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Please Kill Me Now 
"Need my dopamine fix!"
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 Posted - 03/06/2006 : 04:52:43
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I dunno. Personally, I didn't much care for 'Brokeback Mountain' and thought the movie rather sappy and dull and just generally overrated. But some of the reviews on this site make me a little uneasy.
A few examples:
* 'Ledger gets arse pumped' (which, for the record, doesn't actually happen in the movie: Gyllenhaal plays bottom)
* 'Shit packers with shitkickers'
* 'High Plains Poofters'
* 'Homo on the Range'
* 'Cowboys out poop-chutin'
* 'Prairie poo pirate pair'
* 'Flaming Saddles' (approved TWICE by two different reviewers!)
* 'Packing fudge, not guns'
* 'Pistol packin poofters'
* 'Heart-breaking Ass Fuckers'
I don't pretend to be altogether innocent here as I submitted
'Cowpokes poke rectums' and 'Ennis rides rodeo Twist' (the latter which I thought was pretty good myself).
I also don't get all of the disgusted references to excrement in some of these reviews when no digestive byproducts actually appear or are even implied in the movie (apparently, Ennis and Jack were conscientiously hygienic when it came to their anal sex practices).
I dunno. What do y'all think about this?
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Edited by - Please Kill Me Now on 03/06/2006 04:59:43 |
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GHcool 
"Forever a curious character."
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Posted - 03/06/2006 : 05:19:59
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quote:
Originally posted by Please Kill Me Now
I dunno. What do y'all think about this?
I'm not offended by them, but then again, I am not gay. As a Jew, I find some of the Schindler's List and The Pianist reviews to be tasteless, but that's because they were based on true events that to me are somewhat "sacred" and "off limits" when it comes to what I think is funny. I imagine that if I were gay, I would laugh at the Brokeback Mountain jokes in the same way I laugh at the "Worst Jewish Football Team" jokes. |
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bife 
"Winners never quit ... fwfr ... "
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Posted - 03/06/2006 : 05:36:21
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Good question PKMN.
I am normally as quick as anyone to jump on a reviewing bandwagon (chatterbox, Bambi meets Godzilla etc), but this time i have backed off.
It isn't that the reviews are generally too homophobic, and I have probably had equally 'tasteless' or borderline reviews passed for other gay films
So it is hard to explain my unease, but I think it is stirred by the sheer volume of reviews, all targetting the 'gay cowboy' joke, and the high profile of the film itself
I would just hate for a casual passerby to judge the site based on the reviews for this movie.
The 'Looking for a Muslim joke' film (forget the actual title) gives me a similar level of unease |
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silly 
"That rabbit's DYNAMITE."
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Posted - 03/06/2006 : 05:38:17
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My (very intellectual) review of "cowboys out poop-chutin" was because "cowboys poop chutin' boogie" was rejected, and both are blatently stolen from the classic (in some galaxies) song by Pinkard and Bowdin which of course ripped off "Boot-scoot n' boogie" by somebody or other. In fact they suggested that all the cowboys who wanted to go boot scootin' were really after each other more than ten years ago.
For me, the emphasis isn't on "poop" but the "chute" and could really be used to describe somebody who likes to go 'in through the out door' of either a male or female.
I'm certainly not afraid of gays or their lifestyle (fyi here's the wikipedia link for Homophobia just for kicks but obviously I'm not above making a cheap joke just to get a review published.
And for the record I still grin like a teenager when I hear the Doors sing "Backdoor man," and that also has nothing to do with gays. I just like that my mom thought it meant somebody who knocked on the back door instead of the front door. Which, in a way, it is. But it's oh so much more, too.
Interesting thought... |
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thefoxboy 
"Four your eyes only."
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Posted - 03/06/2006 : 06:00:35
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I deleted mine on your word that it was incorrect.
Not that there's anything wrong with being homophobic. |
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Please Kill Me Now
"Need my dopamine fix!"
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Posted - 03/06/2006 : 06:17:24
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quote:
Originally posted by thefoxboy
Not that there's anything wrong with being homophobic.
Why do you say that, foxboy? Explain that remark.
I am just a bit put off here because all of these gay jokes just seem tiresome and adolescent.
If there is nothing wrong with being homophobic, why doesn't someone just post 'Cowboy faggot asshole-fuckers' or 'Ledger is flaming cocksucker' or even 'Gyllenhaal gets just desserts', or something like that?
I am not gay but I do have an openly gay friend. |
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thefoxboy
"Four your eyes only."
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Posted - 03/06/2006 : 06:33:25
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quote:
Originally posted by Please Kill Me Now
quote:
Originally posted by thefoxboy
Not that there's anything wrong with being homophobic.
Why do you say that, foxboy? Explain that remark.
I am just a bit put off here because all of these gay jokes just seem tiresome and adolescent.
If there is nothing wrong with being homophobic, why doesn't someone just post 'Cowboy faggot asshole-fuckers' or 'Ledger is flaming cocksucker' or even 'Gyllenhaal gets just desserts', or something like that?
I am not gay but I do have an openly gay friend.
Just quoting the reverse of the famous line from Seinfeld. 
http://www.pkmeco.com/seinfeld/outing.htm |
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GHcool
"Forever a curious character."
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Posted - 03/06/2006 : 06:37:26
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quote:
Originally posted by Please Kill Me Now
quote:
Originally posted by thefoxboy
Not that there's anything wrong with being homophobic.
Why do you say that, foxboy? Explain that remark.
I am hoping that thefoxboy was giving an obscure reference to "Seinfeld" and their line "Not that there's anything wrong with it" about gay people so not to offend anyone. The spin thefoxboy put on it was in pretending that he didn't want to offend homophobes. FWFR'ers should know by now that thefoxboy's sense of humor could sometimes be described as "off color." It wasn't a very funny joke and thefoxboy probably shouldn't have written it for fear of being misunderstood, but I'm willing to act as a character witness for thefoxboy before this gets too out of hand. |
Edited by - GHcool on 03/06/2006 06:39:19 |
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Please Kill Me Now
"Need my dopamine fix!"
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Posted - 03/06/2006 : 07:54:28
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quote:
I am hoping that thefoxboy was giving an obscure reference to "Seinfeld" and their line "Not that there's anything wrong with it" about gay people so not to offend anyone. The spin thefoxboy put on it was in pretending that he didn't want to offend homophobes. FWFR'ers should know by now that thefoxboy's sense of humor could sometimes be described as "off color." It wasn't a very funny joke and thefoxboy probably shouldn't have written it for fear of being misunderstood, but I'm willing to act as a character witness for thefoxboy before this gets too out of hand.
So noted. I just wonder what some people with a similar sense of humor are going to come up with next. I mean, at this rate we might soon be getting stuff like "Ledger gives Gyllenhaal AIDS".
It wouldn't be acceptable to publish inflammatory racist crap like, I dunno, for example 'Monster's Ball': 'Thornton sucks nigger's cunt'. So why do people publish loads of reviews about fudge-packing and the like for 'Brokeback Mountain' when that is not even the main point of the movie. Some viewers just can't get past the very mild (and suggested) gay sex scene, so they try to sound hip and superior by obsessing about it with juvenile fag jokes. Just something to think about. |
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ChocolateLady
"500 Chocolate Delights"
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Posted - 03/06/2006 : 08:51:52
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Funny thing about this. One of my friends who read my review of this site decided to sign up here. He didn't work very hard at trying to get reviews accepted, but did want to submit one for Brokeback. He ran it by me first, and asked me if anyone would be insulted by it (I think it was something like "Bare Back Mounting"). I thought that was a bit strange, seeing as he is gay and I'm straight. My reply to him was "if you're not insulted by it, why should anyone else be?".
(By the way, it wasn't accepted, and I don't think he's trying anymore.) |
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Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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Posted - 03/06/2006 : 09:12:20
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You raise an excellent point, PKMN. My views on this are absolutely clear-cut so here they are.
When I was a young lad I laughed at and repeated every sick or dirty joke I ever heard. But I didn't know how to answer someone when they said "Hey, you shouldn't tell that kind of joke, it isn't nice!". But when I was about 20 or so I worked out why it was OK to tell any joke I felt like, any time I felt like it. It's simply a matter of civil liberties. It's the same principle as tonight's dinner, if I wanted potatoes, I ate potatoes, if I wanted pasta, I ate pasta. It's nobody else's business what I had for dinner, likewise, it's nobody else's concern what I laugh at.
I find sick jokes funny. The 'worse' they are, the more I laugh. I'm not ashamed of it and not apologising for it. I have a mile-long list of filthy and/or sick jokes that make fun of paedophilia, genocide, infanticide etc where the people on the 'receiving' end of the jokes are black, Jewish, women, gay, disabled, sick, intellectually handicapped or whatever. IMHO I have the civil right to tell them anytime I like to whoever I like. BUT, and it's a big BUT, I also know that there are many people who won't find my sick jokes funny, and/or even worse, will make an incorrect judment about me based on a joke I tell. E.g., if I tell a racist joke they will think I am racist when IMHO I am not. (I have black/gay relatives who I have total respect for and whose company I thoroughly enjoy etc etc).
I totally separate humour from seriousness. I tell a joke because it's funny, not because it represents my beliefs. In fact, it's usually funny because it totally contradicts my beliefs. I recall telling racist jokes (where the victims were black) to some South African Afrikaners in Kenya, they never laughed simply because they hated anyone who was black far too much to find the jokes funny. Wheras the white Kiwis/Aussies I worked with who were not racist bigots laughed their arses off. For the Afrikaners, the issue of race was simply far too important to them, and their hatred for blacks was too intense to allow them to laugh at racist jokes. I'd say many (probably most) Jews will be unable to laugh at my Holocaust jokes for the same reason, the Holocaust is far too real to them and the Holocaust is simply not compatible with humour.
Another example. My brother-in-law (well, out-of-law, my white sister's partner) is as black as the ace of spades, yet I will happily tell my sister a black racist joke and she will laugh, as she also has the same separation of humour from reality that I have. She knows that when I tell a racist joke (or a gay joke, her best friend is gay) it has nothing to do with my beliefs or attitude.
BUT, I know that there are people who don't see things my way, and don't realise that I totally separate humour from reality, and will judge and condemn me (incorrectly) because of the jokes I tell, so I use self-censorhip with jokes and reviews on this site (I can see people with their jaws dropping saying "What? Sean censors his reviews?!?"  ), simply because I don't want them to get it wrong and have an adverse reaction to jokes I tell or reviews I write.
An example: I wrote a shockingly bad taste review for Schindler's List a year or so ago (it made fun of the Holocaust), then I deleted it from my pending pile, then resubmitted, then deleted again. Eventually I decided that there were inevitably going to be people who read it who had a bad time because of it, almost certainly because they would conclude that I was at best insensitive to the worst atrocity ever committed by humans, or at worst a neo-Nazi, and that would bother me big-time if people thought that. So, the laughs it would give some were cancelled out with interest by the bad times it would give others, not to mention the way I would suffer in the vote department as a result of some users deciding to never vote for any of my reviews ever again. 
Oops, I'm seriously waffling here!  So, back to the issue in hand. I lurk in the toilet when it comes to humour, and if I could think up 100 reviews for Brokeback that relate to "arse pumping" then I'd submit them, except that the numerous other toilet humourists on the site have already done them. Similarly, how many reviews on There's Something About Mary relate to her "special hair gel" even though that incident took up only a few seconds of the movie? Or, how many reviews for Troy relate to the fact that a Trojan is not only a resident of Troy, but also something you stick on your... well, you know. Most of the reviews on the first page on Troy have sexual connotations.
So, all this goes to show that many (IMHO the majority here) are filthy toilet humourists, although most aren't as proud to admit it as I am. And if people want to concentrate on a very minor aspect of a movie for their reviewing for the delight of other similar toilet-lurkers then that's just fine by me. And if others want to concentrate on succinct plot summaries of their favourite movies then that's absolutely fine by me as well.
I suppose the flip-side of my views on humour make me totally unoffendable, it simply isn't possible to upset me with words. I'm very likely to laugh if someone tries to offend me, but only if they were funny. |
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Whippersnapper.
"A fourword thinking guy."
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Posted - 03/06/2006 : 13:18:59
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For me its unacceptable when a joke says a group are either bad - in a wide sense - or stupid.
If that line is not crossed then we should respect freedom of speech even if people are offended. That said, causing offence is rarely a good idea and should be done sparingly.
Incidentally, I can be offended by anti-gay remarks even if a gay person isn't. That gay person is not a spokesman for all gay people and neither does the fact that I am straight make me indifferent to gays being offended. The same is true for any other minority groups.
Except Aussies of course. They're all descended from convicts.
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duh
"catpurrs"
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Posted - 03/06/2006 : 17:29:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Please Kill Me Now
What do y'all think about this? [/font=Book Antiqua] [/size=4]
As one who has been proud to receive praise for some of my "sickest" reviews:
They aren't necessarily homophobic even if very off-color. *Most of the examples you gave are merely descriptive of some homosexuals' intimate lovemaking practices. They don't classify whether the performers of the acts are considered by the reviewer to be good, bad, or indifferent.
If we can't have bad taste here on FWFR, then where the fuck can we have it?   (WTG Foxy!)
*Edit: Practices which, I assume, are not exclusive to homosexuals.
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Edited by - duh on 03/06/2006 21:05:40 |
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Paddy C
"Does not compute! Lame!"
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Posted - 03/06/2006 : 18:28:01
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quote:
Originally posted by Whippersnapper
For me its unacceptable when a joke says a group are either bad - in a wide sense - or stupid.
If that line is not crossed then we should respect freedom of speech even if people are offended. That said, causing offence is rarely a good idea and should be done sparingly.
Incidentally, I can be offended by anti-gay remarks even if a gay person isn't. That gay person is not a spokesman for all gay people and neither does the fact that I am straight make me indifferent to gays being offended. The same is true for any other minority groups.
Except Aussies of course. They're all descended from convicts.
And we don't want the Irish!
... oh, alright then... everybody!
First off, I'm not a cowboy (not that there's anything wrong with that, AHEM foxy ) but I think PKMN asks a good question. Brokeback Mountain is one of the first films I've noticed people outside of this site describing in four words: 'the gay cowboy movie'. I'd guess that many fwfrs were submitted with this quote in mind, by reviewers who may not have seen the film or read the story on which it was based. (I still haven't seen it but have reviewed it twice) There are only so many legitimate synonyms for 'gay' that can be used before you can get into pretty crass territory. I'd imagine that's the context in which the reviews mentioned were submitted.
I think PKMN's examples of reviews that would cross the line between acceptable/unacceptable are cases that would be blocked by the MERPs for being simply offensive and without humour.. To me, something like 'pistol packin poofters' is in a different category. In my opinion, some of the approved brokeback mountain reviews are funny, some aren't, but it never occured to me that they were homophobic.
Going by reviews alone, fwf reviewers can find humour in some pretty strange places.. (i'm thinking of toilet humour accolade for a start!) but on the evidence of the forum discussions alone, I think there's enough common sense spread around here to keep things good-humoured.
.... maybe off-topic, but a good flick around the subject of comedy and the boundaries of taste is the Aristocrats. |
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thefoxboy
"Four your eyes only."
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Posted - 03/06/2006 : 20:06:13
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quote:
Originally posted by GHcool
but I'm willing to act as a character witness for thefoxboy before this gets too out of hand.
Thanks GHcool |
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Sludge
"Charlie Don't Serf!"
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Posted - 03/06/2006 : 23:45:28
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If you are offended by poo poo puns, definitely don't vote for "Beware animated bar stool"
- Sludge |
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Are some 'Brokeback Mountain' reviews homophobic?
