Trans Women and comedy that punches down

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

When trans women are mocked and made into jokes in the media, I get very upset, and I am often told “Kay, you can’t go through life getting offended every time someone makes a joke.” And I sputter and object but they don’t hear me. So I want to be clear for once, about why the jokes make me angry.

I learned to hate myself for being transgender before I knew I was transgender. I laughed at the jokes in stand up comedy routines, and prime time sitcoms, and animated comedy shows, and in the movies, and in books, and in games, laughing at trans women for existing, about “men in dresses”, about people who “got their dicks chopped off”, and I learned to think that was worthy of ridicule.

And then a day came when I felt a pang of envy at what my female classmates were wearing and I repressed it, and felt guilty, and a day where I felt incomplete because I had no breasts and I repressed it and I felt disgusting
And a day when I realized the only images of romance that made me feel anything showed two women together and I repressed it and I felt like a monster
And a day when I realized I felt sick when I looked at myself in the mirror after every shower before work and couldn’t bear to look at my own face, and I hated myself.
And then there came a day when I hated myself so much, and I thought I could never understand why, and so I just wanted it all to end. And it was just a miracle that I swerved my car back into my lane in time.

And all of it started with a joke that I heard on TV, and then kept hearing from all the voices from the ether, over and over and over, worming an idea into my mind before I was old enough to realize I was absorbing it, the idea that a man in a dress is funny, and that changing your body parts makes you a freak, and that women who have penises instead of vaginas are liars and hurt men. And they’re still making these jokes. And somewhere out there right now, just like all those years ago, there is a little girl in a t-shirt and cargo shorts with buzzed off hair watching the TV, hearing that joke and absorbing it without knowing it, who will someday have to pry herself apart to tear it out of her head, just like I did.

That is, if she doesn’t kill herself first.

[hammerofglass]

Who wrote this? Writing style looks familiar but I haven't seen this before.

It's right on the damn nose, that's for sure.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

A tumblr poster with a deactivated account

[Thebestoftherest]

If your not taking the piss out of someone who is higher on the social stature than you, that is not satire that is just bullying.

[Nobody700]

"If you can't take a joke, you're a snowflake."

"White men are so du..."

"CANCELLED! SO FUCKING CANCELLED! REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

[clearspira]

If your not taking the piss out of someone who is higher on the social stature than you, that is not satire that is just bullying.

And this opinion is why comedy is so fucking boring nowadays. Every single time someone runs a ''greatest of all time sitcom'' poll, there is almost never anything on it that is less than 15 years old.

The greatest comedy is all based on cruelty. ''Friends'' for example. You wouldn't want to know these people in real life. They're cruel assholes who treat each other like crap. And yet its one of the most popular comedies of all time. Funny that.

BTW, how would you rate ''higher social stature than you'' anyway?

[Thebestoftherest]

If your not taking the piss out of someone who is higher on the social stature than you, that is not satire that is just bullying.

And this opinion is why comedy is so fucking boring nowadays. Every single time someone runs a ''greatest of all time sitcom'' poll, there is almost never anything on it that is less than 15 years old.

The greatest comedy is all based on cruelty. ''Friends'' for example. You wouldn't want to know these people in real life. They're cruel assholes who treat each other like crap. And yet its one of the most popular comedies of all time. Funny that.

BTW, how would you rate ''higher social stature than you'' anyway?

Rich people, politicians, spoil brats, you know the people who think they are better than everyone else.

[hammerofglass]

I've seen "I can't laugh at this, where's the cruelty?" floating around as a meme to mock conservatives for a while. Kind of surreal to see someone say it unironically about himself.

[TGLS]

If your not taking the piss out of someone who is higher on the social stature than you, that is not satire that is just bullying.

And this opinion is why comedy is so fucking boring nowadays. Every single time someone runs a ''greatest of all time sitcom'' poll, there is almost never anything on it that is less than 15 years old.

OK, let's test that. Here's a list from Rolling Stone. 27 of the shows listed started after 2010. 45 ended after 2010 or haven't ended at all. 5 have had revivals that ended after 2010. This list is from 3 years ago. Given the epoch that we're looking at, it's surprising that 2010 and later has the performance that it does. There were only 28 shows that started between 1951 to 1984 on the list. There's 27 from 1985 to 2000, and 2000 to 2009 gets solid performance at 18.

[CharlesPhipps]

If your not taking the piss out of someone who is higher on the social stature than you, that is not satire that is just bullying.

And this opinion is why comedy is so fucking boring nowadays. Every single time someone runs a ''greatest of all time sitcom'' poll, there is almost never anything on it that is less than 15 years old.

The greatest comedy is all based on cruelty. ''Friends'' for example. You wouldn't want to know these people in real life. They're cruel assholes who treat each other like crap. And yet its one of the most popular comedies of all time. Funny that.

BTW, how would you rate ''higher social stature than you'' anyway?

I think you misunderstood FRIENDS.

Also, George Carlin was the master of punching up and one of the all time greatest comedians.

But to go with the OP.

"Making fun of trans women isn't funny because what's the joke if you believe they have a medical condition that needs treatment to be the gender they are mentally?"

Like:

"Man, you who are funny? Blind people. Because they can't see shit."