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What's the joke? What's the setup? What's the punchline? Explain the humor behind it.
It's a "joke" in the same way someone might be "joking" about your body odor, and then backing off when you take offense. It's plausible deniability for a thing they really believe.
I suppose when it comes down to it I just want a maximum punishment for the spoken word. And cancellations often go way beyond my nebulous line for what a maximum punishment should be. People should suffer social embarrassment for a day, maybe a week for really bad things. And then it should be let go. The written word can maybe receive twice as harsh of punishments. If they are some form of sociopath that isn't really punished by social embarrassment then we can work something else out as a punishment that is about equally as harsh.
Humans aren't perfect, and sometimes they slip up and say dumb things without realizing they have crossed a line. I don't know if you think you've lived a perfect life and never said anything wrong before, but I know I've certainly said things I shouldn't have. I would like to not lose my livelihood over saying those things. I specifically remember one of the earliest instances of me saying a wrong thing, I was bullied by a kid in Elementary school, in middle school that kid committed suicide, in Highschool I made an edgy joke to a friend about being glad he wasn't around to torment me anymore, the friend winced and didn't laugh. I felt mild social embarrassment, and learned not to joke about that. That is an easy one to describe that I feel safe sharing because I can say I was an idiot in highschool, but I've made dumber and worse speech decisions in my adult life that I'd absolutely not feel safe sharing.
Humans also sometimes hold views that are not socially acceptable or within the Overton window. We are specifically on a forum that has been chased out of a larger social media site, because we want to allow people to say things outside of the Overton window. I am very uncomfortable with social rules that make it impossible to state anything outside of the Overton window. My own Dad often says things that are not acceptable on wider social media. He has been temp-banned on Facebook a few times for things he has said. He isn't really willing to not say some of his thoughts. Banning him from social media doesn't really remove him as a person, he is still out there thinking those forbidden thoughts. "Jokes" are one way to tease out the limits of the Overton window. The attempt to use humor, even if the attempt fails, shows that the person in question cares about social conventions. This is a sign that you don't need to punish them as harshly.
It seems like the simple and obvious solution would be for social media companies to set user post visibility to friends only by default, though with something like Twitter its basic premise is that you are posting for everyone to see.
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"Nice business you have there, friend, it would be shame if it caught fire. Fortunately, you can easy prevent it for a reasonable price"
"I found some not so nice pictures of you, friend, it would be shame if your wife saw them. Fortunately, you can easy prevent it..."
Nothing than spoken word out here, no big deal, people talking like might be socially embarrassed, but no more than for whole week.
edit: bad typing
The first is a threat, and the second is blackmail.
But also you just said those things and I don't think you expected to be persecuted (nor should you be). So as words they are fine to say. Its when they are paired with a context that the underlying meaning is the problem.
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I haven't, and I also would like to keep providing for my family. But the only way out is through, and after living in fear in a particularly vulnerable industry as a witch, and already nearly losing my job over COVID mandates, I believe the only way this stop is if the left gets a taste of their own medicine. Rules only exist and are respected among peers with the same capabilities.
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Having your band partner get pissed off at something you say (especially on stage) and break up isn't centrally cancellation, though.
His agent dropping him does though. But that might just be because the only thing Kyle has going for him is that he is adjacent to Jack Black, and once that is gone there is nothing for an agent to gain.
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The setup was Jack Black singing Kyle Happy Birthday, and asking him to make a wish. "Don't miss Trump next time" was the punchline.
It's an example of shock humour. Similar to the average Jimmy Carr quip. "People always talk about how Hitler murdered 6 million Jews. They never mention how he also killed 2 million Gypsies. No one likes to focus on the positives."
A) Jimmy Carr has a brand. He's up there with Anthony Jeselnik for dark humor. Dark humor is not even remotely in Tenacious D's wheelhouse.
B) It's nakedly obvious Jimmy Carr doesn't believe 3 million gypsies being killed was a positive. The punchline is the shock value sure, but also playing a character that appears to possess almost every terrible belief you can imagine, void of all morality or social shame.
Tenacious D saying they wish the president had been assassinated as a birthday wish possesses neither of these points in their favor. It's not their brand, and it's not immediately obvious they don't actually believe it. Because lots of people believe it. Especially in their business. They haven't been shy about it for the last 8 years, and no part of it has been joking. All that's changed is that now people aren't tolerating it now that an attempt has actually been made.
It's like being a nazi, being flippant and jovial about the holocaust in 1942, and claiming it was just a joke. Or a KKK member in the 50's being really encouraging about lynching the local black kid who was seen with a white girl, and then backing off and claiming it was just a joke.
I don't buy it.
"I can't wait to take Kage back to Hell
I'm gonna fill him with my hot demon gel"
Their second most popular song jokes about a protagonist potentially being raped for eternity by Satan.
But your point (B) is much more persuasive.
is that dark humor? does that mean that every heavy/death metal band is dark humor?
Most heavy/death metal bands aren't comedy-focused, so obviously no.
listening to the snippet of the song in the link above just proves to me that this isn't for me as I don't find it funny
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I'm gonna fill him with my hot demon gel"
Their second most popular song jokes about a protagonist potentially being raped for eternity by Satan.
This isn’t a “dark joke” in the mold of Jimmy Carr or Anthony Jeselnik, because approximately zero of Tenacious D’s listeners actually believe in Satan or hell, and therefore this joke isn’t rubbing up against any of their actual moral sensibilities. Yeah, it’s puerile, homoerotic, and makes light of Satan, so it would certainly be a “dark joke” if said by, for example, a Catholic priest in the course of a church service, but in the context of a Tenacious D song it’s a very “light joke”.
What made the Trump joke different is that political humor, especially of the violent nature, is absolutely not part of their act (even if, as others have pointed out, the members have made political comments outside of their capacity as Tenacious D) and therefore it actually is shocking to the political sensibilities of some listeners.
The rape element is as shocking in a modern polite society context as the Satan element is in a Christian one.
I don’t think that’s true. I hear people make prison rape “don’t drop the soap” jokes all the time. Men raping women is something it’s taboo to joke about. A man (or, in this case, a male deity) raping another man - especially when the context is this over-the-top and obviously tongue-in-cheek - is far, far less taboo to joke about, especially to this particular audience.
For a more recent pop-culture example, I've heard there's a scene in a recent episode of The Boys where one of the main characters infiltrates a villian's sex-dungeon, and get violated in various ways for his trouble, which is played for laughs.
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It does have basic comedic timing, with a big setup to say something unexpected and then blowing out candles: https://youtube.com/watch?v=-hPUM01nuis
I wouldn't know to what extent they're playing characters, but it seems pretty exaggerated. And they're americans in another country so it may have seemed less inflammatory to go for a darker joke there. But yeah it doesn't preclude that he did mean what he said, even if as a punchline.
Gass could have said 'Boobies' and probably gotten the same effect. Instead he did the stupid thing.
I'm still carrying a charge over this after watching various leftist figures not only joke about the attempt on Trump's life, but also the other victims (1 dead, 2 critical). Last week I listened to Glenn Loury and John McWhorter on the former's podcast, and even straight-laced smarty linguistics expert John was saying he was only 'half-kidding' when he said he wanted Trump killed. Mind you, this was before the shooting, and I am intensely interested in their next episode together.
I had low tolerance for this kind of public talk before. It's nuked now.
EDIT: I have just now actually watched the video of Gass on stage making that joke. The most disturbing thing isn't the joke itself, but watching and hearing the crowd go fucking wild at it. And I'm reminded that we have a much larger problem than whatever stupid shit falls out of Gass' mouth. If the Right needs to claim scalps wherever they can get them and make examples of people (even down to lowly Home Depot workers), then so be it. Time to reach out and oh-so-gently touch them.
That's what makes me think that in context of the whole show (without having heard Tenacious D in 20 years), it must be practically like an in-character comedy set, where the audience is willing to go along with near full charity, not with arms crossed and deciding how they really feel about anything said.
Definitely, this has to be one of their most anticipated episodes. John's TDS does seem embarrassing, but I at least gave him credit before if he was trying to say out loud how he really felt, even knowing that it didn't sound good. I think now that things actually ramped up to another level, it's sobering, and people are feeling a bit sheepish to have been involved in childish gay ops or fantasies. But to the extent anyone keeps at it or doubles down, that's important to learn. I'm still not interested in going after a Home Depot worker for it, but I'd hold John to a higher bar (although it's a bit unlucky to not have been this past monday for a less filtered take).
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