Lesbian tv personality Ellen Degeneres is in trouble after a nasty tweet where she was staring at a womans boobs and then sent out a nasty message about it “bring those balloons”.
Whats interesting is that as the above article points out, people are pointing out that if a man said this he would get slammed, but a woman, and a lesbian, hardly a whisper.
Even more, Ellen also champions to end sexim and was rencetly noted for her support of anti sexual harassment and female objectification with the “#me to” campaign.
I think it’s a joke. In the context of comedy it should be fine for a man or woman to say it. I don’t see where a person’s sexual orientation makes a difference.
I think yes, a lesbian would get somewhat of a pass, just because they don’t have the terrible history to overcome, of harrassing women.
Context is the difference. For example, and this is off the top of my head, a black person could make a joke reference to slavery to another black person, but I, as a white guy, couldn’t.
Its got nothing to do with gender or sexual preference. It has to do with the fact that they are good friends and it was a joke that Katy Perry was fine with.
Friends joke with each other, pose for goofy pictures and stuff like this all the time. This really isn’t that hard to understand.
This whole kerfuffle is a transparent attempt to score points for team pussy grab, and its pretty pathetic.
Are you asking whether men get away with tit jokes in staged photos or other staged and scripted situations? Is that your question? Are you asking whether there are men in movies, for example, make breast jokes and get away with it? The answer to that is yes. Because that’s the equivalent to this. Also, I’d love it if this board steered clear of totally click-bait articles. I can’t believe I pressed on that crap link.
Man, if people are upset about what Ellen is doing to that woman on the right in that photograph, wait’ll they find out what she does with that woman on the left!
Well, with sexual harassment it all depends on if it’s welcome or not. Otherwise it’s merely inappropriate. I remember Kathy Griffin actually got in a little trouble a few years back for pretending to blow Anderson Cooper. A lot of women have this perception, and even some gay men, that if there’s no chance of two people getting together due to incompatible sexual orientations, that there is no threat behind such inappropriate behavior. My wife in particular has bitched about gay men handling her boobs, with the innocent explanation, “but I’m gay! I didn’t mean anything by it!”
So yeah there is a double standard, but Ellen is probably all right because she knows Katy and Katy probably doesn’t care. But by the same token, if it’s okay for Ellen to publicly call your boobs “balloons”, then it’s okay for everyone to do it. There is also a double standard, a justifiable one, when it comes to celebrities. It’s true in libel law and it’s true socially in how we can joke about celebrities. If Katy’s okay with her breasts being called “balloons” then she’s okay with it and we’re all free to joke about her balloons.
I’m going to take the contrarian view on this one.
The thing is, the vast majority of the discussion I’ve seen on this has been framed as “Isn’t it terrible that some guys are saying they should have permission to do the same?”. And I think the discussion is being framed that way because actually, what she did is borderline, and it does make us ask uncomfortable questions, and many of us would rather go back to more black-and-white territory.
I’ll start by knocking over the straw men: Yes, context is important with these things, and there are good reasons why women can get away with making certain kinds of sexy joke, or minorities can joke about race. And yes, that’s why if there are guys out there wanting permission to say/do something like this, they’re jerks.
But the problem with the joke is threefold:
It’s disrespectful. Now, some of you guys are saying “Hey they’re friends, Katy probably let her do this” and so on. But think about this: should young girls assume that they can post pictures like that, or add captions like that for their friends?
The answer is of course not. If Katy gave permission for the photo + caption, that helps a lot, but we can’t know that just from looking at the shot.
Timing. With the wave of sexual harassment cases recently, and #MeToo etc, it really struck a bum note. She goes ahead and does the thing that we’re collectively trying to reinforce is not OK.
Context matters about who can tell what jokes but context *also *matters in the wider sense of our shared culture.
It’s not funny. You can get away with a lot if you’re funny doing it, but this was pretty juvenile.
So all in all, Ellen needs to face this and make some token apology at least. Perhaps she’s already done this, I don’t follow twitter. If she handwaves it, it is sending a bad message IMO.
If you don’t have a sense of humor, does one of your other senses become more fine tuned? Seriously, it was a joke. Years ago, at the start of her career, Ellen Degeneris was a comedienne.
So, is that the rule? Thanks for pointing it out, except you’re wrong of course. For an English guy, you don’t really get humor.
So, here’s what I would say are general rules, and of course there are exceptions and jokes fall flat or cross the line.
It’s OK to make fun of yourself and 'your people". Jeff Foxworthy never got in trouble for his anti-white “you may be a redneck…” bits. Seinfeld had a whole episode on people making Jewish jokes and is annoyed when someone converts, seeming just to make the jokes. Black Jeopardy is a whole lot of black stereotypes, done for humorous purpose by black people.
Punching up is OK. White people and men are fair game because we hold most of the power in this country.
Punching down is not OK. It falls flat when a powerful person mocks or jokes about the downtrodden.
Comedians can get away with more than other people. Since people know it’s an act, comedians can make jokes that would insensitive coming from someone who is not known to be funny.
Parody can be funny. I didn’t read the crappy clickbait article, but if Ellen is really just parodying what dumb jocks might say or something, it can be funny.
There are probably many more rules, but maybe this will help the humor impaired and conservatives among us. Sorry that white men are almost always fair game, but we make up for that by controlling most of the levers of power in this country and in the world. I’ll go console myself by swimming in my bathtub of money.
I agree with everything you’ve said there RitterSport; it’s true that it matters who’s telling what kind of joke. But does that mean it’s impossible for Ellen to tell an offensive joke about women? Obviously not.
This one is borderline, like I say, because we’re trying to show solidarity on sexual harassment and objectification right now. And even if Katy is OK with it (and of course flaunting sex appeal is a big part of her act) are we saying it’s OK for girls to emulate this style of joke, and if the target of the photo is offended they are “humor impaired”?
Ellen doesn’t need to do some grand apology, just some little note of “OK it might not have been in the best taste, but Katy knew I was doing that kind of photo and it’s all good”.
It’s okay to ogle, joke, make lewd comments… if you know the person you’re doing it to is okay with it.
And if you’re alone, or among friends, when you do it.
It becomes problematic when you do it around other people who may not understand the context, or may be made uncomfortable by it*, or may not be worldly-wise enough to understand that what’s okay for you isn’t okay for them to do.
And if you do it publicly, where your actions may be broadcast or publicized, you are doing it around those sorts of people.
*(This may be where being a comedian get you a pass: A comedian is expected to say and do things that make people uncomfortable, as long as they’re funny or have a point.)