Veegs

What can I say, it's a pretty crazy name. I'm here to get scoops and freak beans, and I'm all out of scoops (because there was nothing for the scoop troop this ep )

I was going to post something on this forum, but the way all of the new people are talking about it makes me worried that there's a Skellington or Frankingstein lurking here... Is that why this forum is too scary?

Well turned out I was lying when I said I wouldn't post again. Edited it. Happy with the appearance now? Either way I am actually done now.

Just going to post this then I'm done for good: 1. What Sun Kil Moon said was misogynist. That kind of language is demeaning to women in a variety of ways, from using bitch as an insult to the "you know you want it" implication. 2. Kozelek's intent was to be insulting or at least offensive. He wasn't making a subversive joke or making fun of misogyny. In my opinion, those are the only types of things that could excuse this language, and it's pretty clear his intent was to indeed be insulting/offensive/a dick in general. To use misogynistic language to do this is unacceptable. Period. 3. One cannot be an equal opportunity offender, as straight white males can not be demeaned in a similar manner to the way as Snapes was demeaned. This also applies to other "out of bounds" insults such as insulting someone's family, e.g. as someone who is not a parent I cannot be insulted/offended via verbal attacks on my children because I don't have any. Just like I, a straight, white, cisgender male cannot be demeaned in the way Kozelek demeaned Snapes. 4. Ultimately, it seems to come down to the fact that many don't want to change their language/behavior. Essentially, they don't want to have to deal with this hassle of change and being condemned for their words, as they don't feel personally offended by it and refuse to acknowledge the enormous number of people who are offended and who have a logical thought process that legitimizes that offense. This is ironic because Besser and Souprman are essentially trying to control and condemn the "PC police" for their behavior/words. The difference is, U.S. PC police are promoting respect and equality, while Besser; Souprman, and Kozelek just want to be able to make stupid "jokes", be insulting, and generally say whatever the fuck they want without consequences. I think the respect and equality of historically and currently disenfranchised groups is more important than the constant comfort of the systematically privileged. 5. All in all, this was a pretty upsetting episode to listen to. I have listened to every episode of i4H at least twice (most of them 3+ times), and I have also bought/watched as much of Besser's other stuff as I could in order to support him. The amount of happiness this show has brought to my life over the last few years is hard to quantify. Ever since those first listens, Besser has (had?) been a personal hero of mine. He always seemed to create the smartest, craziest, and simply funniest comedy, all while helping the careers of other great comedians by giving them exposure and generally showing the audience how awesome they were. He would also frequently "fight the good fight" and advocate for causes important to me, from marriage equality to gun control. But as a feminist/feminist ally/whatever you want to call solemn who believes in equality for women, it is very difficult for me to reconcile this episode with my previous view of Besser. It's going to be hard for me to listen to i4H again, simply because the views expressed in this episode are so infuriating/downright wrong and backwards. I'm sure future episodes will be funny, but, for me personally, listening to the show again would most likely be a reminder of prejudice and willful ignorance rather than the source of happiness it has always been. I'm not calling for a boycott or anything, all I'm saying is that I've been a huge fan of Besser and everything he's done, but this episode means listening to future episodes might not be a pleasant experience for me personally. So I guess you guys win, I won't be here to police your fun any more. If you want to call this over sensitive or whatever go ahead, because you're still missing the point entirely. So yell at me and promote prejudice, I won't be reading it any way, and my belief of gender equality is unshakable.

My job though? This isn't cowardice. I'm confident in my arguments.

Well since I won't be on the podcast might as well just keep arguing... I think you're making a mistake like Matt did by conflating the Meadows and Kozelek issues. What Meadows said was fine and no one is arguing that. You seem to understand a lot of things I was saying, but I take issue with what you said about intent. Kozelek's intent doesn't prevent the song from being offensive, because his intent was to insult someone, and using misogynistic language to fulfill this intent is not acceptable. As I've previously explained it is possible to act on this intent without using misogynist language. Essentially, it doesn't matter if Kozelek didn't intend to do a misogynistic thing because he did a misogynistic thing anyway. I agree that following the logic of "intent never matters" is a bad thing, but if Kozelek's intent was to avoid demeaning someone based on the fact that she's a woman, he failed. So it's not that intent can never enter into the discussion nor is that we're not "sophisticated" enough to understand Kozelek. It's rather that the outcome is still negative. Perhaps this is to 100% intended hate speech as manslaughter is to murder, but that doesn't make it any more acceptable.

Hate to disappoint everyone, but I probably won't be able to call in for your least favorite segment. But I feel like I've still gotten a lot of my key points out on Thursday, so hope it goes well for those that to get to call in and I look forward to listening.

No problem, I actually am a vegetarian of 6 years (hence the stupid username), and I have always been confused by people who claim to be animal lovers/are obsessed with their pets but will criticize me for my choices. I get if you don't want to be a vegetarian for whatever reason, but to go out of your way to criticize them is confusing, especially given if you claim to love animals. It's really hard to eliminate all of your support in avoiding the "speciesism" as you put it, because animal products are so prevalent. Also, as someone who has done and will have to do a lot of experiments, it's obviously less of a hassle to use animals people tend not to care about, i.e. mice, but I don't really have a problem with this when it's for a morally just cause, e.g. cancer research. That said, I do try to avoid this stuff in general, and I actually think this was a huge element of the debate that went completely ignored during Gemberling's beastiality episodes.

No I'm not saying that it's always obvious to the people being misogynist, as, like all forms of prejudice, it can be subtle. What I was trying to articulate is that, from a moral perspective, it is black and white if someone can explain to you why something is misogynist/whatever. Like if you could get someone to accept that the wage gap is not a myth, they should then be able to make a simple judgement that the wage gap is morally wrong. Destroying and identifying misogyny at a 100% success rate is the goal, but obviously doing so is not simple. However, I do believe that, on a case by case basis, if you can identify prejudice in something it is then a simple decision to not support that prejudice. I don't know if that clarifies things, but I definitely do agree with you that not everything that is misogynist is necessarily easy to identify/put a stop to.

Sorry posted this before I saw Besser came in. If you would like to patronize me some more, I probably should calm down first, and then we can do this another time (doesn't even have to be on the podcast).

I would also be in

Oh man, so now it's ok if the artist's intentions were acceptable? I didn't mean to kill that kid when I was driving drunk, that wasn't my intention, therefore what I did was acceptable right? I think you're confused as to what censorship and intolerance are. I'm not advocating that the government stops Kozelek from being a jerk, I'm just saying maybe we shouldn't support blatant misogyny. Also, now you're doing the whole right wing, "liberals are so open-minded and accepting until someone disagrees with them" thing. This isn't a matter of opinions, this is really, really simple and black and white. Don't be a misogynist, that's all it is. You still seem confused as to what context is. By your logic I can call someone a dumb pussy, but if I provide context and say, "don't worry I don't associate women with being wimpy, I was just trying to call him a wimp", then that's ok? Being prejudiced is ok if you back-peddle? It's not extrapolating anything to think the use of the word faggot would be homophobic. So why would it be extrapolating to say using misogynist language is misogynist?

What? Are you saying it's not your place to be upset if the words don't directly offend you? So by that logic, one should never be upset by anything unless it directly harms them. Because, hey, people might be blatantly homophobic, racist, misogynist, etc. but it's not my problem and those special interest groups should really just get off their asses and defend themselves if it's so damn important! Is you're whole argument now really just down to sticks and stones?

Lol oh ok, so behind closed doors us bros can say whatever we want because those stupid fun police aren't around to ruin things with their lofty ideals of "equality" and "respect".

So if two straight men called each other faggots it wouldn't be homophobic? The word context keeps coming up because it's the entire basis of your faulty argument.

What are you trying to say? Calling someone a bitch is misogynistic. Calling someone a pussy is misogynist, as I believe Besser himself mentioned offhandedly on this podcast a few weeks ago (it could be another podcast, I listen to too many). To bring it back to the homophobia example surely you could recognize that if someone was to use the word faggot as an insult that would be hateful and insulting to all gay people? Why would it be any different for women?

Once again, you can be a jerk and not give interviews or whatever without being a misogynist. It's not offensive not to cooperate with journalists. What is offensive is to attack people based on gender, and, while his comments might have been inspired by the behavior of one individual, the language and implication of what he said is simply offensive in general. If a woman cut me off in traffic and I said she was a bitch who couldn't drive, that would be offensive, regardless of the fact that it was caused by the behavior of a single individual and directed at this one individual.

No you can still attack a woman for being stupid, but you can do so in language without attacking a whole gender. It would be within Kozelek's rights to get to say, "She's stupid and I hate people like her", because that's not attacking her, not her gender. What he did say was that she was a bitch, while insinuating she was a weak-willed woman who was only annoying him because she couldn't control her sexual desire for him. Surely you can see the difference between pointing out individual flaws within a specific person rather than attacking an entire gender? Stephanie's point is valid in general, but I don't feel it's applicable to the situation. It would be more applicable if a website was to post a headline saying, "Mookie Blaiklock calss Stephanie Allyne 'a bitch' on i4h", because, in context, you can tell Mookie is making fun of stupid men. Kozelek, whether intentionally or not, did attack someone based on gender, and an attack of this nature is going to be unacceptable pretty much always.

No you're the one missing the point. He doesn't behave in an equally offensive way to all people. I can understand why some of the War on Drugs stuff could come off as homophobic, but this stuff at the concert is so overtly misogynist. There's a difference between "just being an asshole" and demeaning someone based on race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. By definition it's impossible for him to be that offensive to straight white men. It's fine if his thing is being a jerk or if his schtick is all about being abrasive in an unfunny way, but one can do this without trying to tear someone down based on their gender/race/whatever. Besser tears into all kinds of people all the time on the show and uses offensive language in the process, but the actual joke and the actual criticism is never directed to a historically disadvantaged group of people. With the Kozelek song, the joke is specifically demeaning to women in general.

https://www.youtube....h?v=kgjk8Lhau58 "I'm a woman. The big duck scared me"