mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
Jokes have a part you believe.
“Eat the rich” is a gag about class disparity and cannibalism. But it’s only joking about the cannibalism.
Assholes think ‘you can joke about anything!’ means comedy can never be hateful or hurtful, because they only understand comedy as cruelty you’re not allowed to get mad at. If Dave Chappelle keeps shitting on trans people, onstage, well that’s gotta be fine, because it’s onstage. He’s a comedian. And therefore a nihilist. He doesn’t mean things when he says words! No matter what he also says offstage.
In reality - you can get away with anything, so long as audiences trust you don’t mean it. This is why people get a free pass to demean their own ingroup. We assume folks aren’t racist about themselves. But with enough context - even that can break. Human beings are fantastic at discerning meaning. So even hilariously clever phrasing can’t stop deeply bigoted stereotypes from piercing the social expectations that make stand-up work, and leave people questioning the bit.
Socsa@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
Tbh “eat the rich” has some pretty uncomfortable historical connotations when it comes to Maoist China. I know survivors of the cultural revolution and they definitely don’t find that shit funny.
vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
It is a simplification of a longer concept “When people having nothing more to eat they will eat the rich” which is kinda seperate from the whole Maoist China thing. Also the cultural revolution was a complete fuckup seperate from the original meaning, one is about desperation of the common people the other is another example why vanguardists need to be stabbed before they cause a famine.
Socsa@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
Yes I understand that ostensible origin, but the fact remains that cannibalism was used as a weapon for political violence, and saying “eat the rich” absolutely evokes that memory in the people who lived through it. Especially when it used as a political slogan.