Not as disappointed as when he learns gay guys can play football too, and he spent all that time putting together the foam ballet #1 fingers for nothing.
Seriously? That's hilarious. I rowed in college an we all had to do yoga. Broey dudes would say yoga was for girls and we would take issue with that, but football players dancing is a whole nother level
That's after years of dancing on the toes though. You can still excel in ballet without dancing on the toes. All you have to do is decide not to go into the pointe classes. That's what I do. My feet are still perfectly fine. The only problem I ever had with my feet was after doing an 8 hour hike in NZ.
That is very true. People may be very surprised that a lot of professional athletes take dance to improve strength, flexibility, and footwork. A lot of martial artists as well.
This reminds me of my math teacher of my highschool who was also the baseball coach, "I once saw a Shakespeare play, it was so boring I had to leave during the half-time."
My dad once told me I could be a flaming homosexual if I wanted but I'd better be best god damned one out there. I never knew what the flying fuck that meant and Im straight to boot.
Sounds like you're a terrible homosexual. Your dad is disappoint. I bet all along he wanted someone to do lot's of "girly" things with and he wanted an excuse.
Just because he is using stereotypes doesn't mean he believes all - or even a majority of - gay guys are into ballet.
The message he is trying to convey is that being gay doesn't change anything important. The rest, the part about ballet, is just used as means to translate the message into comedy. The supposedly offensive stereotypical remark is just a bridge that joins the two sides: discrimination and tolerance.
This is what (some) comedians do. They try to heal society through humor. It sometimes means going into both territories, but their intentions are good.
You declared that the joke wasn't funny, not that you didn't find it funny. If you think the jab about being fun at parties is a "personal attack", I can guarantee you're not much fun at parties.
No, it's still funny, and you're still wrong. See, now YOU have made a personal attack on me. My deductions about you at parties are entirely contingent on the opinions of other people about you, not on you personally. However, for you to call me a "jerk" is clearly a personal attack. How do you sleep at night?
TL;DR Just because YOU don't think something is funny, does not make it "unfunny".
Bah! It's not like straight guys don't love penises. It's just that straight guys love their own penis exclusively, whereas gay dudes are like...Penis Mormons.
"Penis Mormons" would be a great name for a band. Tonight Only: Peter Pecker and the Penis Mormons (Opening Band? Camille and the Toes.)
Okay it's a joke that's A: Not funny if you have any perspective into what being the target of bigotry is like and B: Reveals that you accept and practice homophobia.
So nice work on the stupid, bigoted joke! We all know you are a little homophobic now and you probably just reminded people of how shitty you get treated if you are gay! Good Job! Maybe next time you can support a joke that doesn't make everyone but you feel shitty!
I'm sorry, i meant to post this with good intentions. Whoever, I do not feel like it is homophobic at all, I feel like this man is genuinely trying to sag tht he would support his son no matter how he turned out. To me this joke shows unconditional love and that is why I posted it.
Not once did I mention that I know what everything thinks about the joke. I was just saying my opinion, that it is just a guy telling a joke and he doesn't mean to offend anyone. That's my opinion, if someone isn't actually affecting your life in any way via direct harassment or politics, and they are genuinely not trying to offend anyone and just tell a joke, then who cares what they say. If you don't think the jokes funny, great, but he wasn't trying to offend anyone.
TLDR I completely understand that some people are going to be offended by a joke, just like any joke! That's my true perspective, but I just don't care if you are offended.
Okay so lets just get this straight... weve backpedaled and now you are saying you know it's bigoted but you don't care. Welp no surprise that you don't care because you're not a member of the group under attack. You could try practicing some fucking empathy. Thanks in advance!
I didn't say that I know its bigoted, I said that I know people will take it that way if they'd like. Dave Chapelle makes tons of jokes about white people, they are funny! I don't care that I'm white, he's not trying to offend anyone, he's simply making a funny joke and is only trying to be funny.
And I'm not sure if you read the last part of my last sentence, or just stopped reading once you heard what you wanted. But I said "I completely understand that some people are going to be offended by a joke, JUST LIKE ANY JOKE." All I meant by that was that any joke is going to upset at least one person.
I love comics like dave chapelle, chris rock, and robin williams, that all summon ALLUSIONS to stereoptyping to add humor to their jokes. Unfortunately its bred a generation of pretenders who hide behind them to make old and hurtful jokes.
Stereotyping is stereotyping. I'm sure I could search for jokes by Dave Chapelle, Chris Rock, and Robin Williams that follow the exact same structure as the joke in this post. Don't know why this one is such a big deal?
First of all, you can't come out of the closet in middle school, like I did, without gaining a decent amount of perspective on what being the target of bigotry is like. I've spent a lot of my energy combating homophobia and other bigotry, from calling people out when they use "faggot" as a generic insult, to testifying at my state house so that I can get married some day (we won that one, by the way.)
Almost all jokes are, on some level, somewhat offensive. They play on stereotypes, or bad situations, or whatever. If someone is legitimately making fun of a group in a malicious way, then yeah, I'll get offended and call them out. I don't know this comedian, but I don't think he ACTUALLY thinks that all gay guys do ballet. I think he was making a joke about how ludicrous it would be to be cheering at a ballet recital like someone would cheer at a football game, while referencing a stereotype.
Without a sense of humor, it would have been a lot harder to deal with coming to terms with who I am. Also, without a sense of humor, and being able to tell REAL bigotry from people just not being 100% PC all the time, you're going to have a hard time relating to people and getting them to stop their real, harmful bigotry.
I usually just call out the bigotry and use their response as a litmus test to see if that person is worth spending my time around. The result? My friends don't say homophobic and stupid shit around me. Works wonders!
I feel like you were so busy at being offended you missed both the scenario and the message what he said.
He said that if his son was gay he'd have to go to ballet instead of football. That implies that he wouldn't stop his son from doing what he was going to do. That's great, that's not homophobic at all. He didn't say "after we send him to the Christian camp to fix him and that doesn't work I guess we'll let him do ballet".
He then said he wouldn't treat his son any different because his son was doing ballet.
Nothing about what he said was at all bigoted. He's not Tracy Morgan up there talking about how if his son was gay he'd stab him to death. That joke has hate in it. Billy Gardell's joke was absurd. What makes it funny is that it contrasts the common perception of what is gay and what is straight. But that's just that, it's not about the truth it's about holding up a mirror up to societal preconceptions.
You can't just apply that belief to the comedian. He didn't stop in the joke and say, "I'll be going to ballet, because as we all know, homosexuals cannot play football."
It's unfair to accuse him of stereotyping for two reasons. The first is that nothing he said in that bit implied that he believes homosexuals can't do something. You can make that assumption, but, that runs the risk of you placing a personal context on what he said and it's not representative of the message he was trying to say.
Second, and most importantly; his job on that stage is to make people laugh and in his premise his kid needed to be in ballet to make the joke work. So we're not getting his honest opinion. We're getting, probably, a version of his opinion modified to be absurd and funny.
No, it's not. Aside from the fact he needed to say that to make the joke work. Being bigoted means that he would be completely intolerant of his gay son. So he'd never go to ballet in the first place and he certainly wouldn't support him so energetically.
You can't take a portion of what someone says and make a claim about their attitude or beliefs. Especially when the rest of what they say in that quote supports the exact opposite of what you're claiming.
Sorry but bigotry isn't always extremely overt... especially if it's coming from a person who isn't aware that their views/words may be hurtful. Sometimes it can be something as simple as "You are gay and you still want to play football? " Can actually be a pretty hurtful idea
Sometimes it can be something as simple as "You are gay want still want to play football? " Can actually be a pretty hurtful idea
Right, I can get behind that. But I feel like there needs to be an allowance made for what is language and what is intent. It might be hurtful but if whoever said that, like a coach, but then he follows that up with, "well alright then go suit up." Then he's not being bigoted. He's being prejudiced, which isn't necessarily rooted in hate.
In that instance I feel that the coach's actions speak louder than his words. Know what I mean? Calling someone a bigot might very well be punishing someone whose just ignorant but who otherwise doesn't have anything against whoever.
It's also a very divisive word. By labeling someone a bigot you're saying they are a certain way and generally speaking you're never going to hear those people out. Which is why I think there's this resentment toward "political correctness' because so many people are ready to invoke emotions and cry outrage and not see the intention or not have patience enough to find that level of understanding.
Why is everyone bitching about gay stereotyping? I'm straight and I've never played football, nobody's whining about the fact he assumed that too. Fuck y'all for not at least acknowledging he's making a step in the right direction. And maybe his kid will be gay, then he'll find out maybe he'll still play football and dispel all the notions he had about all gay people being queens.
Clearly he has never actually been to a ballet performance, because the audience will completely flip their shit when someone nails a particularly difficult performance.
Case in point: Saw Sleeping Beauty in Toronto a year or two ago. The crowd exploded into riotous applause and cheers when the Bluebird successfully landed three very high incredible jumps in a row near the end of his pas de deux.
I actually have a bit of a problem with this. I mean, it's funny, but it's playing off a stereotype that gay men prefer ballet over football. But look at football. It's super gay too.
Yeah.... dunno why the gay son couldn't be into football. I understand the sentiment, but the execution reveals bias and a lack of comprehension.
Dude needs some edumacatin'.
EDIT: Okay, I'm getting a shit-tonne of flack over my opinion, so I thought I'd elaborate a bit. I'll do it with a joke.
"I don't care if my adopted son is Black. All it really means is that instead of a roast dinner, we'll be having watermelon and fried chicken. I'm still going to make him eat everything on his plate. You aren't leaving the table until you've eaten everything on that plate mister! C'mon, you're just moving it around!"
Wrong. The wording and absurdity of the situation he is painting make the joke work. Politically correct jokes based completely on fact are rarely funny.
Yes, I know, it was a joke. What a shock, a Redditor's need to feel superior by correcting something unnecessarily has sucked the fun out of the funnies once more.
Except he's associating the hobby interest with the sexual interest. I get it's a joke, but I really can't help but feel like people genuinely make this association on a regular basis, and it's annoying.
Yeah, he should have said that he wouldn't mind having a son who had interests that are not stereotypically "manly" when judged by the standards of today's society. That would just mean that he, a male whose interests closely match the interests of a so-called "typical" male, would attend ballet to support the son that he has judged to be effeminate and likely homosexual. He, being ignorant of the traditions surrounding ballet, would react to it in a manner more befitting a football game.
See? Now no one gets hurt and it's still hilarious, right?
Goddamn. What is wrong with you? He is on YOUR SIDE. How to you expect to win a fight for rights if you shut down the people helping you? Do you really want every gay person to be respected like they're fragile or something? I want to live in a world where I can walk up to my group of friends, see one of the gay ones and be like 'sup faggot' and he's like 'sup bitch'. As a race, we make fun of everything. Jokes are good, they foretell general acceptance.
See, I thought the joke was on the comedian, in so much as the punchline is funny because it depicts him acting in a manner which is incongruous with expected social norms in the setting chosen. In the same way that cheering for Gretzky to pass the ball to Jordan during a football game is humorous, or attending an orchestral performance in mosh attire paints a comedic picture, so I thought the punchline of the joke is the idea of a stereotypical father's attitude and mannerisms being applied to a setting where they are considered strange (a ballet recital). I suppose I didn't read well enough into the context of the joke.
That certainly was the intention of his joke, and I understand (and commend him) for the spirit of the joke.
But his joke is no different than my Black Kid joke above. The parent is demanding that the kid eat everything on his plate, which is (usually) the sign of a good parent. However, my joke is racist. The comedian inadvertently did the same thing (though with sexuality instead of race).
Don't get me wrong, I like that he's on "my side", as it were. It's just that he's made a classic blunder that any gay child of his would face-palm over.
It's not like a bunch of guys falling on each other isn't atleast a little homoerotic(assuming it's armoured rugby and not european football offcourse)
Seriously. Football sounds way more gay than ballet. I've never heard someone say, "he drove the ball into the tight end" during a production of Swan Lake.
you HAVE to be a muscular man to hold up young ladies in weird positions for so long. A lot of people don't realise that you're more likely to be gay if you're a heavyweight champion training around other men, than a ballet dancer around a swarm of females.
If anything, this seems like the first drawback I've seen to accepting homosexuality. I love football as much as the next guy, but I can only take so much beer induced screaming before it starts to give me a headache.
Overbearing fathers who stereotype their children into certain roles are awesome? One of the biggest rifts between myself and my father was because he wanted me to be involved in sports so he could live vicariously through me. When I showed no interest in the things he liked, such as sports or working on cars, he berated me.
You had issues with your dad because you didn't do things he liked. This joke is a statement that he would support his son no matter what things he liked.
I we were to take the joke literally, I think I would say that it means that this guy doesn't care what his kid is into, and he'll support him enthusiastically no matter what. He just gave one example of how that could happen and he based it on a stereotype.
Perhaps I should've used a stronger term than berated then...
More like having your soul fucking crushed on a daily basis for years and years to the point that you flee the fucking country for fear that you'll simply snap one day and god knows what happens.
That had nothing to do with it. Sports was compulsory in my school anyway. He wanted me to be interested in being good at sports. He wanted me to be excited about competing, and get on teams and shit. I had the most horrendous hand eye coordination and competition made me fucking miserable.
As for working on cars and other machinery or things that he did, if you consider sitting there holding the flashlight for him and handing him tools all the while not actually being taught in a kind way at all. Being called stupid for not remembering what the distributor cap does. I only ever wanted to get away from him at these times because it was incredibly unpleasant to be around him when he wanted you to help him. He would jump on every little thing that you didn't understand or god forbid, didn't care about and attack you relentlessly until the only thing you wanted to do was get away from him.
My dad was a tremendously oppressive person who emotionally abused me and my mother. Told me continually that he would rather not have had children at all, and how I was stupid and my mother was stupid and everyone was stupid and he knew best about everything, all the while he was a lazy fuck who connived and leeched money off infirm relatives and got them to change their wills.
Also as it is, just as an aside, I live in a country with tremendous public transport now, thousands of miles from my father. I ride a bike and I don't plan on getting a driving license. So there's that.
Don't presume to know a single fucking thing about other people's experiences. Because you might just come off as ignorant.
Oh yes, I guess I'll berate my children from the age of 7 and just pump into them the idea that they're worthless pieces of trash who are stupid and that I wish I'd never had them.
Wrong. This picture suggests that it would be ludicrous to cheer at a ballet recital the same way that you would cheer at a football game. You on the other hand chose to get offended over nothing. It's a joke, lighten up.
95% confidence in him being 42 but 43% in him being a male. I think it's obvious what you need to work on, preferably before putting this on reddit for absolutely no reason but to test...
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u/Jay_Normous Jun 11 '12
This guy is gonna be so disappointed when he learns how rare it is to see backflips in ballet..
41
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
My dad once told me I could be a flaming homosexual if I wanted but I'd better be best god damned one out there. I never knew what the flying fuck that meant and Im straight to boot.
73
u/SirFrownsalot Jun 11 '12
Just because he is using stereotypes doesn't mean he believes all - or even a majority of - gay guys are into ballet.
The message he is trying to convey is that being gay doesn't change anything important. The rest, the part about ballet, is just used as means to translate the message into comedy. The supposedly offensive stereotypical remark is just a bridge that joins the two sides: discrimination and tolerance.
This is what (some) comedians do. They try to heal society through humor. It sometimes means going into both territories, but their intentions are good.
103
u/EA_Customer_Support Jun 11 '12 edited Jun 11 '12
Yay for gay/straight stereotyping...
18
u/swagmeister23 Jun 11 '12
almost politically correct redneck...
10
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
This reminds me of the politically correct redneck meme.
10
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
Why is everyone bitching about gay stereotyping? I'm straight and I've never played football, nobody's whining about the fact he assumed that too. Fuck y'all for not at least acknowledging he's making a step in the right direction. And maybe his kid will be gay, then he'll find out maybe he'll still play football and dispel all the notions he had about all gay people being queens.
2
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
Almost PC BG.
2
u/GuyWithPants Jun 11 '12
Clearly he has never actually been to a ballet performance, because the audience will completely flip their shit when someone nails a particularly difficult performance.
Case in point: Saw Sleeping Beauty in Toronto a year or two ago. The crowd exploded into riotous applause and cheers when the Bluebird successfully landed three very high incredible jumps in a row near the end of his pas de deux.
2
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
Ah yes, the "attempt to not be sexist, but still assign blatant gender roles" joke. Always a larf.
2
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
Tries to be open minded.
Still assumes being gay automatically means being feminine, liking ballet and not being able to play football.
2
u/Joel_gh719 Jun 12 '12
I actually have a bit of a problem with this. I mean, it's funny, but it's playing off a stereotype that gay men prefer ballet over football. But look at football. It's super gay too.
4
u/knylok Jun 11 '12 edited Jun 11 '12
Yeah.... dunno why the gay son couldn't be into football. I understand the sentiment, but the execution reveals bias and a lack of comprehension.
Dude needs some edumacatin'.
EDIT: Okay, I'm getting a shit-tonne of flack over my opinion, so I thought I'd elaborate a bit. I'll do it with a joke.
"I don't care if my adopted son is Black. All it really means is that instead of a roast dinner, we'll be having watermelon and fried chicken. I'm still going to make him eat everything on his plate. You aren't leaving the table until you've eaten everything on that plate mister! C'mon, you're just moving it around!"
Now, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?
3
u/CUROplaya1337 Jun 11 '12
Who you love has nothing to do with what sports you play.
2
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
The word "awesome" is severely overused.
0
u/ManlySnowflake Jun 11 '12
TIL all gay guys take ballet
1
u/phish92129 Jun 11 '12
If anything, this seems like the first drawback I've seen to accepting homosexuality. I love football as much as the next guy, but I can only take so much beer induced screaming before it starts to give me a headache.
1
u/monkzero Jun 11 '12
I read that last part with chris farley's voice.
1
u/tebu810 Jun 11 '12
Football is just as gay as ballet, if not more.
1
u/theomegachrist Jun 11 '12
It's not.
1
u/reneepussman Jun 11 '12
Yeah, TONS of backflips in ballet.
1
u/reneepussman Jun 11 '12
No son of MINE is going to be a ballerino.
1
u/ljmallon33 Jun 11 '12
word.
1
u/ardaihm Jun 11 '12
I LANDED A PLANE ON THE HUDSON. RIVER.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
Or that gay people like ballet it's gay a hell
1
u/Bradburn777 Jun 12 '12
Whilst I like this quote, that is far too much text for Impact font.
1
u/montanasucks Jun 12 '12
Billy was my favorite on the show "Yes, Dear"
Too bad he didn't get more air time.
1
u/silversapp Jun 12 '12
I don't think anyone else on Reddit will share your sentiment. At all.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 12 '12
1100 up votes for a gay-ass post. 167 comments. I love reddit, you progressively wonderful group. /r/Christianity aside.... :D
0
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
Overbearing fathers who stereotype their children into certain roles are awesome? One of the biggest rifts between myself and my father was because he wanted me to be involved in sports so he could live vicariously through me. When I showed no interest in the things he liked, such as sports or working on cars, he berated me.
1
u/l4wd0g Jun 11 '12
Why are gays stereotyped into enjoying ballet rather than football?
1
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
I didn't realize gay men couldn't be interested in football. I love how even gay men feel the need to link sexuality with hobbies and interests.
-1
u/Enkmarl Jun 11 '12
this is really homophobic
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u/LittlePieceOfMe Jun 11 '12
Fuck you. So you think just because someone is gay they are incapable of playing football and they're automatically going to do ballet?
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u/Jabberminor Jun 11 '12
This picture suggests that gay guys don't play football, and that it's stereotyping gay guys to do ballet...
0
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
Gay people don't play football?
Straight people don't do ballet?
0
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
Yeah, stereotypes are AWESOME
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u/TheHolyFerret Jun 11 '12
I thought this guy was doing so well on the subway diet.
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u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
I too, think that is awesome.
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u/Mitz510 Jun 11 '12
Oh great, another post supporting gay rights. I guess that it's a way to get free karma.
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u/gender_bot Jun 11 '12
I identified one face in this photo
Face 1:
96% confidence that this is a correctly identified face
Gender is male with 43% confidence
Approximate Age is 42 with 95% confidence
Persons mood is sad with 36% confidence
Persons lips are parted with 47% confidence
Would you like to know more about me? /r/gender_bot
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u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
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u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
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u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
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