Locking Forklift before there was a reason too

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

his elfette is sick right now and as attractive as mucous is...
Awkward silence...


"so, looks like its gonna snow on monday."

/me looks down at the ground and then up at the sky three or four times in an agonizingly long attempt to change the subject.

"yup"

[Peter Ahlstrom]

the elf is not the topic of this thread...

I agree wholeheartedly with HoM on everything he's said in this thread. I do believe laughing at that video is a sign of desensitization. But I don't mean that in an accusatory way. I KNOW I am desensitized about a lot of things. There are books that had some content that bothered me when I read them the first time years ago, but when I reread them now I can't very easily tell what it was that bothered me, and if I can, it often just doesn't bother me at all anymore. I used to take whiteout to books on things that I read with no compunction now.

Eh...it's bedtime, not the time for me to think about philosophical questions on whether the world is a worse place where so many are desensitized to one extent or another, and what affect the desensitization has on eternal progression.

[MsFish]

K, so maybe he needs a new Elfette.  One with a degree in psychology, perhaps.

Perhaps the Elf is not the topic, but it's alot less offensive/offended/whateveryouwanttocallit than arguing about a difference of opinion.  Yes?

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

I do believe laughing at that video is a sign of desensitization.

That argument would hold true, except for the fact that I get queasy watching americas funniest home videos. The reason I laughed in my mind at least had nothing to do with desensitization, and everything to do with how real it seemed to me.

Real video of kid getting hit in crotch with baseball = queasy

fake video of cartoon like decapitation = not queasy.

[JP Dogberry]

See, Desensatization is a good thing. It leads to a loss of concience, which leads to a lack of morals. A lack of morals enables you to do things that make you powerful at the expense of others, which is good, as the highest possible good is to be the most powerful at everyone elses expense.

/me dons flameproof undergarments, and hopes the asbestos doesn't kill him, while wondering if everyone realisis that he is dilberately being sarcastic and ironic. And Probably Platonic. And Zeudonfreudian.

[Fellfrosch]

I have seen neither the forklift thing nor the webcomic that have been discussed, though I have followed the conversation since the beginning and I have to say that I'm impressed with how mature it has become. Ending every post with "I really love you, so don't take my comments the wrong way" may seem overly cautious, but it has helped clear the air and kept things very friendly.

Now that the conversation has veered into an area that interests me, I feel the need to comment on the idea of intent and sadism. I don't think anyone could call an audience sadistic for laughing at something funny, but I do beleive that there is a level of sadism in portraying gory dismemberment as funny. No matter how fake it is, a guy getting cut in half is a very bad thing--by showing it in a fake, over-the-top, comic way the makers of the film have essentially tricked you into laughing at something terrible. That is sadistic not because of what it shows or how it shows it, but because of the unnatural reaction it has created in the viewer.

There was a brilliant skit on the old Hugh and Laurie show that played with this same concept: they talked about genital herpes, but in such an outlandish context that the audience couldn't help but laugh. Then the actors broke character and challenged the audience, accusing them of being cruel and insensitive about a very serious subject, but the subtle way in which they did it was so meticulously funny that the audience just kept laughing despite feeling guilty about it.

[Skar]

I had an experience that could be seen as germane.

I was out of town on business when Saving Private Ryan was in the theaters and I saw it in the town where I was staying.  Very violent, very realistic.

After it was over I was moved and gave it lots of deep thought as I returned to my hotel room.  When I got back to my room I flopped down on the bed and flipped on the television.  There was an Eddie Murphy cop comedy on and I figured I could use the light material.  Soon though they got in a shootout and lots of guys died by clutching the part that had been shot and falling down, zero blood, totally unrealistic.  It made me sick to my stomach and really bothered me to see death portrayed so casually.  The effect was, of course, exacerbated because of what I had seen two hours before.  The realistic violence in Saving Private Ryan did not offend me, but that in the Eddie Murphy flic did.

Having said that I found the forklift video humorous and chuckled and groaned all the way through it.  What's wrong with me?

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

See I dont think anythings wrong with you. Death and injury can be an uncomfortable topic for people and one way to discuss it or make it accessible is to make it funny. Its why New Orleans style funerals have singing and dancing and lots of people having as good a time as they can. Its a different way to do it, but not necessarily bad or sadistic. The Hugh and Laurie skit sounds like another version of this same concept, albeit in a bait and switch kind of way. They couldnt just come out and talk about herpes in a serious way so they made a skit about it to force the audience to deal with it when they changed character. It sounds quite brilliant in an age where people werent talking about sexual diseases.

[Fellfrosch]

Your experience with the two movies reminded me of an "ethics on TV" study conducted several years ago. One of the conclusions they came to was that comedies were inherently less ethical than dramas because they didn't show the consequences of actions, and when they did they didn't show them realistically. Think about it--when was the last time you saw a full-body cast that wasn't intended for comic effect?

And I don't think anything's wrong with you either. I personally find bottomless wells of humor in death, and even wrote a comedic novel about ghouls and graverobbers. Just because something is wrong doesn't mean it isn't funny--even sadism, specifically because it is an emotional extreme, is easy to turn into humor.