Aren’t most jokes at someone else’s expense? Tragedy is when Mel Brooks cuts his finger–comedy is when I fall into an open sewer and die.
Just as another data point, I had the same reaction as Happy Lendervedder to the original statements regarding “the audience is thinking…” and “…to the audience.”
So, guess y’all are more the knock, knock joke type.
Cool.
Knock knock.
Who’s there?
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The little girl.
Yes, but that’s not the question. It’s whose expense. Is it mocking the cops or mocking the guy? That issue seems to be the divide in this thread. If you see it as mocking the cops, you tend to find it funny. If you see it as mocking the man (with the sexist bullying) then you don’t find it funny.
That’s what I meant with my comment about how I think they were trying for both interpretations. Though I’ll go further. I believe they wanted it to be controversial and knew that some people would assume the joke was on the man and take it the wrong way.
In other words, they did it to makes sure it got more views.
Watched it. Complete swing and a miss. Left me ice cold.
A good rule of a thumb is that if a joke requires page after page of rationalizations and Stockholm Syndrome-level “I love it, I love it, I LOVE IT!” stonewalling, it failed.
Also, did this really require actors, two vehicles, and prop guns? Seems like complete overkill to me. An xkcd-style comic seems like all the effort this banality needs.
MikeF - Oh, come on. In all my time on YouTube, I’ve seen maybe ten videos where the votes weren’t overwhelmingly positive. Realty TV-style rah-rah herd mentality is completely in place there. Vote percentage is about as reliable an indicator of a video’s quality as the damn Bechdel Test rating. You know what all those upvotes tell me? That a lot of Americans have a crappy sense of humor. Big whoop, I’ve known that for decades.
I don’t think it is “mocking” anyone–it is a play on words on the term “crying like a little girl.” Nothing deeper or more profound than that. They could just as easily have made a video about someone asking someone else if they wanted a Hertz Doughnut, the person asking what a “Hertz Doughnut” is, and the other person punching them in the arm and saying “Hurts, don’t it.” (Then people analyzing the video about violence, bullying, and power dynamics.) The deep, critical analysis of a cheap throwaway joke reminds me of this.
If someone watches this parody video play on an old joke, do they take the time to analyze
The issues of consent, peer pressure, teen sex, patriarchy, and homosexual relationships between adults and teens before deciding if the joke is allowed to be considered funny or not?
Well, if there’s anything more typical and annoying to find on the SDMB than a several page discussion pertaining to a pedantic analysis of a short comedy clip, it’s a lengthy, multiply linked and cited, threadshit.
The overkill is completely part of what makes it so amusing to me. Like I said, it’s a bit like a shaggy dog story. Humor is subjective, quelle surprise!
Did they go out of their way to make this unfunny? Because it seems that way to me.
Cops who make a sport out of intimidating people are all too common. Where’s the humor is seeing this acted out? I’m not seeing wit anywhere in the portrayed circumstances.
Where’s the humor in watching an innocent schmuck cry and tremble while a gang of cops point guns at his face? I’m asking this sincerely. Humor derives from absurdity, right? Since current events include plenty of examples of men gunned down by trigger happy cops, I’m not getting any absurdity here. I’m getting plausibility.
So we watch a man lose his dignity and the punch line is him being called a little girl. Okay. Just what I would expect an abusive cop to think and find funny. Why am I supposed to also find this funny??
For those who found this funny, would you find it laughable if the subject was a black guy?
Yeah, but you never explain why we’re supposed to find the cops funny instead of just appalling. Nothing at all happens to them that puts the universe in balance. For someone that is the “butt” of the joke, you’d expect them to get comeuppance, right?
I could get behind this joke if the real punch line was them getting shot at by the little girl hiding behind the pole, and them running around in circles like the cowards they are. That would be a wry enough twist to make the point you’re saying it makes.
Cops screaming repeatedly with guns drawn: Where’s the black man?
Man yelling/crying/terrified: ???
Cops continue screaming: Where’s the black man?
Man: I don’t know! Please don’t shoot me, sir! Please don’t shoot me, sir!
Cop: *There’s *the black man!
Cops run off laughing and shooting into the air. Scene.
Still funny? Why or why not?
I’m just trying to figure out what the punchline is supposed to be in this joke-- that the end is “unexpected?” That the cops are jerks/idiots/fools? That the man’s been somehow “reduced” as a result of the cops’ abuse of power? I mean, the cops all laughed at the end as they ran off; if you’re laughing *with *the assholes/bullies, instead of *at *them in a situation like this, that’s pretty much punching down.
Not funny, because it would make no sense, because “cry like a black man” isn’t a common metaphor?
“Cry like a girl” (exact quote), 470,000 google hits. “Cry like a black man” (exact quote) 0 google hits (until this thread is indexed, then there will be oen hit.)
If you change the joke, would it still be funny? Interesting. As I’ve mentioned, I thought the cops lunatic shooting as they drove away was funny. Let me change the joke and take that part away. Nope, not funny anymore to me.
It doesn’t make sense to you because you’re trying to equate what is implied by “little girl” with what could be implied by “black man”. Emasculation is implied by the former, but not necessarily with the latter.
One interpretation is that only black men are appropriate targets for cop intimidation. When this white man becomes intimidated by cops, he thus becomes “black”.
Bwhahahaha! Isn’t that a knee slapper!?!
Why would changing the protagonist’s race be changing the joke? Is the joke here that it’s a white man bullied by cops? I must’ve missed that.
No, but “Please don’t shoot me, sir” could be seen as something a black man would say to cops these days.
Just as racist as the original joke is sexist, “common metaphor” notwithstanding.
Yeah me too.
The misogyny definitely bugs me, but I still laughed.