I always got labeled as a "humorless feminist", but I have been steadfast in my hatred of the man show. The reasons for hating it are obvious, so I won't go on a rant, but just....ew. No. No no no no no. You're not the only one who never found it funny.

Seconded. I hated it not just because the show itself was so unabashedly hateful, but because Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Corrolla aren't funny or clever even when they're not being misogynist asshats.

It's nice that Comedy Central finally wised up and stopped running it, but they still show Girls Gone Wild commercials 12 hours a day. And as far as I'm concerned, that's several notches on the Taste-o-Meter™ worse than The Man Show.

Thirded!!

I can't believe how blatantly sexist that is -- "Infidelity: He can, You can't"???? How could we find that funny? I have a *great* sense of humor, which is precisely WHY this crap is completely unfunny. Boorish comedy is not funny, it's simply boorish. Comedy doesn't even have to be "emasculating" (whatever that means) to be funny -- it just certainly should not be demeaning to women.

The Man Show is an undiluted load of horsepucky, but I will always love Adam Corrolla for the time he ripped a guy a new one on public radio for asserting that his young girlfriend had a "loose vagina."

Wife school, huh? I wonder what "husband school" would entail? After the wife school ad, I think it would be "How to Stay Single School for Women," or, "Don't Waste Your Time School."

For god's sake, NO! That show was awful! Juggies?! Come on! Women as scantily-clad, sexualized, mute playthings for juvenile males is NOT comedy.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. I would like to know who exactly deemed Adam Carolla at all funny or entertaining. He sucked sitting next to Dr. Drew...and that's saying a lot! To this day, I cannot bear to watch anything with even a hint of Adam Corolla. He literally makes my skin crawl.

It never ceased to amaze me, though, how many women defended that show as funny. And I came across quite a few.

Never seen the show, but that video wasn't even slightly humorous. Then again, I never really found those shows that show men as stupid or dominated by their manipulative wives or girlfriends as funny either. Degrading people is just not funny. Showing the foibles and faults in human relationships can be quite hilarious. Mean and stupid behavior isn't.

Is it me, or did Adam Carolla sound like one of the Martians in Mars Attacks?

Seems like a bit of a double standard on hater comedy when you praise the "You Cum Like a Girl" woman and her boorish comedy and then blast these guys. None of that crap is funny.

Buffy, I think that the "You cum like a girl," although something I would never wear myself, was a retort not a boorish comedy skit.

A response to the wide spread idea that women can't cum, won't cum and needn't cum. A response to how women should "fake it" for the sake of men.

Do you consider a woman athlete wearing a "you throw like a girl" shirt equally boorish? Or is it just because the "cum" shirt involved sex?

The "cum" shirt was about empowering women not about tearing down esteem and value and degrading, manipluationg people to serve your every whim.

I've never liked it either, not only for the obvious nasty attitude toward women, but also because it portrays men as nothing but crude neanderthals, all the while calling itself "The Man Show" as if to imply all men are or should be like that. It's far from flattering, to either sex. And then of course there's the highly offensive treatment of little people, from the use of the term "midgets" to describe them to the treatment of them on the show as pets or clowns.
I think the intent is to be deliberately offensive, but even so, note how they avoid the real powderkeg offenses that no one would stand for (no games of 'bash the homo' or 'whip the negro') and stick to the "easy" targets that are more socially-acceptable anti-PC--like women, of course. Women are always fair game, aren't they? Probably because of that handy 'humorless feminazi" retort that always gets whipped out when one complains. Which makes them cowards, in my opinion, for only targeting groups they're not afraid of--about as admirable as fighting someone half your size who's in handcuffs.
I've never found either "comedian" funny, either, and have on occasion wondered where they ever found women desperate enough to marry and have kids with them.

To clarify my earlier comment, what I meant was that for all of the show's portrayal of itself as anti-politically-correct and "edgy" it really only takes "safe" risks and is very careful not to cross the line.
In short, the whole show is about posturing, from the premise behind it (oooh, look how we push the envelope!) to the men on it, with their hypermasculine portrayal of what "real men" are and want (beer, sex, and midget entertainers, for some reason).

Speaking of "where did they ever find women desperate enough to marry them," where did they ever find women to be in shit like that? Like the woman who does that little lip-locking motion? She needs to have her vagina taken away, kind of like stripping someone of medals or something. She hasn't earned it.

Although I'm another one who thinks that show/clip is skeeze, I have to say the thing at the end about the woman not getting her period anymore was kind of funny. Only because it was the most ridiculous and over-the-top part, and pointed out how asinine the whole thing was.

I have never found the Man Show funny and have even hurt myself grabbing for the remote to change the channel if it happened to come on.

I thought it was funny [shrugs]. Then again, I have always liked offensive humor (even when it goes after my gender, race, sexual orientation, ect.).

I know this is a completely off topic, but I do not know how to message the feministers directly. This will have to do. I have recently found out a little something about the HPV vaccine. That great medicine that will spare you from getting HPV and then cervical cancer, costs $145,ooo. I kid you not. My mother just called the pharmacy for a shot for my sister and me, and she found out the news. Apparently, we can be saved from a death sentence by selling everything in our lives to pay for it. I have been reading feministing for quite sometime and am glad to finally be a part of it- however miniscule that part may be. Just thought that I'd bring this ingenious money making plan to your attention. Enjoy the rest of your day! (I know the nickname is chessy, but I'm 14, give me a break.)

I guess I'm in the minority that isn't particularly offended by this clip.

The Adam-Jimmy episodes never bothered me, and actually seemed to be a bit self-deprecating at times. It wasn't genius by any stretch, but pretty harmless frat boy humor. I figure if I get to laugh at penis circumference jokes, let them laugh at "wife training."

The Doug and Joe ones on the other hand had a disgutingly if not dangerously misogynistic undertone, and absolutely no face value. I'm really surprised Comedy Central let these go on as long as they did.

I'm sure I'm not the only "feminist" who can tell there was a HUGE difference between the hosts and formats.

Comedy, like pornography, is very personal. I'm sure not all of you are going to necessarily appreciate "South Park," "Borat," "Jackass," etc. but such humor brings great pleasure to me. I even have fond memories of "Benny Hill," and watching old episodes of this with my Granddad and he snickered at all the boob jokes.

My point is, you can't admonish others for their personal taste. If you don't like it, don't watch. Whining about any kind of humor you don't personally agree with is just going to push the opposing viewpoint to even more terrible forms of expression. Just let them be, and hope their taste improves.

For the record, I think "humorless feminists" and "humorless conservatives, religious fanatics, misogynists, etc." have a lot more in common than they imagine. ;)

I actually laugh at this stuff because it makes me realize, "Men have really f-d up imaginations and expectations from us women"

Every comedian bashes at something that is politically incorrect, they use racial stereotypes and people laugh. They all target something that is incorrect, in this case, it's women.

The "juggies" and girls on trampoline did bother me, but it's like being a stripper. If a woman chooses to sexually objectize herself for money it's her choice. I just personally don't like bashing girls like that because it's their choice. Now those Girls Gone Wild I do bash on those b*tches, because they don't get paid, they just do it for the attention.

As for the man show, I think they're just ridiculing themselves with their sexist skits and as long as they don't take place in the real world, I'm just gonna keep laughing at how shallow and unintelligently men think.

I didn't realize that was from the Man Show (which I've always thought was lame), but I thought it was quite a funny skewering of the cult of masculinity. C'mon, picture the same skit being done by SNL as a fake commercial. Absurdity is one form of humor, and the idea of wife school is totally absurd.

I get squicked out by the Man Show like any other person with a brain, but my first read on that clip is that it's rather subversive.

I understand the point about everyone having unique taste in humor, but I think it says something troubling when people find certain things funny, and at some point it's more than just a matter of taste. For example, if I saw a baby being pummeled to death with a baseball bat and found this humorous, I think people would rightly take umbrage at that. There are some things that are simply not funny, and it's inappropriate to find them funny. Some things that are not straightforwardly funny can be ironically funny, as kmg notes -- but the audience and the underlying intent do matter in these cases.

The Man Show was never directed at an audience meant to eat up satire. It's directed at men who will be drawn in by boobs and scantily clad women, and there's really no argument that this was not its intention. Much of it could perhaps be read satirically, but that's only because some of us observing it have the keen sense of satire to notice this potential. The show was not a satire, period. Shows like Arrested Development or Family Guy are satirical. Shows like The Man Show are not. When you have a show aimed at redneck frat boy men-children, and you put on a commercial about how much better the world would be if women were docile and compliant, they're not going to take it satirically. These men already buy into this BS. Something like this would be funny if you showed it at a film festival in Toronto as part of a show mocking sexist undertones in culture. It's troubling taken as it is.

And as for the original hosts, even if they are not as "bad" as their replacements, that's really not the point. Sexism is bad, whether it's "lighthearted" jabbing that subtly reinforces stereotypes and puts women in their place, even if it's not mean about it, or whether it's blatant and pigheaded. You don't have to call all women sluts to be a harmful sexist.

The man show is about as funny as a kitten being torture.

My younger cousins (11 and 15) were quoting it to me one day. I couldn't believe that my 11 year old cousin was telling me I should wear a lower cut shirt so boys would like me more.

The Law Fairy:

I think it says something troubling when people find certain things funny, and at some point it's more than just a matter of taste. For example, if I saw a baby being pummeled to death with a baseball bat and found this humorous, I think people would rightly take umbrage at that.

In this particular case, there's quite a bit of ambiguity over whether it's intended to be complimentary to or mocking of the Stepford Husbands displayed. People who laugh because they perceive the former will creep the hell out of me; people who laugh because of the latter could get me to chuckle with them, though it might take a bit, because the general topic of brainwashing itself strikes a nerve in me.

Zed, I agree with you -- my point is that I don't think The Man Show falls into the category of "okay to laugh at." In general it is harmful. If it were not aimed at an audience that needs no bolstering of its sexist ideals, it might hold promise. But, I mean, can you think of any way this show is aimed at intelligent, educated, non-sexist viewers? I certainly can't.

So I guess what I am saying is, sure, some contexts are ambiguous, and in such a case absolutely taking it differently is understandable and untroubling. But I don't think there's really a fair argument that the context of The Man Show is ambiguous. I just don't think that's a reasonable conclusion to draw when you have GGW commercials popping up in the middle of the show (advertisers are not going to waste money trying to reach and audience that already despises their product) and when the show itself engages in CLEARLY demeaning activities, even where some of the *other* activities might be open to humorous interpretation.

Not that she cares, but I am partially with Jane on this.

Some of the Man Show stuff with Carolla and Kimmel was hilarious. Most of it though, was absolutely mind numbing in its formulaic stupidity. And the juggies and women on trampolines just made me shudder.

Stanhope and Rogan just took it all down a darker path. I heard an interview with Stanhope once where he just outright blasted Carolla and Kimmel and said he was going to have the balls to take the show where it should go. Even for the Man Show, it didn't go over well.

I think the problem with the video up top (which was done pretty well) is the audience watching it. Had you shown this to a bunch of progressives, they might have laughed at the absurdity of it. But its actual audience will look at it and think "damn, if only that were real".

Kian:

Uhm, yeah. Perverse humor should definitely not be for consumption by children who won't know better than to take it as a model.

"The Man Show was never directed at an audience meant to eat up satire. It's directed at men who will be drawn in by boobs and scantily clad women, and there's really no argument that this was not its intention." - The Law Fairy

I beg to differ. Most men looking for boobs and scantily clad women know that there are better places to find it than Comedy Central. The show was about the comedy, the boobs and scantily clad women were just gravy.

What was the most popular running joke on the Man Show? Look around the internet and you will find that it is videos of the fat kid saying embarrassing things to strangers on the street. Not a boob in site (unless you count his).

"The show was about the comedy, the boobs and scantily clad women were just gravy."

noname, gravy to whom? If it wasn't marketed to boorish men, who was the intended audience? Maybe this is just me, but I really don't see any reason to to have the credits roll over "juggies" (i.e., women who are not even people, they get the name of an object) jumping on a trampoline, if your intended audience is, oh, say, college professors.

Bear, it's nice to see you also noticed the difference.

And I can't believe I have to mention Sarah Silverman! Any guy who wants to give her some lovin' is OK in my book. I likewise highly doubt someone like her would be with someone who was truly "harmful" to women.

As far as what some people find funny, so what? If some men take that kind of humor literally, they're not worth saving anyway. I'll happily let the hoi polloi have their fun and save my energy for what I consider to be more important battles.

The Law Fairy:

I just wanted to note that I'm quite happy to defer to your judgement on the Man Show in general; I haven't seen it, and you seem to have a fairly compelling case for its context. My comments were with respect to this particular clip alone.

Law Fairy: to be fair, I think Comedy Central does a fairly decent job in terms of their range of programs. I'm sure some people would be offended by some of your choices. Plus, it's not as if they're a non-for-profit organization!

While I do respect your opinion, I also wonder if getting upset over this sort of thing constitutes "crying wolf" in the big picture of feminist causes.

I'm not implying your beliefs are at all frivilous, but educating some men about feminist ideas requires other approaches. I do this by thinking, "how do I present this idea to my tradtiotional male relatives?" In the past, a few forward-thinking women in my family have opened their eyes on several issues (the first step was to eradicate the notion that "feminism" is out to emasculate evey dude in its path). I really can't imagine presenting a skit from "The Man Show" as "dangerous," to these guys with a straight face, especially if I don't share that opinion to begin with!

In dealing with the average guy, I really think you have to pick your battles. I'm just trying to imagine how hard my Uncle Steve would be laughing if he saw this thread, yet he completely respects my way of life (for the record, I've also enlightened non-family members). I guess that's a big objective for me, and trashing someone's personal tastes isn't necessarily an ice-breaker in this kind of conversation.

"noname, gravy to whom? If it wasn't marketed to boorish men, who was the intended audience? Maybe this is just me, but I really don't see any reason to to have the credits roll over "juggies" (i.e., women who are not even people, they get the name of an object) jumping on a trampoline, if your intended audience is, oh, say, college professors." - The Law Fairy

Gravy to anyone who likes boobs and scantily clad women (most heterosexual men and some gay women too I assume). Again, this was secondary to comedy. When I did see this show it was usually with buddies. We were there to laugh, not to ogle (although ogling definitely took place). I was a college guy when this was popular – definitely a part of the target audience. The show was a comedy on a comedy network filled with jokes. Saying The Man Show was about the boobs is like saying a strip show is about the comedy just because someone cracks some jokes in the club.

Also, you don't have to be a college professor to understand satire.

Jane, fair enough, but this isn't really a forum about trying to convince the average male. It's a forum that I think tends to draw people who already have fairly feminist views. I wouldn't necessarily make these same arguments to someone I was trying to convince not to watch the show (although, I will admit in the interests of full disclosure that I would have a difficult time, personally, being able to talk about this to someone who actually enjoys a show like this, including family members). You make a good pragmatic point, but mine is not a pragmatic point. I'm just saying that I think the show harms our cause. I mean, is there serious disagreement on that? That's a genuine question; I understand that there can be degrees of harmful, e.g., obviously the Taliban is more oppressive than Jimmy and Adam -- but in my mind that doesn't completely clear the show of blame. Sexism is a complicated and insidious thing, and I think that in a forum like this it's appropriate to note where it exists even if it's subtle and in the guise of "humor" (again, this is how they propogate the "humorless feminist" myth -- people who use terms like that, in fact, are doing the very thing I appear to be accused of: judging others' taste. If I don't think the show is funny in the least, somehow *I'm* the one with a poor sense of humor, even if I'll laugh at many other things that don't need to demean women, however subtly, to be "humorous").

noname, the college professor thing was an obvious sarcastic note, which I though was, er, obvious. Here is my question to you: why did you find The Man Show to be funny? The point is not whether it made you laugh; the point is *what* made you laugh. If the show was "comedic" because it played into your entrenched sexist views (NOTE: I am NOT accusing you here of being some evil "sexist"; but assuming you were raised in a relatively average-ish American/Western home, chances are you have basic underlying sexist notions, as ALL OF US, including feminists, do. It's not an issue of blame, it's an issue of upbringing), then the point is STILL not simply "comedy," as though comedy is some pure free-floating ideal. Just because something makes you laugh, does not mean it is neither harmful nor sexist.

zed - the worst part of it is, i spoke to my aunt about it - and her reply was "Oh aren't my boys just funny?? He didn't mean it" ... I think that's the worst excuse in the world for a parent to use "he didn't mean it"... and then they don't go to their kid to explain to them *why* they shouldn't mean it, or say it at all.

Oh, noname, also: you make my point for me. You yourself note that it's aimed at college guys. Obviously there are smart, sensible, thoughtful college guys out there... but the average college guy, I will venture to say, is not going to view the show as satire. I went to college with men, and maybe 5% of them might have viewed the show as satirical, had they sat down to watch it (which they likely would not have done, since it would have gotten in the way of other pursuits).

I'm probably not the target audience of the show, but I am a man, and I always despised "The Man Show" (those are sarcastic quotation marks) intensely, based on the commercials and the six seconds of it I was once unfortunate enough to be subjected to. I've always considered misogyny ugly, and likewise any attempt to ridicule vulnerable groups, but what really repulsed me about the show was it's brutally suffocating banality (of which the dime-store misogyny was only a symptom). In a perfect world, the government would regulate television for levels of banality rather than sex or violence, and four seconds of the "man" show would be equivalent to the quanity allowed in one year on a network.

People who try too hard to be offensive for the sake of being offensive in an attempt at humor and slap the word “satire� on it and anything they’ve made have never made me laugh. Its like, you know they aren’t trying that hard because it is something you’ve heard a million times. You also know its not real satire because it stays on the Easy Targets (such as women, etc.). It isn’t intelligent because it is so narrow.

I don’t buy the “why can’t you take a joke/you‘re humorless?� bullshit, either. Its like, gee, why can’t you make a joke? What the hell am I supposed to say? "Look, somebody is being excruciatingly lame, mediocre, and old-hat. Like, um, WHOO-HOO and stuff. I guess."

Jane, fair enough, but this isn't really a forum about trying to convince the average male. It's a forum that I think tends to draw people who already have fairly feminist views.

Yes, I agree this forum does attract like-minded folks, but shouldn't we also focus on enlightening the "average guy" as well? As stated, some of them are definitely beyond hope, but if you can change one person's mind, it solidifies and might even advance the cause. This is why the religious right is so successful. :)

I guess I'm just speaking as someone who not only disagrees with neanderthals, but often other feminists on certain topics as well. That's fine with me, as long as my own lifestyle isn't limited by others' beliefs. I also believe in trying to find some kind of common ground, even if your core beliefs don't match up.

I'm definitely not here to belittle anyone's taste in humor, even if the foundation of its hilarity goes against what I stand for. I just think it's dangerous to tread the line of censorship, given the range of what humankind finds both offensive and funny; there are too many nuances in both. I know my life is stressful enough, and I need the freedom to be entertained in any way I please, even if I need to question why I find it funny.

Jane, I think it's good for us as feminists to be constantly questioning what we believe, and you're right: ultimately our goal is to change minds. So, I enjoy the debate about this show, both as a feminist interested in making the world a better place, and as a person who just plain enjoys a good debate :)

I think you're absolutely right about finding common ground -- I'd rather have laws that make me a little bit happy but are lacking in respects, than full-out oppressive laws. In general, in fact, I *am* a pragmatist; I just happen to REALLY really hate this show ;)

Oh, for what it's worth, I LOVE South Park. Also Borat, if I'm correct in thinking that's one of Sascha Cohen's characters? Never got into Benny Hill, but ADORE Monty Python. So, there is lots of "offensive" stuff out there that I heartily enjoy, as well!

"noname, the college professor thing was an obvious sarcastic note, which I though was, er, obvious." - The Law Fairy

Mine was too. Of course I'm not so sure of yours now that I read this:

"the average college guy, I will venture to say, is not going to view the show as satire." - The Law Fairy

Really? Good to know I was such an exceptional student (sarcasm again :) )

As to your question, I liked “The Man Show� (more or less, I wasn’t watching every week or sending fan mail) because of how it treated stereotypes. It took the worst, the laziest, the most irredeemably sexist aspects of the masculine stereotype and blew up to comical proportions. It took how that stereotypical man might see women and blew that up as well. Basically, it showed two pigs in shit, and that made me laugh.

And the tits. I liked those too. ;)

"Oh, for what it's worth, I LOVE South Park. Also Borat, if I'm correct in thinking that's one of Sascha Cohen's characters? Never got into Benny Hill, but ADORE Monty Python. So, there is lots of "offensive" stuff out there that I heartily enjoy, as well!" - The Law Fairy

Good taste. I can't wait for the Borat movie to come out. Of course, you are reading something from a guy who can (and does) watch Airplane! over again for the hundredth time and still laugh at the same jokes. I guess I am an easy laugh.

I apologize, noname... I'm not trying to knock you or offend you, etc. And, in all seriousness, I do think that the fact that you'll grapple with women's issues *does* make you pretty exceptional (I don't think I went to a particularly neanderthal school, although who knows). I guess we just have different views of the show. I respect that you saw it that way... I am just not convinced that that's how the show was meant.

I guess I just think that if you're going to make fun of a stereotype, there are ways of doing that that don't involve playing to the stereotype so much. Like, if they had picked ugly fat girls to be their "juggies," that would have been a sarcastic jab at hypermasculinity. I just have a really hard time seeing something as sarcastic when you have attractive, busty women acting completely ditzy and docile (the stereotypical neanderthal fantasy) and *this* aspect of the show is done in a boorish but straightforward manner. That is to say - and granted you probably know the show better than I do, given it doesn't appear it made you want to vomit ;) - I don't think it ridiculed it enough to qualify as satire. If it had somehow shown how idiotic sex stereotypes are, e.g., shown some actual human side of the women other than *just* the beer wench, trampoline-jumping side, then it might work as satire. But I am just not seeing it. Maybe you could give an example of how the show was intended to be satirical?

Really. I mean, I'm not trying to be ornery. I really disagree with you but I'm happy to admit you know the show better than I do (I could never stand to watch much of it), and so maybe you could demonstrate to me how the show made fun of sex stereotypes rather than just playing into them?

No apologies necessary. It is nice to disagree with someone without a flame war ensuing.
I will use the above video to show where I see satire. This video takes selfish desire and blows it up to the point of being absolutely ridiculous. I wouldn’t mind a beer and a blow-job during after the game, but this sketch extends this sort of selfishness to absurd lengths. For me, at least, it does tap into certain desires and show how ridiculous it would be to expect the fulfillment of those desires. And it’s funny. That, to me, is satire.

It's tough for many of us to find humor in a satire about us or that which we feel strongly about. We often have no trouble laughing at satire of others though. It's hard to have it both ways. One of the great things about the South Park guys is that there is no sacred cows. They find the absurdity/hypocrisy/humor in everything and everyone.

Jane - Stanhope is generally a pretty dark comic and in my opinion not the funniest of guys. I'm not a fan of Rogan either. Anger is a tough thing to have when you are trying to make people laugh. Intelligent comics like Eddie Izzard (Dressed to Kill is one of the funniest things I have ever seen) are much more my speed.

Eddie Izzard's scripted material is great, of course, and as you say, very smart. But what makes him a real comedy genius is his Carson-esque ability to riff off a failed joke.

All his recorded shows are funny as hell, but you're right about Dress to Kill being on the top of the heap.