I very much agree with your broader point about the undesirability and unworkability of the "punching up/punching down" framework, but I especially love how quickly people like Harvilla who claim to subscribe to it will either change the rules or ignore reality to justify their own tastes. Another great example is the reaction to the more recent Chappelle specials and his jokes about trans people. People who loved Chappelle Show at its heyday needed to assure themselves that they had always been good guys but Chappelle had changed, so they adopted the line "he used to punch up but now he's punching down." But as Jesse Singal noted in a Substack post, during the period that Chappelle was supposedly "punching up", one of his most popular running bits was "crackheads are funny because of their willingness to totally debase themselves for crack."
This piece seems a bit wide of the mark. Yes, the world is complicated in its power relationships, and yes, everyone on Twitter has no real moral framework, but it seems obvious to me that people in general feel it's somehow worse for, say, someone who's lived a cushy life to make fun of the circumstances of those who haven't in a way it wouldn't be bad for another non-cushy-life-haver to do. It seems to me that you're arguing that context doesn't matter; can you really be doing that?
Also I read that Guardian piece about Grimsby, which I had never heard of, and while it has a brief mention of Mexican, Chinese, Black, etc. towards the end, the large majority of it is taking issue with the movie's smugly buffoonish portrayal of the English working class and not about identity stuff.
“Power is distributed between different people in myriad and often conflicting ways; when two people interact, their various privileges and poverties are playing out along many axes at once.”
“My own defense of Macdonald’s treatment of that guy? My defense is that Macdonald was correct, that his judgment was sound, that the things he said were an accurate reflection of the deficiencies of that comic.”
That ties in with your book in a way. We have a problem with giving people an honest assessment of their innate ability. Come on Norm, couldn’t you give this guy some happy nonsense about pursuing his dream?
Standing ovation for this column right here. I never watched Nannette because all the self-righteous woke thinkpieces surrounding it, some going so far as to say that comedy itself needs to be torn down, made me so angry that I never wanted to go near it.
And then when those same people lit up Dave Chappelle: Sticks and Stones (which had me crying laughing), well, that's when I felt truly alienated.
I get that your critique here is broadly aimed at liberals, and the liberal media in particular, but how is it that you gloss over the feelings of the *actual disabled person* that Maher mocked? Both your analysis and that of writers I like much less or not at all (Singal, Weiss, etc) seems to be aimed at performative woke liberals and never at the actual human beings who are genuinely offended or hurt, those who the woke liberals believe they're protecting. I think that's a bit shallow, to be honest.
The last protest I went to, a young kid was continuously yelling “you’re on the wrong side of history!” at police officers. The thesis of this post finally puts words to my disdain of his actions. I’m not opposed to people airing grievances at cops while protesting, so it must have been his moral hubris that rubbed me the wrong way.
I've dubbed this "Santa Clausing" among my friends: trying to determine if a person is overall good or bad.
Take your Glenn Greenwald example. I think his journalism has been great, and his punditry is pretty annoying. Do I need an overall rating of his "goodness"? "Well, when you balance it out, Greenwald is a +8." I think we can just hold multiple opinions of someone.
“[A]ny categorical moral position seems ridiculous to me. Man is to man … a tabula rasa … anything you please, depending on the conjunction of circumstances. For this reason, may God give us steadfastness and courage and … circumstances of time and place that are disposed to the good.” -- Dovlatov
I still can't help but feel there is something different about two homeless people mocking each other for being poor and a well of person mocking them. And it seems that "punching down" captures that difference well.
Great essay about the nuances and complexity of power and of comedy. Not sure if you intended it, but it also seems to be a solid critique of the concept of intersectionality.
Freddie. I'll take the liberty of channeling Jesse Singal channeling Andy Samberg and the rest of The Lonely Island as I celebrate your perspective and your singular way of communicating it with the grateful exhortation: Never stop never stopping.
For me, the concept of punching up/down is useful in very limited contexts, when it helps us to consider *what* we’re mocking exactly. For example, when people made fun of the NYC mayoral candidates for thinking a house in Brooklyn costs $100,000—I’d call that punching up in the sense that it’s mocking how wealth makes people oblivious. But if someone calls Trump fat or Clinton ugly, that’s not ‘punching up’ despite their positions. It’s not like I cry about it, but mocking someone’s looks, even if they’re the most powerful person on earth, will never be punching up.
When people decide who is punching up based on the identity of the target vs. the speaker, I’m in total agreement with Freddie—it’s impossible. Plus, the whole concept of punching up, as we use it today, makes people lazy and cruel. It has become a green light to be a bully, as long as you’re targeting ‘bad people’ such as Trump supporters.
You can really tell that for some writers, a switch flipped when they realized they could be sadistic assholes if they picked the right targets—and they found it really fun and exhilarating, and never looked back.
You nailed it again, Freddie!
I very much agree with your broader point about the undesirability and unworkability of the "punching up/punching down" framework, but I especially love how quickly people like Harvilla who claim to subscribe to it will either change the rules or ignore reality to justify their own tastes. Another great example is the reaction to the more recent Chappelle specials and his jokes about trans people. People who loved Chappelle Show at its heyday needed to assure themselves that they had always been good guys but Chappelle had changed, so they adopted the line "he used to punch up but now he's punching down." But as Jesse Singal noted in a Substack post, during the period that Chappelle was supposedly "punching up", one of his most popular running bits was "crackheads are funny because of their willingness to totally debase themselves for crack."
Like an inverse Ender's Game, the enemy is always defined as up.
This piece seems a bit wide of the mark. Yes, the world is complicated in its power relationships, and yes, everyone on Twitter has no real moral framework, but it seems obvious to me that people in general feel it's somehow worse for, say, someone who's lived a cushy life to make fun of the circumstances of those who haven't in a way it wouldn't be bad for another non-cushy-life-haver to do. It seems to me that you're arguing that context doesn't matter; can you really be doing that?
Also I read that Guardian piece about Grimsby, which I had never heard of, and while it has a brief mention of Mexican, Chinese, Black, etc. towards the end, the large majority of it is taking issue with the movie's smugly buffoonish portrayal of the English working class and not about identity stuff.
“Power is distributed between different people in myriad and often conflicting ways; when two people interact, their various privileges and poverties are playing out along many axes at once.”
Thank you.
“My own defense of Macdonald’s treatment of that guy? My defense is that Macdonald was correct, that his judgment was sound, that the things he said were an accurate reflection of the deficiencies of that comic.”
That ties in with your book in a way. We have a problem with giving people an honest assessment of their innate ability. Come on Norm, couldn’t you give this guy some happy nonsense about pursuing his dream?
Standing ovation for this column right here. I never watched Nannette because all the self-righteous woke thinkpieces surrounding it, some going so far as to say that comedy itself needs to be torn down, made me so angry that I never wanted to go near it.
And then when those same people lit up Dave Chappelle: Sticks and Stones (which had me crying laughing), well, that's when I felt truly alienated.
I get that your critique here is broadly aimed at liberals, and the liberal media in particular, but how is it that you gloss over the feelings of the *actual disabled person* that Maher mocked? Both your analysis and that of writers I like much less or not at all (Singal, Weiss, etc) seems to be aimed at performative woke liberals and never at the actual human beings who are genuinely offended or hurt, those who the woke liberals believe they're protecting. I think that's a bit shallow, to be honest.
The last protest I went to, a young kid was continuously yelling “you’re on the wrong side of history!” at police officers. The thesis of this post finally puts words to my disdain of his actions. I’m not opposed to people airing grievances at cops while protesting, so it must have been his moral hubris that rubbed me the wrong way.
Sarah Silverman going woke years back is when I knew this movement was all just a game. Seriously. Sarah Silverman.
I've dubbed this "Santa Clausing" among my friends: trying to determine if a person is overall good or bad.
Take your Glenn Greenwald example. I think his journalism has been great, and his punditry is pretty annoying. Do I need an overall rating of his "goodness"? "Well, when you balance it out, Greenwald is a +8." I think we can just hold multiple opinions of someone.
“[A]ny categorical moral position seems ridiculous to me. Man is to man … a tabula rasa … anything you please, depending on the conjunction of circumstances. For this reason, may God give us steadfastness and courage and … circumstances of time and place that are disposed to the good.” -- Dovlatov
I still can't help but feel there is something different about two homeless people mocking each other for being poor and a well of person mocking them. And it seems that "punching down" captures that difference well.
Great essay about the nuances and complexity of power and of comedy. Not sure if you intended it, but it also seems to be a solid critique of the concept of intersectionality.
Freddie. I'll take the liberty of channeling Jesse Singal channeling Andy Samberg and the rest of The Lonely Island as I celebrate your perspective and your singular way of communicating it with the grateful exhortation: Never stop never stopping.
For me, the concept of punching up/down is useful in very limited contexts, when it helps us to consider *what* we’re mocking exactly. For example, when people made fun of the NYC mayoral candidates for thinking a house in Brooklyn costs $100,000—I’d call that punching up in the sense that it’s mocking how wealth makes people oblivious. But if someone calls Trump fat or Clinton ugly, that’s not ‘punching up’ despite their positions. It’s not like I cry about it, but mocking someone’s looks, even if they’re the most powerful person on earth, will never be punching up.
When people decide who is punching up based on the identity of the target vs. the speaker, I’m in total agreement with Freddie—it’s impossible. Plus, the whole concept of punching up, as we use it today, makes people lazy and cruel. It has become a green light to be a bully, as long as you’re targeting ‘bad people’ such as Trump supporters.
You can really tell that for some writers, a switch flipped when they realized they could be sadistic assholes if they picked the right targets—and they found it really fun and exhilarating, and never looked back.