political correctness is so gay
Aug. 10th, 2005 11:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sophiaserpentiaI worry lately that i'm losing my sense of humor. Leftists in general seem to be a rather humorless lot when it comes to society and politics, but i'm not convinced that's a bad thing, since most political "humor" is dehumanization and ridicule.
Lately i've been thinking a lot about Robert Heinlein's take on laughter and humor in Stranger in a Strange Land, that it is a response to pain. Any quantum of humor involves a situation that occurs at someone's expense, but since laughter involves the release of endorphins and reduces our stress level we're inclined to think it's a good thing. Since a lot of humor involves a hint of the unexpected, i will guess that it involves the startle response. But if we didn't have ways to relax the startle response, we'd be overly cautious and aloof, frightened by everything and everyone, incapable of friendship and love.
One major result of "political correctness" has been raised awareness of the ways in which certain styles of humor occur at the expense of oppressed and exploited people, and therefore contribute to stereotyping. That which is laughed at widely enough becomes that which is laughable.
As a transperson i know this probably better than most of you, because sometimes people will laugh simply because they look at me. I am walking ridicule, just add eyesight. There are so many jokes that involve men dressed as women that the very perception thereof elicits the humor response. Like rubber chickens or eyebrow glasses, a man in a dress is just inherently funny. And yet, some of those jokes are funny to me too. So what am i supposed to do, curtail my sense of humor?
"Political correctness" in speech simply means having some consideration for people who by way of oppression are at a social disadvantage. Many jokes that men enjoy about women, for example, are not funny to women at all, but instead are hurtful. They contribute to the othering and dehumanizing of women. The same goes for racist jokes, and so on.
A lot of the resistance i see to "political correctness" seems to be a kind of "awareness fatigue." Being forcefully made aware of disadvantage or discrimination is definitely an imposition. However, that awareness is already being imposed to a much greater degree on the people who live with the oppression. The expenditure it takes to be "politically correct" in one's speech is miniscule compared to the expenditure of being oppressed. (There are ways in which PC has been misused, particularly in cases where people have lost their jobs, and trust me, that annoys me just as much as it annoys you.)
So there is open rebellion and backlash against "political correctness" which essentially comes down to, people are tired of being asked to show one another human decency. They want to be allowed to make "lighthearted" remarks at the expense of women or Jews or black people or queers. And, look at all the race jokes Mel Brooks has made, and no one accuses him of being a racist. (Of course, Brooks's use of irony to deconstruct racism is a whole other topic...)
One recent form of this that i'm not sure how i feel about is renewed use of the pejorative, "Oh you're being so gay," as a way to put someone down for being in their judgment overly sensitive. Mostly i see this among people in their late teens and early twenties, who have grown up in a world where homosexuality and queer people are on constant public display. Much of the time people who use the word this way either are queer or have demonstrated their alliance to the queer community. Thus the implication is that this is a "lighthearted" use of the pejorative, as if one can use the term that way and still be in rebellion against bigotry rather than in support of it.
The nuance is complex. Is it a deconstruction of homophobic stereotypes? Or does it signal tacit support for them? The boundary between what is funny and what is offensive is more of a fractal than a nice straight line.
Lately i've been thinking a lot about Robert Heinlein's take on laughter and humor in Stranger in a Strange Land, that it is a response to pain. Any quantum of humor involves a situation that occurs at someone's expense, but since laughter involves the release of endorphins and reduces our stress level we're inclined to think it's a good thing. Since a lot of humor involves a hint of the unexpected, i will guess that it involves the startle response. But if we didn't have ways to relax the startle response, we'd be overly cautious and aloof, frightened by everything and everyone, incapable of friendship and love.
One major result of "political correctness" has been raised awareness of the ways in which certain styles of humor occur at the expense of oppressed and exploited people, and therefore contribute to stereotyping. That which is laughed at widely enough becomes that which is laughable.
As a transperson i know this probably better than most of you, because sometimes people will laugh simply because they look at me. I am walking ridicule, just add eyesight. There are so many jokes that involve men dressed as women that the very perception thereof elicits the humor response. Like rubber chickens or eyebrow glasses, a man in a dress is just inherently funny. And yet, some of those jokes are funny to me too. So what am i supposed to do, curtail my sense of humor?
"Political correctness" in speech simply means having some consideration for people who by way of oppression are at a social disadvantage. Many jokes that men enjoy about women, for example, are not funny to women at all, but instead are hurtful. They contribute to the othering and dehumanizing of women. The same goes for racist jokes, and so on.
A lot of the resistance i see to "political correctness" seems to be a kind of "awareness fatigue." Being forcefully made aware of disadvantage or discrimination is definitely an imposition. However, that awareness is already being imposed to a much greater degree on the people who live with the oppression. The expenditure it takes to be "politically correct" in one's speech is miniscule compared to the expenditure of being oppressed. (There are ways in which PC has been misused, particularly in cases where people have lost their jobs, and trust me, that annoys me just as much as it annoys you.)
So there is open rebellion and backlash against "political correctness" which essentially comes down to, people are tired of being asked to show one another human decency. They want to be allowed to make "lighthearted" remarks at the expense of women or Jews or black people or queers. And, look at all the race jokes Mel Brooks has made, and no one accuses him of being a racist. (Of course, Brooks's use of irony to deconstruct racism is a whole other topic...)
One recent form of this that i'm not sure how i feel about is renewed use of the pejorative, "Oh you're being so gay," as a way to put someone down for being in their judgment overly sensitive. Mostly i see this among people in their late teens and early twenties, who have grown up in a world where homosexuality and queer people are on constant public display. Much of the time people who use the word this way either are queer or have demonstrated their alliance to the queer community. Thus the implication is that this is a "lighthearted" use of the pejorative, as if one can use the term that way and still be in rebellion against bigotry rather than in support of it.
The nuance is complex. Is it a deconstruction of homophobic stereotypes? Or does it signal tacit support for them? The boundary between what is funny and what is offensive is more of a fractal than a nice straight line.
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Date: 2005-08-10 06:16 pm (UTC)