Cattle-Prod Comedy
By: Beverly Garside
Tags: Hollywood, Television, Feminism, Culture, Sexuality

Cattle-Prod Comedy

Is Crude Sex Talk “Empowering”?

Image from Pixabay

Shocking!

It’s been the rage for some years now. In movies, series, and sitcoms women are talking crudely about sex! According to our screens we’re doing it in public! We’re doing it in the office! We’re doing it with strangers on the bus! We’re doing it on first dates!

And all of us are doing it — old women, young women, fat women, slim women, smart women, stupid women, gay women, straight women, trans women, pregnant women, athletic women, and women in wheelchairs. We all have sex drives and we won’t be silent about it anymore!

It’s shocking! And it’s oh, so hilarious.

Watching these performances I can just imagine the conversation at the writers’ meetings — “I mean, she’s a woman talking about oral sex! (Shock!) And she’s in the office! (Funny!) Or she’s a woman talking about masturbating! (Shock!) And she’s a lesbian! (Funny!) Or she’s a woman talking about where to get the best dick (Shock!) And she’s fat! (Funny!).”

The thing about shocks is that after you get enough of them they stop being shocking and are just painful.

The Last Refuge

There’s still a place in America where a man can tease his coworker or subordinate about her sex organs and we don’t call it harassment or rape culture. That place is comedy. In comedy it’s not harassment or rape culture because she’s not offended. No, she’s not calling HR or a lawyer because she’s a good sport. She knows it’s just a game and has a pithy response about his dick and the porno sites on his phone that knock him right back down to his place.

Wow! Women can play at this too! (Shock!) She’s not acting like a lady! (Funny!) She’s busting out of oppressive gender norms! It’s so empowering!

Comedy considers that women belittling men by joking about their body parts and their sex drive is a measure of equality. It boldly declares that women can crude talk with each other about their own body parts and that this is even funnier when they’re lesbians.

It would be interesting to study whether people who have actually endured sexual harassment and hostile work places laugh at this kind of comedy. Do women who have chosen to be a good sport and go along with the game, because otherwise they would be ostracized or fired, laugh at our heroine’s retaliatory dick jokes to her coworker or her boss?

According to comedy, when a man objectifies women with crude sex talk to other men it’s not funny in the least. It’s rape culture and comedy does not do it. But if he does it to a woman’s face, it’s just a game — a game she enjoys playing. And when women objectify men with crude sex talk to other women, it’s “empowering” and funny. Ditto for when they do it to a man’s face, because it’s a game he enjoys playing too.

Funny rules.

Losers

The underlying subtext of so many of our current comedies is that having sex makes us a winner, and not having sex, for whatever reason, makes us a social loser. We are some kind of awkward dimwit. No one wants us. It’s embarrassing. Our sexual frustration makes us pathetic. It’s been how long since we had sex? We do what to cope?

A boilerplate premise for way too many sitcoms and scenes is exactly this — They’re at the office but the women are dressed like pole dancers and they’re really just focused on bragging about their sexual escapades and probing each other for theirs. Who is going to slip up and reveal that they didn’t get any last weekend? Who is the loser this week. It’s will be hilarious!

That loser is so pathetic that she even confesses her failure and sexual frustration to her friends, family, coworkers, bosses, subordinates, or grandmother in an assisted living home. And then grandma tells her the secret to “finding dick” or to “fantastic masturbation.”

An old woman has a sex drive! (Shock!) And she’s not embarrassed to talk about it! (Funny!)

Our young heroine thereafter feels like even more of a loser, and undertakes even more outrageous and hilarious exploits to lose her “loser” status.

She is empowered.

Image from Pixabay

History Judges

As a child I enjoyed watching old reruns of I Love Lucy. That lady was just so darn funny. And in its time it had been an important show. This woman was the star and center of her own show, not just a sexy appendage to a male lead. (Step forward) Now, however, her child-like relationship to her husband and total ignorance of how the world worked outside of her home is so cringe-worthy I can’t bear to look at it. (Step backward) And to think, we laughed so hard at that ditzy childish red-head. (Step backward)

The same goes for the black comedies of the 1970s. They were ground-breaking. Black people exploded onto our TV screens in numbers never before seen, and as stars, not just servants or extras. (Step forward) But they were portrayed as stereotypical simpletons and buffoons. (Step backward) And we laughed our asses off at them. (Step backward)

Today we see these shows as funny and entertaining but as pushing stereotypes and toxic messages. What they conferred in exposure they took back in ridicule.

It’s hard to predict what future generations will think about the crude sex-talking women shows of our current comedic era. Maybe they will look like courageous, ground-breaking acts that pushed forward the cause of sexual equality. Maybe they will look like harmless sex farces. Or will our descendants see them as mean and degrading — a bunch of people of all genders, sexes, orientations, ages, and body types sexually belittling themselves and each other? Will the themes of sex defining winners and losers, and certain people’s sex drive being unexpected and funny still find salience, or will they look crass and insensitive in that time?

Funny

Comedy is a complex thing, and humor is often in the eye of the beholder. Intelligently done, it allows us to poke fun at ourselves and each other. But it has a big dark side. Comedy has a long tradition of ridiculing, belittling, and pooh-pooing categories of people, thus pushing back against their social progress. Even when undertaken with the best of intentions it can backfire.

My hope is that we can get past the shock wave phase of certain types of people having sex drives and sex lives. I’d like to think that we could learn from the past, finally abandoning the idea that laughing at people instead of with them is a way to move them forward towards respect and inclusion.

And while we’re at it, I’d like to see a day when ridicule, belittling, and “loser” competitions exit our comedy stage left.