the whole film (or even very much of it), I can't speak to its artistic value.
Like most of the early silent films, it's actually pretty dull. But there are a couple of scenes, or shots where you go "ah ha" that make it somewhat memorable. That said, that scene at the end where the black union soldiers are trying to rape the white woman and the Klan rides in on white horses to save the day is pretty over the top. I remember wondering how and why one of the soldiers had climbed atop the house so as to jump and gesticulate like a chimpanzee and thinking it was pretty bad. Griffith was portraying black people as sub-human.

I got that same queasy feeling watching the film 300. Afterwards, I was like "That was the most racist film I've ever seen." The Spartans are these chiseled Adonis-like super humans, and the Persians are all ghoulish misshapen evil monsters. That's supposed to be based on history. I wasn't expecting a documentary, but I wasn't prepared for that.

Taming of the Shrew didn't do that to me. I felt like everyone in the play is a fool. The women gave as good as they got, and were shown to be strong characters full of arrogance and conceit the same as the males. Also, while I agree with you that the funniest part of the play is when her husband is trying to drive Kate mad, or in this case sane, I wouldn't call what he does torture the way Morpheus puts it. I don't remember him even hitting her. He just does things like throws food away because he says it isn't good enough for her or tears up her new dress because it isn't pretty enough. Then he gives her a new dress and new food. Also, I seem to recall this labor of taming Kate taking a taxing toll on him too. I think there is even a scene where he's exhausted because while he's been keeping his wife from eating and sleeping, he has been going without rest or refreshment too. It's not torture, it's more like a battle of wills. And he's curing Kate of her shrewish behavior by becoming a mirror for it. Once they both agree to stop being selfish and temperamental they function as the model couple at the end.

What blatant hypocrisy? You criticised humour which is delivered without the social agenda of battling 'privilege'; or at least you suggested that toppling existing social strictures is the primary function of humour. This is a lunatic concept, and a point of view which deserves scorn.
I wouldn't say that it deserves scorn, since it's a common mistake. However, I think the view deserves correction when it is encountered.

Or, as one comedian said: "Being PC is what we used to call 'not being an a--hole.'"
I don't know about that. Some of the biggest *******s I've known have been very PC. And at the risk of committing the no true Scotsman fallacy, I can't think of any really good comedians who are politically correct.

Firstly, I assumed we were talking about comedy that actually IS aimed at certain groups, which would exclude bodily functions and dead baby jokes. There's certainly plenty of comedy to be found that doesn't have to do social structures. Secondly, I'm not sure what you're referring to about the homeless, drug addicts, and fools being familiar "targets" in comedy. Frequently there are homeless, addicts, and fool characters that are sources of comedy, but this is distinctly different than comedy that targeted at denouncing those groups. I doubt very few that watched Chaplin thought it good that there were homeless people, or watched Cheech and Chong and thought all stoners needed to be locked away, or read Lear and thought the fool deserved beating. The question is entirely whether or not TOTS is a play promoting the idea of torturing the will out of strong-willed women in order to keep them in their place. If you don't see the difference between that and the above examples, then I don't know what to say.
Maybe, some people think the play is funny because they think that the "strong willed woman" is a shrew, who like all foolish types deserve a comedic comeuppance or correction. Would you feel less offended if Kate's mean spirited behavior were punished by a woman instead of a man? Is that what this is about?

BTW, I feel compelled to repeat that TOTS is, perhaps intentionally ironically, at its most hilarious when Katherina and Petruchio are on an even playing field. I haven't actually seen anyone here dispute that. The question is what to make out of the actual taming and the conclusion.
Nah, I'm with Pompey. The funniest part is when Petruchio is trying to drive Kate mad.

On the PC issue, I am definitely with Mort and Clopin. Humor is anarchic and often seems mean, but it has also been said (and I believe) that the measure of a free society is the extent to which it tolerates an Aristophanes
Remember that scene in The Clouds where the son is beating the father? I guess that's not funny either now.

Not gonna quote Clopin's post but his pick of comedians is on point: Simpsons, South Park, Seinfeld, Chappelle Show = some of the funniest ever, just got to add All in the Family.

When you can find an example of Chappelle suggesting slavery was OK because blacks should know their place, or Allen suggesting the Holocaust was OK because Jews are indeed lesser human beings, or Sienfield suggesting that homelessness is no real problem or that the homeless should be tortured or put to slavery... then you might have a relevant example.
Now, there's a modest proposal.

mortalterror

07-13-2015, 03:55 AM

It is certainly true that some humor goes out of fashion because it is "politically incorrect" (isn't that just a dismissive phrase that means "offensive"?). Step 'N Fetch It humor used to be common, and you could argue that it made fun of white people's stereotypical misconceptions about black people, rather than making fun of black people. Nonetheless, it is jarring -- offensive enough that we no longer laugh.
I've seen black and white people play that same character recently. Just go watch modern films like Scary Movie. It's perennial.

I remember some John Wayne comedies in which Wayne spanked his romantic interest (Donavan's Reef and McClintock). Yuk, yuk, I suppose, but it's jarring today. The scenes are sufficiently disturbing that it's difficult to laugh.
And when I screened The Quiet Man for my friends, and John Wayne is dragging his disobedient wife through the town to confront his no good brother in law everybody howled. The biggest laugh of the film might actually be when the old crone hands the Duke a switch and says "Here mister, a good stick to beat the lovely lady." The reason it's funny, is because in comedies conventions are upended. The world is turned upside down, black is white, right is wrong, etc. The whole film John Wayne is being considered a wimp because he won't stand up for himself. He refuses to fist fight a man who owes him money or to beat his wife, and so she nearly leaves him because she thinks he's a coward with no backbone. Around the same time, there was a song with a similar theme called The Coward of the County.

As Mortal pointed out, the Freudian theory of humor is that laughter is the id bubbling irrepressibly up from the subconscious. Good humor is often on the borderline of good taste. We all, deep inside, want to abuse our significant others, perhaps.

In the case of TOTS, it's possible the joke is on Petrucchio -- we laugh not because Katherine is the stereotypical shrew taught how to be a woman, but because Petrucchio is (like us all, deep inside) a funny stereotype, crude, domineering, and vain. If we could be confident that this was Shakespeare's point, perhaps the abuse would be less distracting. IN any case, it's a reasonable reaction to the play to be unable to enjoy it completely because the abuse is jarring.
Is it jarring though? I don't recall Petruchio beating Kate senseless, or putting cigarettes out on her.

Poetaster

07-13-2015, 10:22 AM

I got that same queasy feeling watching the film 300. Afterwards, I was like "That was the most racist film I've ever seen." The Spartans are these chiseled Adonis-like super humans, and the Persians are all ghoulish misshapen evil monsters. That's supposed to be based on history. I wasn't expecting a documentary, but I wasn't prepared for that.

More based on a bad comic book. It's not supposed to be history, instead a stylistic adaptation.

Ecurb

07-13-2015, 10:50 AM

It's been several decades since I saw Richard Burton tame a shrewish Elizabeth Taylor, although I've glanced at the play once or twice since. Personally, I like "Quiet Man", "McClintock", and "Donovan's Reef", despite the wife beatings. I see them as dated bits of Americana, when manly men (like John Wayne, and John Ford who directed two of the three) had to prove their manliness in order to win their feisty lovers. My friend Myles -- an actual Irishman -- despises "The Quiet Man". He thinks it portrays Ireland as twee, backwards, sexist and provincial. Perhaps distance helps us avoid being "jarred". If "Taming" were produced in modern dress, it would be more jarring.

The battle of the sexes was a staple of romantic comedy before (and after) Shakespeare's time. I think it reveals something about male fantasies, although I'm not so sure that women want to be "tamed". Men like ruling women (or, at least, fantasizing about ruling women). Personally, I prefer the Cary Grant Romcoms, where the women rule and Grant stumbles about, befuddled by a fast-talking Katherine Hepburn or Jean Arthur or Mae West. WE think of ourselves as more advanced than Americans of 70 years ago in terms of sexual equality, but those romantic comedies of the 30s were replete with feisty, witty, sexually aggressive women, and passive men like Cary Grant or Henry Fonda. In two recent movies I've seen (Ex Machina and Her) the hero's love interest is a computer. She's smart, but utterly naive (being newly born). Perhaps the modern computer lovers who like these movies would be deathly afraid of a fast-talking, experienced, tough woman like Mae West in "She Done Him Wrong" or Barbara Stanwyk in Ball of Fire or The Lady Eve (playing opposite a befuddled Gary Cooper and Henry Fonda). This trend reminds me of a Jane Austen line from Northanger Abbey:

The advantages of natural folly in a beautiful girl have been already set forth by the capital pen of a sister author; and to her treatment of the subject I will only add, in justice to men, that though to the larger and more trifling part of the sex, imbecility in females is a great enhancement of their personal charms, there is a portion of them too reasonable and too well informed themselves to desire anything more in woman than ignorance.

In "A Room with a View", E.M. Forster addresses the issue. Lucy is talking to George Emerson:

Lucy thought of a very good remark.

"You say Mr. Vyse wants me to listen to him, Mr. Emerson. Pardon me for suggesting that you have caught the habit."

And he took the shoddy reproof and touched it into immortality. He said:

"Yes, I have," and sank down as if suddenly weary. "I'm the same kind of brute at bottom. This desire to govern a woman--it lies very deep, and men and women must fight it together before they shall enter the garden."

Do Katherine and Petrucchio "fight it together"? Or does one submit? I suppose the last speech might be taken ironically -- surely Katherine is too headstrong to actually believe that "Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper." Or ask, "Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth, unapt to toil and trouble in the world, but that our soft conditions, and our hearts, should well agree with our external parts?"

I'd like to see Mae West or Barbara Stanwyk read those lines. The irony, I'm sure, would then be clear.

mortalterror

07-13-2015, 06:40 PM

It's been several decades since I saw Richard Burton tame a shrewish Elizabeth Taylor, although I've glanced at the play once or twice since. Personally, I like "Quiet Man", "McClintock", and "Donovan's Reef", despite the wife beatings. I see them as dated bits of Americana, when manly men (like John Wayne, and John Ford who directed two of the three) had to prove their manliness in order to win their feisty lovers. My friend Myles -- an actual Irishman -- despises "The Quiet Man". He thinks it portrays Ireland as twee, backwards, sexist and provincial. Perhaps distance helps us avoid being "jarred". If "Taming" were produced in modern dress, it would be more jarring.
Would it? Funny modern examples of domestic violence or men hitting women some NSFW:

Family Guy - Family Fight
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06c7_5pH6O0

The Way of the Gun opening with Sarah Silverman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xsaMcw69D8

Total Recall - Consider that a divorce
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYtQMhnBtTw

From Dusk Till Dawn - Welcome to Slavery
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtjCVRm2DAM

The Mud Wrestling Scene from Stripes with John Candy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-tPJYlcYvc

Not really funny, but this scene in Kingpin is played for laughs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Uqa-Vilvg0

Nearly forgot Andy Kaufman wrestling women
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uQlB99WCuk

Just remembered that slap scene from Airplane!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0GW0Vnr9Yc

Ace Ventura fight scene at the end
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZMuJw5JYvQ

The battle of the sexes was a staple of romantic comedy before (and after) Shakespeare's time. I think it reveals something about male fantasies, although I'm not so sure that women want to be "tamed". Men like ruling women (or, at least, fantasizing about ruling women). Personally, I prefer the Cary Grant Romcoms, where the women rule and Grant stumbles about, befuddled by a fast-talking Katherine Hepburn or Jean Arthur or Mae West. WE think of ourselves as more advanced than Americans of 70 years ago in terms of sexual equality, but those romantic comedies of the 30s were replete with feisty, witty, sexually aggressive women, and passive men like Cary Grant or Henry Fonda. In two recent movies I've seen (Ex Machina and Her) the hero's love interest is a computer. She's smart, but utterly naive (being newly born). Perhaps the modern computer lovers who like these movies would be deathly afraid of a fast-talking, experienced, tough woman like Mae West in "She Done Him Wrong" or Barbara Stanwyk in Ball of Fire or The Lady Eve (playing opposite a befuddled Gary Cooper and Henry Fonda). This trend reminds me of a Jane Austen line from Northanger Abbey:
So you are okay with the double standard where the woman beats and dominates the man? The Chester Mystery Play Noah where Noah's wife drinks and beats her husband is funny? Or with how in Gargantua and Pantagruel Panurge's wife cheats on him and beats him? But as soon as Ricky won't let Lucy be in his big show, he's torturing her? "Waaaaaaah!"

Do Katherine and Petrucchio "fight it together"? Or does one submit? I suppose the last speech might be taken ironically -- surely Katherine is too headstrong to actually believe that "Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper." Or ask, "Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth, unapt to toil and trouble in the world, but that our soft conditions, and our hearts, should well agree with our external parts?"

I'd like to see Mae West or Barbara Stanwyk read those lines. The irony, I'm sure, would then be clear.

I suppose you could play any archaic assumption modern audiences no longer hold ironically, but I think I prefer the historically informed approach. I saw Al Pacino butcher an adaptation of The Merchant of Venice by being too sympathetic to Shylock and emphasizing the racism, which made the play a tragedy instead of a comedy. In that case, it's best to see Shylock as an example of the stock character the Miser, who greedily hoards his money and wishes people ill. If you took his religion out of the play, that's what he'd be, a miser who plots to kill someone. Similarly, if you swap out Kate's gender, it would quickly become apparent that she's a brash loud mouth who's hard to get along with. If she were a man, there would be no white knighting necessary.

Ecurb

07-13-2015, 08:24 PM

mortalterror

07-13-2015, 09:23 PM

Well, if you want to claim that Taming of the Shrew is every bit as funny (and unobjectionable) as "The Way of the Gun" (which I've never seen) you won't get any argument from me. That doesn't seem like a rave endorsement, though. Also, although I have nothing against Ace Ventura, the fight scene at the end just isn't very funny.

I never thought TOTS was so politically incorrect that I couldn't enjoy it (if you noticed, I enjoyed the John Ford movies) -- but I never thought the "torture" scenes that Pompey likes were all that funny, either. My comments about sexy, experienced, fast-talking women from the movies in the '30s were meant to expand the conversation to involve changing tastes and changing male fantasies. Perhaps "taming" shrewish women was a male fantasy in Elizabethan times -- perhaps it is today, for some men. Not for me, though.

I don't think it is even about male fantasies of dominating women. I think what's going on in Taming of the Shrew is the same thing as when everyone messes with Falstaff at the end of Merry Wives of Windsor or tormenting the steward Malvolio in Twelfth Night. There's a character with an obvious social failing who is made the butt of a joke by the community. In terms of the battle of the sexes and mutual arrogance I don't see The Taming of the Shrew as being much different than Much Ado About Nothing. I think this is just typical commedia dell'arte stuff, with stock characters and situations an audience in Shakespeare's time would have understood, without overlaying it with our social justice concerns.

Pompey Bum

07-13-2015, 10:53 PM

Well, if you want to claim that Taming of the Shrew is every bit as funny (and unobjectionable) as "The Way of the Gun" (which I've never seen) you won't get any argument from me. That doesn't seem like a rave endorsement, though. Also, although I have nothing against Ace Ventura, the fight scene at the end just isn't very funny.

I never thought TOTS was so politically incorrect that I couldn't enjoy it (if you noticed, I enjoyed the John Ford movies) -- but I never thought the "torture" scenes that Pompey likes were all that funny, either. My comments about sexy, experienced, fast-talking women from the movies in the '30s were meant to expand the conversation to involve changing tastes and changing male fantasies. Perhaps "taming" shrewish women was a male fantasy in Elizabethan times -- perhaps it is today, for some men. Not for me, though.

So we go from an unsupported calumny that men (as a group) fantasize about beating their wives to an unsupported calumny that men (as a group) fantasize about dominating women, to your own last minute opting out of the oppressor category (cute); which somehow leaves us with an equally unsupported calumny against me personally--that I enjoy (non-existant) torture scenes in The Taming of the Shrew. Badly reasoned and DEEPLY insulting. Please save your baiting for someone who's interested.

Ecurb

07-14-2015, 01:01 AM

You're taking this way to personally, Pompey. I didn't mean to suggest that you fantasize about dominating women -- I simply mentioned that you thought some scenes in TOTS were funny that I didn't think were very funny. Humor is a matter of personal taste. The discussion about (possible) changing male fantasies is completely separate from the discussion of whether that particular scene is funny, or even whether you or anyone else enjoys any particular play or movie.

You are conflating two different subjects, and my posts were not "badly reasoned" although they may have been unclear. In addition, I don't dislike TOTS because it is politically incorrect, but I think it is a reasonable reaction to the play, so I was defending Morpheus' right to have that reaction. If you read my post again, I suggest the possibility that TOTS offers a theme that may have been fashionable (to use a different term than "plays to male fantasies") in 1600, just as fast-talking, aggressive women were fashionable in movies in the '30s, but not in the '50s.

In addition, I never mentioned "men beating their wives". Instead I put the word "torture" in quotes, because that same word had been used by someone else (maybe even you) earlier in the thread. It was merely descriptive of which scenes we were discussing. Finally, based on the Forster quote I provided, I am not the only person who thinks that men sometimes want to govern women. So my position is, at least, "supported" by a character in one famous novel. Yet you call it "unsupported". Are my posts (hardly calumnies) badly reasoned, Pompey, or is that a description of your last post?

Finally, I do think some men fantasize about "taming", "governing", and (as Jane Austen suggests) educating women (although I have no idea if Pompey does, nor do I think such fantasies are a requirement for liking TOTS). Maybe I'm wrong, but my notion is not "unsupported". I apologize if I seemed self congratulatory by writing "not for me". That was true, but (I'll grant) a little (just a little, Pompey) pompous.

mortalterror

07-14-2015, 01:21 AM

You're taking this way to personally, Pompey.
Yeah, it's not like he shot your dog. Besides, I think he was trying to imply that I was the misogynist pig/caveman who enjoys dominating women.

Pompey Bum

07-14-2015, 01:29 AM

Are my posts (hardly calumnies) badly reasoned, Pompey, or is that a description of your last post?

We all, deep inside, want to abuse our significant others, perhaps.

No, looks like it's yours. Feel free to speak for yourself, Ecurb, but please refrain from any further references to my (or anyone else's) wife. As for your later innuendo (and the baiting you just edited into your post), as I said before, I'm not playing.

Pompey Bum

07-14-2015, 01:40 AM

Yeah, it's not like he shot your dog.

Okay, the man knows funny. :)

Ecurb

07-14-2015, 01:52 AM

No, looks like it's yours. Feel free to speak for yourself, Ecurb, but please refrain from any further references to my (or anyone else's) wife. As for your later innuendo (and the baiting you just edited into your post), as I said before, I'm not playing.

Well, I forgot I wrote that. But I'm surprised you're insulted by it. "Perhaps"?

mona amon

07-14-2015, 03:47 AM

I don't think it is even about male fantasies of dominating women. I think what's going on in Taming of the Shrew is the same thing as when everyone messes with Falstaff at the end of Merry Wives of Windsor or tormenting the steward Malvolio in Twelfth Night. There's a character with an obvious social failing who is made the butt of a joke by the community. In terms of the battle of the sexes and mutual arrogance I don't see The Taming of the Shrew as being much different than Much Ado About Nothing. I think this is just typical commedia dell'arte stuff, with stock characters and situations an audience in Shakespeare's time would have understood, without overlaying it with our social justice concerns.

:iagree: I read TOTM a long time back, and the lines

"Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign;"

made me wince, but we have to remember she was bad tempered, violent, and a terrible person, who in the end comes to realize the error of her ways. How bad can that be? From a horrible shrew whom nobody likes she becomes a better behaved, beloved woman, and she's so thrilled about it she goes a bit too far in the opposite direction - the overzealousness of the new convert. I do not remember feeling that her will or spirit was broken in any way. Anyway, surely we aren't meant to take it too seriously, the play being a joke within a joke or something - anything so lightly constructed is bound to lose its charm if handled too much.

Eiseabhal

07-14-2015, 05:48 AM

Macbeth. Written to deform history into the propaganda required by his royalist patrons The crawler!

Pompey Bum

07-14-2015, 08:43 AM

but we have to remember she was bad tempered, violent, and a terrible person

Am I the only one who actually likes Kate? :) She's strong, she's witty, she's not afraid to be herself. Yes she has her faults (comedy is about faults), but Petruchio's way over the top, too. In the end, they sort of deserve each other. I'd love to see a sequel--Kate and Pet 20 years later, driven gray by their teenage kids.

Anyway, surely we aren't meant to take it too seriously, the play being a joke within a joke or something - anything so lightly constructed is bound to lose its charm if handled too much.

Ah, the voice of sanity at last! Thanks Mona. :)

MorpheusSandman

07-14-2015, 01:38 PM

Like most of the early silent films, it's actually pretty dull.It's not if you love film as an art-form. To quote James Agee: "He achieved what no other known man has achieved. To watch his work is like being witness to the beginning of melody, or the first conscious use of the lever or the wheel; the emergence, coordination and first eloquence of language; the birth of an art: and to realize that this is all the work of one man." But, yeah, it's impossible to dispute that Griffith did indeed portray blacks as sub-human.

Taming of the Shrew didn't do that to me. I felt like everyone in the play is a fool. The women gave as good as they got, and were shown to be strong characters full of arrogance and conceit the same as the males.Katherina gives as good as she gets until the torture, which is absolutely torture. Petruchio certainly plays it for laughs, but there's no denying that what he's doing would be considered torture even under the loosest of definitions. He starves her and keeps her awake, for Pete's sake!

I seem to recall this labor of taming Kate taking a taxing toll on him too... Once they both agree to stop being selfish and temperamental they function as the model couple at the end.Awww, the poor misogynistic torturer is tired for his hard day of torturing. Surely what he's suffering is on equal grounds with her. Why, I bet the guards at Abu Ghraib were drop-dead tired after a whole day of waterboarding!

The notion that "both... stop being selfish" is nonsense; the notion that they become "the model couple" is blatantly misogynistic. You seriously think this:
Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance commits his body
To painful labour both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks and true obedience;
Too little payment for so great a debt.
Such duty as the subject owes the prince
Even such a woman oweth to her husband;
And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,
And not obedient to his honest will,
What is she but a foul contending rebel
And graceless traitor to her loving lord?
I am ashamed that women are so simple
To offer war where they should kneel for peace;
Or seek for rule, supremacy and sway,
When they are bound to serve, love and obey.
Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth,
Unapt to toil and trouble in the world,
But that our soft conditions and our hearts
Should well agree with our external parts?
Come, come, you froward and unable worms!
My mind hath been as big as one of yours,
My heart as great, my reason haply more,
To bandy word for word and frown for frown;
But now I see our lances are but straws,
Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,
That seeming to be most which we indeed least are.
Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,
And place your hands below your husband's foot:
In token of which duty, if he please,
My hand is ready; may it do him ease.bespeaks an ideal couple? This argues for equality? This is the best embodiment of the attitude that feminism fought against, trying to achieve ACTUAL equality at work and at home.

Some of the biggest *******s I've known have been very PC. And at the risk of committing the no true Scotsman fallacy, I can't think of any really good comedians who are politically correct.I think you and I probably have very different ideas of what PC is and isn't.

Maybe, some people think the play is funny because they think that the "strong willed woman" is a shrew, who like all foolish types deserve a comedic comeuppance or correction. Would you feel less offended if Kate's mean spirited behavior were punished by a woman instead of a man?The problem is that "shrew" was synonymous with "strong-willed woman;" there was literally no difference. When you accept the former speech as the "ideal relationship" between men and women, it's clear that any woman who desires to be treated as an equal would be seen as a "shrew." If half the population was intent on keeping me a weak, second-class citizen without the right to vote or have any input on decisions or work, who viewed me as intellectually inferior, I'd be pretty damn shrewish myself.

Not gonna quote Clopin's post but his pick of comedians is on point:His picks are not promoting stone-age moral systems.

Now, there's a modest proposal.It's what you'd have to find to have an actual analog to what we're talking about here.

MorpheusSandman

07-14-2015, 01:47 PM

The battle of the sexes was a staple of romantic comedy before (and after) Shakespeare's time. I think it reveals something about male fantasies, although I'm not so sure that women want to be "tamed". Men like ruling women (or, at least, fantasizing about ruling women).I think it reveals common male fantasies, just as cheap romance novels reveal common female fantasies. There are always exceptions, of course: I have never desired to have a submissive wife or girlfriend, but it's blatantly obvious that a great many men do. Hell, such thoughts are found in the majority of religious writing and moral philosophy going back thousands of years, so not only did (most) men desire it, but most felt that's the way things SHOULD be.

I'm with you in loving those Grant Romcoms. Another I'd add to the list would be It Happened One Night, which stars Gable instead.

Do Katherine and Petrucchio "fight it together"? Or does one submit? I suppose the last speech might be taken ironically -- surely Katherine is too headstrong to actually believe that "Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper." Or ask, "Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth, unapt to toil and trouble in the world, but that our soft conditions, and our hearts, should well agree with our external parts?"Many modern productions have played it ironically, with Katherine winking all the way through. The real question, though, is whether Shakespeare thought it ironic. In a way, Shrew has come to remind me a bit of Titus Andronicus. Both seem to take popular models of entertainment and emphasize their more lurid aspects to such a ridiculous degree that you half-wonder if he was parodying them rather than just following the model. I think of Ebert's review of Julie Taymor's Titus:
"Titus" as "Scream 1593"? Bloom cites the scene where Titus is promised the return of his sons if he will send Saturninus his hand--only to find the hand returned with only the heads of his sons. Grief-stricken, Titus assigns tasks. He, with his remaining hand, will carry one of the heads. He asks his brother to take the other. That leaves the severed hand. At this point in the play, his daughter Lavinia has no hands (or tongue) after being raped and mutilated by Queen Tamora's sons, and so he instructs her, "Bear thou my hand, sweet wench, between thy teeth." Bloom invites scholars to read that line aloud without smiling, and says Shakespeare knew the play "was a howler, and expected the more discerning to wallow in it self-consciously." Did Shakespeare expect equally discerning audiences to see Shrew as a ridiculous parody of male fantasies of having dominion over women? The prologue seems to suggest so.

MorpheusSandman

07-14-2015, 02:04 PM

Would it? Funny modern examples of domestic violence or men hitting women some NSFW:Context does matter, you know. I mean, you have one clip of Clooney killing a female vampire who's trying to make him a slave; you have another example of Arnold killing a woman who was trying to kill him first. In Ace Vantura, again, you have Carey fighting a woman who was trying to kill him. I must be missing the one that's actually promoting domestic violence as being OK in a normal relationship between normal human beings, because I don't think many feminists would object to a guy killing his girlfriend if his girlfriend turned out to be a vampire. Just sayin'.

In that case, it's best to see Shylock as an example of the stock character the Miser, who greedily hoards his money and wishes people ill. If you took his religion out of the play, that's what he'd be, a miser who plots to kill someone. Similarly, if you swap out Kate's gender, it would quickly become apparent that she's a brash loud mouth who's hard to get along with. If she were a man, there would be no white knighting necessary.The point Shakespeare makes loud and clear in The Merchant of Venice is that if Shylock is a monster he's been made that way by a society that is no better. Shylock didn't "plot to kill Antonio," Antonio of his own free will signs the contract that if he can't pay back the loan then he forefeits a pound of flesh, and all of this set in motion because Bassanio needs money in order to court a woman. Shakespeare was insightfully aware of the hypocrisy of demonizing the guy that loans money and accepting as good the people that take those loans in order to get rich themselves.

If you "swap Kate's gender" then you'd likely remove her reason for being shrewish in the first place. See my post above.

MorpheusSandman

07-14-2015, 02:06 PM

There's a character with an obvious social failing who is made the butt of a joke by the community.Yes, the social failing of being a female with a will of her own who doesn't want to be servile to men. What an egregious fault!

I think this is just typical commedia dell'arte stuff, with stock characters and situations an audience in Shakespeare's time would have understood, without overlaying it with our social justice concerns.We hold Shakespeare to a higher standard for good reason. If all his other plays were nothing but "stock characters" then we'd have no reason to protest. Shakespeare's unique gift was to see the underlying truths of such "stock characters and situations," and that's why we return to him rather than to any number of other playwrights of the same period.

mortalterror

07-14-2015, 02:45 PM

It's not if you love film as an art-form.
I love film as an art form. I do not love all films or filmmakers. Personally, I hate Eisenstein too.

Katherina gives as good as she gets until the torture, which is absolutely torture. Petruchio certainly plays it for laughs, but there's no denying that what he's doing would be considered torture even under the loosest of definitions. He starves her and keeps her awake, for Pete's sake!
He doesn't beat her. He doesn't pull her nails out or burn her. He doesn't mutilate her body. My mother used to send me to my room without dinner when I was naughty. Was she torturing me? Or was she disciplining a disobedient child?

Awww, the poor misogynistic torturer is tired for his hard day of torturing. Surely what he's suffering is on equal grounds with her. Why, I bet the guards at Abu Ghraib were drop-dead tired after a whole day of waterboarding!
Again, you overstate your case and compare something extreme with something very tame. I see what Petruchio is doing sort of like domesticating a wild animal (taming a shrew, like the title implies), which can be hard, demanding, exhausting work; but once successful results in a great bond. When I first got a puppy, it was wrecking my house, causing hundreds of dollars of damage. I barely slept for weeks trying to teach that dog to go potty outside, not to chew on everything, and to stop biting and scratching me. It was terrorizing me in my own house! I hear that raising and disciplining children is often quite a bit harder, and my heart goes out to every saint who goes through the ordeal.

The notion that "both... stop being selfish" is nonsense; the notion that they become "the model couple" is blatantly misogynistic. You seriously think this: bespeaks an ideal couple? This argues for equality? This is the best embodiment of the attitude that feminism fought against, trying to achieve ACTUAL equality at work and at home.
Maybe, they don't need perfect equality in all things. Some women like a strong man who leads in the relationship.

I think you and I probably have very different ideas of what PC is and isn't.
My idea of funny comedians would be Trey Parker and Matt Stone (South Park), Norm MacDonald, Patrice O'Neal, Bryan Johnson(Tell Em Steve Dave), Louie C.K., John Lee and Vernon Chatman (Wondershowzen), Charlie Day (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia), Chris Rock, Dave Jeser and Matt Silverstein (Drawn Together), Dave Chappelle, Johnny Knoxville (Jackass), Kevin Smith (Clerks), Mel Brooks (Blazing Saddles), Stephen Colbert (Strangers with Candy), Trevor Moore (The Whitest Kids You Know), Seth MacFarlane (Family Guy), Jason Alexander (Duckman), Mike Judge (Beavis and Butthead), Andrew Dice Clay, Sam Kinison, Rodney Dangerfield, Don Rickles, Howard Stern, The Wayans Brothers (In Living Color), Richard Pryor, Caroll O'Connor (All in the Family), etc.

The problem is that "shrew" was synonymous with "strong-willed woman;" there was literally no difference. When you accept the former speech as the "ideal relationship" between men and women, it's clear that any woman who desires to be treated as an equal would be seen as a "shrew." If half the population was intent on keeping me a weak, second-class citizen without the right to vote or have any input on decisions or work, who viewed me as intellectually inferior, I'd be pretty damn shrewish myself.
Or the problem could be our modern inability to differentiate between *****y unacceptable behavior and being a strong-willed woman.

His picks are not promoting stone-age moral systems.
In the Simpsons, Marge Simpson is a housewife who's job is to stay at home and raise her children while her husband provides for the family. Modern equality?

It's what you'd have to find to have an actual analog to what we're talking about here.
I'll try again. "A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift

MorpheusSandman

07-14-2015, 02:54 PM

I love film as an art form. I do not love all films or filmmakers. Personally, I hate Eisenstein too.So how can you love film as an art-form and not admire the first discoveries of how to artistically use editing and framing?

He doesn't beat her. He doesn't pull her nails out or burn her. He doesn't mutilate her body. My mother used to send me to my room without dinner when I was naughty. Was she torturing me?Starving someone is torture. Not letting them sleep is torture. This seriously shouldn't be a matter for debate. Yes, sending a child to bed without dinner is abuse, absolutely. If it was done repeatedly it would be torture.

I see what Petruchio is doing sort of like domesticating a wild animalAnd this doesn't sound misogynistic at all, comparing a woman to a "wild animal." You're lucky you're posting this on a relatively insular board like this one; were you to post it on a public forum with a large and diverse audience you'd be lambasted by far more than one other person.

Maybe, they don't need perfect equality in all things. Some women like a strong man who leads in the relationship.Some women do, and if they do they have a right to choose that kind of relationship. No man should be allowed to force that kind of relationship onto an unwilling woman.

Or the problem could be our modern inability to differentiate between *****y unacceptable behavior and being a strong-willed woman.The play doesn't distinguish between them, and given Katherine's closing speech it's quite clear that anything beyond pure servileness would be seen as unacceptably shrewish.

In the Simpsons, Marge Simpson is a housewife who's job is to stay at home and raise her children while her husband provides for the family. Modern equality?Modern equality was about the right to choose. I've watched a lot of Simpsons, and I don't ever recall Homer telling Marge her place is in the kitchen and with the kids and she isn't allowed to have a job if she wants.

I'll try again. "A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan SwiftI got the reference, I was merely pointing out that your examples were not analogous to TOTS.

mortalterror

07-14-2015, 03:14 PM

I think it reveals common male fantasies, just as cheap romance novels reveal common female fantasies. There are always exceptions, of course: I have never desired to have a submissive wife or girlfriend, but it's blatantly obvious that a great many men do. Hell, such thoughts are found in the majority of religious writing and moral philosophy going back thousands of years, so not only did (most) men desire it, but most felt that's the way things SHOULD be.

I'm with you in loving those Grant Romcoms. Another I'd add to the list would be It Happened One Night, which stars Gable instead.
I don't really have a problem with those Romcoms. I enjoy them too. But they do show a pattern of emasculating men and subjecting men to ridicule, which I find bothersome in modern society. Not gonna' lie, it is a little offensive sometimes, and irritating when every commercial is about a dopy husband and his bright wife. I'm surprised that you don't see the double standard as you praise one way and denounce the other.

Many modern productions have played it ironically, with Katherine winking all the way through. The real question, though, is whether Shakespeare thought it ironic. In a way, Shrew has come to remind me a bit of Titus Andronicus. Both seem to take popular models of entertainment and emphasize their more lurid aspects to such a ridiculous degree that you half-wonder if he was parodying them rather than just following the model. I think of Ebert's review of Julie Taymor's Titus: Did Shakespeare expect equally discerning audiences to see Shrew as a ridiculous parody of male fantasies of having dominion over women? The prologue seems to suggest so.

Maybe, maybe not. But I doubt that Ebert is sufficiently informed about Shakespeare or Elizabethan theater to make that call. While nobody really can know what was in Shakespeare's mind at the time he wrote the play, or even if that matters now, I feel that an expert like Stephen Greenblatt would have a more informed opinion.

Context does matter, you know. I mean, you have one clip of Clooney killing a female vampire who's trying to make him a slave; you have another example of Arnold killing a woman who was trying to kill him first. In Ace Vantura, again, you have Carey fighting a woman who was trying to kill him. I must be missing the one that's actually promoting domestic violence as being OK in a normal relationship between normal human beings, because I don't think many feminists would object to a guy killing his girlfriend if his girlfriend turned out to be a vampire. Just sayin'.
That's the way that Hollywood gets away with it now, part of the code. It's only okay to harm a woman if she is trying to kill the man or if she's not really a woman, like she's a monster. Men you can kill or hit for anything, or no reason. It's one of those laughable rules you can see any time you flip on a television. Like if you want to kill someone for almost no provocation, they should say something racist first, which "totally" justifies killing them. The domestic violence would be the first clip with Family Guy. I also included a street fight with women in two of those, and two male/female wrestling matches, although I could probably find a dozen more.

The point Shakespeare makes loud and clear in The Merchant of Venice is that if Shylock is a monster he's been made that way by a society that is no better. Shylock didn't "plot to kill Antonio," Antonio of his own free will signs the contract that if he can't pay back the loan then he forefeits a pound of flesh, and all of this set in motion because Bassanio needs money in order to court a woman. Shakespeare was insightfully aware of the hypocrisy of demonizing the guy that loans money and accepting as good the people that take those loans in order to get rich themselves.
That's certainly Shylock's defense of his actions. I think Iago rationalizes his villainy that way too, and figures he's justified because Othello passed him over for a promotion. How many loans have you gotten from a bank that required from you a pound of flesh? Shylock was plotting to kill Antonio. When he's offered money at the end he would rather have Antonio's death. He's a bad guy.

If you "swap Kate's gender" then you'd likely remove her reason for being shrewish in the first place. See my post above.
Is she shrewish because she's been treated wrong, or is she just a shrew? I think you make excuses for her on account of her gender, and give her and Shylock a pass on account of their "victim status." There are plenty of virtuous women in Shakespeare who are strong willed and have been treated wrong while retaining their virtue and sweet temper.

MorpheusSandman

07-14-2015, 03:33 PM

I don't really have a problem with those Romcoms. I enjoy them too. But they do show a pattern of emasculating men and subjecting men to ridicule, which I find bothersome in modern society. Not gonna' lie, it is a little offensive sometimes, and irritating when every commercial is about a dopy husband and his bright wife. I'm surprised that you don't see the double standard as you praise one way and denounce the other.So you get upset by men being "subjected to ridicule" in RomComs but have no problem with a woman being tortured into submission in TOTS... and I have the double standard?

Anyway, context matters, and this is where privilege becomes an important factor. When you have one group that has historically been in the privileged position, making light of them does not have the same affect that making light of those who are in a much weaker position does. It's like suggesting that both slaves and slaveowners should be equally subject to ridicule. Well, no, they shouldn't. Your "double standard" presumes a level playing field in real life, when the truth is that there is no level playing field, and the playing field back then was far more unlevel then than it is now. Besides, as I suggested above, in those RomComs the women are not TORTURING the men by any stretch of the imagination.

I doubt that Ebert is sufficiently informed about Shakespeare or Elizabethan theater to make that call.Ebert was quoting Bloom, who most certainly is sufficiently informed about Shakespeare.

That's the way that Hollywood gets away with it now, part of the code. It's only okay to harm a woman if she is trying to kill the man or if she's not really a woman, like she's a monster. Men you can kill or hit for anything, or no reason.This isn't just "the code" it's also known as "the law." If someone is trying to kill you, it is legal to kill them. If someone is not trying to harm you, it is not OK to harm them. This is also just good-ol' fashioned golden rule stuff. Again, context: two of those clips feature men and women in a consensual wrestling match. At least, I assume the women mud-wrestling are there of their own will. The Family Guy link doesn't work (seems Fox took it down).

That's certainly Shylock's defense of his actions. It's a perfectly rational one that makes since given what we know about what treating people that way does to them.

I think Iago rationalizes his villainy that way too, and figures he's justified because Othello passed him over for a promotion. How many loans have you gotten from a bank that required from you a pound of flesh? Shylock was plotting to kill Antonio. When he's offered money at the end he would rather have Antonio's death. He's a bad guy.All we ever really get from Iago is that he hates the moor, and getting passed over for promotion is hardly on par with constantly being treated as an animal because of your race/religion.

The point is that Shylock didn't do like Iago and knowingly "trick" him into anything. Antonio accepted the agreement of his own free will. Had Antonio paid back the loan and Shylock still demanded the flesh, that would be something different. Obviously, once Shylock is offered the money and refuses he does become a "bad guy" as it shows he'd rather harm another human to make amends than accept the money to cover his actual monetary damages. But, again, his reasons for revenge are far more sympathetic and understandable than those of Iago.

Is she shrewish because she's been treated wrong, or is she just a shrew? This assumes that people have no reason to act as they do. Think about that for a minute.

mortalterror

07-14-2015, 05:48 PM

So how can you love film as an art-form and not admire the first discoveries of how to artistically use editing and framing?
Because I enjoy what it's become more than what it was. I like the advanced levels more than the primitive beginnings. I don't care for a lot of the early renaissance painting the way that I do the high renaissance painting, or some of the early ventures in opera the way that I feel about Verdi.

Starving someone is torture. Not letting them sleep is torture. This seriously shouldn't be a matter for debate. Yes, sending a child to bed without dinner is abuse, absolutely. If it was done repeatedly it would be torture.
I disagree. I think your threshold for torture is so low that everything is torture to you. Jack Bauer or Liam Neeson in Taken, now those guys could torture. He stabbed a guy in the legs with metal spikes and then electrocuted him. The iron maiden, that's torture. Stretching people on the wrack, that's torture. Whipping people, cutting off digits, removing teeth, half drowning them in water, skinning, crushing, burning, breaking limbs, thumbscrews, slow slicing, being held in stocks, disembowling, crucifixion, impalement, stoning, breaking on the wheel, gang rape, that's all torture. Alas, tearing someone's dress and sending children to bed without dinner is still not recognized by the Geneva Convention.

And this doesn't sound misogynistic at all, comparing a woman to a "wild animal." You're lucky you're posting this on a relatively insular board like this one; were you to post it on a public forum with a large and diverse audience you'd be lambasted by far more than one other person.
I thought you were an atheist who considered man as just another type of animal. Well, I'm agreeing with you. The behaviorist B.F. Skinner would too, and many members of PETA. If you will check what I wrote, I also compared children to untrained, or undomesticated animals as well.

Some women do, and if they do they have a right to choose that kind of relationship. No man should be allowed to force that kind of relationship onto an unwilling woman.
She did swear to honor and obey her husband. If you agree that Antonio and Shylock's bargain should be honored how much more sacrosanct a marriage vow?

The play doesn't distinguish between them, and given Katherine's closing speech it's quite clear that anything beyond pure servileness would be seen as unacceptably shrewish.
I think the play clearly distinguishes between them. It's not just Petruchio who calls Kate shrewish. It's other strangers and family members too. I think you'll notice the wedding guests even call Petruchio a devil and claim that they'll make a pair. So, it wasn't the custom of the time to be mean to your wife any more than it was to be shrewish to your husband. Both men and women are censored in this play for their bad behavior which goes against societal mores, further proving my point that Petruchio is a mirror for Katherine. When she stops being shrewish, he stops being boorish. Petruchio's behavior is calculated to prove a point, that nobody likes being around an ill mannered wretch, and he will serve her as well as she serves him: good for good and bad for bad.

Modern equality was about the right to choose. I've watched a lot of Simpsons, and I don't ever recall Homer telling Marge her place is in the kitchen and with the kids and she isn't allowed to have a job if she wants.
It's still idealizing a quaint 1950s lifestyle that is somewhat dated by today's standards.

I got the reference, I was merely pointing out that your examples were not analogous to TOTS.
You said "When you can find an example of Chappelle suggesting slavery was OK because blacks should know their place, or Allen suggesting the Holocaust was OK because Jews are indeed lesser human beings, or Sienfield suggesting that homelessness is no real problem or that the homeless should be tortured or put to slavery... then you might have a relevant example." I gave you an example of a man telling people it's okay to eat babies.

MorpheusSandman

07-14-2015, 06:40 PM

Because I enjoy what it's become more than what it was. I like the advanced levels more than the primitive beginnings.Those "primitive beginnings" got the fundamental art-form better than the vast majority of the "advanced" followers. Film is the art of images in time; the advent of sound often became little more than excuse to ignore the former. We haven't bettered Murnau, Dreyer, Eisenstein, et al.

I disagree. I think your threshold for torture is so low that everything is torture to you.Pretty sure intentionally starving someone and not allowing them to sleep would be recognized as torture by every major governing body.

I thought you were an atheist who considered man as just another type of animal.I do, but this has nothing to do with the morality of treating other human beings as "wild animals" just because they don't want to conform to social structures that are unequal to begin with.

She did swear to honor and obey her husband. If you agree that Antonio and Shylock's bargain should be honored how much more sacrosanct a marriage vow?She was given away like tainted cattle:

your father hath consented
That you shall be my wife; your dowry 'greed on;
And, Will you, nill you, I will marry you.So Petruchio and Baptista, behind Katherine's back, decide she's going to marry Petruchio. Here's Katherine's reaction to her father:
Call you me daughter? now, I promise you
You have show'd a tender fatherly regard,
To wish me wed to one half lunatic;
A mad-cup ruffian and a swearing Jack,
That thinks with oaths to face the matter out.And later to Petruchio:
I'll see thee hang'd on Sunday first.

...

No shame but mine: I must, forsooth, be forced
To give my hand opposed against my heart
Unto a mad-brain rudesby full of spleen...So Katherine is literally being forced into marriage, and forced into vows that are inherently misogynistic and create and unequal marriage from the get-go. I must've missed the part where Antonio was forced into the deal with Shylock and the law that said all deals must involve a pound of flesh upon failure of payment.

I think the play clearly distinguishes between them. It's not just Petruchio who calls Kate shrewish. It's other strangers and family members too.What in the world does this have to do with anything? The play does not distinguish between a woman who's a "shrew" and a woman who has a will of her own and refuses to be subjugated within a patriarchal society.

When she stops being shrewish, he stops being boorishWhen she submits to his torture he stops torturing her. The great defense of every wife-beater.

It's still idealizing a quaint 1950s lifestyle that is somewhat dated by today's standards.Portraying a certain lifestyle is not idealizing it or suggesting that everyone should be like this. Marge isn't being forced into being a housewife.

I gave you an example of a man telling people it's okay to eat babies.It's called irony. If we don't read Shrew ironically then it is literally suggesting it's fine torture a woman if she doesn't submit to the will of her husband.

mortalterror

07-14-2015, 07:16 PM

So you get upset by men being "subjected to ridicule" in RomComs but have no problem with a woman being tortured into submission in TOTS... and I have the double standard?
I think they are both funny. I just don't like double standards and one way traffic. If we're equal, let's be equal. But this stuff* here, it ain't equal.

Anyway, context matters, and this is where privilege becomes an important factor. When you have one group that has historically been in the privileged position, making light of them does not have the same affect that making light of those who are in a much weaker position does. It's like suggesting that both slaves and slaveowners should be equally subject to ridicule. Well, no, they shouldn't. Your "double standard" presumes a level playing field in real life, when the truth is that there is no level playing field, and the playing field back then was far more unlevel then than it is now.
That privilege stuff is PC nonsense. It's just another justification for your own biases, why yours are alright and other people's are wrong.

Besides, as I suggested above, in those RomComs the women are not TORTURING the men by any stretch of the imagination.
Making them wear dresses, humiliating, emasculating them, and hitting them? It's not torture by any means, but it's at least as bad as what Petruchio does to Katherine.

Ebert was quoting Bloom, who most certainly is sufficiently informed about Shakespeare.
Bloom can be an idiot sometimes.

This isn't just "the code" it's also known as "the law."
I figured you would know what I meant, the film code. The morality code about what can and can't be shown on television. You know, how we weren't allowed to show guns going off in the same frame as the person being shot, or how much blood we were allowed to show, or how much cleavage, drug use, or certain words we aren't allowed to say. Men hitting women is on that list of proscribed no nos and the MPAA or FCC standards and practices have rules about how and when violence is "justified." For one thing, it always has to be justified. For another, you usually have to address it like having someone say "Oh, that's wrong." I'm talking about censorship, meant to uphold a rather narrow and particular view of morality, and what art should be.

If someone is trying to kill you, it is legal to kill them. If someone is not trying to harm you, it is not OK to harm them. This is also just good-ol' fashioned golden rule stuff. Again, context: two of those clips feature men and women in a consensual wrestling match. At least, I assume the women mud-wrestling are there of their own will. The Family Guy link doesn't work (seems Fox took it down).
Well here's another from Family Guy of Peter fantasizing about killing his wife:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8MycwWwYGU

Here's another crummy version of the one I posted earlier where the whole family fights:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2CpHdZ9Avc

It happens quite frequently on the show, like in this promo of Peter and Lois fighting over the bathroom
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw6eqmRVlDY

Another where Peter and Stewie bond over messing with Lois:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4QnQBkdgrU

Couldn't find the one where he asks if she's pregnant and then pushes her down the stairs, or repeatedly crashes into her car driving her off the road into a building and then says "Admit it, I got you!" That reminds me, Preston Sturges made a black comedy in 1948 called Unfaithfully Yours where a conductor fantasizes about killing his wife. Haven't seen it, but it's got a 7.7 over on imdb.

It's a perfectly rational one that makes since given what we know about what treating people that way does to them.
It is understandable, but it doesn't absolve them of all wrongdoing, or mean that they don't need to make an adjustment to be more socially acceptable. Understanding is not the same as condoning.

All we ever really get from Iago is that he hates the moor, and getting passed over for promotion is hardly on par with constantly being treated as an animal because of your race/religion.
I'm not so sure we can say that the Venetians treated Shylock like an animal because of his religion. They made light of him. They didn't befriend him, although that might have as much to do with his job as a usurer as his religion. How well do you speak of the bankers you owe money too, or the Wallstreet tycoons during the debt crisis? But they did business with him and he seemed to be made rich by it. One has to wonder, how much, and to what degree a wealthy man in that society would be deprived of things and treated as a second class citizen with much to complain about. When you think about it, Kate is a rich woman, with servants. By the standards of her time, she lives a very comfortable life.

The point is that Shylock didn't do like Iago and knowingly "trick" him into anything. Antonio accepted the agreement of his own free will. Had Antonio paid back the loan and Shylock still demanded the flesh, that would be something different. Obviously, once Shylock is offered the money and refuses he does become a "bad guy" as it shows he'd rather harm another human to make amends than accept the money to cover his actual monetary damages. But, again, his reasons for revenge are far more sympathetic and understandable than those of Iago.
I disagree. Shylock wanted to kill people because of a couple of insults they'd made to him but he was prospering. Iago was actually being oppressed and kept down as a member of a lower class. He wasn't a rich man with options like Shylock.

This assumes that people have no reason to act as they do. Think about that for a minute.
They have reasons, but not all of their reasons are environmental. Some are biological. And even if you believe that Kate is a shrew because of her environment, is it because she is oppressed, or because she is spoiled?

MorpheusSandman

07-14-2015, 08:04 PM

If we're equal, let's be equal.Being equal and being a society that treats them as such are two different things.

That privilege stuff is PC nonsense.So statistics on women getting paid less to do the same jobs, statistics on police predominantly stopping black people... all that's "PC nonsense," eh? The history of how women were prevented from voting and working... PC nonsense?

Here's a webpage that has plenty of links to sources, studies, and statistics on male privilege as it exists today... meaning in world AFTER feminism where women can actually now vote, work, and hold public office (which was rarely the case in the past): http://www.mayan.org/do_you_have_gender_based_privilege_our_male_privil ege_checklist_might_help_you_figure_it_out

It's not torture by any means, but it's at least as bad as what Petruchio does to Katherine.Speaking of nonsense...

Bloom can be an idiot sometimes.Doesn't refute what he said. Also doesn't refute that he knows Shakepseare.

I figured you would know what I meant, the film code.We haven't had a "film code" since Hayes. I don't promote censorship of any kind any way, so I don't know why you're bringing this up. If a film or TV show wants to depict gross misogyny then let it, and then likewise the makers can put up with millions of people ranting about it and boycotting their products.

Well here's another from Family Guy of Peter fantasizing about killing his wife:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8MycwWwYGU

Here's another crummy version of the one I posted earlier where the whole family fights:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2CpHdZ9Avc

It happens quite frequently on the show, like in this promo of Peter and Lois fighting over the bathroom
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw6eqmRVlDY

Another where Peter and Stewie bond over messing with Lois:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4QnQBkdgrUNone of these is promoting actual domestic abuse. The first is Peter fantasizing about killing Lois because she turned down a lot of money. Second is the entire family fighting in a ridiculously stylized manner. Third is a play-fight over trying to use the bathroom first. Last one is about Peter trying to make Stewie laugh, which is what Lois suggested. I'm still missing an example where it suggests it's OK to torture someone until they submit to your will.

It is understandable, but it doesn't absolve them of all wrongdoing, or mean that they don't need to make an adjustment to be more socially acceptable. Understanding is not the same as condoning.And I don't condone Shylock for demanding a pound of Antonio's flesh, especially after someone offers to pay the debt. Unlike you who seem to be condoning what Petruchio does to Katherine, despite her having done far less to him than what the Christians did to Shylock.

One has to wonder, how much, and to what degree a wealthy man in that society would be deprived of things and treated as a second class citizen with much to complain about. When you think about it, Kate is a rich woman, with servants. By the standards of her time, she lives a very comfortable life.There are different kinds of privileges, and having one doesn't negate the others. There is certainly a privilege that comes with having money, but that doesn't mean you don't lose out in other areas because you're an "undesirable" race or religion or sex.

Shylock wanted to kill people because of a couple of insults they'd made to him but he was prospering. Iago was actually being oppressed and kept down as a member of a lower class.Shylock suggests that he's been the target of abuse and ridicule long before the play starts. Iago might not have been happy being a "lower class," but there's no indication that he was forcibly kept there because of how he was born.

They have reasons, but not all of their reasons are environmental. Some are biological. And even if you believe that Kate is a shrew because of her environment, is it because she is oppressed, or because she is spoiled?We're all biologically capable of behaving in the same manner as just about everyone else. Whenever we do behave a certain way it's usually because the environment selected that response and that response worked to achieve whatever our biological programming wanted. I don't see anything in Shrew that suggests Katherina is spoiled. Most of her protestations are against being forced to do things she doesn't want to do and wouldn't have to do if she didn't live in an oppressive patriarchy that had already decided what the ideal for her sex was.

mortalterror

07-14-2015, 09:42 PM

Those "primitive beginnings" got the fundamental art-form better than the vast majority of the "advanced" followers. Film is the art of images in time; the advent of sound often became little more than excuse to ignore the former. We haven't bettered Murnau, Dreyer, Eisenstein, et al.
Please, films with color and sound are way better. There are hardly any films from that time which are as good as films today. And if you think we haven't bettered Murnau, Dreyer, and Eisenstein, then you should go see a film by Fellini, Kubrick, Bergman, or Kurosawa.

Pretty sure intentionally starving someone and not allowing them to sleep would be recognized as torture by every major governing body.
I'm pretty sure that those are the two ways of making people uncomfortable that nearly every major governing body doesn't classify as torture.

KATHARINA
That I'll try.

She strikes him

or

KATHARINA
Go, get thee gone, thou false deluding slave,

Beats him

Of course, that is not allowed by Geneva.

I do, but this has nothing to do with the morality of treating other human beings as "wild animals" just because they don't want to conform to social structures that are unequal to begin with.
So how do you suggest we discipline unruly elements in society? I suppose prison and time outs are torture too?

She was given away like tainted cattle:

So Petruchio and Baptista, behind Katherine's back, decide she's going to marry Petruchio. Here's Katherine's reaction to her father: And later to Petruchio: So Katherine is literally being forced into marriage, and forced into vows that are inherently misogynistic and create and unequal marriage from the get-go. I must've missed the part where Antonio was forced into the deal with Shylock and the law that said all deals must involve a pound of flesh upon failure of payment.
You really think Shylock isn't a villain for striking such a bargain? I think Antonio even says that he thought it was a joke.

What in the world does this have to do with anything? The play does not distinguish between a woman who's a "shrew" and a woman who has a will of her own and refuses to be subjugated within a patriarchal society.
Because you say that she's just a strong woman in a misogynistic society. However, there are other women in that society which are not called shrewish. Katherine's sister for instance is better thought of than Katherine.

When she submits to his torture he stops torturing her. The great defense of every wife-beater.
When she reforms, she stops being corrected. Do unto others as you would have done to you. That's the golden rule. I don't think he actually ever strikes her, even though at one point she strikes him.

It's called irony. If we don't read Shrew ironically then it is literally suggesting it's fine torture a woman if she doesn't submit to the will of her husband.
The play is a comedy, so it's not all meant to be taken at face value, but you overstate things when you call it torture. The moral of the play is that you should be a good person so that others will be nice to you back.

Clopin

07-14-2015, 10:06 PM

So statistics on women getting paid less to do the same jobs, statistics on police predominantly stopping black people... all that's "PC nonsense," eh? The history of how women were prevented from voting and working... PC nonsense?

Really, women are paid less for working the same hours, at the same job, and with equivalent seniority? Isn't it curious then that businesses don't mass hire women to cut costs? Wouldn't you think that in a capitalist economy some CEO or other (and there are women CEOs which makes this even more curious) would hire only women and save the "22%" on labour? Or is every CEO in the world (including the women CEOs) such sexist monsters that they would prioritize hiring men over women who have the same credentials and skills and yet will work for significantly less pay? This bull**** defies all basic logic and I can't respect anyone who parrots ****ing statistics without ever bothering to check where they come from, or what they actually say. Can't you use basic logic Morpheus?

The wage gap statistics are a totally bogus myth, and one of the most destructive lies that people stil spread around. Seriously, find me an actually credible study which finds that women working equivalent hours and positions earn less rather than just taking an aggregate. Men as a whole earn more than women as a whole, but that is an entirely different thing from suggesting that women earn significantly less for the same job. I earn less as a daycare instructor than nearly anyone in Canada, but not because I'm discriminated against. I could make an awful lot more money where i live (Alberta) by doing dangerous, unpleasant work surrounded by cocaine addicts while living in some ugly demoralizing northern hellhole, (and hey guess what gender is expected to do these **** jobs?) but i CHOOSE to earn less working in a daycare (which is dominated by female staff who amazingly earn less than rig drivers on the oil sands. This is where your wage gap comes from). My female coworkers also do not earn less than me for the same position; I know this for a fact.

The wage gap simply boils down into absurdity when you start making simple checks and considerations like this. The fact that women are overwhelmingly more likely to work in childcare and men are overwhelmingly more likely to work labour jobs on the oil patch is not evidence of gender based wage discrimination. It's evidence of different jobs carrying different market values. What a ****ing shocker that one is eh?

Here are some simple video for you.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=58arQIr882w

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BDj_bN0L8XM

God how I hate Obama.

mortalterror

07-14-2015, 10:47 PM

So statistics on women getting paid less to do the same jobs,
Well, they definitely should be paid less to do some jobs. Take that soccer stuff recently. The women won and the men only made it to the finals, but the men made more money. But the men were probably better athletes overall, and probably also got more viewers for their games which generated greater revenue, resulting in higher salaries. I'm fine with unequal wages where pay is tied to performance. They ought to be the same in jobs which a woman can do the same as a man, but not the same where one sex has a clear advantage. Personally, I'm more concerned that women divorce men and take his kids, everything he's ever earned, or ever will earn, and how they get ten years more LIFE than us men. That's the inequality I'd like addressed. How 'bout that life gap?

statistics on police predominantly stopping black people...
I got no problem with profiling either. I got stopped by some cops going to a bookstore in a black part of town, because I looked out of place.

all that's "PC nonsense," eh? The history of how women were prevented from voting and working... PC nonsense?
They've had the vote now for about a century. They outnumber male voters too, so any laws they don't like are on them at this point. Don't like how congress is full of old white guys? Well, how about you vote for a couple of women for once, ladies?

Here's a webpage that has plenty of links to sources, studies, and statistics on male privilege as it exists today... meaning in world AFTER feminism where women can actually now vote, work, and hold public office (which was rarely the case in the past): http://www.mayan.org/do_you_have_gender_based_privilege_our_male_privil ege_checklist_might_help_you_figure_it_out
Yeah, I'm not really looking to read any feminist or communist propaganda today. But thanks.

Doesn't refute what he said. Also doesn't refute that he knows Shakepseare.
I forget what he said. Whaddysay?

We haven't had a "film code" since Hayes. I don't promote censorship of any kind any way, so I don't know why you're bringing this up. If a film or TV show wants to depict gross misogyny then let it, and then likewise the makers can put up with millions of people ranting about it and boycotting their products.
The code isn't law anymore but it is still followed as tradition. And we do still have the FCC, MPAA, standards and practices etc. I brought it up because it ritualizes violence and makes it socially acceptable. It shapes attitudes about what is appropriate and what is inappropriate. It tells us that violence against men is acceptable, but that violence against women is unacceptable, which has been your position in this argument.

None of these is promoting actual domestic abuse. The first is Peter fantasizing about killing Lois because she turned down a lot of money. Second is the entire family fighting in a ridiculously stylized manner. Third is a play-fight over trying to use the bathroom first. Last one is about Peter trying to make Stewie laugh, which is what Lois suggested. I'm still missing an example where it suggests it's OK to torture someone until they submit to your will.
So it's okay to hit women, just don't tear their dress or take away their food until they act nice?

And I don't condone Shylock for demanding a pound of Antonio's flesh, especially after someone offers to pay the debt. Unlike you who seem to be condoning what Petruchio does to Katherine, despite her having done far less to him than what the Christians did to Shylock.
How do you feel about Falstaff being beaten in the laundry basket in The Merry Wives of Windsor? Or the pranks against Malvolio in Twelfth Night?

There are different kinds of privileges, and having one doesn't negate the others. There is certainly a privilege that comes with having money, but that doesn't mean you don't lose out in other areas because you're an "undesirable" race or religion or sex.
It cushions the blow.

Shylock suggests that he's been the target of abuse and ridicule long before the play starts. Iago might not have been happy being a "lower class," but there's no indication that he was forcibly kept there because of how he was born.
He says in the opening lines that he served Othello for some time in a number of battles, that other men had noticed his abilities and suggested making him a lieutenant, but Othello chose to pass over him for a man with no experience. Why, because that man, a mathematician, had helped him woo Desdemona. Iago has ability and experience on his side, but Othello can't see him in a higher rank. He reserves the officer's places for gentlemen of breeding, who get around in high society, and with whom he can make advantageous connections. He snubbed Iago probably after years of service. If Shylocks grudge is of long standing then Iago's is too.

We're all biologically capable of behaving in the same manner as just about everyone else. Whenever we do behave a certain way it's usually because the environment selected that response and that response worked to achieve whatever our biological programming wanted. I don't see anything in Shrew that suggests Katherina is spoiled. Most of her protestations are against being forced to do things she doesn't want to do and wouldn't have to do if she didn't live in an oppressive patriarchy that had already decided what the ideal for her sex was.
I see as much evidence for her being a spoiled little rich girl as you do of her living in a patriarchy. We could speculate about how she came to be considered a shrew to our hearts content, but she's still just a fictional character. All we have to go on is that Shakespeare and every character in this play calls her a shrew, so we may assume that's how Shakespeare thought of her, that's how the people who knew her thought of her, and the reputation was well earned before the play starts.

Clopin

07-14-2015, 10:51 PM

Oh for ****s sake, are people serious about that male soccer team? It's a REVENUE based industry you absolute morons. Men's soccer generates more REVENUE so they get paid more.

Not talking to you Mortal, just venting about that stupidity in general. The men and women should just play a match for the money, they are equal athletes after all ;)

Men also have the privilege to make up the vast majority of:

Homicides
Prison populations
Suicides
Homelessness
Serious workplace injuries or deaths
Combat deaths (often as a result of a male only draft)

I don't know that you can get less gender privileged than being drafted to die in a war.

mona amon

07-14-2015, 11:30 PM

Am I the only one who actually likes Kate? :) She's strong, she's witty, she's not afraid to be herself. Yes she has her faults (comedy is about faults), but Petruchio's way over the top, too. In the end, they sort of deserve each other. I'd love to see a sequel--Kate and Pet 20 years later, driven gray by their teenage kids.

Ah, the voice of sanity at last! Thanks Mona. :)

Long time since I read it, Pompey, and I hardly remember what Kate was like but I do remember her treating the others around her badly, and being considered a shrew by everyone. I'm planning on reading it again tonight to see what all the fuss is about. :)

mona amon

07-15-2015, 12:36 AM

When she submits to his torture he stops torturing her. The great defense of every wife-beater.

When did any wife beater ever stop the abuse when the woman submits? They tend to choose women who are submissive to them in the first place, and the abuse only becomes worse the more submissive they are. Petruchio chooses Kate because of the laws of natural attraction (her dowry may have helped, but that couldn't have been the only reason). He wants a strong willed, spirited woman, and he succeeds in changing her into a better person (rather than the patriarchal better woman), but I'm pretty sure he'd stop liking her if she actually lived up to her "our husbands are our lords and masters" speech and became a submissive creature.

Welcome back, by the way! I've missed you. :)

Jackson Richardson

07-15-2015, 05:23 AM

Is that final speech a joke Petruchio and Kate are playing on everyone else? She's putting it on to help him win his bet?

Pompey Bum

07-15-2015, 09:25 AM

When did any wife beater ever stop the abuse when the woman submits? They tend to choose women who are submissive to them in the first place, and the abuse only becomes worse the more submissive they are.

This is an interesting point, Mona. Bullies are highly selective about their victims (I believe that is the current psychiatric consensus) and Kate doesn't seem like anyone to mess with two me. As for the argumentum ad nauseam this thread has produced, dead horse abuse is an ugly thing. :)

:beatdeadhorse5:

MorpheusSandman

07-15-2015, 03:10 PM

Please, films with color and sound are way better. There are hardly any films from that time which are as good as films today.No. All this does is tell you really don't care for the art of film. Nobody who does says such things.

And if you think we haven't bettered Murnau, Dreyer, and Eisenstein, then you should go see a film by Fellini, Kubrick, Bergman, or Kurosawa.I've seen every Kurosawa and Kubrick film, 33 films from Bergman, 16 films from Fellini, all (available) Hitchcocks, 24 from Ozu, 21 from Bunuel, 32 from Ford, every film from Bresson, 23 from Godard, 16 from Mizoguchi, every film from Angelopoulos, Hou, and Kieslowski, 15 from Satyajit Ray... need I go on? (FYI, I keep such numbers on a film list that I keep, so it's easy to look up; I'm not just guessing)

None of those filmmakers bettered Murnau, Dreyer, and Eisenstein in terms of cinematic artistry. Some may have equaled them and created their own unique artistry, but none bettered. If they "bettered" them at all it was solely because of their more prodigious output, a good reason one might prefer, say, Shakespeare to Marlowe. Again, the fundamental art of cinema is images and time. Murnau, Dreyer, and Eisenstein reached the pinnacle of what film is capable of in both aspects. Eisenstein theories of editing were so thorough that nobody has been able to innovate since him.

I'm pretty sure that those are the two ways of making people uncomfortable...Well, let me come over and starve you and deprive you of sleep for a few days and let's see if you're "uncomfortable" enough to classify it as torture.

So how do you suggest we discipline unruly elements in society? I suppose prison and time outs are torture too?WTF are you talking about? What did Katherine do that was against the law? How did she violate anyone's rights? Did she steal? Kill? Assault? Damage property? Is she an arsonist? Is she selling national secrets to the enemy? Last I checked, she didn't want to get married and be subjugated. That's "unruly?"

You really think Shylock isn't a villain for striking such a bargain?I think Antonio is a dumbass for accepting it. In general, I think the desire for revenge for wrongs done against you is far less "villainous" than those wrongs were to begin with. Certainly I think Shylock overstepped the bounds of what "fair" revenge would be, but that's the only part where his villainy comes in and, again, even that is more sympathetic and understandable than what's done to Katherine or what Iago does to Othello.

However, there are other women in that society which are not called shrewish. Katherine's sister for instance is better thought of than Katherine.Bianca is willing to be the patriarchal feminine ideal; of course she's "thought highly of." Care to name another strong-willed female character in the play who isn't called a shrew?

When she reforms, she stops being corrected.She didn't deserve "correcting" in the first place is the entire point.

The play is a comedy, so it's not all meant to be taken at face value, but you overstate things when you call it torture. The moral of the play is that you should be a good person so that others will be nice to you back.It's torture. Starvation and sleep deprivation are torture.

The moral of the play is spelled out in Katherine's closing monologue. It has nothing to do with "being a good person," it has everything to do with being the "ideal woman" according to the patriarchal society's ideals.

Well, they definitely should be paid less to do some jobs. Take that soccer stuff recently.Revenue based jobs are not what I'm talking about. There, what you make is equivalent to the money you bring in. That would be a meritocracy, which would be fine, but it's not what we have.

Personally, I'm more concerned that women divorce men and take his kids, everything he's ever earned, or ever will earn, and how they get ten years more LIFE than us men.Parental laws definitely need to be addressed, as I agree with you it's unfair that mothers tend to get custody with all else being equal. However, divorce is a 50/50 split; who gets the better end of it will depend on who was making more/less in the relationship. If the man was making less, then he'd get more than he earned in the divorce. Alimony can go both ways too. Can't do much about the "life gap," except better medicine. When we talk about equality it's really about things that we can do as a society to make things more equal.

I got no problem with profiling either.You should.

They've had the vote now for about a century. They outnumber male voters too, so any laws they don't like are on them at this point. Don't like how congress is full of old white guys? Well, how about you vote for a couple of women for once, ladies?Yes, because money and power has nothing to do with who gets elected in politics.

Yeah, I'm not really looking to read any feminist or communist propaganda today.Translation: "I'll ignore the evidence so I don't have to cede the point."

The code isn't law anymore but it is still followed as tradition.Yeah, because it's not like there's gratuitous nudity, sex, and violence in modern films.

And we do still have the FCC, MPAA, standards and practices etc.TV is regulated because kids watch it. They don't worry about it on any of the "pay" channels. Rating systems aren't censorship, they're just informational.

It tells us that violence against men is acceptable, but that violence against women is unacceptable, which has been your position in this argument.When did I ever say violence against men was acceptable? That's not my position at all!

So it's okay to hit women, just don't tear their dress or take away their food until they act nice?All of the Family Guy clips are not one person knowingly torturing another person to get them to change their attitude. Two of them are exaggerated conflicts over everyday occurrences (a family dispute, trying to use the bathroom first) that aren't violent in real life (or, at least, not in remotely the same way). There's also no "moral" at the end about how it's good to abuse your wife if it makes your baby laugh or whatever. Again, these ARE NOT EQUIVALENT EXAMPLES. None of them are remotely suggesting that the kind of domestic violence/abuse that occurs in reality on a daily basis is OK, and they're certainly not advocating the kind of torturous "taming" we see in TOTS.

How do you feel about Falstaff being beaten in the laundry basket in The Merry Wives of Windsor? Or the pranks against Malvolio in Twelfth Night?I don't remember much of TMWOW, but I always thought the Malvolio prank pretty mean-spirited.

It cushions the blow.There shouldn't be a blow to cushion.

He says in the opening lines that he served Othello for some time in a number of battles, that other men had noticed his abilities and suggested making him a lieutenant, but Othello chose to pass over him for a man with no experience.Then Iago should go serve someone else. Not getting a promotion you feel you deserve is hardly getting constantly derided for being a certain race or religion.

I see as much evidence for her being a spoiled little rich girl as you do of her living in a patriarchy.This really shouldn't even be a debate. Katherina's closing monologue reveals the patriarchal feminine ideal; if that's the ideal, then NOT abiding by that ideal (doing the opposite) was precisely what made her a shrew. It's really simple.

MorpheusSandman

07-15-2015, 03:16 PM

When did any wife beater ever stop the abuse when the woman submits? I didn't say they did; I said that's what they'd say, as in "well, if she just did what I wanted and didn't piss me off I wouldn't beat her/would stop beating her." Obviously that's not usually the truth, and pretty despicable even if was the truth.

Petruchio chooses Kate because of the laws of natural attraction (her dowry may have helped, but that couldn't have been the only reason).Petruchio only shows any interest once he finds out about the dowry. And if he wanted a strong-willed woman then why did he go through all that to "tame" her? I completely disagree about her being a "better person;" again, her closing monologue is entirely about being a "patriarchal better woman," there's nothing in there that's about being a better person that would apply to both sexes.

Welcome back, by the way! I've missed you. :)Thank you! :)

MorpheusSandman

07-15-2015, 03:17 PM

Is that final speech a joke Petruchio and Kate are playing on everyone else? She's putting it on to help him win his bet?That's something I never considered, though it reeks of a fanwank given that there's no real evidence for it.

MorpheusSandman

07-15-2015, 03:52 PM

Really, women are paid less for working the same hours, at the same job, and with equivalent seniority?Yes: http://www.payscale.com/gender-lifetime-earnings-gap

Isn't it curious then that businesses don't mass hire women to cut costs?1. They have done this. http://money.cnn.com/2013/01/31/news/economy/secretary-women-jobs/index.html?source=cnn_bin

2. It's not as if all businesses are consciously, knowingly paying women less money. The 4-5% gap that the first link quotes would be accounting for the same job across a lot of different businesses, many of them probably wouldn't be offering a pay difference and the ones that were probably wouldn't be knowingly doing it.

The wage gap statistics are a totally bogus mythExcept they're not. They get much worse when we consider jobs dominated by men VS those dominated women. Why do you think it is that most women-dominated professions just happen to be those that pay less?

My female coworkers also do not earn less than me for the same position; I know this for a fact.And one anecdotal example > Actual studies.

The fact that women are overwhelmingly more likely to work in childcare and men are overwhelmingly more likely to work labour jobs on the oil patch is not evidence of gender based wage discrimination. It's evidence of different jobs carrying different market values.And the market just happens to overwhelmingly favor the jobs that men do?

Here are some simple video for you.I love that you ask me for credible studies while posting a Youtube clip of a random guy who cites his own webpage as his source. First one might be worth watching. I'll give it a go later.

Clopin

07-15-2015, 04:52 PM

Clopin

07-15-2015, 05:25 PM

By the way, I believe women live longer and happier lives and tend to report enjoying their jobs much more when surveyed. Sounds like a good deal to me. I would much rather take on a career which would reward me with a happier and longer life than a stressful, unpleasant job which pays a bit better.

Also standards and what not go both ways. I've said before that my dream job would be running a home daycare. This is basically impossible for me entirely because of my gender since people are very reluctant to accept male childcare workers. There is a rather pervasive notion that men are more likely to be pedophiles or to molest children, or that men are unfit for the work. A woman my age who wanted to take on the business of a daycare would be commended as a self starter and a hard, competent worker doing a pretty difficult job; I would be considered very weird and would get no business. That's unfortunate but how it is. When women defy gender roles or take on a career in a field dominated by men they are showered with praise and plaudits. It would be nice to receive the same treatment.

ennison

07-15-2015, 06:21 PM

The women I work with always enjoy their jobs more when I survey them! (So they tell me)

mortalterror

07-15-2015, 07:59 PM

No. All this does is tell you really don't care for the art of film. Nobody who does says such things.
Well, I do and I did.

I've seen every Kurosawa and Kubrick film, 33 films from Bergman, 16 films from Fellini, all (available) Hitchcocks, 24 from Ozu, 21 from Bunuel, 32 from Ford, every film from Bresson, 23 from Godard, 16 from Mizoguchi, every film from Angelopoulos, Hou, and Kieslowski, 15 from Satyajit Ray... need I go on? (FYI, I keep such numbers on a film list that I keep, so it's easy to look up; I'm not just guessing)

None of those filmmakers bettered Murnau, Dreyer, and Eisenstein in terms of cinematic artistry. Some may have equaled them and created their own unique artistry, but none bettered. If they "bettered" them at all it was solely because of their more prodigious output, a good reason one might prefer, say, Shakespeare to Marlowe. Again, the fundamental art of cinema is images and time. Murnau, Dreyer, and Eisenstein reached the pinnacle of what film is capable of in both aspects. Eisenstein theories of editing were so thorough that nobody has been able to innovate since him.
If you think Kubrick, Fellini, Bergman, and Kurosawa aren't better than Murnau, Dreyer, and Eisenstein perhaps you either like weird stuff or have bad taste. As I recall, you like Stan Brakhage, Bela Tarr, and other crazy avante garde stuff. How can you like film while disdaining narrative, color, and sound? If I don't like the early beginnings of film, it sounds like you don't like the majority of film production, ie mass market films, blockbusters, narratives, or commercial films.

Well, let me come over and starve you and deprive you of sleep for a few days and let's see if you're "uncomfortable" enough to classify it as torture.
Beat you too it. I'm already on a diet, which is all being hungry but not starving enough to die is.

WTF are you talking about? What did Katherine do that was against the law? How did she violate anyone's rights? Did she steal? Kill? Assault? Damage property? Is she an arsonist? Is she selling national secrets to the enemy? Last I checked, she didn't want to get married and be subjugated. That's "unruly?"

I'm talking about the nature of justice and how we punish people or maintain order in this country, from the felon or terrorist, which you have frequently mentioned, to the pet or child as I have frequently mentioned.

I think Antonio is a dumbass for accepting it. In general, I think the desire for revenge for wrongs done against you is far less "villainous" than those wrongs were to begin with. Certainly I think Shylock overstepped the bounds of what "fair" revenge would be, but that's the only part where his villainy comes in and, again, even that is more sympathetic and understandable than what's done to Katherine or what Iago does to Othello.
Fair revenge in Shylock's case would be insulting Antonio back, charging him high interest on his loan, or not loaning to him at all. Tricking him into a bargain that endangers his life, and then insisting on his blood instead of cash repayment is villainous. Besides, maybe Antonio and others said mean things about Shylock because he wasn't a nice person to begin with, because he has it in him to murder his fellow man, maybe that's why they don't like him. Even the dude's own daughter doesn't like him. He's clearly a representative of the stock character The Miser, who hoards money and doesn't care about people.

Bianca is willing to be the patriarchal feminine ideal; of course she's "thought highly of." Care to name another strong-willed female character in the play who isn't called a shrew?
But she's subjected to the same societal pressures as Katherine while maintaining a good attitude. She has a "strong will" which she uses to help orchestrate Katherine's marriage as a means to facilitate her own. Also, if you would recall, Bianca does not come at her husband's call. Then again, there is the Widow, Hortensio's wife. She doesn't come when called either.

She didn't deserve "correcting" in the first place is the entire point.
Then neither did Falstaff or Malvolio.

It's torture. Starvation and sleep deprivation are torture.

The moral of the play is spelled out in Katherine's closing monologue. It has nothing to do with "being a good person," it has everything to do with being the "ideal woman" according to the patriarchal society's ideals.
dart not scornful glances...she is forward, peevish, sullen, sour,...To bandy word for word and frown for frown;...craves no other tribute at thy hands But love...

Revenue based jobs are not what I'm talking about. There, what you make is equivalent to the money you bring in. That would be a meritocracy, which would be fine, but it's not what we have.
Clopin made a very good point about male/female equality in the job market with those videos showing how the wage gap is actually about 5-7% and not 23% when adjusted for various factors. The videos Clopin posted also made an interesting point that the 5-7% wage gap may be due to men being more willing to ask for a raise.

Parental laws definitely need to be addressed, as I agree with you it's unfair that mothers tend to get custody with all else being equal. However, divorce is a 50/50 split; who gets the better end of it will depend on who was making more/less in the relationship. If the man was making less, then he'd get more than he earned in the divorce. Alimony can go both ways too. Can't do much about the "life gap," except better medicine. When we talk about equality it's really about things that we can do as a society to make things more equal.
That life one really gnaws at me though. Money don't mean anything if you aren't around to spend it. All these guys die and then their widows spend their money. Maybe, that's how they get to financial equality. I was recently driving past a dairy farm with my mother in the car and noticing all of the cows and calves, but no bulls. "Well you only need one bull to breed with," my mother said. "Bulls don't make milk so they all get turned into hamburger." "Well that certainly seems fair," I replied. Men get the short stick in this society all over the place, like Clopin showed with that list on the last page. The draft! Are you kidding me? All us men gotta die so the women can stay home and do their nails. Uh uh. No. You want that wage equality and the vote you pick up a gun. Gonna' leave everything on our shoulders? You gotta be kidding me. Israel's got it right.

You should.
Idealism needs to give way to pragmatism in the real world. Here we do what works, not what we wish worked.

Yes, because money and power has nothing to do with who gets elected in politics.
Lot of rich women out there.

Translation: "I'll ignore the evidence so I don't have to cede the point."
Or I'm highly skeptical of the source of that information, and think it would be a waste of my time to read it.

Yeah, because it's not like there's gratuitous nudity, sex, and violence in modern films.
Not nearly as much as I'd like. Not nearly.

TV is regulated because kids watch it. They don't worry about it on any of the "pay" channels. Rating systems aren't censorship, they're just informational.
Tell that to Howard Stern, George Carlin, or Opie and Anthony.

When did I ever say violence against men was acceptable? That's not my position at all!
You said that you enjoyed the romcoms where men were abused. Then you said that it's okay to abuse men because they are a privileged class.

All of the Family Guy clips are not one person knowingly torturing another person to get them to change their attitude. Two of them are exaggerated conflicts over everyday occurrences (a family dispute, trying to use the bathroom first) that aren't violent in real life (or, at least, not in remotely the same way). There's also no "moral" at the end about how it's good to abuse your wife if it makes your baby laugh or whatever. Again, these ARE NOT EQUIVALENT EXAMPLES. None of them are remotely suggesting that the kind of domestic violence/abuse that occurs in reality on a daily basis is OK, and they're certainly not advocating the kind of torturous "taming" we see in TOTS.
So you don't have a problem with violence. You have a problem with compulsion or patriarchy.

I don't remember much of TMWOW, but I always thought the Malvolio prank pretty mean-spirited.
I guess you don't like prank comedy.

There shouldn't be a blow to cushion.
Maybe not.

Then Iago should go serve someone else. Not getting a promotion you feel you deserve is hardly getting constantly derided for being a certain race or religion.
You don't know what kind of options he had to leave Othello's employ. He mentions at one point that creditors are eating him to death. He has a wife to consider. He might have some real financial problems. Remember back in those days, there was no social safety net. You couldn't pay your debts you'd go to debtor's prison, or become a beggar. Also, with the patron system of the time Iago probably needed a good reference from Othello to change employment. Personally, I think poverty and classism can sting as much as racism, or sexism.

This really shouldn't even be a debate. Katherina's closing monologue reveals the patriarchal feminine ideal; if that's the ideal, then NOT abiding by that ideal (doing the opposite) was precisely what made her a shrew. It's really simple.
I don't think it is. I think Kate spells out an obligation to love one's husband, and as a natural consequence of that love you will want to serve him, just as he in his turn will want to serve his wife, for love. The language may be couched in feudal terms of lords and vassals but it's just as true today. We gladly serve those whom we love and a house divided against itself cannot stand.

Clopin

07-15-2015, 08:55 PM

No Mortal you don't understand. Men are all over privileged patriarchs who can't possibly face any problems, and who honestly can't even walk down the street without being showered with unequal pay or being offered high powered jobs and political positions of power!

I... oh wait...

http://www.old-picture.com/united-states-history-1900s---1930s/pictures/mining-scenes.jpg

Underground, Cape Breton coal miners like Matthius "Tius" Tutty worked in dangerous, primitive conditions.

"I had a lot of accidents. Theres no question about it ... I had this hand smashed ... I had that skull fracture(d)" remembered Tutty. "I got to make a living and there's no other place to go. I said, I'm not a coward. If I die down there well I'll die down there."

Tutty starting working in the Glace Bay coal mines when he was 14 years old. His father had drowned and Tutty became the first in five generations to leave the sea.

Tutty drove horses that hauled boxes of coal along the underground tracks. He worked six days a week, surrounded by other child miners, some as young as nine.

Here's how one of them remembers life in the mine:

"We had been ... working 12 hours a day loading in a low seam on our hands, being cursed at from morning to night by a greedy boss and seeing daylight only on Sundays ... We faced the prospects of a dismal and unhappy existence."

Sounds like fun!

http://www.rantlifestyle.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/World-War-I.jpg

Soldiers in the trenches did not get much sleep. When they did, it was in the afternoon during daylight and at night only for an hour at a time. They were woken up at different times, either to complete one of their daily chores or to fight. During rest time, they wrote letters and sometimes played card games.

The trenches could be very muddy and smelly. There were many dead bodies buried nearby and the latrines (toilets) sometimes overflowed into the trenches. Millions of rats infested the trenches and some grew as big as cats. There was also a big problem with lice that tormented the soldiers on a daily basis.

Huh, I wonder where this fits into the male privilege checklist?

http://m.c.lnkd.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/p/7/005/06f/0df/3ed9740.jpg

You know you really don't see too many female homeless! Hey I wonder if they experience a difference in the amount of money people give them? Do you think female beggars only get 77 cents on the dollar?

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/2013/11/08/riot/lead_large.jpg

I would hate to be tortured and/or killed while serving a prison term. Luckily as a male I am privileged to be 11 times (not percent, multiples) more likely to be imprisoned!

Clopin

07-15-2015, 09:27 PM

Men can be raped too, only it's usually funny to people, or not really a big deal. Here's an ad which threatens men who drink and drive with being raped. Is rape the punishment for drinking and driving? (or for anything?). Nope! but who cares about male rape victims anyway?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HLURvkC1HuM

And here are the suicide stats. Men are three to five (or more) times more likely to commit suicide than women all over the world. I guess with so much privilege it's hard to find a reason to keep living. I mean when everything is handed to you so easily you can get bored right?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide

Suicide is also the leading cause of death for men under the age of thirty five in the UK now! Who cares? Nobody. Where's the widespread public outrage over this gender disparity? Or is the fact that men are losing their lives somehow to be considered less important than women not being interested in playing video games or chess? Or pursuing careers in STEM subjects.

mona amon

07-17-2015, 08:22 AM

I didn't say they did; I said that's what they'd say, as in "well, if she just did what I wanted and didn't piss me off I wouldn't beat her/would stop beating her." Obviously that's not usually the truth, and pretty despicable even if was the truth.

My point is that Petruchio does not continue the 'abuse' after she plays along, so he cannot be compared to a wife beater. I just re-read the play, and all he's doing is giving her a dose of her own medicine, and then some. She has a filthy temper and beats people up. His strategy to make her behave more reasonably is to echo, and perhaps exaggerate, her own shrewishness, ranting at the servants, throwing the food about and so on. In other words he out-shrews her, and if she goes hungry and sleepless for one night, too bad.

Petruchio only shows any interest once he finds out about the dowry. And if he wanted a strong-willed woman then why did he go through all that to "tame" her? I completely disagree about her being a "better person;" again, her closing monologue is entirely about being a "patriarchal better woman," there's nothing in there that's about being a better person that would apply to both sexes.

You seem to be equating 'strong willed woman' with 'shrew'. Yes, Kate is a strong willed, spirited and witty woman (could Shakespeare create anything less?) but she's also bad tempered, throws tantrums, and beats up people. When Petruchio starts acting shrewish, she quickly realizes that there's never going to be any peace in the house if people behave like that, so yes, it applies to both sexes. Her final speech, I feel, is merely a continuation of her earlier plan to agree with whatever Petruchio says, even when he declares that the sun is the moon. Once Petruchio goes back to normal, so will all these new strategies to maintain domestic peace.

Now I'm not saying all this is not sexist, but what isn't? We live in a sexist world, and as Clopin points out, not everything works out to the advantage of the male. I thought it was a lot of fun, and there's an excellent chemistry between Petrucchio and Kate.

As for the argumentum ad nauseam this thread has produced, dead horse abuse is an ugly thing. :)

:beatdeadhorse5:

Heh heh yes, and here I go doing it again, but I just re-read the play, so couldn't resist. :)

Pompey Bum

07-17-2015, 10:04 AM

Heh heh yes, and here I go doing it again, but I just re-read the play, so couldn't resist. :)

Doing it again? You're the only one who's even (really) talking about the play, Mona. Everyone else is just beating his own dead-horse-shaped political drum. :)

:beatdeadhorse5:

Eiseabhal

07-20-2015, 04:37 AM

Boom-boom as Basil Brush would ventriloquise.

MorpheusSandman

07-22-2015, 02:10 AM

Morph you are the one making a claim here so you're the one who needs a real source to verify it. I'm just explaining to you that market forces would absolutely destroy any huge pay gap between men and women (for the same work) because all businesses would prioritize hiring women to save money. All of them, not just one Morph.I posted a source and I never said there was a "huge pay gap," I said there was a gap. 5-7% is nothing to sneeze at over a long period. Very few businesses could get away with hiring only women. For one thing, it would be a clear case of gender discrimination and, for another, they'd quickly run out of women to hire!

Though I wouldn't expect someone who posts the "make privilege checklist" as a serious citation in an argument to be able to reason or think clearly so I understand that you won't be able to understand what I'm saying.I posted that because it had several references all in one place. It's one reason so many link to Wikipedia. It's not the source, the references are.

The pay gap mythNot a myth, and I gave you a statistical link that verified it.

As far as male vs female dominated positions, frankly a lot of the higher paying jobs which are dominated by men are extremely dangerous, carry with them long term health risks (labour positions) and a very low level of job satisfaction. I don't think a female elementary school teacher would be happier making a higher salary in Fort Mac as a rig driver for the oil patch, working a Godawful, dangerous job and doing Godawful shifts.You really think manual labor are amongst the higher paying jobs in this day and age? :skep:

By the way, I believe women live longer and happier lives and tend to report enjoying their jobs much more when surveyed. Sounds like a good deal to me.Still doesn't justify a paygap. Men are perfectly free to go get jobs they like better. Women can't insure they're getting paid the same as the same jobs.

Men can be raped too, only it's usually funny to people, or not really a big deal.Of course they can and of course it shouldn't be funny and it should be a big deal. However, there is hardly a culture that promotes and facilitates like there is with women.

The suicide stats are pointless unless you can point to something in our culture that's driving all men to suicide and then insist on having it changed. We don't live in a culture that pressures men into committing suicide. Personally, I don't even object to suicide morally as I believe people have the right to end their own life if they choose too. However, if suicide became epidemic like it appears to have in the UK, then I'd seriously be wanting an investigation into why it's becoming so common and see if there is something that should be culturally fixed. So, yeah, I do care, but I don't live there. Go cause the public outrage yourself (I mean this genuinely). The problem is that you don't know what in UK culture needs fixing to stop the suicides like we know what needs fixing to stop the wage gap.

No Mortal you don't understand. Men are all over privileged patriarchs who can't possibly face any problems, and who honestly can't even walk down the street without being showered with unequal pay or being offered high powered jobs and political positions of power!All this snark is doing is proving you don't understand privilege. It's like the stupid argument that if you can name a successful black person and a struggling white person that white privilege doesn't exist. Privilege doesn't mean you face no problems, what it means is that you don't face certain problems OR have certain advantages over other people. In some cases, this is natural and can't be helped (there's a privilege in being born with a higher IQ, eg); but in some cases they are cultural artifacts and CAN be helped. The latter are what we need to identify and eradicate in ALL cases.

So, now that we've cleared up that misconception you can understand why the rest of your post is utterly irrelevant.

MorpheusSandman

07-22-2015, 03:08 AM

If you think Kubrick, Fellini, Bergman, and Kurosawa aren't better than Murnau, Dreyer, and Eisenstein perhaps you either like weird stuff or have bad taste. As I recall, you like Stan Brakhage, Bela Tarr, and other crazy avante garde stuff. How can you like film while disdaining narrative, color, and sound? If I don't like the early beginnings of film, it sounds like you don't like the majority of film production, ie mass market films, blockbusters, narratives, or commercial films.To get the easy stuff out of the way first: I don't disdain narrative, color, sound, mass market, blockbuster, or commercial films. I don't know where you got that from.

For the record, Kurosawa and Bergman are my favorite filmmakers behind Hitchcock; I have Dreyer ahead of Kubrick and Fellini, but Kubrick and Fellini ahead of Murnau and Eisenstein. I think you misunderstand what I mean when I say no filmmakers were definitively better. What I mean is that the latter reached the pinnacle of film artistry, but there's more than one way to scale that pinnacle, and some filmmakers did it more than they did. If Dreyer had made 60 films and most of them were of the same or similar quality to The Passion of Joan of Arc, then I think we'd have a definitive greatest director ever, period. The problem is that Dreyer was a selective perfectionist who, like Kubrick, chose to perfect the few films he made rather than being prolific. I think pretty much everything he made after Joan of Arc is a masterpiece of varying levels, but he just didn't make enough. That's one reason why I have Hitchcock, Bergman, and Kurosawa at my top, because they were prolific AND consistently great.

The key point you seem to be missing is that film, like music, has a few fundamental elements that can be perfected. The two constants are editing and mise-en-scene. If you master these, then you master film. Period. Griffith was the first to do it; Dreyer, Murnau, and Eisenstein innovated in several different ways. Between them you basically have the foundations for every filmmaking style after them. The only thing "original" left to do was to find variations on what they did and ways to mix them. Color adds a different visual texture, but doesn't create a new fundamental. Music turns film into a hybrid medium, but still doesn't change the fundamentals. So, yes, those elements gave filmmakers more to play and innovate with, but they still had to master the basics, and mastering the new elements didn't mean doing more than the early greats did, it just meant doing something similar but different. You can dislike them all you want, but I maintain you can not genuinely love film as an art-form and dismiss or downplay Griffith, Murnau, Eisenstein, and Dreyer, because to do so is to dismiss and downplay the fundemantal elements of what makes film a unique art-form.

I'm talking about the nature of justice and how we punish people or maintain order in this country, from the felon or terrorist, which you have frequently mentioned, to the pet or child as I have frequently mentioned.Yeah, but I don't see what you think this has to do with TOTS.

Fair revenge in Shylock's case would be insulting Antonio back, charging him high interest on his loan, or not loaning to him at all. Tricking him into a bargain that endangers his life, and then insisting on his blood instead of cash repayment is villainous.The problem is that Shylock is living in a culture where nearly everyone demonizes him because of his religion. When you're an outcast and perpetually made to feel like it, your insults hardly "sting" to begin with. It would be the equivalent of the nerd calling a bully a A-hole.

There you go again with your imaginative interpretation: how pray-tell does Shylock "trick" Antonio? I wasn't aware that he put the "pound of flesh" in super small print. Anyway, I already agreed that him insisting on his blood rather than cash payment was villainous, but, again, to me this is a case of a reasonable emotion (revenge for wrongs done) pushed to the extreme (unreasonable), but in a manner that is understandable, especially in an age where we've become more sympathetic to what constant bullying does to people.

Again you want to argue that Shylock is a "stock character," but I keep telling you that if Shakespeare only wrote stock characters (instead of using stock archetypes and enriching them into 3-dimensional human beings) nobody would care to begin with.

But she's subjected to the same societal pressures as Katherine while maintaining a good attitude.Just because some women can adjust to and even thrive in a patriarchal soceity doesn't mean they all can or that any should be forced to.

Then neither did Falstaff or Malvolio.Falstaff was a liar, drunkard, braggard, and thief, who wanted to have as much fun and be as wealthy and well-thought of as possible while doing as little as possible. The notion that he didn't "deserve" the ribbing he got is nonsense. Malvolio is a moralist prude who probably deserved to get prank, but I do rather feel that the prank was overly mean given the circumstances. If anything, Falstaff's prank was underdone and Malvolio's overdone.

Katherine might've deserved something in between if she just had a bad attitude in general that had nothing to do with patriarchal oppression, but the point is that there's no doubt that Petruchio's "taming" is WAY overboard, especially when the end goal is to make her conform in a completely unjust society. This wasn't the case with either Falstaff or Malvolio. Neither were tortured. Falstaff was (rightfully, and playfully, and of his own doing) embarassed; Malvolio was, IMO, overly humiliated; Katherine was tortured. There's big differences in all three scenarios.

Clopin made a very good point about male/female equality in the job market with those videos showing how the wage gap is actually about 5-7% and not 23% when adjusted for various factors. The videos Clopin posted also made an interesting point that the 5-7% wage gap may be due to men being more willing to ask for a raise.Clopin made a good point against a strawman, i.e., a point I never made. I said there was a wage gap, I never said how much. He assumed I got my numbers from Obama. Even if the gap WAS caused by that, it still wouldn't make it OK. Why do you think women would be more reluctant to ask for raises anyway?

Men get the short stick in this society all over the place, like Clopin showed with that list on the last page. The draft! Are you kidding me? All us men gotta die so the women can stay home and do their nails. Uh uh. No. You want that wage equality and the vote you pick up a gun. Gonna' leave everything on our shoulders? You gotta be kidding me. Israel's got it right.The areas where men do get the "short stick" in society need fixing too. I never said otherwise.

Idealism needs to give way to pragmatism in the real world. Here we do what works, not what we wish worked.I have no idea what you think this has to do with racial profiling. The crime that happens and has happened in corporate America is far worse and affects far more lives than what goes on in poor black neighborhoods. Pragmatically it would be far better to "profile" and "police" that than it would be to take tax dollars and having police trolling for people driving while black.

Lot of rich women out there.Yeah, you think if you take the richest women and the richest men and then put them on a pie chart it will be nearly equal?

Or I'm highly skeptical of the source of that information, and think it would be a waste of my time to read it.This is known as disconfirmation bias.

Tell that to Howard Stern, George Carlin, or Opie and Anthony.Yeah, because, afterall, trying to censor these people absolutely devastated their careers. Howard and George who?

You said that you enjoyed the romcoms where men were abused. Then you said that it's okay to abuse men because they are a privileged class.1. I said I enjoy old romcoms, I never said I enjoyed them because men were abused.
2. Men aren't abused in old romcoms.
3. I never said it was OK to abuse men.

So you don't have a problem with violence. You have a problem with compulsion or patriarchy.Where do you get this stuff? Of course I'm not OK with violence, BUT FAMILY GUY IS NOT PROMOTING OR DEPICTING REAL VIOLENCE. It's absurdist exaggeration of typically non-violent conflicts.

You don't know what kind of options he had to leave Othello's employ. He mentions at one point that creditors are eating him to death. He has a wife to consider. He might have some real financial problems. Remember back in those days, there was no social safety net. You couldn't pay your debts you'd go to debtor's prison, or become a beggar. Also, with the patron system of the time Iago probably needed a good reference from Othello to change employment. Personally, I think poverty and classism can sting as much as racism, or sexism.Othello isn't one of my favorite Shakespeares, so I'll admit you may remember more of the details of why Iago hates Othello than I do, but I still think there are some KEY differences between the Iago/Othello relationship and the Antonio/Shylock one. Firstly, there's no indication that Othello has been knowingly malicious towards Iago. Perhaps he's mistakenly overlooked him, but there's no indication that he actively saught to hurt him by not promoting him or paying him more. You can't say this about Antonio and the whole of Christian society demonizing Shylock and other Jews. Secondly, Iago secretly undertakes the revenge, while Shylock tries to get his revenge in plain site by a contract that Antonio enters willingly. I think these are two KEY differences.

However, I absolutely agree that classism is as much a problem as racism or sexism. In fact, the latter two are often exasserbated by the former.

I don't think it is. I think Kate spells out an obligation to love one's husband, and as a natural consequence of that love you will want to serve him, just as he in his turn will want to serve his wife, for love. The language may be couched in feudal terms of lords and vassals but it's just as true today. We gladly serve those whom we love and a house divided against itself cannot stand.
There you go creatively interpreting again. :/

mortalterror

07-22-2015, 08:14 AM

The suicide stats are pointless unless you can point to something in our culture that's driving all men to suicide and then insist on having it changed. We don't live in a culture that pressures men into committing suicide. Personally, I don't even object to suicide morally as I believe people have the right to end their own life if they choose too.
It's not that men attempt suicide at several times the rate of women. The problem is that men are several times as successful at it do to the nature of how they go about it. Men tend to use more violent methods like guns, knives, or jumping from high places. Women try to overdose on pills or drown themselves.

However, if suicide became epidemic like it appears to have in the UK, then I'd seriously be wanting an investigation into why it's becoming so common and see if there is something that should be culturally fixed. So, yeah, I do care, but I don't live there. Go cause the public outrage yourself (I mean this genuinely). The problem is that you don't know what in UK culture needs fixing to stop the suicides like we know what needs fixing to stop the wage gap.
There is a correlation between suicide and secularism. Religious societies tend to repress suicidal urges more.

To get the easy stuff out of the way first: I don't disdain narrative, color, sound, mass market, blockbuster, or commercial films. I don't know where you got that from.
Because you said in this thread that sound and color aren't important parts of film, and you've mentioned in a past discussion that you don't think things like plot or subject matter to a story. There are some major vital elements of various mediums that you don't think are relevant, but which to most people are as important as wheels on a car.

For the record, Kurosawa and Bergman are my favorite filmmakers behind Hitchcock; I have Dreyer ahead of Kubrick and Fellini, but Kubrick and Fellini ahead of Murnau and Eisenstein. I think you misunderstand what I mean when I say no filmmakers were definitively better. What I mean is that the latter reached the pinnacle of film artistry, but there's more than one way to scale that pinnacle, and some filmmakers did it more than they did. If Dreyer had made 60 films and most of them were of the same or similar quality to The Passion of Joan of Arc, then I think we'd have a definitive greatest director ever, period. The problem is that Dreyer was a selective perfectionist who, like Kubrick, chose to perfect the few films he made rather than being prolific. I think pretty much everything he made after Joan of Arc is a masterpiece of varying levels, but he just didn't make enough. That's one reason why I have Hitchcock, Bergman, and Kurosawa at my top, because they were prolific AND consistently great.
There's always room for improvement. Perfection doesn't exist in human labor. The Passion of Joan of Arc may be one of the best films of all time but there are other better films and I think Kubrick, Fellini, Bergman, Kurosawa, Tarkovsky, Scorsese, and Lang made most of them.

The key point you seem to be missing is that film, like music, has a few fundamental elements that can be perfected. The two constants are editing and mise-en-scene. If you master these, then you master film. Period.
No. Sound and color are essential parts of film too.

Griffith was the first to do it; Dreyer, Murnau, and Eisenstein innovated in several different ways. Between them you basically have the foundations for every filmmaking style after them. The only thing "original" left to do was to find variations on what they did and ways to mix them.
You think that Jean-Luc Godard would agree with that? I don't care for his work but he found dozens of ways to innovate and experiment with film. And he wasn't the only one.

Color adds a different visual texture, but doesn't create a new fundamental.
Tell that to a painter. The combination of colors, their balance, harmony, and interaction are sometimes the whole reason for a film.

Music turns film into a hybrid medium, but still doesn't change the fundamentals.
Film, like opera or ballet is a hybrid medium.

So, yes, those elements gave filmmakers more to play and innovate with, but they still had to master the basics, and mastering the new elements didn't mean doing more than the early greats did, it just meant doing something similar but different. You can dislike them all you want, but I maintain you can not genuinely love film as an art-form and dismiss or downplay Griffith, Murnau, Eisenstein, and Dreyer, because to do so is to dismiss and downplay the fundemantal elements of what makes film a unique art-form.
Even the so called "silent" films weren't silent. They have scores, and they were often edited to specific scores. I'm thinking of course of how modern versions of The Passion of Joan of Arc are accompanied by the track Visions of Light, written for the restored film. Or Giorgio Moroder's modern rock score to Metropolis, and how Prokofiev collaborated with Eisenstein on Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible. Griffith's Birth of a Nation has an original score by Joseph Carl Briel. Do you know where Kurosawa learned to love film? His brother was a pianist for a movie theater. They had score sheets written for the movies and would even do sound effects when called for. Even the early films of the Lumiere brothers were accompanied by musicians.

You are forgetting two other important aspects of film Morpheus: the writing and the acting. Griffith, Murnau, and Eisenstein were sometimes lousy storytellers. They might compose a good shot or edit two shots together splendidly but they'd be filming a lousy actor, playing a lousy character, in a lousy story. Some of the stuff I've seen by them is just melodramatic and silly.

Yeah, but I don't see what you think this has to do with TOTS.
Then I don't see what Abu Grahib has to do with it either.

Falstaff was a liar, drunkard, braggard, and thief, who wanted to have as much fun and be as wealthy and well-thought of as possible while doing as little as possible. The notion that he didn't "deserve" the ribbing he got is nonsense. Malvolio is a moralist prude who probably deserved to get prank, but I do rather feel that the prank was overly mean given the circumstances. If anything, Falstaff's prank was underdone and Malvolio's overdone.

Katherine might've deserved something in between if she just had a bad attitude in general that had nothing to do with patriarchal oppression, but the point is that there's no doubt that Petruchio's "taming" is WAY overboard, especially when the end goal is to make her conform in a completely unjust society. This wasn't the case with either Falstaff or Malvolio. Neither were tortured. Falstaff was (rightfully, and playfully, and of his own doing) embarassed; Malvolio was, IMO, overly humiliated; Katherine was tortured. There's big differences in all three scenarios.
Katherine was definitely not tortured. She was treated better than either man. And going overboard is called comedy.

Clopin made a good point against a strawman, i.e., a point I never made. I said there was a wage gap, I never said how much. He assumed I got my numbers from Obama. Even if the gap WAS caused by that, it still wouldn't make it OK. Why do you think women would be more reluctant to ask for raises anyway?
Testosterone makes men more aggressive and assertive, thus more likely to ask for a raise than women.

The areas where men do get the "short stick" in society need fixing too. I never said otherwise.
You definitely said otherwise when you implied that you were happy with the double standard and talked a lot of nonsense about privilege and how men are just getting what they deserve when people harm them but women are all helpless victims who need saving.

Yeah, you think if you take the richest women and the richest men and then put them on a pie chart it will be nearly equal?
I don't know. There are a lot of super rich billionaire women.

This is known as disconfirmation bias.
Otherwise known as common sense.

Yeah, because, afterall, trying to censor these people absolutely devastated their careers. Howard and George who?
Howard Stern went from having an audience of around 25 million on terrestrial radio to having an audience of maybe one million on satellite radio. It drastically harmed his brand and how relevant he was to society. To a lesser extent this applies to Opie and Anthony for chasing them to satellite radio, getting them fired several times, and do to contractual obligations they weren't even allowed to work for a year. As of about a year ago, Anthony Cumia was fired from satellite radio and broadcasts a podcast from his house. If you don't think that hurts his revenue, the guests he can get, or how many people his program reaches, you're crazy. George Carlin was arrested for doing his act and then dragged through the courts like Lenny Bruce.

1. I said I enjoy old romcoms, I never said I enjoyed them because men were abused.
2. Men aren't abused in old romcoms.
3. I never said it was OK to abuse men.
I disagree. I believe you did, except you don't think the men are being abused because they come from a privileged class that it's okay to abuse with impunity.

Where do you get this stuff? Of course I'm not OK with violence, BUT FAMILY GUY IS NOT PROMOTING OR DEPICTING REAL VIOLENCE. It's absurdist exaggeration of typically non-violent conflicts.
Then so is Taming of the Shrew.

Othello isn't one of my favorite Shakespeares, so I'll admit you may remember more of the details of why Iago hates Othello than I do, but I still think there are some KEY differences between the Iago/Othello relationship and the Antonio/Shylock one. Firstly, there's no indication that Othello has been knowingly malicious towards Iago. Perhaps he's mistakenly overlooked him, but there's no indication that he actively saught to hurt him by not promoting him or paying him more. You can't say this about Antonio and the whole of Christian society demonizing Shylock and other Jews. Secondly, Iago secretly undertakes the revenge, while Shylock tries to get his revenge in plain site by a contract that Antonio enters willingly. I think these are two KEY differences.
Thoughtlessness is probably better than outright malice, but the injustice is still greater. And Shylock does trick Antonio by saying that he'll lend him the money without interest in a spirit of friendship, and that the pound of flesh clause is just for sport.

However, I absolutely agree that classism is as much a problem as racism or sexism. In fact, the latter two are often exasserbated by the former.
There we'll agree.

There you go creatively interpreting again. :/
I don't think it's a creative interpretation at all. I think it's as plain as the nose on your face.

MorpheusSandman

07-22-2015, 02:05 PM

It's not that men attempt suicide at several times the rate of women. The problem is that men are several times as successful at it do to the nature of how they go about it. Men tend to use more violent methods like guns, knives, or jumping from high places. Women try to overdose on pills or drown themselves.Ok... so what do you suggest we change in society to remedy this?

There is a correlation between suicide and secularism. Religious societies tend to repress suicidal urges more.Again: OK... so what do you suggest we change in society? Start forcing people to be religious?

Because you said in this thread that sound and color aren't important parts of film, and you've mentioned in a past discussion that you don't think things like plot or subject matter to a story. There are some major vital elements of various mediums that you don't think are relevant, but which to most people are as important as wheels on a car.Sound and color are important parts of films that have sound and color. They do not innately make film better, just as having a drama (as in opera) does not make music better. Plot and subject matter matter to a STORY, they do not matter to the art of filmmaking. You can make great films with poor "stories" just as Shakespeare made great plays from what were traditionally stock characters and plots. It's all in how well it's done.

There's always room for improvement. Perfection doesn't exist in human labor. This assumes a kind of Platonic ideal towards which art aspires to, but this is a fallacious notion. Color is not innately better than B&W, sound is not innately better than silence. Art is a long history of things changing rather than getting better and better. In many respects, we haven't bettered Homer in literature. You're free to PREFER color and sound. To me, they're just additional tools that can be used well or poorly. Frankly, I think most directors use color poorly and would've been better served in black & white. There are exceptions: Kurosawa, Bergman, and Fellini amongst them, but few directors have their painterly eyes.

No. Sound and color are essential parts of film too.No, they're essential to color films and sound films. Removing sound and color does not make a film not a film, ergo they are not essential parts of film. What makes a film not a film is removing editing and mise-en-scene.

You think that Jean-Luc Godard would agree with that?Probably. Godard knew the history of film as much as anyone. He KNEW he was experimenting with what had already been done. Most of Godard's innovations (not all, but most) were about subverting the expectations that had been created by classic filmmaking standards. He was not innovating at a fundamental level but rather innovating in how those fundamental elements were mixed.

Film, like opera or ballet is a hybrid medium.It's a hybrid medium once you add sound, not before.

Even the so called "silent" films weren't silent. They have scores, and they were often edited to specific scores. I'm thinking of course of how modern versions of The Passion of Joan of Arc are accompanied by the track Visions of Light, written for the restored film.Most of them did not have scores but were accompanied by theater orchestras. Dreyer explicitly stated his preference for POJOA being seen as a silent. I've seen it both ways. Frankly, Voices of Light is an anomaly in that it's one of the very few scores written (long) after a masterpiece that doesn't detract from it and, in many respects, does make it (IMO) better. However, I still think Dreyer's unadulterated film is transcendentally powerful and beautiful without the score. The score makes it a different experience, and a valuable one, but not an essential one. POJOA would still be in my top 5 either way.

Prokofiev collaborated with Eisenstein on Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible.Those aren't silents.

You are forgetting two other important aspects of film Morpheus: the writing and the acting.These are important aspects of theater that was carried over into film. Early on, nobody had a clue how to use the medium of film to actually narrate stories. The vast majority of pre-Griffith film is like theater in front of a static camera with editing done only when necessary. Again, the ART OF FILM is in how to use the medium (mise-en-scene and editing) in order to narrate a story (or non-stories). So the question becomes do you love stories or do you love film? If you place stories above film then you might indeed deride Griffith and Eisenstein and Murnau for having poor stories, but if you love film then you love the ways in which they used the medium to tell these poor stories.

Then I don't see what Abu Grahib has to do with it either.I mentioned Abu Ghraib in passing in a passage where I was clearly being sarcastic and exaggerated, I wasn't drawing a 1:1 analogy: "Awww, the poor misogynistic torturer is tired for his hard day of torturing. Surely what he's suffering is on equal grounds with her. Why, I bet the guards at Abu Ghraib were drop-dead tired after a whole day of waterboarding!"

Katherine was definitely not tortured. She was treated better than either man.You're delusional. Falstaff causes his own downfall when he runs away from the robbery and then lies about it. Malvolio is humiliated into believing Olivia loves him and his humiliated when wrong; KATHERINE IS TORTURED INTO CHANGING HER ATTITUDE ABOUT HOW WOMEN SHOULD BE SUBSERVIENT TO MEN. You'd REALLY prefer that someone starve and deprive you of sleep until you changed your whole way of being instead of making a fool of yourself?

Testosterone makes men more aggressive and assertive, thus more likely to ask for a raise than women.And men are also encouraged by society to BE aggressive and assertive, while women get called *****es and shrews.

You definitely said otherwise when you implied that you were happy with the double standard and talked a lot of nonsense about privilege and how men are just getting what they deserve when people harm them but women are all helpless victims who need saving.I never said any of this, so you're arguing against a strawman as well. Please go back in this thread where I ever said a double standard is OK and that "men are just getting what they deserve" when they're harmed. When you can't find it, I expect an apology.

Otherwise known as common sense.Common sense is riddled with cognitive biases and logical fallacies.

Howard Stern went from having an audience of around 25 million on terrestrial radio to having an audience of maybe one million on satellite radio. It drastically harmed his brand and how relevant he was to society. To a lesser extent this applies to Opie and Anthony for chasing them to satellite radio, getting them fired several times, and do to contractual obligations they weren't even allowed to work for a year. As of about a year ago, Anthony Cumia was fired from satellite radio and broadcasts a podcast from his house. If you don't think that hurts his revenue, the guests he can get, or how many people his program reaches, you're crazy. George Carlin was arrested for doing his act and then dragged through the courts like Lenny Bruce.Like I've said before, I don't support censorship in any form, so I don't even really know what your point is of continuing to mention how these people were hurt by censorship.

I disagree. I believe you did, except you don't think the men are being abused because they come from a privileged class that it's okay to abuse with impunity.Then prove I did. It's easy enough to do. Just go through my past responses to you and quote where I said anything remotely resembling this. Also, it might be helpful to show how any of the men are "abused" in old romcoms. How is Grant abused in His Girl Friday or Bringing Up Baby?

Then so is Taming of the Shrew.Except it's not. What "typical non-violent conflict" is Shrew exaggerating? Are you suggesting that the closing speech is NOT meant to be taken as the ideal to which the torture aimed at? Because Family Guy certainly never closes with any idealistic speeches that justifies the violence in real life to achieve that ideal.

Thoughtlessness is probably better than outright malice, but the injustice is still greater.I couldn't disagree more with the later. There's not even evidence that Iago ever mentioned his troubles to Othello and Othello refused to help him.

And Shylock does trick Antonio by saying that he'll lend him the money without interest in a spirit of friendship, and that the pound of flesh clause is just for sport.Antonio still makes the agreement of his own free will, and if he believed Shylock then he was a moron seeing as he had only known Shylock as an enemy. It's still not the same situation as Othello had no reason (in his mind) to suspect Iago of such treachery.

I don't think it's a creative interpretation at all. I think it's as plain as the nose on your face.Of course you think this, but you're a misogynist with a bias to see blatant misogyny as the ideal.

Clopin

07-22-2015, 07:01 PM

Not a myth, and I gave you a statistical link that verified it.

Well fair enough. When most people talk about the pay gap they are referring to the oft cited 23% which is definitely a myth.

You really think manual labor are amongst the higher paying jobs in this day and age? :skep:

Uh... yes? I mean you won't be raking in the same as a successful lawyer or CEO, but if you're working in the right place you can make six figures as a welder, pipe fitter or even rig driver. Electricians, plumbers, carpenters, etc, all make decent salaries as well. I mainly brought up manual labour/trades because these jobs are overwhelmingly occupied by men, they are dangerous and unpleasant, they carry reasonable salaries, and I think it's very illuminating to see how men and women voluntarily work in different fields for different salaries, perquisites, job satisfaction, etc, when it comes to discussing pay gaps and gender discrimination.

Still doesn't justify a paygap. Men are perfectly free to go get jobs they like better. Women can't insure they're getting paid the same as the same jobs.

Wait what? Aren't women perfectly free to get jobs in traditionally male dominated fields? Women can ensure they are paid the same by negotiating for raises and positions at the same rate as men do. I mean if societal pressure is the only thing keeping women from pursuing careers in labour or STEM subjects then doesn't this go both ways? Mightn't men feel societal pressure in many different areas of their lives which may prevent them from seeking careers in, say, childcare, or other female centric careers? Is it really reasonable to say "oh, women are underrepresented in X and Y, we need to do something about it, but all those areas where men struggle, well, they're perfectly free to just behave differently and solve their own problems". Do you see the contradiction? I have no issue with telling someone they can solve their own problems, but I don't appreciate the double standard.

Of course they can and of course it shouldn't be funny and it should be a big deal. However, there is hardly a culture that promotes and facilitates like there is with women.

Oh dear, now we're on to "rape culture". Polly want a cracker? Bleat bleat, buzzword, bleat. Please, oh please, let me know how you can honestly believe that Western society "promotes and facilitates" rape. I would love to hear how you can honestly defend that ridiculous absurdity.

The suicide stats are pointless unless you can point to something in our culture that's driving all men to suicide and then insist on having it changed. We don't live in a culture that pressures men into committing suicide. Personally, I don't even object to suicide morally as I believe people have the right to end their own life if they choose too. However, if suicide became epidemic like it appears to have in the UK, then I'd seriously be wanting an investigation into why it's becoming so common and see if there is something that should be culturally fixed. So, yeah, I do care, but I don't live there. Go cause the public outrage yourself (I mean this genuinely). The problem is that you don't know what in UK culture needs fixing to stop the suicides like we know what needs fixing to stop the wage gap.

But when people like you argue you argue from result. Women are underrepresented in certain fields? Well there must be discrimination against them. How do we know that there is discrimination against them? Why because they are underrepresented of course! And around and around we go. Now i would be fine (well not fine, but a little less offended) with this horrific logic if you applied it evenly, you know to everything, but you don't. You can look at a statistic like how men are vastly overrepresented in suicides and other unpleasantries and say "well, how can we possibly know what is causing that!" Pick one. Either we accept that men and women are naturally very different and come to terms with everything this entails or we look at every imbalance of result between the genders as the fault of "society" and "social construction" and we try to deal with it. But if we choose the latter we do not discriminate in favour of women and we do not downplay the real problems men face. Deal?

All this snark is doing is proving you don't understand privilege. It's like the stupid argument that if you can name a successful black person and a struggling white person that white privilege doesn't exist. Privilege doesn't mean you face no problems, what it means is that you don't face certain problems OR have certain advantages over other people. In some cases, this is natural and can't be helped (there's a privilege in being born with a higher IQ, eg); but in some cases they are cultural artifacts and CAN be helped. The latter are what we need to identify and eradicate in ALL cases.

That's right, white privilege does not exist. None of these "privileges" exist. What privileges people are things like money and opportunities. A black person could be vastly more privileged than me, and I could be vastly more privileged than another white person. It would be absurd to say that the average Romanian is exceptionally privileged or that the Irish have historically been a privileged group. There is no such thing as "privilege", and you discredit yourself every time you fling around these ridiculous, meaningless phrases. Rape culture? My God! Look, just stick to watching movies okay? You are not intelligent, or capable of critical thinking.

mortalterror

07-22-2015, 07:25 PM

Ok... so what do you suggest we change in society to remedy this?
Get rid of guns.

Again: OK... so what do you suggest we change in society? Start forcing people to be religious?
Not force, but encourage and promote publicly from a cultural, public health, and social capital point of view.

Sound and color are important parts of films that have sound and color.
Which all films have even silent films. Silence and musical scores are sound. Black and white are colors.

They do not innately make film better, just as having a drama (as in opera) does not make music better.
I think they do. If you are trying to excite and stimulate an audience that is one more way to do it. I think eventually when we get 3D down, and add smell and touch, things are going to be even better.

Plot and subject matter matter to a STORY, they do not matter to the art of filmmaking.
Almost every film ever made is a narrative. Hard to say the story doesn't matter when almost every single film in history has a story. Find me a great film without a story. There aren't any.

You can make great films with poor "stories" just as Shakespeare made great plays from what were traditionally stock characters and plots. It's all in how well it's done.
I don't think that you can. Or if you can, the film is flawed and not as good as it could be, or as good as other examples of the medium which don't have those flaws. Shakespeare retold stories that were already popular and well constructed. He relied on stock characters because Commedia dell'arte had streamlined the use of them into a brilliantly effective recipe. The characters aren't bad characters just because they are stock characters. They are stock characters because they are popular and work consistently.

This assumes a kind of Platonic ideal towards which art aspires to, but this is a fallacious notion.
You said that Griffith and Eisenstein's films were perfection. I told you nothing is perfect.

Color is not innately better than B&W, sound is not innately better than silence.
Be aware that you hold a minority view in this respect. In painting there are two color or even single color paintings, but few are as great or well liked as others with a wider pallete. Michelangelo, Raphael, Carravagio, Rubens, Rembrant, and Van Gogh used all the colors at their disposal.

Art is a long history of things changing rather than getting better and better.
Sometimes they do get better though. Sometimes they go from crummy eras to golden eras and golden eras to crummy eras. Most people wouldn't say that Mannerism is better than the High Renaissance. And most people would prefer the work of the High Renaissance over the work of the early middle ages.

In many respects, we haven't bettered Homer in literature.
That is true.

You're free to PREFER color and sound. To me, they're just additional tools that can be used well or poorly. Frankly, I think most directors use color poorly and would've been better served in black & white.
And I think that a lot of early directors used black and white poorly. They are colors just the same as red, green, or blue and they have a gray scale to work with too. Eisenstein and Griffith's films have definitely been bettered in the use of color. Pretty much every film where Vittorio Storaro, Sven Nykvist, were cinematographers were better for light and color.

There are exceptions: Kurosawa, Bergman, and Fellini amongst them, but few directors have their painterly eyes.
Kurosawa was a painter. Fellini drew caricatures and cartoons. Bergman however was not responsible for the visual style of his movies. That was Nykvist. Bergman was a writer of plays and his early films have no visual style worth noting. But James Cameron was trained as a painter, and so was Ridley Scott. Kubrick was a photographer, etc. The Cohen Brothers owe their visual style to Roger Deakins. I also have to wonder how much Wong Kar Wai owes Christopher Doyle since he uses him for every film.

No, they're essential to color films and sound films. Removing sound and color does not make a film not a film, ergo they are not essential parts of film. What makes a film not a film is removing editing and mise-en-scene.
If you remove color and sound you have black and white photography. Remove narrative and it's abstract photography. Without color is it even photography? Or is it concept art? It ain't film. I think your argument is reductio ad absurdum. It's like John Cage saying you don't need sound to make music.

Probably. Godard knew the history of film as much as anyone. He KNEW he was experimenting with what had already been done. Most of Godard's innovations (not all, but most) were about subverting the expectations that had been created by classic filmmaking standards. He was not innovating at a fundamental level but rather innovating in how those fundamental elements were mixed.
I don't think the early guys thought of everything. I don't think they could have. Besides with their technological limitations there were plenty of things they simply couldn't do.

It's a hybrid medium once you add sound, not before.
It's a hybrid medium because it combines photography, writing, acting, painting, and music. Sometimes it includes fashion, and architecture.

Most of them did not have scores but were accompanied by theater orchestras. Dreyer explicitly stated his preference for POJOA being seen as a silent. I've seen it both ways. Frankly, Voices of Light is an anomaly in that it's one of the very few scores written (long) after a masterpiece that doesn't detract from it and, in many respects, does make it (IMO) better. However, I still think Dreyer's unadulterated film is transcendentally powerful and beautiful without the score. The score makes it a different experience, and a valuable one, but not an essential one. POJOA would still be in my top 5 either way.
I don't think I'd enjoy silent films as much without the scores.

Those aren't silents.
There's no such thing as a silent film or a film without color. Now that I think of it, I seem to recall Lang and Murnau using colored tints in their films. And some silent film guys would hand paint certain scenes to inject color into them.

These are important aspects of theater that was carried over into film. Early on, nobody had a clue how to use the medium of film to actually narrate stories. The vast majority of pre-Griffith film is like theater in front of a static camera with editing done only when necessary.
You don't think that film acting has come a long way since then? Don't you think that a great performance by Peter O'Toole, Marlon Brando, Meryl Streep, Al Pacino, or Robert De Niro can improve a film?

Again, the ART OF FILM is in how to use the medium (mise-en-scene and editing) in order to narrate a story (or non-stories). So the question becomes do you love stories or do you love film? If you place stories above film then you might indeed deride Griffith and Eisenstein and Murnau for having poor stories, but if you love film then you love the ways in which they used the medium to tell these poor stories.
I love film and I love stories. I don't know how I feel about sequential photography or flip books which is what you are describing.

You are not intelligent, or capable of critical thinking.
For what it's worth, I think he's intelligent. He's just really liberal which comes with as many crazy biases as being really conservative does.

Clopin

07-22-2015, 08:00 PM

Ecurb

07-22-2015, 08:14 PM

Privilege : a right or immunity granted as a peculiar benefit, advantage, or favor : prerogative; especially : such a right or immunity attached specifically to a position or an office

Clopin: That's right, white privilege does not exist.

Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. However, in the American South of 60 years ago it existed, based on this definition (white people had the legal "right" to sit in the front of the bus, for example). Based on this definition, I consider myself "privileged" to be born an American (instead of, say, a Ruandan) and you to be "privileged" to be a Canadian. We enjoy "rights and immunities" and "benefits and advantages" that others do not, based on our "positions" as citizens.

Clopin: But when people like you argue you argue from result.

Clopin:
You are not intelligent, or capable of critical thinking.

Aren't you "argu(ing) from result"?

Clopin

07-22-2015, 08:27 PM

'Canadian' and 'American' are nationalities and not colours Ecurb. I am immensely privileged to have been born an English speaking citizen of a first world country. However, there are citizens of Canada who represent every ethnic background you can think of, and who enjoy the same rights and freedoms as i do regardless of their skin colour. Remember when I said:

What privileges people are things like money and opportunities.

Both of these things are afforded you in spades simply by being born in the first world. But this comes back to class and wealth before it comes back to race.

And Morpheus pointed out that people are also privileged or not so privileged by their natural abilities. Someone who is a spectacular genius is, all else being equal, richer in opportunity than someone who is of sub average or very low intelligence.

Ecurb: Aren't you "argu(ing) from result"?

No, from observation. The basic logic behind a sequence like:

-If women are underrepresented in X it is because they face overwhelming discrimination
-Women are underrepresented in X
-Therefore women face overwhelming discrimination...

Is just wrong.

Clopin

07-22-2015, 08:33 PM

And if everything is determined by privilege and racism why is it that in countries like America and Canada ('white' countries) citizens of East Asian descent are vastly underrepresented in crime figures and vastly overrepresented in academics? Are we really supposed to assume that the police, judges and schools are granting Asians special favors because the state is racist against Whites and other ethnicities in their favour? That just doesn't make any sense.

mortalterror

07-22-2015, 09:04 PM

Falling for a bunch of idiotic biases doesn't do his critical thinking faculties much credit. He seems knowledgeable about a few things, but not really able to think. Which is quite common. I mean his argument is diarrheal spew parroted from social justice blogs and "male privilege" checklists. It's not really possible that an intelligent person could swallow something like "rape culture" hook, line and sinker.
I know a lot of smart people who think some pretty wacky things. There's no such thing as 360 degree intelligence. We are all strong on some fronts and weak on others.

Also I loved his dig at you earlier about how "if you had posted what you're saying on a different message board all of his liberal friends would tear you to shreds". Of course they would alsolutely make you out to be some sort of monster for questioning their unquestionable dogmas about "privileges", "rape culture", wage gaps", et al. It's interesting that he considers this sort of censorious, dialogue destroying tactic to be a positive thing, or an acceptable given, however.
Yeah, he's right too. Sometimes I move in very liberal circles and I catch a lot of flack for things which I don't in moderate or conservative social groups. There are some people who live in those bubbles where everyone thinks like they do and it reinforces their ideas about how things are or should be, and since nobody questions them in their group they just assume that everyone holds the same beliefs.

Ecurb

07-22-2015, 10:12 PM

No, from observation. The basic logic behind a sequence like:

-If women are underrepresented in X it is because they face overwhelming discrimination
-Women are underrepresented in X
-Therefore women face overwhelming discrimination...

Is just wrong.

Yes. That would constitute "assuming the antecedent" (if that's the right name for the fallacious logic that suggests that if the conclusion is correct, the axioms must be correct). I'm not sure that's what Morpheus did, though (although I haven't read the thread very thoroughly). It's perfectly reasonable to suggest possible reasons why women get paid less than men, one of which is discrimination (there are doubtless multiple factors).

Discrimination itself can be a secondary factor: discrimination against a group might change the culture of that group. IN the U.S. (for example) it seems reasonable that African American subcultures would have less respect for America's laws than many white subcultures (because the subcultures developed in a time when legal discrimination existed). For women, specific discrimination limiting their participation in certain professions in the past may no longer exist, but culturally constituted norms about women's role in child care, about whether drive and ambition are attractive qualities in men or in women, or about what professions are consistent with femininity might have developed as a result of discrimination.

mortalterror

07-22-2015, 10:33 PM

I figured I'd reply to your comment in two separate posts since the first was getting long and dealt mostly with film. I hope that's okay with you.

I mentioned Abu Ghraib in passing in a passage where I was clearly being sarcastic and exaggerated, I wasn't drawing a 1:1 analogy: "Awww, the poor misogynistic torturer is tired for his hard day of torturing. Surely what he's suffering is on equal grounds with her. Why, I bet the guards at Abu Ghraib were drop-dead tired after a whole day of waterboarding!"
Alright, you were just exaggerating. Understood.

You're delusional. Falstaff causes his own downfall when he runs away from the robbery and then lies about it. Malvolio is humiliated into believing Olivia loves him and his humiliated when wrong; KATHERINE IS TORTURED INTO CHANGING HER ATTITUDE ABOUT HOW WOMEN SHOULD BE SUBSERVIENT TO MEN. You'd REALLY prefer that someone starve and deprive you of sleep until you changed your whole way of being instead of making a fool of yourself?
No, I'm talking about when Falstaff was hiding in the tub of laundry and everyone beats him. Or when the sprites and fairies pinch and smack him.

Katherine isn't tortured. She just skips a meal, is kept up late, and has a dress torn. Honestly, I've had much worse days. And in the past, when people made me uncomfortable, I usually complied a lot quicker than Kate, instead of holding out and being stubborn or pig headed. Although, sometimes I don't change and just continue to suffer, and after a while you blame yourself for your troubles more than other people. Thinking "Man, I could have changed this and this a long time ago, and things would have been so much easier." It's frustrating, when you look back on all the time you've wasted being angry, or obstinate, lacking social graces, when you think of all the things you didn't do or people you hurt because you didn't know better. I can sympathize with Kate. I struggle with my own shrewish nature all the time. It's an uphill battle. I have to remind myself all the time to be nicer to people, but I think I'm getting better.

And men are also encouraged by society to BE aggressive and assertive, while women get called *****es and shrews.
Sometimes. Although, there's a lot of backlash lately, trying to make men act like women or women act like men. I think that tends to go against biology, but there are advantages and disadvantages to being either sex. Also, there's a fine line between being assertive and aggressive and being a ***** or an *******. Some people can't see the line. Occasionally, I have that trouble. I'll think I'm being frank and honest when I'm really being rude and tactless.

I never said any of this, so you're arguing against a strawman as well. Please go back in this thread where I ever said a double standard is OK and that "men are just getting what they deserve" when they're harmed. When you can't find it, I expect an apology.
Alright, you didn't say that men are just getting what they deserve when they are beaten in romantic comedies. What you said was more like it's more socially acceptable, or it's less of an injustice to beat and humiliate men than when women go without food or sleep for a day.

Common sense is riddled with cognitive biases and logical fallacies.
Even logic breaks down at some point when applied to the real world.

Like I've said before, I don't support censorship in any form, so I don't even really know what your point is of continuing to mention how these people were hurt by censorship.
You said that there isn't any censorship anymore and I said that those men would disagree with you.

Then prove I did. It's easy enough to do. Just go through my past responses to you and quote where I said anything remotely resembling this. Also, it might be helpful to show how any of the men are "abused" in old romcoms. How is Grant abused in His Girl Friday or Bringing Up Baby?
Page six post 96 "this is where privilege becomes an important factor. When you have one group that has historically been in the privileged position, making light of them does not have the same affect that making light of those who are in a much weaker position does. It's like suggesting that both slaves and slaveowners should be equally subject to ridicule. Well, no, they shouldn't. Your "double standard" presumes a level playing field in real life, when the truth is that there is no level playing field, and the playing field back then was far more unlevel then than it is now. Besides, as I suggested above, in those RomComs the women are not TORTURING the men by any stretch of the imagination. "

How are men abused or humiliated in screwball comedies? How about this threatening line of dialogue in His Girl Friday "I'm going to walk right up to you and hammer on that monkey skull of yours until it rings like a Chinese gong." Hildy also kicks Walter under the table. Then there is the character Bruce who is a classic milquetoast, the opposite of the female shrew, who's constantly emasculated and subjected to put downs.

Except it's not. What "typical non-violent conflict" is Shrew exaggerating? Are you suggesting that the closing speech is NOT meant to be taken as the ideal to which the torture aimed at? Because Family Guy certainly never closes with any idealistic speeches that justifies the violence in real life to achieve that ideal.
It's exaggerating the domestic squabbles every marriage has for comedic effect. Plus, Family guy justifies violence and other stuff all the time. Remember the time they panned over to Lee Majors who says "What, women are things?" or the time they showed Ralph knocking out Alice from the Honeymooners, making good on his old "One of these days Alice, bang, pow, straight to the moon!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSKDNKI0--s
I thought this next one was from Family Guy too, but I misremembered it and it's actually from the Simpsons. Ricky Ricardo beating Lucy from I Love Lucy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x46GfkTN8vE
Homer: Ha ha ha. He hit her again!

Found another from Family Guy, a Horton Hears a Who parody:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20knMq7_JZY

I couldn't disagree more with the later. There's not even evidence that Iago ever mentioned his troubles to Othello and Othello refused to help him.
That's because he's too afraid to ask Othello for help. He's been victimized so long, held under his abusers thumb, that he doesn't even dare to show displeasure or object. Classic authoritarianism.

Antonio still makes the agreement of his own free will, and if he believed Shylock then he was a moron seeing as he had only known Shylock as an enemy. It's still not the same situation as Othello had no reason (in his mind) to suspect Iago of such treachery.
So you think Antonio deserves what happens to him because he's an idiot and Othello doesn't deserve what happens to him because he's oblivious?

Of course you think this, but you're a misogynist with a bias to see blatant misogyny as the ideal.
Ie, a man.

MorpheusSandman

07-23-2015, 02:15 AM

Uh... yes?Uh... no. 6-figures is piddly-squat when you look at how wealth is ditributed in the US (at least in the US; I don't know about the rest of the West).

I mainly brought up manual labour/trades because these jobs are overwhelmingly occupied by men, they are dangerous and unpleasant, they carry reasonable salaries, and I think it's very illuminating to see how men and women voluntarily work in different fields for different salaries, perquisites, job satisfaction, etc, when it comes to discussing pay gaps and gender discrimination.And you seriously think that cultural biases play no role in what jobs men and women consider appropriate for their sexes?

Aren't women perfectly free to get jobs in traditionally male dominated fields?In the strictest sense, yes, they're free, but neither encouraged before to pursue them or encouraged while pursuing it to continue. A great many women have written about terrible, misogynistic treatment after breaking into the "mens' club" atmosphere of any number of professions. Even in my own profession of poker I've seen it (even though I don't play live that much).

I mean if societal pressure is the only thing keeping women from pursuing careers in labour or STEM subjects then doesn't this go both ways? Mightn't men feel societal pressure in many different areas of their lives which may prevent them from seeking careers in, say, childcare, or other female centric careers? Is it really reasonable to say "oh, women are underrepresented in X and Y, we need to do something about it, but all those areas where men struggle, well, they're perfectly free to just behave differently and solve their own problems". Do you see the contradiction? I have no issue with telling someone they can solve their own problems, but I don't appreciate the double standard.

To answer you first and second questions: ABSOLUTELY! Again, you and Mortal keep assuming this "double standard" where none exists. I've already admitted that there are, indeed, social pressures that are biased against men on many fronts as well, and they need remedied as well. Bringing up the fact of male privilege does not mean that there aren't areas where men don't struggle more and don't need society to change as well. One reason we don't see these addressed is that far too many men (like yourself) are out there trying to "debunk" the problems that women face (rather than remedying them) instead of focusing on the problems men face (and trying to remedy them as well).

Oh dear, now we're on to "rape culture". Polly want a cracker? Bleat bleat, buzzword, bleat. Please, oh please, let me know how you can honestly believe that Western society "promotes and facilitates" rape. I would love to hear how you can honestly defend that ridiculous absurdity.Oh dear, now we're back to you being all reactionary at hearing another term you don't like.

Rape culture is fairly easy to prove. Just look at the statistics for one thing: it's one of the most under-reported, under-prosecuted, under-convicted crimes. Whenever it is reported, victims are held up to more scrutiny than the perpetrators and are frequently accused of making it up (or changing their mind) for "revenge" (never mind that the statistics suggest such false accusations are extremely low). How common is it in our society to use alcohol to try to incapacitate women so they're in no position to consent? How in the world do you think Bill Cosby got away with what he did for so long?

But when people like you argue you argue from result. Women are underrepresented in certain fields? Well there must be discrimination against them. How do we know that there is discrimination against them? Why because they are underrepresented of course! And around and around we go.Except it's not just the statistics, it's also hundreds of thousands of anecdotes of women talking about how they've felt going against what society encourages women to pursue and trying to break into male-dominated fields, and every time they raise a complaint it provokes the ire of misogynists like yourself and Mortal who just dismiss what they have to say. "Elevatorgate" was a perfect example of a woman talking about what it felt like to be so "pursued" because she was one of the few women at atheist conventions, and how scary that could be, only to get lambasted by Richard Dawkins who went on a non-sequitor rant about women facing harsher problems in African countries (as if that lessens the problems women face here).

Now i would be fine (well not fine, but a little less offended) with this horrific logic if you applied it evenly, you know to everything, but you don't. You can look at a statistic like how men are vastly overrepresented in suicides and other unpleasantries and say "well, how can we possibly know what is causing that!" Pick one. Either we accept that men and women are naturally very different and come to terms with everything this entails or we look at every imbalance of result between the genders as the fault of "society" and "social construction" and we try to deal with it. But if we choose the latter we do not discriminate in favour of women and we do not downplay the real problems men face. Deal?Other than their physical traits, men and women are far more similar than they are different, so the extreme differences we see are predominantly sociological and, yes, they need changing and, yes, they need changing when they unfairly hurt either side. Again, I don't know where you're getting this "double standard" from as I have not suggested that societies are perfectly fair to men.

That's right, white privilege does not exist. None of these "privileges" exist.So you have a deep fear that the cops will pull you over for no reason? Or a fear they'd shoot you in the back if you dared to run from them and then try to plant a gun on you?

Oh What privileges people are things like money and opportunities.Wealth privileges are merely one type of privilege and, as I already said to Mortal, I agree they are arguably an even bigger privilege that tends to exaserbate the problems of white and male privilege (because white males are also predominant amongst the richest people, and because money equals power, and because people are selfish by nature so they use that power to benefit themselves and others like them).

I'll take a page out of Mortal's book and use a popular TV show as an example. Fresh Prince of Bel Air, the episode where Will and Carlton are arrested in a small town for driving a fancy car that was loned to them. They're held in prison for hours without cause or without representation. Of course, Carlton's dad (Will's Uncle) is a rich, black, judge, and when he finds out and goes down there he rips into the blatantly racist cops and gets them out of jail. This is a case of illustrating both the negative effects of white privilege (two blacks being arrested for no reason) and how wealth privilege helped mitigate the damage. However, the presence of the latter doesn't erase the former in principle. What happens when you aren't related to someone who's rich and you happen to black? Well, you spend the night in jail for no reason (at best) and, at worst, you can end up like Walter Scott.

Privilege is not something you consider on a case-by-case basis, it's something you consider on a statistical average level. If you think statistics are in favor of women when it comes to wages, or blacks when it comes to... just about anything, then you aren't living in this little place called reality.

There is no such thing as "privilege", and you discredit yourself every time you fling around these ridiculous, meaningless phrases. Rape culture? My God! Look, just stick to watching movies okay? You are not intelligent, or capable of critical thinking.There is such a thing as privilege (statistics prove it) and you discredit yourself everytime you fling around these ridiculous, reactionary claims. I have a 150 IQ so I have zero doubt I'm intelligent and quite capable of critical thinking; you I have my doubts about.

MorpheusSandman

07-23-2015, 02:26 AM

It's not really possible that an intelligent person could swallow something like "rape culture" hook, line and sinker.What's impossible is for an intelligent person to look at statistics on rape, the wage gap, or anything having to do with blacks, prison, and the justice system and deny privilege. You seem to have swalled Fox News's lies hooks, line, and sinker by comparison.

Also I loved his dig at you earlier about how "if you had posted what you're saying on a different message board all of his liberal friends would tear you to shreds". Of course they would absolutely make you out to be some sort of monster for questioning their unquestionable dogmas about "privileges", "rape culture", wage gaps", et al. It's interesting that he considers this sort of censorious, dialogue destroying tactic to be a positive thing, or an acceptable given, however.That's not actually what I said. I was thinking of posting it on any huge public forum, not one with my "liberal friends." What they would do would be precisely what was done to me when I used to be in an insular bubble like yourself and Mortal: they'd throw out so many facts and statistics that you'd either have to illogically twist and contort them to justify your reactionary Fox News nonsense about "no privilege," or you'd do what I did (what any intelligent, rationalist would do) and accept the facts that were staring you right in the face. If you did the former, then I'd say let the censorious bashing begin. Of course, if you think you can stand up to those facts and come out in the end a winner, I'd be more than happy to point you in the direction. It would be amusing for me, either way. Hey, you never know, you might actually be right and get me to change my mind again. The good thing about us intelligent people who care about the truth is that we can always be swayed by evidence. Of course, all you've offered so far is vacuous bluster, so that's not a good start.

MorpheusSandman

07-23-2015, 02:29 AM

Yes. That would constitute "assuming the antecedent" (if that's the right name for the fallacious logic that suggests that if the conclusion is correct, the axioms must be correct). I'm not sure that's what Morpheus did, though (although I haven't read the thread very thoroughly). It's perfectly reasonable to suggest possible reasons why women get paid less than men, one of which is discrimination (there are doubtless multiple factors).

Discrimination itself can be a secondary factor: discrimination against a group might change the culture of that group. IN the U.S. (for example) it seems reasonable that African American subcultures would have less respect for America's laws than many white subcultures (because the subcultures developed in a time when legal discrimination existed). For women, specific discrimination limiting their participation in certain professions in the past may no longer exist, but culturally constituted norms about women's role in child care, about whether drive and ambition are attractive qualities in men or in women, or about what professions are consistent with femininity might have developed as a result of discrimination.Even not having read the thread thoroughly you'd right on the money, Ecurb (and I never did what he said I did, btw; I suggested precisely what you did in your second paragraph).

MorpheusSandman

07-23-2015, 02:33 AM

IThere are some people who live in those bubbles where everyone thinks like they do and it reinforces their ideas about how things are or should be, and since nobody questions them in their group they just assume that everyone holds the same beliefs.Trust me when I say this doesn't describe me. In fact, I hunt out places where there is huge debate on both sides on issues I'm unfamiliar with and then I use my "critical thinking" to see who has the most facts and reasons the best from them. Having actually studied rationality I've gotten to be a pretty good judge when it comes to issues where one side is clearly wrong and another is clearly right. There are still those where it's uncertain. Like I said, if Clopin is certain he's right then I can point him in the direction of the people that convinced me.

Clopin

07-23-2015, 03:17 AM

Uh... no. 6-figures is piddly-squat when you look at how wealth is ditributed in the US (at least in the US; I don't know about the rest of the West).

haha okay buddy, only twenty percent of households make six figures in the States, and that includes everyone who works in the family.

And you seriously think that cultural biases play no role in what jobs men and women consider appropriate for their sexes?

I'm sure that it does, but probably less than you might think. I know that men are genuinely more fit for labour positions regardless of cultural bias and I believe it's pretty much incontrovertible that women generally are simply more patient and better with children, as taboo as that is to say nowadays.

I mean take something like Chess. Women simply do not play it. The ratio at any given chess club will likely be something like ten to one (and I'm being generous) men to women. This is despite decades of serious effort by organizations like FIDE, The USCF and The CFC to generate interest in Chess amongst girls and women. There are female exclusive titles, female tournaments, female clubs (so none of that nasty make atmosphere turning women off from Chess), female leagues online, female mixed doubles prize pots (as in a team event where one entrant must be female and one must be male). And scholastic Chess programs and events are targeted evenly at both genders. I mean what's more likely at this point? That men are going out of their way to make Chess unpleasant for women or that women simply aren't as likely to develop an obsessive interest in Chess?

In the strictest sense, yes, they're free, but neither encouraged before to pursue them or encouraged while pursuing it to continue. A great many women have written about terrible, misogynistic treatment after breaking into the "mens' club" atmosphere of any number of professions. Even in my own profession of poker I've seen it (even though I don't play live that much).

I believe this happens but I don't know what to tell you. Attitudes are changing. I'm not trying to suggest that misogyny does not exist, I'm just outlining why I don't think women are systematically oppressed compared to men.

To answer you first and second questions: ABSOLUTELY! Again, you and Mortal keep assuming this "double standard" where none exists. I've already admitted that there are, indeed, social pressures that are biased against men on many fronts as well, and they need remedied as well. Bringing up the fact of male privilege does not mean that there aren't areas where men don't struggle more and don't need society to change as well. One reason we don't see these addressed is that far too many men (like yourself) are out there trying to "debunk" the problems that women face (rather than remedying them) instead of focusing on the problems men face (and trying to remedy them as well).

One of the reasons we don't see endemic rates of male suicide addressed is because people argue about male privilege on the Internet? Oh okay.

Oh dear, now we're back to you being all reactionary at hearing another term you don't like.

Rape culture is fairly easy to prove. Just look at the statistics for one thing: it's one of the most under-reported, under-prosecuted, under-convicted crimes. Whenever it is reported, victims are held up to more scrutiny than the perpetrators and are frequently accused of making it up (or changing their mind) for "revenge" (never mind that the statistics suggest such false accusations are extremely low). How common is it in our society to use alcohol to try to incapacitate women so they're in no position to consent? How in the world do you think Bill Cosby got away with what he did for so long?

First of all no, you can't prove that "rape culture" exists because "rape culture" is a totally meaningless phrase. And okay with rape the statistics suggest that there are few prosecutions but it's probably not because all of the judges, jurors and police officers in the world have conspired together to make sure rapists always walk and women can be raped without consequence. Have you considered the nature of the crime? Perhaps it's difficult to prosecute. Let's imagine a situation Morpheus:

You and I, alone together, decide to engage in some mutually consensual sex. After we finish I walk to a police station and file a report saying that you raped me.

And compare it with:

You and I are alone together, you force yourself on me and rape me. After you leave I walk to the police station and file a report saying that you raped me,

Assuming there were no witnesses these two incidents appear exactly the same to any outsider so what do you do? You can't prosecute a man because he is likely to have raped someone, you actually have to prove it. False rape accusations may make up a small number of reported rapes but they do occur and even of there had never been a false rape accusation due diligence for the accused is the bedrock of our legal system.

And I mean isn't the notion that because the accuser is cross examined we live in a literal "rape culture" a bit nuts? How else are you supposed to proceed with the case? Just lock the guy up? No questions asked? It's very unfortunate that rape is as difficult to successfully prosecute as it is, but can you suggest a better method? When the only evidence you have that a crime has taken place is the word of one person then you just can't prosecute right? So I'm genuinely curious about what your solution would be.

Except it's not just the statistics, it's also hundreds of thousands of anecdotes of women talking about how they've felt going against what society encourages women to pursue and trying to break into male-dominated fields, and every time they raise a complaint it provokes the ire of misogynists like yourself and Mortal who just dismiss what they have to say. "Elevatorgate" was a perfect example of a woman talking about what it felt like to be so "pursued" because she was one of the few women at atheist conventions, and how scary that could be, only to get lambasted by Richard Dawkins who went on a non-sequitor rant about women facing harsher problems in African countries (as if that lessens the problems women face here).

I feel like I've woken up in Bizarro World. Elevatorgate is going to be your citation for male privilege? What next, gamergate? I mean come on. But okay, if some unwanted attention from the opposite sex is so horrendous then I've been sexually harassed (groped unwillingly) and put into awkward situations myself. I survived.

Other than their physical traits, men and women are far more similar than they are different, so the extreme differences we see are predominantly sociological and, yes, they need changing and, yes, they need changing when they unfairly hurt either side. Again, I don't know where you're getting this "double standard" from as I have not suggested that societies are perfectly fair to men.

The double standard is that you presume men are systematically elevated and women systematically oppressed. I don't think this is true, and I think gender makes up a larger biological difference than you seem to be suggesting.

So you have a deep fear that the cops will pull you over for no reason? Or a fear they'd shoot you in the back if you dared to run from them and then try to plant a gun on you?

Yeh, the cops are all KKK dragons just looking for cherubic black orphans to murder. By the way, white and black are not the only ethnicities. Can you tell me why Asians outperform whites in school and under commit crimes if whites are the privileged group?

I'll take a page out of Mortal's book and use a popular TV show as an example. Fresh Prince of Bel Air, the episode where Will and Carlton are arrested in a small town for driving a fancy car that was loned to them. They're held in prison for hours without cause or without representation. Of course, Carlton's dad (Will's Uncle) is a rich, black, judge, and when he finds out and goes down there he rips into the blatantly racist cops and gets them out of jail. This is a case of illustrating both the negative effects of white privilege (two blacks being arrested for no reason) and how wealth privilege helped mitigate the damage. However, the presence of the latter doesn't erase the former in principle. What happens when you aren't related to someone who's rich and you happen to black? Well, you spend the night in jail for no reason (at best) and, at worst, you can end up like Walter Scott.

I see. So you're going to argue based on an episode of a TV show?

Privilege is not something you consider on a case-by-case basis, it's something you consider on a statistical average level. If you think statistics are in favor of women when it comes to wages, or blacks when it comes to... just about anything, then you aren't living in this little place called reality.

But the statistics suggest that women live longer and happier lives. I don't consider that underprivileged honestly. As for blacks, well, I don't think all of their problems are entirely due to systematic oppression. Sorry. Just like I don't think the relative success of Jews (in nobel prizes, world chess champions, etc), or East Asians (much higher attendance at top tier schools, and academic success) is due to systematic elevation. I mean why is white society tying itself into knots to make sure blacks are extremely underprivileged and Asians and Jews are overrepresented at the top. What's in it for the white folk who "run society" to orchestrate this massive conspiracy? I just don't see it. Are blacks also socially encouraged to play sports more than Asians? Or do they just naturally have a tendency towards a better physicality for pro sports.

There is such a thing as privilege (statistics prove it) and you discredit yourself everytime you fling around these ridiculous, reactionary claims. I have a 150 IQ so I have zero doubt I'm intelligent and quite capable of critical thinking; you I have my doubts about.

Ah, and now we bring IQ into the mix. Well I have an IQ of 185 so there tough guy!

MorpheusSandman

07-23-2015, 11:26 AM

I figured I'd reply to your comment in two separate posts since the first was getting long and dealt mostly with film. I hope that's okay with you.Tell you what; since these replies are getting so long and I'm also replying to Clopin as well, why don't you choose one of the two discussions to continue (film VS TOTS/Shakespeare) and we'll trim it to one. I'll let you decide.

Ecurb

07-23-2015, 11:59 AM

The fact that Richard Cory "put a bullet in his head" cannot logically demonstrate that he was not "privileged". (Not that anyone said it does.)

Ecurb

07-23-2015, 07:45 PM

I mean take something like Chess. Women simply do not play it. The ratio at any given chess club will likely be something like ten to one (and I'm being generous) men to women. This is despite decades of serious effort by organizations like FIDE, The USCF and The CFC to generate interest in Chess amongst girls and women. There are female exclusive titles, female tournaments, female clubs (so none of that nasty make atmosphere turning women off from Chess), female leagues online, female mixed doubles prize pots (as in a team event where one entrant must be female and one must be male). And scholastic Chess programs and events are targeted evenly at both genders. I mean what's more likely at this point? That men are going out of their way to make Chess unpleasant for women or that women simply aren't as likely to develop an obsessive interest in Chess?

!

We're straying from Shakespeare, but I'm curious: why do you think women aren't as good at chess as men? I've read theories about "spatial intelligence" and perhaps competitiveness is a factor.

I've never played chess at a high level, but I play tournament bridge. More women play bridge than men (bridge is an aging game, and I am one of the youngest competitors in some tournaments, despite being in my 50s). At the level on which I play, the women are just as good as the men. Nonetheless, women have never won world championships in bridge. (There are several forms of world championships in bridge, and perhaps women have won one or two pairs titles, but they haven't won in the Teams Championship, which is the most prestigious title. Two or three women have been on second-place teams.)

The world team championships have been around for 65 years, and each team consists of at least four and usually six players (you need four, because each "team" plays the North-South cards in one room, and the East-West cards of the same hand in another and six allows the team to substitute and avoid getting tired). So that's 300+ players, all men.

Of course it is also true that most experts think that at least half of the champions cheated (the famous Italian Blue team, which dominated bridge in the 50s, 60s and 70s was caught cheating a couple of times, and probably cheated when they weren't caught, too). The famous British team of Boris Shapiro and Terrence Reese was busted for cheating. So maybe women are more honest and honorable than men. (It's harder to cheat today, because the players use "bidding boxes" to signal bids, and screens prevent you from seeing your partner.)

In the lower levels at which I play, many of the men (not me, of course) are more "competitive" than the women, but it doesn't help them much. In fact, since bridge is a team game, cooperating with and encouraging one's partner generally leads to better results than being TOO competitive. Maybe women have better things to do than waste their time on games. What's your theory, Clopin (and since Morpheus is a professional Poker player, perhaps he can chime in, too.)?

MorpheusSandman

07-23-2015, 11:34 PM

Gah, had most of this post typed, took a little break, came back to a "token expired" message from the forum that erased it. Sorry if this one isn't nearly as good.

haha okay buddy, only twenty percent of households make six figures in the States, and that includes everyone who works in the family.The bottom half own less than 1% of America's wealth, so mentioning that only twenty percents of households make six figures isn't saying much. The immense gap is between the wealthiest 10% (even wealthiest 1% of 1%) and everyone else. I'll give you three guesses as to what demographic predominantly makes up the latter groups.

I know that men are genuinely more fit for labour positions regardless of cultural bias and I believe it's pretty much incontrovertible that women generally are simply more patient and better with children, as taboo as that is to say nowadays.Men are, on average, physically stronger than women, which would make them better at manual labor jobs. However, given the obesity problem in the US, a 400-lb man is far less fit for manual labor than a healthy, muscular woman. I'm open to the possibility that women might be generally better with children, but I don't know of any studies corroborating this (not that I've looked).

I still think this is missing the point. Other than the physical differences, men and women are far more similar than dissimilar, especially when it comes to cognitive abilities. The vast majority of the wealthiest in this country are wealthy because of their mental faculties (investors, software engineers/designers), not because of their physical strength. Men have slightly better spatial reasoning, which might explain the absence of women in Chess. But take something like the NFL. Decades ago, the majority of women didn't watch. Now, women are the largest growing demographic and have contributed immensely to the huge growth of the league's popularity. What else can you possible chalk that up to other than cultural norms? The notion that, for years, football was thought of a man's game for men; and now that it's become more acceptable for women to like sports we see far more women, well, watching sports.

First of all no, you can't prove that "rape culture" exists because "rape culture" is a totally meaningless phrase. And okay with rape the statistics suggest that there are few prosecutions but it's probably not because all of the judges, jurors and police officers in the world have conspired together to make sure rapists always walk and women can be raped without consequence. Have you considered the nature of the crime? Perhaps it's difficult to prosecute. Let's imagine a situation Morpheus:First of all, I don't know why you think "rape culture" is a "meaningless phrase." It describes how culture normalizes and trivializes rape through a variety of means. You can argue that those things don't happen, thus the rape culture theory is wrong, but it's certainly not meaningless.

Secondly, nobody is suggesting that all judges, jurors, cops, etc. have conspired against women and for rapists, but this isn't how the effects of rape culture (or privilege) happen in general. You don't even need a majority of society to be racist, or sexist, or harbor rape culture beliefs, in order to see the deleterious effects on a statistical level. Take a meta-study like this http://jiv.sagepub.com/content/25/11/2010 that positively correlated acceptance of rape myths (things like, eg, the frequency of rape, the statistics on false-accusations, etc.) with hostility towards women, racism, heterosexism, classism, and ageism. By the time it gets to, say, a judge, a judge doesn't even have to be consciously or unconsciously sexist in a way that favors men overall, but such myths are held by him (or even her; women can believe the same myths) then they are far more likely to do things like victim blaming, of which there are many documented cases of. By that I mean cases of judges focusing on what the victim did wrong: what they wore, who they were with, how they acted, etc., usually things which are neither legal or moral justifications for rape, and that, if we weren't in a rape culture, a judge wouldn't feel compelled to point out when the woman did nothing wrong but enjoy the right to wear what she wants, be with who she wants, and act how she wants (within the bounds of the law, of course).

Finally, yes, rape is a difficult crime to prosecute in general anyway. If there is no physical evidence or witnesses (like there is in most forcible rape, but isn't in date rape or other forms of intoxication, or coercian where the rapist is a family member or friend) then it's entirely a he-said, she-said scenario, and I absolutely agree we can't just believe every claim and arrest, prosecute, and convict every accused man. We absolutely need the evidence. However, because of the effects of rape culture, amongst them being things like victim blaming and the non-education on what actually counts as rape (eg, having sex with an intoxicated woman is rape; she is not capable of consenting) and the social pressure put on women to not be open with their sexuality (most women report feeling "shame" after rape; where do you think that comes from?), we often end up in a situation where women don't even report it to present the opportunity for getting that evidence. When you combine the under-reporting with the difficulty of having evidence, prosecuting, convicting, the perpetuation of rape myths amongst authorities, and the statistics that show that false reports are in the minority, you're in a situation where the vast majority of rapists go free, and most never even spend a day in jail. That's a horrible reality, and there's no way it couldn't be helped by fixing various elements about how we, as a society, think about rape and treat potential victims.

Elevatorgate is going to be your citation for male privilege?It wasn't used as a citation for privilege, but a citation for how men regularly dismiss the anecdotal experiences of women expressing their discomfort in a male-dominated area. Whether you agree with her or not (and, frankly, I think she was a bit over-sensitive as it's hard to imagine a reality where no men will ever approach women in a vulnerable situation), you can't deny that that's precisely what happened.

The double standard is that you presume men are systematically elevated and women systematically oppressed.This isn't a presumption, it's an inference drawn from a wealth of statistical data. BTW, I'd hesitate to use the word "oppressed" as women have achieved a far closer-to-equal society than what we once had. I'd say they're still, on average, disadvantaged compared to men. This is mostly what privilege is anyway; not necessarily oppression, but the recognition of arenas in which one group has an innate advantage over another because of society.

Yeh, the cops are all KKK dragons just looking for cherubic black orphans to murder. By the way, white and black are not the only ethnicities. Can you tell me why Asians outperform whites in school and under commit crimes if whites are the privileged group?Firstly, as I stated above about rape culture, it is not necessary for all (or even most) cops to be racists in order to see the deleterious effects of those that are, especially when those that are are concentrated in certain places.

Secondly, the reason for the success of Asians probably has a lot to do with the completely different backgrounds, histories, and cultures of Asians compared to blacks. Besides the temporary internments of Asian Americans during WW2, America has generally had a peaceful relationship with the Asian community (they were never slaves, eg). After WW2 many Asian countries radically Westernized before immigrating (this was well-documented in post-WW2 Japanese cinema) so there was less of a culture shock. This history is quite different than the one where a little over a century ago whites were buying, selling, and owning blacks; or one where even half a century ago, blacks were segregated from the rest of the population and had to struggle and fight for equality.

So you're going to argue based on an episode of a TV show?No, I used the episode to illustrate how both black and wealth privilege can co-exist, and even if the latter can mitigate the effects of the former in certain situations, those situations are rare, especially when blacks make up a larger percentage of the poor in this country and a miniscule minority of its wealthy.

I mean why is white society tying itself into knots to make sure blacks are extremely underprivileged and Asians and Jews are overrepresented at the top.Not all white society is. In particular, blacks thrive more in states and cities where there is a much higher degree of multi-racial integration (ie, not the south). However, most of those states and cities also have a higher cost of living (ie, not the south) and blacks make up a large percentage of the poorest. When you're poor and live in a part of the country where you are much more highly likely to face discrimination it makes it extremely difficult to overcome that initial disadvantage without having some extraordinary talent (intellectual, physical, etc.), luck, or something else. It's not so much that white society has to "tie itself into knots" to keep blacks underprivileged, it's more like we're engaged in a vicious cycle made worse by the fact that the majority of whites are completely ignorant about (as the saying goes, one of the effects of white privilege is not knowing about white privilege).

What's in it for the white folk who "run society" to orchestrate this massive conspiracy?What's in it for the wealthiest 10% to keep themselves the wealthiest 10% and make the poorest even poorer so they'll have an even greater share of the wealth? Hmmm, let me think about that brain teaser.

Beyond the actual money/power element, there's also the simple fact that racism is a byproduct of humans being a species of tribal primates. We unconsciously create "us" and "them" groups, and there's no more obvious way to group than by race. We need to recognize that this is an innate aspect of our cognition and not ignore it, pretend it doesn't exist, etc., but rather address it, consciously acknowledge it, and then consciously override it. It's the old thought that you aren't responsible for what thoughts your brain conjures, but for how you act and reason based on them. We might can't reprogram humans, but we can teach them how to better deal with that programming. When you combine that natural proclivity with the well-documented history or racism you end up what we have today; a situation that's better, but where racism is still prevalent in both obvious (the shooting and race riots) and less-obvious ways.

Ah, and now we bring IQ into the mix. Well I have an IQ of 185 so there tough guy!Firstly, you brought up intelligence, not me.

Secondly, good, now that we've compared brain penises can we agree that we're both adequately well-hung and dispense with the juvenile strategy of suggesting the other has a major mental handicap by comparison? While you're at it, stop with the Pavlovian somersaults every time I mention a term you understand vaguely enough to dislike but not well enough to actually understand.

MorpheusSandman

07-23-2015, 11:40 PM

What's your theory, Clopin (and since Morpheus is a professional Poker player, perhaps he can chime in, too.)?Well, again, I've read women poker players talk about how they've been made to feel uncomfortable when playing at a male-dominated table, and I've witnessed this first-hand myself. However, because of the pioneering of players like Jennifer Harmon, Annie Duke, Vanessa Selbst, and even Jennifer Tilly, there have been many more women coming to the game now than before the exposure. I suspect that many women would like to, especially those that are good at math and problem solving, but are then turned off by the sexism they're bound to face from the more boorish players. Really, since the advent and popularity of internet poker I'd guess that there have been even MORE women playing poker and we just don't know about it. Selbst was one of the first to make a huge name for herself as a dominant online player (enough to reach the #1 ranking by the Global Poker Index, which is extremely impressive) and she's since made the transition to live games as well (though at a much higher level where there are probably fewer drunken, misogynistic, testosterone drenched idiots). So women are certainly more than capable.

Clopin

07-24-2015, 01:36 AM

We're straying from Shakespeare, but I'm curious: why do you think women aren't as good at chess as men? I've read theories about "spatial intelligence" and perhaps competitiveness is a factor.

I've never played chess at a high level, but I play tournament bridge. More women play bridge than men (bridge is an aging game, and I am one of the youngest competitors in some tournaments, despite being in my 50s). At the level on which I play, the women are just as good as the men. Nonetheless, women have never won world championships in bridge. (There are several forms of world championships in bridge, and perhaps women have won one or two pairs titles, but they haven't won in the Teams Championship, which is the most prestigious title. Two or three women have been on second-place teams.)

The world team championships have been around for 65 years, and each team consists of at least four and usually six players (you need four, because each "team" plays the North-South cards in one room, and the East-West cards of the same hand in another and six allows the team to substitute and avoid getting tired). So that's 300+ players, all men.

Of course it is also true that most experts think that at least half of the champions cheated (the famous Italian Blue team, which dominated bridge in the 50s, 60s and 70s was caught cheating a couple of times, and probably cheated when they weren't caught, too). The famous British team of Boris Shapiro and Terrence Reese was busted for cheating. So maybe women are more honest and honorable than men. (It's harder to cheat today, because the players use "bidding boxes" to signal bids, and screens prevent you from seeing your partner.)

In the lower levels at which I play, many of the men (not me, of course) are more "competitive" than the women, but it doesn't help them much. In fact, since bridge is a team game, cooperating with and encouraging one's partner generally leads to better results than being TOO competitive. Maybe women have better things to do than waste their time on games. What's your theory, Clopin (and since Morpheus is a professional Poker player, perhaps he can chime in, too.)?

I think I have a pretty good grasp on why women don't excell at Chess. First of all women have weaker spatial awareness compared to men and spatial awareness is basically all Chess is when you get down to it. By comparison women have stronger verbal reasoning and possess a mental skill set which advantages them in schools. It's my opinion that women grossly outperform men at school because they are simply better suited for it. I mean what's more likely, the idea that society is arbitrarily choosing to disadvantage boys and men in the classroom but then also turning around and holding girls and women back in certain STEM fields, Chess, and videogames, or that men and women really do just naturally excell in different areas (generally). The former inference showcases the sort of logic you have to accept when your position is to immediately assume that if women (or any other group) underperform in any area it must be due to discrimination or sociological factors. I'm pretty thoroughly convinced myself that men end up in prison more often than women because men are more aggressive and often tend to be stupider (yes, stupider, the vast majoroty of people who comprise the lowest and highest ends of the inteligence spectrum are men, this is an important point), and not because men are "pressured by society" to be more violent and aggressive. Testosterone is a real enough thing guys. It would be nice if everyone were equal but i don't see why it would be true.

Anyway women actually aren't much worse at Chess at the club level, and in fact I'm not even sure if their aggregate rating is lower. Basically where you see the real disparity between women and men in Chess is at the very top, where you need to be a very specific type of genius to excell. World chess champions routinely clock in at 190 IQ's and frankly there are just more male geniuses. I have no idea why, but there are more.

As to why fewer women play Chess? I have no idea, but it's quite a niche anyway right? I live in a town of ten thousand inhabitants with maybe another few thousand seasonal guests at any time and our chess club sees a turnout of between three and eight players per week! You need to be a little obsessive to play the game well and it's my own experience that men are much much more likely to develop obsessions around niche hobbies. Chess is also a competitive game and men are more competitive.

By the way I've taken a couple of tests (some quite reputable and some not so much) which have consistently indicated that my weakest intellectual attribute is the exact spatial awareness which is of such enormous importance in chess and apparently so lacking in women. Despite this when I was serious about the game eight years ago I went from a 900 elo rating (absolute beginner) to 1800+ (class A and very respectable, even amongst tournament players) in about eighteen months. I don't think there is anything hindering most women from doing something like this as well, except they have to play chess for maybe two hours everyday for well... eighteen months. The point is that I can never be Magnus Carlsen, in fact I might not even have it in me to reach GM level, even if I had started early (say five) and studied hard for my entire life. It might not be possible for me to ever attain the grandmaster chess title because I think I'm a little deficient in the area where you need to be strongest to play Chess really really well. For this reason i think we see fewer women at the peak of Chess.

Clopin

07-24-2015, 02:19 AM

The bottom half own less than 1% of America's wealth, so mentioning that only twenty percents of households make six figures isn't saying much. The immense gap is between the wealthiest 10% (even wealthiest 1% of 1%) and everyone else. I'll give you three guesses as to what demographic predominantly makes up the latter groups.

At the absolute elite/billionaire level, fine, white men rule the world. But it's a bit absurd to suggest this helps me out any. It doesn't. These wealthy billionaires are not helping out other white guys like themselves anymore than they are helping out black or Native American women. And I believe you have a higher chance of winning the lottery than becoming a billionaire anyway, no matter how white and male you are.

Men are, on average, physically stronger than women, which would make them better at manual labor jobs. However, given the obesity problem in the US, a 400-lb man is far less fit for manual labor than a healthy, muscular woman.

O... kay? Why are you comparing four hundred pound men with healthy, muscular women?

First of all, I don't know why you think "rape culture" is a "meaningless phrase." It describes how culture normalizes and trivializes rape through a variety of means. You can argue that those things don't happen, thus the rape culture theory is wrong, but it's certainly not meaningless.

Culture doesn't normalize and trivialize rape. We do not live in a society which accepts or encourages rape. Morph I've seen people cite the fact that precautionary methods for women have been encouraged to help prevent rape as evidence of this so called "rape culture", with the idea being that society should teach potential male rapists "not to rape" before it teaches women not to accept random drinks from strangers or to walk down a dark alleyway alone at night. Do you believe this is indicative of normalized or trivialized rape yourself? When I was a child a not insignificant amount of classroom time was spent on "stranger danger", when we were taught not to accompany strangers to private locations, not to enter the cars of strangers, and basically not to allow ourselves into situations where we could potentially be victimized, murdered, raped, kidnapped, or otherwise abused. Isn't this indicative of "child predator culture"? A society where children are taught to protect themselves instead of potential predators simply "taught" to not a abuse or molest children? The notion is absurd right? Do I live in a thief culture because I've been taught to lock my valuables up when I go to the gym, let's say? I mean shouldn't people simply be taught "not to steal" my things? Why is the onus on me to defend myself and my property? Sure in a perfect world there would be no rapists, murderers, pedophiles, kidnappers, thieves or gangs but all of these things exist and educating people not to rape, murder and steal can't erase rapes, homicides or thefts, it just can't.

Secondly, nobody is suggesting that all judges, jurors, cops, etc. have conspired against women and for rapists, but this isn't how the effects of rape culture (or privilege) happen in general. You don't even need a majority of society to be racist, or sexist, or harbor rape culture beliefs, in order to see the deleterious effects on a statistical level. Take a meta-study like this http://jiv.sagepub.com/content/25/11/2010 that positively correlated acceptance of rape myths (things like, eg, the frequency of rape, the statistics on false-accusations, etc.) with hostility towards women, racism, heterosexism, classism, and ageism. By the time it gets to, say, a judge, a judge doesn't even have to be consciously or unconsciously sexist in a way that favors men overall, but such myths are held by him (or even her; women can believe the same myths) then they are far more likely to do things like victim blaming, of which there are many documented cases of. By that I mean cases of judges focusing on what the victim did wrong: what they wore, who they were with, how they acted, etc., usually things which are neither legal or moral justifications for rape, and that, if we weren't in a rape culture, a judge wouldn't feel compelled to point out when the woman did nothing wrong but enjoy the right to wear what she wants, be with who she wants, and act how she wants (within the bounds of the law, of course).

I would love to see a citation for say, ten (if this is endemic, ten should be laughably easy to find!) court cases where the rape victim's clothes have been cited by the judge as a mitigating factor in the rapists defense.

Finally, yes, rape is a difficult crime to prosecute in general anyway. If there is no physical evidence or witnesses (like there is in most forcible rape, but isn't in date rape or other forms of intoxication, or coercian where the rapist is a family member or friend) then it's entirely a he-said, she-said scenario, and I absolutely agree we can't just believe every claim and arrest, prosecute, and convict every accused man. We absolutely need the evidence. However, because of the effects of rape culture, amongst them being things like victim blaming and the non-education on what actually counts as rape (eg, having sex with an intoxicated woman is rape; she is not capable of consenting) and the social pressure put on women to not be open with their sexuality (most women report feeling "shame" after rape; where do you think that comes from?), we often end up in a situation where women don't even report it to present the opportunity for getting that evidence. When you combine the under-reporting with the difficulty of having evidence, prosecuting, convicting, the perpetuation of rape myths amongst authorities, and the statistics that show that false reports are in the minority, you're in a situation where the vast majority of rapists go free, and most never even spend a day in jail. That's a horrible reality, and there's no way it couldn't be helped by fixing various elements about how we, as a society, think about rape and treat potential victims. [QUOTE]

Well if bolded is all you need for a rape to have occurred then I am both a rapist and a rape victim! Okay if every time sex occurs and both parties are drunk this counts as rape then I guess we do live in a rape culture! This only applies to women? Why? If I get really drunk and have sex I've not been raped, yes? I had better turn myself in, lol, I'm a rapist by your definition.

[QUOTE=MorpheusSandman;1301399]It wasn't used as a citation for privilege, but a citation for how men regularly dismiss the anecdotal experiences of women expressing their discomfort in a male-dominated area. Whether you agree with her or not (and, frankly, I think she was a bit over-sensitive as it's hard to imagine a reality where no men will ever approach women in a vulnerable situation), you can't deny that that's precisely what happened.

Look I've dated a couple very beautiful girls and the amount of attention they can get at all times is astounding, and it can obviously be uncomfortable. However, on the flip side of the coin I am friends with several (three at my current count) young men, in their early to mid twenties, who have literally never had sex and not for any lack of desire or inclination to celibacy. I was reading some sort of analysis of T.S Eliot's The Wasteland and at the beginning of section III (Death by Water) the analyst remarks that the title is interesting in that death by water can occur in two ways: you can die by drowning as the Pheonician experiences in the third section or you can perish for lack of water, as can be seen in the landscape of the entire world in the second half of the first section. Basically I can understand female complaints about male attention being uncomfortable and unpleasant, they are literally drowning in it, but I think people need to understand that for a lot of men there is no water, there is no sexual attention, and this can be a very, very unpleasant thing to deal with in your life. It's easy to lack empathy but I will say that if I could reverse the male/female sexual dynamic (making women the pursuers and men the gatekeepers) I would hesitate for quite literally zero seconds before making the switch.

Secondly, the reason for the success of Asians probably has a lot to do with the completely different backgrounds, histories, and cultures of Asians compared to blacks. Besides the temporary internments of Asian Americans during WW2, America has generally had a peaceful relationship with the Asian community (they were never slaves, eg). After WW2 many Asian countries radically Westernized before immigrating (this was well-documented in post-WW2 Japanese cinema) so there was less of a culture shock. This history is quite different than the one where a little over a century ago whites were buying, selling, and owning blacks; or one where even half a century ago, blacks were segregated from the rest of the population and had to struggle and fight for equality.

I agree with your first sentence. Asians succeed because Asian values are conducive to success. I think blacks are overrepresented in crime statistics because they actually commit more crimes, and not because they are being picked out by racist cops. I noticed you decided to sidestep replying to my comment about Jews, however, so I'll repeat it. Why are Jews so successful as a minority group? Are Jews supposed to have a heavily privileged history or recent past? Was antisemitism not endemic as recently as, say, 1940?

Not all white society is. In particular, blacks thrive more in states and cities where there is a much higher degree of multi-racial integration (ie, not the south). However, most of those states and cities also have a higher cost of living (ie, not the south) and blacks make up a large percentage of the poorest. When you're poor and live in a part of the country where you are much more highly likely to face discrimination it makes it extremely difficult to overcome that initial disadvantage without having some extraordinary talent (intellectual, physical, etc.), luck, or something else. It's not so much that white society has to "tie itself into knots" to keep blacks underprivileged, it's more like we're engaged in a vicious cycle made worse by the fact that the majority of whites are completely ignorant about (as the saying goes, one of the effects of white privilege is not knowing about white privilege).

You've very crucially missed my point here. I'm not asking why a predominantly white society would want to underprivilege its black citizens, that would be perfectly logical. I'm asking why a predominantly white society wants to underprivilege its black citizens while simultaneously over privileging (if results are an indication of privilege as you probably believe) other minority groups like Jews and Asians over white people themselves.

What's in it for the wealthiest 10% to keep themselves the wealthiest 10% and make the poorest even poorer so they'll have an even greater share of the wealth? Hmmm, let me think about that brain teaser.

More wealth and power! Was that a trick question?

Beyond the actual money/power element, there's also the simple fact that racism is a byproduct of humans being a species of tribal primates. We unconsciously create "us" and "them" groups, and there's no more obvious way to group than by race. We need to recognize that this is an innate aspect of our cognition and not ignore it, pretend it doesn't exist, etc., but rather address it, consciously acknowledge it, and then consciously override it. It's the old thought that you aren't responsible for what thoughts your brain conjures, but for how you act and reason based on them. We might can't reprogram humans, but we can teach them how to better deal with that programming. When you combine that natural proclivity with the well-documented history or racism you end up what we have today; a situation that's better, but where racism is still prevalent in both obvious (the shooting and race riots) and less-obvious ways.

And yet this racist society has elected a visibly black man to be their president. White people are shot by the police too you know, it's not always a race thing. You're white I believe? And American? How about you go charge a police officer and if he doesn't shoot you come back and tell me about it. This is where confirmation bias plays a strong role in how you're perceiving data. If every single time a black person is shot and killed by the police you assume it's a race issue I have a lot of problems with that rationale. Like I said, white people are shot by the police as well, but when they are it's not a race issue right? The police must have had motives other than race when they pulled the trigger on the white guy, but every time a black person is shot it absolutely must be racially motivated? I mean... what?

Secondly, good, now that we've compared brain penises can we agree that we're both adequately well-hung and dispense with the juvenile strategy of suggesting the other has a major mental handicap by comparison? While you're at it, stop with the Pavlovian somersaults every time I mention a term you understand vaguely enough to dislike but not well enough to actually understand.

No. Phrasing like "privilege", "rape culture" and "victim blaming" are pretty much the liberal equivalent of Glenn Beck and Donald Trump. That's what you look like to reasonable people when you spout this kind of drivel. You look like Glenn Beck and Donald Trump.

mortalterror

07-24-2015, 02:33 AM

Tell you what; since these replies are getting so long and I'm also replying to Clopin as well, why don't you choose one of the two discussions to continue (film VS TOTS/Shakespeare) and we'll trim it to one. I'll let you decide.

Don't worry about it. It's just a friendly discussion and you don't have to answer any questions you don't want to or which make you uncomfortable. We can just drop it. I'm sorry if things got a little heated and tense. I wasn't trying to team up against you with Clopin, or make you feel bad about your personal beliefs. For my part, I've been enjoying our debate very much. It's so rarely I find people I can talk to about Shakespeare or silent films that it's actually quite the treat.

We're straying from Shakespeare, but I'm curious: why do you think women aren't as good at chess as men? I've read theories about "spatial intelligence" and perhaps competitiveness is a factor.
That is weird, but born out by my experiences when I used to play chess. The girls I played were always weaker than the boys. I was never more than average or novice level, generally rating in the mid to low 1200s out of 2700+ but I always beat the girls I played. Things did get very competitive in my high school chess club, since we played other teams, and two of the players went to state level or something. I quit when they threw our two girls out for being the weakest on the team. For me it was always a social thing for fun, and I guess I didn't have the discipline for it either at the time.

I played a cute girl in college, who had her own board and was asking people to play her. I figured if she had her own board, then she must be really good, and she was just hustling me. But then I crushed her and she was sad. And that was the end of that. Another time, I'd just seen that movie The Joy Luck Club and thought every little Asian girl was a chess prodigy who played world class violin. So when this ten year old offered to play me, I thought "Sure, why not. Let's see what you got." And then I tore this little girls world apart. "It's like you're reading my mind," she cried. Oops. Come to think of it, I beat my older sister too.

I wonder if there are more women playing Go or Shogi than chess? Whenever I watch an Asian movie the women are always playing Mahjong. The popular games like the popular sports vary by region and time. Chess is probably a lot bigger in Russia than the US for instance. I was just reading a book about medieval sports and games. It was really surprising that I'd played most of the childhood games like duck duck goose, ring around the rosy, blind man's bluff, leapfrog, tag, etc. But what was really cool were all the variants of chess and checkers they had like Rithmomachy a chess like arithmetic game which is supposed to be even harder to play. The book mentioned that Romans were fond of dice games, and the Norse were fond of board games; so when they met we got board games with dice like say Monopoly though that came out in 1935. Apparently, in contemporary game construction Germans lead the field and have a different philosophy than American board games. American board games tend to be more adversarial, whereas the Germans are more cooperative. The American games are frequently martial or violent, whereas the German games are constructive about farming (Agricola), trains (Ticket to Ride), or building castles (Carcassonne). Oh, and American games are generally more luck based.

This is becoming a bit of a tangent, and I apologize, but I wonder if games have their own periods the way that literature does? I mean I can see early Tarot card games developing into Poker, Blackjack, and morphing into card games like Magic the Gathering on the way to something else.

I've played lots of board, card, and video games, plus whatever the Dungeons and Dragons type games count as with women at social gatherings with my friends, so they don't seem to be excluded like they may be in chess. However, a female friend of mine likes farming and fishing games, whereas I'm more fond of first person shooters. That may be a gender preference. I don't know anything about Gamergate, but I have a male and a female friend who build their own board games for us to play from time to time. And another friend of mine who worked on the Batman series of videogames is always taking pictures of himself at videogame exhibitions with his female coworkers. Anyway, it looks like women are involved in making the games, even if perhaps they don't play them as much or don't play the same kind as men do.

Clopin

07-24-2015, 02:56 AM

Hahahaha, German people playing German games! Looks a little like:

http://static.fjcdn.com/pictures/Punchline+description_f3b78a_4651138.png

MorpheusSandman

07-24-2015, 12:50 PM

Don't worry about it. It's just a friendly discussion and you don't have to answer any questions you don't want to or which make you uncomfortable. We can just drop it. I'm sorry if things got a little heated and tense. I wasn't trying to team up against you with Clopin, or make you feel bad about your personal beliefs. For my part, I've been enjoying our debate very much. It's so rarely I find people I can talk to about Shakespeare or silent films that it's actually quite the treat.Oh, don't get me wrong, I do consider these friendly discussions (the only "uncomfortable heat and tension" is between Clopin and I; not you and I). I just suggested we trim it to one discussion because the posts are getting so long and I don't always have time everyday to respond to everything. In my early 20s I had boundless energy and could face down entire message boards while standing alone like a conquering Achilles bathed in the textual blood of my Trojan adversaries... these days I'm closer to the grumpy old man in Up! If you really want to continue both I may have to limit myself to typing one lengthy response every day. We'll see. Real life can get busy sometimes (hence my periodic absences from this board). :)

MorpheusSandman

07-24-2015, 12:55 PM

Short on time today, but let me address this:

No. Phrasing like "privilege", "rape culture" and "victim blaming" are pretty much the liberal equivalent of Glenn Beck and Donald Trump. That's what you look like to reasonable people when you spout this kind of drivel. You look like Glenn Beck and Donald Trump.Yes, they certainly CAN BE when they're parroted by people that are ignorant of the actual research that's gone on surrounding the terms. In fact, when I first started reading discussions centered around those terms I encountered plenty of liberals that couldn't make a coherent rational argument without huge gaping holes and an inability to fill them with factual data. As someone who stresses the importance of rationalism in forming beliefs, I try to only be swayed by evidence and not rhetoric. It wasn't until I found some who were actually educated on the studies behind the terms that I came to see them as having substantial evidence supporting them. My offer to introduce you to the forum where I learned about them is still open, as there are definitely people there more educated than myself on the topic, but I hope you can agree that when discussing the issue I don't seem as irrational as Beck and Trump.

Clopin

07-24-2015, 02:09 PM

I don't agree at all. What we've determined from statistics does not support your conclusions and you still haven't given my satisfactory answers to the following simple questions.

1. If men are privileged how are they privileged? There doesn't seem to be much disagreement around a few stats in this thread so let's look at them:

Men earn about 5% more salary for equivalent work.
Men make up the vast majority of elite positions in fields like finance and politics.
Women are underrepresented in STEM subjects and a few outlying interests like chess and video games
Men are underrepresented in nursing, childcare, teaching, etc.
Women live about a decade longer than men.
Girls and women highly out score men and boys in school all the way up to university graduation.
Men make up the vast majority of suicides.
Men make up the vast majority of prison populations.
Men make up the vast majority of combat deaths.
Men make up the vast majority of people who are homeless.

So none of that is open for debate right? All of those statements are simply factual. What I struggle with is your interpretation of the data. It seems clear as day to me that the facts suggest men are not, generally, privileged at all, but in fact seem to be quite disadvantaged in many areas of life, especially when you get down to the really lower classes of people. I know the standard social justice warrior tactic here is to say something like "well all of this can be explained by "patriarchy" (more buzzwords for you to use later if you want) and "gender roles" which negatively impact men as well as women". Fine, whatever, we can discuss that later if you want, but for the here and now I'm trying to convince you that your average, run of the mill, guy is not particularly 'privileged' compared to your average female. The elite of course, are white (or Jewish) and largely male, but that's pretty irrelevant when we're talking about the daily lives of average men.

2. If white privilege exists then why are whites consistently outperformed, in school and out, by Asians and Jews in predominantly white countries? Shouldn't white privilege lead to a system where whites are academically and socially elevated above all other races? Or are whites so genetically inferior that we only do as well as we do because of this privilege in the first place?

3. Well when you respond about rape culture we might have something here.

MorpheusSandman

07-24-2015, 02:18 PM

I don't agree at all. What we've determined from statistics does not support your conclusions and you still haven't given my satisfactory answers to the following simple questions. I'll address this post and your last in more detail when I have time. My point, however, was that I think you can agree that the arguments I've presented are not as irrational as Beck and Trump. It's entirely possible that after we flesh out the statistics that we might come to different interpretations since reasonable people can disagree and, frankly, I didn't save every study I was linked to when learning on the subject. I was just trying to establish a mutual agreement between us that the discussion isn't an intellectual titan (you) VS a pea-brained parrot (me), but rather two adequately intelligent, critical thinking people that may have different levels of experience/knowledge on this subject, have come to different conclusions, and are now trying to parse how that happened by rational argument. You entered this discussion very hostile with the seeming assumption that I was an idiot that was mindlessly parroting buzzwords, when in actuality I was someone who was previously resistant to such terms myself and only came to accept them once statistics and rational arguments were presented. If you're actually after a constructive discussion it's generally not a good idea to start with such hostility and an air of superiority.

Clopin

07-24-2015, 03:33 PM

You entered this discussion very hostile with the seeming assumption that I was an idiot that was mindlessly parroting buzzwords, when in actuality I was someone who was previously resistant to such terms myself and only came to accept them once statistics and rational arguments were presented. If you're actually after a constructive discussion it's generally not a good idea to start with such hostility and an air of superiority.

Bolded: And I haven't changed my mind there.

Anyway when you're talking to a social justice warrior it's not important that they feel comfortable or that you convince them of anything. Hardly anybody will change their mind on this sort of thing despite overwhelming evidence that "privilege" (especially make privilege) is total nonsense (not the word, the concept as understood by modern social justice warriors). Once you let loose that you honestly believe Western society is a "rape culture" you became as impossible to take seriously as Beck and Trump.

MorpheusSandman

07-24-2015, 04:26 PM

Anyway when you're talking to a social justice warrior it's not important that they feel comfortable or that you convince them of anything. Hardly anybody will change their mind on this sort of thing despite overwhelming evidence that "privilege" (especially make privilege) is total nonsense (not the word, the concept as understood by modern social justice warriors). Once you let loose that you honestly believe Western society is a "rape culture" you became as impossible to take seriously as Beck and Trump.Then I'm honestly not even sure what the point of continuing this discussion is. You seem completely intent on stereotyping me, dismissing every bit of evidence I offer, while simultaneously insisting you have "overwhelming evidence" (while offering none) that these terms are nonsense, and then displaying a gross ignorance of what the terms you vigorously object to even mean or describe. Your actions are not indicative of anyone I've ever met with a high IQ and critical thinking ability; they're indicative of people suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Clopin

07-24-2015, 04:32 PM

Offering none? Well when you stop replying to my arguments it can seem like that I guess ;)

You can leave whenever you want though; why would I care?

MorpheusSandman

07-24-2015, 05:06 PM

I haven't "stopped replying to your arguments," I said I don't have time to type a full reply to your last post right now; but up until the last one I've read the only "evidence" you've offered is laughably irrelevant to the topic and only displays you don't understand the terms to begin with. In light of this, your hostile, reactionary responses make sense as they bespeak a combination of ignorance and insecurity, which makes your ridiculing of my intelligence all the more ironic.

Clopin

07-24-2015, 05:15 PM

Uh huh.

MorpheusSandman

07-24-2015, 05:41 PM

Yes, and it's extremely easy to demonstrate, like when you brought up the fact of women living longer. This demonstrates your ignorance on two levels:

1. Privilege is about social equality, not biological equality.
2. The existence of certain female privileges, even if you could conclusively demonstrate them, would not disprove male privilege. This ignorantly assumes that the two are mutually exclusive.

You arguing nonsense like giant conspiracies where everyone is racist/sexist is an example too, as it is not a requirement for everyone to be racist/sexist for white and male privilege to exist on a statistical level. Hell, even knowing the first thing about statistics would tell you that.

So you have literally and repeatedly argued points that have nothing to do with what privilege even means or is and wouldn't disprove it even if you were right.

Clopin

07-24-2015, 06:06 PM

Ecurb

07-24-2015, 07:39 PM

So if men and women are privileged in different ways and you can't conclusively show that men generally have a higher quality of life as a result of being male then what exactly is male privilege? Couldn't you just say that men and women enjoy different perquisites and pitfalls due to a huge number of reasons, some biological and some sociological? Where is this huge advantage in being male really being felt in the lives of average men? And if there is no huge advantage what is male privilege?

And why can we easily accept that women live longer due to biological factors, but it's impossible for men to actually be biologically hard wired to excell in certain areas where women may be deficient? Maybe I'll take a page from the SJW handbook and argue that men live shorter lives because "society" places more stress on men, I mean it's the exact same as arguing that women don't succeed in chess because "society" is holding them back.

I have no idea if men are (in general) more "privileged" than women in the modern West. Nonetheless, Clopin, I agree with Morpheus that some of your statistics suggesting that they are not are irrelevant.

Perhaps we can agree that in (a hypothetical) polity where only white men have the franchise to vote, that constitutes a form of white male privilege. In addition, perhaps we can agree that in such a society, women might live longer than men, commit suicide less often than men, and die in combat less often than men (etc., etc.). They might do better in school than men. None of this is relevant to whether voting rights constitute white male "privilege".

Think of Muslim societies where women are denied the right to work outside the home, the right to vote, and the right to go to school. Clearly, men have access to some of these "privileges" and women do not (although, of course, it would be reasonable to say that not having to work outside the home also constitutes a "privilege"). Nonetheless, it's certainly possible that Muslim women live longer, are imprisoned less frequently, and are homeless less often than men -- in fact (without any special knowledge) I'd bet this is the case.

At the same time, I agree with you that salary statistics (etc., etc.) don't PROVE "male privilege" (although they may be "consistent" with it). There could be any number of reasons for the statistical differential in salaries.

Also, "social equality" (to use Morpheus' term) is complicated. Your six-figure-earning welder on the pipeline makes as much money as a Harvard professor, but their social and cultural status is quite different. The professor enjoys cultural and social "privileges" that are difficult to prove or quantify. Charlie Rose never seems to interview the welder.

In addition, both women and black people enjoy certain "privileges" that white men do not (the NFL, for example, suspends players who hit women, but gives them salary increases for "hitting" men). The legal privileges that white men used to enjoy in the U.S. no longer exist; the cultural attitudes on which they were based and by which they were justified may constitute more subtle "privileges", and may change more slowly.

One more aside: the popularity of the notion of White Male Privilege is itself a sort of cultural privilege. The salary differentials Morpheus (and others) refers to as supporting the notion of White Male Privilege suggest that we place some sort of cultural value on wealth. I don't hear people arguing that women are "privileged" because (as a possible example) they work shorter hours than men (if they do). It's sort of a chicken and egg question -- do men strive for what is culturally valued, or do we culturally value what men strive for?

Clopin

07-24-2015, 09:15 PM

Good post. I'm only referring to the Western world, by the way. I am aware that women are grossly oppressed in other parts of the world.

My statistics are at least as valuable as his. If you're going to equate privilege with equal rights and freedoms then we can end the discussion right now as women have absolutely no fewer legal rights than men do. When he argues that male privilege exists I believe he is suggesting that society harbours a climate more conducive to male success than female, and in my opinion this is not true (Assuming your metric for determining success is not entirely based on salary. As you said the Harvard professor and pipe fitter are probably not going to be considered equally 'successful' despite earning a comparative wages).There are also affirmative action quotas for schools and job positions. Sometimes these aren't only a problem for white people either. The average disparity between an Asian applicant being accepted to Harvard and a Black applicant receiving the acceptance slip is something like 400 points on the SAT. So who's privileged here? The black guy who can get into an elite school with a much weaker score, or the Asian guy who might not get in, but gets to see more of his racial group represented at elite schools?

Gutted

07-25-2015, 01:42 AM

2. The existence of certain female privileges, even if you could conclusively demonstrate them, would not disprove male privilege.

What if female privilege provides equal or greater advantages when compared to male privilege?

Clopin

07-25-2015, 03:06 AM

It wouldn't matter. That's the beauty of these buzzwords and slogans, they mean everything and nothing all at once! You can't possibly debate against them because they shift meanings and ultimately mean nothing.

MorpheusSandman

07-25-2015, 02:23 PM

Again, Ecurb is dead on with most everything he's saying. I have a feeling we could disagree over the particulars without him being resistant to understanding the general concept, unlike our resident genius.

What if female privilege provides equal or greater advantages when compared to male privilege?If they were socially more privileged then, yes, female privilege would be a bigger issue; but note the comparative ER. Too many view privilege as a mutually exclusive thing of inverse proportion, meaning that if one group is "privileged" then another can't be, and the degree they can't be is inversely proportionate to how much the other group is. This isn't how it works (well, not always; privilege can be a zero-sum game in some instances). While we might say that privileges accumulate to one group being generally more privileged overall, that's often (not always) difficult to quantify, and it doesn't mean that the privileges that disadvantage both groups don't need fixing. It reminds me how of in relationships one partner will say "you do X and X is wrong and you should stop," and the other says "but you do Y and Y is wrong and you should stop," and maybe X is worse than Y or vice versa, so one is "more wrong" than the other; but whomever is overall more wrong is irrelevant to the point that both should stop doing X and Y, not use X and Y as an excuse to keep doing what they're doing. Like I said, if people find out ways in which white men are disadvantaged by privilege, then by all means go wage an effort to fix those problems; but don't use those disadvantages as an excuse to ignore or devalue the disadvantages of other groups.

MorpheusSandman

07-25-2015, 02:31 PM

So if men and women are privileged in different ways and you can't conclusively show that men generally have a higher quality of life as a result of being male then what exactly is male privilege?Read my reply to Gutted (and, btw, I'm not ceding that what you're saying is true; I just don't have endless time to write these long posts consistently every day).

Couldn't you just say that men and women enjoy different perquisites and pitfalls due to a huge number of reasons, some biological and some sociological?We can't fix the biological unless you want to become a scientist or want to filter a lot of money into science to fix them. This isn't true of sociological problems where a combination of politics and actually changing people's minds can have the desired effect.

And why can we easily accept that women live longer due to biological factors, but it's impossible for men to actually be biologically hard wired to excell in certain areas where women may be deficient?I'm not saying it's impossible that men are biologically hard wired to excel in certain areas; what I'm saying is that they don't seem to be the areas that are currently most valued by society. There's no indication, eg, that men naturally make better scientists, or stockbrokers, or entrepreneurs, or engineers, or software developers. Rather, what's happened is those areas have been (historically) boys' clubs and women have repeatedly stated how the men in them have been quite hostile to their presence. Now, sure, some women overcome this hostility and find success, and maybe some women fall into groups that aren't as hostile (or hostile at all); but, again, it's hard to deny that society, in general, doesn't encourage women to pursue such things.

And, yes, you can also (perhaps fairly) say that society encouraging men towards success and judging/valuing them by that success in such areas leads to stress, which can be its own disadvantage, and maybe that needs to change as well. But what would be fair would be for either both men and women to be encouraged to succeed in the same ways, or neither to be pressured at all and let them pursue what areas interest them without hostility and without pressure.

MorpheusSandman

07-25-2015, 02:47 PM

both women and black people enjoy certain "privileges" that white men do not (the NFL, for example, suspends players who hit women, but gives them salary increases for "hitting" men). This is the only part of your post I object to; at least, I'm not sure exactly what you're suggesting with the NFL example. For one thing, I don't see how blacks are privileged there (white men both play football and, if they play defense or offensive line, are also paid to hit people; if they play quarterback then they're also typically paid more to not hit anyone). Likewise, the "hitting" is something everyone agrees to before they play the game; women don't go into a relationship and agree to be hit.

It's sort of a chicken and egg question -- do men strive for what is culturally valued, or do we culturally value what men strive for?I think it's both. So many of our values come from past societies that were undeniable patriarchies where women were clearly seen as lesser beings, sometimes viewed merely as property whose entire value was bound up in how much they appealed to men. Such values change slowly, and, as you suggest, the laws change faster than the values. Look at, eg, the recent "outrage" of so many in the south over the removal of the Confederate flag. What does it say about someone who values a "symbol of our heritage" when that heritage included slavery and we've had so many recent examples of where those racial tensions have erupted in violence that was clearly racially motivated? That's an example of how laws can change (no more slavery, blacks can vote, etc.) but how the values underlying how things were have not been eradicated. So, yes, I still think we live in a society where far more value is placed on what men have (traditionally, and still a lot today) find valuable and where men, typically, pursue those values and, in many cases, discourage women. I'm not even saying that all, most, or many of those values are wrong, all I'm saying is that the only way we can really know is removing whatever stigmas and hostilities are attached to women themselves pursuing those values, and women having more input on what is valuable (which they do have far more now than in the past).

Clopin

07-25-2015, 03:15 PM

Well you've said nothing particularly objectionable in the last few posts Morph so that's an achievement. I do think that men are better suited to be engineers and scientists however. And you're wrong to say that society doesn't encourage women towards working in traditionally male dominated fields. At least among people of my age women get absolutely nothing but encouragement when they want to enter STEM subjects, and like I said with Chess a lot of money and time has been spent on specific programs and schemes designed only to increase female participation. They have not worked.

Another thing I would like to point out is that if societal disapproval can really drive massive numbers of women who would otherwise play Chess away from the game then it's a wonder we have any Chess players in the first place. Have you ever noticed how Chess is usually portrayed in popular culture? It's maybe a step up from Dugeons and Dragons in being shown as a game for pasty, nerdy losers who can't get laid. Well that's not a pleasant image is it? So how come people continue to play Chess despite the stigma? My own twelve year old cousin told me it was 'gay' that I went to a Chess club the other day!

This is the only part of your post I object to; at least, I'm not sure exactly what you're suggesting with the NFL example. For one thing, I don't see how blacks are privileged there (white men both play football and, if they play defense or offensive line, are also paid to hit people; if they play quarterback then they're also typically paid more to not hit anyone). Likewise, the "hitting" is something everyone agrees to before they play the game; women don't go into a relationship and agree to be hit.

Bolded: Nah, that's just his phrasing. He's saying women and black men have certain privileges and then he gives an example of a female privilege, but doesn't necessarily apply that same example to both women and black men.

Also I don't follow football so I can't be sure, but I believe he's referring to off-field acts of violence and how hitting a woman is taken much more seriously than hitting a man, even if the man is physically weaker than his assailant.

Ecurb

07-25-2015, 04:52 PM

You got it, Clopin. I was trying to make a joke about how hitting (punching) a woman is considered a heinous sin, while hitting (tackling) other men is standard behavior. I was also hinting at how certain standards and mores grant privileges to people based on their membership in a group, but may also belittle the group. Chivalry is a perfect example. The codes of chivalry protected women (a privilege). If a knight met a woman on the road, for example, he would not challenge her to fight to the death (as he might if he met a random man, if we can believe the legends). He was sworn to protect women. Nonetheless, the privilege came at a price: women were protected because they were deemed helpless and infantile; the male virtues of courage and strength were highly valued by the codes of chivalry; political power and social dominance were based on knightly valor and skill at arms, etc. So who was "privileged" in a chivalrous society? Women or men? (Both, in different ways.)

Clopin

07-25-2015, 10:33 PM

What was it on the Titanic? Children and what first? Now I may not understand this whole privilege thing (because it's a meaningless buzzword) but I wonder if you can get less socially privileged than being expected to die based entirely on your gender...

58'000 American men (boys really, the average age was what, eighteen) died in Vietnam after a male only draft! Imagine that, being drafted into the army to die at eighteen! Sounds horrible, I mean you've barely even lived at that point. But oh well who cares if tens of thousands of men die, and tens of thousands more are maimed or suffer severe psychological trauma after being forced to fight in an absurd war when we have really important things to consider like women being spoken to in elevators or *audible gasp* discouraged from playing videogames!

Gutted

07-27-2015, 10:49 PM

Again, Ecurb is dead on with most everything he's saying. I have a feeling we could disagree over the particulars without him being resistant to understanding the general concept, unlike our resident genius.

If they were socially more privileged then, yes, female privilege would be a bigger issue; but note the comparative ER. Too many view privilege as a mutually exclusive thing of inverse proportion, meaning that if one group is "privileged" then another can't be, and the degree they can't be is inversely proportionate to how much the other group is. This isn't how it works (well, not always; privilege can be a zero-sum game in some instances). While we might say that privileges accumulate to one group being generally more privileged overall, that's often (not always) difficult to quantify, and it doesn't mean that the privileges that disadvantage both groups don't need fixing. It reminds me how of in relationships one partner will say "you do X and X is wrong and you should stop," and the other says "but you do Y and Y is wrong and you should stop," and maybe X is worse than Y or vice versa, so one is "more wrong" than the other; but whomever is overall more wrong is irrelevant to the point that both should stop doing X and Y, not use X and Y as an excuse to keep doing what they're doing. Like I said, if people find out ways in which white men are disadvantaged by privilege, then by all means go wage an effort to fix those problems; but don't use those disadvantages as an excuse to ignore or devalue the disadvantages of other groups.

I would be curious to hear about why you think men are more socially privileged. Btw, I don't really disagree with the rest of your post.

Ecurb

07-28-2015, 12:11 PM

"Women and children first" is a perfect example of what I was getting at: women are clearly gaining the privilege of being allowed into the lifeboats -- but they are also being equated with helpless children who can't look after themselves. The privilege is direct and real; the insult is less direct, but also real.

Soldiers provide another example. Clopin's example reminds me of G.B. Shaw's play "Arms and the Man", the theme of which seems to be: "War, if we must. But please! No songs and poems GLORIFYING war!" Maybe the only way we can induce young men to fight is by lauding the virtues of courage, aggression, etc. It is true, of course, that men are expected to die for their country (while women are not). It is also true that we honor and glorify the men for doing so.

MorpheusSandman

07-29-2015, 04:46 PM

Get rid of guns.I have no problem with that, personally.

Not force, but encourage and promote publicly from a cultural, public health, and social capital point of view.So, basically, violate the separation of Church and State?

Which all films have even silent films. Silence and musical scores are sound. Black and white are colors.Well, now we're getting down to semantics, but I think you know what I meant. For "sound" I meant "films that had recorded sound and authorial/directorial intended scores" and for "color" I meant "films not in B&W."

I think they do.You're free to prefer it, but you are not free to pretend this preference is either objective or has anything to do with the fundamental art of filmmaking.

Find me a great film without a story. There aren't any.The Man with the Movie Camera. Sans Soleil. Dog Star Man. Meshes of the Afternoon. Wavelength. Koyaanisqatsi. Berlin: Symphony of a Great City. Zorns Lemma. Un Chien Andalou. Close-Up.

I'd even hesitate to say that films like Tarkovsky's Mirror, Last Year at Marienbad, Godard's 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her, Playtime, really have "stories." They have scenarios from which they execute their cinematic experimentation.

I don't think that you can.Hitchcock proved you can, even telling Truffaut he selected Psycho because of its terrible source material, to prove that film is a director's art-form, not a writer's. Really, all of noir falls under the category of what would be considered "poor stories" as pure literature. The Third Man even knowingly mocks this notion with its protagonist being a writer of shlock westerns who's thrust into a detective story.

You said that Griffith and Eisenstein's films were perfection.Going back through the last pages using CTRL+F, I can't find where I said this. What I may have said was that Griffith and Eisenstein perfected the art-form, meaning the art of mise-en-scene and editing. This is different than saying their films are perfect.

Be aware that you hold a minority view in this respect.I actually do not. To say color is not innately better simply means that it comes down to preference. This is no more controversial than saying chocolate isn't innately better than vanilla. Besides, painting is not photography/cinematography. Choosing to limit colors is always a conscious choice in painting, while for many years it was mandatory for photography and movies.

Sometimes they do get better though.Well, yes, they go through better and worse eras (to echo the Third Man reference, see Welles's Cuckoo Clock speech), but this is different than saying that they progress towards some ideal that will only be achievable in the future.

And I think that a lot of early directors used black and white poorly.Absolutely, but this is because they were still figuring out how to use photography expressively, period. It took a painter like Murnau to really perfect it.

Pretty much every film where Vittorio Storaro, Sven Nykvist, were cinematographers were better for light and color. Absolutely as well, but most cinematographers aren't Storaro and Nykvist (or Mark Lee Ping-Bin, to throw out a contemporary master).

Bergman however was not responsible for the visual style of his movies. That was Nykvist.Not entirely. Bergman had an excellent eye even before Nykvist. Go back and look at the compositions and his use of contrast in The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries, or even earlier (the best thing about his sub-par early films are the visuals). Plus, Bergman understood using color symbolically coming from the theater; the use of red in Cries & Whispers was his idea, and Nykvist executed it.

If you remove color and sound you have black and white photography. Remove narrative and it's abstract photography. Without color is it even photography? Or is it concept art? It ain't film.Of course it's film! Firstly, technically, anything shot on "film" is technically "film," but the more accurate term, movie, is itself is short for "moving picture," so the fundamental aspect of the art is literally the moving picture. It makes not a whit of difference whether that moving picture is in color or b&w, whether in sound or silent, or whether it's telling a story or being used experimentally as in the films of Brakhage or Vertov. This has nothing to do with a "reductio ad absurdum" and everything to do with understanding the fundamental art of cinema is, literally, "moving pictures," and that moving pictures typically involves two fundamental elements: mise-en-scene (what's in front of the camera) and montage (whenever any editing is involved).

I don't think the early guys thought of everything. I don't think they could have. Besides with their technological limitations there were plenty of things they simply couldn't do.I wouldn't say they thought of everything and you're absolutely right that the crude technology limited what they could do; but most of this involved what happened in front of the camera, not how to use the camera and editing. Eisenstein literally thought of everything when it came to editing, to the point nobody has added anything new since.

It's a hybrid medium because it combines photography, writing, acting, painting, and music. Sometimes it includes fashion, and architecture.First, film is not a hybrid of painting unless you're doing Brakhage's painting on film. Secondly, I already said that music makes film a hybrid. Thirdly, everything else is inherent in narrative, not inherent in the medium of film. They're things the medium of film can be utilized for.

There's no such thing as a silent film or a film without color."Without color" just simply means "not shot in color," and color tinting is hardly the same as film stock. There are such a thing as silent films. Again, Dreyer expressed his preference for POJOA being shown silent, and in most silent films the filmmakers weren't actually involved in the scoring.

You don't think that film acting has come a long way since then?Well, yes, but this isn't really what I was discussing. The evolution of film acting involves recognizing the difference between how acting registers on a camera VS how it registers in a theater. Brando and Kazan were two of the first to recognize that the kind of "projection" necessary in theater became too melodramatic in front of a camera; but even many earlier actors/directors knew this. One of the young actors in Stalag 17 noted how William Holden told him "there's a 135mm lens on the camera, that means they'll be in real close, so don't overplay anything." Obviously in silent film the exaggeration was used because filmmakers were concerned that without audible dialogue the audience would miss the emotional substance. This turned out to be wrong. Yet such styles didn't really die out: Kurosawa was heavily influenced by Noh and preferred that exaggerated mode of acting (which made Mifune such a perfect fit for him), eg.

I don't know how I feel about sequential photography or flip books which is what you are describing.Go watch some Brakhage and tell me what you feel. To me, his is film in its purest, most poetic form. I'd recommend 23rd Psalm Branch as a great introduction that's powerful without being too long.

For what it's worth, I think he's intelligent. He's just really liberal which comes with as many crazy biases as being really conservative does.I'm not "really liberal," I'm a "really rationalist" who endeavors to align my beliefs with reality. If proof was produced that showed anything I said was wrong, I'd immediately change my mind. I have zero reason to prefer them to be true; they just seem to be based on the research I've done and based on the research others have done and have related to me.

MorpheusSandman

07-29-2015, 05:20 PM

Honestly, I've had much worse days. And in the past, when people made me uncomfortable, I usually complied a lot quicker than Kate, instead of holding out and being stubborn or pig headed. Although, sometimes I don't change and just continue to suffer, and after a while you blame yourself for your troubles more than other people. Thinking "Man, I could have changed this and this a long time ago, and things would have been so much easier."It would've been a lot easier for Schindler just to comply with the Nazis and not hid any Jews, or if Rosa Parks had just gone to the back of the bus, or if Gandhi hadn't stood up to the British government. Nobody ever said that doing what's right is easy. Sometimes, yes, people DO need to change because of some fundamental flaw; but equally yes, sometimes the social pressures that are trying to force that change are themselves unfair and need changing. My entire point is that the context and content of Shrew presents an entirely unfair society in which men are undeniably privileged and women are seen as property whose only purpose is to serve their husbands. It's even entirely possible that Kate would be a "shrew" were it not for that society, but we have no way of knowing, and what we CAN say is that Petrucchio's torture is done entirely to bring her in line with that society's perfect female ideal.

Although, there's a lot of backlash lately, trying to make men act like women or women act like men.What are you talking about? What I see is a society that's trying to get to a place where men and women are actually equal, so there won't be any "men acting like women" or vice versa because there won't be any prescribed way for men and women to act that's different from the other. Your "trying to make men act like women" spiel reminds me of the idiotic rhetoric that if we legalize same-sex marriage then men will be encouraged to marry men. The entire point is equality, of not pretending like social norms are innately right or fair. Remember it was once a social norm for blacks to be treated as lesser beings too, and so many never even thought to question this assumption, to question whether it was a social norm based on nothing, or whether it was some fact of biology. Again, the only studies I'm aware of suggest that men and women are far more similar than dissimilar, with men having better spatial skills and women better spatial memory; this certainly doesn't suggest that men would, eg, make better CEOs or be more biologically inclined towards being them; so why the disparity if it's not social? http://www.livescience.com/20011-brain-cognition-gender-differences.html

What you said was more like it's more socially acceptable, or it's less of an injustice to beat and humiliate men than when women go without food or sleep for a day.Well, it IS more socially acceptable (I'm not saying it should be), but I didn't say it's "less of an injustice" to beat and humiliate men.

Even logic breaks down at some point when applied to the real world.Logic doesn't break down. The facts we input and our actual reasoning might breakdown, but this is our failing; not logic's.

You said that there isn't any censorship anymore and I said that those men would disagree with you.I think I meant there isn't censorship in film. I know there are still regulations for radio and TV.

Page six post 96 "this is where privilege becomes an important factor. When you have one group that has historically been in the privileged position, making light of them does not have the same affect that making light of those who are in a much weaker position does. It's like suggesting that both slaves and slaveowners should be equally subject to ridicule. Well, no, they shouldn't. Your "double standard" presumes a level playing field in real life, when the truth is that there is no level playing field, and the playing field back then was far more unlevel then than it is now. Besides, as I suggested above, in those RomComs the women are not TORTURING the men by any stretch of the imagination."This is just a statement of fact, though, it's not an endorsement of beating and humiliating men. It's absolutely true that making fun of those in power doesn't have even remotely the same affect as making fun of the underprivileged. John Stewart and Steven Colbert have, after all, been making fun at the hypocrisies of the rich and the politicians that support them for years and what's happened? The rich have gotten richer, the politicians haven't stopped supporting them. On the other hand, when you trivialize, say, women's rights then it becomes very easy for people to simply not care and think that nothing needs changing, to not vote for bills that could create greater equality. Like I said, my example about slaves/slaveowners makes it clear; I'm sure the slaveowners had their share of difficulties, and the slaves weren't perfect human beings, but this completely ignores the giant honking injustice taking place and how making fun of those clearly in a superior position doesn't have the same affect as making fun of those in the inferior position would. In an ideal world, there would be no slaves and slaveonwers, blacks and whites would be equal, and both would be equal targets for humor; but that's certainly not the world then, and it's still not the world now.

How are men abused or humiliated in screwball comedies? How about this threatening line of dialogue in His Girl Friday "I'm going to walk right up to you and hammer on that monkey skull of yours until it rings like a Chinese gong." Hildy also kicks Walter under the table. Then there is the character Bruce who is a classic milquetoast, the opposite of the female shrew, who's constantly emasculated and subjected to put downs.So you think a line of dialog that's clearly exaggerated (considering you could not literally "ring someone's skull like a gong"), and kicking someone under the table to get their attention is the equivalent of starving and sleep-depriving someone to get them to change their personality? Heck, His Girl Friday is very much like the first part of Shrew where Hildy and Walter are like Petruchio and Katherine on a level playing field going back and forth with verbal sparring. To me, that's equality, not a situation where either side is physically forcing the other to change to fit some kind of social norm.

It's exaggerating the domestic squabbles every marriage has for comedic effect.No, this is far too vague. Married people debating over who uses the bathroom first is a specific, non-violent squabble. The "squabble" in Taming of the Shrew seems to entirely be "this ***** needs to learn her place."

Your other examples just show that you're missing the irony of those scenes. Family Guy is clearly making fun of the casual misogyny and domestic violence that was suggested the Honeymooners; it's in no way "justifying" it. Same thing with The Simpsons clip.

That's because he's too afraid to ask Othello for help. He's been victimized so long, held under his abusers thumb, that he doesn't even dare to show displeasure or object. Classic authoritarianism.Well, if that's true then I would say that Iago's malicious deception becomes more sympathetic, but I just don't know if that's the case. Again, there's no indication either that Othello has been knowingly malicious or would refuse to help Iago. Iago may have gotten that impression because he's attributing an oversight to maliciousness, but I see no evidence that he's actually right.

So you think Antonio deserves what happens to him because he's an idiot and Othello doesn't deserve what happens to him because he's oblivious?Antonio didn't "deserve" it, it was merely part of a deal he knowingly, consciously made of his own free will. Othello didn't even get a chance to rectify his "wrong-doing" if, in fact, what he'd done by overlooking Iago was wrong.

Ie, a man.Not those that are informed, sympathetic, and aren't completely selfish.

MorpheusSandman

07-29-2015, 05:24 PM

I was trying to make a joke about how hitting (punching) a woman is considered a heinous sin, while hitting (tackling) other men is standard behavior. Hitting other men is only standard behavior in a specific context where the men have agreed to hit each other (like sports). You can't walk up and hit some random guy on the street or you'd face assault charges.

MorpheusSandman

07-29-2015, 05:37 PM

I would be curious to hear about why you think men are more socially privileged. Btw, I don't really disagree with the rest of your post.Well, that's what we're all discussing in this thread! Here's a good checklist that runs through the major examples. http://amptoons.com/blog/the-male-privilege-checklist/ If you click on "more" you'll be taken to articles that have references to peer-reviewed journals that you can check out, just to make sure they aren't pulling the claims out of their backside.

Ecurb

07-29-2015, 07:30 PM

Hitting other men is only standard behavior in a specific context where the men have agreed to hit each other (like sports). You can't walk up and hit some random guy on the street or you'd face assault charges.

True, of course. And shooting other men is only standard behavior during a war. (Although hitting people, both men and women, in and out of the ring, seems fairly standard for Floyd Mayweather. The evidence suggests he may hit harder out of the ring than in it. He did go to prison for punching a woman, but has yet to be imprisoned for taking money under the false pretense of fighting IN the ring.)

Clopin

07-29-2015, 07:36 PM

Pop quiz Morph. If I were to violently assault a woman and violently assault a man which crime would both society and the legal system view as more heinous and why?

MorpheusSandman

07-29-2015, 07:56 PM

Although hitting people, both men and women, in and out of the ring, seems fairly standard for Floyd Mayweather. The evidence suggests he may hit harder out of the ring than in it. He did go to prison for punching a woman, but has yet to be imprisoned for taking money under the false pretense of fighting IN the ring.:smilielol5: Even as a Mayweather fan, I found that funny!

MorpheusSandman

07-29-2015, 08:19 PM

If I were to violently assault a woman and violently assault a man which crime would both society and the legal system view as more heinous and why?They're equal in the eyes of the legal system assuming the contexts and results are the same. Of course most in society would view the assault on the woman as "more heinous," and while that's understandable to an extent it's another social norm that needs to be quelled as violence either way shouldn't be acceptable.

Pop quiz Clopin: Do you think men or women are more likely to be seriously hurt by domestic violence?

Clopin

07-29-2015, 08:20 PM

Also Morph I realize it would be silly for me to argue that men do not enjoy any advantages over women, because of course they do. My stance is simply that men are not socially advantaged over women in any meaningful way, and in fact a great number of men are much less socially advantaged, or suffer greatly due to their sex.

Anyway that entire list is basically a bunch of weak anecdotal crap but I'll point out some of the more egregious bull****.

16. As a child chances are I got more teacher attention than girls who raised their hand just as often.

This one so strongly contradicts my own experiences that I absolutely refuse to believe it. Yes some piddley study is linked to, but if you can google you can find a study suggesting anything. Eventually you need a common sense filter. Now real data that shows girls heavily outperform boys in school would seem to contradict this, no? Or are girls just so amazing that despite all of the crippling handicaps they face by society and their (mostly female) teachers they still manage to achieve much better results in school than their oh so privileged and acknowledged male counterparts? Now I work with children and, while they aren't quite school aged when I have them, by the time they are three or four there is some pretty marked gender segregation; not so much in their choosing to befriend only members of their own sex, but in their attitude to play and their interactions with other people. And, frankly, young boys are much harder to deal with, generally quite disliked and often treated poorly as a result. And don't think i'm just blaming female caregivers for not properly meeting the needs of young boys, because I have the same reactions to them as many of the female instructors. Often after eight hours a day listening to shrieking children the last thing you want to do is deal with some high spirited game devised by a couple four year old boys. I recently had a conversation with a woman who wanted to switch her son from his current care centre to the home daycare I work for; her concern being that her four year old son is always in trouble at his daycare and that his paricular needs are not being met. She came to this conclusion after he had spent a few weeks at our home daycare and she noticed a huge improvement in his general mood and energy levels. I'm personally acquainted with the woman who runs the other centre and I think she's a very nice woman and a very good childcare worker, but the boy's mom was completely right, she can't handle a (in his case, very) high energy boy and she doesn't actually even want to. Now I don't think this is some societal flaw, or a horribly offensive example of widespread misandry. It's just common sense that most people can't tolerate as much high energy, violent, loud, and aggressive play which is simply what boys need and unfortunately they suffer a little as a result. However, to argue that schools actually favour young boys strikes me as being very odd considering that girls and women do so much better at every grade and level, right through their degree programs in university.

if I do the same task as a woman chances are people will think I did a better job.

Prove it. This seems to be complete nonsense.

if I have children but do not provide primary care for them my masculinity will not be called into question.

Again, my own experience strongly contradicts this. Many of the children I take care of come from single parent households, or have divorced parents, as I do myself. If the men in this scenario are not perceived to be pulling their weight then trust me, they are absolutely lambasted, and by practically everyone. I am of the opinion that men are generally worse at raising children than women though and that this is natural, however if you take the view that men and women are the same and that it's all societal bias causing various discrepancies then you should be aware that men are indeed called into question if their parenting or support is not considered up to par.

Even if I sleep with a lot of women I will not be labelled a slut, nor is there a male equivalent for "slut bashing"

Wrong. Dead wrong. The male equivalent is simply the opposite. Virgin bashing, or belittling or insulting men based on their, real or perceived, sexual inexperience. Also interestingly slut bashing is mainly perpetrated by other women while virgin bashing is mainly perpetrated by other men.

I can ask for legal protection from violence which happens mostly to men without being seen as a selfish special interest, since this violence is called "crime" and is a general social concern (Violence that happens mostly to women is usually called "domestic violence" and is seen as a special interest)

This one is really insane. So women can't ask for legal protection from violent crimes? Victims of domestic violence are seen as selfish special interests? What? Is there any... evidence for that at all?

Clopin

07-29-2015, 08:21 PM

They're equal in the eyes of the legal system assuming the contexts and results are the same. Of course most in society would view the assault on the woman as "more heinous," and while that's understandable to an extent it's another social norm that needs to be quelled as violence either way shouldn't be acceptable.

Pop quiz Clopin: Do you think men or women are more likely to be seriously hurt by domestic violence?

Women are much, much more likely to be seriously injured or killed as a result of domestic violence. But isn't that biological and not societal? I mean if a man and woman come to blows the man tends to win due to his biological advantage in strength right? Also I think men are more likely to be stupid, violent thugs who abuse women and children in the first place, but that's debated by people who persist in the belief that gender differences have nothing to do with biology.

Also @ Bolded: Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Also morph the argument that men and women are more similar than dissimilar and thus won't display much meaningful gender distinction is pretty idiotic. Humans share 96% of our DNA with chimps making us far more similar than dissimilar biologically, but that 4% seems pretty important right?

Ecurb

07-29-2015, 08:37 PM

I don't know the "domestic violence" stats (I assume women are more likely to be hurt because men are stronger, most domestic couples are heterosexual, and men are more violent than women). However, men are far more likely to be the victims of violent crimes than women are (this is true for murder, assault, and armed robbery -- in other words for all the major violent crimes except rape). Also, if we include child beating in "domestic violence", I'd guess (I don't know) that boys are more likely to be victims than girls. (As Clopin confirms from his child care experience, this is probably true for no other reason than that boys are more rowdy, badly behaved and annoying than girls, and because some parents are sexist and think their sons can "take it" better than their daughters can.)

Clopin

07-29-2015, 08:51 PM

Yes, one of the male privilege checklist items was something like "I'm not taught to fear walking alone in a dark alley as much as women are". Well maybe we should be since men are the overwhelming majority victims of violent crime. And of course I have felt fear in certain situations and areas, a dark alley probably being one of them.

Clopin

07-29-2015, 09:20 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H24sLF3CkMo

Haha hey Morph, is this rape culture in action? I mean she does say the cop is raping her! Imagine if she were a man pulling this kind of ****... He would be tazed - or worse - in about six seconds.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/416536/how-common-are-false-rape-charges-really-jason-richwine

Some talk about the false rape accusation stat.

And here's a video I just found while googling around for some stuff on male privilege/what-have-you, and okay I admit I have no idea now valid this video actually is, but I've seen this story in action and there are absolutely fathers and men who suffer unjustly and far beyond proportion during and after a divorce.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zxNRtObt8no

Male privilege right?

http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2015/02/21/men-and-suicide-the-silent-epidemic/

Divorce a major factor in male suicide rates. Gee remember when you couldn't imagine what societal factor may have been causing male suicide rates Morph? Well we could possibly improve them by making divorce a little more fair. In North America more than two thirds of divorces are initiated by women! Gosh it's so hard to imagine why! I mean it's almost as if one side (determined entirely by gender) has all of the incentive to proceed with a divorce while the other side (again, determined entirely by gender) has the privilege of losing everything! So is this male privilege yet or what?

Now I know you'll say that all of the examples I can possibly bring up are irrelevant because they don't disprove the areas where women struggle (man it's convenient to have an argument which can automatically never be disproven, I mean if all my stats and figures are meaningless what am I supposed to say?) but where's the tipping point where I bring enough evidence of men seriously struggling in society due to their gender before we can accept that being a man is not really a benefit in itself? Never? I mean can you lay out for me a situation where you would actually believe that men are not socially elevated over women?

Gutted

07-30-2015, 03:14 AM

Well, that's what we're all discussing in this thread! Here's a good checklist that runs through the major examples. If you click on "more" you'll be taken to articles that have references to peer-reviewed journals that you can check out, just to make sure they aren't pulling the claims out of their backside.

No, you haven't touched on social privilege at all. Also, I'm not sure what a passed around checklist from 1990 is supposed to prove to anyone.

mortalterror

07-30-2015, 04:01 AM

I have no problem with that, personally.

So, basically, violate the separation of Church and State?
So you have no problem violating some amendments but not others?

Also, I'm not sure that does violate separation of Church and State if they don't play favorites and are pluralistic. Besides, we already have tax exempt status for them as non-profits because of their charities, and Bush had that big push to downsize government and let private organizations do things. This would be an extension of that. The churches already get government funding for their schools and hospitals. Remember the voucher program?

Well, now we're getting down to semantics, but I think you know what I meant. For "sound" I meant "films that had recorded sound and authorial/directorial intended scores" and for "color" I meant "films not in B&W."

You're free to prefer it, but you are not free to pretend this preference is either objective or has anything to do with the fundamental art of filmmaking.
And your own opinion is of course objective as usual.

The Man with the Movie Camera. Sans Soleil. Dog Star Man. Meshes of the Afternoon. Wavelength. Koyaanisqatsi. Berlin: Symphony of a Great City. Zorns Lemma. Un Chien Andalou. Close-Up.
Those films suck. Nobody likes them but film school rejects. Although, I do like Man with the Movie Camera, but it wouldn't make my top 200. Un Chien Andalou was alright as a short film, but it would have pissed people off as a feature. There's a reason why half of those are just shorts. That kind of thing doen't entertain people. It annoys them. You can't possibly compare those films with the greatness of Pulp Fiction, Goodfellas, or Apocalypse Now.

I'd even hesitate to say that films like Tarkovsky's Mirror, Last Year at Marienbad, Godard's 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her, Playtime, really have "stories." They have scenarios from which they execute their cinematic experimentation.
Yeah, I really don't like those ones either. Godard is probably my least favorite "great director" and Playtime by Tati bored me to tears.

Hitchcock proved you can, even telling Truffaut he selected Psycho because of its terrible source material, to prove that film is a director's art-form, not a writer's.
I think he proved pretty well that a writer is important with that one. Psycho is a lousy movie. The writer is an important collaborator, just not the chief collaborator on a film. The same goes for the actors. Hitchcock claiming that the writing is unimportant was pure hubris on his part. The best films are the ones where every part works well. That's why so many great films are adaptations of great books and plays. It's like having a solid foundation for your house.

"You can drive a car with your feet if you want to. That don't make it a good idea." - Chris Rock

Really, all of noir falls under the category of what would be considered "poor stories" as pure literature. The Third Man even knowingly mocks this notion with its protagonist being a writer of shlock westerns who's thrust into a detective story.
There are plenty of great stories in noir: The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity, Scarlet Street, The Big Heat, Asphault Jungle, Sunset Boulevard, Chinatown, LA Confidential, Bladerunner, Blood Simple. Not all detective films or genre films have poor stories. The Third Man I've never liked except for the cuckoo speech on the ferris wheel, but even that I'd hesitate to call it poorly written given that the writer was short listed for a Nobel prize in literature. I'm not sure if the protagonist being a writer of westerns is meant to undermine the importance of writing, or the genre, but I know that a lot of writers love writing about other writers. It's typically a narcissism thing rather than an actual important statement.

Going back through the last pages using CTRL+F, I can't find where I said this. What I may have said was that Griffith and Eisenstein perfected the art-form, meaning the art of mise-en-scene and editing. This is different than saying their films are perfect.
I'll give them points for being good at editing or mise-en-scene. I'm not sure I'd say they were the best at it, although my distaste for their works, precludes my seeing all of it to make a better judgment; so I leave open the possibility they've done better work which I'm unaware of. However, I'll add the caveat that when I see the techniques they've pioneered in other people's films, I like the latter more. For instance, that scene in Untouchables is way more watchable than the Odessa steps sequence.

I was just watching a clip from the OSS and it seemed to run on too long. Once again, I was struck by the ugliness of the woman, which at first I wasn't sure was a woman, or the mother of the child being trampled. Then when the kid is being trampled in the panic Eisenstein cuts back between them four or five times, and I'm like "Alright, I got it the first time. Now, you're just in love with yourself." It kind of reminds me of this scene from Dolemite the Human Tornado, starring, co-written, and produced by Rudy Ray Moore who is so proud of his stunt work he rewinds the shot to show us it again with the voiceover "So y'all don't believe I jumped huh? Well, watch this good ****!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raplinC5tEI

Of course, nobody is going to say that Dolemite perfected the craft of film.

I actually do not. To say color is not innately better simply means that it comes down to preference. This is no more controversial than saying chocolate isn't innately better than vanilla. Besides, painting is not photography/cinematography. Choosing to limit colors is always a conscious choice in painting, while for many years it was mandatory for photography and movies.
I'll give way on this point, since there are some good black and white films that use their palette effectively.

Well, yes, they go through better and worse eras (to echo the Third Man reference, see Welles's Cuckoo Clock speech), but this is different than saying that they progress towards some ideal that will only be achievable in the future.
But don't you think that the more senses that are stimulated the more engrossing, absorbing, and realistic the work becomes? We see in color. We hear sound. Watching a silent film sometimes feels like removing a sense and being deaf. You get a lack of input and stimulation to the part of your brain that processes hearing. Ultimately, it's about as satisfying as sitting in the dark listening to an audiobook. You can do it, and even be entertained by it, but it won't have the full powerful effect of being completely engaged at every level like you can with colored sound films. That's why tv and movies are way more popular than books in our age. They appeal to people on more levels.

Absolutely, but this is because they were still figuring out how to use photography expressively, period. It took a painter like Murnau to really perfect it.
He had a good eye, and got some interesting shots, but I'd still take Ridley Scott over him.

Absolutely as well, but most cinematographers aren't Storaro and Nykvist (or Mark Lee Ping-Bin, to throw out a contemporary master).
I wish they could make every movie.

Not entirely. Bergman had an excellent eye even before Nykvist. Go back and look at the compositions and his use of contrast in The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries, or even earlier (the best thing about his sub-par early films are the visuals). Plus, Bergman understood using color symbolically coming from the theater; the use of red in Cries & Whispers was his idea, and Nykvist executed it.
I remember watching one of his first films from the 40s and thinking it looked stagey. Then stuff like The Magic Flute, you can tell Bergman is drawing on his experience as a director of opera. And on the criterion DVD extras he goes on about how much he loved the work of the playwright August Strindberg. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc8DpjM4c-c His films have sort of the same tone as the plays I read by Strindberg in college. I can definitely see him being an influence on the way Bergman wrote, like I can see the influence of Max Ophuls tracking shots on Kubrick.

Of course it's film! Firstly, technically, anything shot on "film" is technically "film," but the more accurate term, movie, is itself is short for "moving picture," so the fundamental aspect of the art is literally the moving picture. It makes not a whit of difference whether that moving picture is in color or b&w, whether in sound or silent, or whether it's telling a story or being used experimentally as in the films of Brakhage or Vertov. This has nothing to do with a "reductio ad absurdum" and everything to do with understanding the fundamental art of cinema is, literally, "moving pictures," and that moving pictures typically involves two fundamental elements: mise-en-scene (what's in front of the camera) and montage (whenever any editing is involved).
Probably just a bad name that doesn't fully characterize what the medium is, or perhaps a name that stuck from a time when film was soundless, an anachronism, a vestigial holdback if you will that no longer applies. It works as a shorthand though, and you'd confuse people if you tried to come up with a new name at this point, so I guess it's here to stay. Although, a friend of mine has brought up the inappropriateness of the moniker with me before. I suppose they aren't called movies in every language though. I bet there's a way like in German or Hindi to chain enough compound words together to come up with an appropriate title.

Of course, definitions do change over time, and words change their meanings. I think that if 99.99% of films in the last 8 decades have had sound, then most people assume that sound is a part of the medium, and the definition has changed since the days of Eisenstein. You are arguing for the exception to define the majority and that doesn't make any sense at all.

I wouldn't say they thought of everything and you're absolutely right that the crude technology limited what they could do; but most of this involved what happened in front of the camera, not how to use the camera and editing. Eisenstein literally thought of everything when it came to editing, to the point nobody has added anything new since.
I'm not sure about that. I'm thinking that the machine gun editing of MTV music videos might be an innovation, or the unrelated action and multi-tiered splicing at the beginning of Peckinpah's Wild Bunch, might count. I remember my cinema teacher in college screening a scene from the 1998 film The Celebration, at the beginning when a car is going down the road and they pass the driver's brother. The editing and cinematography was all over the place but the professor said that was intentional and had such and such an effect. Of course, he had nice things to say about the way Michael Bay edited Armageddon, so take that with a grain of salt. I also can't help but think that the French New Wave directors added something, jump cuts maybe or linking scenes with audio. I'm sure Godard and Truffaut added something, and Andy Warhol or John Cassavetes probably did something nobody had done before, but which was nonetheless a complete artistic failure.

First, film is not a hybrid of painting unless you're doing Brakhage's painting on film. Secondly, I already said that music makes film a hybrid. Thirdly, everything else is inherent in narrative, not inherent in the medium of film. They're things the medium of film can be utilized for.
First, the painting I was referring to would be part of set design usually, sort of the way that fashion is implied in costumes and wardrobe. The art of makeup isn't essential, but many films employ it. Secondly, I think you are making a mistake by defining film only by what is unique to it, since this leaves so much of what it is outside of your definition. It is an incomplete definition, not a lie but a half-truth.

"Without color" just simply means "not shot in color," and color tinting is hardly the same as film stock. There are such a thing as silent films. Again, Dreyer expressed his preference for POJOA being shown silent, and in most silent films the filmmakers weren't actually involved in the scoring.
Without color means clear. I don't know that it matters what the director preferred. The film belongs as much to the producer or to the audience, in the end. I also don't think it matters if the director wasn't a part of the scoring. A lot of directors delegate various tasks like that.

Well, yes, but this isn't really what I was discussing. The evolution of film acting involves recognizing the difference between how acting registers on a camera VS how it registers in a theater. Brando and Kazan were two of the first to recognize that the kind of "projection" necessary in theater became too melodramatic in front of a camera; but even many earlier actors/directors knew this. One of the young actors in Stalag 17 noted how William Holden told him "there's a 135mm lens on the camera, that means they'll be in real close, so don't overplay anything." Obviously in silent film the exaggeration was used because filmmakers were concerned that without audible dialogue the audience would miss the emotional substance. This turned out to be wrong. Yet such styles didn't really die out: Kurosawa was heavily influenced by Noh and preferred that exaggerated mode of acting (which made Mifune such a perfect fit for him), eg.
As I recall, the silent film Pandora's Box was praised for the naturalism of it's acting; so people had caught on before Brando or Stalag 17. I also think there was more to the change than just theater to film, since theater acting was undergoing the same revolution thanks to Stanislavski.

Go watch some Brakhage and tell me what you feel. To me, his is film in its purest, most poetic form. I'd recommend 23rd Psalm Branch as a great introduction that's powerful without being too long.
I watched some Brakhage the last time you recommended him and hated it. I'll give it a little look though. You know who I do love from around the time of Griffith and Eisenstein? Lang. Give me him over those two any day. Metropolis and M are two of my favorite films. The first couple minutes of The Testament of Dr Mabuse is spellbinding. I even like the stuff he did in America: Scarlet Street, the Big Heat, Fury.

I'm not "really liberal," I'm a "really rationalist" who endeavors to align my beliefs with reality. If proof was produced that showed anything I said was wrong, I'd immediately change my mind. I have zero reason to prefer them to be true; they just seem to be based on the research I've done and based on the research others have done and have related to me.
You are pretty liberal and you use liberal logic to rationalize your prejudices just like conservatives use conservative logic to rationalize theirs. Logic is just a tool. It can't tell you if what you believe is right. It can only tell you if the statements you've made are self-coherent. Liberal premises, with liberal syllogisms come up with liberal conclusions. Conservatives and liberals don't use the same facts or start with the same assumptions. How could they come to the same conclusions though both should use logic and reason?

But that doesn't really matter, because people don't change their minds based on facts and reason. They adopt values and ideas that have persuasive aesthetic value to them. That's basic psychology and an hour or two on the internet ought to convince anyone of that. Ideas may be true but unpersuasive or false and highly persuasive. Most people just accept the facts or viewpoint that most gels with their previously accepted ideology. Opinions are gratuitous and self-serving, because they are based on things like self-identity instead of an objective evaluation of the external world. Men claim to be objective, rational, but there's no such thing. There's only choosing what feels right and then rationalizing after the fact.