Here's something you probably don't know about me - unless you know me in person or are Stuart, then you'll definitely know - I love magic. My dad regularly appears out of nowhere asking me (or, on one occasion, everyone at my 21st birthday party) to pick a card; I am not, however, that good at performing tricks. I don't have the patience, and once I know how its done I lose interest. Essentially, I lie in the Jonathan Creek, 'ah yes very clever', knowledge of Houdini beyond the water tank category. Sort of a magic historian, I guess. My favourite magicians, excluding individual performers and assistants, are Penn & Teller.
They were always the stuff of legends to me growing up, with my dad recording clips of the television to make me gasp with tiny wide-eyed awe. I spent years reading about their Las Vegas show, wanting desperately for them to perform here and feeling a retrospective cosmic annoyance that I was born just after their last UK performance. Then, a couple of years ago, they began announcing UK shows. I managed to get tickets five rows from the stage, and lured my dad down to London with minimal details of what I had planned; it was everything I wanted it to be, and quite a few things I didn't even expect. Teller is a master of sleight-of-hand, and I was practically convulsing with excitement when he performed the trick I had dreamed of seeing live:
I love it. I know how its done, I think I know how its done, but I still love it, because I don't know for sure. Sadly, in a world of unlimited digital social interaction and constant live updates, there are some things I know for definite that I wouldn't have known, had I not seen it on the internet; I'd still find Alan Davies funny, I could successfully avoid Justin Bieber fans, and I wouldn't know that Penn can be an absolute tool.
The old 'don't meet your heroes' thing rears its ugly head in the form of a highly unpleasant Facebook comment, in which he uses my favourite contentious word:
See, I wouldn't have a problem if he was insulting everyone. He's always been very vocal about his opinions, but this is just oddly uncalled for; if he went after every T4 presenter too I'd feel a bit better knowing he hated all forced comedy equally, but because the internet is so vast situations like this look very specific.
This has sparked a great debate about misogyny, gender based insults, and how he clearly went after her because she's a woman. I'm going to be unpopular, disagree, and wave my double-edged sword at you.
I regularly see the term 'don't be a dick' bandied around, and the people that oppose 'cunt' never seem to challenge it. I don't think the answer here is to avoid gender-based insults, otherwise that would leave us with about two swear words, but rather we should make the distinction between people who do consider everyone of that gender to be evil, and people who are just swearing. There is nothing you can yell at someone in anger that doesn't involve gender and isn't from a Shakespearian play.
Yes, he was completely unjustified in making such a personal and unwarranted attack on the woman's own work, but that doesn't make him a mysogynist. I'm sure if he was, his wife would have left him by now, his wouldn't make regular tributes to his mother, and he never would have invented the Jill-Jet (but Debbie Harry did help).
The sum of the whole is ultimately greater than its parts, and if the media has taught us anything its that even criminal misdemeanors can be overlooked with time. Just look at Chris Brown (but make sure you duck).
I found another article, written by a friend of Penn's denouncing the idea that atheism and nerddom is a boy's club. Strangely, this was taken to be an entirely anti-feminist post on how women should just accept men for the tossers they are and women should be like men, and a million other things she didn't actually say. Mallorie says that she's never had a problem with the geekier men in her life, that they treat her like they treat everyone else and do not offer her the dainty sensibilities women are usually treated to. She gets along with men! The horror!
She does not, as this post claims, call all women who complain about inequality " humorless, overemotional, and anti-sex". It isn't even aimed at other women, but at men who feel attacked for not behaving the right way. There are men in the geek community who are absolute tools, I've met them, but there are also women who characterise geeks as being good looking gentlemen in retro glasses and then complain at large when it turns out that plenty of geeks aren't. If I had a share in Fox for every time I've had to listen to various women talk about how much they hate Halo and are going to sell their boyfriend's Xbox and throw out all his Star Wars shirts, we'd be on series ten of Firefly right now. From my own experience, I know it looks like a boy's club, but it isn't; we may be socialised to think it is, look at any gaming advert, but that isn't real life. When my flatmate had some friends around to play Halo, I stopped by to say hello, and this is almost exactly what happened:
Me: Are you playing Halo?
Flatmate: Yes. Do you play?
Me: Yes.
Flatmate: Okay, cool.
And then I made myself a cup of tea and got on with my life.
The reason I think these two seperate events tie in so well is because in both cases people are generalising their expectations, then getting defensive when everyone doesn't agree. Penn is a dick sometimes, but he doesn't, as far as I know, hate women. Until he does something explicitly aimed at demoralising women, I'm not with you. Similarly not all geek men are Dr. Spencer Reid from Criminal Minds, and most rational people can comprehend that. This doesn't mean they should be attacked for sharing a positive social experience. In a way I suppose its another form of my rule about canon; if you like games, its fine, just don't expect a big giant fuss about it like a girl holding a controller is something special.It isn't, its life, it happens, get on with it and be happy.
They were always the stuff of legends to me growing up, with my dad recording clips of the television to make me gasp with tiny wide-eyed awe. I spent years reading about their Las Vegas show, wanting desperately for them to perform here and feeling a retrospective cosmic annoyance that I was born just after their last UK performance. Then, a couple of years ago, they began announcing UK shows. I managed to get tickets five rows from the stage, and lured my dad down to London with minimal details of what I had planned; it was everything I wanted it to be, and quite a few things I didn't even expect. Teller is a master of sleight-of-hand, and I was practically convulsing with excitement when he performed the trick I had dreamed of seeing live:
I love it. I know how its done, I think I know how its done, but I still love it, because I don't know for sure. Sadly, in a world of unlimited digital social interaction and constant live updates, there are some things I know for definite that I wouldn't have known, had I not seen it on the internet; I'd still find Alan Davies funny, I could successfully avoid Justin Bieber fans, and I wouldn't know that Penn can be an absolute tool.
The old 'don't meet your heroes' thing rears its ugly head in the form of a highly unpleasant Facebook comment, in which he uses my favourite contentious word:
See, I wouldn't have a problem if he was insulting everyone. He's always been very vocal about his opinions, but this is just oddly uncalled for; if he went after every T4 presenter too I'd feel a bit better knowing he hated all forced comedy equally, but because the internet is so vast situations like this look very specific.
This has sparked a great debate about misogyny, gender based insults, and how he clearly went after her because she's a woman. I'm going to be unpopular, disagree, and wave my double-edged sword at you.
I regularly see the term 'don't be a dick' bandied around, and the people that oppose 'cunt' never seem to challenge it. I don't think the answer here is to avoid gender-based insults, otherwise that would leave us with about two swear words, but rather we should make the distinction between people who do consider everyone of that gender to be evil, and people who are just swearing. There is nothing you can yell at someone in anger that doesn't involve gender and isn't from a Shakespearian play.
Yes, he was completely unjustified in making such a personal and unwarranted attack on the woman's own work, but that doesn't make him a mysogynist. I'm sure if he was, his wife would have left him by now, his wouldn't make regular tributes to his mother, and he never would have invented the Jill-Jet (but Debbie Harry did help).
The sum of the whole is ultimately greater than its parts, and if the media has taught us anything its that even criminal misdemeanors can be overlooked with time. Just look at Chris Brown (but make sure you duck).
I found another article, written by a friend of Penn's denouncing the idea that atheism and nerddom is a boy's club. Strangely, this was taken to be an entirely anti-feminist post on how women should just accept men for the tossers they are and women should be like men, and a million other things she didn't actually say. Mallorie says that she's never had a problem with the geekier men in her life, that they treat her like they treat everyone else and do not offer her the dainty sensibilities women are usually treated to. She gets along with men! The horror!
She does not, as this post claims, call all women who complain about inequality " humorless, overemotional, and anti-sex". It isn't even aimed at other women, but at men who feel attacked for not behaving the right way. There are men in the geek community who are absolute tools, I've met them, but there are also women who characterise geeks as being good looking gentlemen in retro glasses and then complain at large when it turns out that plenty of geeks aren't. If I had a share in Fox for every time I've had to listen to various women talk about how much they hate Halo and are going to sell their boyfriend's Xbox and throw out all his Star Wars shirts, we'd be on series ten of Firefly right now. From my own experience, I know it looks like a boy's club, but it isn't; we may be socialised to think it is, look at any gaming advert, but that isn't real life. When my flatmate had some friends around to play Halo, I stopped by to say hello, and this is almost exactly what happened:
Me: Are you playing Halo?
Flatmate: Yes. Do you play?
Me: Yes.
Flatmate: Okay, cool.
And then I made myself a cup of tea and got on with my life.
The reason I think these two seperate events tie in so well is because in both cases people are generalising their expectations, then getting defensive when everyone doesn't agree. Penn is a dick sometimes, but he doesn't, as far as I know, hate women. Until he does something explicitly aimed at demoralising women, I'm not with you. Similarly not all geek men are Dr. Spencer Reid from Criminal Minds, and most rational people can comprehend that. This doesn't mean they should be attacked for sharing a positive social experience. In a way I suppose its another form of my rule about canon; if you like games, its fine, just don't expect a big giant fuss about it like a girl holding a controller is something special.It isn't, its life, it happens, get on with it and be happy.
