Pimpette wrote:Most Jeff Dunham skits have me crying from laughter the first time I see them. But generally... only the first time.
BrownEyedCat wrote:Every act I've seen of that guy - every. Single. One- has some kind of racist undertone. All of his puppets. I'm not kidding.
You can only do the 'Oh I am so shocked that this puppet is being offensive when I myself and totally mild mannered and the straight man' before I just start staring and thinking 'Guy, you're not fooling anyone.'
Pimpette wrote:Most Jeff Dunham skits have me crying from laughter the first time I see them. But generally... only the first time. And I just think his bit, when he tries to do two or four voices at once, is neat.
McDuffies wrote:Like I said, not all dolls work.
Bustertheclown wrote:Jeff Dunham created the puppets, and wrote the jokes. They come from his imagination, and the "they're just characters, not me!" defense is weak, especially when you consider the characters he's created-- an Arab terrorist skeleton, a jalapeno on a stick with a heavy and cartoonish Mexican accent, and a black buck-toothed pimp, among others. ... The point is, you can't separate the writer from the material. That's a cop-out.
Bustertheclown wrote:The comparison between Jeff Dunham with his puppets and Anthony Hopkins playing Hannibal Lecter is not apt. Anthony Hopkins did not create Hannibal Lecter, he merely played him.
Jeff Dunham created the puppets, and wrote the jokes. They come from his imagination, and the "they're just characters, not me!" defense is weak, especially when you consider the characters he's created-- an Arab terrorist skeleton, a jalapeno on a stick with a heavy and cartoonish Mexican accent, and a black buck-toothed pimp, among others. His entire shtick is "how offensive can I be, without getting caught, because it's cartoony puppets?" That's perfectly acceptable in comedy, although I do believe his jokes skew unironically a bit toward "ignorant white guy" pretty often. Then again, I look at his base of appeal, rednecks who like ventriloquist acts, and I get it. The point is, you can't separate the writer from the material. That's a cop-out.
His entire shtick is "how offensive can I be, without getting caught, because it's cartoony puppets?"
Laemkral wrote:Dane Cook is funny in moderation. He repeats himself too much in order to MAKE the joke funny. That means its a weak joke.
Rkolter wrote:Bustertheclown wrote:Jeff Dunham created the puppets, and wrote the jokes. They come from his imagination, and the "they're just characters, not me!" defense is weak, especially when you consider the characters he's created-- an Arab terrorist skeleton, a jalapeno on a stick with a heavy and cartoonish Mexican accent, and a black buck-toothed pimp, among others. ... The point is, you can't separate the writer from the material. That's a cop-out.
I really have to call bullshit on this. You can certainly seperate a writer from his material. In fact, it is an excellent writing exercise to be forced to write from a perspective you would never take.
A good writer can write characters (material, jokes, etcetera...) that expouses viewpoints counter to their own. A really good writer does it believably.
Besides, if you couldn't seperate him from his material, that would make Jeff Dunham a closet homophobic sexist multi-racist who hates both the young and old, loves terrorism, and wishes he was a redneck pimp while secretly believing all carribean natives are pink furry monsters.
McDuffies wrote:Bustertheclown wrote:The comparison between Jeff Dunham with his puppets and Anthony Hopkins playing Hannibal Lecter is not apt. Anthony Hopkins did not create Hannibal Lecter, he merely played him.
So it's those who actually wrote the scripts for Hannibal films that are closet serial killers?
Jeff Dunham created the puppets, and wrote the jokes. They come from his imagination, and the "they're just characters, not me!" defense is weak, especially when you consider the characters he's created-- an Arab terrorist skeleton, a jalapeno on a stick with a heavy and cartoonish Mexican accent, and a black buck-toothed pimp, among others. His entire shtick is "how offensive can I be, without getting caught, because it's cartoony puppets?" That's perfectly acceptable in comedy, although I do believe his jokes skew unironically a bit toward "ignorant white guy" pretty often. Then again, I look at his base of appeal, rednecks who like ventriloquist acts, and I get it. The point is, you can't separate the writer from the material. That's a cop-out.
Great deal of writing is in understanding how other people think, in being able to put words into mouths of characters who are very different from writer. In that way, you certainly can separate writer from material. Seriously, have you never had any crap from people who thought that all your writing was autobiographical and that through negative characters you were trying to speak your closet opinions?
Even if you accept that you can't differentiate writer from his material, the connection is not always direct as in "what characters say is actual opinions of the writer". Specially if it's written in ironic tone, in which case you're actually supposed to read the oposite from what it literally says.
Most of Dunham's work is ironic, in fact I think that success of his creations depends on how obviously that irony comes across. Walter and Peanut in particular are obviously supposed to be examples of awfull characters, and you're not supposed to sympathise with them, take their opinions for granted, etc. You're supposed to laugh at them, not with them. If you take their opinions seriously, you may as well go ahead and take all fictional opinions seriously, including Hannibal Lector's.
He's prolly popular with rednecks who aren't able to spot the irony though, and I admit that sometimes that :ignorant white guy" attitude appears, but I don't think that's prevailing in his act. Anyways, modern comedy is full of ethnic caricatures and similar stuff, as reaction to agressive political correctness pleads, I don't see how he's any different.His entire shtick is "how offensive can I be, without getting caught, because it's cartoony puppets?"
I actually think it's a good shtick. Though he doesn't exactly go for as offensive as he can get, he pulls much more punches than many other comedy acts.
Bustertheclown wrote:Jeff Dunham's comedy has never struck me as ironic in the least. Irony, in the comedic sense, is a subversion. In his case, for him to be ironic, he'd have to be subverting the stereotypes he's portraying somehow. He's not. He's playing them straight, and even reinforcing them. For example, Achmed the Dead Terrorist doesn't exist for us to try to understand some other point of view. He doesn't exist to make terrorists lovable. He's a dead terrorist who died because he blew himself up out of incompetence. He's the enemy, and the enemy is a bungling moron. He exists to make the audience feel superior to "them over there." That's not ironic. That's pretty much dead-on the opposite of irony. Irony would be Johnny the Dead U.S. Soldier telling the same jokes.
I seriously am having trouble understanding how anyone could assign some Andy Kaufman-esque metacomedy attributes to Jeff Dunham, of all people. His shit is exactly what you see-- xenophobic, racist, and fairly unsophisticated. You can tell by the smirk on his face. He may not always believe what he's saying, but the people who shell out $20 to go see his act sure as hell do, and he's happy to let them. He's happy to keep letting people laugh at José's funny nondescript Latin accent, Achmed's idiocy, the idea that people from exotic locations are weirdos, the idea that old people are angry and sour, and the myriad other little jabs he's got going on. He's not making fun of people who agree with what he says; he's catering to them. It's all "it's funny 'cause it's not me," humor. Pretty simple stuff. You don't have to think too hard to get it, and it never needs an explanation. That isn't to say he's not funny. Let's just call it what it is, instead of trying to rationalize it.
It's all "it's funny 'cause it's not me," humor.
No no no. You've got me all wrong. I'm not saying that a writer can't write from experiences outside of his own, and still make them believable. Of course people can do that. What I'm saying is that stories and characters are constructs, not live entities. They are what is put into them, and nothing more. They do not have lives of their own. They do not live and breath outside of the will of the storyteller or the audience. A character or a story might develop organically to a point that it might seem to be living, breathing, and acting of its own free will, but it isn't. These things are mental exercise. Take away the writer, take away the audience, and the character doesn't exist.
With that stated, the man's choice in the types of characters he creates and how he uses them is telling evidence about one or both of two things: who he is, and the type of audience to which he seeks to relate.
Phact0rri wrote:To say its harmless is to say that, this is just comedy and these are just silly stereotypes. I know plenty of people who think these things do characterize an entire race. And people unfamilar with these thoughts will now have more ammunition for dealing with people of different life styles.
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