It's a transphobic joke. If you are making fun of a transphobe for using a transphobic joke by making the same transphobic joke YOU ARE PERPETUATING THE TRANSPHOBIC JOKE.
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Lindsay Ellis' transphobic jokes
- Thread starter Messofanego
- Start date
It's a transphobic joke. If you are making fun of a transphobe for using a transphobic joke by making the same transphobic joke YOU ARE PERPETUATING THE TRANSPHOBIC JOKE.
You're right! Will take into consideration next time.
To take the example, your mother would have had to have had a friend that did something that was hurtful toward the non-binary community, that drew criticism from them and then herself said this in response to that community.
..before then going on to pop out a couple of of transphobic jokes a week later. They're also jokes that your mother already knows are transphobic and has bemoaned before throwing them out verbatim despite not being a part of the community they target and harm.
Indeed he hasn't.
Mmm, that I can't argue against. I had a former workmate say something pretty awful transphobic things. Then again she was also a vehement racist and thought all gay men were transvestites.
I long for a better society, doubt I'll live to see it.
Okay, I'm going to say thank you for this. I get the point better now, and sorry I misunderstood it initially.
But didn't she do that?
So what does she have to do for it to be recognized? I guess reading this thread my main question is what the goal is now. The joke was criticized. She apologized for the joke...now what? Is this thread meant to say she's bad? To further criticize the joke?
I think that's why people are getting all weird in here. There's no real direction for the thread so people are left to their own devices.
Lindsay hasn't apologized yet. She just deleted the first tweet and has been silent since.
ironic shitposting is still shitposting. just because from your perspective you're being ironic doesn't mean everyone will be able to identify it as irony. if your joke is exactly the same as a transphobic joke in every way except sincerity there really isn't any difference to a viewer on the outside between a real transphobic joke and yours.
again i don't think lindsay ellis is transphobic or a bad person, she just made a dumb joke. she already deleted it so i assume she knows it was bad, i really doubt this is going to damage her career in any way.
again i don't think lindsay ellis is transphobic or a bad person, she just made a dumb joke. she already deleted it so i assume she knows it was bad, i really doubt this is going to damage her career in any way.
It should be noted that all (most?) of us criticizing her for these jokes also don't want her career damaged. We just want her to be more careful with how she uses her platform.
Wait hold on you're right - no apology. I confused the original tweet criticizing Ricky with that.
But honestly I don't see why one is necessary. She's making fun of that type of joke. She's criticizing it herself? That's what the joke is. It's making fun of how "I identify as" isn't funny, and so one could say "I identify as Ricky..." and it's just as much non-humor.
Could someone explain how this is hurtful? It seems she's actively fighting Ricky for the sake of trans people in this instance. And even if the joke didn't land perfect, the intent is clearly positive.
But honestly I don't see why one is necessary. She's making fun of that type of joke. She's criticizing it herself? That's what the joke is. It's making fun of how "I identify as" isn't funny, and so one could say "I identify as Ricky..." and it's just as much non-humor.
Could someone explain how this is hurtful? It seems she's actively fighting Ricky for the sake of trans people in this instance. And even if the joke didn't land perfect, the intent is clearly positive.
oh i know, i just felt like i had to clarify my position. it's frustrating that people seem to think we want her cancelled or something when that isn't the case at all. i think it's just another way to dismiss the opinions of trans folks.
It's a stupid joke that has nothing of value to say. She's perpetuating a harmful meme by using it to say "Ricky Gervais is stupid", a point trans people are already well aware of. It was stupid and poorly thought-out and she should've just left the topic at her original takedown instead of trying to retrofit his own bad joke to insult him.
No one is muddying the waters. If you think that intent and context are important, than her history surrounding trans issues are going to come into play, both the positive and the negative. It's the reason that someone like Lindsay Ellis and someone like Ricky Gervais making the exact same joke will have different level of reactions. You have in this thread said that I'm using all of this to make some thin argument that she's being transphobic, but the truth is that you acknowledge that these jokes are transphobic. I'm not saying that she's some horrible transphobe who needs to go away forever, but that by making these kinds of transphobic jokes whether ironically or not that she's helping to normalize it in ways that can cause harm to trans people.
She's attempting to use it to dunk on a noted transphobe but there are so many other countless ways to do that without having to resort to base level transphobic jokes. That's literally all that people have been saying in this thread, on top of the frustration that a lot of us have with cis people coming in and telling us we're dumb for talking about this or how we want to cancel everyone for criticizing a tweet.
Particularly when her post doesn't overtly critique the joke, yes.
Imagine if an episode of It's Always Sunny didn't end with the crew having everything blow up in their faces.
I don't know. But I'm not nearly as convinced. I don't see who reads this tweet and thinks badly of trans people, and I don't see how this tweet further perpetuates the meme. That seems like a stretch to me. Is what folks mean by what makes this "bad"?
Like I 100% believe anyone who said, "Seeing this hurt my feelings". But I haven't seen that as much here. Like I think the argument that she should apologize because it hurt some feelings is valid. I don't believe that this tweet has nearly as much moral weight as people have been saying though.
Seems like a pretty fair take to me. Not everything demands a snarky comedic response.
If she straight up said "I identify as an attack helicopter" verbatim with no modification whatsoever, is the transphobic nature of the joke reduced because of intent?
The joke perpetuates the idea that self-ID is worthy of mockery, and Ellis perpetuated that joke. That's the point. The joke doesn't actually contribute anything else. It doesn't work as a mockery of Gervais because all she's doing is restating the joke template without modification or commentary.
Why not defer to trans people on what is or is not transphobic? If they are feeling that way there must be merit to it, right?
I have no idea. I don't think the "transphobic nature" is something that can be measured. I think that many people who don't know Lindsay would find that hurtful if they were just scrolling and saw it. They wouldn't know any intent or anything. So I would consider that pretty harmful.
Listen, you felt offended and disappointed and called her out. Okay. I did not to because I believe nuance, intent and context are important. And because I've known and dealt with transphobia much of my life I feel like I have earned the right to say what my opinion is. I don't see this as perpetuating anything. I do however believe that she could have called him out in so many other much muuch better ways.
edit - replaced poor choice of words
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I mean, what you posted, what she said is exactly the truth. This thread is proof that we're a community jumping to apply the worst possible interpretation. The Contrapoints thread had several people calling her trash, claiming that either they were personally done with her or that her career should be done, claiming that she was revealing the "real" her. As far as anyone has shown, this is literally one mistake she's made, and it amounts to a lame, distasteful attempt at ironic humor directed at a transphobe by mocking their shtick. I'm not saying that no one can be offended by this joke or express disappointment, but a thread like this isn't just designed for some people to express disappointment. It's an invitation to share in that disappointment, to have it compound, to dogpile over any perceived grievance. People can joke "oh yeah, we're TOTALLY cancelling her, WINK" but I mean, if that's not the end result here, why not express that disappointment directly to her on twitter (which enough did to warrant the deletion of the original joke), rather than paint Lindsay Ellis with the harshest brush in a thread disingenuously titled "Lindsay Ellis' transphobic jokes"?
It's frustrating without being a fan of hers. Putting out crap that to any casual observer, of which there are many, is just a transphobic joke. I'm not really fussed about blue ticks when it comes to cis people throwing out transphobic jokes verbatim, regardless of what it 'really' means.
When it's indistinguishable from the thing you're trying to mock and you're not part of the group that it actually mocks, don't get irritated when said group shows some irritation. Especially when it follows you defending someone else that's hurt the community, and painting non-binary people as some insatiable rabid mass.
Having cis people then come in and clutch their pearls as they do, calling a forum thread "outrage" or "cancel culture" and telling us there's nothing harmful here is just salt in the wound. It exacerbates the issue, where trans people can't even just talk about a personality critically without people trying to shut it down the next page.
It's precisely my lack of being a fan that makes these people jumping in front of her to protect her from a few forum posts or benign tweets all the more irritating. I don't care for some modern personality with a shiny "ally" badge perpetuating dumb shit that doesn't affect them, or defending blindly someone that's recently thrown previous generations of actual allies under the bus.
As someone who knows (or suspects) Lindsay's intent, I can say that it would be harmful. Like I said, your intention to make a boat is irrelevant if you end up making a car. Her intent to mock Gervais doesn't change that all she's doing is making a transphobic joke ironically.
Do you go in every thread about a grievance someone has and complain that the thread exists when they could instead be complaining to the people with whom they have grievances? Or is it just when people criticize someone you like?
Like, half the time people like y'all are complaining that discussions like these are always one-sided, but then you also complain that you want the discussions to not happen at all. I mean, in this thread, we had someone who came out of the discussion with a different outlook on the nature of how transphobic jokes can affect people, how can you actually say that the discussion lacks merit?
Let people discuss things that frustrate them in a forum thread without pearl clutching over some bullshit notion of it cancelling or otherwise. Seriously.
But seeing it doesn't mean the world is becoming more transphobic and I think that's the bit tripping me and a lot of other posters up.
I see that it's harmful. I see that people are hurt. I don't see how it "perpetuates a transphobic meme" or creates hate. I think that goes too far. It's making the judgement that Lindsay is transphobic, when we can only judge whether her actions are. It ascribes intent.
I think most folks agree it's hurtful. I think they just disagree about whether it's causing dire side effects.
She's made the same joke in order to make fun of the original joke. Most posters posting in this thread understand her intent was to attack Ricky/she was not intentionally trying to be transphobic. But intent doesn't make the joke "less" transphobic. Imagine someone making fun of Trudeau for dressing up in Brown Face by dressing up in Brown Face.
No one said that Ellis caused "dire side effects" by being ironically transphobic. People did say that ironic transphobia is still transphobia, however, and it is, just as much as if a white person did some anti-black meme verbatim in order to mock the meme itself. It doesn't work as mockery of the meme, it's just the meme, but again.
Maybe don't repeat right wing reactionary talking points please
Of course you have that right, I asked you to elaborate because you're trans and I wanted to hear the opposing view from someone who truly understands the issue. I've also dealt with a lot of transphobia in my life and that does color my perception here as this kind of joke in particular was one that I would often hear parroted around in Middle and High school to the point that I didn't feel safe coming out to anyone in that time. Regardless of where we fall on the other stuff, I am glad to hear your take on these jokes as I do find it helpful to think about these issues from the perspectives of other trans people even when we disagree.
Maybe Twitter isn't really a good platform for jokes in general? I hear it's a great place to buy candles though.
edit: and yeah, I would definitely not have used that 'did you assume' "joke" since it's generally used very unironically rather than the ironic take it literally self-implies. But you know, internet. And that's why we can't have nice things.
edit: and yeah, I would definitely not have used that 'did you assume' "joke" since it's generally used very unironically rather than the ironic take it literally self-implies. But you know, internet. And that's why we can't have nice things.
No no. I getcha. But I think some people are saying that. They're saying it's perpetuating a meme. They're saying she's a transphobic person. etc. Like I think the reason you have a bunch of cis-people coming in like "cancel culture" is cause they're confused. They think she's a good person and then all the comments talk as if LeftTube is ruined because she said this. If it's just a bad joke that people were hurt by, it shouldn't ruin the integrity of LeftTube.
Like all that good stuff they said is still good. And they'll continue saying a lot of good stuff. But they did one bad thing, and some people act as if it doesn't ruin their channel or ruin other peoples channels. Like I really don't wanna tone police the exact way people should criticize someone. But I do think that criticism is unfocused and unclear. It confuses people outside the situation.
Hey seriously don't say shit like that about me. I'd never defend that fucker and comparing Lindsay Ellis to PDP is just wow. Really not trying to defend in here. Just trying to understand.
She IS perpetuating a meme. That doesn't mean she's a transphobe herself but it does mean she made a stupid mistake and an unforced error she should know better than to commit.
What people are talking about "LeftTube being ruined"? Like, it sounds to me like you're justifying an overreaction by the cancel culture pearl-clutchers by hyper-focusing on a sentiment expressed by one or two posters if any.
it is disappointingly becoming more and more popular among lefties
not a lecture, a request, the rest of the post was fine but your inlusion of the right wing talking point "you choose to be offended" isn't cool
No amount of twisting will ever put intent before it's impact. Privileged people always come along and attempt to fuck with basic causality to excuse their or their families' willful ignorance.
Marginalized people's reactions to [the same old shit] is where the conversation is and stays. If one's intent is truly not hostile one would learn and accept the criticism from those they impact rather than make appeals to 'intent' which puts all of the pressure on the marginalized to absolve and excuse [the same old shit] which is absolute bullshit.
Marginalized people's reactions to [the same old shit] is where the conversation is and stays. If one's intent is truly not hostile one would learn and accept the criticism from those they impact rather than make appeals to 'intent' which puts all of the pressure on the marginalized to absolve and excuse [the same old shit] which is absolute bullshit.